Bio
Elias, he/him, Austria

check my lists if you wanna know what games I like

Games are art
Games are culture
Not a product
Not a toaster
But they do suck,
and the culture is pretty shit
and I think I hate gamers

Bass/Guitar player in some fire Post-Punk & Jam Bands
i try to make games sometimes

Hit me up on discord if you wanna make some art/games together or just wanna be friends :)
@ thinkingfella

check my music playlists
Personal Ratings
1★
5★

Badges


Adored

Gained 300+ total review likes

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GOTY '23

Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event

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Created 10+ public lists

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Created a list folder with 5+ lists

Trend Setter

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Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page

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Busy Day

Journaled 5+ games in a single day

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Voted for at least 3 features on the roadmap

Shreked

Found the secret ogre page

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Liked 50+ reviews / lists

GOTY '22

Participated in the 2022 Game of the Year Event

Well Written

Gained 10+ likes on a single review

2 Years of Service

Being part of the Backloggd community for 2 years

Liked

Gained 10+ total review likes

Gamer

Played 250+ games

On Schedule

Journaled games once a day for a week straight

N00b

Played 100+ games

Favorite Games

Flower, Sun, and Rain
Flower, Sun, and Rain
Unreal Gold
Unreal Gold
Mmmmmm
Mmmmmm

499

Total Games Played

037

Played in 2024

532

Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

We Love Katamari
We Love Katamari

Apr 20

Exophilie

Feb 18

Kid A Mnesia Exhibition
Kid A Mnesia Exhibition

Feb 17

Pikuniku
Pikuniku

Feb 10

Balatro
Balatro

Feb 09

Recently Reviewed See More

Not a review. I just feel obligated to add to the meagre content warning for this shit because the Developer seemingly did not want to directly tell the people who might download this that there will be pop-up images of GORE that flash across the screen.
I mean legit live leak/rotten.com stuff.
My guess is that the Dev did not want to "reveal their cards" by giving a heads up for this,
like they didn't want to soften the impact of god-dam UNCENSORED IMAGES OF CORPSES by warning that they will randomly appear.

Maybe folks would actually use the Epic Games Launcher if they got more musicians to collaborate on something like this.

This might be the coolest thing Thom Yorke did since calling Jim Morrison "fat, ugly, dead" and then jumping in the pool during that MTV Beach House "Anyone Can Play Guitar" performance.

If you don't want any spoilers, give Decimate Drive ten minutes of your time and then come back.
It is well worth it if you are poor and seek an asynchronous micro- thrill and joy which is best experienced blind.

The slow set-up also proved utterly genius in such a short game, to let that single trick it pulls on the player carry more weight, while setting the intended mood for that otherwise admittedly goofy Idea.
I witnessed a constant emotinal flux inside of me, rushing from short burst of terror to dopamine high giggling, all predicated on the tension of a restless motor engine wanting to hurt me.
While I was running for my Player Character's life I felt some genuine frights, not horror mind you, rather a contemporary but primal fear to not get crushed by tonnes of fast-moving steel.
This was only made possible by its short length, the almost innate uncertainty we have all experienced while trying to cross a street and can't make out if a car, heading directly at one will hit the breaks in time and the game's promise to twist this uncertainty into vehicular manslaughter.
I believe if it was any longer with more scenarios then the routinised gaminess revealing itself would turn that fear of getting bulldozered by a faceless machine too much into a fear of not touching a hitbox, which sets you back to the start of the level.

That game you play with the cars you flee from is just an asymmetrical live or death version of "catch".
It could be boiled down to a couple things.
First of, just listening for the automobile or a driving bassline shouting from its stereo.
Breaking the open parallel from the player to it with a street pole to stop that vehicle aiming straight at you dead in its tracks.
At least for as long as the A.I. takes to reverse back out of it again.
Or a Corrida de Toros like dance in which the player utilises timed strafing, sudden directional changes and maybe even outplays the car by looking directly at it, while calculating its trajectory or they deliberatly bait it into a corner to win more time.

Moving around the Player Character will run, or rather jog, automatically.
One silly jank I found as I was playing is that the walk/run toggle button won't function a second time after you switched to walking.
The very indie game dev solution for this problem was to hit the jump button.
There was no other real use for the existence of this jump button, so after finding this kinda funny bug I choose to deduct that the dev only left the jump button in this game, aside from that little extra feel of "better movement options", or immersion or some shit, to reset the Player Character to their default running speed.
Why there was even the option to walk could be questioned, but I would claim it also aids the deception the game pulls on the player with its slow and deliberate, atmospheric start.
I also liked that the first few minutes subconsciously train the player to understand that their only goal is the red glowing door,
like if that wasn't obvious to them already, but still there is zero tutorialisation, only mood setting and tension building and I enjoyed that holistic approach.

Yea, this little itch project was pretty fascinating, if I hadn't played Homebody a couple days ago and would still care to think about that kind of stuff I might've called this my favourite horror game of the year.
(This might just be a sly attempt to shout-out Homebody lol, a game, horror and puzzle fans should def check out, although I probably wont write about it, cause @BeauTartep already did the definitive dissertation, but spoiler warning)
I mean, I have been writing this now for longer than it took me to play the game. That is the equivalent of an automatic recommendation in my book.

One minor nitpick I have is that I think the death screen and sounds leading into it could have hit harder, in a literal sense.
Shit could have been an ounce more visceral.

Itch.io Horror games are weird and I am kind of obssesed with them lately. There is so much good stuff to find behind all the jank and between the overstaturation of backroom games. lol
What I learned from this game is that it can be possible to find thrills and tension inside a concept that might just seem completly silly on paper, at least if you pace it with intention and restraint and know how to set the proper atmosphere for it.
And that vehicular manslaughter is kinda not based. Miss me w that shit pls.