not technically finished yet, but i get the idea of how i'm gonna feel after its over. this game is super charming with a really cute artstyle. i've never actually played any kirby games before and my extent of him is going "wow he's so cute" when someone shares miscellaneous screenshots or videos of him, but i've wanted to dabble in the series for a while! the plot i dont care for, but the game itself has been pretty fun.

the controls are kinda weird. not the actual button mapping, but how they feel. i always associate platformers with having really tight, snappy controls since thats what feels best imo but i mean, its kirby so he's gonna be pretty floaty. that's not really a problem for me, but i do hate how slippery he can feel. some of the levels in this are genuinely not very fun because of it and finding the stickers or the level icon things can be really annoying when the slippery controls make you fall really far back in a level or into a death pit you really shouldn't have hit. its not a skill issue because while i am definitely not super great at this game, just tapping the d-pad shouldn't send me flying off the cliff ... maybe its my inexperience with the genre overall thats leading me to have trouble with this stuff, but it really makes me dislike some of these levels. i like that they all have their own gimmicks and the boss fights have been, while unexpected, really fun.

this game is nothing super special but its decently short, not too difficult, and very cute. i think some of the level design is tedious in an unfun way, but generally i don't have to think too hard when attempting one for the first time. it's just okay.

i'm struggling to rate this one, because i loved it. this game is so unique, and uncovering the mysteries within was so deeply satisfying as the story went on. i am a zoomer, but i still get so nostalgic for the early internet because i got a tiny glimpse of it as a kid. while i was heavily supervised and couldn't do much, i had a facebook and a myspace page that i decorated and used to talk to my cousin. forum boards were before my time, but when i got older i browsed tumblrs and google plus accounts and livejournals and so on and so forth dedicated to my nichest interests and while geocities was something very different, hypnospace outlaw brought me right back to that.

all the side stories with the teens, the fucking censorship cartoon, mind's eye stuff... ALL of it was so interesting and fun to watch change. everytime the os updated i was excited to see what had developed and changed since i last saw everyone, and i rehashed out hidden pages after hidden pages because i knew it would be fun to follow up with.

despite all this, the third act/final chapter really dragged for me. i had already caught onto the twist coming and i didn't like being forced to backtrack through pages for secrets i had... already found... when i was already so thorough during my normal playthrough. i get the point of it within the narrative, but after such an interesting and strong start and middle, this game really failed to stick the landing. even once i'd beaten it and saw the credits, i couldn't help but feel a "that's it?" after feeling so immersed for the hours i put into it. it's a really big shame, because i think it ruined the game a lot for me even though i still feel overall positive about it.

an easy recommend, and i am so excited to keep an eye out on the dev team behind this game to see what they'll release in the future. really glad to have finally ticked this one off the "to play" list! i've always heard nothing but praises for it and i'm glad i can understand why.

i've been spoiled by homebrew. the characters never really captured me, and i wasn't intrigued by the world at large. i think its best for people who have little experience with D&D, but because i've only ever experienced D&D as something fun with friends where we play super unconventionally, i just didn't vibe with it. also the character creator sucked :(

no rating because i think it's objective score and the way it landed for me are very different. its clear how much effort and how polished this game is (at least in act one which is as far as i got), but i don't see myself ever going "yeah this is a ten outta ten fr."

i should have done this a long time ago, but i finally decided that as a self-proclaimed rogue-like enthusiast, i should actually play the game that introduced the genre.

it's a turn-based ascii dungeon crawler that uses a lot of text-based inputs to progress. it's really simplistic in presentation and truthfully, it is simple in gameplay as well (despite how much more complex it may seem as thanks to the lack of tutorial and long list of commands). it was... fun? but i've definitely been spoiled by the roguelikes of modern day. i played a few runs, never really did particularly great, and i doubt i'll ever really come back and try to progress super far. i will say though, that this brought back a lot of really fond memories of making my own text-based choose your own adventure dungeon crawler in high school when learning to code. overall, just happy to finally have experienced it!

why do all house flipper/home decorator games insist on the hyper-realistic artstyle. it just looks ugly. a lot of the actual decorating systems in this is pretty nice, and imo functions a lot nicer than the sims & house flipper. i like the way jobs are specific and how customers evaluate your score or commission especially if compared to house flipper. i love being able to flip between first and third person, and overall it just feels way better to set dress houses for whatever you want. i love the feel of cleaning and demolishing houses in house flipper, but the sims has always had a level of polish in actually placing down decor that nothing else could close to. i think hometopia hits pretty close to that for me, while still remaining very distinct and different. i've not seen/played enough to really rate it, but it has promise and i think that if enough of a community forms this could really be something i sink my time into. even if its just for set dressing houses for fun and never saving them.

brotato is easy to dismiss as another vampire survivors clone and you'd be partially correct. if you dont like the vampire survivors dodge-and-weave-auto-attacking playstyle, there isn't much brotato can do to convince you to change your mind and you're better off just saving your money.

with that being said, if you played vampire survivors and liked it but found it was too simple or too same-y with not enough challenge or variety, brotato is perfect for you. there are SO many weapons, characters, and intricacies to the stats systems and weapon systems that are simple enough for someone new, but can be min-maxed enough if you want to really try-hard. this game is very much a roguelike in the way it presents its shops, upgrades, and gentle power-scaling, but is also very reminiscent of teamfight tactics with the way it handles weapon progression. you merge commons to form epics, epics to form rares, and so on and so forth, with bonuses if you stay within the same class of weapons.

i want to say more but i feel like i need to play it for longer to really have a solid opinion worth listening to. the game is only five dollars and the devs deserve every penny. if you're remotely interested you should definitely go for it. this is a tentative early rating but i really do think it will change in the future (hopefully more positively).

bonus points btw for having so much accessibility options. granted the game is simple but having a mouse-only way to play is cool. ever since my friend on twitter has dealt with a wrist injury, i've come to note just how many things are impossible to play for anyone who is disabled. its impossible as a small team to cater to everything possible, but it's nice to see some attempts be made. i've found myself making more notes on games' accessibility features even if i wouldn't ever recommend it to my friend just because now its something i'm more aware of. it's astounding how many games are not as accommodating as they could be, so it's nice to see some options here.

my honors biology class was my first period freshman year, and my teacher openly hated teaching freshman. he only taught honors bio because the school forced him to teach one period of it to justify him teaching upperclassmen in AP biology. this was very obvious to everyone, especially my class who he never taught anything to. instead he would post one question he copied off a random quizlet onto the board, let us copy the answer from the same quizlet, and then give us the rest of the period free.

needless to say, we did nothing productive or educational. super smash flash DOMINATED that classroom, and i remember my friend dennis kicking my ass in every single match we played together. it was so unfair. i dont really care for smash much outside of as a party game, and the controls on this sucked especially if you were playing on the same shitty, tiny laptop. fond memories, though.