sleepy_nice
2023
#10 of 2023
Enough ingenuity, atmosphere and vibe to stand apart from other indie metroidvanias, coupled with enough physics jank and handfeel to make it extremely interesting to move around in. Surprising from start to finish, and I adore how different each playthrough is.
Enough ingenuity, atmosphere and vibe to stand apart from other indie metroidvanias, coupled with enough physics jank and handfeel to make it extremely interesting to move around in. Surprising from start to finish, and I adore how different each playthrough is.
2023
#9 of 2023
Infectiously sincere, and far deeper than simply a tribute to it's influences. This game puts trust in the player and their ability to navigate the strange rules of it's world. Dense with character, both loving and lovely.
Infectiously sincere, and far deeper than simply a tribute to it's influences. This game puts trust in the player and their ability to navigate the strange rules of it's world. Dense with character, both loving and lovely.
2023
#8 of 2023
I couldn't have been more captured by the scope of possibilities than I was with MOONRING. Aesthetically humble, conceptually confident. This is a Fine Thing to behold, really astounding, and completely free to play. Fantastic music too, an inspiration all-round
I couldn't have been more captured by the scope of possibilities than I was with MOONRING. Aesthetically humble, conceptually confident. This is a Fine Thing to behold, really astounding, and completely free to play. Fantastic music too, an inspiration all-round
#7 of 2023
God I was so sceptical when I saw the trailer for this, but the mad men over at Nintendo actually did it. They made a truly excellent 2D Mario game that learned genuine lessons from the best parts of Mario Maker.
Next time, take out all the talking 🙏
God I was so sceptical when I saw the trailer for this, but the mad men over at Nintendo actually did it. They made a truly excellent 2D Mario game that learned genuine lessons from the best parts of Mario Maker.
Next time, take out all the talking 🙏
#6 of 2023
A non-linear, unravelling tapestry that takes simple movement, combines it with an arsenal of unique items (all available from the beginning!) and lets you explore. I basically don't want anything else from a game. Gorgeous and mysterious.
A non-linear, unravelling tapestry that takes simple movement, combines it with an arsenal of unique items (all available from the beginning!) and lets you explore. I basically don't want anything else from a game. Gorgeous and mysterious.
2023
#5 of 2023
Absolutely delightful. A holistic vision of a familiar and psychedelic world. I felt immense amounts of intent and love poured into Knuckle Sandwich, and cackled at the way it revealed itself. Even the flaws are interesting!
Also, Dolus is my boyfriend.
Absolutely delightful. A holistic vision of a familiar and psychedelic world. I felt immense amounts of intent and love poured into Knuckle Sandwich, and cackled at the way it revealed itself. Even the flaws are interesting!
Also, Dolus is my boyfriend.
#4 of 2023
An exercise in refamiliarisation.
Tears of the Kingdom says yes, you do know this world well. However, the important parts - the way you learn your role in the space, the way you negotiate with your surroundings, the way you PLAY (and by God do you play this game) - have been transformed.
There's a feeling I try and describe to people when I want to talk about this game
Think of a time in your life when you first visited a location you would come to know intimately (a workplace, a school, a friends house) and think about the way you perceived it when you arrived. Which door did you enter through? What route did you take as you explored? Where did you ultimately settle when it was time to rest? What does that place look like?
Now, think about how it looks to you today. Think about how alien that place was compared to how you now know it. You realised there was a more convenient entrance for you, the friends you made tucked themselves in some corner or another that you didn't notice at first.
Tears of the Kingdom does that to Breath of the Wild. By subtly changing your perception of the space by the way you enter it, and by the locations of the towers, somehow - suddenly - the space changes. You arrive at landmarks from unique angles, rivers and hills you've seen a thousand times before are mistaken for others.
A game has never before given me that ultra specific feeling. For all the flaws here (many) I have to give the game credit for that.
An exercise in refamiliarisation.
Tears of the Kingdom says yes, you do know this world well. However, the important parts - the way you learn your role in the space, the way you negotiate with your surroundings, the way you PLAY (and by God do you play this game) - have been transformed.
There's a feeling I try and describe to people when I want to talk about this game
Think of a time in your life when you first visited a location you would come to know intimately (a workplace, a school, a friends house) and think about the way you perceived it when you arrived. Which door did you enter through? What route did you take as you explored? Where did you ultimately settle when it was time to rest? What does that place look like?
Now, think about how it looks to you today. Think about how alien that place was compared to how you now know it. You realised there was a more convenient entrance for you, the friends you made tucked themselves in some corner or another that you didn't notice at first.
Tears of the Kingdom does that to Breath of the Wild. By subtly changing your perception of the space by the way you enter it, and by the locations of the towers, somehow - suddenly - the space changes. You arrive at landmarks from unique angles, rivers and hills you've seen a thousand times before are mistaken for others.
A game has never before given me that ultra specific feeling. For all the flaws here (many) I have to give the game credit for that.
2023
#3 of 2023
A delicious meal of a game that gently teaches you how to eat it. This is a puzzle game, sure, but the puzzles aren't in the individual levels. They're in the signals it projects out to you from the moment you boot it up for the first time. Pay attention.
A delicious meal of a game that gently teaches you how to eat it. This is a puzzle game, sure, but the puzzles aren't in the individual levels. They're in the signals it projects out to you from the moment you boot it up for the first time. Pay attention.
2022
#2 of 2023
Simply the most fun I had with a controller in my hand this year. To me, this is the worlds first Yakuza-lite. Almost too much game is packed in here, but it's balanced so perfectly that it just works, never getting in the way of itself.
Simply the most fun I had with a controller in my hand this year. To me, this is the worlds first Yakuza-lite. Almost too much game is packed in here, but it's balanced so perfectly that it just works, never getting in the way of itself.
#1 of 2023
Brutal, vivid and explosive, but also nuanced, precise and meticulous. A pipe bomb made of razorblades. The core loop suited me perfectly: raise my heartrate to unprecedented levels, then let me peruse beautiful menus until it falls again.
Confession time: I didn't finished AC6. I didn't even complete my first playthrough. But I will, when I have the same time I was able to dedicate to Bloodborne. Even without completing it, I know for a fact that this game, even more than my trip through Yarnham, was built for me. I loved everything about the time I spent playing AC6. I loved the melodrama, the mech designs, the music, the setpieces. The enormity of it all. It delivered on a gilded platter what I love about all of my favourite space operas, and then some.
I couldn't help myself - I spoiled some things about what's to come in future playthroughs. Not so much that it's not worth seeing it myself, mind you. I will devour everything in this game, the moment that I'm ready. That might be next week, it might be in 3, 5, 10 years time.
I didn't need to play more than a few hours of it to know that it was going to be my favourite game of the year. And once I knew, that feeling never went away.
Brutal, vivid and explosive, but also nuanced, precise and meticulous. A pipe bomb made of razorblades. The core loop suited me perfectly: raise my heartrate to unprecedented levels, then let me peruse beautiful menus until it falls again.
Confession time: I didn't finished AC6. I didn't even complete my first playthrough. But I will, when I have the same time I was able to dedicate to Bloodborne. Even without completing it, I know for a fact that this game, even more than my trip through Yarnham, was built for me. I loved everything about the time I spent playing AC6. I loved the melodrama, the mech designs, the music, the setpieces. The enormity of it all. It delivered on a gilded platter what I love about all of my favourite space operas, and then some.
I couldn't help myself - I spoiled some things about what's to come in future playthroughs. Not so much that it's not worth seeing it myself, mind you. I will devour everything in this game, the moment that I'm ready. That might be next week, it might be in 3, 5, 10 years time.
I didn't need to play more than a few hours of it to know that it was going to be my favourite game of the year. And once I knew, that feeling never went away.
2021
I played a Gregorian Day's worth of Vampire Survivors looking for any substance and came up empty. This game is the ludological equivalent of doodling endlessly on a pad while you're on hold with the bank. Finding out the developer worked on digital slot machines before making this game made all the pieces fall into place: you pull the arm, the images flash, the numbers go up, you die. It's sickeningly mesmeric, it reeks, it is completely frictionless. It is the exact spiritual midpoint between Cookie Clicker and a pachinko machine. I am worse for having played it and so are you, may god have mercy on us all.
2017
Beautiful and engrossing, frustrating at times but never at the expense of the fun of it all. A perfect puzzle game in every sense: the main mechanics work perfectly and flow together seamlessly, and they aren't so obscure that you can't understand what you're looking at in a glance (once you know how it all works). The tutorial onboards the player with ease, but the moment the tether of guidance is ripped away, you freefall into a mind-melting web of paths and possibilities.
It all appears very mathematics-focused, and - I mean, sure it is, but only TECHNICALLY. Your goal in every puzzle is to solve an equation with the numbers on the board, but the cleverness of this game is that the arithmetic isn't the challenge. In the same way that the numbers on a sudoku puzzle can confuse a first-timer into thinking they need an aptitude for the numerical, Dawn of a Soul uses numbers in the same way it uses colours. These are all just symbols, and your optimal path through each maze of lines relies on your understanding of the sequence the symbols need to be encountered in.
There are opportunities for additional souls to be collected on puzzles that have multiple solutions, and sure it may help you in those moments to recognise how many multipliers you need to reach the highest possible score. Math is useful in these moments. But again, this is ultimately simple counting - I can't remember a time I got stuck aiming for an extra multiplier that required me to count higher than the fingers on my hands. This game fries your brain in the same way as an aforementioned sudoku can, taunting you with the knowledge that the answer is all there in front you of. You just can't see it until you manoeuvre your mind around it.
This would get a perfect score from me even if the presentation wasn't so beautiful. The ambient music and the blooming effects and the stellar pixal art and the sparse dialogue, it's all masterful.
It all appears very mathematics-focused, and - I mean, sure it is, but only TECHNICALLY. Your goal in every puzzle is to solve an equation with the numbers on the board, but the cleverness of this game is that the arithmetic isn't the challenge. In the same way that the numbers on a sudoku puzzle can confuse a first-timer into thinking they need an aptitude for the numerical, Dawn of a Soul uses numbers in the same way it uses colours. These are all just symbols, and your optimal path through each maze of lines relies on your understanding of the sequence the symbols need to be encountered in.
There are opportunities for additional souls to be collected on puzzles that have multiple solutions, and sure it may help you in those moments to recognise how many multipliers you need to reach the highest possible score. Math is useful in these moments. But again, this is ultimately simple counting - I can't remember a time I got stuck aiming for an extra multiplier that required me to count higher than the fingers on my hands. This game fries your brain in the same way as an aforementioned sudoku can, taunting you with the knowledge that the answer is all there in front you of. You just can't see it until you manoeuvre your mind around it.
This would get a perfect score from me even if the presentation wasn't so beautiful. The ambient music and the blooming effects and the stellar pixal art and the sparse dialogue, it's all masterful.
2021
WOAH. This was great! This was about to be a 5-star review until I played the sequel and realised the series had more to give.
But yeah, game design wise this is a near-perfect exercise in Living Your Truth. It wears every influence on its sleeve and explores so many opportunities in the kinds of 3D platforming you can do given the constraints. For a game with no combat it does a really great job of making you forget that you're really just running and jumping. Level themes are varied and the structure of each level fits its respective theme, it joyfully expresses itself at every moment you're playing it. The music slaps too, it all feels ripped right from the era, it's all perfectly placed and incredibly varied.
There's also a really appealing and playfully sinister edge that immediately undermines itself with additional whimst upon the conclusion of the game. I don't want to spoil anything, the game takes around 30 minutes to beat so just check it out for yourself and see what I mean.
Also, yeah it only takes 30 minutes to beat, but that doesn't include getting A (or the elusive S) rank in every level and collecting every star, which is well worth doing. There's a couple of great bonus unlockables that I'm really glad I got.
Toree rocks! I would gladly play one or two of these games every month for the rest of my life and never get sick of it.
But yeah, game design wise this is a near-perfect exercise in Living Your Truth. It wears every influence on its sleeve and explores so many opportunities in the kinds of 3D platforming you can do given the constraints. For a game with no combat it does a really great job of making you forget that you're really just running and jumping. Level themes are varied and the structure of each level fits its respective theme, it joyfully expresses itself at every moment you're playing it. The music slaps too, it all feels ripped right from the era, it's all perfectly placed and incredibly varied.
There's also a really appealing and playfully sinister edge that immediately undermines itself with additional whimst upon the conclusion of the game. I don't want to spoil anything, the game takes around 30 minutes to beat so just check it out for yourself and see what I mean.
Also, yeah it only takes 30 minutes to beat, but that doesn't include getting A (or the elusive S) rank in every level and collecting every star, which is well worth doing. There's a couple of great bonus unlockables that I'm really glad I got.
Toree rocks! I would gladly play one or two of these games every month for the rest of my life and never get sick of it.
2019
Inbento is gorgeous and challenging and I desperately wanted to love it as much as Golf Peaks by the same developer, but it didn't reach the same heights for me.
Aesthetically there isn't really a flaw I can point to - beautifully drawn with charming animations, great music, thematically pretty strong. If you wanna chill out with something for a while there are plenty of way worse options, and the way it looks and feels to be in the game might be enough to keep you engaged all the way.
Unfortunately, while the mechanics were very unique and interesting the variety was low (at least as far as I saw), and some puzzle solutions were far too obtuse. I ended up giving up about halfway through after I spent 15 minutes on a puzzle with no solution in sight, and was not tempted to push through at all.
This game is still really great! I may have persisted if there wasn't such a huge number of puzzle games in this bundle - I've got plenty to move onto if I want to scratch some brain itches, so unfortunately I'm putting this one down (for now).
Aesthetically there isn't really a flaw I can point to - beautifully drawn with charming animations, great music, thematically pretty strong. If you wanna chill out with something for a while there are plenty of way worse options, and the way it looks and feels to be in the game might be enough to keep you engaged all the way.
Unfortunately, while the mechanics were very unique and interesting the variety was low (at least as far as I saw), and some puzzle solutions were far too obtuse. I ended up giving up about halfway through after I spent 15 minutes on a puzzle with no solution in sight, and was not tempted to push through at all.
This game is still really great! I may have persisted if there wasn't such a huge number of puzzle games in this bundle - I've got plenty to move onto if I want to scratch some brain itches, so unfortunately I'm putting this one down (for now).
Nearly identical in every relevant way to the first episode, meaning I had a lot of the same problems with it: namely the open world level is too big to not have a map or more distinguishing landmarks, and the controls occasionally veer from "rough" into "irritating".
That said, I'm developing a massive taste for this series and enjoyed this thoroughly in spite of my critiques. The music is HOT, and the ability to pick up new tracks was a fun bonus that (I think?) was absent in the first episode. I like the new characters and I think over the two episodes I can see a real sense for scope in the design of the levels. I also continue to mostly love the way it feels to skate around in this game, I like the versatility of movement, and at it's best this game FEELS fucking fantastic.
I'm doing this review as a criticism sandwich, because I just remembered another specific thing I really disliked. I understand (and respect) the thematic need to have cops chase and grapple you, but sometimes its a bummer trying to nail a trick only to get grabbed and have the cop spawn with you when you restart your placement. There doesn't seem to be any way to lose them! Also there are too many of those security missile launchers, and they crowd sections that would be better experienced at full speed.
But yeah, I'll download and play every single one of these episodes man. It's good stuff! Just could be a bit better.
That said, I'm developing a massive taste for this series and enjoyed this thoroughly in spite of my critiques. The music is HOT, and the ability to pick up new tracks was a fun bonus that (I think?) was absent in the first episode. I like the new characters and I think over the two episodes I can see a real sense for scope in the design of the levels. I also continue to mostly love the way it feels to skate around in this game, I like the versatility of movement, and at it's best this game FEELS fucking fantastic.
I'm doing this review as a criticism sandwich, because I just remembered another specific thing I really disliked. I understand (and respect) the thematic need to have cops chase and grapple you, but sometimes its a bummer trying to nail a trick only to get grabbed and have the cop spawn with you when you restart your placement. There doesn't seem to be any way to lose them! Also there are too many of those security missile launchers, and they crowd sections that would be better experienced at full speed.
But yeah, I'll download and play every single one of these episodes man. It's good stuff! Just could be a bit better.