me a few days ago: haha i will install a load of funny mods and see what chaos happens :)

me now: i will protect my wife ryo and daughter giulia with my fucking life and be the best husband and father i can

edit: this game has given me a fucking existential crisis

edit 2: playing too much sims may have fucking killed my pc lmao

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 10
If I had a nickel for every crime-based game featuring people with animal heads that I'd played for this season I'd have two nickels - but it's weird that this has happened twice.

A detective game that puts you in the shoes of hard-boiled detective Santino "Sonny" Featherland, the story of Chicken Police is pretty typical of film noire, if you know the conventions of the genre. There's murder, lies, betrayal and a femme fatale. It would all be incredibly generic would it not be for the fact that the game's world is inhabited entirely by anthropomorphic animals, complete with established world-building and lore. It's unexpectedly deep and there's a lot to learn if you're thorough with your detective skills.

What surprised me most about Chicken Police is just how well-made it is - I went into this expecting a fairly basic, VN-style game similar to Aviary Attorney. But this is in fact a fully-fleshed out adventure game, complete with interrogation and investigation sections to spice up the usual pointing and clicking. The game is also well-written with some very strong voice acting, backed up with stylish cutscenes and the occasional fun shootout to break things up. (Side note: I realised half-way through my playthrough that the character of Monica was voiced by Devora Wilde and I could NOT un-hear Lae'zel for the rest of the game.)

What's also similar to Aviary Attorney is the intricacies of each species and how that dictates their social position. Our feathered heroes are pretty middle of the pack, and the "predator" species are towards the top of the hierarchy, while insects are forced into a dangerous slum known as "The Hive". It's all very clever - and a depressing allegory for the real world.

Chicken Police's presentation and gameplay is so strong that it's a shame that the story itself is a bit of a letdown. As stated earlier, it follows noire conventions very closely. Sonny is a sad sack at the beginning of the game, and it's almost overwhelming just how unlikeable he is. However, as the story progresses and he re-teams with his "Chicken Police" partner Marty, you'll get to see him get his mojo back, uncover the mystery and solve the case. However, I feel that the latter half of the story is rushed and wraps up way too quickly, and the ending left me thinking "is that it?". However, it didn't spoil my opinion on the game too much since everything else in it is so strong.

Overall, I liked this - it's a smart, inventive, funny detective-adventure with a lot of charm. With sequel Into The Hive! on the way I'll be reuniting with the Chicken Police pretty soon...

P.S. I've never had a video game character leave me so sexually confused as Natasha Catzenko. Just... don't show her to Shane Dawson.

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 9
A game of departures, of sorts. For developer D'avekki Studios, it's a departure from the "interactive movies" of their previous titles, as Murderous Muses is a fully-3D first-person puzzler that lets you wander around a spooky art gallery. And it's also a departure for everyone's favourite FMV actress Aislinn De'ath, as her character in this is A. blonde, and B. actually wearing shoes.

Murderous Muses has you play a night worker at the Argenta Gallery, on the small island community of Mirlhaven. By day, you hang up paintings and learn about the island's interesting, often macabre, history and customs. You quickly come to the realisation that something is very wrong with the place. One of D'avekki's key strengths in all of their games is their ability to world-build and add just the right amount of subtle horror. Even though their games are built mostly around just talking, there's a creeping dread to them, and it's way more effective for characters to imply all the cosmic horrors the D'avekkiverse holds rather than outright show them.

The main part of the game takes place at night, where you must solve the murder of renowned painter Mordechai Grey. Grey was murdered by one of his final six portrait subjects, and as you watch FMV clips of their portrait sessions (via spooky magic, don't worry about it) it becomes clear that they all have pretty solid motives for it. As with The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, the killer is randomised every playthrough, but with Murderous Muses there's a lot more reason to do multiple playthroughs. During each of the game's three nights, there's a puzzle to solve, and solving the puzzle unlocks a room where you can pick up one of several urns. Placing the urn in the designated area unlocks extra videos, centred around the mysterious and sinister young girl, Kira. Kira seems to be at the centre of all the weird goings-on on the island, so if you're invested in the game's story it's well worth unlocking all of her videos, too.

Side note: Kira is played by Rachel Cowles, daughter of the game's creators, and has appeared in every single D'avekki game. Seeing her grown up a bit in this, compared to the other games, was quite sweet. For a child actor, especially in FMV games, her performances have always been pretty damn good (even if she overdoes the vocal fry way too much here).

So how do you figure out who the murderer is? Each night, the six suspects will have three words underneath their paintings. These three words are also placed on empty spaces in the gallery. Place the suspect's portrait on the empty space above each word, and you'll unlock a short clip of the suspect talking to Mordechai about that word and how it relates to them.

These clips are where you learn all about the characters, their lives, and how they're connected with Mordechai. An undertaker with an unusual appetite, a cancelled comedian (and his creepy puppet), a pair of tennis-playing twins... even for a D'avekki game, the motley crew of maybe-murderers assembled here is a particularly unlikeable bunch.

Watch three clips in the correct order as dictated under the suspect's portrait (which takes a bit of puzzling - the word under a portrait changes after you watch a clip, but they change in a specific order), and you unlock clips of police interviews. You're given a clue at the start of each night (in a fun cameo by Poe & Munro's Klemens Koehring) as to how Mordechai was murdered, and by using these clues you can determine whether each suspect is guilty or innocent in their police interview. If you decide a suspect is innocent, you can rule them out, and whichever suspect has three "guilty" interview answers at the end of the three nights is the killer. Simple!

The game only has one real problem, but it's a big one. My explanation of the game up above is a better tutorial than anything the game actually tells you. The game gives you a tutorial room which does a very poor job of actually explaining the mechanics, then the only other guidance you get is one other video guide, tucked away in a corner of the gallery that most players won't find on their first playthrough. Without a guide, most players will absolutely fumble through their first playthrough and most likely guess the wrong suspect - I got it wrong and the killer turned out to be the person I suspected second-least! Luckily, the game has a lot of replayability, and there's no real penalty for fucking up. After a couple of playthroughs, solving the murder actually becomes secondary to trying to unlock every clip and unravelling the mysteries of Mirlhaven Island.

As usual with D'avekki games, the acting is pretty strong all around. It's no surprise to say that Aislinn De'ath is the standout as undertaker Lilith, showing a lot of unexpected vulnerability in her performance. Also, my heart skipped a beat when I saw bonafide FMV legend Rupert Booth's name in the credits. There's even a part where he says "if I was to show you this...", which I swear was written deliberately. Rikki Stone also puts in great performance as the disgraced comedian Otto - he's a barrel of barely-suppressed rage and is very (intentionally) creepy.

Though it seems confusing from the outside, once you get to grips on what to do this becomes a very enjoyable, even relaxing, little puzzle game.

I've now played every D'avekki game released thus far! Safe to say I've become quite the fan of this studio, and they've definitely helped to develop a fondness for FMV that I never knew I had. I eagerly anticipate whatever comes next from them.

Read my reviews for the other D'avekki Studios games here: The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, The Shapeshifting Detective, Dark Nights with Poe & Munro

My adventures in the D'avekkiverse continue. The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker is the studio's first game, but also sadly their weakest so far. It's notable for earning (and I think still holding) the Guinness World Record for the most amount of FMV footage in a game at just over 7 hours, so it's clear and commendable the amount of ambition D'avekki shows from the outset. It's just a shame it all falls a bit flat.

The premise of the game is that you are a therapist, a replacement for the titular Doctor Dekker. Dekker has been murdered, and one of his patients did it. It's your job to, over a number of sessions, question them all, get into their heads and see which one did it and why. You'll be questioning the patients, your assistant, and potentially... yourself. There are six possible killers, and one is chosen randomly at the beginning of the game for you to sniff out.

To talk to the patients, you have to type out your questions, and the game will pick up on any keywords or phrases you type and respond accordingly. You listen to their responses and use them to ask your next question. It's similar to Her Story's keyword system, but you can tell D'avekki was overly ambitious and wanted to take it to the next level. A lot of the information you can just gain from repeating certain words and phrases in the clips back to the characters - it eventually got to the point where I could hear Solid Snake's voice in my head whenever I quizzically repeated something the character had said. Some of the phrasing the game wants you to use can be frustratingly specific - there were more than a couple of moments where I couldn't understand why the character wasn't understanding a simple question, but I ended up changing the wording slightly and then they got it.

The overall premise of the story is pretty okay, but as it goes along things start to get a bit muddled and overly ambiguous. The patients you see claim to have certain... "powers", but it's never really clear whether any of them actually do have these powers, or if it's just a delusion brought about by their mental illnesses. There's also some neat Lovecraftian elements that begin to emerge as the story goes along, but I won't go into that too much. Doctor Dekker also claims to have horror themes, but it's not particularly scary save a couple of lame jumpscares - thanks, Jaya.

The acting is pretty strong from the entire cast. Aislinn De'ath puts in another fantastic performance as flower child Marianna - she's eccentric and charming, but also utterly chilling when she wants to be. It's clear to see why D'avekki keeps working with De'ath, and their projects are all the better for having her in them. The cast all sell their various levels of mania very well, and this is definitely one of the best-acted FMV games overall. Side note - it was nice to see John Guilor again in a small role after enjoying his performance in Contradiction. It's fun seeing the same actors pop up in different British FMV games.

I'll put my ending gripes in Rot13 since I think they're specific to the killer I got - TW: sexual violence (go to rot13.com to translate) Gurer'f n irel hapbzsbegnoyr cneg va Npg 5 jurer Znevnaan, bhg bs abjurer, npphfrf gur cynlre punenpgre bs encvat ure. Vs lbh qral vg, fur'yy tb vagb ntbavfvat qrgnvy nobhg gur CP "oraqvat bire ure" naq "ivbyngvat ure". Nyy lbh pna qb vf qral vg bapr zber naq gura lbh obgu frrzvatyl zbir ba yvxr abguvat unccrarq. Znlor V whfg trg jnl gbb vagb zl tnzrf ohg V ernyyl qba'g srry pbzsbegnoyr jvgu gur vqrn gung gur punenpgre V'z vaunovgvat jbhyq qb fbzrguvat yvxr gung, naq vg srryf ernyyl jebat gung guvf frrzf gb or gur pnfr urer.

Va zl raqvat, V pbeerpgyl thrffrq gung Znevnaan jnf gur xvyyre, naq va gur fprar nsgre fur fnlf gung fur vagraqf gb oynpxznvy zr nf jryy nf vzcylvat gung V tbg ure gb frqhpr Qrxxre fb V pbhyq zheqre uvz naq gnxr uvf wbo? Vg'f ernyyl abg pyrne jung'f gehr naq jung vfa'g va gur raq, naq vg ernyyl srryf yvxr gur tnzr yrnirf jnl gbb znal ybbfr raqf sbe vg gb or fngvfslvat. V ernyyl qvfyvxr tnzrf jurer lbh unir gb ercynl gurz zhygvcyr gvzrf gb trg gur "gehr" raqvat fb znlor gung'f jung'f unccravat jvgu guvf. Rvgure jnl, gur jubyr encr guvat ernyyl fbherq zr ba gur svany npg, naq V jbaqre vs gubfr fprarf unccra rira vs fur'f abg gur xvyyre.

Nyfb, vg'f abg irel jryy rkcynvarq va gur tnzr'f vageb ohg gelvat gb haybpx rirel fvatyr erfcbafr sbe rirel fvatyr punenpgre va gur tnzr vf npghnyyl abg nqivfrq, fvapr guvf vf n fher-sver jnl gb znk bhg lbhe vafnavgl cbvagf (juvpu nyfb nera'g rkcynvarq) naq trg gur jbefg raqvatf sbe gur cngvragf naq lbhefrys. Fbzrubj, V tbg gur "tbbq" raqvat sbe Oelpr naq gur "onq" raqvatf sbe rirelbar ryfr.

It's strange... I caught the killer, but I don't feel like I did...

In terms of non-spoilery issues, I feel the game is way too long. My first (and currently only) playthrough clocked in at 12 hours, and I really don't think the game's concept is designed to be that long. This is especially true when you consider that you're clearly intended to play this several times to experience all the different endings, but the game really drags towards the end. It definitely looks like D'avekki took this into consideration, when you see how much shorter their other games are, while keeping the replayability factor.

Doctor Dekker isn't really a bad game, I think it just falls under the weight of it's own ambition. There are problems here that I definitely think D'avekki fixed with The Shapeshifting Detective, but this is still worthy of a play or two if you're hankering for a spooky murder mystery.

I'm on a bit of an FMV kick at the moment, so I thought I'd dive straight into this. A prequel to The Shapeshifting Detective (which I reviewed here), Dark Nights with Poe & Munro is an episodic FMV point-and-click game starring the titular radio DJs/investigators/illicit lovers. Seriously though, I don't think I've ever seen a less believable couple in media - Ellis Munro must have some low standards.

Poe & Munro takes a wildly different turn from The Shapeshifting Detective - while the latter was a mostly grounded affair, the former instead decides to embrace the gleeful insanity of most other FMV titles. The results aren't so much as varying, but absolutely all over the place. The six-episode "series" features the two investigating a kidnapping, hosting a fundraiser in bed (which I think was just an excuse to get actress Leah Cunard into some nightwear), and dealing with the ghost of an evil little girl, among other hijinks. It's like someone tried to make a British X Files but took a bunch of acid while writing it.

Seriously, the pacing is all over the place - scenes and episodes either drag on for way too long or just end abruptly. The narratives are incredibly silly - Poe straight up murders a guy and buries his body in the garden in the first episode and it's never brought up again. On the other hand, there's an episode which is not only a neat callback to The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker (Da'vekki Studios' first game), but that also gives some very interesting insight into Munro's backstory. There's enough tonal whiplash to make your head spin, and it's really down to you whether you're the sort of person who will embrace the camp or reject it completely. Me? I dug it, for the most part.

The acting is pretty par for the course for an FMV game. Poe and Munro's "50s transatlantic schtick" annoyed me in The Shapeshifting Detective, but it seems that they've both toned it down a little here, and Leah Cunard carries the two of them performance-wise. Lara Lemon puts in a fun, if short, performance as a totally legitimate hypnotist. Aislinn De'ath steals the show in her brief return as The Shapeshifting Detective's Violet, having by far the best scene in the entire game. In fact, it's pretty amazing just how much more chemistry De'ath and Leah Cunard have in just one scene than Cunard and Klemens Koehring (Poe) have in the entire game.

As far as gameplay goes, this is about as simple as point-and-click gets. Icons will pop up when it's time to make a choice, and you simply choose and let it play out. It's slightly annoying that with some of the choices, it's not exactly clear what it is you're choosing - you'll have to click either Poe's face or Munro's face and just see what happens. It would have been nice to have even a little bit of inclination as to what would happen when I clicked each option. On a technical level this suffers most of the same problems as The Shapeshifting Detective did - namely, poor lighting and some camera focus issues. Some of the audio was pretty badly recorded too - I know, it's the annoying film student in me coming out again.

Overall, I didn't like this quite as much as The Shapeshifting Detective, but I still had a pretty good time. It's short, it's silly, it's even a little sexy in places. If you're willing to embrace the campy fun you'll get a lot out of this!

Now, time to start writing my pitch for The Violet & Munro Adventures... I mean, just look at them. Adorable, right!?

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 8
Going from "the two good non-Team Silent Silent Hill games" to this is a hell of jump for Sam Barlow. A far cry from the psychological horrors of his previous work, Her Story is a quiet, FMV murder-mystery that definitely goes into the "not for everyone" pile.

The gameplay is relatively simple: you're presented with an archaic police database system, full of clips from a series of detective interviews with a woman whose missing husband has turned up murdered. Your job is to use the search system to find clips, watch them, and find out what happened. That's it.

It's not immediately obvious at first, but you don't need to do anything other than watch the clips. You don't have to place them on a timeline in the correct order or anything like that. Hell, you don't even need to watch every clip to "finish" the game. At a certain point, the game will decide that you've seen enough to know what happened and gives you the option to roll the credits, should you so choose. But you absolutely should try to watch as much as you can. Why? Because of Her.

Viva Seifert's performance as the titular Her is nothing short of mesmerising. She's natural, she's likeable, and the gamut of emotions she runs through in a relatively short series of videos is astounding. Once you reach a certain point in the story, you begin to really notice all these subtleties in her acting, and it really brings the game to another level. That Game Award she won was well-deserved.

The narrative twists and turns as well as any good crime thriller. The non-linear nature of finding the clips means that you only get the story in bite-size chunks, and your interpretation is always changing based on what new info you've just seen. It's like Sam Barlow dumps all the puzzle pieces in front of you and says "figure it out".

The joy is in paying attention, making notes of any potential keywords and finding that next important clip to give you another chunk of the story. Finding the one clip that recontextualises the entire story was an incredibly satisfying moment for me. And even then, when you've seen every clip there is to see, there's just enough ambiguity left in certain story threads to keep you wondering long after the credits have rolled.

It's absolutely not for everyone - hell, a few years back this wouldn't have been for me either - but if you've got a few hours then grab some friends, a notebook and pen and get sleuthing.

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 7
Another FMV murder-mystery from the fine folks over at Wales Interactive (and developer Da'vekki Studios), The Shapeshifting Detective has you investigating the murder of a young cello prodigy who had more than a few murky secrets lurking underneath her perfect exterior.

As the name suggests, the gimmick of the game is that you have the ability to shapeshift into any of the characters you meet, and you use this over the course of the story to gain information and set suspects against each other. There are also elements of the supernatural that slowly creep in through the game, and there’s a really nice, spooky vibe to the presentation. In a similar vein to Contradiction! there's a lot of clicking around and trying to figure out which character to interact with to try and push the story along, and with the added task of figuring out who you should be "playing" it can get a little tedious at points.

Still, all the characters are very colourful, and when you begin to really see how everyone is connected and unravel their secrets the game absolutely shines. When you add in the fact that the killer is randomly chosen between three of the suspects, it just adds that extra element of tension - I was genuinely engrossed at the game's climax, terrified that I had chosen wrongly (I hadn't!).

The Contradiction! comparisons don't end at the gameplay; actors Rupert Booth and Anarosa Butler feature in both that game and The Shapeshifting Detective. Claude Dupont isn't quite as campy as Inspector Jenks but Booth is still the standout performer here. Overall, the acting is much better than in your average FMV game, with Aislinn De'ath's performance as Violet being another highlight. The only actors bringing the quality down slightly are those playing radio DJs Poe and Munro - and even then they're not really bad, it's just their 50s-esque transatlantic shtick feels horribly out of place.

The production quality is definitely on the "student film" side too - this isn't as flashy as something like The Isle Tide Hotel would go on to be, but isn't quite as rinky-dink as Contradiction either. In all honesty, I just wish Wales Interactive would have invested in some better lighting and makeup here. It's kind of crazy when you google Munro's actress and see how gorgeous she is - the Channel Awesome-level lighting job really does her no favours.

Overall, I'm actually surprised how much I enjoyed this. Wales Interactive's FMV games tend to vary in quality - for every The Bunker there's duds like Bloodshore and The Isle Tide Hotel. Even the other reviews on here and Steam are rather lukewarm, but I had a pretty great time with this. There's also a Poe & Munro-focused prequel which I may have a look into too.

P.S. no ending where I have a whirlwind romance with Violet? Cowards.

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 6
This was... something different. Rather than the usual "investigating a murder after the fact" murder mystery, Case Of The Golden Idol presents a static scene to you, and it's up to you to point-and-click your way to the truth of what exactly is going on in the story.

Clicking highlighted areas of interest presents you with a series of words, and you use these words to fill in the gaps of an incomplete "scroll", giving you the story. Seems simple at first, but as the game progresses it can get fiendishly difficult as the story spirals and some parts left me genuinely stumped. If you're really struggling there's a hint system available, but I never used it.

The only real thing stopping me from giving this a higher mark is that the story kind of fizzles out by the end, and I was left slightly let down by it. However, there's a 1970s-set sequel on the way so I'll be looking into that.

An interesting concept done very well, I definitely recommend this if you're looking for a different kind of mystery game.

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 5
Intriguing concept, absolutely abysmal execution.

Vaudeville is a murder-mystery game in which, theoretically, you unravel the mystery through AI-generated conversations that you have with the characters. It's an interesting concept for a game, with the AI-driven nature adding an element of unpredictability to the proceedings. Unfortunately, current levels of AI conversation generation aren't advanced enough to stop this being anything other than an absolute mess. An unintentionally hilarious mess, but a mess nonetheless.

As "Detective Martini" (yes, really), my first task was to visit the police station and get the lowdown on the three victims. The chief (a generic Unity model looking vaguely cop-like) gives me the names of the victims and locations of the murders, as well as the names of some potential witnesses for me to talk to. I ask about one of these witnesses, an Old Man Jenkins, and the chief tells me he'll mark his location on my map. I go back and check my map... nothing. Hmm. I go back and ask the chief to mark it again. He does. Nothing. Wondering if the game was bugged (as it was the day before when the morgue wouldn't unlock) I went to the developer's Discord server and asked about it...

... turns out Old Man Jenkins doesn't exist in the game. The chief just made him up. AI is the future, right guys!? If the character that is supposed to give you all your basic information about the case is inclined to make up random bullshit then how am I supposed to trust anything anyone says!?

I know that detective games are supposed to have an element of deceit, but the AI of Vaudeville doesn't seem to have enough restrictions put on it to prevent it from doing it's best to just block progress completely. It's like the game actively wants you to fail, and since the developers seem to be leaning into the "streamer-bait" marketing strategy I don't see them making the game any easier to navigate. I threw in the towel after asking every character to show me how to get to Cabane Violette, a location that exists in the game because I can clearly see it in Sandbox Mode. Even after the coroner said she would mark it on my map, it still wouldn't unlock, so I've decided not to waste any more time.

Even away from the frustrating AI, the rest of the game is just... ugly. The intro consists of a Powerpoint-esque slideshow of ugly AI art with an ear-grating, 1940s-style AI voiceover spouting overly flowery bullshit about the city of Vaudeville. The UI is basic and not well-designed, and some of the character scenes absolutely tank the FPS despite how simple they are. The map of the city? You guessed it, AI art. The assets are all, I assume, ripped straight from the Unity store, and the AI voices are practically text-to-speech, they're so robotic. And none of the characters talk like normal people. Every sentence they spout is intentionally as elaborate and fleshed out as possible... apart from one character, whose bluntness is almost refreshing. Just tweaking the AI so they talk like normal people would already be a big improvement to the game.

Any positives? Uhhh...
Any time the AI would freak out and start talking about unrelated stuff was pretty funny. Mrs. Potter telling me her husband had died but not knowing how he died also made me laugh. And attempting to breach the impenetrable wall that is Monsieur Saxabar was honestly kind of hilarious.

This needs a lot of work to get it anywhere close to an enjoyable detective game. If you have to, just watch any of the streamer compilations floating around on Youtube or Twitch. At this point, it's not deserving of your time or money.

Next up: Case of the Golden Idol

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 4
The bourgeois are not human (literally)

Well, this was a pleasure. Calling Aviary Attorney "Ace Attorney but with birds" feels like it does a disservice to just how funny, well-written and surprisingly deep this game is. I haven't played Ace Attorney yet (watch this space) but if it's anything like this I'm very much looking forward to it.

The art is gorgeous, with every character and background beautifully illustrated. The writing is sharp and funny, and the socio-political commentary is very clever, even down to the choices of which animal would portray what character.

It's funny, it's profound, and what's more - it's all based on real art, real people and real events. Highly recommended.

So this is basically Silent Hill in VR, for better and for worse. Credit to Outer Brain, Organ Quarter definitely nails the vibe of the classic Team Silent games in all their goopy, metallic glory, as well as classic Resident Evil in the gameplay.

This is survival horror in its purest form. There’s item boxes, save rooms, puzzles and a (very) limited inventory. Of course, all of this comes with the pitfalls of the genre. Many times during the game did I end up having to run in and out of save rooms because I didn’t leave myself enough room for some important puzzle item. Also, while you get given maps of each area a la Silent Hill, the fact that you have to use an odd stamp system to mark locked doors and areas of interest yourself was pretty tedious. I’d rather the game just marked all these for you.

The environments are all pretty interesting, with some cool-looking locations like the cinema and the club adding some much-welcomed variety to the game. The gameplay has definitely started to show its age, with the quite basic VR elements not as immersive or advanced as games would become down the line.

The enemy designs are decent, although their AI doesn’t really let them do a lot except amble towards you, and most of the time they’re fairly easy to avoid completely. As a plus the boss designs are very cool and those fights are probably the best part of the game. The story suffers from that annoying trope of being overly ambiguous, with the only two NPCs in the game delivering overly flowery monologues but never really explaining what’s going on.

Apart from a couple of annoying indie horror game tropes Organ Quarter is a pretty solid VR horror game. Pick it up if it goes on sale.

PS: Technically I didn't finish this because the game bugged out after I beat the final boss and I ended up watching the ending on YouTube. I still count it though!

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 3
Did you expect me to give this a bad review? What, do you think I'm some kind of monster?

This is just what a sleepy Sunday afternoon needed. A zero-stakes, simple adventure game that didn't tax my braincells and frequently made me laugh. Each episode is more expansive than the last (and by "expansive" I mean that the second episode lets you put stickers on a notebook, and the third episode gives you a sick-ass scooter) and the twist in the third episode got me genuinely emotionally invested.

The only thing that kinda irked me was the occasional moment where the creator would literally insert herself into the game, interrupting the story to deliver some kind of "well, actually" message about how something a character said was wrong. I don't know if these moments were supposed to be jokes but they felt really weird to me, like the video game equivalent of a Twitter community note.

It's cute, it's fun, and it's on Game Pass. If you're looking for a short little adventure game where you don't have to think very hard then Frog Detective is perfect for you.

P.S. I'll play some actual detective games soon, I swear!