Recent reviews by Sassamifrass

This game nails the vibes, the story and the satisfaction for thinking through your choices.

Particularly recommend for anyone who likes detective/mystery stories, AI (actual AI, not generative 'AI') stories, and clean, focused storytelling that gives you food for thought.

Even if you don't normally play narrative-focused games, if you like the sound of the themes here, I think you will be glad you checked this out.

I look forward to replaying with the developer commentary on later this week. Worth the full price, no question in my mind.

My only complaint about the previous game, West of Loathing, was that I wanted even _more_ content. I wasn't done running around meeting goofy characters, doing goofy side quests, and reading top shelf gags. Shadows of Loathing scratches this itch, with additional spoops for good measure.

If you enjoy well-written games with a satisfying array of variations to your experience based on your choices, this is a great option. You don't need to have played West of Loathing to enjoy this, though I recommend you do anyway, because: it's good.

Reminds me of playing Golden Axe as a kid, only way more satisfying. If you get a dopamine hit from clearing the screen of increasingly tough enemies and powering up a character with boss loot, you may enjoy this. It's a game that is easy to play when you're too tired/braindead to play something that requires more strategic planning than "try not to die".

Unlocks and progression are paced really well, and I like experimenting with the synergies of the various weapons and upgrades. Also, the theme is just really fun - I like the weapon/upgrade names and the environments/enemies a lot. I'd love to see some fun story elements added in for each character - progress them through each level and get a little more backstory type thing - but it's not necessary at all as an addition to the game, would just give me another thing to unlock/enjoy and motivate me to complete every level with every character.

The music is enjoyable but unobtrusive enough that you can listen to it loop for hours and not start getting a twitchy brain. They've nailed the musical stings for the treasure chests also, I have to nod my head in time every time I hear them.

First game to make me cry just by complimenting my deck building skill. No, really. It was... a Moment. Leshy... I'm wrecked. How did you go from being Stank Captor to Proud Dad. I'm not okay.

Now that I've finished the game, I've gone back to replay again. I had no idea how much I enjoyed gameplay like this until now (I've enjoyed offline deck building games before, but never found a video game version I liked prior to Inscryption (probably because I don't like online multiplayer against randos... salty, salty randos). I'm hugely looking forward to just spending more time experimenting with my deck builds in each of the three acts.

The story is fun, the meta is fun, the gameplay is BANGIN'. Do yourself a favour and play this before you know too much about the game. That said, even if you do get spoiled for the overall plot arc stuff, thanks to how incredibly fun it is to play, you'll still have a great time. My only wish would be for even more boss battles and challenges to complete after finishing the main plot.

Kinda hoping that PO3 was successful, cursed data and all so that we can get exactly that with DLC or a sequel... just give me longer campaigns on Leshy's map, some new challenges on the four Scrybes map and more opportunities to be a turbo nerd with PO3.

That said, I can 100% see why the game doesn't deliver endless bosses and challenges... the main plot is just so tightly planned, the boss battles so beautifully fine-tuned, the L O R E so more-ish. It takes a huge amount of work and play-testing to produce something so polished, and adding more bosses etc. while trying to keep them all as engaging would be very difficult. Buuuuuuuut... still so much room for post-game content... so, uh, I'm gonna make a wish on a start button rn. I NEED THAT PIRATE BOSS BATTLE YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW.

also: Inscryption merch. i want some. let me plaster my face with stoat stickers. i beg u.

The moral of the story seems to be "aiming for perfection is dangerous/unhealthy/tornado" and as a recovering perfectionist, I resemble this.

But also, when I play a choice-driven game, what I'm looking for is to indulge in the fantasy of having an impact on the world around me, but the thing is, in both endings, sure, you have an impact of a sort, but also YOUR EP 1-4 CHOICES DON'T EVEN MATTER NO MATTER WHICH ENDING YOU GET. Save Chloe? Okay, well, every other relationship in the game you developed, every minor NPC plot thread is now negated, because they're all dead. You don't save Chloe? Cool, all your interactions with characters in the world are now negated, because total universe reboot.

Also the other message of the game feels basically like "determinism is real, chloe was meant to die, the universe will punish everyone around you if you diverge from the Fated Path, which, that is the most depressing thing ever? Basically, 'let it be' and have your powers mean NOTHING and let The Kindly Ones snip Chloe out of existence, or, kill an entire town??????? ?This is some real old testament sheet going on here.

So I went from being insanely invested in the small stories of everyone in town, to, after the ending, feeling utterly, totally empty. And not in a fun catharsis way. Just in a staring-into-the-void-of-depression way.

I'd previously been really excited to immediately replay LiS, to experience a totally new set of choices and therefore a different "feel" to the main narrative, even if it didn't diverge in terms of major plot beats. But after that ending, I was just, 'what's the point?'

Who cares if you were nice to the bully or not, if the binary endings mean that decision ultimately meant nothing?

Okay, okay, I get the artistic vision they're going for with this ending binary. Max is changed, even if nothing else is. But oh boy Episode 5 was not for me. I felt tricked. I just wanted more of the world I encountered in Episode 1? But instead all I got was misery and then... emptiness.

I just wanted to walk down the hallways listening to music with Max again, and go to class, and have stupid interactions with people. So, ultimately, what I wanted was at odds with what the game is meant to be. But yeah, if you try episode 1 for free and think oh boy I want four more of these.... you may be disappointed.

If you play this game hoping for an artistic experience and an engaging story, you will probably enjoy this. But if you're like me and you get your jollies from walking away from a narrative game feeling like your choices played a part in shaping the narrative in minute ways? That even if there were two endings, the endings felt like yours because of all the choices you made leading up to them? Nah, bro.

It's been five years since I played this episode and yeah, I'm still mad about it :P

(It says I have zero hours in game because I played this in offline mode after moving house and waiting for the internet to be connected).

This and House Flipper are my two go-to games when I want to unwind late at night, while listening to a podcast. No massive adrenaline rush to mess with your eventual sleep, just a little burst of satisfaction as you see stations grow cleaner and more functional.

I played through about two thirds of the levels in early access, now I'm replaying with the full game. Re-doing the levels I've seen before has still been enjoyable, particularly now that we have more items to place and can change the textures on the walls/floors/ceilings.

When it comes to tool upgrades, my recommendation is to go with ones for your task-finding tool before anything else, at least if you want to aim to 100% areas without wandering for _too_ long.

Some of the graffiti made me laugh, a shame to remove it :P

If I was to add anything else to the game, it'd be silly event props, like adding spooky Halloween decorations, or Christmas decorations, etc. The game is fine as it is, though!

I haven't reached a point where I can place a train on the miniature railway yet, but I'm really looking forward to it! If there's ever a game just focused on designing hyper detailed miniature railways, complete with lighting options and pose-able people and animals etc, I'm so there.

Watching a house slowly grow tidier and more put-together is the closest I have ever gotten to how I think I'm meant to feel when I try to meditate. Also, this made me miss mowing lawns, which is nothing short of a miracle. I could almost smell the cut grass.

You can get brief release from the knowledge that the dream of fully owning your own home IRL is basically setting your finances difficulty level to Nightmare Mode, all for the price of a video game.

I never thought there would be a Steam game that would blow my XCOM: Enemy Unknown play time out of the water. And yet here we are.

I'm installing this on my non-gaming ultraportable right now, because next month I spend about 48 hours on planes, with the longest single flight at 16 hours hours, and Rimworld is the only game I have ever played where... yeah... I played it for more than 16 hours in one sitting.

You thought Civilisation 2 (still my fave Civ) is a "just one more turn" sort of game? Rimworld will grab you for one more _life_.

I decided to try it out when I read it was a horror game that didn't rely on gore or jumps scares. Albino Lullaby Ep 1 definitely delivers on this promise.

In the first ten minutes of this game I found it very charming and entertaining, with garishly beautiful colours, fun textures in the environment and a quirky vibe overall. But then the game slowly layers creepy experience over creepy experience and before you know it you've gone from charmed to terrified.

This game is like being told a spooky story by a circus ringmaster, standing under a spotlight in an otherwise darkened tent. It's got a strange mix of joy and hideousness that makes it really stand out from the crowd. This game seduces and them turns on you. It doesn't just re-use the common symbols of vaudeville style horror you see in other games, it weaves them into a rich narrative that is communicated almost wholly through the environment. It's very appealingly self-aware.

ALSO THERE IS A TOILET CAROUSEL ISTG I LOVE IT SO MUCH. The music and voice acting is top notch, it matches the environment perfectly.

I love that there's a unique death message if you decide to intentionally run into a furnance (there's really no way that death can happen unintentionally, it's easy to avoid, so I really enjoyed the game 'rewarding' me for deciding to be an idiot for fun).

One thing I'd critisize is that (and perhaps I'm just not cut out for these) most of the puzzle elements revolved around "find a button and press that button". And while the button treasure hunt forces you to explore the game more thoroughly (you can tell just how much the game wants you to not miss a single lovingly created detail) I did get very frustrated when I returned to an area later in the game and had to re-do it's particular button quest all over again. YMMV: this is a minor complaint. I'm not very good at finding buttons, especially when I'm terrified out of my wits.

Another gripe would be that even with gamma set to maximum there were times where I actually could not see anything and wandered around in pitch black until finally I found an unseen staircase etc.

The final gripe would be that you do not have control over save points, they are automatically determined which means if you want to explore your options in ways that lead to regular death/capture, sometimes you have a long walk ahead of you and sometimes you have to go find and re-press all of those damn buttons again).

These three complaints in no way would lead me not to recommend the game. I'm truly glad I decided to give it a go. There's a sequence that occurs just before you enter a boneyard that is honestly one of the most beautiful things I've seen in games for years. It's worth playing just to watch that gorgeous two minute sequence for yourself (it must be amazing to play that part in VR). Also the ghost and bat designs are adorable and if there was merch of them w the Albino Lullaby logo I'd consder getting some (I'm... not really keen on the Grandchildren, CRAZY I KNOW).

I don't play a lot of horror games (more a strategy and rpg person) but this one is really special. I'll certainly give Ep 2 a go when it is released.

Top notch story, characters, humour, and, the most important part of all: robots.