Évaluations récentes de rwelean

I liked this experiment in adapting the Cyrano story to videogame format. I think the love letters could have been more fun to write if we had had any background with Roxane or a letter to reply to. I didn't care for the JRPG-style combat. I would have rather had a weird computer algorithm "grade" my love letters! Of course, the ending is the same no matter what your love letters are, so maybe that's not really the point.

I really enjoyed this Life is Strange game. The story and characters compelled me to... actually finish a game, and the gameplay was engaging enough (and hints plentiful enough) that I never got stuck wondering what I was supposed to do. I like how the characters each had their own motivations and the way your choices in interactions with them affected your relationship (with little gifting involved).

I didn't like how your brother dies pretty soon after meeting him, but I understand how it was necessary for your character to have the necessary motive to dig into corporate corruption. There are a few carefree interactions with your new friends, but they are quickly tinged with tragedy to keep the plot going. The full possibilities of Alex's powers weren't fully explored, but at least there were some significant decisions with choosing to "take" someone's emotion in two cases{/spoiler]. I also forgot about her ability to "sense" feelings attached to different objects about two chapters in and I wish the game had given me a little reminder of that. Ah well. I would play again, but the cutscenes aren't skippable, even if you've seen them before.

I really enjoyed this family drama set in Alaska. The gameplay is mostly making choices in your conversations. It's actually how much you agree with your sibling and if you confess the truth to Eddie that affects the ending the most. Your other decisions do affect the ending, but most of those are conveyed through letters you can read in the final scene. I think having the right expectations for how much your choices "matter" can help with how much you can enjoy the game, which is why I mention it.

The dialogue was excellent. The parts where you can choose which memory to "believe" give interesting insights in how the stories we tell ourselves about the past shape how we view ourselves in the present. One of the characters is trans, and unlike most games with trans people, it's not a dramatic reveal halfway through the game--it's clear from the start. I feel like role-playing as a trans man helped me feel more empathy for many trans people who express that acceptance from others is really important to them. While Tyler's status as a trans man is important in the first chapter, the game's main focus is revealing the events leading up to your mother's death. The complex relationships Mary-Ann had with her community members help paint the picture of her situation. I do feel like her alcoholism was not adequately addressed. If she didn't have money for food, how was she getting alcohol? I also felt like the big reveal in chapter 3--that Mary-Ann had a baby who died as an infant--was not foreshadowed at all and felt kind of tacked-on. There was some hints that Officer Holt was somehow involved, but they weren't explained in my playthrough. I was also expecting the scissors to wash ashore and trigger a dramatic flashback, since they weren't discovered at the scene. Overall, even though there were parts of the narrative I wanted more explanation for, I still enjoyed the story.

This is a stat-crunching game that is reminiscent of Princess Maker 2, however, I wasn't impressed with the first hour of play. The writing was not good. The tutorials felt like a chore, and there weren't very many interesting parenting decisions.

I started playing this game towards the end of my pandemic year staying at home with my children. It was kind of a fantasy to me, to be alone with my thoughts, to have all the time in the world to sit and read, and to enjoy atmospheric silence. I liked the existential question posed by the game where your god is sleeping. It was also a nice game to play while feeding my toddler, because it did not require any fast responses. I loved the music. I ended up drawing out a map of my own to keep track of where everything was. It would have been nice to have a mini-map in-game (besides the one tied to a certain location). I didn't get past the mushroom caves... but I did awaken the king of the mountain, to a depressing result.

This is a great game to chill to. There are repetitive tasks like raising crops and cooking, which alternate with exploring new islands and doing quests. No crazy boss fights or dying.

This is a great sci-fi visual novel that tackles themes relating to technology and mental health. Ethics, technological limitations, data safety, transparency, tech industry pitfalls, and transhumanism were more specifically addressed. The way that you're asked to give a keynote when you work for Reiner, but your conference submission is rejected if you go independent, felt like a subtle, but funny jab. There were some philosophical discussions that made me feel really deep and smart for caring about them, which is one of my favorite parts of cyberpunk science fiction. I appreciated how the authors had Evelyn reign in the way people attributed feelings or intuition to Eliza, when she obviously followed a computer program (even if it was a complex one).

While I enjoyed the writing, I'm not sure about the game design. I've been working for years on my own visual novel where I painstakingly track player choices that affect situations later in the game. So I felt a little upset that my choices aren't tracked at all and only change a few immediate responses. There was so much potential for amazing branches in the session you yourself have, which Reinier could have used in a conversation further down the road. I looked at the story chart in the guides on steam and I guess your decisions do matter when you decide not to say what Eliza suggests and support your clients more sincerely. I wish that the decision there, that felt so important, had any impact on the main storyline. On the other hand, I loved being able to skip to the end and see all of the endings without replaying the entire game. I actually read all the endings, which I rarely do with VNs that I myself play. Each ending was satisfying.

There is no tutorial and the controls and stats are very unintuitive. I thought my 5-year-old would enjoy playing this game with me, but I couldn't even understand the possible actions, let alone the goal of this game.

A detective game that requires your detective skills to determine the fate of the 60 people aboard the Obra Dinn. Each death has a static 3D scene that you can explore, and Pope uses these scenes to give just enough information to figure out who's who. There were one or two deaths that I felt were excessively difficult, but I was pleasantly surprised to be able to deduce most of them without hints. Zooming in on a person and then defining who they are with tab is a useful part of the UI that I wasn't sure how to use at first, but then it became my favorite way to edit their identities.

Afterwards I read through a chronological story summary, and not all the deaths make sense to me 100% (some crew members seem excessively violent to me), but I appreciate that it was necessary for the story to unfold a certain way. The way the possible death list shows different options for deaths sets a foreboding foreshadowing that is absolutely followed through. I usually don't like horror games, but this neo-Victorian creatures-of-the-deep story was just my speed. The music and sound design were fantastic and I found myself thinking of the music throughout the day. I would love to play more games like this.

I loved the game mechanic of finding keywords from videos and using them to find more videos. The story itself is complex, and visual cues are important to figuring out what the story is. I didn't piece together everything on my own, but I felt pretty satisfied with the clues I did put together. A brief but unique and rewarding game.