“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: Point-and-Click
Boxes: Lost Fragments Review
I love a good virtual puzzle box. In reality, they’re wholly impractical devices: complex, expensive mechanisms interlinked with one another that you solve once and then either discard or bestow upon someone else to see how they fare. In the gaming space, though, they allow for layered, multi-stage puzzles that stay manageable due to the simple fact that everything you need to find the solution is right in front of you. You may have to rotate the box, recall an indentation that perfectly fits an item you obtained elsewhere, or recognize that one of the box’s legs looks slightly different from the others, but at the end of the day it’s all there in a contained, isolated environment. I got some enjoyment out of a couple of games in the The Room series on mobile way back when (no relation to Tommy Wiseau’s hilariously disastrous film of the same name), but eventually they started branching out in design directions I was less keen on. So when Boxes: Lost Fragments entered my Steam library, I was particularly intrigued to check it out and see if it could offer a compelling puzzle solving experience.
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.
Jill O’ Lantern: Final Cut Review
I’ve been playing a decent amount of visual novels recently, and a common throughline with them all has been romance. In some of them it’s been more benign, while in others it’s gotten decidedly … *ahem* … steamy. But generally speaking, the genres of dating simulator and visual novel tend to go hand in hand. That makes Jill O’ Lantern: Final Cut a bit of a standout from the get-go: it’s a murder mystery, plain and simple. There are interpersonal relationships that get built up as the game goes on, but the focus is on getting to the bottom of a spate of killings and finding a way to stop them. Add in a whole lot of queerness, and you’ve got a recipe for quite the entertaining ride.
The Language of Food
I don’t like to cook. It’s not that I’m unable to do it; my parents getting me to make weekly meals in high school made sure of that. I just don’t get the same level of fulfillment from it that others seem to. I understand the joy of creating something to be enjoyed by yourself and others, and cooking allows for so much experimentation and variation that the possibilities are seemingly limitless. However, it hasn’t held any appeal for me. I appreciate the time and effort that goes into creating delectable dishes, but I struggle to find the energy to do it myself, often preferring instead to use meal delivery services. I think it’s kind of sad, though, because such services remove a lot of the personality of the food from the equation; I don’t know who made it, how they did it, or even whether or not they think it’s worth eating. Food can be a language all on its own, and yet my brain constantly fights against my attempts to speak it. I think that’s what made Venba so striking to me: it showed the range of possibilities when one engages with food. Note: Full spoilers for Venba to follow.
The Story So Far: The Council
Louis de Richet and Sarah – his mother – are members of the mysterious Golden Order. What exactly this entails is currently shrouded in mystery, though hints of backdoor art deals, occultism, and sleuthing abound. After Sarah pays a visit to the island of a Lord Mortimer, Louis receives a letter, claiming that his mother has disappeared. Eager to find out what’s going on, Louis makes his way to the island, where he finds that his mother was far from the only person summoned. In the absence of Lord Mortimer (whom everyone claims is “occupied”), Louis must interact with Mortimer’s enigmatic guests, in the hopes of discovering what fate befell his mother, who exactly their host is, and why personalities such as George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte have been gathered on the curious island.
Black Mirror Review
To say that Black Mirror is the video game equivalent of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room feels like it may be a slightly overexaggerated claim. And yet, I’m hard-pressed to think of another recent title that created such utter hilarity out of situations that were meant to be dramatic and horrifying. Scenes that tried to focus on familial interactions and supernatural occurrences had me snickering at technical missteps. An intense scene of someone getting stabbed in the neck did little more than make me laugh hysterically. Thankfully, this meant that it wasn’t an experience devoid of enjoyment, and yet it’s still far and away from being a good game in any capacity.
Minecraft: Story Mode – Season 2, Episode 5: Above and Beyond Review
The final episodes of Telltale games are always interesting, because they’re simultaneously a culmination of everything that’s led to that point, and go against the whole premise of the game. How can choices really matter when it’s all going to be over in an hour or two? Sure, it’s possible to make some decisions in the interim, but they tend to feel more cosmetic than anything. As a result, the big question for episode five of Minecraft: Story Mode Season Two is simple: was it worth it?
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series – Episode 5: Don’t Stop Believin’ Review
To call Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy series a rollercoaster ride is an understatement. Unfortunately, rather than playing with emotions and tugging at heartstrings like many of their other titles, Guardians has regularly flipped between being pretty good and painfully average. Of course, that places even more pressure on the final episode to not fall into the traps of mediocrity that have plagued the series. The question is: is that even possible at this point?
Minecraft: Story Mode – Season 2, Episode 4: Below the Bedrock Review
The dreaded Sunshine Institute was no match for the Order of the Stone in the last episode, and they managed to escape with a new cohort in tow. As it happens, Xara – the new addition – is one of three legendary admins; the other two are Fred, who’s gone missing, and Romeo, who’s been the one terrorizing the group all along. Xara is willing to lead the group to a portal to the surface, but (as they are wont to do) things quickly become more complicated. When faced with giant Endermen, magma golems, and – horror of horrors – trivia contests, will Jesse and her friends make it out, or will they be trapped Below the Bedrock?
Olive's Game Garden 