What a great package of games that I wasn't terribly interested in at their release but fell in love with nearly 20 years later. It's been long enough since I played the first two that I can't remember if either of those stood out to me, but I remember liking them about equally as the third, which I just recently finished.

I'm not much of a visual novel fan, but the writing and presentation are quirky and funny enough to make it worth reading lots of text. I do wish some of the puzzle-solving was more prevalent. I'd really love these if they made the investigations and in-court defense a tad more complex.

One of very few games that I've played through more than once, in this case at least 4 times now. The most recent was while reminding myself which iOS game I owned on an iPad I've long neglected. I started M11 on a whim and casually finished it that same day (admittedly, it's not terribly lengthy). The mechanics are some of my favorite ever. They allow for clever puzzle platforming with just enough entropy to be exciting without being frustrating. Only recently did I realize that it doesn't have that many reviews, and even those are just fine and not exactly glowing. I would've sworn is a bit of an indie darling. I suppose it's niche; but still, I was dismayed!

There's a ton of work simulator games but not many about workers, which is a shame, cause it adds a lot to this one.

The core game play rules. It just really clicked with me. Learning the ships felt good. Trying to work too fast and getting sucked into the furnace really made me re-experience the feeling of fucking up at various jobs. I like how mistakes aren't really punished mechanically, but the context makes you feel bad anyway.

In general, I was a big fan of the writing. Lot of the specifics about the work and the characters felt real. A subtle thing I think they nailed is how there actually are people who like doing dangerous, physically demanding jobs, and people who take pride in their work, and how the company uses that earnestness to exploit them further. Also, upgrade trees suck, so it was a good joke how all the upgrades are about having to pay for proper software updates and safety measures.

The dialog gets a little hokey, and I didn't like all the performances, but whatever. The endings (both of em) were just awful. But overall a game that was extremely my shit.