Steam’s Autumn Sale just started. So go check your wishlists. And here's a few things that I've played, while enduring my parent's poorly trained & incredibly exhausting doggo.


VRChat runs like shit. (But this isn’t really a game.)

Perennial Order is left unfinished. Because despite liking its atmosphere, the dark souls-like characters and the challenge (in places). Some of the bosses were more obnoxious than entertaining. This one relying on multiple shitty gimmicks at once; fighting in an arena full of fog and requiring you to rely on sound cues to dodge attacks with terrible hitboxes. And I didn’t feel like I was learning anything with each attempt. (This game 100% needs health bars.) So maybe I’ll come back…but the challenge still needs to be learnable. And how do I learn to avoid attacks, if I can’t fucking see anything?

Drova:The Forsaken Kin is a competent ARPG. (Decent, simple combat. Decent rewarding exploration. One or two dark moments in the earlier parts that promise a darker RPG that doesn’t exist in reality.) With the most boring characters, quests, story and plot progression in anything I’ve spent over 30+ hours trying to like more. The pacing of this game is glacial and it does not respect your time. It does not surprise me that this was funded by the government. (And likely designed by committee too.)

Pseudoregalia is just a bit frustrating and dull. Not going to lie. (I enjoyed Cavern Of Dreams far more.) Hiding all the ability powerups in random far off places was not a good idea. When the game doesn’t start to have a good gameplay feel until you’ve unlocked nearly all the abilities. And it has a nasty habit of letting you get quite far into a platforming puzzle, with the very last part being impossible to progress until you’ve found another ability. The combat is pointless and doesn’t feel good. Making all the MP and health upgrades feel all the more hollow as rewards for exploration. Yet I will still likely finish it. (Thanks, sunk cost fallacy.) But this one doesn’t deserve the high praise.

Nairi: Tower Of Shirin is an enjoyable little puzzle game, thus far. Has lots of charm in its characters and the puzzles are decent (if a bit easy). I do wish the navigation through the map was a little less tedious. (Since there’s a lot of going back and forth between characters to do puzzles.) But it makes me interested in the sequel that just came out, with the caveat that it apparently *also* ends on a cliffhanger. So I assume this first part will not have a completed story either.