Why'd this have to come out the same year as The Outer Worlds goddamn it? Now me and everyone else have to accidentally mix those two up for the rest of time and this is the far superior game. It's one of the best games, that spits in the face of modern game design that leads you around by the nose. I can actually follow my own sense of curiosity and not need all these extrinsic motivations to keep me engaged. They even had the gall to make their achievements not tied to story progress.

That doesn't work for a lot of people nowadays, but it opened my eyes to a less unethical game design. One that doesn't operate on addiction. If your game only feels good because of earned xp, ranking up, progression systems, trophies, and all that confetti, then maybe it's not a good game at all.

It peaks early on, but there was more than enough inventiveness here to keep me interested all the way through. It does the cardinal horror sin of trying to wrap everything under a neat little bow, however, taking much away from what could've been an easily memorable experience -- memorable in the sense that you had to think on it, thus not forgetting it. But anyways, it's a cool little interactive experience, well worth the low price of admission. Very curious in seeing what No Code pull off with something as daunting as the Silent Hill IP.

trans person: im trans

society: ok

guy who just played Outer Wilds (2019): nah i can't tell you anything about it dude you just gotta play it, you'll see why dude

(with that said i will play it one day)

"the goal was to create a game that even children could enjoy without a significant investment of skill or time." "we're not going to put cheats or complexity in it, and we would like to pursue a game that can be enjoyed with only simple operations."

in an era where many mobile games are built around convincing players to spend real money and build their days around not falling behind, neko atsume is a refreshing breeze from the past where the player is encouraged to put the game down and not spend money if they're not especially eager to speed through the game. it says a lot that this is one of the only mobile games i was actually able to "complete" and didn't fill me with an overwhelming urge to immediately uninstall it within a few days after installing (sometimes within a single day, many times within the first few hours or even minutes). even if you accidentally miss seeing any cats and come back to find your food bowls empty, it's okay. you can always try again, and maybe you'll see the cats next time.