Recently Played: Forgotten, Not Lost – A Kinetic Novel (Summer Sale)

Prepare to be hit in the feels because this game does not sugarcoat anything. It takes the truth and dresses it up in a tomato costume.

That’s right, a tomato costume.

Forgotten, Not Lost is a visual novel (“kinetic” – I’ll explain later) by Afterthought Studios, a small dev team composed of five people who have made a number of titles, including A More Beautiful World.

The story is centered around an old man who lives with his wife, Madalene, in a small house in the village of Memoria (symbolism!). Right off the bat, we are treated to a short series of depressing revelations and events in the same vein as Up and The Notebook. The old man has immense difficulty remembering aspects of his life that are so significant that even he feels awful not having the ability to recall them. Heck, the story opens with his inability to recognize his wife’s face. Yeah, that’s an immediate hit to the feels.

Recently Played: VA-11 HALL-A (Summer Sale)

Do you like bartending? Do you like visual novels? Well, I’ve got a game for you.

VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartending Action is a game that combines mixing drinks with all of the cute anime girl cyberpunk aesthetic you need alongside some infuriating minigame cruelty.

If you’re curious about the “Holy shit” surtitle, it’s because the game spent a long time in development and was only *just* released this past June (2016). The prologue version, which came first, will supposedly be released for free on Steam at some point.

In VA-11 HALL-A (“Valhalla” being the pronunciation/”actual name”), you step into the shoes of Jill, a relatively lonely and depressed bartender working at one of many franchise bars in Glitch City. The year is sometime after 2070 CE (AD in-game, but I like to keep with the times).

Recently Played: Cat President ~A More Purrfect Union~

This game was purrrrrchased for me by a very kind friend who shamelessly encourages my love of visual novels and dating sims. Thanks, friend!

A game like this couldn’t have come at a better time. Hot of the presses (released on Steam just yesterday), Cat President ~A Purrfect Union~ (by Oh, a Rock! Studios) contains both playful political parody and adorable cat pictures.

Perfect.

Or should I say … purrfect.

Recently Played: A Little Lily Princess (Summer Sale)

Crawling my way through my Steam sale purchases (seems like eons ago …), I decided to plunk down and play A Little Lily Princess, a visual novel by Hanabira (published by Hanako Games, who also published Long Live the Queen). Since I’m an absolute sucker for games involving innocent girls falling in love with other girls, this was totally up my alley.

Based on the 1905 novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (who also penned The Secret Garden), the player is sent through the everyday experiences of Sara Crewe, the only daughter of a wealthy English widower living abroad in India. At this time in Sara’s life, she has been sent to London to live at a boarding school while her father continues his business in India. As horrible as this sounds, Sara lives in lavish comfort provided by the school at her father’s insistence.

Recently Played: Rusty Lake Hotel (Summer Sale)

Disclaimer: I meant to release this series during the sale itself, but I moved from a house to an apartment during the latter part of the sale and haven’t really been on my computer much since. So, time to work through a backlog of games before I start job-hunting!

Rusty Lake Hotel is an odd little puzzle game part of the Cube Escape series (found here) by the team at Rusty Lake (link to developer blog). Each game connects to the others and there are often little clues or codes that you can use to unlock secrets from game to game.

Recently Played: Firewatch

This one’s more of a “Recently Finished”, really. Recently being stretched to over a month ago.

I started playing Firewatch ages ago, but only got around to finishing it fairly recently. Well, I wish I hadn’t put it off because what a game.

Recently Played: This War of Mine – The Little Ones DLC

I’ve posted before about how much I enjoy This War of Mine. When I saw that they had made a new DLC that added features to the game, I knew I had to snap it up. Let me just say, it is so worth it.

The Little Ones adds a new facet to the game’s existing emotional turmoil. As the name suggests, that’s some adorable children. This may sound like a pain in the ass, but I was pleased to find out that children are actually more useful than you’d think. Don’t worry, you can only have one child per story, so you won’t find yourself running an unofficial daycare. The developers, 11 bit studios, have added new stories to play alongside the original ones, so you aren’t stuck playing every game with a child in the mix.

While the idea of children suffering through war with adults is even more heartbreaking than the original game itself, it’s a very real reality for children around the world and throughout history. On the Steam store page, the developers said regarding the game:

“From our perspective, adding children to the experience was the most important move to complete the big picture. But it required utmost respect for victims of war, so understandably, we wanted to present the topic without any gratuitous gore. In fact, our goal was to show how little ones perceive the reality of an armed conflict.”

You’ll be pleased to know that, like the previous DLC, the price of purchase includes a $1.00 donation to the War Child charity.

Announcement! Steam Summer Sale Series

Try saying that five times fast.

Awful alliteration aside, I’ve got a series of reviews coming your way as I play through all of my Steam Summer Sale impulse buys (that I made very responsibly by limiting myself to a $100 CAD budget).

On our roster (so far) we have, in no particular order:

1. Influent*
   
2. Aviary Attorney
3. VA-11 HALL-A
4. Forgotten, Not Lost – A Kinetic Novel
5. A Little Lily Princess
6. Season of 12 Colors
7. Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle

*I’m playing the Korean language-learning version, as I wanted to refresh my knowledge and learn new words.

I’m very excited to finally have more games in my library that I will get around to playing whenever I can/feel up to it. I know that this selection is pretty much half visual novel, half language learning, but I’m pretty stoked to play all of these and share my thoughts with you!

I’d love to hear about the games you’ve recently bought in the sale or are planning to pick up. Leave a comment!

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On a more personal note, life has been hectic lately. I know I say that a lot, but this time it really is.

Right now, we’re dealing with a broken water heater that was leaking and flooding the basement (we opted to shut off the water altogether and have had to walk to McDonalds to use the bathroom for *ahem* no. 2s), a house guest arriving this weekend, as well as an upcoming move to an apartment! That doesn’t even include the other stuff going on for my co-dictator of the universe involving college preparations.

After we’re set up in the apartment, looking for work will be my top priority. So, I’ll likely opt to play the smaller games/VNs for stress relief. Thankfully, I’m well-stocked in that department now.

In a fit of excited graduation feelings, I decided to take advantage of the post-graduation credit offered to me by the university. Alumni get a sum of money to put towards any School of Continuing Studies course they wish, provided the money covers the cost of the course. Since I am a language nerd, I’ve decided that I’m going to take a course in beginner Dutch, starting in October.

When it comes to stress levels and having too many things on my plate, as with dessert buffets, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. Let’s see how all of this goes. Wish me luck!

 

Recently Played: Kingdom

I have a soft spot for three things: pixel art, resource-based strategy games, and fantasy RPGs.Thankfully, Kingdom encompasses all three of these categories. I set out into the world as a queen clad in a yellow dress and tiara, riding on the back of my lovely horse for what would be the first of many attempts.

Recently Played: The Silent Age

This was a game I hadn’t heard of before my friend picked it up for me in a Steam sale. He knows I like point-and-click games (as well as anything with a good story), so he was very kind and got it for me (thank you!).