i picked up secrets of grindea in the fall of 2015 a few months after it came out, played it with friends, stopped when we reached the end of the game's current content, and then waited with bated breath until the official release. and boy, i am still waiting!

i say it jokingly- i've been playing every time there's been an update to the game, i keep up the dev blog, and i am glad that the game has taken so much time to finish rather than the devs rushing to the end-zone with quality compromised for speed. it is a fun, challenging ARPG with a good sense of humor, fun online co-op, and incredibly smooth pixel-art animation (and also funny looking character portraits but they're charming).

from what i can assume following the dev blog, Secrets of Grindea is slowly reaching completion and im honestly still excited to see it. it just took a little time!

(imagine me making a fart noise with my hands here) Boooo

i realize that im not a fair critic of this game because my problem with it is the main gimmick- contrarian player makes the controlling, annoying narrator So Pissed!!!!! by messing up his puzzles... and by jove, the game definitely meets this brief! but i don't think its executed in a way that is charming or appealing. the puzzles in the game are good and i do like that aspect of gameplay, but the narrator does ruin it for me. which again, i do understand is the point, but i think after playing similar games like There Is No Game i just feel like the point-and-click pixel-art puzzle game player vs narrator genre has better options

i recently picked this game back up. i had played it when i was younger, but couldn't fully remember what it's about- but i'm really glad i replayed this

i sat down and finished this game in about an hour and a half. when the credit screen rolled and showed you who you had played with, there was only one name, and god i wish i remember what it read because that experience with that random person meant so much to me. i had completely lost my grasp on how to play that game and was constantly making mistakes, but that person had so much patience and it made me so happy that we played the game together. it is so cliche, but this is a game that is really about the journey (ha ha) and being connected with a random person made the game feel all the more personal.

one of my favorite games of all time, super replayable, highly recommend. some parts are a bit janky, but it's also 12 years old... so i forgive it a bit