Hellgnoll
BACKER
2023
Oates has been developing a fascinating little series of RPGMaker horror games with an incredibly heartwarming edge of sincerity to them. Using a consistent stack of plugins and gorgeous consistent artwork (often re-used between games, to excellent effect), a small world of surreal melancholy is slowly built out, with supernatural monsters projecting the insecurities and struggles of modern life.
Sorry We're Open is the gutpunch game released this year, a game about being a faceless manager of a retail store, carrying your crew through day after day of absurd confrontations with mundane customers and supernatural poltergeists. You gotta keep the store clean, you gotta keep your crew alive, all the while the real evil of Corporate Management hangs over you like an eldritch vampire.
The only winning move is to realize the horrors of capitalism and leave. The game uses its multiple endings in short succession to deliver its true payoff, and is absolutely worth playing through to 100%.
Its thesis is worn directly on its sleeve: Even the manager of a store has far more solidarity with the workers under them than the capitalist monsters running the show. And if you don't realize that, you will die a husk drained entirely of life.
Sorry We're Open is the gutpunch game released this year, a game about being a faceless manager of a retail store, carrying your crew through day after day of absurd confrontations with mundane customers and supernatural poltergeists. You gotta keep the store clean, you gotta keep your crew alive, all the while the real evil of Corporate Management hangs over you like an eldritch vampire.
The only winning move is to realize the horrors of capitalism and leave. The game uses its multiple endings in short succession to deliver its true payoff, and is absolutely worth playing through to 100%.
Its thesis is worn directly on its sleeve: Even the manager of a store has far more solidarity with the workers under them than the capitalist monsters running the show. And if you don't realize that, you will die a husk drained entirely of life.
2016
PsyCard asks, what if minesweeper was a card game from Kaiji. but with Lesbians. and the cutest boys you've ever seen.
2018
Despite the incredible hokiness and splatterhouse fun on the unlockable succubus mode, nothing can entirely save the game from its dredgingly slow pace
2019
I bought an arcade stick to play this game better. It was worth it.
2019
you know when the store-brand pepperoni is better than your mom's brand but like you're still sitting up at 2am eating a bag of pepperoni and feeling bad about your life?
anyways it's better than layers of fear.
anyways it's better than layers of fear.
2021
The best folk outsider art fps ever made. No game LOOKS like this, plays like this, or feels like this. It's wonderful
I recommend watching this video about his dev process because it's honestly very inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIjt1mKWn4o
This dude put all his hobbies into a game and it whips. It feels so personal and intimate with both its interests and the folklore it is inspired by, whisking you away on a fantasy journey unlike any other. We need more folk games, games steeped in history and personhood and the stories your grandmother told you about as a child.
I recommend watching this video about his dev process because it's honestly very inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIjt1mKWn4o
This dude put all his hobbies into a game and it whips. It feels so personal and intimate with both its interests and the folklore it is inspired by, whisking you away on a fantasy journey unlike any other. We need more folk games, games steeped in history and personhood and the stories your grandmother told you about as a child.
2023
A fascinating game about how as a store manager you have a world more in common with your employees than you ever will with the eldritch vampires at Corporate. Where the only winning move is to realize the horrors of capitalism and leave. One of those games with multiple endings and you need to do all of them to get the true ending, but it does it in a very straightforward and obvious way, and when that final ending pays off it feels very satisfactory.
It's not so bad down here.
It's not so bad down here.
2016
This is probably my favorite recent imperfect game.
I think it's really cool that there's like, a very granular infrastructure focused game like this. It does a lot of good adventure gamey stuff while also avoiding doing weird inventory puzzles. It's also definitely a eurojank game, full of eastern europe cultural artifacts and odd design decisions which might seem weird and counterintuitive. It's like the machine fixing puzzles of Myst mixed with the "carry this object" puzzles of Amnesia and the environmental design of a walking sim. There's no enemies, this is an adventure game through and through!
The only thing weird about it is how it gets better designed as it goes. There's this awful horrible raft ride in act one which is the WORST part of the game, it's so awful i couldn't blame anybody for dropping the game there. I had to noclip to get myself out of some spots in act 2. But then in the last act of the game there's a REALLY good boat scene, and the contrast is kinda jarring! But also, kind of inspiring! You get to see developers hone their craft while you're playing the same game!
It's honestly really cool that a game can be this big and epic and expansive and never really veer into science fiction or fantasy too hard. The most unreal aspect of the game setting is these radioactive mushrooms growing in places, but beyond that everything is very real and grounded. And i think that's pretty impressive to me since video games are usually a medium so based in fantasy!
This game is as big as Half-Life 2, and in the same engine and has:
- No combat
- No enemies
- No scince fiction
- No aliens
And still works really well! And that's really impressive.
The only recommendation I would make is going into the settings and modifying the flashlight and camera batteries to just make them never run out. That mechanic feels wholly unnecessary to the flavour of the game, often more frustrating than interesting, and removing the tension of trying to find batteries really lets the walking sim parts shine. The developers seem to have realized this over its long development history, as in the final act you're given an upgraded flashlight which doesn't have the same battery drain issues.
If it weren't for the weird quirks, the awful Act 1 design problems, and the battery mechanics, this would easily be five stars. But it's already basically an instant recommend. Mark Infra goes down in my brain as one of my favorite scrimblos. Good job folks, this game is a winner.
I think it's really cool that there's like, a very granular infrastructure focused game like this. It does a lot of good adventure gamey stuff while also avoiding doing weird inventory puzzles. It's also definitely a eurojank game, full of eastern europe cultural artifacts and odd design decisions which might seem weird and counterintuitive. It's like the machine fixing puzzles of Myst mixed with the "carry this object" puzzles of Amnesia and the environmental design of a walking sim. There's no enemies, this is an adventure game through and through!
The only thing weird about it is how it gets better designed as it goes. There's this awful horrible raft ride in act one which is the WORST part of the game, it's so awful i couldn't blame anybody for dropping the game there. I had to noclip to get myself out of some spots in act 2. But then in the last act of the game there's a REALLY good boat scene, and the contrast is kinda jarring! But also, kind of inspiring! You get to see developers hone their craft while you're playing the same game!
It's honestly really cool that a game can be this big and epic and expansive and never really veer into science fiction or fantasy too hard. The most unreal aspect of the game setting is these radioactive mushrooms growing in places, but beyond that everything is very real and grounded. And i think that's pretty impressive to me since video games are usually a medium so based in fantasy!
This game is as big as Half-Life 2, and in the same engine and has:
- No combat
- No enemies
- No scince fiction
- No aliens
And still works really well! And that's really impressive.
The only recommendation I would make is going into the settings and modifying the flashlight and camera batteries to just make them never run out. That mechanic feels wholly unnecessary to the flavour of the game, often more frustrating than interesting, and removing the tension of trying to find batteries really lets the walking sim parts shine. The developers seem to have realized this over its long development history, as in the final act you're given an upgraded flashlight which doesn't have the same battery drain issues.
If it weren't for the weird quirks, the awful Act 1 design problems, and the battery mechanics, this would easily be five stars. But it's already basically an instant recommend. Mark Infra goes down in my brain as one of my favorite scrimblos. Good job folks, this game is a winner.
2018
Unfortunately this sequel aims too explicitly and often falls into the errors of talking instead of showing. There is one very good tragic scene in the game which got some tears out of me, but unfortunately it is otherwise far too focused on explaining the protagonist's motivations, instead of showing us those motivations
1995
It's cute, but extremely hampered by the jank of being a DOS point and click. Lots of sound system problems. But the art is fairly cute and it feels like a direct-to-vhs don bluth knockoff, which is with a positive or negative depending where your proclivities lie.
The really surprising part is that it has quick time events and they actually work pretty well? Which is cool for a western game. It suffers a lot from the setting, which is a very Hollywood western locale. But it's pretty surprising the quality of cute saturday morning furry art on display
The really surprising part is that it has quick time events and they actually work pretty well? Which is cool for a western game. It suffers a lot from the setting, which is a very Hollywood western locale. But it's pretty surprising the quality of cute saturday morning furry art on display
2019
Wasted
2023
the thing is once a game becomes a "avoid the monster" game i don't care
2023
Every Survivors-like is to some degree a scary game, overwhelming you with foes that ends up making you tense by the end of a run. Some of them, like 20 Minutes Till Dawn, even use a spooky aesthetic to make it scarier. But I don't think I've played one until now that could be a considered a horror game. Every minute of Snake Farm gets under your skin on some level, feeling equal parts jovial and threatening, from the droning synth to the overwhelming GIANT SNAKES AND YOU WEREN'T LYING WHEN YOU CALLED IT A GIANT WORM.
2021
Damn right when it's getting interesting the campaign is over and then like... you just don't have any other campaigns to do. lol. oh well.
2022
Too many party members to hire with no clear benefit to doing so, resulting in much of the game feeling unnecessary and burdensome.