Recent reviews by baukereg

Fun cozy game that kept me engaged for six hours to complete all missions and earn all achievements, just in time before it got repetitive. Yes, you can (and should!) pet the cats.

Game of the Year 2023, don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

Stacklands is a fun mix of Cultist Simulator (but less obscure) and Forager (but less grindy). Everything is represented by cards: characters. buildings, resources etc. You stack cards to create new cards. The new Island content adds a great twist to the game. It took me 16 hours to finish all quests and obtain a 100% cardopedia.

A short game about a spirit that needs to help other spirits who are stuck in the afterlife to pass on. The game blends beautiful graphics and not-too-hard puzzles with topics like self doubt, depression and loneliness. The voice over and the music are doing a wonderful job to create a very sad but also wholesome atmosphere. A special game that hit the right emotion with me.

Sable is a game with some technical issues, but nothing serious to keep me from being totally immersed in this beautiful world full of strange characters. The art is mesmerizing and the writing is spot on. As an open world game it understands that a map shouldn't be littered with pointers. Its design strikes a near perfect balance between number of quests, secrets to find and distances to travel. The climbing is basic but never frustrating, and finding the best routes to reach the highest spots was satisfying. I finished the game in 7 hours but spent thrice as much time to finish all quests, find all secrets and gather all collectibles. Enjoyed every second of it.

A lovely wholesome adventure that put a smile on my face from start to finish. This is how an open world game is supposed to be: compact and full of content. Trying to find all the animals and photograph them is fun. I enjoyed it a lot as an adult, but the educational aspect of the game makes it also very suitable for children. Lovely, the world needs more games like this.

Overboard! is a great "getting away with murder" game taking place on a cruise ship. Each run (around 20-30 minutes) starts with you getting up in the morning after killing your husband the night before. The objective is to avoid being accused of murder, or even better, to put the blame on someone else. With each run you get to know the other characters better, learn about their schedules and secrets, and understand how you can manipulate or frame them. I didn't enjoy Heaven's Vault mainly due to the boring exploration and trying to do too much. Overboard! is a smaller game stripped down to the core elements Inkle does best: a text adventure build around deep and dynamic dialog trees. Highly recommended.

My favorite game of this year so far, Signs of the Sojourner resolves around understanding each other in dialogue despite having different characters. The card game might looks to lack depth, but don't be fooled: it's the perfect metaphor for what it tries to accomplish. At the start of the game you are surrounded by like-minded people and dialogues are easy. But the farther you travel the more otherwise-minded people you'll meet. Even if you talk past each other they'll have an impact on you. So by the time you return home, working things out with your long time friends might won't be that easy anymore. The story is personal and compelling, and the music is great as well. It's impossible to visit all places and meet all characters during one play through, so I'll definitely come back to this piece of art once more.

Another great puzzle game by Draknek. Compared to Cosmic Express this game is a more chill out experience. The ambience is soothing and the puzzles aren't too hard, yet there are enough difficulty spikes if you want to find all the secrets. New mechanics, or rather new ways to solve puzzles, are introduced at a slow pace as well, and the open world design lends itself perfectly for that. It's also an educational game if you'd like to learn more about the famous nation of Englandland. XD

I killed my first wife, imprisoned my second wife and tortured her, married my sister to my grandson, discovered my wife is dating my own son, betrothed my 13 years old daughter to a 48 years old neighbour to form an alliance, abducted and killed a foreign king after blackmailing his spy master, and went completely lunatic for scheming too much. Paradox is doing it again, hail to the King!