“A place for everything, and everything in its place,” is the unspoken motto of A Little to the Left. It’s a game full of slots that have been perfectly sized for the right object to fit in, be it a battery or a button. Colour-coordinated bookshelves and leaves with perfectly matching holes await in what is surely an organization nerd’s dream. Every level requires you to place objects so they slot together in a satisfying way, whether it’s by carefully sorting them or creating symmetrical designs. Yet it’s also a game about letting go of that desire for perfection and accepting a bit of chaos, in this case taking the form of a mischievous cat who loves to mess with your meticulous patterns. It’s an interesting dichotomy, one which saw me cursing the wretched feline to high heaven at the outset, but then gradually warming up to it by the end. It’s an odd puzzler, in that it causes reflection as much on the solution being undone as it does on the steps taken to complete it. I think it’s for the best, though, as it kept me consistently engaged and enjoying my time with it from start to finish.
Tag: Cozy
Tiny Garden Review
I never got into the Polly Pocket craze as a kid, due in no small part to a fairly strict adherence to gender stereotypes. That being said, I don’t recall them ever entering our household, even in the hands of my older sister. There were several Barbies and similar toys, but Polly Pockets seem to have passed us by. However, even now I find the concept to be pretty fun: a portable capsule toy that contains a customizable world within, featuring furniture, toys, and of course, little dolls. It provides all the necessary features of a dollhouse, without the large space and financial commitment inherent in one, easing the burden on parents wanting to provide a way for their child to play house or other activities.
Spilled! Review
I love a good crowdfunding success story. Coming from a solo developer by the name of Lente, Spilled (stylized as Spilled!) blew past its funding goal when it was on Kickstarter, raising three times what it initially hoped for. From there, I followed its development as Lente documented not only the progress on the game, but also her time living on a boat in the Netherlands. It was fascinating seeing this game about a pollution-cleaning boat come to life from someone with first-hand experience of living on one, and while the actual interactions with the boat in-game are fairly limited (it’s not like you’re going inside to customize the interior or performing maintenance on it), the passion for life on the sea nonetheless shines through.
Wyrmhall: Brush and Banter Review
I find the popularity of games about work to be a bit odd. As someone with a day job that frequently drains me to the point where even fun extracurricular activities can feel like chores, it baffles me that people would want to spend their free time pretending to work at, say, a restaurant or grocery store. It makes a bit more sense for management sims; pretending to be the boss and run your own business can be an exciting and empowering glimpse into a world few will get to partake in. Yet for those where you’re a menial employee, I struggle to see the appeal of simulating the repetitive grind of a nine-to-five.
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain Review
Mika desperately needs a union rep. Her boss is awful, withholding payment at the slightest slip-up, believing the customer is always right to a harmful degree, and even telling her to smile more. It’s a depressingly toxic relationship for Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, a game that’s generally whimsical and chipper, almost to a fault. What makes it even more overt is that pretty much everyone else on the island is laid-back and supportive of Mika, even when she stumbles. It’s almost as though a more community-focused solution would be an improvement over the corporate structure of big business … I’m getting ahead of myself, though.
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami Review
I was excited going into Duck Detective: The Secret Salami. Since it came out earlier this year, it’s a game that’s lived rent-free in the back of my mind, largely off the strength of its humorous title and fun premise. A cute little duck acting as a hard-boiled detective and interacting with a cast of colourful characters is the kind of thing that seems tailor-made for my tastes, and the fact that one of its primary mechanisms is a fill-in-the-blanks method of making deductions (sorry, “deducktions”) a la The Case of the Golden Idol (a game I haven’t played but thoroughly enjoyed watching a playthrough of) is the icing on the cake. Add in some great voice acting, solid writing, and a tightly-paced runtime, and you’ve got a recipe for a quality experience. And without burying the lede, while it didn’t blow me away, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is still an entertaining mystery game that kept me engaged the whole time I played it.
Minami Lane Review
It’s a great time of year for cozy games. With the weather getting colder (though where I am it’s still unseasonably warm) and the days shorter, there’s nothing quite like curling up with a welcoming game. Well, maybe not literally; it’s hard to curl up at a computer desk without getting into spine-mangling poses. Be that as it may, jumping into Minami Lane at this time of year turned out to be an excellent choice on my part. It’s a brief experience, but one which I absorbed in bite-sized portions, making it seem longer than it actually was. And for my money, if you like the idea of a city-builder game but get easily overwhelmed, it’s well worth a look.
Little Kitty, Big City Review
Open world games have a tendency to get bogged down in tedium. One need only look at the latest guff put out by the AAA gaming sphere to see countless examples of games promising massive open worlds with hundreds of hours of content … which tends to boil down to mindless fetch quests and a sea of meaningless collectibles. Enter Little Kitty, Big City, a game which – on the face of it – may seem a bit lacking because of its length. According to How Long to Beat, it can be completed in a mere two and a half hours if you’re mainlining the story, and my playthrough took just over five with many side objectives completed and collectibles found. As is so often the case, though, brevity breeds quality, and while Little Kitty, Big City is not without its faults, it’s still a shining example of an open world that’s actually fun to explore.
Olive's Game Garden 