I've got six games to review for you from just two months! Yes, they are short games.
Agatha Knife:
Games with libraries filled with silly book titles you can read = fantastic. I'd like to start with that. So that I can put off trying to quickly describe this experience... *ahem* The protagonist is a young girl who love animals & also loves to eat meat. She's the town butcher, & reaches a moral quandary as the animals obviously don't like being killed but she doesn't want to stop killing them. The business is struggling & so is her conscience, when she is presented with an idea to solve all of her problems: start a religion, of course. You can finish the game in a handful of hours, but it is quite a ride full of puzzles, problems, topics from alcoholism to zoos, & quite an interesting sense of humor. The challenge level felt just right to me, sparking my imagination with various ideas to try & making me work for the solutions, without making me scowl & turn to Google for help. The art is adorable, & I always smiled when Agatha was running. There's a lot of reference jokes for all you nerds of various sorts. There is also definitely blood. The achievements are fun, & I really liked the mechanic where you get a little bit of money that basically serves as a free pass for ONE puzzle if you're at your wit's end, sort of a free pass to use at your choice of critical moment. I found the final portion of the game particularly rewarding. I wouldn't call it a must-play, but it's certainly fascinating, & deserves more attention than I feel it has received. Really looking forward to trying out MechaNika, a game featuring Agatha's best friend & assuredly more dark humor.
Crescent Bay:
This "short experimental detective thriller" was super promising & looks great. I had fun opening it up, getting immersed in the story & ideas, poking at the mechanics... & then I got annoyed & watched a Let's Play. There's just enough that's not quite made clear enough. A primary example: much of the game revolves around combining words into groups which should describe what happened as you've observed from the crime scene. I was firmly under the impression that each word grouping would be three words, because you're faced with three blanks. Turns out, sometimes you just use two words together. On top of this, there's no clear indication of when you're made a correct word grouping-- so you can toss out a bunch of trial & error, empty your brain of all possible ideas, & you close out of that menu in frustration, only to THEN see something happen as unlocked by your efforts. You don't even know what you did right. Overall it ends up feeling like a demo for a bigger better game in progress, & since I got this for free & then just watched someone else finish it, it was worth that bit of investment. But probably wouldn't be worth much more than that. Nice style, though.
NORTH:
Mmmmmm. I so wanted to love this. I bought this on Switch during a sale right after I'd played Bury Me, My Love, & was so hyped to have my heart explored by another refugee-centric tale. You can get NORTH for free/donation here, & it is intended to be played in one sitting of about an hour, so I'd certainly say it wouldn't hurt you to try. I immediately was captivated by the visuals (sort of a neon minimalist dystopia vibe), & spent a few sittings happily exploring, but then I ran into the same problem that apparently many people have with the Switch version, which is a total inability to finish what's basically your first big task. I took to the internet enough to discover I wasn't alone in my struggle, then tried it again. I poked around online enough to ensure I knew what/where/why/how I was supposed to complete it, then tried it again. Then I gave up & watched a Let's Play. *sigh* It's a really fascinating game, & I know I would have enjoyed the weird unsettling trials if I could have just managed to pass through that one bit. Give it a try if you like exploring strange environments & attempting to survive on very little direction. (& get it for PC.)
THOR.N:
This made me happy. A very short "job simulator" that plays like a first-person clicker game, it feels kind of like if GLaDOS was in charge of civilization. It's pretty, pleasant, & then over too soon. I want to play it again, & I don't want to want to play it again. It's great.
Sprout:
Free games are rad, if for nothing else than exposing your brain to new things! Sprout is sweet & cute, though very simple. Reaching the end felt more like an inevitability than a goal, & though it doesn't feel like it has much more plot than a screensaver, it's soothing. Would recommend as a balm for anxiety or other emotion gone wild. Free!
Stories Untold:
Do you like to feel hopeless dread flow constantly over your heart? Then this is the game for you! It's a masterful blend of text adventure, point & click, puzzle, horror, & narrative. It gives you That Good Video Game Stress without actually frustrating your progress at any point. One of the most unique games I've played, while also reminding me of many other things (Stranger Things, DDLC, Men in Black, Portal, Oxenfree, there's a lot going on). A beautiful thoughtful few hours well spent. I definitely needed help a couple times. (I suggest you at least have handy a way to keep notes; you're welcome.) You will struggle, despair, & probably love every bit of it. I thought the pacing & chapters very well done! A lot of scattered pieces that come together to be very rewarding. Apparently there's even a demo available, so that's super rad. The third chapter was my favorite.
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