I think 2023 might be the year the choise-based narrative adventure (or whatever you wanna call it) is starting to hit its peak. First The Wreck, then Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, then Stray Gods & The Cosmic Wheel of Sisterhood and now Goodbye Volcano High (this list is in no way complete) offer such diverse approaches to what cyoa storytelling in video games can look like and I love them all so much for it.

With this meta commentary out of the way, let me say that I had a great time with Goodbye Volcano High. It has great production value, really lovely animations and character designs and an emotional core to it that I so love to see in games revolving about teenage angst & joy & everything in between. It's raw in a way, less filtered and adjusted by what is considered the "adult" perspective on the world, which here just means a perspective that takes itself too seriously to acknowledge the absolute messyness and intensity of our emotional landscapes. I love that about it. It's also a really charming and funny game! I had a lot of audible "aawwws" and laughs while playing this. Big hugs to all the queer characters on their own little journeys, they were joyful to witness. So yea, it's great, it rules, please play it if it seems appealing to you, and fuck all the insecure manbabies hating on this <3

I'm really struggling what to think abt this game, been like two months since I completed it but I still can't get my head around it. Ghostpia has a lot of cuteness and gruesomeness at the same time, which sometimes works, sometimes just seems like an attempt at shock value, and sometimes these two vibes clash so hard that everything else is lost in the battle. The narrative just meanders along for most of its runtime while the expressive visual style really tries to hold the entire experience together. It's an uneventful experience with a lot of confusing vibes, which might make it a cult classic in the future, maybe?