Recent reviews by löyly

As someone who's very much into peaceful story-driven games and not so much into deckbuilders, I'd recommend this game so far... for people who are more into deckbuilders than I am.

I really appreciate that the dev keeps trying to do things differently and better (I've got another one of their games waiting in my backlog). I love the idea of using the card "battle" mechanics for debates. The fantasy story of overconsumption and a movement to save the climate mana well is super wholesome.
In practice, I don't know. The tutorial is alright, but the challenge level of some pretty early encounters was more than what I was comfortable with as a beginner and filthy casual. Maybe it's intentional so you can enjoy your wins more later (I had to stop playing for now).
I also found the constant laughter (without anything being funny) and the electronic music so annoying that I didn't last 5 minutes before turning them off.

Still, I'm intrigued enough that I feel like giving it another try later. So for actual fans of deckbuilders who'd like to try a new kind of setting and goal, this is probably a great game.

- to be updated -

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

Please don't read that negative review if you're interested in playing - it made a major plot twist obvious :/ I can give you a summary of the criticism with only very general spoilers: "No deaths and too much woke".

I actually love stories with mysteries to find out of, but I don't usually play detective style games because they are all dramatic with murders and stuff. The whole concept also feels a bit, I don't know, worn out to me. So this lighthearted little "mystery comedy" with its fantasy setting was right up my alley.

It's short, but I really enjoyed my time with it. The animations, the writing, the sound design (though a bit too electronic for my taste) - everything seems to be professionally done except the marketing bit I guess. It also pretty much oozes "we're establishing a world to base more games in" and I have no objections.
One of my favourite details was the character from a tree-like race sprouting different flowers depending on the mood of her current dialogue. I was able to identify 7 different expressions supported by vegetation :D

Gameplay is very simple. You click on everything, advance dialogues, make some decisions. You can activate an auto-read function and adjust its speed. During the trial you have to pick the relevant pieces of evidence, but you can get hints and try again. If you forgot to collect some evidence or don't feel like searching everything and exhausting all dialogue options, an assistant will take care of it. And if you really didn't want that whole puzzle part, you can choose to skip it (manually for each section) and just read the story.

From what I've gathered there's technically only one ending. If you're an "it's the journey, not the destination" kind of person then you might still want to explore different options though. There are some decisions that affect dialogue lines throughout the game. The order in which you investigate can also change/add minor dialogue lines.
AND you can actually influence some of the outcome behind the scenes. There's a dilemma involved, and things leave comedy grounds for some actually touching dialogues. To get this branch: choose to talk to Zircon during the trial recess, and preferably also for the final conversation.

There's honestly not much I disliked about this game. I found some of the facial expressions a bit exaggerated, but that's not surprising for a cartoony comedy. Loading saves is a bit convoluted. I would have liked to toggle off text shake in addition to screen shake. Apparently this is literally their first game, so this is very promising.

Definitely one of those tiny indie releases that I wish would get more attention.

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

This is probably the most unpolished game I've seen with "overwhelmingly positive" reviews - probably because of childhood nostalgia and Westerners loving Japan. It is charming, too. As a pretty patient player I agree that it's worth it.
The game captures what it's like to be a child visiting grandma with nothing special to do. I found myself slipping into the role, just roaming around and leaving things on the floor, doors and windows open, exploring everything. As the game progresses, we see the kid's vivid imagination represented in the environment. The house and interactions, for me, are a mixture of familiar 90's or so and an interesting glimpse into Japanese culture. The rainy visuals and sounds are impeccable.

If the controls and interactions with items were better, this would be a perfect little walking sim. It's still a pleasant hour, or less if you're in a hurry. But why would you play this game while you're in a hurry?

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

This is honestly such an all-around high quality game it's scandalous that it's free now and has still gotten this little attention. Not that I'm so much better - I got a review copy years ago and never prioritised it for some reason.

Basically I loaded the title/menu and immediately thought I should have checked this one out sooner. It struck me as really well designed right from the start. The art is lovely, and there are a few nice effects bringing some more life into it, like the 2.5D effect in the intro or the sparkling of the lake water in the sun.
You can choose between a boyish and a girlish looking character, but the choice doesn't affect the story and you'll be referred to with they/them pronouns - maybe they just didn't want to bother with the extra coding, but I'm not complaining :D
It took me a bit to notice that the name tags in dialogues, looking like wooden signs, were customised with colours, shapes and symbols for each individual NPC - a nice touch and great help for remembering who is who.
The music switched around with the atmosphere and surroundings, between idyllic and eerie Halloween-ish, very cool.
I really enjoyed the writing, too. Skilful even with rhymes (which is frustratingly rare among game writers who try to write rhymes), and often very funny.
There's no "real" gameplay with puzzles or anything, but personally I didn't miss it. You get quite a few choices for activities/company that create replay value, some dialogue options, and you trace sigils (with no real difficulty) to cast spells. I ended up lying on the sofa with my laptop and just a touchpad for maximum comfiness.

A few things I didn't find so great:
I missed a back button for when I was too trigger-happy with the clicking.
I'm wondering if there was a save issue - I thought I saved my progress before I left for a longer break, but I had to play an entire evening again. Not really a big deal though, I just tapped through it all on my laptop's touchpad.
I could have done without the talk about using animal parts for witch stuff (nothing that was actually done during the game), and without being told about how much "I" enjoy food that I'd never eat or like. There's quite a lot that isn't for the very squeamish in other (not too graphic) ways, which were fine with me personally.
Speaking of food, it's a running gag how food-obsessed the very round squirrel companion is. Not sure how IRL bigger people would feel about that. I found it a little bit questionable, but not really mean-spirited.

I've seen the ending criticised, but I honestly loved it and it made me more emotional than most of those "emotional" games with reviews about how much people cried. There was a pretty dramatic scene towards the end, but no time pressure or skill involved, and (general outcome) nothing really bad happens.
I found it VERY well played that there were some metaphorical neon plot signs that made me think "ok, it's a kids' game, I can totally see the reveal coming already", but (very general about the direction it's taking) then they just kind of let you assume or wonder about those things while adding something that never crossed my mind. I'm impressed!
There IS a lot of potential for sequels, though sadly that's unlikely to happen.

My first playthrough took 5 very casual hours with many little breaks and sending live updates and screenshots to someone. Definitely looking forward to a few more some other time!

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

What does that title even mean? What am I supposed to do? Why is wind stored in glowing orbs? Why are there wandering lights and why do they stop my movement? Why am I chasing a huge neon green orb across the meadow? Why is "challenge mode" ON by default and what does it do?
I have so many questions and I don't really care about getting any of them answered. Rage quit because I couldn't get out of the field with the stupid lights. Apparently my very tedious progress wasn't saved, so I'm not coming back.

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

This is a less enthusiastic recommendation than I would have liked to give. There are so many little issues and annoyances, and apparently I wasn't feeling invested enough to take notes and give detailed feedback. It is quite an original experience though, and I love that it focuses on a group of animals that most people barely seem to perceive as living beings.

I guess I'm not very firmly in the target group. I'm not a big fan of pet games or creature collectors. I generally don't like minigames. I'm not into pixel art either. I don't even have a strong opinion on bugs, except that we shouldn't bother them.
I do like relaxing games with interesting stories, I have a soft spot for science stuff, and I find restoring ecosystems super satisfying. So I checked out the demo, and something drew me in.

The full game was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The bugs are really well done, with some super cute animations. I guess disliking a lot of the minigames is on me lol. They mostly require quick reactions and timing, as minigames tend to do.
I'm a slow player who likes to look around, read object descriptions and stuff like that, and sometimes tab out to check messages etc. so the pace outside of the minigames suited me rather nicely.
The story was some vague "corporations bad", which I'm on board with but I would have liked to see it more fleshed out. Plus some budding romance apparently, which I generally roll my eyes at but here I actually kind of liked it.
There were some very cool bug facts, though I hated getting them as a "reward" when I was trying to grind for bug poo (which you want to have lots of, obviously!) or decorations.
I loved seeing the landscape gradually restored.
I usually avoid games where characters die, but here it felt natural enough and I didn't get so attached that it felt really bad. I focused on giving those little bugs their best possible life, taking nice pics that would show up as memories, and writing little (optional) obituaries that described their personalities.

The one bad thing that I remember well is that you can't seem to stop in-game time at all, not even by pressing ESC for the menu. That's just really WTF - are we supposed to quit the game completely or let our bugs feel neglected and maybe die alone every time we need to go to the loo, make a cup of tea, answer the phone or whatever?

Overall the game felt quite unpolished. Which I guess is normal for a fresh release these days, and they did promise updates. I don't really regret buying it, though maybe I should have waited for a better discount and some of those updates.
Recommended for bug and/or tamagotchi lovers who are at least fine with the minigames. If you feel less strongly then maybe wait a bit.

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

It's a Hidden Object game with cute graphics and a little twist that the name hints at. The objects you need to find are split in two parts. This is often done so cleverly that it's quite a challenge to find them, though the hint function makes it easy if you want to give up.
I found it weird at first, then weirdly fun. I'm still not really a HOG person, and I got a bit tired of finding war toys and stuff like that (in 2 out of the 3 chapters I've played). Not the kind of vibes I feel like, especially with how tense things are irl these days. It obviously doesn't seem like a big part of the game though.
If HOGs are your kind of thing then you could probably do worse (:

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

Now THIS is a game I can whole-heartedly recommend for child-free adults like myself even though it's made for kids + parents. Can you look at that goofy piglet and tell me you don't want to let him journey through the forest, meet characters like a rabbit that's definitely not Morpheus ordered from Wish, eat vegetable soups, and clean goo off his friends?

I'm not very interested in card games of any kind, but I've been having a blast with this one. It's fresh and original, beautifully done, and just SO DANG CUTE I can't get over it.

I love it when games get creative and use "combat" systems for wholesome purposes. I love the detailed background art, the imaginative cards and mechanics, and of course Nif Nif in particular <3 You can (and should, for progression) also play Cat, which spices things up with different cards (not just visually), a different personality, and different dialogues during events.

The game is divided into rounds (across the forest map) that let your character collect points and level up. Before starting a new round, you can switch character, hat and skins that can be unlocked, and later tend to your vegetables and make soup for bonuses. After about 14 hours of playtime I've maxed out both characters' levels, but there are still a few minor unlocks and some achievements left.
You can switch between accounts/slots for up to 3 players, which is obviously nice for families - or curious partners or roommates (:

The main thing I found lacking when playing pre-release was a better tutorial. I would have hoped for more story or interactions outside of those question mark places on the map too, or that we could at least click on the freshly cleaned creatures for a small reaction. It didn't take me much getting used to though. I do agree with the game description that it's approachable also for beginners.

It's also worth noting that several weeks before release, the "closed beta" that I got to play was already in much better shape than many "full" releases nowadays. I've found the overall experience impressively smooth. The active dev on Discord insisted there were bugs, but I think I might have noticed a total of 1.

Very much a "just one more round" feelgood game for me! And the good/bad thing about playing it as an adult is that no one can stop me because it's way past my bed time (:

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

I did give this game priority because of the important topic, but thankfully there's no need to play it out of a sense of moral duty. You can play it because it's actually interesting. As I already said about the demo, it could easily have been a well-meaning idea that lacks in execution, but I've found it really well done and engaging.

It's not a traditional Visual Novel. There's a little meta game for unlocking memories/chapters that I think is a brilliant idea. You get to pick and choose between different slices of life with different themes, and you gradually unlock more. Some of them will be pretty harmless everyday scenes (except for hints at past events or a character's feelings, and events can be referred to in general terms). Some will have more difficult content and are marked in the chapter selection. You'll have to choose almost all chapters to unlock the final scene, but if anything gets too much then you can skip at any time - including right at the start of the scene to nope out completely.

During the memories, you get some freedom in what to comment on, how to say things etc. And interestingly, you mostly don't "play" as the protagonist, but as the people around him.
There's obviously quite a lot of text, but I didn't find it too overwhelming. Thankfully, there's also an auto read function. As well as a whole list of accessibility features that even got their own post.
I missed a back button, but there is a journal where you can read the entire text for each chapter you've played through.
The dialogues and characters felt mostly believable, though the English version could be a little better.
It's obviously an "emotional" story, and I've played a bunch of those that just seemed to try hard to make me feel things. This one always felt genuine to me. Like it didn't expect me to react in a certain way. It felt respectful to both its characters and its players.

This game gives us one story, and as the description says a hopeful one. There's one scene in particular though where other voices are given space, other experiences, other outcomes. I found that a really good addition, showing that there are many different stories about this.

Recommended for... Those with similar experiences who are ready to confront them at least a little? Those with loved ones who have or might have similar experiences? Those with children or planning to have them? Those who want to get better at understanding people, or just like VNs about social relationships? Those who've always wanted to build an amusement park with a talking orca as your guide...

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.

I got a review copy sent to my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories which has the description "for sensitive souls and chilling out". It seems like a decent game but honestly, why did you send this to me?

It started out gritty but ok for me personally. I actually found the first part of chapter 1 quite refreshing. It's not often we get to see an older woman portrayed as fiercely independent, NOT loving her family, and generous with "bad" words. She's not a nice person, but she's aware of that and we get to understand how she ended up that way. I appreciated that part of the story. I also quite enjoyed the whole mystery part.
Towards the end of chapter 1, it gets pretty creepy and firmly into "informational" territory for the purposes of my curator.

For chapter 2, I'd like to put a big question mark behind the "light" in "light psychological horror" from the game description. I don't want to spoil things for those who'll be fine, but the psychological/emotional abuse gets severe, there's a manipulative and tyrannical entity, implied violence, someone we'd have grown to care about is basically tortured and neglected to death, and then your character ends up being effectively killed after a dramatic scene. Oh, and there's a sort of surprise reveal involving the killing of a baby. Good times!

FWIW there are no visuals of the violent parts, only some creepiness. It's all pretty static in fact, and it also seemed completely linear to me during the first two chapters. It's mainly a LOT of clicking with no auto read function that I was aware of, and switching of backgrounds and character positions as I guess is usual for VNs.
Heads up that there are some "glitchy" text effects and I didn't find an option to turn them off.

I don't think I'm going to check out chapter 3. There may be some good and insightful dialogue between awful things again, but I'd rather play something nicer. It also seemed to descend even further into stuff that's not mentioned on the store page and that only people who've played other titles by the same dev might expect.
Basically, the game description seems to be entirely about the first chapter, with 2 and 3 mentioned as some sort of bonus. But honestly chapter 1 by itself didn't give me any sense of closure.

Recommended for those who are actually in the target group.

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If you like chill and story-driven games, check out my curator Peaceful Adventures and Stories. You're also welcome to join the group.