Recent reviews by Lotje

If you've not played Pharaoh, but you've played Caesar III, it's just like that, except with seasonal flooding and with monuments (that take forever to build). If you've not played Caesar III or any of the spin-offs... Well, if you're into city builders and especially historical city builders (though this isn't one where your technology progresses over the centuries/millennia), or you're really into balancing a budget, or you're into building virtual pyramids, you will absolutely enjoy the hell out of this game.

I was extremely hooked on the original Pharaoh when it was still a relatively new game (and on all the other Caesar III variants), so I was thrilled when I found out about the remake. I bought it shortly after it was released and was immediately drawn back in. I have played enough different versions of these games that I don't recall exactly which features were included in which originals or were later added in mods, so I can't do a side-by-side comparison but I will say that I love the extra options in this new version. The option to turn global labor on or off is great! It gives you the power to decide how you want to play. You can play the classic way if you want that challenge but you can just as easily play the other way if you want to build nothing but perfect city blocks. I understand people have issues with the changes in the combat system but I honestly prefer it this way because I don't have to try to figure out which side of the map an attack is going to come from (the game will warn you sometimes two years ahead of time that an army is on its way, but it can't tell you which direction they are coming from?) and I was never really into the combat aspect of the game to begin with. I love that there's achievements, although some of them are pretty hard to get if you just play as you normally would and some of them will take a REALLY long time to get "The Internet is for Cats" is a delightful achievement and I very much enjoyed going out of my way to get that one :D I'm 76 hours in and I've built 16,520 roads of the 100,000 roads (i.e., road tiles) required for the "The Path of Progress" achievement.

Unfortunately, this game had some bugs when it was released. At one point all save games became corrupted and you could no longer advance. The devs deployed a fix for this shortly after but unfortunately my game auto-updated when my corrupted files were in a different folder (I'd moved them because doing that let you at least restart the level you were on or something. My memory is a little hazy at this point) so my game remained unfixed. I know I could have just contacted the devs because they were very responsive in discussions, but I just didn't want to deal and I didn't play for a year and a half. I just recently started completely over and I am exactly as hooked as I was at the turn of the millennium. I'm a little ways past the point where my game broke last time (that happened when I was getting close to the end of the Old Kingdom; I'm now early in the Middle Kingdom) and I have not encountered any notable bugs. In one of the Old Kingdom missions where you have to import a ton of stone (North and South Dahshur) I had three blocks of stone become "stuck" in a warehouse. That is to say, they remained unused for the duration of the game. I moved them to a different warehouse at one point so clearly they existed in the game and could be interacted with, but the laborers never picked them up. That's obviously a very minor issue, though.

Anyway, yes, it's all the thumbs up from me.

Placid Plastic Duck Simulator is surprisingly enthralling for a game that involves pretty much nothing other than watching a bunch of rubber duckies bob up and down and float around pools. I enjoy the collection aspect; the ducks are all unique and the designs are fun and cute. To be clear, you don't actively collect anything in this game, the ducks just appear at set intervals. The achievements also just kind of happen on their own. The only problem is that exciting things sometimes happen when I'm not looking and therefore I'll never know who deflated the flamingo floatie or launched firework duck during my last game :)

Very cute, fun, and chill like the other "Cats Hidden In" games. Hearing each unique meow makes me smile. Lots of easy achievements!

The fact that the bird eggs crack when you click them made me feel like a bit of a butt, though!

TL;DR: Leaving Lyndow is a very short, relaxing walking simulator with gorgeous scenery and beautiful sound. Bonus: easy achievements. Buy this game if that sounds appealing to you.

The long version: Above anything, Leaving Lyndow is a gorgeous game. Before I even left Clara's bedroom, I was completely enthralled by the environment. I only became more enthralled as I got further into it.

This game is a (very short) walking simulator, which I happen to love, but ymmv. Although the character you play has a ship to catch, you do not need to hurry at any point in the game. It's a very relaxing experience, in which you get to explore different locations at your own pace (I use the word "explore" here because to you, the player, these are new locations, while for your character, they are familiar locations. Player and character have essentially opposite reasons to take their time and look at everything, but it works). Aside from explorable locations, the game includes a couple mini games and/or fetch quests, some of which you need to complete to move on, while others are optional. There isn't a whole lot of story, but it was enough to keep me interested. There's also a surprising amount of worldbuilding and backstory for such a short game with only a few explorable locations (see below, where I talk about things I found intriguing).

As I mentioned, this is a beautiful game. The environment looks both realistic and slightly magical at the same time, due to the fantasy flora and unique architecture. I wanted so badly to explore the scenery in between the enclosed environments you get to visit in the game, but I do understand why they weren't included, seeing as how Leaving Lyndow was apparently intended more as an introduction to another, full-size game, rather than a full game in its own right (I was unaware of this as I played, though).

The music and the sound are also very impressive, although there's no real voice acting for the NPC characters; each one just says a few made up words when you first initiate a conversation, then just stands there in silence for the rest of it. The nature sounds are lovely and the indoor sounds are very convincing, though when you hang out in the tea house for a while, not talking to anyone (like, say, if you're standing by the bead game for five minutes, waiting to get an achievement), you'll notice that it's a pretty short loop. Also, and this is incredibly minor, the background conversation does not sound like the same language as the NPC lines.

As soon as I finished Leaving Lyndow, I immediately replayed it several times, experimenting with resolutions and the FOV slider to get different screenshots (I did experience some motion sickness with the FOV slider set all the way to 90, which I believe is the default). The replays were also needed to get the achievements I missed on my first playthrough; they're all easy enough to get, but you may not get all of them just playing normally. The game is very short, so it took me no time at all to play through several times. The whole experience takes maybe 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how much you explore and stand around taking screenshots.

I will say that it would be nice to have more than one save slot, so you could more easily visit each of the locations, without having to replay from the beginning, but again, the game is very short so it's not that big a deal.

I very much wanted to spend more time in this universe, so I wishlisted Eastshade as soon as I finished Leaving Lyndow and found out about its existence. I can't wait to see what it looks like and learn more about the universe because Leaving Lyndow made me very curious.

As I played, I very quickly became invested in the characters and their world. I feel vaguely sad for Clara's mom, who will be living alone in that large house after losing her husband and now sort of losing her daughter, though she is clearly excited the daughter is getting this opportunity. I am concerned for the uncle, who is so worried about Clara, and especially for the young cousin, who seems unusually obsessed with death. Is he traumatized by what happened to Clara's dad, or did something happen to one of his parents? No second parent is every mentioned, but the kid is clearly going through something and I'm sure Clara's departure is not helping. Maybe all the characters are also traumatized by the disaster that took out a good part of the neighboring town. It's sort of interesting that Clara's loved ones seem to be worried about what may happen to people when they leave the island. On the one hand, this is understandable, considering what happened to the dad, but on the other hand, disaster has also just visited home, so clearly nowhere is safe.

I would love to learn more about the things Clara studies on her expedition. I'm also really curious about more mundane stuff, like the difference between the two homes in the game. Why is one so much larger than the other? I am also intrigued by the lack of light fixtures. The small number of candles seen inside Clara's home is nowhere near adequate to light a space that size. Does that mean the sun doesn't set in this place? Does it set only briefly this time of year? I am so eager to learn more about this world and the characters and I wonder if Eastshade will have answers for me (I understand it's a completely separate story, but I have hopes!) (and yes, I also understand that possibly neither of these things means anything beyond the devs made decisions for out-of-universe reasons :p )

Anyway, I am 100% a fan of Leaving Lyndow and wholeheartedly recommend it to those interested in short, gorgeous, walking-simulator type games.

To be honest, I lack the hand-eye coordination to get past some of the levels in this game and because of that, even though I enjoy the puzzles, I don't think I would like playing it on my own. However, I've had a LOT of fun playing this with friends! Bumbling around this world with companions is very entertaining. I've probably never laughed as hard while playing a game as I did in this one. Some game moments still make me laugh when I think about them years later.

Human Fall Flat is regularly updated with new content and I haven't played in a while so there's lots of levels I haven't even seen yet. Lots of achievements to collect if you're into that, though I suppose it can't really be completed if new ones are added all the time.

I find color-sorting games extremely relaxing, so I immediately bought this one when I came across it. If you're not into the basic premise of moving different colors around until all are in the correct place, you will not enjoy this game. If you do enjoy that sort of thing, this is the game for you. It has 100 different levels and this type of game is basically endlessly replayable. Some levels are very basic, just a single line of color. Others are more elaborate color gradient designs, and some are pixel-style drawings of various sizes, so there is definitely some variety in there. Eye, Caramba also has a set of achievements that is very easy to collect, so that's a bonus.

I really enjoyed the board game Clue when I was a kid, so I was excited to try this video game version with friends. I've had a lot of fun playing it with them. It's a fairly chill game (except maybe when you're racing each other to the endgame :P ) so you can just kinda hang out together and have a nice time. I've also played by myself, but mainly just to make progress on the achievements that take a while to get. Playing on the lowest difficulty setting basically guarantees you a win, so you can make some good progress that way. The AI opponents are not very good at basic deduction (at that setting, I haven't tried any others), so you won't have to race them, but you still have to solve the mystery, so it's not just going through the motions.

I find the design of both the rooms and the characters appealing. Dr. Orchid, who was apparently introduced to replace Mrs. White in the board game some years back, is definitely my favorite. I love her style. The sound design is pretty good too, but it does get a bit annoying when you have to listen to the exact same sound over and over if you and/or other players visit the same room several times in a row.

Some of the note-taking is automated, which I guess is convenient, but may also feel a bit too hand-holdey. The notepad is kind of limited, because you can only enter a small number of symbols. I've encountered a few situations where I wished I could make a different kind of note to remind myself of something or other.

I have only played with the basic characters and basic rooms because the DLC seems WAY overpriced for just some new characters and new rooms. It honestly made me think for a bit on whether or not I could even recommend this game. But, the basic game is still fun enough to be worth it, especially if you buy it on sale. Could be a fun thing to mix up your game night a bit. I'm not into playing with strangers, but that's an option too if you like that sort of thing.

This game showed me which of my friends will shameless betray me. Valuable information! 10/10

I've played lots of Tetris in my life, starting at some point in my childhood. It was so long ago I don't even remember it. Therefore, I assumed I was pretty good at it. This game taught me I was very wrong about that :D I have earned lots of Ds. I'm getting better, though!

The art and especially the music are not really a draw for me. I'm not vibing with the whole hippie vibe or whatever it is. I am, however, totally here for the multitude of different game modes. It's a good time. Check it out if you want to play regular Tetris or weird Tetris.

I enjoyed Hue. The color-changing mechanic is creative and fun. The game looks pretty and I like the colors. The puzzles are entertaining, though in the last few levels they do get a bit convoluted (you need to do a whole list of things in the correct order; if you make a mistake, you have to start over). It's not JUST a puzzle game, though. It's also a platformer. If you play those a lot you'll probably just breeze through, but if, like me, you're a bit of a slow and clumsy gamer, and are maybe not so great at the whole hand–eye coordination thing, some levels will be tricky. I had to do some of the jumps a bunch of times before I could get them right. This can get frustrating, especially if the tricky jump is at the very end of the level and you have to run through all the other slightly-less-tricky jumps to get another shot at it every time you fail. None of it is anywhere near impossible, though.

I was unaware the game had collectibles when I started and I will need to run through again to collect them because I missed many. Some are behind what looks like solid walls and I never would have noticed if I hadn't read about it.

Hue works well and looks good on Steam Deck.