Easily the worst fnaf game. As someone who at least has something of an appreciation for the first game and Pizzeria Simulator, this game basically embodies everything that lead to fnaf's self cannibalization: Shit gameplay, zero tension, dumbass obtuse puzzles, stupid lore.

Is is naive to blame fnaf for analog horror being such a big thing as it is nowadays? I know that it didn't invent the genre, but it becomes a thing right around the time this game comes out and they share a lot of similar ideas; The perversion of childhood imagery, the retrofetishism, the inanely deep lore for no real reason. The major difference is that fnaf as a series relies way too much on jumpscares over anything else as it goes on, whereas most analog horror prides itself on it's atmospheric slow burn A24 horror with zero jumpscares, but jesus fucking christ does every single analog horror series fall flat on its face on being scary. They're basically 90% buildup, and the payoff more often than not is a creepy face less scary than the majority of shitty old creepypastas or some kind of abstraction that leaves it up to the viewer to imagine a scary thing themselves. More often than not it just ends up kind of funny.

To quote the top comment of soon to be horror classic DELTARUNE VHS | SNOWGRAVE: "I like that there are no cheap jumpscares, just unnerving imageries and sounds and that's what makes it look actually scary." Indeed.

Papa's Freezeria Deluxe, an otherwise charming game about managing a frozen treat shop, descended into sheer madness during my playthrough. While the core gameplay is centered around crafting delightful ice cream sundaes for customers, my experience took an unexpected turn.

Firstly, an enraged customer, apparently unsatisfied with her order, issued a rather extreme threat. She pledged to hunt down an unfortunate employee who had the audacity to serve her an "Insta Purple Death Goo Supreme Surprise Sundae" without receiving an adequate tip. It's safe to say this customer's anger management issues are far from resolved, and her melodramatic outburst cast a dark shadow over my time in the ice cream parlor.

As if that weren't enough, things spiraled out of control when another employee, going by the name of "Rivers Cuomo," went on a bizarre rampage. Within a mere seven minutes of the shop's grand opening, this deranged worker decided to combine every ingredient in the shop into a single milkshake intended for an innocent skater woman. This act of culinary terrorism resulted in the immediate shutdown of Weezer's Freezeria, and Rivers Cuomo is now facing a potential prison sentence that rivals the lifespan of a bristlecone pine tree.

Lastly, among the chaos and confusion, a "Venom poster" made an appearance. While I can only assume this was an attempt to add some semblance of normalcy to the situation, it felt entirely out of place and did little to mitigate the mayhem unfolding in the shop.

In the end, Papa's Freezeria Deluxe left me with more questions than answers. The gameplay itself, when not overshadowed by threats and criminal antics, is quite enjoyable, but the absurdity of my experience cannot be ignored. For those seeking a peaceful ice cream parlor management simulation, I would suggest looking elsewhere. This game is a prime example of how things can quickly go awry when customers and employees alike lose their grip on reality.

Score: 3/10

There’s a subtle beauty to being able to capture a moment, framed forever in the language of film. As if frozen in time, the camera, aimed true by a master of the craft, can share an eternity within a single instant, halting the flow of time itself to center the universe on a single moment. In some sense, even hallways, bathrooms, the spaces we find ourselves flowing through to more important things, take on a kind of artistry, when viewed through the camera's lens.

I suppose that idea of captured liminality is at the heart of Interior Worlds, as much as it has a heart. The pulse flowing under the surface only makes the reality of the game hurt that extra bit more; Interior Worlds isn’t a photography game, not to a degree of allowing any real expression to the player, nor in giving you all that much of interest to look at it. No, here we have a work entirely fueled by a desire to copy creepy liminal space memes you’d see on Twitter.

There isn’t much to say about it, frankly. Gamified exploration of drab environments, viewable through a camera that drains all saturation, letting you capture that perfect spoopy-spirit with grainy, over-blown photos… There’s no real expression available to the player, so it’s kind of a bad photography game on principle.

Also, how is the 10-minute Vinesauce fangame hidden here so much more soulful than anything in the actual paid game-jam project they’re pushing? It feels like such a weird mix-up of priorities.

I expected this to be a super fun queer-as-hell audiovisual treat, and it is that with all the lovely dialogue I hoped for, but what I didn't expect was getting the greatest piece of antifascist art that gaming has produced. Get in the Car, Loser is absurdly direct and makes no attempt to hide its messaging. It knows that when the shit hits the fan like it has in the real world, the fight against evil has to be proactive. When it's violent and carries the threat of violence on an even more massive scale, we've gone past the point where rational debate maintaining ideologically pure pacifism are enough. It is a fight, and while GitCL makes a point not to encourage pointless bloodlust, it recognizes that we can't ignore what's been put in front of us. The fight must be fought.

It's so gay. It's so pretty. The tunes are incredible. The battle system is really novel (though I will admit, not explained very well by the game). I just want to hear these characters' banter go on and on and on. This game is made for the internet-raised who got front-row seats to the surge in reactionary garbage in the 2010s that got us to where we are today. It's for the queers intimately familiar with our enemy, many of us barely escaping getting sucked into their world. I've never seen such a grand production made for MY people in the spirit of OUR time. GOD I love this. I cried at the wave of triumph as I defeated the Machine Devil and I'm still recovering from the emotional weight of that success.

Played through Proton on Linux. I'm going to start putting this message on things unless/until an option is added to Backloggd.

I WON'T FALTER IN THE FACE OF EVIL!

I am so conflicted on this game. On one hand it's about a queer roadtrip to defeat fascism, on the other hand, I absolutely cannot get into the combat at all.

For the most part I really enjoy the writing. That meme about writers who use subtext being cowards is totally relevant here.

I particularly enjoyed Act III for diving deep into Sam's psyche. I ran out of steam in Act IV, the final part of the game, against the final boss no less.

The combat system is... very weird to me. I've heard that it's like FFXIII, but as someone who hasn't played many FF games, this doesn't help me at all.

The tutorial is pretty short, and by Act III I had played the game so poorly I soft locked myself. See, I was like 4 levels below the boss I was trying to fight, so they literally instant killed all of my party members constantly, and I didn't have enough money to buy gas so I could keep grinding to level up. This game is weirdly a resource management game with the money in a way I've never felt so oppressed by before. I genuinely had to restart the game from Act I because I had been foolish enough to repeatedly save in the same slot, despite the game offering like 50 save slots or something.

So the second time around I minmaxed leveling as hard as I could... without making myself completely out of money since I could mess up the game again. AND I turned on Story Mode combat difficulty. Which, frankly I find the name a bit offensive. It's not like you can simply button mash your way thru boss encounters on that level, at least not the final one. See, the upgrade system is the whole way you level up, and there's lot of spells and if you don't read them all very carefully you can end up with a pretty shit build. I think that's what happened to me at some point and it was making the game a lot harder.

Sadly, the encounter rate just gets too high, and it literally interrupts party dialogue. Gracefully the game resumes conversations where you left off, but I found myself dreading the interruptions. Even on Story Mode where you apparently get more money, I constantly was running out of money for upgrades if i wanted to keep enough money to not run out of gas and lose the entire game.

Eventually I just looked up a Lets Play to watch the final boss play out. Also, apparently at some point the game was patched to prevent you from using your entire item collection during fights, because it was considered messy/confusing. As far as I can tell this was a massive nerf to your combat ability. You have to constantly remember to restock the items in your 5 slots, and it's hard to balance which items you want to take to each fight. In particular Act III and Act IV bosses have some items you really want to have around and I had to restart both fights because I hadn't taken the right loadout.

Anyways, the writing is definitely cheesy at times, but I like the parallels to fascism, LGBT rights, and ineffective liberal government "status quo" woes. Oh, and all the stuff about social media in Act III again was great.

Sadly, my lasting thought about this game is that it needs a massive balance tuning. Maybe I'm "bad" at the game or something, but it just didn't click and I kept feeling frustrated. I wish this game had just been a visual novel instead.