calico was a lackluster letdown. where i hoped for a soothing experience with cozy cats in a comfy cafe, i found an unfinished game brimming with bugs and repugnant design choices. each and every aspect of calico suggested that nobody from the development team had even tried the game before putting it up for sale. the physics, the pervasive clipping through objects, and even the character customization screen at the beginning: each and every component of calico was either hilarious or gruesome.

hate aside, i also think that, albeit rarely, calico sometimes conveyed a conflicting sentiment. when i went behind a waterfall, there was an easter egg waiting for me. the character customization screen, although detestable, had a plethora of available options, each of them designed and progammed by a human. the cooking minigame was tedious, but also exceedingly complex in a way that reminded me more of the ramblings of a playful child, than of a mere shovelware developer prolonging their game.
i want to think that somewhere in the peachy keen games studio, there were people, or even a single person among many disinterested others, pouring their heart and soul into calico. i want to believe that this flawed game is a product of incompetence rather than negligence.

in the end, regrettably, the only kind of enjoyment i got out of this game was the one of ridiculing it with a friend for an hour or two.

needy streamer overload is a cute indie game that plays out on an old windows desktop. you act as a manager for your girlfriend who has just decided to venture into the trendy world of online streaming, while you get to pull all the strings for her. will she go full nerd or open an onlyfans? that's for you to decide!

first things first, this game has a coherent and distinct retro style. the soundtrack complements the pixel art pretty well, as it's mostly composed of 8-bit music. it's overflowing with detail, has a nice gimmick, and starts off pretty strong.
second things second, needy streamer overload is wildly cringe and somewhat boring.

while it's obvious that there was a ton of effort carefully woven into this game's dialogue, progression tree and visuals, i can't shake off the thought that its main gameplay loop feels like it was not even playtested.
the stream screen is clunky, and moderating comments could be frustrating at times. the plentiful dialogue quickly grew stale, so i ended up skipping a large portion of it, and the gameplay is so stale (and sometimes even frustrating) that i won't even bother to unlock most of the many available endings.

each in-game day, you choose how the streamer will spend her time, and the game generously gives you a dozen options for that. in the beginning, trying out new things also inspires the streamer girl to think of new content ideas, and you can't wait to try all of them. even the seemingly boring ones, like checking her twitter comments or posting on 4chan, reward you with additional immersive content.
unfortunately, barring the very start of the game, it's just an illusion, and your choices will be made for you by your stats. some activities clearly serve you more than others, so i just played games with ame twice a day for most of my playthrough. not that i mind, since after a few in-game days i was already furiously clicking through the repetitive fan comments and messages when i decided to spend the day reading them.

i had a few hours' worth of fun with needy streamer overload. in a way, i kinda liked the experience, but i still can't help but feel that even 3/5 is too much here.

emily is away is a short experience with strong teenage vibes, which adds a lot of charm in and of itself. for half an hour, you use your windows xp chat app to peek into a distinctly adolescent life. set in 2003, its retro interface, references to early 00s pop culture, and teen romance all paint a nostalgic landscape on your screen.

unexpectedly and unfortunately, your choices don't mean anything, as this is a completely linear game with an illusion of choice, which spoils some of the fun for me. still, emily is away is an experience you will probably cherish.

i like making plans, minmaxing the hell out of every minmaxable situation, jumping over mental hurdles, and solving problems in general, but i don't like doing it with too many variables around. therefore, grand strategy games have never clicked with me. be it a paradox game or any huge-scale resource management sim, i could never keep my ropes together. i was sucked in by the cold futuristic vibes of stellaris and loved connecting things in factorio, but my skill could not keep up with them, so they both ended up more frustrating than enjoyable. i did well in games like sid meier's civilization series, but then i felt as if the game was not giving me enough options to carry out all of my plans.

as you can see, i'm a bit hard to please, but total war games are the ones that hit the sweet spot, and rome 2 was my most beloved one. it walks the line between casual and complex, never straying too much in either direction. you keep your eyes on a couple of gauges, and you get a handful of options to keep them in line. it's turn-based, so no panic-inducing commotion is happening behind your windows while you are adjusting sliders, deploying spies, and declaring wars. speaking of wars, that's all this game is about. the research tree is a slave to raising an army, and there is no cultural victory. in total war, you win with your swords.

another thing i love in these games is the real-time battles. controlling your units on the battlefield adds an entirely new skill curve to the game, and i enjoy it immensely. depending on your taste, you can reenact historical battles or bravely bring an experimental army to the battlefield.

in the end, while i acknowledge that this may not be the game for you, it absolutely is a game for me.