little_lagomorph
top notch co-op escape room game. really, really enjoyed this one.
2022
a couple frustrating levels in here but overall very cute, polished, and fun to play. really, really enjoyed this one.
2019
really, really good game to play with a friend or partner. boyfriend and i played it together and it's one of the best co-op experiences we've ever had tbh. took us maybe 17 hours to beat, but we committed to finding all gems and boos and as many secrets as we could in general.
This review contains spoilers
well, i can't say i'm that surprised, but i am disappointed.
i want to start off with the positives: this game is really fun! i really like the gameplay loop of both innocence and requiem, and this is the first game i've managed to play straight to completion in a long time. the first ... i wanna say 14? chapters are interesting and pretty well-written!
unfortunately that's where my positives end. the ending message of this game is "everything is actually hugo's fault and he needs to die". the ending message of this game is "being chronically ill and/or grieving and/or traumatised is burdensome to your loved ones. have you heard of MAID?"
like, you could say this is a bad-faith reading, but the macula is quite literally described more or less as a chronic illness exacerbated by trauma. like, textually. i did not realise, probably because i'm a normal person who doesn't think traumatised children who lash out are demons, that every time hugo goes on about everything being his fault that the narrative is siding with him and trying to get you to believe that the child, who is only put into these situations by adults who use him or take advantage of him or otherwise refuse to listen to his wants and needs, is actually the cause of everything wrong and needs to die for the world to not end.
like, for most of this game i THOUGHT the story was about thriving against the odds, but then the last hour happens and it turns out it's about letting go. which would be fine if "letting go" didn't involve executing your brother with a slingshot. like ... what the fuck lol
i want to clarify: i think this ending would be fine if it didn't feel extremely cheap and contrived and if it didn't send such a deeply unpleasant message about trauma and grief and chronic illness. and if the actual death scene wasn't literally "kill your brother with a rock". i LIKE sad endings. i LIKE endings where things aren't magically okay. but when the entire story rhythm is predicated on "things get bad but then they're ok again," it feels very, very weird to suddenly go "but not this time because uhhhhhhhhh." like, come on.
i want to start off with the positives: this game is really fun! i really like the gameplay loop of both innocence and requiem, and this is the first game i've managed to play straight to completion in a long time. the first ... i wanna say 14? chapters are interesting and pretty well-written!
unfortunately that's where my positives end. the ending message of this game is "everything is actually hugo's fault and he needs to die". the ending message of this game is "being chronically ill and/or grieving and/or traumatised is burdensome to your loved ones. have you heard of MAID?"
like, you could say this is a bad-faith reading, but the macula is quite literally described more or less as a chronic illness exacerbated by trauma. like, textually. i did not realise, probably because i'm a normal person who doesn't think traumatised children who lash out are demons, that every time hugo goes on about everything being his fault that the narrative is siding with him and trying to get you to believe that the child, who is only put into these situations by adults who use him or take advantage of him or otherwise refuse to listen to his wants and needs, is actually the cause of everything wrong and needs to die for the world to not end.
like, for most of this game i THOUGHT the story was about thriving against the odds, but then the last hour happens and it turns out it's about letting go. which would be fine if "letting go" didn't involve executing your brother with a slingshot. like ... what the fuck lol
i want to clarify: i think this ending would be fine if it didn't feel extremely cheap and contrived and if it didn't send such a deeply unpleasant message about trauma and grief and chronic illness. and if the actual death scene wasn't literally "kill your brother with a rock". i LIKE sad endings. i LIKE endings where things aren't magically okay. but when the entire story rhythm is predicated on "things get bad but then they're ok again," it feels very, very weird to suddenly go "but not this time because uhhhhhhhhh." like, come on.
This review contains spoilers
it's fine i guess but after a certain point it gets really moon logic-y and not in a fun way. the writing also really doesn't respect nuri at all to the point where she doesn't even get to talk at the end lmao
enjoyable gameplay loop and actually genuinely funny sometimes but it does the annoying thing that a lot of sex-comedy stuff does where it can't commit to either sex or comedy and ends up falling flat on both counts.
like, there's nudity, but it doesn't feel particularly sexy? the nudity feels more like i'm at a life drawing session. additionally, all the "love interests" kind of have the same body type with a notable exception and some incredibly surface-level differences like bust size which i find lazy and boring. it might just be because i'm not attracted to any of the men's default looks and i'm not attracted to women period, but the Sex Stuff gets exhausting pretty quickly and i ended up just kind of coasting through it.
it's like the game expects you to find nudity inherently sexy which ... i just don't? all the other sexual stuff seems like it's expecting you to take it as goofy-sexy, which i would be all for if it actually landed, but it's like the mannequin version of eroticism - too clean and polished.
the comedy i did generally enjoy, but the Sex Comedy all falls sort of flat because there wasn't really a punchline with any of it. the punchlines were like ... "heh, penis." i love dirty jokes and sex comedy but again, found that pretty lazy.
oh, also, one of the outfits turns one of the characters into markiplier, which is a full star off. i hate that.
like, there's nudity, but it doesn't feel particularly sexy? the nudity feels more like i'm at a life drawing session. additionally, all the "love interests" kind of have the same body type with a notable exception and some incredibly surface-level differences like bust size which i find lazy and boring. it might just be because i'm not attracted to any of the men's default looks and i'm not attracted to women period, but the Sex Stuff gets exhausting pretty quickly and i ended up just kind of coasting through it.
it's like the game expects you to find nudity inherently sexy which ... i just don't? all the other sexual stuff seems like it's expecting you to take it as goofy-sexy, which i would be all for if it actually landed, but it's like the mannequin version of eroticism - too clean and polished.
the comedy i did generally enjoy, but the Sex Comedy all falls sort of flat because there wasn't really a punchline with any of it. the punchlines were like ... "heh, penis." i love dirty jokes and sex comedy but again, found that pretty lazy.
oh, also, one of the outfits turns one of the characters into markiplier, which is a full star off. i hate that.
2019
the 6/10 on this one is more about my personal feelings than the objective quality of the game. it's a perfectly good, cute game and has a satisfying enough puzzle experience. it was a good three hours and i recommend it but i'm not like, overly passionate or excited about it. also, the inventory is kind of annoying to navigate, so there's that i guess.
2019
i didn't get very far into it til i realised there's absolutely zero gay options. be straight or go fuck yourself. don't love to see that in 2021 personally.
2019
it's like, fine and fun to play because i like logic puzzles, but it feels weird about mental illness in a way i'm not sure i appreciate
2021
this game truly deserves the praise it's receiving. amazing audio, visuals, gameplay, level design, everything, and an incredibly sweet story. if you have someone you love to play games with, i heartily recommend this.
2021
PLEASE play this game, it was clearly crafted incredibly lovingly with an amazing amount of detail put into its environments. the storytelling in this game is genuinely amazing.
could not even finish the tutorial because the game references an antisemitic caricature meme for their money-hungry merchant race. was already getting bad vibes from the fact that all the protagonists are blond blue-eyed aryans and the first asian person you come across has literally yellow skin and one of the first codex entries seems bizarrely elf-racist but yeah that was the last straw no thanks i'm done here.
2019
jesus this game is a nightmare. the environments are lovely but everything else feels at least a decade old, including the character models and gameplay. the combat is okay but clunky, and the UI looks like a default asset. the voice acting isn't anything to write home about either and to be honest the worldbuilding is a bit lazy and boring. the writing is incredibly shallow as well.
besides that, and i'm sure this is what you're reading this review for, this game is politically fucking atrocious. the core philosophy seems to be "french colonialism was cool and right", which is alarming but not all that shocking. if you want an essay on why colonialism is, in fact, horrifying and wrong, this is not where you will find one - do some googling.
i'm really not sure why we're allowing games like this to become popular when there's dozens of amazing indie games that don't allow you to side with and aggressively support racist imperialists who want to convert everyone to Fantasy Christianity and think that the indigenous peoples of the island they're colonising are disgusting savages.
at least 80% of this game is playing politics, and that's a low estimate. your player character is basically The Prince Of Colonialism. it's the game's entire premise. if you're really that curious about it, do yourself a favour and find a way to play this without paying real money for it.
besides that, and i'm sure this is what you're reading this review for, this game is politically fucking atrocious. the core philosophy seems to be "french colonialism was cool and right", which is alarming but not all that shocking. if you want an essay on why colonialism is, in fact, horrifying and wrong, this is not where you will find one - do some googling.
i'm really not sure why we're allowing games like this to become popular when there's dozens of amazing indie games that don't allow you to side with and aggressively support racist imperialists who want to convert everyone to Fantasy Christianity and think that the indigenous peoples of the island they're colonising are disgusting savages.
at least 80% of this game is playing politics, and that's a low estimate. your player character is basically The Prince Of Colonialism. it's the game's entire premise. if you're really that curious about it, do yourself a favour and find a way to play this without paying real money for it.
after a certain point this was just exhausting to play. it's just holding W and occasionally clicking things, which is fine in some games, but not this one where you move at a glacial pace and everything is so spaced out it takes 4 hours to finish what could easily be a 2 hour game. come on
2021
pretty neat, good atmosphere, but i think it over-explains itself in some areas and under-explains in others. also at a certain point it started making me motion sick, but i think that's my own problem. worth a play, i think