a fun, brief game that places you in a nightmarish capitalist future where your company runs every aspect of your life and asks you to scout a planet for potential growth opportunities. it is surprisingly funny and well-written, or at least it was for me. the gameplay loop of gaining new abilities that lets you solve new puzzles and discover new secrets feels very reminiscent of a metroidvania. i found it pretty satisfying. there isn't much depth, but it's enough given the short runtime of the game. for anyone who Portal was even sillier, more colorful, and was a bit more open, you could do much worse than this title!

this one was unexpectedly good, the graphics/visuals are very cool, the combat is fucking EXCELENT, you got a bunch of combos and variations that you can do with the party-power mechanic, very fucking cool
The ost is really good, kinda tech-funky or some shit
The story was kinda animey, of course, and i would usually dislike a story like that, but this one was bearable, actually, MORE! it was entertaining, not a masterpiece, a bit confusing, but cool nonetheless. If you like shonen anime, you'll like the story, basically

Everyone should atleast give it a try. I believe that the combat and visuals will please almost everyone, while the story might not be everyone's cup of tea.

Admirable in the aesthetic sense, a modern-day revival of the Newgroundspunk manifesto that aided and abetted the creation of illegal little serotonin dispensers built from the pixellated bones of beloved franchises. It's about time folks were allowed to charge a couple of quid for this sort of thing - lawyers be damned! A miracle that it can walk around in Castlevania's skin and replicate its movements without anyone narcing to Konami; this is the Steam equivalent of that scene from Spider-Man 2 where everyone carries the unmasked Peter Parker down the train carriage without giving him up to Doc Ock.

As far as gameplay goes, though, I think this is somewhat abject and miserable. It gets its gamefeel just right, but locks satisfaction behind rote roguelite tedium and digital dicerolling, forcing you to relive its early-game boredom again and again until you have the means to boost ahead to the good stuff. It feels like a progression model that games just can't move on from, a skinner box that aims to rack up Steam hours punctuated with the fleeting thrills the store page promised you. Another "podcast game" in the pejorative sense, something your friend will recommend to you while frowning or shrugging.

no longer home captures the hazy, ethereal nature of lying around with your friends hopping from topic to topic of discussion, losing track of time, having your poignant thoughts tumble out unexpectedly. the backgrounds drift in and out of focus along with your own. one second you're talking about a painting in the hallway and the next you're interrogating the nature of yourself.

i've written before about how i think games that get in and get out within two hours are the Exact Right length for narrative games, and this is no exception. i love the pacing and length of the game, but somehow i almost wish that there was just liiiittle bit more to sink into.

No Longer Home wears its inspiration on its sleeve, having a scene from the opening of Kentucky Route Zero on its protagonist's computer screen at one point. It bears some resemblance to KRZ in its dialogue system and set design, but taking place over a much shorter time-span and much smaller space. This is a nice little slice of life game about a couple of recent college grads about to move onto the next stage of their lives. Taking place the day before the big move, it deals with a lot of the stresses and anxieties that come with not knowing what comes next in life, how your relationships might change, what personal and societal expectations there are for your future, and how the market forces of capitalism muddy the waters even further. While the visual elements are steeped in magical realism, the semi-auto-biographical nature of its writing gives the story a very personal feeling that lets you really linger in this moment of the characters lives. This could have earned an extra star if it had the time to really delve deeper into some of the topics it brings up, but for an exploration of a small moment in life, I enjoyed the brief time I spent here.

It's an adventure game with some simple but efective RPG mechanics and a pretty great combat. I loved the characters that made lots of references to brazilian culture. But it, unfortunatelly, got repetitive very quickly.

I understand that developers have to make some content just to expand the game time because a lot of people buy games with the mentality that "I paid X money on this, so it have to give me Y time of entertainment" and they might say that a game is bad only because it's a short game, but I hate when developers do this in such a obvious way.

Dodgeball Academia has a lot of moments where the story makes you go all the other side of the map just to make you go back where you were previously for nothing. Nothing is added to the story, all it does is put some enemies in your way to expand the time of the game. It took me 11 hours to finish the game. I'm sure if they removed all of those filler content the game would had around 5 hours of content and would be a way better game.

I put 4.5 hours into Dodgeball Academia and didn't feel inspired to keep playing. While the graphics and art design are top shelf, the rest of the game feels bland.

The RPG elements are basic fetch quest errands and are rarely interesting. The dodgeball matches are fun but can be too chaotic at times, leading to some losses feeling more like a matter of bad luck than skill. The writing lacks the humor and wit you'd hope to see in a game like this.

The game is pleasant enough, and I may have been more forgiving of it if I had played it handheld on Switch and didn't have anything else to play. As a Game Pass option though, it's hard to recommend with so many other interesting games out there.

Probably what happens when someone with no problems in their life and an inability to even imagine actual problems tries to make a feels focused art game without even considering the mechanics to convey the story and those feelings.

Miriam is a champion/Olympic(?) swimmer that starts to have memories of her childhood when her mom calls. Her mom took her and fled an abusive husband, seeing some fish as a little kid set her on her lifelong swimming path. They liked to listen to mediocre music on a tiny old 80s portable radio that seems like an odd thing to have given the time period of the game. Her mom has to work. This begins to ruin the life of the girl at a young age because her mom could only attend the entire swimming event she won but had to leave after. Her life becomes even worse when her mom is sad to have arrived late once in her older years (maybe she also forgot to buy her Turbo Man doll). So she destroys their apartment, takes their radio, and moves out. Through clicking on objects to light up and moving things aside and seeing yourself swimming around your past Miriam learns that she can in fact answer a phone call from her mom at the end of the game. I mean, I at least thought she struggled because she maybe died without apologizing or reconnecting but even it seems to make it look like they were both wrong.

Like I usually say, it is pretty, games are pretty now but we are years away from that being something anyone should be able to coast off of.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1507838719771897859

100% in-game completion, 100% of achievements unlocked. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a cute, fairly short 2D Zelda style action adventure, focused around completing various straightforward 'quests' for the anthropomorphised vegetables that inhabit a town, exploring 'dungeon'-like levels in so doing. There's some very light combat and puzzle-solving here, but nothing that's ever particularly taxing, beyond perhaps one or two of the dungeon-ending boss encounters. The light-hearted and humourous vibe that pervades the game makes it a fun experience while it lasts - and while that's not overly long and I'd struggle to justify buying the game at full price, but bought at a discount, I'd recommend that game as a good way to spend a few hours.