The cool thing about being an adult is that you can look at a game with a ton of Discourse surrounding it, and just play it for yourself because you know that fiction is allowed to include Dark topics, and what matters is how its handled

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is........fine. Almost unremarkable if you remove the Discourse. The gameplay is peak bog standard RPG Maker walk and talking, where you press space on an object and maybe pick it up to bring it somewhere else. The kind that's perfectly servicable but occasionally slows the pacing down if you can't figure out what to interactive with, and therefore just start trying everything. If you take a break from the game and come back, you might stumble trying to remember where you left off

The writing is unabashedly edgy, and I think it would still be very polarizing without all the dialogue about Ashley wanting to fuck her brother. I actually found myself reminded a lot of Jhonen Vasquez's work, which I will admit I haven't read since I was 15 so maybe my memory is off, where they share that same slightly immature and incredibly cynical strain of humour that occasionally falls into the territory of trying too hard. There's a scene where you're in a public park and if you interact with a tree, the game is like "you picked up: used condom - you decide not to bring it with you". There's an billboard advert that says "are you tired of being alive? ask your doctor about euthanasia today!". Maybe RPG Maker is slightly to blame for this but a part of me is surprised Andy & Leyley came out in 2023, because it really feels like something that would've been made while I was in High School, and that someone like me would've loved back then

As for the incest stuff, I do think it's a bit disingenous to say "oh it's just a bad ending" when Ashley makes repeated comments that boil down to "I would like to fuck my brother". You don't need to justify your enjoyment of the game with "actually, it's a commentary on toxic relationships", because sure it is, but the game never really commits to it and that's fine! you're allowed to like this because it's a bit edgy and fucked up, that is okay. Alternatively, there's nothing wrong with saying "I'm not a prude but the gameplay is boring and the writing tries too hard"

I do think the game struggles a little bit with knowing what it wants to be, and because of that, it tends to go in circles sometimes. I did find myself getting surprisingly invested in the world and the characters, but kept wanting more since each episode length is pretty short so far. I wanna see more consequences for the fucked up things these characters do and feel, but maybe that'll be in the later chapters. I will say, the artstyle is very nice - every character is very expressive with their portraits. You can tell you're in a world of RPG Maker tiles but I think they make the most of it and the artstyle is there too

An absolutely wonderful little game. Deconstructeam have become some of my favourite game devs, with their focus on unconventional narrative experiences with a heavy queer and left leaning focus. From their small game jam projects to full releases like this, I always get something out of it and walk away with a lot to think about

Honestly, my main hangup (and I recognize this absolutely might be own my feelings of insecurity and invisibilty in queer spaces) is that it feels a bit alienating towards transmasc people, like another review mentioned. The game explicitly mentions that witches can only be women and non binary, and there's a plotline about a trans woman being a witch that I thought was sweet but also recognize that it's not my place to judge since I know some negative reviews weren't happy with it - but the game skirts around the idea of transmasc people existing, while it's awkwardly sitting in my mind and it just felt a bit cruddy. I guess in a way it can't mention them? I could go into the way "women and non binary only" spaces exist in real life, and usually serve as a way to alienate certain groups, but that may be reading too deep into things. Either way, there were only a few scenes where I felt this got in the way of enjoyment and am mostly able to push it aside

The writing here is so fun and powerful. Some might say it's cheesy but for me, it really works. Although it will often give you small glimpses and vignettes into its world, rather than super in depth looks, but I kinda love that because it feels like poetry

I think it's worth noting that the second half of the game is more of a political campaign sim, where you allocate people to tasks and try to influence others, which I did not expect. It isn't bad or anything, but I do think I preferred the first half of the game. Simply talking to witches, creating cards and reading fortunes were strong enough mechanics by themselves that they would have worked for the full game thanks to the high quality/intriguing enough writing

Every so often someone comes onto a game dev forum to be like "hey guys, I wanna make a game that messes with the player's computer! how do I do it?" and then every reply is like No Don't Fucking Do That, You're Basically Making A Virus

Well, KinitoPET goes ahead and does it anyway, and you know what? It's a lot of fun. KinitoPET isn't flawless or particularly deep - it's pretty short and ends when you think the game is just getting going. Plus the scares that don't fall into meta PC fuckery like asking you to open command prompt to give Kinito special privileges, are pretty much generic creepypasta stuff you can find any Itchio horror game. THAT BEING SAID, I still absolutely think it's worth checking out and there's clear passion here, even if the idea isn't used to its full potential

If you're a transfem who uses twitter to flirt with other girls and you reply with ASDJDKFJAKLFSA or "ohh you're so mad i bet you wanna kiss me right now" when arguing with someone online, I think you'll get a huge kick out of this

HWBM isn't a bad Visual Novel by any means, but it has a very specific audience in mind - probably one that has watched all of NGE - and I'm just not part of that, and therefore found it aggressively impenetrable. I get what HWMB is going for. It wants to create a world that existed before you got here, with pre-established character relationships and world building, and there's nothing wrong with that! But you've also got all these huge paragraphs full of vague science fiction terms, so I ended up feeling incredibly overwhelmed while struggling to follow along. I really felt like I was missing something, like I'd started reading a book half way through. And again, this isn't an objectively bad way to tell a story but it's not personally for me

It's a bit of a shame because towards my first ending (which itself was honestly extremely cool!!), I actually started getting kinda into it - when the writing is good, IT IS SO GOOD. However, when I then started my second playthrough as another character, with a more positive open mind this time, I soon found myself hitting the same issues

The visuals, UI and audio are really cool as well, creating a great atmosphere though

I picked up Slay The Princess because I've seen almost exclusively high praise for it - and to be fair, it is really solid. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I do wonder if it's mostly by people who aren't big into VNs, since if you aren't familiar with them, I think you'll get a huge kick out of the meta and time loop elements

It's kinda hard to talk about the parts I liked without spoiling stuff and this is a game where you wanna go in blind so tldr - the art is really nice, it's always intriguing, it pulls off the meta gimmicks very well (im sucker for games that use steam achievements!!), the writing is good, the atmosphere really achieves what it sets out to do, etc

There are some aspects of STP I didn't vibe with but I can't really explain it, but I'm gonna try because I've not seen much critique at all and I think it's important

I think I just wanted it to take things further? The characters are quite intentionally "shallow" but I still ended up wanting more. Everything is also purposely somewhat vague which isn't a bad way to tell a story but personally takes me out of things

Maybe it's the overwhelming amount of dialogue options you're given at once, and that it's sometimes not clear what is flavour text and what progresses the story. For example, sometimes the game will give you like...8+ choices at once, and it'll be contained to half the screen, and require you to scroll down, instead of being given more space - and it just felt really claustraphobic at times lol

I also felt unsure if I should be making multiple save files while going down a route and exploring the sub options, or if I should just be committing to my first choice - and after hitting a few endings, I'm still not sure

The voice acting of the male hero character I think is really good and fine, but the princess has the same problem that I just kinda expect every indie/mid budget VN with voice acting to have, and that's her microphone makes her S sounds very sharp (which i have to cut off because i have sound sensitivity issues out the ass)

It's also not a super long game for the price but I do not regret picking up Slay The Princess and think it's worth playing. It's obvious that a ton of love and care has gone into crafting something unique and I'll take something like that, that has some flaws, over something bland any day

It's an okay game that has a HUGE amount of potential. Ultimately, I'm glad I grabbed this while it was free since I'd probably feel a bit disappointed if I paid for it

Essentially, it's Lethal Company but you're Youtubers, so the enjoyment of the game largely comes down to you and your friends being funny, which is fine, these types of games can be great! I like that you're forced to confront the monsters to do good, instead of always running away, even if a lot of them just kinda stun lock or instakill you

My main issues are:

- The Ragdoll physics add a ton of comedy but the way your camera view wobbles a bunch for just turning your mouse or moving slightly is kinda unpleasant/nauseating
- The camera doesn't have a whole lot of battery with seemingly no way to upgrade it, but I get you wanna keep the videos short
- The dungeons you go into are pretty bland, with the same texture usually laid over everything. They're also super huge, which kinda makes me miss Lethal Company's incentive to search for items. Generally monsters appear without a whole lot of warning too, so it's a lot of stumbling around an empty environment until sudden jumpscare noise
- Voice chat is generally pretty quiet. Promixity chat is one of the best parts about these types of games but in CW, you basically need to all be on top of each other to hear and even then, it can still not be enough. This is especially noticable when you play back the videos you make, where a lot of the funny jokes you made can barely be heard

That being said, I think this game is a few updates away from potentially being super amazing. The ideas and core gameplay loop are fantastic

Played through the Fan translation patch that came out recently: https://twitter.com/RetroTranslator/status/1765315202218954988

It was a neat experience! It's a bit of a mess but sometimes the most interesting games are. I complain about visual novels commonly being too slow paced but this kinda goes into the opposite direction LOL, with constant reveals that didn't properly sink in before the next one hit

For such an old game, I really loved the presentation - it's a shame that characters don't really get sprites, as it led to a bit of disconnect for me, but everything else looked pretty good! The simple sound effects also make for a decently creepy atmosphere, especially in the beginning