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.
Tag: Management
The Muddled Politics of Technotopia
Sometimes you play a game and can tell right away that it’s going to give you Thoughts™, but that wasn’t the case with Technotopia. My time with it started out the same as any other game, doing my best to get absorbed into the world it crafted and gameplay mechanisms it implemented, all the while taking notes on the side to prepare for the inevitable review. And then things changed. The narrative beats slowly began to go off the rails and I went from raising an eyebrow occasionally to having one permanently cocked. Futurist stories have the capacity to hold up a mirror to our current world or speculate on what tomorrow may bring, and yet Technotopia frequently feels like it gets so lost in critiquing what’s happening now that it forgets to provide that extra layer of futuristic abstraction. This is less satire, and more someone stating their beliefs directly to the player. And let me say, some of those beliefs are … questionable to say the least.
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.
Coin Factory Review
I don’t know if I get Coin Factory, and that’s weird, because really, what’s there to get? It’s a game about making money, plain and simple. It’s so straightforward on the face of it that the tutorial can be completed in less than a minute. And to be clear, I understand what the goal of the game is: place down tiles to create a little money-making engine until you’re able to generate ten trillion dollars and buy the Box tile that ends the game. Continually tweak and optimize your designs so that you can cut down the time it takes to buy the Box on a given level, or branch out and try different maps to test your skills under an assortment of restrictions. It’s really not that deep, which is why I find it confounding that it baffles me so. Perhaps, then, it’s silly for me to be writing about a game that on some level I find completely inscrutable. However, it’s my hope that in doing so, I’ll be able to achieve some level of clarity on what Coin Factory is trying to do, and whether it succeeds.
Mini Airways Review
I’ll admit that I was a bit put off by Mini Airways the first time I saw it. Scrolling through projects on Kickstarter and – after filtering through the billionth asset flip/generative AI piece of guff – seeing something that appeared to be little more than a rip-off of Mini Metro – a game I love – had me rolling my eyes and moving my cursor to close the tab. However, after doing a bit of reading and learning that the devs were not shy about where their inspiration came from and had actually been in communication with Dinosaur Polo Club (Mini Metro’s developer) about the similarities between their games, my mind was put more at ease. I decided to back it, and the wait began for it to fund and release. A few months later, and having played the full game, the question remains: is it any good, and does it differentiate itself enough from Mini Metro to be worthwhile?
Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge Review
Despite being the year of the dragon, in the world of gaming, 2024 is starting to seem like the year of the frog. Between Frogsong, Croakoloco, and now Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge, my gaming life this year has been full of froggy friends, and I can’t say I’m disappointed. Frogs are lovely little critters, and getting to check out more games where they play a starring role is always a delight. In the cases of both Frogsong and Croakoloco, the results were games that, while not perfect, were still compelling and enjoyable experiences. The question is: does the same hold true for Kamaeru?
Croakoloco Review
Incremental games are an odd breed, in that they tend to be as much about what happens while you’re not playing the game as what happens while you are. As I write this, Croakoloco is idly running on my desktop, with frogs happily hopping around and munching on flies, all while earning me in-game money. Of the 50+ hours I’ve put into the game, less than half of it has been spent actively engaging with the interface and systems. Rather, it’s effectively acted as a screensaver that I periodically return to in order to acquire upgrades and more frogs, all in the name of progress. Progress towards what? Well, that’s the rub.
Terroir: A Lesson in Winemaking
Games can be great at teaching. Titles like Influent attempt to game-ify the process of learning a new language, while games like Papers, Please opt for a more “immersive” approach, teaching the player not about real-world events specifically, but about the circumstances that no doubt surrounded the events it parallels. What I find particularly interesting, though, is the games that don’t so much “teach” as they “encourage to learn”. I’d argue that games like the Civilization series are a perfect example of this; while they don’t specifically mirror history (unless Gandhi was secretly a psychotic warmonger), I know of several friends who have started researching historical civilizations and figures simply because they got a taste of the available knowledge in a game of Civ. It’s in this category of games that Terroir finds itself, both to its benefit and detriment.
Olive's Game Garden 