?/10 [Unrated]
I'm leaving this unrated due to a conflict of interest as the game's composer, but I want to say that Neotrogla was a bold step in a new direction for Squigglydot and a phenomenal short horror story that had me physically sick (complementary) at points while reading. The insect motifs and Fly-esque body horror are always slam dunks in terms of horror aesthetics for me and I really believe she's outdone herself with this one.
Fun Fact: The second track that plays in-game, "Concrete Hive", was almost cut due to time constraints between the encroaching deadline and my overwhelming coursework, but I'm glad I got it out the door because it's probably the track I'm most proud of on the OST.

?/10 [Unrated]
"I can tell you the truth. Or I can give you closure. I just need to know...which one you want. Because I can't...I can't give you...both."
I'm leaving this unrated due to a conflict of interest as the game's composer. Compared to "Post-Disclosure, Devil's Night" and "Neotrogla", Mémoire 0079 is a big step up for Squigglydot, and is to-date the biggest dev team she's worked with. A tale of Mecha warfare told from the perspectives of both sides & written by two different authors is a strong concept that plays to her strengths, which, alongside the artwork and much more expansive score, gives Mé​moire 0079 a greater sense of production value and pizazz than her other Twine outings. It's a fantastically-gripping tale that builds on its setting wonderfully considering the timeframe of the project, and had me invested in both sides of the conflict. A fantastic step forward for all parties involved and I can't wait to see what Squigglydot does in the future!
Fun Fact: Writing the score for this game took place over about a week, which meant I was writing and mastering a track a day roughly. Despite the conditions, I'm proud of the tracks on here. My favorite track on the OST is probably "Pas de deux", which was also the first track written for the entire project.

?/10 [Unrated]
While I'm leaving this unrated due to a conflict of interest as one of the game's composers, I would like to say that Lovely Sweet Dream is a very impressive and clearly passionate Yume Nikki Fan-Game, and I was surprised at the amount of content and attention to detail in this game (even down to the bizarre, super-hidden ending with tons of convoluted steps a la a Silent Hill UFO ending). Incredibly unique (how many YNFG's are doing fucking wholesale Space Funeral shoutouts?), short and worth your time. Wonder what it says about me that it took over 2 years for me to actually get around to playing something I worked on. Oops :P

1/10 [F-]
Watched fellow Backloggd user Nightblade play this in a Discord VC.

Jesus Christ. The first Banban game was at least 10 minutes on a good day, but Banban 2 is doing everything in it's power to stretch out the runtime to ensure you can't get your money back for sitting through this fucking dreck of an experience. Frustrating, time wasting gameplay and puzzles, and a thoroughly bankrupt & uninteresting story, both for viewer and player. Absolute bottom of the barrel shit (and this is coming from someone who played Postal III!)

2/10 [F]
Watched fellow Backloggd user Nightblade play this in a Discord VC.

I only remember everyone spamming the FNAF 2 Ambience sound and changing their pfp to Mori Calliope when I was busy taking a phone call. 3's bizarre and surreal cutscenes & sense of humor is gone and all that's left is the same repetitive gameplay from Banban 2 with barely anything worth paying attention to or memeing about. Complete white noise, which is incredibly disappointing coming off of the promising shitkino qualities of 3.

2/10 [F]
Watched fellow Backloggd user Nightblade play this in a Discord VC.

Originally, maradona was trying to cajole me into playing this, but thankfully, my toaster of a rig couldn't run it, so we bullied someone else into playing it. Garten of Banban's greatest strength is that it's free and barely even an hour at most (the bar is in Hell but it thankfully manages to clear that.) Barren, boring, nonsensical and a completely uninteresting cash grab of an attempt to capitalize on the Mascot Horror genre.

2/10 [F]

Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

This is the funniest non-functioning video game I've ever played in a voice call. Just 3 people absolutely losing it at the sheer incompetence on display here. They only have the one door! The map is a low-res crayon sketch that doesn't even update when you check the other rooms! The power drains entirely by 2AM and there's no game over/title screen! Potential candidate for the Shitkino Canon...

2/10 [F]
Watched fellow Backloggd user Detchibe play this in a Discord VC.
miserable. the absence of roiland is the only silver lining to this thing. the world has had enough of squanch games for a thousand lifetimes.

2/10 [F]
Watched fellow Backloggd user Nightblade play this in a Discord VC.

Now we are cooking! While still carrying over all of the negatives of Banban 2, this one had the mercy to start including some fucking bizarre and nonsensical story beats to spice things up. A bizarre non-sequitur flashback(?) cutscene that opens with a Skyrim reference where the titular monsters drive in the desert and argue over the radio before getting into a fender-bender. A MAPPA-tier fight scene between the GOAT Jumbo Josh and Banban that caps off the chapter. A buggy and frustrating experience that led to the entire 12 person call popping off when Nightblade managed to finally hit a button after an hour of attempts, only to get stuck in the floor in the room directly afterwards. Truly, Garten of Banban 3 encompasses the entirety of the human experience.

3/10 [D]

Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

maradona keeps bullying me into playing shitty horror games that nonetheless still make me jump because putting me in a dark room by myself still makes me shit and piss my pants ;_;

3/10 [D]

Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

Everyone in this game animates like a pilotredsun video and the announcer speaks like someone set him to x2.5 speed. Bizarre game, but the ability to do stupid dumbass spin kicks was neat I suppose.

4/10 [D+]

Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

Genuinely hate how the FNAF formula is an actual masterclass of tension that can be supplanted into even the most goofy of settings and still be a nailbiting horror experience.

4/10 [D+]
Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

Just a complete fucking nothing game. It's fine. I think it's based on a 60s cartoon about a robot who transforms by smoking cigarettes or something? That's pretty cool I think. More superheroes should promote smoking, it's pretty rad i think :)

4/10 [D+]

Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

Now THIS is a kusoge. It's bizarrely jank early 3D artstyle, Melty Blood-ass air neutral and Guilty Gear gatlings, and devil-may-care attitude towards such things as "character balance" are frankly, hilarious and it's honestly kind of fun in a jank way to laugh at and get angry when a single jab leads to a 60% combo. Lucifer is a zoner and that's the most accurate depiction of the devil I can think of honestly.

5/10 [C]
During a long road trip I took in the middle of summer, I brought along my PS Vita and tried to plow through a bunch of games to empty out my backlog. While this generic, button-mashy Bloody Palace ripoff could've been a fun yet mindless timesink, it managed to bore me to tears within 15 minutes of gameplay. Maybe that was too soon to make any real judgements, but there was absolutely nothing to latch onto here.

5/10 [C]
Weirdly janky gamefeel, uninspired gameplay, and a strong permeating aroma of mediocrity. It's competent.

5/10 [C]
Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

We had to abandon this because mara's lightbulbs exploded and he lost power. I think the copy we were playing on Fightcade was a bootleg/dev build or something, because there were hex codes on screen that we couldn't get rid off and a frame-by-frame mode I accidentally activated, which forced mara to mash the A button for 5 minutes until I figured out how to undo it. I don't really have much to say about this. Kinda mindless, kinda whatever, I like how the lady's regular combo involves her slamming her gun on the enemy's head as a melee attack.

5/10 [C]
Mini-golf meets Marble It Up should be a slam dunk of an idea, but the janky tilt controls and atrocious performance drags the concept down hard. At least the character creation is weirdly extensive for a game of this caliber.

5/10 [C]
Etrian Odyssey but it's a JRPG instead of a DRPG, and despite what you'd think, this is a massive mis-step. Etrian's leveling system is designed around constantly chipping away at a single massive dungeon, so dropping it in a game full of generic boring dungeons & snoozer combat is a big design flaw that doesn't make the strength's of Etrian's gameplay shine. No wonder this shit was never localized.

5/10 [C]
Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

I need to make a list of games that feel like fake games played by little Timmy Spanglin on hit 90s sitcom "The Spanglins" that's most famous for its lead child actor becoming a heroin addict and robbing the San Diego Zoo. The game's fine, I like the black guy in sunglasses.

5/10 [C]

Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user maradona.

This is just what it's like to ride your bike in New Jersey.

6/10 [C+]
I really adore this game's presentation and general aesthetic. The writing is very "online" for lack of a better word but considering the character's backstories it makes sense and works for the story. It's a surprisingly comfy and poignant little entry in the VN Cup and I really enjoyed giving it a read.

6/10 [C+]
As a 3 day game jam project I can't be too harsh on the rough edges it has, but it does certainly have an insane visual identity and sense of style that makes it stand out from the crowd. Blood Machine is certainly a creator to keep an eye out for, I can say that at least.

6/10 [C+]
I didn't know what I was getting into when I first played this for a friend's Game of the Month club, aside from the fact it was an RPG Maker game and was big on Tumblr at some point. [Weird Freak Voice] It has the vibes of a guro game early on, with the frequent deaths you can encounter early on alongside full-screen illustrations going into full detail, and the demure female protagonist, but as HC goes on, it starts to go in a much more interesting direction. It's too short to really go into any of it off the bat, but what's there is quite engaging. It's an interesting game, but not super in-depth or fantastic, but it's only the first entry, so I can't be too harsh.

6/10 [C+]
Watched fellow Backloggd user C_F play this in a Discord VC.
Fucked up at 2 AM in the Discord group call deliriously ranting about how this game's animation blows Studio MAPPA out of the fucking water in the world's worst British accent. Just a bizarre and utterly alien Cowboy genre send-up that's consistently & hilariously inept in every aspect. Lost my shit every time someone got shot and it immediately jumpcut to the Grim Reaper PowerPoint transitioning into frame.

6/10 [C+]
Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user C_F.
JESUS CHRIST, WHY IS THIS GAME SO FUCKING LOUD?
Other than that, it's a fun if mindless 15 minute credit sneed n' feed with some cool graphics and insanely loud sound design.

6/10 [C+]
After getting over the shock of this being a Thing that Exists, the actual game is... fine. It's fine, it's servicable. Music's fine, gameplay's solid, not overly annoying but not mindblowing. It's a video game, and I enjoyed my time with it. Anyways, GOTY, can't wait for Numazu in the Mirage, 2024's GOTY.

6/10 [C+]
Came back to this purely because I needed a dope hit during a stressful college period. Gameplay like white noise but hopelessly addicting. Retired it due to buying the much more fleshed out Papa's Freezeria Deluxe a few days later.

6/10 [C+]
VITA VERSION
Mechanically speaking, it's a marked improvement over Origins in basically every way, and it has a ton of charm and fun levels (the musical autorunnner stages were fantastic and the no-frills platforming was a consistent highlight), but the fucking Murphey stages suck so much shit and there's just soooo many of them that it's a massive dealbreaker for an otherwise fantastic platformer. On the Vita version at least, Globox is controlled by an AI, who moves at a snail's pace and turns the entire game into Lemmings, which is a massive flow-killer, and I actively dreaded them each time they appeared. Game is solid other than that though.

6/10 [C+]
I may have been hard on this game but I did enjoy myself at the end, even if everything else about the game fell flat for me.
The scene in Faraway Town's cemetery during the final hours actually made me cry, I'll admit.

6/10 [C+]
This game is like crack, and I was mortified to see my Steam Recap show me that I did nothing but play this for a month straight, nothing else. Making milkshakes and doing game-ified menial customer service itches some part of my lizard brain and causes me to lose hours of my life at a time. This game isn't complex or "good", really, but it's the ultimate in Potato Chip Gaming: easy to consume in large numbers, yet absolutely devoid of nutritional value.

7/10 [B]
Had this pinned in my browser for almost a year, but I did finally get around to playing this. Very very short but endlessly charming with a fantastic score! Worth the 5 minutes it takes to play this fully.

7/10 [B]
Awkward control scheme and absurdly high difficulty aside, Bunny Must Die! is a good time. It has a lot of charm due to it's doujin game roots and it makes up for a lot of its shortcomings with a boatload of charm and fun gameplay. A video game-ass video game, nothing really else to it.

7/10 [B]
Honestly a pretty impressive port all things considered, however trying to fit the 32:9 arcade mode onto a 16:9 screen makes it borderline impossible to play, so I just did the CS Mode instead. Dropped the game because Hungry Gluttons can suck my left nut, but other than that it's actually a very fun and meaty shmup experience. A good entry point into the genre due to the Shield system allowing a decent amount of wiggle-room for those less used to the nature of the beast. Music goes weirdly hard too, but I guess that's just a genre staple at this point.

7/10 [B]
I got a free copy for Steam review purposes by the game's creator/Backloggd user MagneticBurn.

Unbelievably charming and dripping with soul from every aspect, from its fantastic vector art, FM Synth throwback soundtrack, and wonderful QOL features like the chronological score history, tips & tricks, and difficulty options. The core shmup loop has a decent bit of bite to it, but remains a great entry point for newcomers and is a great time for $8 USD and some change. Give it a try when you can!

7/10 [B]
Another game I played during a road trip. Fun, frenetic, hard as nails and a visually charming spectacle of a game that wears it's budget doujin identity on its sleeve. An all-around good time, even if I'm too lousy of a gamer to beat the final boss.

7/10 [B]
Played a bit of this at a friend's place using his VR headset. Having little to no experience with VR, IEYTD was quite the charming little experience, and I think it's escape room gameplay & Bond-esque coat of paint is a match made in heaven. Fun time all around for the brief bit I played.

7/10 [B]
This Puyo Puyo shit gets tricky, best watch yourself. If you can't figure out this Match 4 lifestyle, the CPU will eat your lunch and do you dirty in front of your dad. Other than the surprising difficulty, it's Puyo Puyo, and Puyo Puyo is a ton of fun. The Sun Puyo mechanic is kind of ass, often interrupting your chain setups and being the nail in your coffin if they drop while you're trying to clear out Garbage Puyos, but other than that it's a very charming and a great puzzle game to invest some time in!

7/10 [B]
Find whoever designed the Nymphs and have the baddest bitch schlonk their shit stupid style, immediately!

Played this in 30-40 minute bursts on a Vita during my bus commute to and from campus, and despite not originally being a portable game, it's honestly great in that bite-size context. Origins suffers from some wonky hit detection and some initially jank handling & momentum, but it's got a lot of charm and it's just a no-frills fun platformer.

7/10 [B]
I haven't played Mania since it dropped in 2017, and this Encore DLC was a perfect excuse to come back to the game after so many years. On it's own, this is not a substantially transformative game mode, but it's Sonic Mania, and Sonic Mania is great! Ray & Mighty are really fun to use and the new palettes are pretty to look at, but it's not super deep all things considered. It's fun but not much else.

8/10 [B+]
Played with good friend and fellow Backloggd user C_F.

In which Serena the main character uncovers an ancient magic conspiracy and I, Nicole, trip in the background and get pinballed around by every enemy on screen. In terms of all the beat-em-ups I've played, this is definetely up there as one of the best I've played thus far, just chock-full of that classic Treasure charm. I really regret sleeping on them for so longer after I wrapped up my Radiant Silvergun playthrough last year and was blown away by this company's sheer style and charm.

8/10 [B+]
Amazon employee simulator. The deluge of Lethal Company Moments on social media is a testament to the evergreen genius of proximity-based voice chat. Lethal Company is still being worked on, so I can't make any definitive statements on it, but the skeleton here is solid. You and the lads scavenging for junk on hostile alien planets, cracking jokes one minute and then going deadly silent in fear when your buddy just got snatched by a monster and you're all alone in a dark maze of hallways the next; dying horribly and then getting a Discord notification of your crewmate screenshotting your corpse & dunking on you 5 minutes later is the hardest I've ever been owned in an online game.

8/10 [B+]
I bought these *before* SuperEyepatchWolf and his video essayist voice hyped this up! I was ahead of the curve!!!!!!
Going in completely blind, my first playthrough ended with me losing 3 limbs, getting SA'd, and then pecked to death by a giant bird thing. A game that revels in abject cruelty, screwing you over to the Nth degree, and perfectly simulating what it's like to hammer nails into your dick; this was pleasant surprise for the RPG Maker Horror Game scene, and I'm honestly glad that what started as a begrudging trudge through this to have full context for the sequel ended up with me playing this in an 8 hour fever state to get Ending A. A fantastic showing for a solo dev. Beautiful game.

9/10 [A]
A massive step up from the first game aesthetically, mechanically, in every way really. A much more focused and thematically coherent story that's equal parts engaging and harrowing.
Post-HC3 Comments: The additional context provided to this game by the events of Episode 3 is one of the most insane plot twists I've ever seen in a game. Unbelievable in terms of how much this game is re-contextualized and how much there is to comb over and reflect on in retrospect.

9/10 [A]
After coming back to my final boss save file 6 years after the fact, I have to say: Why does no one talk about that part of the game where you have to massacre a bunch of indigenous forest people to progress the story? You don't get an option to say no and the game never even address nor tries to find a way to narratively justify this, even in the new story mode. Very weird and unnecessary black mark on this otherwise stellar DRPG. The allure of making funny little guys is still as powerful as ever though, and it's a fun game THAT aside.

9/10 [A]
My very first shmup 1CC! :)
Takes everything I liked about EoSD and fine tunes it to make a marked improvement over the original! I'm still partial to 6 aesthetically and character-wise, but in terms of everything else 7 is a clear standout. Compared to 6, I was actually invested in trying to learn and get better at the game itself and played it every day for a week straight or so just trying to actually go for (and achieve!) the 1CC (something I usually don't bother with in shmups because I lack the Gamer Skill™ to feasibly get them most of the time). It's a great game overall, and I think Youmu is funy :)

9/10 [A]
A seemingly normal .wad hides one of the single greatest showcases of Doom map wizardry. Absolutely insane moments of wacky engine magic abound nearly every second of gameplay, and it takes a turn you won't expect, even if you think you know where it's going. If you somehow haven't checked this out by now and still have zero clue what it's about, please give it a play, I beg of thee.

9/10 [A]

"I just don't think that people should have to contend for the right to matter to someone."

"Don't take it too close to heart, Ringo-kun. After all, everybody can't be a champion. Perhaps, the ability to concentrate and take things to an end is also a special talent you have to cultivate, and if you don't have it in you, then you're just as good as the rest of the crowd, just a bit more skilled, maybe."

9/10 [A]
A somewhat innocuous coming-of-age story that has seemingly little to do with the games initially that shoulders the enormous context of the entire Hello Charlotte trilogy on it's back to give it a level of emotional resonance and power that it wouldn't have otherwise. If you have the money, PLEASE buy the Steam version that comes with the bonus Diary story, I can't remember the last time a game made me sob like a baby from a single line of text like this. A perfect capstone to this amazing RPG Maker trilogy.

9/10 [A]
Utterly mystifying game. I love wandering around, getting murdered, falling into spike pits, getting ambushed, getting shot, running into the most fucked up creature on Alll-mer's green Earth, and losing 2 hours of progress. Fantastic looking game that's mastered the im-sim style of black box ingenuity and mystique, genuinely magical feeling playing this game and finding some new obscure character interaction or enemy encounter, fun cast of characters both playable and not, just a fantastic game all around. AND it's still getting updates? An absolute must-play and another fantastic showing by the dev.

10/10 [A+]
Sonic 3 & Knuckles, an already 10/10 platonic ideal of a platformer, given all the bells & whistles to easily make this the definitive edition of Sonic 3. Every little detail is a toggleable option giving me the perfect Sonic 3 for me. Sonic Origins found dead in Miami.

10/10 [A+]
This shit's like injecting caffeine straight into your fucking bloodstream. After doing a full 101% playthrough (not 102% because I hate Snotty), I am confident in saying that Pizza Tower is one of the best platformers in the past few years. Masterful level design, smooth as silk controls that demands a level of proficency similar to that of a Character Action game, endlessly inventive and creative gameplay on a level-by-level basis, a banging soundtrack, it's a pie with the works. Quite simply put, a good-ass, video game-ass video game. No notes, perfect job.

10/10 [A+]
What a beautiful, beautiful game. One of the best JRPGs on the DS and an all-timer ARPG. Absolutely infatuated with this game's love for the DS and it's hardware. I put Neku in cunty little high heels for basically 70% of my playthrough. I played 15 levels below my Max on Hard mode and ate shit constantly near the end game. It's a wonderful world indeed, Mr. TWEWY.

10/10 [A+]
The video game equivalent of waking up in a dingy interrogation room and getting waterboarded for 4 hours. What appears at first to be a haphazard shotgun blast of ideas and themes is in reality a thematic interrogation of audiences and stories as a whole executed with surgical precision. A game that manages to take the amateur HC1 and the relatively simple HC2 and turn them into some of the most emotionally resonant, exhausting, utterly insane gaming experiences I've had this year. Etherane as performance art, cutting open herself and her creations as a public display; a game that throttles you by the throat, looks you in the eye, and floods your brain with questions, revelations, and ultimatums. Etherane's movin' different, she's got the sauce, she is cooking in ways that blow everyone else out the water. Glad I managed to sneak this in right under the wire before the year was up. GOD what a FUCKING GAME.

10/10 [A+]
Coming hot off the heels of an, at the time of release, 14 year old DS exclusive, NEO TWEWY somehow came right out the gate like nary a minute has passed. Perfectly recapturing the magic of the original TWEWY in a new form for consoles, it's a straight-up improvement on nearly every aspect of the original game, paying loving tribute to what came before and wrapping up plot threads that fans had been waiting years for. An utterly addictive combat system and a cast of phenomenal characters that I love to pieces. The more I've sat on it the more I truly believe this game to be an undisputed masterpiece, warts and all, & it's existence is more than a minor miracle despite reality seemingly conspiring against its success. I have much more to say about this game at a later date, but let it be known: it is more than worth your time to play TWEWY to experience NEO.

10/10 [A+]
SHIVERS - I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT. I LOVE YOU.