#graymer time

It has been a long while since I played anything with procedural generation as it's main mechanic. Not because I don't like the style, but because I find it easier to relax into a game's mechanics if I can be sure of how some of it is going to go.

Shattered Planet doesn't offer me that comfort, but it does substitute a different type of freedom that more than makes up for it. Let me set the scene for you. You are on an expanse of cubic earth and rock, and a voice over a radio immediately tells you to do your best to just reach the teleporter. On the way, you are maybe accosted by creatures and survive by a few hit-points. Your green buddy over the radio congratulates you, then tells you to make it as far as you can, but don't worry about not making it. You, having no gear and no idea where you're supposed to be going, don't make it. Then, you're suddenly in a ship, and, in the words of Brennan Lee Mulligan, you can't believe they got you out of your clone sleeve for this bullshit.

I love the retrowave aesthetic. The muted colors, the vague pixelated quality of the sights, the whole vibe makes me feel like I'm back on my clunky television playing weird bootleg games my dad would hunt down and burn for me. Nostalgia to the max.

Byte Driver delivers on not only the visual aesthetic, but also has that harsh but faded chiptune music and sound effects that make me feel like I'm trying to find a specific channel on a very old and disagreeable TV. Choice.

Aside from the style of the game, I also had a pretty good time playing it. I think this is the first game I've touched on so far that doesn't have some kind of underlying narrative.

The setup is that you are driving a car that goes very fast, chasing down cars that are slightly less fast than you so you can hack them and keep going very, very fast. Sounds simple, but you have to control your speed in order to keep the other vehicles in your sights, keep a sharp eye on those sharper turns so you don't hit the sides, and rely on your adaptable gaming nature to pick up the keybinds so you can balance all this while getting distracted by the blur overlaying the retrowave view. Maybe that last part is just me.

What happens at the end of the world? Who causes it? Who is left behind, if anyone? These are all questions deliberately left vague by this game. I love it. If I still used the number system, this would be the first one to get a ten out of ten rating, and I can't exactly explain why.

-transfer is a black and white text adventure. The screen glitches and distorts, the audio has this crackling radio quality, and every conversation you have, every hint into your identity you receive, you must prompt yourself into. It costs $10 on Itch.io. Every time you open the game, you play for a few minutes, experience one of multiple paths, and then the game closes you out. Open it back up. It's worth it, I promise.

You take on the role of... an artificial intelligence? A human who managed to cross into the mainframe in a fit of desperation? Something compounding the two, or derivative thereof? There are nine total, and one rat. Some of the nine want to destroy whatever remains of humanity. Some are responsible for humanity being so close to destruction. Some are just trying to sleep. You might be one of these, or something else entirely.

You are trying to find the rat. You are trying to save the rat. You, whether you know it or not, are the rat. Or are you? Maybe you're too busy trying to stop the last lash against humanity. Maybe you're too busy finding the route with the trigger. The only hints you have are your conversation with your four-letter named companions in the dark, and the memory files those conversations unlock for you.

Herald is a point-and-click alternate history visual novel set in the 19th century. There are moving character portraits in a warm painted style, multiple choice answers to any given conversation you have, and the overarching promise of some sort of terrible drama at sea from the opening scene. The first two chapters are $9.99 on Itch.io with two more to come.

You take on the part of Devan Rensburg as he experiences a life at sea, and oh boy is it so much more complicated than that. Within the first few minutes, I was given the choice to lie about who I was and what I was doing to an old woman. Not long after I was given the chance to be extremely nosy about an argument between two family members. There is also the opening blurb that promises that the story will change depending on the actions you take, which with these kinds of games always feels a bit threatening. I love it.

So far, the dialogue trees you have allow you to be agreeable, disagreeable, or quiet as hell. I'm having so much fun mixing it up, having the main character pretend to be better than the urge to eavesdrop, then riffle through someone's belongings in order to find the source of a point of conflict. There are multiple places you can click onto the ship that give you a sense of underlying issues between ideals and laws. Hell, one of the first conversations between two other characters gives insight into a conflict between the Protectorate, from which you and the rest of the crew are from, and the colonies, where you are going. I won't say much more than that, but it's all very promising and I can't wait to delve into this on my own time.

This is a mini metroidvania released by Ben Allen on Itch.io. I had to add that type of game into my computer's dictionary just now, as it was inclined to separate it into the words "Metroid" and "Vania". It costs $4.99 if you weren't lucky enough to grab it in the giveaway or Covid-19 sale.

In this bite-sized fun time, you play a round pixelated skeleton exploring an overgrown and broken tech riddled lab of some sort, before finding an elevator and dashing through a red and orange flavored underground cave system, with some fun enemy designs to be found. You use the "Z" key to jump, the "X" key to attack using your head, and the arrow keys to move around at first, before running across powerups that give you more buttons to press and more fun things to make your little skeleton avatar do, like tumble forward midair to increase your vertical distance.

The little sounds you make when you jump, dive, and hit enemies with your head are very fun, whooshing and impact thuds aside, and while I wouldn't recommend falling into the spike pits there's a noise for that too. Being a skeleton does not make you immune to stab wounds, but I'm in no place to judge because I am also not immune to stab wounds.

All background music is made by Ayraren on Bandcamp, and it's delightful. Chiptunes own my heart and brain, at this point, I'm so attached to my lil pixel rpgs. The laboratory music is ominous, the jungle tunes make you feel like you're exploring some ruins, it's all very well put together. I just remember that I can add links, so I will be linking all games and music from now on, and if you go back to my older posts in this tag I'll have properly linked my previous entries.

This is a visual novel with an adventure and romance plot that punishes you for playing by making you learn to code. I am absolutely kidding about the punishment part, I've been picking up pieces and bits of coding from my dad my whole life so this was actually a really nice refresher course before I go hunting for some college level classes in the upcoming year. Thank you game dev prettysmart for making me realize I was using some basic coding syntax wrong, it'd been bothering me. This is another one of my bundle gifts, but it's usually $9.99 on Itch.io.

When I saw the banner and title screen, I immediately thought "this looks like it was either drawn by hand or the artist was incredibly dedicated to a pen-and-paper style and succeeded in tricking me. Turns out, all the art for this game is in fact hand-drawn! It's very cool, with distinct shapes for everything and the artists style really shines. I'm not good at complimenting art, aside from knowing what I like and prefer, but this is art I would definitely stare at a while if I encountered it in the wild. Thumbs up.

This game not only has good writing- I didn't feel overly patronized by the introduction even though it was a scene between mother and child, with you taking the place of the child because I was immediately dedicated to being... a child. If that makes sense. Sometimes it works (like in this game) and sometimes it makes you want to tear out your hair (looking at you, Fallout 3). The sticking point is that it doesn't overstay its welcome! It establishes the apocalyptic premise and some need to know information about our protagonist, such as her relationship with her mother and her dead-to-robot-uprising father, and then moves on to where she's a bit more grown up.

This doesn't mean you get out of learning to code, though, if you were getting your hopes up. If you're more interested in losing yourself to a story than picking up some coding groundwork, you might want to give this a pass. The coding lingo is well explained, though, and you are given a dictionary feature that sits alongside the programming window. Very neat and helpful for any scatterbrain moments.

I'll be honest, the only reason I stopped playing was because I am very tired and have a long day of work tomorrow and I knew if I didn't quit I'd be up all night, or longer if I was dissatisfied with the ending I got.

A little background information on this game first. I received this title as part of the Black Lives Matter Support Bundle in 2020. It does usually cost money, but it's only 9.99 and I'm not that poor. I'd buy it again if I lost my itch account. It's also a sequel to a game called Off-Peak, which is free. I only didn't play the prequel because I didn't want to set a bad precedent for myself and take a peg out of my resolve. I might play it at a later date. It has reviews from far larger names than a newbie like myself, but what's the point of consuming something if I can't give my thoughts on it?

First impression; the title screen and initial loading screen are very unique, in a good way. This game has a particular style that feels very "3D pop-up" that makes me want to stare at everything for a while. I had to add ten minutes to the timer because I kept stopping to look at the lights and the path and... um... eavesdrop on everyone I came across. How could I resist the sweet words of the machine telling me what abilities are available to me? I want to hear that sweet goss! And not even four people in, I already have an idea of a potential point of contention between the staff of Norwood and a company looking to buy it and turn it into a server-hosting building, for whatever reason.

Data-obsessed morons ruins the weird and off-putting beauty of invention once again. My roomie is an accountant so I can trash talk white-collar workers all I want.

The whole game is a walking simulator and exploration game, and I completed a fetch quest during my third conversation so expect lots of that. There is a hint of puzzle-solving as well. All in all, it was a very fun play, and when I'm done writing this I might hop back in for more.