I've been slacking on posting when I finish/give up on stuff again, so you get to drink from the firehose.
Everything is going to be OK: On the surface it's cute and silly in a kind of cartoony edgy way, but actually it's all about coping with adversity through absurdity (and poetry), whether that's depression or trauma or misogyny or the devaluing of artists or any number of other things. I haven't managed to do everything in it yet because it does not play nice with the Steam Deck and my desktop has no sound for a couple more days, but what I've managed to get through without it breaking is good.
KarmaZoo: I love the idea of a multiplayer game that actively uses game design to incentivize and require cooperating with other players and being nice to them. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anyone playing it anymore when I've tried.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom: Most of my time with it was actually closer to when it came out, but this is when I've officially decided I'm done with it. I get along with it a lot better than BotW/TotK, but I still don't like the core design principles of the current phase of the Zelda series. Like I get why other people do, but they're just not doing much for me. I hardly ever feel like I came up with a clever solution to a puzzle, just threw random kludged together crap at it and it worked anyway, so it's not very satisfying. The handful of more challenging/interesting puzzles have been totally optional stuff like a few of the heart pieces. I think I'm done with Zelda until they get this out of their system and try something else in another 5-10 years, which is a shame because I've been playing and mostly enjoying them since the first one was the only one.
Be My Horde: Or what of it is currently finished anyway. Another bullet heaven game, this time with a dommy mommy necromancer. I like how it plays a bit differently from the typical stuff in the genre because of how everything is built around resurrecting the enemies you kill and ways to modify that ability, but how well it works in the end will depend on how much more they add to the base that's there now and if that manages to create some more interesting interactions and viable ways to build.
Pesticide Not Required: Also bullet Heaven, but this time it's...a hybrid with a farming sim? Also you're a frog. Sure, why not? Very silly idea that actually somehow works, fighting off bugs while growing crops, mining ore, and catching fish. Different builds ultimately don't feel very different (aside from focusing more/less on farming/mining/fishing), and a lot of weapon combinations ultimately end up playing exactly the same. Also for such a cute and lighthearted games the different frogs' abilities feel designed less in a "here's an interesting puzzle for you to solve" way like Halls of Torment's unlocks and more "screw the player and I hope you enjoy having stat nerfs that make the game feel bad to play". I say all that, but I still think it's mostly reasonably fun overall.
Golf Club Nostalgia (or Golf Club Wasteland, depending on where you look): Surprisingly more interesting than I expected. Post-apocalyptic golf (which I'm glad I played on "you can't lose" story mode, because I suck too much at it to even attempt getting par on some of those levels) with a not-so-subtle story that doesn't name names but is clearly about Elon Musk having destroyed Earth and now moving on to destroy Mars. The most interesting bits are the worldbuilding done through the radio station that plays in the background, both the songs and the stories people tell about the past.
Spitkiss: I really want to like it more than I do, and I actually did for the first couple chapters. It's I guess technically a puzzle platformer? Except about little guys who communicate through bodily fluids and emojis. This is not the first time something like this has lost my interest by adding moving creatures/enemies of some sort that make the puzzles a lot more timing-focused right after I started getting into it. Oh well. In conclusion, these bitches gay. Good for them.
Will The Man Get Frog: I had to find out what it was just from the name, and what it was is a PICO-8 haiku game based on very limited and randomly chosen words. I had coincidentally just been remembering magnetic poetry was a thing, so great timing with that. Great idea, fun to mess around with, and I could see myself keeping it installed and spending a few minutes with it here and there when I don't know what else to do with myself.
