PublicNuisance

After being impressed with the first little bit of Twin Mirror I have to say I was pretty underwhelmed by the end. It just increasingly felt rushed and also seemed to pull a bait and switch with it’s own mechanics. For most of the game You are allowed to use the mind palace to recreate what actually happened by testing out various possibilities until you find the correct combo of events. If you fail you just go to trial and error before you figure it out either through hints or luck. Not the greatest mechanic in the world and certainly could have been more fleshed out but still decent. Later in the game though you are not allowed to test run events, you have to take one shot at it and either get it right or not which leads to different outcomes. One one hand I can respect upping the stakes to create tension but at the same time the game spends time giving you expectations on how the central mechanic is going to operate only to change course at the end. I say the game felt rushed because the game seems to put together the pieces at a breakneck pace while failing to flesh out what led up to it or what comes after the game ends. I rarely say a game was too short but this game certainly felt that way. To top it off my favourite part of the game was exploring the town of Basswood but that section is limited to a very small section of the town and a single scene. My favourite character was Joan and that story angle also felt like it lacked a lot of meat on the bone leaving me wanting her to have a bigger role and a more defined ending for her. The game loved to introduce back story and characters and then give them too little depth and little to do. Overall though I can't say that the game was "bad". It was subpar and could have been better but no part was terrible. The graphics were decent to above average with the faces and vistas being the standout. There was a shot of Basswood from a lookout at night that was beautiful and the town itself was a very comfy area. The voice acting was well done as was the music. Other Don't Nod games could get by with a single game mechanic driving the game because they had stories that were much more fleshed out and deeper characters, Twin Mirror lacks those so the game play felt more hollow and shallow without something else to add to it. I also felt that none of the endings really felt like the ending I wanted or enjoyed. I also felt like the game didn't give me much in the way of choices where I could say that "these are the reasons I ended up with that ending". I felt like I got stuck with it with little in the way of choices I could have made to avoid it. I will give some credit to the lock puzzle as it had some good logic to it. I played the game on Linux using Proton. Twin Mirror had a v-sync toggle, four AA settings, and four other graphics settings. The game had a couple technical issues. When I would first load a save the FPS would cap out at 60 FPS so I had to go into the settings, turn v-sync off, turn v-sync back on, and then it was fixed until the next time I exited and relaunched the game. There was also a scene that had a bit of flickering for a few seconds as well as some glitch with Sam's hair in the mirror early on for a short moment. I also didn't like how the cut scenes ran at 60 FPS where the main game ran at my monitor's refresh rate as it was a tad jarring at times. Overall the game ran very well with the frame rate never dipping under 116 while maxed out at 2560P. The game has an auto save system. I didn't have any crashes. Game Engine: Unreal 4 Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 26.8 GB Game Settings: 2560x1440, Ultra, v-sync on, AA on Ultra GPU Usage: 70-100 % VRAM Usage: 3555-5120 MB CPU Usage: 12-20 % System RAM Usage: 5.2-6.7 GB Frame Rate: 116-165 FPS I thought that Life is Strange was fantastic, then I played Tell Me Why and thought it was decent but nowhere near as good as LIS, and now I have played Twin Mirror and am reduced to calling it subpar. Hopefully Don't Nod can improve going forward as they have shown they have a lot of talent in the past but are headed in the wrong direction in my experience. I finished my first play through of Twin Mirror in six hours and eighteen minutes. I paid $8.80 CAD for it. I find it hard to recommend it even at that price let alone it's standard price of $38.99 CAD plus tax. It just left me wanting and didn't explore the areas I did enjoy enough. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Asus RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 | Devuan 8 (Freia) | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.17.9+deb14-amd64 | Mesa 25.2.6-1 | Open RC 0.63 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz | Proton 9.0-4

The controls were terrible in my opinion. Countless times I had to force the character to go where I want and fight them wanting to go elsewhere. The closest I can relate it to is the tank controls of the old survival horror games. The camera didn’t help because it would often shift when I would have preferred it didn’t and that means more likely then not I was going to be taking the character in the wrong direction. The story is fantastic, the different characters all give you different pieces of the same overall story from their own perspectives and it is all a well woven sight to behold. The branching is also second to none as there are real consequences if you make certain choices. There is little in the way of “failure” or “success”, whatever your outcome it just changes the story branch to suit what you did. It isn’t to say you have full free reign but it is far more actual meaningful choice than many games give you. The only gripe I have with the story was when you finally are shown who the Origami Killer was I felt there was little buildup to it. It just kind of happened. Another thing that was also done better than even other Quantic Dream games was the fights. I usually hate QTE type events but Quantic Dream has always made it something that I actually found worked well. The QTE based fight scenes flow beautifully and even when I screw up and miss a prompt it actually almost works better as the fight looks like a more realistic back and forth between the people. There were times where the QTE and other button combos for to a masochistic level even I couldn’t stand. There were times where to complete something I literally had both my hands contorted like a pretzel trying to hit varying combos of buttons from all over the controller. The graphics were overall really well done. At the time of writing this the game originally came out fifteen years ago in 2010 and nothing looked visually sub par. Sure I can list games that have come out since that look better but I can also list many games that have come out since that look worse. The detail on faces and objects was great. The water, lighting, and shadows were also well done. If anything was maybe a little dated it was the clothing detail and even that wasn’t bad. The voice acting was a mixed bag. The voice actors for Ethan, Scott, and Madison were all great but I wasn’t overly impressed with the work done on Norman, Shaun and Lauren. The music was perfect and always added to the mood of the scene. I played Heavy Rain on Linux using Proton. There was a resolution option, two types of AA that can be used at once with a total of five AA options total between them, two AO options, and four other graphics settings. The game has a 60 FPS limit that can’t be changed in game. You can change the difficulty when loading a save. There were a few technical issues I experienced. First was one where often times if I quit to the main menu to reload a save the game’s frame rate would plummet when it loaded. Instead of a smooth 60 FPS it would give me 30-40 FPS. I had to exit the game and relaunch it to fix this. This happened often enough to be a nuisance. There was also one small glitch when I got stuck in a side walk when walking down the street, this only happened the once and I had to reload my save to fix it. The performance otherwise was a smooth 55-60 FPS. I would have preferred a unlocked frame rate or to tie it to my v-sync of 165 FPS. You can have three save profiles in game but each only has one save slot. Other than the one save slot you must replay entire chapters. I would have preferred a manual save option. I was able to use a keyboard and mouse as well as my Logitech F310. While both options were not ideal the F310 was the far better option for me. The button prompts were correct for the game pad in game. Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 36.9 GB Settings Used: 2560x1440, 8x MSAA, SMAA, 16x AF, HBAO on, All Highest GPU Usage: 17-87 % VRAM Usage: 3688-6009 MB CPU Usage: 10-32 % System RAM Usage: 4.7-7.6 GB Frame Rate: 55-60 FPS As with other Quantic Dream games I could go on about control and technical issues but I also have to go on about story quality, branching quality, and music. I want to be harsh on the game for it’s faults but it’s strengths are so good I can only go so far. Despite the issues I had I enjoyed my time with Heavy Rain. I finished the story in about eleven hours on the “I Play Video Games Very Often” setting. I paid $10.99 CAD for it and would say its current price tag of $29.99 plus tax CAD is still a good price for what you get. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Asus RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.17.5-artix1-1 | Mesa 25.2.5-arch1.2 | Open RC 0.63 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz | Proton 9.0-4

SIMULACRA is by far one of the creepier games I have played. This is due in large part to the fantastic sound effects. Little noises happen at times that really threw me off such as the sound of breathing and especially what sounded like tapping on glass. I literally stopped playing and went to look around outside to see if someone had been tapping on my basement window one time. The music is also pretty good but I felt it could be a bit repetitive. The puzzles were also for the most part very good. From the text puzzles to rebuild distorted messages to how you had to go find info on various apps to figure out phone numbers and one where you had to find a website page link, I enjoyed them overall and applaud how different they were. I didn’t really enjoy the puzzle where you have to rebuild images as I found it tedious but I did get better at it by the end. I also didn’t like how the laptop mission was timed. That being said one thing I will praise is that even if you fail a mission it just seemed to branch the story in a slightly different direction so it wasn’t required to pass all missions or puzzles. The voice acting was a mixed bag. The voice actor for Cassie, Ashley, and Anna were all good but the police detective, Greg, and Taylor were all a bit over the top and didn’t feel as normal or real people. The detective especially. Also the part where the badge says “special police” was hilarious and in real life would make me think the cop had gotten his gear from a toy store. The videos themselves were well done. I played SIMULACRA on Linux using Wine and WineD3D on Heroic Games Launcher. There was no options at all. You couldn’t adjust resolution, volume, text size, nothing. It did seem to respect my refresh rate despite no v-sync option. The game also uses an auto save system with only one save slot so it constantly overwrites which means that if you want to try out different choices then you need to start over from the beginning. I did have a couple issues such as a couple times I opened the game it wouldn’t go full screen as well as using Alt-Tab crashed the game once. Neither issue happened more than a couple times so it’s tough to point the finger to the issue. Performance was great but this is an FMV game so that doesn’t shock me. Game Engine: Java Graphics API: WineD3D Disk Space Used: 474 MB Game Version Played: 1.0.48 GPU Usage: 0-46 % VRAM Usage: 443-515 MB CPU Usage: 1-16 % System RAM Usage: 2.5-3.1 GB Frame Rate: 87-165 FPS Technical blemishes and some voice acting aside the game is good. I enjoyed the story, loved the atmosphere, and liked the majority of the puzzles. I finished the game in four hours and nine minutes. I paid $1.34 CAD for it and can say it is worth it’s current full price tag of $5.69 CAD plus tax. If you like FMV games and/or games with a creepy atmosphere I recommend SIMULACRA. My Score: 7.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 | Devuan 5 (daedalus) | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.1.0-37-amd64| Mesa 22.3.6 | Wine 10.11

I have to say that this game really grew on me. I started out not really liking the main character much and finding the story kind of slow. It really did get better as it went and by the end I thought it was amazing, loved the twists and turns and had a better appreciation for Nicole. I think there is a fair bit that is left up to interpretation that I would have liked answered but it is by no means an incomplete story. I won’t post spoilers but the story ended up being one of my all time favourites in terms of walking sim games. It felt like a more macabre version of Firewatch. The game did have some wasted parts to it. You can pick up a fair bit of objects but they provide exactly nothing to the story aside from the items you are meant to pick up. The map system was decent but I think it could have done a little better job marking certain locations so it was less maze like. There are also a fair bit of dialogue choices but I can’t seem to find anything that they actually do as the story is extremely linear. There is also a timer on those choices which I found varied at time with sometimes getting a solid 30 seconds or so and other times getting just a split second to choose. The voice acting is great as is the music although certain bits of music were a tad overused. The graphics are fairly well done. The object detail ranges from excellent to decent. The animations are also well done. I played TSORF on Linux using Wine. It never crashed. I did notice a slight issue where on a multi monitor setup the game would move things from one window to the other when in full-screen. I am not sure if this was an issue with Wine or the game. It was an easy fix though as I just unchecked full-screen and the issue was resolved. The game has a resolution setting, a v-sync toggle, and one graphics option. The v-sync toggle is useless as the game has a 60 FPS cap by default so the max is 60 FPS regardless of whether v-sync is on or off. The performance was great sticking to the full 60 FPS with exception to one drop to 59 FPS. The game uses a checkpoint save system where there is only one save file that gets overwritten each time. The game also erases your save file after you finish the game for some strange reason. Game Engine: Unreal Engine 4 Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 8.8 GB Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse Graphics Settings Used: 2560x1440, Epic, V-Sync Off GPU Usage: 18-67 % VRAM Usage: 2133-5014 MB CPU Usage: 3-9 % System RAM Usage: 3.4-5.8 GB Frame Rate: 59-60 FPS While I have a few nitpicks with TSORF they are minor overall and I can say that I you enjoy walking sims such as Firewatch, Kona, and Gone Home then I recommend it. I wish it had a manual save system, that the story was a tad tighter, that there were more graphics options, but what I got was a very enjoyable game that had a great story with some good twists. I finished it in three hours and twelve minutes and paid $4.99 CAD for it. It is easily worth it’s current price of $19.99 CAD in my eyes. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Solus | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.14.6-319.current | Mesa 25.0.6 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz | Wine 10.1 | Heroic Games Launcher 2.16.1

The Campsite does a good job of making use of it's short run time. It has a very comfy feel to it and I love the setting. It has some pretty straightforward puzzles that for the most part are logical. I will give it credit for having a unique Morse code puzzle. I did ind the use of the stake to be a bit weird. I like how it allows you to highlight things that can be clicked on but makes it optional. It satisfies both spectrums of puzzle gamer. The graphics are alright but pixel art games are always a tough one to grade as they are meant to be low detail to start with. The music is well done. I do wish that the handling of the text was different. While you can pause the game or skip the text it will almost always continue without stopping. I wish there had of been an option to set it to only advance text manually. There isn't a ton of story here but what there is was enjoyable and worked well. I played The Campsite on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors or other glitches. There are no graphics options at all. The save system is one that saves on exit from the game and overwrites the same one save file each time. I would have preferred a manual save system with multiple slots although given the short run time it wasn't a huge deal. Performance was great but given the visual detail it should be. Game Engine: Unity Disk Space Used: 189 MB Game Version Played: 2.0 Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse GPU Usage: 6-14 % VRAM Usage: 1282-1407 MB CPU Usage: 7-11 % System RAM Usage: 4.8-5.0 GB Frame Rate: 164-165 FPS Overall if you're after a point and click game that isn't ​​masochistic with it's puzzles and has a heart warming story then I think you'll enjoy it. I finished it in forty five minutes. It is free of charge but even with a price tag of $5 I’d still recommend it. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Solus | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.14.6-319.current | Mesa 25.0.6 |

The director’s cut of Deus Ex: Human Revolution falls into the pitfalls that many remasters/director’s cuts/etc type games fall into. That is that the parts that are good were already good and in the original game. The parts that are bad are often issues that were not present in the original game. That is the case here. The voice acting is great. The music is awesome. The story is fairly well done. There are a lot of decent choices in the game. There are a lot of ways you can play the game minus boss fights. Whether you want to hack, use vents, stealth, get into firefights there are augments, weapons, and level choices that will fit your style. The boss fights are very much combat driven for the most part though. Once again though all of this was true of the original game. The graphics have held up pretty well. They are showing their age in some ways but at the same time they’re not an eye sore. For a game released originally in 2011 it looks better and runs better than some lower end games in 2025. Bugs are ultimately what did this DC in for me. There are a lot of animation issues such as your body or an enemy’s body going through surfaces like walls or desks during a take-down animation. Maybe those were present in the original version, I don’t remember. What I know for a fact was not present in the original was the game breaking crashes I got on the Panchea level. At different points in that level I keep getting crashes with the error message “ran out of saved memory”. I was able to get by it once by loading a previous save but later on I could not get by it using that method, adjusting graphics settings, trying different versions of Proton/wine or anything else. I literally can’t finish the game which I had no issue with when the original first launched in 2011. Looking on the Steam forums gamers on both Windows and Linux complain of this issue dating back as far as 2013. The fact that this bug still remains in 2025 in various forms is a disgrace. There are even other bugs such as when using the social enhancer aug you can choose “charm” but it will actually choose “intimidate” instead which can cost you the conversation as the game’s code has switched the two for that instance and you really have to pick the wrong one for it to work. Once again looking at the Steam forums that bug has been unfixed since 2014. There are other bugs where objectives don’t always update properly. For instance I got a pocket secretary which told me where a person was hiding but my objective didn’t update saying I knew that info (still said I had to find out where they were) and I had to go there manually to get the objective to skip ahead saying I had found them. Don’t get me wrong, the game itself is still very fun to play. It’s just that other than making the DLC and game into one long game this DC does nothing but introduce bug after bug. I played this DC on Linux using Proton. There were five AA settings, six AF settings, two SSAO settings, a v-sync toggle, an FOV slider that went from 75-100, and four other graphics settings. You can pause and skip cutscenes. You can manually save and there are one hundred save slots or you can use the checkpoint saves. You can change the difficulty mid game. The performance was fantastic. Game Engine: Crystal Engine Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 19GB Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse Graphics Settings Used: 2560x1440, MLAA, 16x AF, depth of field off, rest at highest, v-sync on GPU Usage: 15-90 % VRAM Usage: 1624-1975 MB CPU Usage: 12-40 % System RAM Usage: 3.8-5.5 GB Frame Rate: 68-165 FPS As I have said there is a very fun game here that this DC has messed up royally. To get 36 hours into a game and not be able to finish it because of game breaking bugs that haven’t been fixed in over a decade is terrible. The original is worth the entire $25.99 CAD that it goes for but this DC is worth exactly nothing to me. My Score: 9/10 for the original but 0/10 for this DC My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Solus | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.14.6-319.current | Mesa 25.0.6 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz | Proton 9.0-4 (also tried experimental)

I really liked the concept for Death Stream and think it's core ideas are solid. It has well thought out rules and a good tutorial. One of it's strengths is also one of it's weaknesses though: luck. On any given play through you may have terrible luck or fantastic luck. I had times where I had multiple health injections available to me and was wearing a shield while other times I was killed within about 5 turns because it was all arrows and electrocutions. The main downside to Death Stream that affects many other parts is the lack of a save system. Once you eventually get lucky enough to get free of your locks you are put through a test of memory which if you fail means death. To further make that difficult the developer's interpretation of how many doors I unlocked was different from mine which meant a few times of dying and starting over before I got the hang of it. The next downside is the movement when you are walking around felt very unnatural and weird. Couple this with the fact that much of the later game involves movement and that if you fail this you die and start from the very beginning and it got very frustrating very fast. ​Add to all this that there is little to no story and there is little holding the game together outside **** concept and rules. The game does give a good summary at the end showing your results as well as a tiny bit of lore but overall you are given little to no info. The graphics were decent enough. They seemed to be going for some kind of comic book or cell shaded style but to be fair the game takes place largely in one room so it is hard to judge the quality from that. The music was good and helped upped the tension, especially during wheel spins. I will also say that I liked how many different things could happen to you based off of the wheel spins. I played Death Stream on Linux. The game never crashed and I didn't notice any bugs. I did notice five spelling errors though. Given that this is a game where you die often and repeat the same things over you will see these spelling errors frequently which makes them seem even worse. There was a resolution option but the drop down box was empty so I am not sure if this was intentional or a bug. There were no other graphics options. This included not having a v-sync option which meant that the game ran at crazy high frame rates and had much higher GPU usage then it should have based on graphical quality. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 2.4 GB Game Version Played: 1.0.0 GPU Usage: 73-100 % VRAM Usage: 2874-2931 MB CPU Usage: 24-30 % System RAM Usage: 3.0-3.2 GB Frame Rate: 266-566 FPS Overall the great conceptual ideas couldn't overcome the poor movement, lack of save system, and lack of technical polish for me. I played the game for an hour and made it as far as being free and trying to escape before writing this. I paid $4.42 CAD for Death Stream and feel that is a more than fair price given what I got. While it lacked many things I will say that it made me want to see what the developer does next. They have some talent for sure and I think with more budget and time to implement things they could do great things. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Solus | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.12.23-317.current | Mesa 25.0.4

We Should Talk certainly has an interesting concept. I actually liked the way in which you craft responses and would like it if other visual novel type games would adapt it and build on it. It wasn't always perfect though. A few times I couldn't really find a suitable response to certain situations. It seemed liked the game was trying to force you to make a response that would inflame drama and conflict at certain points. The story overall lacked much meat to it. It is basically a short game where you are out at a bar. The game hints at possible issues in your relationship before and hints at flimsy endings but never really gives you much context or resolution. It just came off as really thin. There also didn't feel like I had much choice or control in the story despite the point of the mechanics being to change that. I also want to point out that I got one achievement which said I lied about talking to my ex which is weird because I mentioned them by name and Sam knew that this was my ex so if I used their name and my girlfriend knew that was my ex how did I lie ? Graphics wise the game had a decent style to it but at the same time it wasn't enough from feeling like it lacked either visual pop or texture detail. The music as good and lended to the bar atmosphere well but was a bit repetitive. I played We Should Talk on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors or bugs. The game has one resolution option and one graphics setting. I did notice that every time I launched the game it would default to 1920x1080 and I would have to manually change it to 2560x1440, it did save my choice of Ultra though. The game didn't appear to have any save system. I tried exiting and going back in early on at different points and it always put me at the beginning of the game. This means that to see the possibility of any different dialog choices you have to replay the game in full. It is a short game but a manual save system would still have been nice. There is also no mouse support and you have to use the keyboard. There is also no v-sync option so the game runs at crazy high frame rates which pushes the GPU usage way higher than it needs to be. Performance was fine obviously given this issue. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 1.7 GB Graphics Settings Used: 2560x1440, Ultra GPU Usage: 79-99 % VRAM Usage: 3199-3276 MB CPU Usage: 16-19 % System RAM Usage: 4.7-5.0 GB Frame Rate: 392-491 FPS Overall I can't call We Should Talk a bad game but it isn't exactly a good game either. It simply exists. I think with some more technical polish and some more meat on the story's bones it could have been much better. As it stands it has a good concept that was held back by other parts of the game and was never used as well as I had hoped. I finished my first play through in twenty three minutes. I paid $10.06 CAD for it and felt that alright for what I got. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Solus | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.12.23-317.current | Mesa 25.0.4 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440

Repella Fella really surprised me. I went into the demo not really having much expectations. It blew me away so much I went and bought the full game. It has fantastic humour. It can also be really grim and I loved that. It gives you many choices throughout and often times those choices had consequences I had not really thought about much. More than a few times I was surprised just how well thought out some sequences were in terms of taking into account what would really happen. The story itself is fairly well done. It throws a lot at you in terms of factions, characters, lore, etc but it also gives you a really detailed in game guide to all of it. The lockpick mini game is a decent although it would have been nice to have as way of figuring out which tumbler to try next without guessing. The various death scenes you can encounter for your character were inventive, hilarious, and didn’t penalize you too much. I didn’t like how you pretty much had to have subtitles on but they didn’t fully do their job. With subtitles off you miss all of the foreign language spoken but with them on it only translates some of them with others only saying “foreign language” and on top of that you also now have to see all of the English spoken that I didn’t need or want. I thought the hacking mini game was mixed as well. It has a decent premise but it was really easily to get penalized by picking the wrong colour too early with no way of knowing beforehand. The music and voice acting were both well done. I thought that while the story was perfectly setup for a sequel at the same time this game ends just as things were getting really interesting. I had no idea the story was going to be split up like this going in and I feel it should be called “episode 1” as there is little in the way of any conclusion to it. The graphics had great style and it was like watching a cartoon that I had more control over. I played Repella Fella on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs or glitches. There were only two graphics options which were a fullscreen toggle and a toggle for “**** laptop mode”. The game has checkpoints for save games and also the ability to save whenever you want. Sadly though there is only once save slot for each. You can pause and skip cutscenes. Performance was fantastic overall although I did encounter a few times where the game had a lag spike for a split second. I couldn’t monitor frame rate with this game but outside of those few split seconds the game didn’t seem to have any lag. The game seemed to use a lot of system RAM given the graphical quality but so long as you have the RAM to spare it isn’t an issue. Disk Space Used: 8.7GB Game Version Played: 1.0 Game Settings Used: Fullscreen on, **** Laptop Mode off GPU Usage: 5-23 % VRAM Usage: 1128-2462 MB CPU Usage: 8-28 % System RAM Usage: 5.9-7.3 GB While I had a few nitpicks the positive parts to Repella Fella really outshine my complaints. It had me laughing most of the way through. It has deeper lore and world building than many other games. It showed it could do comedy, drama, action, and anything else it tried. I finished the game in seven hours and eleven minutes. I paid $23.72 CAD for it and given the quality I would say it is worth even more despite the story ending too soon. If you want a side scroller with some bite to it I would at least try out the demo. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Solus | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.12.21-316.current | Mesa 25.0.3

Shadow Warrior’s 2013 reboot was one of the best reboots I have played. It did a good job of keeping what worked and adding in new elements. Shadow Warrior 2 was a real test because there never was a sequel to reboot so it would have to be a story and game play that were fresh and not in an any way copied from an old sequel. In this regards Shadow Warrior 2 was good to great. The story was well done for the majority of it. There were enough throwbacks to the reboot in terms of characters and references while still adding new ones and new plot points. The ending foes feel a bit rushed in the last couple story missions and the game does not really tie things up very tightly. If it’s goal was to setup the third game I don’t think it did that very well either. The sequel is more of a Borderland format of side missions and weapon upgrades compared to the reboot’s more linear story with light upgrade options. This works in many ways as there are a fantastic selection of weapons, amulets to equip to them, powers to learn, and passive improvements you can buy. The side missions are your standard quests for the most part but are still enjoyable. I did find the various levels could have been broken up more. When you get several straight side quests to the same area it makes it a bit dull and repetitive. That being said sometimes you get a bunch of possible side quests at once so you can choose to do them in a different order. The combat got a lot more vertical and it worked well. You can climb many surfaces as well as combine that with a dash function to make for some interesting ways to traverse levels and attack enemies. One thing the sequel did worse was that it did away with the option for manual saving and only has checkpoint saves. To make it worse enemies respawn when you exit the game and go back in even if the area was clear when you hit the checkpoint. This wasn’t a major issue, just a minor nuisance. The music and voice acting were both well done. The graphics were very good but not stunning. In fact I was a bit surprised at how much resources were used at times. It was still better than many other games out there for both optimization and quality though. I played Shadow Warrior 2 on Linux using Wine and DXVK. There is an option for resolution, an FOV slider that goes from 50-100, a resolution scale slider that goes from 20-200%, four AF settings, toggles for v-sync; temporal AA; SSAO, and fifteen other graphics options. That is a crazy amount of options that gives the gamer a ton of control over their performance and experience. There are different difficulty options but you can’t change them mid game, you need to exit to the main menu as you change the difficulty when loading the game. Not the biggest deal but it would have been nicer to allow changing it whenever you want to. You can skip cut scenes. The game did have a few issues. It froze once, had one spelling error on a diary, and in one cut scene a characters foot went through a throne. Nothing too bad but they still happened. The performance was usually really good although I saw some brief slowdowns sometimes during checkpoints being tripped and also when I had a screen chalk full of enemies. The frame rate drops never lasted more than a couple seconds. Game Engine: Road Hog Engine Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 14.3 GB Input Used: Keyboard and mouse Game Version Played: 1.1.14.0 Graphics Settings Used: 2560P, 125% resolution scale, v-sync on, 16x AF, v-sync; TAA; and SSAO on, depth of field and motion blur off, 68 FOV and all other settings at highest GPU Usage: 57-100 % VRAM Usage: 3147-5604 MB CPU Usage: 12-49 % System RAM Usage: 3.8-7.3 GB Frame Rate: 19-165 FPS Overall if you enjoyed the Shadow Warrior reboot, if you enjoy open world action games, if you enjoy fun and funny games then I think Shadow Warrior 2 will have something for you. It does a lot well and it’s misses and problems are few and minor. I finished the campaign on normal difficulty in nineteen hours. The current price tag of $33.99 CAD is a good sweet spot for the quality and length. My System:Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Solus | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.12.19-315.current | Mesa 25.0.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz | Wine 10.1 | Heroic Games Launcher 2.15.2

Paradise Marsh is a very relaxing game as advertised. It has more of a story than I thought it would although I still wouldn't call it a story driven game. That being said it was enjoyable and well made. The graphics are a sort of pixel style but unlike many games it was not so low resolution that you couldn't make things out. It actually looked really smooth and had a great art style. Sun rise was always my favorite part of the day. The sound effects were great and that was big as often I could hear where there were creatures to be caught before I saw them. The music helped with the calming atmosphere. The game even has a day/night cycle as well as a season cycle. This is all pretty sped up which is good as certain creatures only appear at night or day. The interactions such as skipping stones, playing with tires, etc are nice enough but luckily are optional. As are finding messages in a bottle. I would have liked to see a map with locations of where certain creatures were encountered but to be fair I did alright just wandering around. I played Paradise Marsh on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any bugs or glitches. There was not much in the way of graphics options. There was a toggle for v-sync, and shadows as well as a resolution option and a choice of pixel style. There was an FOV slider but with no numbers attached. There were three separate audio settings which was nice. The game saves at different points, usually when completing something or capturing something and on exit. There is just one save slot though so it always gets overwritten. I would have preferred a manual save system with multiple slots. Performance was great although although with the art style chosen it was to be expected. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Game Version Played: 1.2.1 Disk Space Used: 442 MB Graphics Settings Used: V-sync on, Shadows on, Fine Pixel Ratio, Max FOV, 2560x1440 GPU Usage: 18-76 % VRAM Usage: 960-1095 MB CPU Usage: 13-20 % System RAM Usage: 2.8-3.2 GB Frame Rate: 160-165 FPS I would recommend Paradise Marsh if you're in the mood for a slower paced game where story isn't the main factor. I think a more detailed story could have helped the game but as it is the game play and scenery carried it fine. A more fine tuned save system would have been welcomed but what was there was adequate. I finished the main game in one hour and forty two minutes. This included collecting all stars and messages. I paid $8.56 CAD for it and feel that was fair. The current full price of $19.42 CAD plus tax would be a bit steep in my eyes. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | MX Linux 23.5 | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.12.11-2-liquorix | Mesa 24.2.2-1~mx23ahs | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz

I found that ​The Wolf of Derevnya was a visual novel with a good story, characters, twists, that was ruined by a poor UI and saving issues. I had guessed who the monster was early on, just had a gut feeling, but the journey to the end was still enjoyable. I did find there to be several faux choices though, basically no matter what I picked I wound up at the same point. I also wish I had more choice at the end as to what happened. It was bitter sweet and made sense but at the same time I actually sided with the monster and would have liked to see that route explored. The music was very well done as were the sound effects and the art. The game really did a good job of making you feel in the story with the audio and art. The issues I had with the save function was that every time I would click on the save game menu it would take more than thirty seconds for the menu to show up, as well as another wait to actually save the game. This was the same for loading a game. While I waited I could see my system resources sky rocket as the game needed an immense amount of RAM and VRAM to save or load, more than any other visual novel I have ever seen. The VRAM could soar as high as 5GB and the system RAM as high as 9GB. I've seen AAA first person games use less. Now when not saving or loading the game used a normal amount of resources for the genre. This did ruin my experience more than you might think. There is no feature where I could go back in the text at all so if I wanted to try a different path I would have to load the previous save. Another issue was I noticed that the save files in the load screen were no in chronological order always and I had to go searching to find a specific file. I played The Wolf of Derevnya on Linux. The game never crashed. You can save at any time and there didn't appear to be any limit to how many save files you can have. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 769 MB GPU Usage: 29-59% VRAM Usage: 1285-5085 MB CPU Usage: 5-8 % System RAM Usage: 2.0-9.0 GB Overall I think the core game was well done despite my wishes for different ending options. The audio, art and story were all great. The story could have used more branching but the amount of choices were decent. Sadly the amount of time it took to save and load a game was terible and really ruined any enjoyment I had. I finished the game in four hours and thirty nine minutes. I paid $7.02 CAD for the game and feel that would have been a good price for the game had it not had the issues it did. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.12.1-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.3.3-arch1.1

My Heart Grows Fonder was a rare miss from Zetsubou. The game starts off pretty well. The characters are at least interesting. It went off in a direction I wasn’t expecting with the plot but did so in a way I was willing to go with and was enjoying. By the end though very little was resolved in the ending I got. I won’t spoil anything but outside of who I ended up with there was not much if anything about the main plot line of the game which lead to the girls staying with you in the first place. I will also say that there wasn’t much in the way of choices. There was a around a half dozen overall in my play through. The game felt a little short as it felt like it ended a little abruptly. The art was decent but was not described well by the game. For instance when it was described that there were people sitting or sleeping on the couch it was always empty. The music was decent as well but could be a bit repetitive. I played the game on Linux. It never crashed. I did notice one spelling issue as “Maia” was spelled “”Maya” one time. You can manually save any time you want. Game Engine: Ren’Py 7.5.3.22090809 Disk Space Used: 364 MB Game Version Played: 1.2 GPU Usage: 0-18 % VRAM Usage: 546-675 MB CPU Usage: 2-5 % System RAM Usage: 3.1-4.7 GB This marks the seventh game I’ve played by Zetsubou and the first one I would say didn’t satisfy me. That still makes for a very good track record for a developer. I wouldn’t even call it a bad game as up until the end it was fairly decent. It just doesn’t do a good job wrapping up the story and could do with some more ways to branch the story. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Linux Mint 22 | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.26.1 | Kernel 6.8.0-48-generic | Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2

Spec Ops: The Line is one of the more interesting shooters I have played. It is far from perfect and doesn’t quite stick the landing but it tries a lot of new things and is at least never boring, The story is the part that really shines. The game takes you down a very dark path where there are few if any good choices to make and only different shades of wrong to do. It takes a few too many twists near the end where by the time the credits rolled I wasn’t sure if it all made sense or not. I had my own ideas of ways things could have gone and I kind of liked them better than what I got but at the end of it all the journey was a hell of a ride. There is also some good choices at the end that allow you to go in a multitude of different directions. These choices though don’t make the ending narrative any less confusing they just allow more freedom to end things more on your own terms. The shooting mechanics themselves were fun most of the time. I found getting in and out of cover decent although sometimes the game didn’t do quite what I wanted. You can crouch, fire blindly and there are secondary functions to various weapons. The friendly AI was sadly bad. At best Lugo and Adams stayed out of the way and didn’t do much and at worst they were actively making things harder by getting shot up and in need of healing. You can direct them to fire upon specific enemies and sometimes will while others they won’t. I wish I could have directed where they would go as I would have just directed them to cover but you don’t control that. There was a decent selection of weapons and enemies. These forced you to adapt your weapon choice and tactics a bit but the game does a good job of giving you a nudge as to what works best. There is a little bit of destructible things in the game such as some cover and blowing up barrels but not a lot. The music is by far one of the best of any game I have played. The songs chosen to go with certain sections just worked so well. The voice acting was good overall but I will single out Jake Busey as doing a fantastic job as the radioman. The game even had great little details such as the main menu becoming more chaotic the farther into the game you get an the loading screens hurling little barbs at you about what you have done. I played Spec Ops: The Line on Linux. The game never crashed. There were a few micro stutters at time where the frame rate would drop low but they were infrequent and lasted only a second or two. Typically the game played at around or above 100 FPS. The cut scenes were limited to 30 FPS though which was a poor decision and was jarring. There was a resolution option, an AO toggle, a v-sync toggle, and two other graphics options. The game uses an auto save setup with checkpoints. As usual with these I wasn’t overly happy and found many times the save spots were spaced too far apart. A manual save system would have been preferred. You can change the difficulty at any time. You can skip cut scenes but can’t pause them. Game Engine: Unreal Engine 3 Disk Space Used: 7.5 GB Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse GPU Usage: 2-70 % VRAM Usage: 1775-2260 MB CPU Usage: 10-23 % System RAM Usage: 4.9-6.4 GB Frame Rate: 27-165 FPS So what are we left with here. A fantastic story that leaves a little to be desired in terms of cohesiveness but at least tries to be fresh and succeeds admirably there. Good shooting mechanics that are not ground breaking but are more than serviceable combined with brain dead AI that cause more problems then they help. Good performance with the off stutters. I’d say it is a good game bordering on great. It could have been better but it is better than many and holds up over time. If you can find the game for sale anywhere and enjoy third person shooters I suggest you buy it. I finished the game in seven hours and twenty four minutes on the Suicide Mission difficulty. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Linux Mint 22 | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.26.1 | Kernel 6.8.0-48-generic | Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz

The third week of Fetish Locator wraps things up pretty decently. There are a bunch of side endings that you can choose if you want to end the game early depending on previous choices. Most of them were actually really well done. The endings that have you ending up with Nora, Allison, and Daisy had really well done epilogues that I think were better than the main ending I got. I doubt they will be canon in any future chapters but I was impressed. I wasn’t happy with Jessie’s ending as all I got was a screen about some future DLC that will be coming out. I think a better option would be to just not have an ending with her if this was it. The main ending I got with Stacy was decent but not exactly what I was hoping for. The story leading up to the end was pretty well fleshed out and done better than most visual novels that have stories that span multiple games. I had guessed where it was going but it was still fun. The visuals were great with well done models and object detail. The real highlight was the animation quality. I don’t just mean the lewd scenes, I mean the transitions from all scenes to scenes. It was simply the smoothest and best I have ever seen in a visual novel. The voice acting was bad though. It wasn’t really voice acting as it was just the characters making murmurs and grunts and it got annoying really fast. Luckily this can be turned off if one wishes. The music was decent though. I had a few comical gripes with the game at times. There is a scene in a police station that was hilarious. One cop is wearing a police hat with a polo shirt and two badges, one around his neck and the other on his waist. Another cop is wearing two badges as well with the one around her neck super tiny compares to the other. Also the name tag for the first cop has his first name on it only when usually it would have the last name. Also there is a scene that is described as mountain climbing that is pretty much just hiking. If these gripes seem minor they are. They didn’t hamper my enjoyment at all. There is a mini game for studying that is basically a lot like Space Invaders except with books and boobs instead. It was very tough but at the same time it was optional and a decent way to add some game play to a visual novel. I played Fetish Locator Week Three on Linux. You can manually save whenever you want and there didn’t seem to be a limit for save game slots. You can adjust voice, music, and effects volume separately. You need to have the previous week installed with your save game present for it just like in previous entries. I’m still not a huge fan of this method of importing save games but it does work and you can choose to answer a series of questions to get your previous choices as well. The game never crashed and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. Game Engine: Ren’Py 7.6.0.23051307 Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 11.8 GB Game Version Played: 3.3.16 GPU Usage: 1-30 % VRAM Usage: 551-1723 MB CPU Usage: 5-30 % System RAM Usage: 3.6-9.0 GB My little gripes aside if you enjoyed the first two entries of Fetish Locator you should enjoy the third. It’s more of what you love with even more polish than before and a plethora of endings although many are side endings. I could say that I wanted more content with Hanna but both her and The Judge were handled well and I liked how they provided a different tone than many other parts. I finished the third week in six hours and forty two minutes. This was enough to see five endings and there are way more than that. I paid $29.36 CAD for the game and can say that is a great price considering the length and quality. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Linux Mint 22 | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.26.1 | Kernel 6.8.0-47-generic | Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2

It Paints Me was a tough game to judge. On one hand it had great music and atmosphere, a decent amount of choices, and decent voice acting. The story is where I felt conflicted. I felt too much was missing from it. I know this was a jam game so it was going to be short but I felt like not enough backstory was given on Sam or Marie. We get a glimpse of details but not much more. I also found Sam a little whiny and ****. If I was supposed to then good job but if not then something got crossed between the game and I. I played It Paints Me on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors. You can save whenever you want and it has fifty four save slots. Game Engine: Ren'Py 8.2.1.24030407 Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 280 MB GPU Usage: 7-10 % VRAM Usage: 1701-2168 MB CPU Usage: 6-8 % System RAM Usage: 4.5-4.6 GB I can't say I disliked the game but I also can't say i did like it overall. It has a lot going for it and I think given how well everything but the story was great in my eyes that given the right material I'm bound to enjoy some of the developer's future work. I finished three endings in twenty one minutes. Visual novels are tough to judge even when free because there are lot of good free visual novels out there. It’s stiffer competition than some genres. My Score: 6.5/10 My System:Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Linux Mint 22 | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.26.1 | Kernel 6.8.0-45-generic | Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2

The Mildew Children has a lot going for it. The setting is delightfully eerie. The characters are interesting. There appears to be a very deep lore to the game with a lot going on behind the scenes. That is almost my only real gripe that the game drops you in this world with little to no explanation as if you already know all about the traditions and people. A codex would have been nice. This wasn’t an issue at first but as the game goes on you are required to remember more and more things that you will be forced to use later and that combined with the language of the game was problematic. The art style is fantastic. The music is well done. The sound effects are good as well, used often enough to break up silence without being overbearing. The game does a good job of being more than just a visual novel. You move around places, there is an in game map, there is a decent rhythm game element as well as a decent QTE mechanic. The QTE parts are actually pretty challenging as you not only have to contend with keeping the bar in a certain section but you still have to click through the dialogue to further the game. There are two difficulty settings to the mini game as well as the option to turn them off so it should satisfy everybody. One other thing I would like to see changed is when it says you can “proceed” certain places it would be nice if it said where or what that place is. The map doesn’t really list what places are just where you have to go and where you currently are. Sometimes it doesn’t even list that. I played The Mildew Children on Linux. It never crashed. I did encounter a bug where from chapter six through chapter eleven I had zero audio. No music, no effects, nothing. I tried bringing my save game over to another system and had the same problem. I didn’t notice any spelling or grammar mistakes. There is just one graphics option. There are three audio options to control separate types of audio which is nice. You can manually save whenever you want and there didn’t seem to be a limit on how many save game files you can have. There was also an auto save system although it doesn’t say when it’s saving. The game’s frame rate was pretty low at times and never got even close to my refresh rate. The game didn’t seem to lag at all but it was strange. None of my hardware was being taxed very much to explain the low frame rates. The art style may be very nice but the game doesn’t look like it should be very demanding. I used both my keyboard/mouse as well as a Logitech F310 game pad. I would highly suggest using a game pad for the QTE section as I found it nearly impossible on keyboard. It was still tough but was far less strenuous on the wrist. Graphics Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 1.4 GB Game Version Played: 1.3.2 GPU Usage: 5-21 % VRAM Usage: 494-673 MB CPU Usage: 4-7 % System RAM Usage: 2.9-4.2 GB Frame Rate: 46-91 FPS Overall if the idea **** that combines a 2D side scroller, visual novel, QTE events, rhythm games, and a really dark lore then I would at least give this free chapter a try. The audio issue I encountered combined with the lack of codex and poorly labeled map made me drop the score a bit. I don’t think The Mildew Children is a bad game but it does have a few warts. I finished the game on Easy difficulty in five hours and thirty five minutes. I paid $14.68 CAD for the game and that felt like a fair price given the length and quality. My Score: 6.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | MX Libretto 23.4 | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.10.12-1-liquorix | Mesa 23.1.2-1~mx23ahs

With Eyes Closed has a great first season that's only real weakness is that it gets hamstrung by being a season based game. I enjoyed the lore of it and feel that it built up an interesting location in The Boiler with a history I wanted to know more about. The characters are well done across the board. Like most visual novels that break up into seasons it seems to stop at a point where things were just ramping up but before you really feel like you accomplished much. It would be a real downer if there was no season two and why I wish more seasons were more self contained. The visuals were great for the most part. The models were well done as were the objects. Only some buildings seemed a bit weaker quality wise although certain ones such as a specific bar was very well done. Even the food models were great which is something that many visual novels struggle with. The animations were fairly well done. My only gripe was that while some of them had some choice in how they played out others didn't. The music was good, especially during tense moments, but at other times when there were no effects or music on it felt a little too quiet. Part o me wants to say the The Boiler seems a little too nice for much of it but then again this city has been going for a few decades at this point and some semblance of order has been established so I'll give that a pass. My only other minor gripes are that in one scene Africa is referred to as a country when it is in fact a continent and during chapter 3 it said "chapter 2" at the top of the screen. The QTE's were handled well and are optional so everybody should fell catered to. I played the first season on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any bugs or spelling errors. You can adjust music and effects volume separately . You can skip forward in the text but there is no back button which would have been handy. You can save whenever you want and there are fifty four save slots. Game Engine: Ren'Py 8.1.3.23091805 Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 11.4 GB GPU Usage: 0-34 % VRAM Usage: 514-632 MB CPU Usage: 1-14 % System RAM Usage: 2.8-5.6 GB If you enjoy AVN's then I easily recommend With Eyes Closed. It starts off really well and we can only hope that future seasons can carry the momentum. I finished my first play through of the first season in four hours and eight minutes. I paid $20.93 CAD for it which feels fair given the quality and presentation. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 | MX Libretto 23.4 | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.10.12-1-liquorix | Mesa 23.1.2-1~mx23ahs

INDUSTRIA shows flashes of brilliance but was a little frustrating overall. The game play itself is actually quite good. The shooter elements were great and enjoyable. There was one time where the game threw infinite enemies at me, which is a mechanic I don't like, but it was a small part of the overall game. There was a decent variety of weapons. The puzzle aspects were decent. The only real gripe I had with them was that It wasn't always clear where you could place an object like a valve. Others like the rust remover puzzle were very logical. The graphics were fantastic. Everything from sun rays, lighting, water, foliage, objects, etc were all more like looking at a AAA game than an indie. There was a bit of pop in at times but not much. The voice acting was well done as was the music. Where the game fell apart a little was the story. It never did a good job of fleshing out it's ideas right until the end which was poorly explained and left more questions than answers. One can easily say that a sequel could provide these answers but maybe that is true and maybe the sequel never happens. It would have been better to provide a more thought out narrative during this game. INDUSTRIA also used invisible walls at a few points which I always find to be a cheap substitute for providing a real reason I can't travel somewhere. I played INDUSTRIA on Linux using Wine and VKD3D. It has a resolution option, a v-sync toggle, three AA settings, an FOV slider that goes from 85-110, and five other graphics options. The difficulty settings affect how you can save with normal allowing auto saves and hardcore only allowing saving at typewriters. I wish the game had been more explicit in the typewriters part as they call those manual saves sometimes. When i think of manual saving I think of being able to save any time I want to. You can change the difficulty when loading a game but not in game. Performance was great but you will need a decently beefy system at 2560P maxed out. There was about thirty seconds where the frame rate dropped below 60 FPS but the rest of the time it was above that. The game never crashed and I didn't notice any bugs. Game Engine: Unreal Engine 4 Graphics API: VKD3D Disk Space Used: 10.4 GB Game Version Played: 1.3.2 Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse Game Settings Used: 2560x1440, v-sync on, motion blur off, TAAx6, 100 FOV, highest settings GPU Usage: 73-99 % VRAM Usage: 5761-11478 MB CPU Usage: 10-49 % System RAM Usage: 3.3-5.8 GB Frame Rate: 32-165 FPS Despite my issues with the story the game play was fun and the game is one I would recommend. It has an interesting setting, great visuals and presentation. I finished the game on normal difficulty in three hours and fifty one minutes. I paid $7.79 CAD for the game but would say the current price of $25.76 CAD is a fair one given the quality and length. My Score: 7.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.10-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.3-arch1.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz | Wine 9.18 | HGL 2.15.2

Interrogation has a interesting concept but it didn't quite execute it well. I like that you have options such as using excessive force or not. I like that you can choose how to spend your budget and choose how to use your team to the best of their abilities. I like that you can add extra skills and abilities to your character. I didn't like how those abilities were sometimes very vague on how they helped you if at all. I thought the game took some weird turns in the story such as slashing you with a knife over even the possibility that you may have been rough with a suspect. It's like having your finger cut off for the suspicion of opening the cookies jar and somehow your attacker is perceived to be in the right. I thought the additions of newspaper interviews was a nice touch. The game really started to be fairly linear in the end as no matter how you get to a spot the same things happen and you have to perform the same tasks to get there. Basically you have to uncover the same questions to ask regardless of your approach. I was also not a fan of many missions having a time limit. I understand it adds tension and in some cases can be justified but it also made me follow the story less as I was more interested in completing the objectives. For instance there is a major character introduced late in the game that I had zero clue who they were or how they showed up. There are different difficulty levels which is nice but once you set a level at the beginning you can't change it up only down so be warned. I also think having to continue to buy HR reports about your team each chapter is a bit annoying. Yes people can change a bit but usually not day to day so much. The graphical style was great. It was like watching a comic book unfold and I appreciate a good monochrome colour pallet. The music and effects were decent but repetitive enough that I took my headphones off ear the end. I played Interrogation on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors. There are no graphics options. You can turn music and effects on or off but can't adjust their volume in game at all. I was also not a fan of the save system. It auto saves at the start of an interrogation. If you quit you lose all progress. Also if you want to see what the different end videos are for the various endings then you have to redo the last interrogation each time and choose a different one. As much as I would like to see the different outcomes I refuse to do that. A manual save system would have been a better choice. You also can't load saves from different chapters as you just have one save slot that keeps getting overwritten. Game Engine: Defold Engine Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 637 MB Game Version Played: 1.1.9.a1704342 Input Used: Mouse GPU Usage: 7-16 % VRAM Usage: 724-1555 MB CPU Usage: 3-5 % System RAM Usage: 2.3-3.0 GB Overall I wouldn't say Interrogation a bad game but it annoyed me enough that I can't call it a good game either. It has shades of both. It's saving grace for some may be that there aren't a ton of games like this out there. I finished the game in five hours and thirty four minutes. I paid $16.37 CAD for the game and while it wasn't bad value for the amount of content I'd say that $8-10 would be a better range. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.10-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.2-arch1.1

Kona is the kind of survival game I can enjoy. It has a lot of similar features as other survival games but it doesn't take them to a masochistic level. You have to manage inventory weight, cold, stress, and health but at no time was I pulling my hair out dealing with them. The story is very well done although I do think it could have done a bit better of explaining it near the end. Despite that I really liked the direction the story took. I think that the fact the game doesn't have a stated goal is good and bad. The game usually did a good job at letting you know what things need to be done without listing it on the screen or having a quest marker. I found the journal to be fairly useless at keeping track of things though. The map was great although it would have been nice if it listed which places you had visited. The graphics were decent but not spectacular. Nothing from object detail to clothes, faces, etc were mind blowing but they were not an eye sore either. I will give a shout to to the fact that your footprints in the snow stay a while. Many games don't go through the trouble to even have footprints in the snow. The sound effects were very well done. Everything from the sounds of feet crunching on snow to the sounds of doors, the truck, the snowmobile, etc were all great. The music was decent but repetitive. The game did employ invisible walls a couple times which is a cheap way to block your path. Other times they properly find good reason why you can't go somewhere so not sure why they didn't other times. I found it a tad weird that you can't view the map while driving the snowmobile while you can in the truck. I've never driven a snowmobile before so maybe this is realistic. I played Kona on Linux. The game never crashed. I did notice a couple minor glitches such as weapons going through Carl's body and shrubs going through the floor of the truck. Nothing major though. The game has an FOV slider that goes from 65-90, an AA toggle, a v-sync toggle, two AO settings, and twelve other graphics options. Performance was great with the exception of the game having the odd micro stutter. The frame rate never dropped low but for a second or so the game would stutter. It didn't happen often enough to ruin my experience. I will also say that the game took way more horsepower than expected given the graphical detail. The game has a manual save system but the game doesn't load you back to where you saved, it loads you to the last location your non manual save occurred such as a cabin or fire. The manual save does save progress and inventory though. There is only one save slot but the game does allow you to have multiple different game files if more than one person wanted their own play through. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: Vulkan Disk Space Used: 2.9 GB Input Used: Keyboard and mouse Graphics Settings Used: 2560x1440, motion blur and depth of field off, everything else on highest or turned on, 90 FOV GPU Usage: 35-86 % VRAM Usage: 3459-4672 MB CPU Usage: 17-41 % System RAM Usage: 5.7-8.6 GB Frame Rate: 134-165 FPS Despite the little nitpicks I have with Kona it was a highly enjoyable experience that I recommend. It had good mechanics and a good story. I finished this play through in four hours and fifty five minutes. I paid $20 CAD for it when it originally came out so the current price of $16.94 CAD is more than fair for what you get. My System:Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.10-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.2-arch1.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz

Helping the Hotties has a lot of things it does well but some things that were handled poorly. The models and object detail are good. The only exception is the food. Visual novels seem very hit and miss with food scenes still. In Helping the Hotties there is a scene where they pan fry corn on the cob and another where they eat burgers with no buns. Dinner is literally one burger patty on the plate with nothing else that they eat by hand. The music is decent but repetitive. The free roam parts are handled better than many visual novels that try it because the game does a good job of letting you know where you have to go as well as having a good map. The lewd scenes are well done. The story is decent but the game ends without answering many questions as well as squanders an opportunity to go in a dark direction I was interested in. There is little resolution to much outside of the girls issues. Even with them there is little detail. You don't even find out what events sent many of them there in the first place. The mini game where you have to navigate the mouse cursor inside of a line is decent but overused. There are lots of different maps you have to do to beat it but the mechanics are the same each time. The voice acting ranges from decent to bad even with specific voices. For instance at times Eve sounds normal but other times sounds damn near robotic. There are also a slew of issues related to the voice acting such as the volume of voices getting very low at times then going back to normal, audio not matching the text on the screen, and audio skipping so there is silence for gaps. All of these happened frequently enough that I lost count how often. There is also the issue of them not saying whatever name you choose for the main character so there is just an audio silence gap for his name. I would have preferred not getting to name him just for the audio to not have that unnatural gap. There was also a few times where the audio had an echo after being said. There was also one time where my name on screen simply said "mc". Despite all this I enjoyed the game. I liked the interaction between the girls and the main character and actually appreciated the growth they had. While I would have liked to see more depth about what happened near the end it did end on a satisfactory note. There were also a lot of choices throughout to branch the game towards which characters you wanted to see more of. I played Helping the Hotties on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors. You can turn the voice acting off if you wish as well as adjust music and effects volume. You can save any time you want and the game had what seemed like an infinite amount of save slots. The game took up a lot more system RAM usage than any other visual novel I had played. I was using the 4K upgrade patch but still I have played AAA open world games that used less system RAM. Luckily I had plenty so it wasn't an issue. Game Engine: Ren'Py 8.1.3.23091805 Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 22.9 GB Game Version Played: 1.0.4 Graphics Settings: 4K Patch installed GPU Usage: 3-38 % VRAM Usage: 911-1795 MB CPU Usage: 3-43 % System RAM Usage: 3.6-11.5 GB Despite the many issues I brought up I found the game to be enjoyable and have enough good parts to recommend it. I finished my first play through in twelve hours and eleven minutes. I paid $29.05 CAD for it and found the value to be decent. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.10-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.2-arch1.1

Duck Detective has some of the best mechanics of any puzzle game I have played. You gather clues from collecting objects and words. The words you get from talking to people and inspecting objects. You then use the words to fill in the blanks of your deducktions to figure out what has happened in order to further the plot. It's all very simple and easy to get used to and is helped by the game's fantastic UI. You can get an idea of what to try next by looking at the map where it lists where each person is and if they have an exclamation mark then you should talk to them or show them an object to get their thoughts on it. The game also has a hint system but to be honest I didn't find it very useful as it is extremely vague. You can also simply try various combos of words in the deducktions and guess them if you can't figure it out based on clues. I had to do this a few times. The game will say how many errors you have and obviously if you try something different and that number goes down then you have found the correct option for that blank. The reason I had to do this is that while the plot makes sense in hindsight I had trouble piecing together where it was going by the clues provided and didn't always see it's logic. That being said many of the puzzles are well done, make sense, and have good hints provided by objects and other clues. The voice acting was great as was the humour. I can see kids enjoying this but as an adult I had a great time as well. The art style was very well done. It almost had the look of a pop up diorama the way the characters moved. One thing I didn't like was the fact that at the end I can't choose to arrest no one. I won't spoil the plot but let's just say I don't believe every crime is worth punishing. I played Duck Detective on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any bugs or spelling errors. There is no graphics options aside from resolution. The game saves on exit and there is just one save slot. Even though the game had no v-sync option it still respected my refresh rate. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 229 MB Game Version Played: 1.0.12 Graphics Settings used: 2560x1440 GPU Usage: 8-27 % CPU Usage: 5-15 % System RAM Usage: 2.2-2.9 GB Frame Rate: 148-165 FPS If you enjoy point and click games then I can easily recommend Duck Detective. It has a great comfy atmosphere, some good voice acting and humour as well as a good plot and mechanics. It lacks a few things like multiple save slots and a manual save system and suffers from a bit of logic issues at times but none of it's issues are in any way deal breakers or hamper the enjoyment. I finished the game in two hours and forty nine minutes. I paid $14.68 CAD for it and found that to be great value, I’d say that even $25 CAD would be good value for it. My System:Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.8-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.2-arch1.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz

I can certainly say that trust No One was one of the most unique games I have played. It made me think outside of the box more than most games. It made me do web searches outside of the game, email actual email addresses, and really pay attention to hints and info provided. I would say that about 80% of the time it had me impressed but other times I found it could get a little convoluted in what it wanted you to do and made you take farther leaps of logic than I feel was warranted. I will also say that while the game was very unique that could be it’s downfall down the road. If the email servers the game is tied to go down then you can’t complete certain puzzles. The art style was well done with a soft almost painting like quality. There wasn’t much in the way of music or sound effects but what was there was decent to good. I would have liked to see more of an epilogue to see how my choice at the end effected the in game world. I played Trust No One on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. There are no graphical options at all. You can manually save outside of the first scene but there is only one save slot. The game ran great even on my Intel onboard graphics. The game had no v-sync option but respected my refresh rate anyway. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 159 MB Game Version Played 1.1 (73426) GPU Usage: 13-82 % CPU Usage: 1-4 % System RAM Usage: 2.1-2.2 GB Frame Rate: 145-165 FPS Despite the few times I was a little annoyed at a puzzle I will say Trust No One made an impression on me and I would recommend it. I finished it in forty three minutes and paid $4.23 CAD for it. I would even say value wise it could warrant a $10 CAD price tag. Hopefully the potential issues I mentioned with email servers down the road don’t ruin what was a decent puzzle game that tried something new and mostly succeeded. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Western Digital Black SN770 1TB | Trisquel 11.01 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.10.8-gnu | Mesa 23.2.1

I had heard a lot of hype about Summer’s Gone before finally playing it. I had heard that it stood out in the AVN genre as it actually had zero sex scenes but was worth it for the fantastic story. After finishing season one I can agree with both of those points. While it would have been nice to have some great lewd scenes to go with everything else at the same time the rest more than makes up for it. There was also a decent explanation as to why there were no lewd scenes which I won’t spoil. The story is fantastic. The characters were all interesting to me and I can’t wait to learn more about them in future seasons. The pacing was great as I can’t think of any parts of season one that dragged on or were boring to me. The production values were top notch from the animation, models, objects, to the menus and music. The game actually felt like a full season unlike many visual novels that split this way and feel like a short setup for the next one. Even if there were no season two there was so much which took place and so much growth and exploration with characters that I would almost be content albeit sad. I played Summer’s Gone on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs or spelling errors at all. You can save any time you want and there are fifty four save slots. One oddity I found was the API was listed as WineD3D. This was weird because I was playing the native Linux version and usually Ren’Py games use OpenGL that way. In any case I had no issues so I didn’t really care. Game Engine: Ren’Py 8.1.3.23091805 Graphics API: WineD3D GPU Usage: 1-11 % VRAM Usage: 1019-1588MB CPU Usage: 3-12 % System RAM Usage: 2.1-3.3 GB Summer’s Gone has something for pretty much any fan of visual novels regardless of whether you enjoy lewd content or not. It has a fantastic story and some of the best production values in the genre. I finished the first season in nine hours and fifty three minutes and paid $32.08 CAD for it. That’s a bit more than many other visual novels but the price is more than worth it. Not only did I get quality but I got a decent length as well that didn’t feel too long or short. While no game is perfect Summer’s Gone came closer than most can hope to. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.8-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.2-arch1.1

I knew what parts of Beyond Two Souls I would like and dislike before even starting it as I have played games by Quantic Dream before. My gut feelings were largely correct. The story was fantastic with a good amount of choices to branch the story. The characters were well developed over the course of the game for the most part and the game did a good job making me care about them for the most part. I will also applaud the amount of endings I had at my disposal. That being said I found some choices to be very vague. Without going into spoilers some options were far more extreme than I expected them to be or just go in a direction I had wholly gauged wrong. It didn't happen often so it wasn't a huge deal. I played through the game in it's original mix which means it jumped around from year to year a lot and everything was out of chronological order. I actually liked it like this and still found everything easy to grasp and understand. It's nice that the game gave the option to play it in chronological order if i wanted to. The controls were a bit of an issue. I didn't even bother trying on a keyboard and mouse, as that has never been well supported or implemented by Quantic Dream, but my Logitech F310 did a pretty good job overall. The prompts were changed accordingly so I knew which buttons to press. I found dodging during combat to be a bit of a pain. The game gives an indication as to which way to push the stick but for whatever reason I seemed to misinterpret this quite a bit. For instance sometimes the game wanted me to swing away from something or towards something but for whatever reason I seemed to do the opposite a lot. Another controls related problem I had was the camera. I found it very difficult to adjust it so see what I wanted often enough for it to be annoying. The graphics were fairly well done with keeping it in context **** released in 2013. Everything from the hair, clothing, environments, objects, etc were all either average or above average. None wowed me but all were good and not anywhere close to an eye sore. The music was pretty well done, especially one scene which had Ellen Page singing a song on an acoustic guitar. The voice acting was great throughout. One thing I will say is that using Aiden's abilities was very inconsistent. Sometimes you could use him and others you couldn't with very little logical reason as to why. That being said there was a good variety of things you could do with him when allowed. On the downside is that you were railroaded into which ability you could use at that moment. Why could I strange some guards but not others, possess some but not others, etc. Again, very inconsistent. I played Beyond Two Souls on Linux using Wine and DXVK. It never crashed on me. I did notice one bug where Ryan's lips weren't moving while he spoke but it only lasted less than a minute. I don't think this was a Wine issue but I'm not sure. The game had a weird frame rate issue. Originally when I first booted the game up it went above 60 FPS but anytime after that first time it was locked to 60 FPS. I have no idea why this was and I certainly prefer games that sync to my refresh rate. I wasn't shocked as other Quantic Dream games have been locked to 30 or 60 FPS before. The game has an auto save system where there are frequent checkpoints throughout a chapter. If you exit it will load at the most recent checkpoint. You can reload an entire chapter if you want. Each auto save overwrites the one save you have throughout the chapter. I would have preferred a manual save system with multiple save slots as it would have been easier to explore different story branches. You can pause the game and cut scenes but can't skip them. There is a resolution option, three ambient occlusion settings, two AA settings and six other graphical settings. Performance was good as I stuck pretty much at the 60 FPS limit the whole game. Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 46.3 GB Input Used: Logitech F310 Game Version Played: 1.0 (GOG) Graphical Settings Used: 2560x1440, HBAO, SMAA, depth of field and motion blur off, everything else at highest GPU Usage: 14-37 % VRAM Usage: 2565-3582 MB CPU Usage: 11-28 % System RAM Usage: 2.9-5.3 GB Frame Rate: 59-60 FPS If you enjoy interactive movie type games, especially Quantic Dream games, then you should enjoy Beyond Two Souls. It has their wonky controls and poor camera controls but also has their fantastic storytelling and story branching. I finished the game on the higher of the two difficulties in about ten hours and eight minutes. I paid $10.16 CAD for it but it is easily worth it's current price tag of $29.99 CAD plus tax. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.6-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.1-arch1.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz | Logitech F310 | Wine 9.16

I felt that Purgatory was the strongest story yet from Different Tales. It had better pacing than Heart of the Forest. It still had the same great lore as well as did a good job of incorporating characters from Heart of the Forest. I felt that Purgatory was less rushed and had a better fleshed out narrative. I would say that the only thing I would say was lacking was the main villain's motivation. You are after them due to a murder they committed but by the end I can't really say it was well explained why they did it or what they had hoped to gain from it. Purgatory also added a depression factor to the things to manage along with rage, willpower, etc. It was an interesting addition but to be fair the game would have worked just as well without it and it was very easy to keep in check. I also have to wonder what the developers have against the citizens of Poland. In both Werewolf games so far the people of Poland are depicted largely as hostile and antagonistic and the protagonists are foreigners who come in to tell them how to run their affairs and enter their country illegally. Just seems like the developers have a very specific message to say and an axe to grind. I played Purgatory on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors or any bugs. The save system was the same auto save system used in other Different Tales games. I still think it could have been better. It has one save slot that gets saved over each time. One improvement is that the game now tells you when it's saving where heart of the Forest didn't. I would have preferred a manual save system with multiple slots. The game ran great and the issue with high GPU usage that heart of the Forest had has been fixed for me. VRAM usage was much higher in Purgatory than in heart of the Forest but it's nothing even low end GPUs can't manage. There is a setting for resolution and one other graphics option.Game Engine: UnityGraphics API: OpenGLDisk Space Used: 1.1 GBGame Version Played: 1.0.13 (GOG)Input Used: Keyboard and MouseGame Settings Used: 2560x1440, highestGPU Usage: 6-49 %VRAM Usage: 1392-1627 MBCPU Usage: 4-8 %System RAM Usage: 2.4-2.8 GB If you enjoy visual novels, the work of Different Tales, and the lore of White Wolf then I would easily recommend Purgatory. I may have taken issue with a few things but the game is solid and is easily Different Tales best work to date. I finished it in two hours and thirty seven minutes. I paid $9.60 CAD for it and feel that even the normal price of $22.02 CAD isn't a bad spot for **** Score: 8/10My System:Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.3-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.1.5-arch1.2 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

Heart of the Forest has some really good buildup. The game spends about half of it's length introducing characters, setting up Maia's backstory, and giving you context and an idea of what the main plot is about. Then just as the game starts getting really interesting and you start your journey as a werewolf it is over soon after. It just seemed like a lot of setup for so little payoff. I would say that there was maybe thirty minutes of story left after choosing a tribe. Choosing a tribe should be the start of something not signal pretty much the end of the game. I was hoping for more time with my new pack and tribe. I would have loved to know more about the inner workings of it. Aside from my nitpicks on the second half the game had a lot of good things going for it. The dialogue was well done. Different Tales has always seemed to have a knack for describing and detailing environments and people. The music was well done although maybe a bit repetitive. The visuals were well done although they were just still images with little to no animation. The game made up for it with atmosphere though. I liked the character sheets detailing my own attributes and how I was viewed by others. I played Heart of the Forest on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors or any bugs. The save system could have been better. It has one save slot that gets saved over each time. I don't really know when it saves to be honest. I thought it saved on exit but sometimes when I exited and loaded I would be a little back from where I exited on. I would have preferred a manual save system with multiple slots. The game seemed to max out my GPU but at the same time it ran fine. I just don't see how a visual novel can max out the GPU usage on a 7800 XT. There is a setting for resolution and one other graphics option. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 925 MB Game Version Played: 1.0 (R3120.10.19/1537) (GOG) Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse Game Settings Used: 2560x1440, highest GPU Usage: 97-100 % VRAM Usage: 554-577 MB CPU Usage: 5-10 % System RAM Usage: 2.7-4.2 GB Overall I can recommend Heart of the Forest. My dislike of the rushed ending doesn't erase my enjoyment of the journey there. It showed me that Different Tales can really build a good world based off of White Wolf. It just needed a little more depth and fleshing out of the second act. I finished my first play through in two hours and twelve minutes. I paid $9.60 CAD for it. I don't know if I can recommend it at it's current normal price of $19.77 CAD. It's not a bad price for it but $15 CAD would be a better sweet spot. My Score: 7.5/10 My System:Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.2-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.1.5-arch1.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

As Dusk Falls is a fantastic game if you enjoy games such as Life is Strange and interactive movie games such as The Complex. It has a lot of choices you can make and actually seems to have some good branching to the story you can do. The game also does a good job of pacing and positioning. It bounces between characters and points in time a lot yet does so in a way that didn’t confuse me and actually ties things together nicely. There are also a decent amount of non dialogue game play such as QTE events, and searching the environment in a point and click manner. The music is very well done. One part that is weird and bound to ruffle feathers is the motion. The game isn’t still images or FMV. It is a weird hybrid that is kind of like watching an interactive comic book without the voice bubbles. It’s a decent style and certainly different but at the same time I can see how many people might think that the game is lagging or that there is some kind of glitch as the lips don't move with the audio. I thought so until I watched some Youtube videos and saw it was happening to others as well and was just normal. The game has good object detail such as on cars and buildings but seems to go for more of a comic book style look for people and it's a bit jarring at times. I can't tell if it's a lack of detail on people and clothing or if it just how it's supposed to look. I certainly hope the game gets a sequel as it leaves on a bit of a cliffhanger. There's enough closure to leave me pretty content but at the same time there's a few characters who I feel needed more of an epilogue or needed more time in the last book. For instance I wanted to know more about how Joyce's son Ash faired in the future parts as well as just what happened with Sheriff Romero. I could have even done with more explanation on what kind of journey that Paul and Sharon had. That being said I really enjoyed watching Zoe and Jay unfold and liked the options given there. The game has a great story map which has a very detailed layout of what route your story has taken while not spoiling what elements the the other routes would have introduced. There are also "insights" which are supposed to give you an insight into your play style but to be honest they were a little vague at times. I played As Dusk Falls on Linux using Wine and DXVK. The game is locked to 30 FPS. There are guides and tools to try to change this but I couldn't get them to work. They're made to work on Windows not Linux so whether that was the cause I don't know. In any case there is no excuse to lock games to 30 FPS on PC so people shouldn't have to resort to tools. The game has an auto save system. You can have multiple profiles each with their own save. I prefer manual save systems myself as it gives the user more freedom but at the same time this game does give you the ability to reload from certain points in the story map so it's not as bad as some games where you only get one save total. One plus I will say is at least the save points aren't spaced too far apart. There are six settings and a resolution option. You can reduce motion blur and depth of field but you can't turn them off which I find annoying as I dislike both. The game at least ran at a constant 30 FPS with no drops. I will say that it used far more VRAM than the visuals should have given their look. Luckily I had lots to spare so it wasn't an issue. I tried both keyboard and mouse and my Logitech F310 game pad and opted for the game pad. It worked with my F310 with zero issues and all button prompts showed up properly on screen. I had also played for a bit on an RX 590 which ran just as well as my 7800 XT so even older GPUs can do well here. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: DXVK Game Version Played: 1.01 (GOG) Disk Space Used: 71GB Input Used: Logitech F310 Game Settings Used: 2560x1440, small depth of field, high res textures enabled, shadow cascades on high, screen space reflection overkill GPU Usage: 8-47 % VRAM Usage: 3253-7252 MB CPU Usage: 6-18 % System RAM Usage: 3.4-5.6 GB Frame Rate: Constant 30 FPS My technical nitpicks aside I highly enjoyed my time with As Dusk Falls. While the story was left with a little too much unfinished at parts it was a great ride and even if there is never a sequel I am content. Few games I can think of can match the branching that they did. I finished my first play through in six hours and twenty one minutes. I paid $9.59 CAD for the game but would say it is easily worth it's current price tag of $33.89 CAD. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.2-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.1.5-arch1.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz | Wine 9.14

Ladykiller in a Bind has a lot going for it. It’s got some really interesting characters, a great setting, and an interesting story. It loses a lot of the momentum as it goes though. It is a game that takes place over the course of seven days and it makes you choose how to spend your time on the ship which means on a single play through I not only have to spend time with some characters that I didn’t care about but also couldn’t spend as much time with those I did. For instance my two favourite characters were the Photographer and The Swimmer but you have to choose between them early on so right off the bat I can’t spend time with both of my favourites. I also am forced to spend time with The Hacker or The Beauty each day. I didn’t mind either of them but I enjoyed my time with The Bro and The Lieutenant more. The game does have a lot of customization to it which is nice. You can choose custom nicknames for pretty much every character. You can choose to skip lewd scenes. There was one choice that still wasn’t much of a choice though. There is one borderline non consensual sex scene that you can skip but it still happens because the dialogue afterwards still implies it took place, you just didn’t have to watch it. I would have preferred that skipping it means it takes it out of the plot. The sex scenes in any case are mostly dialogue as there is little but still images on screen and even then many just involve sensual touching or acts rather than full blown sex. Basically if one were to play the game mainly for the lewd scenes they will come away disappointed. Even if you don’t come just for those you still may. By the end I had many questions about just what the overall goal of The Brother was and what role certain people played. They just randomly did things with little to no explanation and then take random potshots at capitalism. The visuals had a pretty good style and the music was decent. The menu system was pretty unique as many Ren’Py games end up with really similar menu systems where Ladykiller went for their own style. I played Ladykiller on Linux. It had a weird issue where it froze on my three times. If I left it there for about twenty to thirty seconds it would unfreeze on it’s own. This was really strange because I have played hundreds of visual novels over the years and I can’t remember any of them freezing on me, the genre is usually pretty bug free. The game has a manual save system with no save game limit I could tell but you can’t save at any point however it is almost any point. One of the biggest technical drawbacks to the game was the lack of a back button for the text. Basically as the dialogue progresses and you get to make a choice that isn’t the only choice you get. If you let the dialogue keep going without choosing you can sometimes get additional choices but other times you lose the ability to make some or all choices. I really disliked this system. I would have preferred we get to see all choices at once. This way I clearly see what my options and and don’t lose out on any dialogue. This system is especially annoying combined with the lack of a back button I mentioned earlier. Game Engine: Ren’Py 6.99.6.739 Disk Space Used: 654 MB Game Version Played: Build 786 CPU Usage: 5-12 % System RAM Usage: 4.2-5.7 GB I would say that Ladykiller in a Bind ended up as a good game. It started off great but sadly a combination of technical issues and choices with the weird twists to the story hampered it. The other issue would be it’s current price. It retails for $25.99 plus tax CAD which is pretty high for a visual novel. I finished my first play through in five hours and fifteen minutes. I’d say that the price range of $10-15 would have been better. The length seemed fine as what the game needed wasn’t more content but a more cohesive story and better freedom with what characters you spent time with. My Score: 7.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.5-gnu

The prologue to Hauma - A Detective Noir Story had me hooked pretty much from the start. I love the comic book visuals and the game had some good voice acting to boot. There are certain “puzzles” to solve in order to progress. I use the word mostly due to lack of a better one. It’s really just finding certain items you need or discovering clues through dialogue that you can use on another person to further things. It’s not difficult but it does add an extra element so the game isn’t strictly a visual novel and it does all make logical sense which I appreciate. The music is also well done. I played the prologue on Linux using Proton. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs or spelling errors. There is no menu at all and no options. The prologue also didn’t seem to have a save system. Hopefully these things change for the full game. Performance was great even on Intel onboard graphics. Despite not having a v-sync option the game respected my refresh rate. Game Engine: Godot Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 456 MB GPU Usage: 36-89 % CPU Usage: 5-12 % System RAM Usage: 4.5-4.7 GB Frame Rate: 100-165 FPS If you enjoy visual novels or light puzzle games I would suggest trying Hauma - A Detective Noir Story. It has a fantastic style, an interesting story, and some decent mechanics. I finished the prologue in thirty one minutes and am looking forward to getting the full game. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.3-gnu | Proton 9.0-1

The Mildew Children’s free chapter did it’s job. I am most certainly interested in the full game. The setting is delightfully eerie. The characters are interesting. There appears to be a very deep lore to the game with a lot going on behind the scenes. That is almost my only real gripe that the game drops you in this world with little to no explanation as if you already know all about the traditions and people. A codex would have been nice. This didn’t harm my enjoyment of it though. If you pay attention you can pick up enough. The art style is fantastic. The music is well done. The sound effects are good as well, used often enough to break up silence without being overbearing. The game does a good job of being more than just a visual novel. You move around places, there is an in game map, there is a decent rhythm game as well as a decent QTE section. The QTE part actually is pretty challenging as you not only have to contend with keeping the bar in a certain section but you still have to click through the dialogue to further the game. There are two difficulty settings to the mini game as well as the option to turn them off so it should satisfy everybody. One other thing I would like to see changed is when it says you can “proceed” certain places it would be nice if it said where or what that place is. I played The Mildew Children’s first chapter on Linux using Wine and DXVK. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. There was one spelling/grammar mistake though. There are no graphics options at all. There are three audio options thought o control separate types of audio which is nice. There is an auto save system but I could not tell when the game actually saves. A manual save system would have been nice. The game ran on my Intel onboard graphics but at a pretty low frame rate in the 30’s and 40’s. It ran without any issue at all on my RX 590 system. This may seem expected but in my opinion I was a little surprised at this. The art style may be very nice but the game doesn’t look like it should be very demanding. I used both my keyboard/mouse as well as a Logitech F310 game pad. I would highly suggest using a game pad for the QTE section as I found it nearly impossible on keyboard. It was still tough but was far less strenuous on the wrist. Graphics Engine: Unity Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 2GB Game Version Played: 1.0.0 GPU Usage: 2-68 % VRAM Usage: 2024-2474 MB CPU Usage: 10-18 % System RAM Usage: 2.1-2.3 GB Frame Rate: 108-144 FPS Overall if the idea **** that combines a 2D side scroller, visual novel, QTE events, rhythm games, and a really dark lore then I would at least give this free chapter a try. It could use a few tweaks but overall was fun and felt unique. I finished it in thirty five minutes. My System: AMD FX-9590 | 16GB DDR3-2133 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Samsung QVO 860 1TB | EndeavourOS | Kernel 6.9.3-arch-1 | Mesa 24.1.1-arch1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Wine 9.10

We'll Always Have Paris has a great story to it with a really well done twist. I had my own ideas about where the story was going but I was a little off. What I liked most about it is that I was immediately able to think of several subtle hints the game gave me that now made sense. It is mostly a narrative focused game but there are some bits of actual game play thrown in such as having to piece together a photo, build a model, and colour it. The puzzle parts of piecing together things had the possibility of being tedious and annoying but I actually enjoyed it. As soon as you find matching pieces they snap together, I was worried that you would have to wait until the end to see if it all worked and then guess which was wrong. A little nitpick I had was that it was mentioned the grandson was fifteen and about to enter college. Unless they are some sort of prodigy they'd be about three years away from post secondary education in the United States. The graphics weren't ground breaking but had a nice style to them. I played We'll Always Have Paris on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any bugs or spelling mistakes. There are no graphics options at all and no menu until the end. There is an auto save system that the game mentions but they never tell you when it is saving. The performance was fantastic even on Intel onboard graphics. While the game didn't have a v-sync option it did seem to respect my refresh rate. Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 35MB Game Version Played: a176ae419f7e9d05a518307f23f1f1811df8d757 GPU Usage: 37-49 % CPU Usage: 1-4 % System RAM Usage: 1.8-2.3 GB Frame Rate: 161-165 FPS Overall if you enjoy a good narrative I can highly recommend We'll Always Have Paris. It won't wow you from a technical standpoint with it's audio, visuals, or presentation but the story is as good as it gets and the game play it introduces is logical and enjoyable. I finished the game in forty five minutes. I paid $7.09 CAD for it and find that to be good value considering the high quality of the content. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.3-gnu | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

She Sees red has an interesting story locked away in it somewhere but it’s annoying to try to find it. I like it when games branch the story based on choices where it changes your journey to the end and the end itself but the way that She Sees Red is setup I have to play through multiple times making different combos of choices just to see more of the main story. This means 20-30 minutes each time just to get an extra crumb of the story. It would have been much better if the game would let you load the game from each choice or allow you manual saves to cut down on the back tracking. It does have a skip feature but I think it was broken for me because any scene where I tried to skip it didn’t do anything. It didn’t give an error, it just did nothing. I did like that the game allowed you to choose the original Russian voices with subtitles as I don’t enjoy media with dubbing. I find it just takes me out of it and looks weird, this was no exception. The acting was decent but to be fair the actors weren’t given a lot to work with dialogue wise. The game also seemed to jump around a lot as to events that happened at different times and it just gave things a spastic feel that I didn’t like. I played She Sees Red on Linux using Proton. It never crashed but it did have other issues. There were these strange pauses where the game would just pause until I hit the escape key to bring up the menu and then again to go back to the game. They happened more frequently as the story went on. The English subtitles also had one spelling error. There was one setting for resolution. You could also save and exit the game bringing you back to the point next time you loaded. The game ran great even on Intel onboard graphics. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 2.7 GB Resolution: 2560x1440 CPU Usage: 18-21 % System RAM Usage: 5.9-6.9 GB Frame Rate: 111-122 FPS I wanted to know more about the backstory and the characters but found the game mechanics to be annoying. I did two playthroughs and found there were still a lot of loose ends and didn’t find it worth trying to find more answers. It took thirty six minutes for my first play through and thirty eight minutes for my second. I paid $2.69 CAD for the game and don’t think that the sale price or the current normal price of $8.97 CAD plus tax are bad for the amount of content I still can’t recommend the game in either case. There are a lot of better FMV games out there. I would be interested in more Rhintotales games if they adjust their mechanics a bit and sort out their technical issues as I did find the story interesting. My Score: 5.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.1-gnu | Proton 9.0-1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

The Complex had a good story to it up until near the end. I felt it threw a few too many twists into the mix and got a little too complex for it’s own good. Until that point I’d say the story was well done. The acting was good as were the production values. There were a good amount of choices along the way although at least a couple had minimal to no impact. I would have liked a little more in the way of an epilogue as in my ending enough major events happened that I felt it was warranted. I was just left with questions as to how things really turned out. I played The Complex on Linux using Proton. The game froze one time when I tried to alt tab out of it but other than I encountered no issues at all. The game allows you to pause but not to skip scenes. It has a save system but it never told me when it was saving. I simply played it all the way through when I had time to not have an issue with the saving. The game ran great even on Intel onboard graphics. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: DXVK Disk Space Used: 10.5 GB Resolution: 2560x1440 CPU Usage: 14-22 % System RAM Usage: 6.5-8.1 GB Frame Rate: 69-86 FPS The game had a good length to it, about the length of an average movie. Despite my feelings about the plot going off the rails near the end it is a solid FMV game that fans of the genre should enjoy. It could have had a few features that other games in the genre have such as a better save system and the ability to skip scenes. I paid $6.16 CAD for it and can say it is easily worth that price. The normal price of $19.49 CAD plus tax is a bit steep, I’d say $15 would be my upper limit for it. I finished my first play through in one hour and thirty minutes. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.1-gnu | Proton 9.0-1MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

Kathy Rain has a lot going for it. The story starts off pretty interesting and only gets more so. The music is well done. The puzzles are largely great. There are a few downsides though. While the story starts of well by the end it does leave several questions open and I found didn’t do a very good job explaining just what was going on. Several interesting side plots are also brought up but not resolved. I also didn’t like how the majority of responses from Kathy are just hostile and impolite. It didn’t make me like the character much. I will single out the padlock puzzle, the IT puzzle, and the briefcase puzzle as my favourites. I didn’t like the poem puzzle much. Overall I liked that most of the puzzles made sense. I wasn’t a huge fan of the graphics but then again I’m not much of a fan of pixel graphics. There is very little detail on much of the game. I get that it’s meant to be a throw back to the old days but some pixel games do manage to make things look a little better than this although most are on par. The voice acting was very well done. I played Kathy Rain on Linux using Steam’s Proton. It never crashed during game play but had some other issues. The game sometimes wouldn’t launch. It wouldn’t give me an error message but just would never open. I found I had to validate the files, of which usually one was bad and had to be downloaded, and then restart Steam. The game would also crash if I set the Nearest Neighbour Filter setting to anything over 6x. Once the game could get going I had zero issues during game play. There is just the Nearest Neighbour Filter for graphical options. You can’t turn the subtitles off. You can manually save any time except for when making a dialogue choice and I didn’t notice any limit for how many save slots there are. The game had a frame rate cap of 40 FPS which is kind of strange and low. It managed to stay at a constant 40 FPS even on my Intel UHD 770 onboard GPU so at least performance was good. I’m not sure if my technical issues were related to Proton or if they would have happened on Windows as well. Game Engine: Adventure Game Studio Graphics API: DXVK Game Version Played: 1.0.4 Disk Space Used: 537 MB Nearest Neighbour Filter: 6x CPU Usage: 4-12 % System RAM Usage: 4.3-5.3 GB Frame Rate: 40 FPS Constant Overall I would recommend Kathy Rain to those who like point and click games and even to those that don’t. As unfulfilling as the story was it was a great ride along the way. The puzzles were also largely well done and despite some technical issues the game can be run on damn near any system well. The audio was great overall and the graphics were fine for what they were but don’t hinder the enjoyment of the game. I paid $3.39 CAD for Kathy Rain and would say it is easily worth that price and is also worth it’s current asking price of $12.99 CAD. That being said I would recommend going for the new directors cut as you get native Linux support and apparently they have put work into fleshing out the ending among other things. I finished the story in seven hours and fourteen minutes. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.8.9-gnu | Proton 9.0-1

There are some good elements to LustyVerse but just as much bad. I found at least four different endings with possibly more and yet I didn’t love any of them. Some were better than others but none were really ideal to me. I think the problem lay in me not liking the main character much and not being given an opportunity to really make many meaningful changes to him. He’s the same vain, short sighted, borderline scumbag at the end as he is at the beginning. It’s not surprising that in many of the endings things don’t work out ideally for him. Speaking of choices there was a decent amount but there was a noticeable dry stretch of over an hour in chapter one where there are none at all. The worst part is I can think of many spots where I would have liked a way to branch the story as I didn’t like where it went. Overall though I did enjoy many of the characters and most of the second half of the game got really interesting. I wish that some of the characters that got introduced had more of a role later in the game such as Patricia and Felicity but they just seem to get dropped for me. The animations are well done although the lewd scenes could have used more choice and variety. The models and object detail were well done as well. I hated the AI like voice that narrated the game but luckily the volume is adjustable for it and I just turned it off. The music was a bit repetitive but it’s volume is also adjustable. I played LustyVerse on Linux. It never crashed but I noticed at least a dozen spelling errors which is a crazy high amount compared to most visual novels I play. The game also lacked the ability to skip text or to go back. You can manually save whenever you want and there are fifty four save sots. Game Engine: Ren’Py 8.2.0.24012702 Graphics API: OpenGL Game Version Played: 1.0.2 Disk Space Used: 7.1GB CPU Usage: 1-12 % RAM Usage: 2.8-6.2 GB Overall LustyVerse is a decent game. It has some technical issues and shortcomings as well as me not liking the main character much but there are good parts to the story as well and those there for just the lewd content should be satisfied. I paid $10.16 CAD for it and was able to see four of the endings in eight hours and thirty eight minutes. There are better visual novels out there as well as worse. The price and amount of content keeps the value in a good place. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.8.4-gnu Manjaro

A Night at the Watermill was impressive for a few reasons. First is that the developers managed to make a full fledged point and click game in Ren'Py which is usually used for visual novels. It now has the best of both worlds where it has the traditional puzzle and inventory aspects of a point and click game combined with the dialogue choices and story branching of a visual novel. The puzzles themselves are fairly well done save for one where you make a pen. I found logic in the other puzzles but not that one. The atmosphere, story, music, and visuals were all well done. I would have liked to see more done with the story as each of the endings were decent but all left me wanting more as they don't provide a ton of closure. Aside from the endings the story did a good job of revealing things and does a good job of building tension. I played A Night at the Watermill on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors. You can manually save whenever you want and there are nine save slots. The game ran just fine even on Intel onboard graphics. Game Engine: Ren'Py 8.1.1.23060707 Game Version Played: 1.0.794 Disk Space Used: 639 MB Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse CPU Usage: 1-6 % RAM Usage: 4.3-6.1 GB If you enjoy point and click games that focus more on narrative than puzzles then I would recommend A Night at the Watermill. The puzzles are good overall but the story is the better reason to play it. I finished the game in forty eight minutes and paid $5.39 CAD for it so i'd say the value is good. I really would like to see what future projects Neon Tales does. If they can build on this then I think they have a bright future. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.7.8-gnu

Last Dream impressed me in some ways but disappointed me in many others. I love how you can customize the difficulty. Instead of picking just a difficulty level you can also choose the encounter rate for enemies as well as changing the save system to suit you. I also liked the character upgrade system. You can learn a variety of skills that gives you a wide variety of play styles. The story is very deep, even for a JRPG. Past that though begins the bad. First off the game has no quest log. As I said the story is pretty deep and you’re given no way to keep track of quests or keep track of story updates. Another issue that ties in to this is the poor map system. Even if you are diligent and write down all details on paper the map hinders you by not having much detail outside and zero detail indoors. I found certain places such as the Forest Tower to be almost maze like and all the map would show is that I was in the tower itself. Even outside certain locations such as the Forest of Despair didn’t show up. Other times the vague instructions on where to find certain creatures for a quest seemed way off where I actually found them. Another issue I had was that there is almost no way to regain MP for your characters. You can fish but I only know this from forums as this is never mentioned in game during my play through. I found a couple MP potions but only two and after eight hours of game play. Basically it makes any long excursion into a hostile cave or area a chore as often I have to retreat to go use a Tent or find an Inn so that my Mage can actually do their job. Considering there are tons of different potions and other items at shops any town I go to I don’t see why MP potions weren’t an option or even having an MP regeneration skill. The issue that finally broke me was the fact that there are areas, such as Mt Gerra, where you are forced to walk across lava or other surfaces that actively hurt your characters. This is expected behaviour and you’re just supposed to keep healing as you go which is such a bad idea. The puzzles in game were a mixed bag. Some were pretty decent and others I found annoying. My last gripe is that you can’t access the main menu during a battle. So for instance if I know that I am going to lose a fight I can’t just load a save or even quit to the main menu. My only two options are play it out and reload after or hit Alt-F4 and exit the game then relaunch. I played Last Dream on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs or spelling errors. You can choose to manually save or save at specific points in game. If you choose manually saving there are twenty save slots. There are no graphics options at all aside from v-sync. Regardless of whether you enable v-sync or not the frame rate is capped at 60 FPS so it’s kind of pointless. That being said it runs at a constant 60 FPS even on my Intel onboard graphics. I used my Logitech game pad without any issues. Game Engine: Mkxp Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 926 MB Input Used: Logitech F310 CPU Usage: 2-14 % RAM Usage: 3.6-4.4 GB Frame Rate: Constant 60 FPS There are some good elements to Last Dream but they’re buried under the mountain of design choices I didn’t like. I played through ten hours and forty four minutes of the campaign. This was enough time to get a ship and make it to the Eastern Continent to start doing various missions there. I paid $3.29 CAD for the game but even that steep discount didn’t make up for the shortcomings. My Score: 4.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.7.5-gnu

Week Two of The Fetish Locator does a pretty good job building on the first week. You get to know the characters more which is good. I liked where things went with Stacey; AmRose; and Daisy but I wish Nora was included more for those who made her angry. I'm still stuck with Lydia though. I don't mind the character but let's just say i'm not as into her as the MC is and wish there was more options to not side with her as much although one can choose to not show as much affection. There was an interesting story line introduced with a judge but while I felt it was fun I saw it as an opportunity to take the MC down an optional dark path where it really only amounted to a cop out. I get why the developer probably did it as if they did what i asked it would probably cause a huge storm brought down on them by some people. I also wish that more was revealed about the app itself. It felt like the majority of the week was people talking about what to do about it without actually doing much. In any case I am excited about Week Three so the game did it's job. The lewd scenes are just as good with the animation quality and I felt like there was more variety and choice with the scenes than last week. One thing I did notice though was less choice with the fetishes themselves. Where in the first week pretty much every one gave you the option to reject them in the second week I only saw that once or twice. I played Week Two on Linux. The game never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors or bugs. That being said the import of the previous week's saves could have been handled better. It is required to have Week One installed and the saves in their proper spot for week two to see them. Not the biggest deal but I would have liked it had the game just allowed me to point to a folder I had them backed up in. I ended up having to reinstall the first week and recopy the saves back to the original place. This may be a limitation of the Ren'Py engine, i'm not sure. You can save any time you want and I never ran out of save slots. Graphics Engine: Ren'Py 7.6.0.2305 Disk Space Used: 5.1 GB Game Version Played: 2.0.36 CPU Usage: 1-27 % RAM Usage: 2.8-5.9 GB If you enjoyed the first week of The Fetish Locator you'll probably enjoy the second. It expands on what made the first week good without introducing much in the way of negatives. I wish that more detail was paid to certain plot points over others but at the same time there is a good amount of content here. I finished my first play through in four hours and fifty six minutes. I paid $22.02 CAD for it and felt that price was very fair. My Score: 8.5/10 Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Kernel 6.7.4-gnu

There was one main thing I really didn't like about Midnight Manor. The developer was up front about it right on the store page so it was at least partly on me. My main issue was the lack of a save system. When game's say they're quick or short then I normally don't mind not saving but I clocked forty six minutes on my play through and still hadn't beat it. I needed to get ready for work so I had to quit. This was actually my second attempt as earlier I had to quit because after accidentally throwing a bone on the ground in the first level it disappeared and I then couldn't proceed as I couldn't throw it in the cauldron. I haven't been able to recreate this bug so I don't think it's a serious issue but the fact remains if I had been able to save maybe I wouldn't have lost seventeen minutes of progress like I did. Aside from this I actually like the game. The game play is simple but fun. The music is well done. The controls are solid. The performance was great even on Intel onboard graphics. It worked with my Logitech game pad. The graphics aren't technically spectacular but have a nice style and use of colours. I played Midnight manor on Linux. It never crashed and aside from the one time bone issue I didn't experience any other bugs. The game has no graphics options at all aside from choosing full screen or windowed mode. Graphics Engine: Godot Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 141 MB Input Used: Logitech F310 CPU Usage: 2-4 % RAM Usage: 2.4-2.5 GB Frame Rate: 165 FPS (constant, never dropped) My Score may not reflect it but I wouldn't call Midnight Manor a bad game, just one that could have been better. I paid $4.01 CAD for it and from a value standpoint would call it fine. If you don't mind the lack of saves then you may enjoy it more than I did. As I said there are a lot of good aspects to it. My Score: 5.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.7.3-gnu

Fetish Locator does a good job of incorporating a wide variety of kinks as well as structuring things in a way that they’re all optional without losing out on the actual story. You close down avenues of making points in the app but you also have plenty of other opportunities to make enough to get by. The story itself was decent. There is a plot involving the app and makes you wonder just who it’s creators are but in my opinion it was one of the less interesting aspects of the story. There were several other characters I was far more interested in. As with many visual novels like Fetish Locator I was the least interested in the woman that the main character was supposed to be pursuing. You can obviously pursue other women as well but had I been able to opt out of Lydia like I could the others I would have. The animations are pretty good compared to the competition but I would have liked more choice in how certain lewd scenes play out. The voice acting was a weird hybrid model that many visual novels use. A small portion of the dialogue is voice acted for certain people. I find is jarring this way because you never know what parts will have voice and which won’t. There was also a small issue where some parts of dialogue or noises made by certain characters were in different accents. For instance when saying certain things the character would sound North American but others would sounds British. None of my nitpicks are big and none detracted from my enjoyment. I played Week One of The Fetish Locator on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any spelling errors or bugs. You can save any time you want and I think there were infinite save slots as they never seemed to run out. Engine: Ren’Py 7.3.5.23051307 Disk Space Used: 2.1 GB Game Version Played: 1.0.60 CPU Usage: 1-15 % RAM Usage: 2.8-4.9 GB Overall I enjoyed the first week of The Fetish Locator. It was fun; the lewd scenes were good; the models and objects were well done, the story was decent. I can’t point to any one part and call it amazing but they came together to make a hell ****. I finished my first play through in three hours and thirty eight minutes. I paid $11.75 CAD for the game and feel that was more than fair. I would have paid at least $20 CAD for it, maybe more. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.7.2-gnu

The Fall Part 2 does a lot to improve over the first game but it also does a lot worse. It adds in combat in a couple different variations and both were enjoyable to me. You have some gunplay when playing as Arid going through the virtual network world and some hand to hand combat as One that, while only pressing one of two buttons, is both fun and can get difficult. The game adds new characters that Arid takes over in over to achieve certain goals and they were distinct and interesting in their own way. The voice acting was also well done across the board. I was going to knock the game in having lack of choice in the dialogue choices that I found full of faux choices early on but it actually gets explained later on so I gave that a pass. The story was overall pretty decent. It starts a bit convoluted and slow but gets better. The game includes an optional video that explains the events to the first game which is a nice touch. I played the first game but still felt a little lost at first as to what was going on and why. The last act of the game really annoyed me though. It included a lot of backtracking between hosts and really highlighted the game’s biggest fault in my eyes: lack of explanation. The game would introduce various mechanics but do very little to explain them or nothing at all. I didn’t even know I could change perspectives or hosts later in the game and that is required in order to proceed and solve puzzles. I can respect not wanting to hold the player’s hand but there is a middle ground between that and what The Fall Part 2 did. The puzzles in the last act were also a little more annoying. I dislike when I just have to start clicking on everything randomly instead of having a solution make sense. This is especially bad with a certain puzzle where you have to do things in a very specific order but are given no hints at all as to what that is. The graphics were decent overall. The game did a good job of having distinct looking worlds for the three hosts you encounter. The lighting and shadows were the best part. I did find the aiming kind of clunky as well. There was an option to adjust the sensitivity but for the life of me I could not figure out how to edit it. I played The Fall Part 2 on Linux. It never crashed on me but there was one bug. The resolution option resets after closing the game so I had to reset it to my proper resolution each time I opened the game. There were no other graphics options at all. There was also no control lists even though there is a menu option for it. There was however one at the main menu but that would require quitting the game to see which could lose progress. This was a problem as the game introduced mechanics poorly and I went to check out which button to use to do something and nothing was listed. My game pad worked but all prompts on the screen button wise was given for the keyboard instead regardless. I couldn’t monitor my frame rate but I never felt any lag even though I was using Intel onboard graphics. The game auto saves at various checkpoints. They’re not spaced too far apart but a manual save system would have been preferred. The game does allow you to have three profiles so you can have more than one save game going if you want. You can change the combat difficulty at any time. Game Engine: Unity Disk Space Used: 1.1 GB Game Version Played: 1.03 Resolution Used: 2560x1440 CPU Usage: 5-14 % RAM Usage: 2.7-3.9 GB Overall The Fall Part 2 isn’t a bad game but the last act really soured me on the game with it’s poorly explained concepts and constant backtracking. The rest of it is pretty solid but by the end I was happy to be done with it. I finished the story on easy difficulty in seven hours and nineteen minutes. I paid $19.49 CAD for it and while the price isn’t bad for the amount of content I can’t recommend the game at any price. My Score: 6.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.7.1-gnu | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

There’s a lot of interesting bits to Doomsday on Demand. On one hand the post apocalyptic world is pretty fleshed out at first as the game goes into detail about different kinds of monsters and hazards. There are some good characters introduced and some difficult choices to make. One of my few issues is that by the end of the game I felt a little pigeon holed in my options and didn’t quite like any of my options fully. I would also say that the epilogue felt a bit rushed and some characters that the game featured early on got little more than a passing mention by the end. The game also felt like it had unresolved plot points. A couple things that felt like they were being made into a focal part of the story just never got mentioned or barely mentioned by the end. Despite this I did enjoy most of the game and felt it was worth it. I played Doomsday on Demand on Linux. The game has had a rocky history for me. It worked years ago then it went through a period where it would only display a white screen and today it was back to working so I took the opportunity to beat it while I could. I didn’t encounter any other bugs and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. Like other games by Hosted Games the game auto saves on exit and you can’t have multiple save files so every choice you make is for good. I’ve never liked this save style but I understand wanting to add tension to your choices. Disk Space Used: 239 MB CPU Usage: 1-8 % RAM Usage: 3.5-4.1 GB Overall if you enjoy visual novels I’d say this game is worth your time. I think more could have been done with parts of the story but as it is it was solid enough. I finished it in two hours and four minutes and paid $3.39 CAD for it which felt like a fair price. Hopefully the technical issues stay fixed. My Score: 7.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.6.9-gnu

No More Money had a good first season. It set the stages and gets you used to the game’s characters. I was left wanting more though. It seemed to end rather abruptly and there really wasn’t much in the way of any consequences for your actions yet. It did a good job at setting that up but I was hoping for more to happen I guess. The story and characters were interesting with one caveat: I hate the whole use of landlord/tenet relationships. I understand why the developers do it but at the same time it is just a lame copout and anyone with a room temperature IQ or better can see what the true setup is. This isn’t a game breaking issue and as I said I understand the reasoning but at the same time can’t help but roll my eyes every time it’s brought up in game. The animations were decent but lacked a little choice. The models were well done as was the object detail. There wasn’t much use of sound at all which left the game eerily quiet at time. No music, no voice acting, very little use of sound effects. I don’t expect visual novels to have all of these but if they can incorporate a couple and do them well it can elevate it. The only other thing I think the game lacks is a back button and a skip option for the dialogue. I played No More Money on Linux using Proton. While the dev may not officially support it there is also a native Linux version that gets downloaded with the Windows version and it runs fine for me so far. You just have to run the .sh file. The game has a manual save feature with fifty four save slots. I didn’t notice any spelling errors or any bugs. Game Engine: Ren’Py 7.3.5.606 Graphics API: WineD3D Disk Space Used: 1.3 GB CPU Usage: 1-9 % RAM Usage: 3.8-5.. GB Overall I would highly recommend Season One. While I wish more things were explored it did set things up very well and most of all it made me want Season Two bad enough I went and bought it after finishing Season One. If that’s not doing it’s job I don’t know what is. I finished the first season in three hours and six minutes. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.6.9-gnu | Proton 8.0-4

Horizon Chase Turbo does a good job of balancing fun and challenge. Early on I thought I would breeze through the game but the tracks do get more difficult and by the end I was happy if I was getting third place. Even if you get first place in all the races you can still try extra challenges such as getting all the coins at the same time to get a super trophy. You have to also manage your fuel which you can replenish buy driving over canisters. You get upgrades by unlocking upgrade races and getting third or better in them. You can really tailor your car with these to whichever style you want. I do wish that you could simply use points in whichever category you want where the actual upgrade system gives you usually three choices each of which upgrade two different sections of the car. Sometimes I got a balance I wanted but others it was picking the one that I wanted the most even if none gave me exactly what I wanted. My biggest issue with the game is that it employs an auto steering feature and you can’t turn it off. I noticed it quickly and was able to mostly learn to adapt to it but the fact it can’t be turned off is ridiculous and annoying. That all being said the game is simply fun. It has a good selection of cars; a decent variety of tracks; good music; and doesn’t require you to be a die hard racing fan to enjoy it. One other feature I want to highlight and praise is that when you pause the game and then unpause it there is a short timer before the game starts back up. This gives you a couple seconds to prepare yourself and was much appreciated by me. One other nitpick I have is at some point the game removed global leader boards and only have local now. The biggest issue I have with this is that the game assigns you a user name that is used for the leader boards and you can’t change it. I remember even back in the 90’s on local leader boards for games I was allowed to enter three initials so I don’t see why a game decades later can’t allow this. I played Horizon Chase Turbo on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any bugs. It was very well optimized. I played on a system with onboard Intel graphics and it ran wonderfully even maxed out at 2560P. The game isn’t a technical wonder but has a great art style and invokes nostalgia without being low resolution. The game has a resolution option; a v-sync toggle; and three AA settings. I used my Logitech F-310 game pad and it worked without any issues. Game Engine: Unity Disk Space Used: 1.4 GB Game Version Played: 2.6 Game Settings Used: 2560x1440; 8x AA; v-sync on CPU Usage: 11-21 % RAM Usage: 5.2-6.4 GB Frame Rate: 76-157 FPS I was able to beat the World Tour campaign in seven hours and thirty minutes. I completed it to the tune of 74% which means I haven’t gotten a super trophy on each course or even gotten first place in each course. I also haven’t even touched the other game modes yet. I paid $6.64 CAD for the game and given how fun it is and how much content there is in the base game it is easily worth it’s current asking price of $22.79 CAD. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.6.8-gnu | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

Attentat 1942 is certainly a unique game. There are elements of visual novels; puzzle games; adventure games; as well as going from FMV to comic panels and back again. For the most part it really blends nicely. You play as a grand daughter of a man who survived **** occupation and arrest in 1942. You basically interview people in FMV form and try to piece together info about your grandfather’s past. Sometimes the game will switch to a comic panel form when you are reliving their stories and you will have a variety of tasks to do such as hide items; plan escape routes; choose what to get rid of before the Gestapo come knocking; and more. One thing I didn’t like was that you pretty much have to replay certain interviews to get all of the info. I was hoping that you would only have to if you failed certain parts but overall I don’t see how you can do some of them in one go. You can skip parts so you don’t have to redo the whole thing but I was still mildly annoyed. Also I got the feeling during some of the puzzle parts that you could screw up and still get to proceed. I got this feeling based on some of the text making it sound like you made a poor choice but made out unscathed anyway. If true it makes the choices pointless as there is no negative consequences. The game’s strong suit was the history though. It did a fantastic job of blending fictional characters with real history as well as finding ways to weave facts into the game play. For instance my favourite part was a point where you had to choose what to dispose of in a characters desk as he was worried the Gestapo would be visiting soon. Whether you choose to keep an item or get rid of it the game informs you of whether that item was problematic or not and why. You also earn coins which can be sued to redo interviews but I never could figure out why you earned coins or didn’t nor could I figure out why you earned a certain amount for some things but wildly different amounts for others. Overall I think the coin system could have been removed without any effect. The story had a fantastic twist to it near the end. I won’t spoil it but will say I was really happy with it. I played Attentat 1942 on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. There was just one audio setting and no graphics settings. The game saved upon exit. I would have preferred manual saving but the game did give you three profiles you could play at once which is better than some games that only allow one save to be played at a time. I couldn’t monitor the frame rate but I never notice any lag on my system. Game Engine: Unity Disk Space Used: 2.6 GB Game Version Played: 1.1 CPU Usage: 3-7 % RAM Usage: 2.2-2.9 GB Overall I was pleasantly surprised at Attentat 1942 and would easily recommend it. It has a few warts but nothing major and it’s story alone is worth the play with the variety the cherry on top. I finished the game in two hours and thirty eight minutes and paid $12.49 CAD for it which I felt was great value. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.6.7-gnu

For simplicity sake I’ll just refer to Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk as “milk” going forward. Milk has a great soundtrack and a semi interesting concept but is too obtuse for it’s own good. I really don’t now who the player plays as for starters. My best guess is some inner monologue to the girl. The girl got on my nerves enough that I couldn’t stand them. The fourth wall references were a bit cringe. The visuals were just muddy. I get going for a psychedelic look and feel but at the end of the day if you can’t make anything out then it’s a problem. The sequel seems to have struck a better balance by the screenshots I have seen. I also have issues with the save system. You can save the game at any point and there are ten save slots but you can’t load a game. I had wanted to retry a different dialogue choice and realized I would have to restart the game. The game isn’t overly long, I spent twelve minutes on that play through, but this is still a frustrating lack of polish. The game also lacks any kind of menu and forces you to go out of full screen and then hit the x in the corner to exit the game. Also the save screen doesn’t properly fill the screen even in full screen mode so it cuts off a portion of the saves. I played Milk on Linux. It didn’t crash on me and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. I only paid $1.35 CAD for Milk but can’t recommend it. There are too many other great visual novels out there for the same price or less to do so. Game Engine: Ren’Py 7.3.5.606 Game Version Played: 1.0 Disk Space Used: 272 MB CPU Usage: 4-6 % RAM Usage: 2.3-2.5 GB My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel ****

Sally Face was all over the map for me. For the first four episodes I was really liking the narrative, save for a few bits, and not too keen on the game play. For the fifth and final episode the narrative went off the rails but they introduced some combat into the game play which I really enjoyed except for one aspect. The parts of the game play I didn’t like in the first four episodes was how many times the game wanted me to pretty much have to search room by room to find things without giving much of a hint as to where they were. This was made worse by how some items in the game, like doors or objects, would show on the screen that they could be interacted with but others wouldn’t. This meant that sometimes I would be running all over Addison apartments trying to find something that I may not even notice I could interact with. Some of the puzzles were well thought out though and could be solved with logic. In the fifth episode the game introduces a variety of combat such as a sword; guitar attacks; and other such things. They each feel unique to each other and work well. My only complaint for them was that the game had one hit kill enemies so you had to be perfect to progress. I was really liking the atmosphere of the game in the first four episodes. It had a really dark and gloomy part to it that I loved. This really got ratcheted up in episode four which was, story wise, one of my favorites. I wish the game took more time to explain the back story to Sal as I felt like there was a lot left unexplored to that aspect. I also think that in the fifth episode the game got a little to grandiose story wise and tried to make things too big and world encompassing for the game’s own good. The game’s visuals were as all over the map as the rest but in a good way. The game incorporated cartoon styles; polygonal styles; claymation; and more and they all looked great and worked well. The music was also fantastic and my only complaint was that it could have had a bit more of it. I played Sally Face on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. It did however have some technical issues. When I first launch the game I can’t pick any resolution higher than 1920x1080 but once I start a game or load a save I can choose my native resolution of 2560x1440. The controls are also very clunky. I tried using the keyboard but it didn’t quite feel right and would have been terrible later in the game as the game introduces combat but doesn’t let you use the mouse. I also tried my game pad which felt better than the keyboard but also felt like it had slow movement at times and at others would do things like pause the game when I didn’t want to because of the button layout. I also couldn’t use the d-pad on my game-pad so had to use the sticks for movement. The save system was also terrible. The game auto saves but doesn’t tell you when. It also only has one save slot and there are parts of the game where there is a lot of backtracking where you may miss something but if you proceed too far can’t go back or reload an earlier save. A manual save system with multiple save slots would have solved all of this. There was just one graphics option aside from resolution. Performance was fantastic but considering the game was going for style over technical detail I’m not shocked. I couldn’t monitor the frame rate but felt no lag at any time. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 1.8GB Game Version Played: 1.5.42 Graphics Settings Used: Quality 4; 2560x1440 GPU Usage: 9-60 % VRAM Usage: 289-316 MB CPU Usage: 3-7 % RAM Usage: 2.5-2.8 GB Overall it’s tough to recommend Sally Face. I can spend as much time praising parts of it as I can complaining about other parts. I finished all five episodes in six hours and twenty two minutes. I spent $16.79 CAD on it and would say the value is fine and would had been a steal had I liked the game more. My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Mesa 23.1.8 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Solus | Mate 1.27.0 | Kernel 6.5.5-258.current | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

Clam Man 2: Open Mic is a demo to the upcoming full sequel. It gives you access to the first full day in the game. It does a great job of setting up the plot as well as the many game play changes from the original. That is what impressed me the most because there are a lot of changes and they work well. The game is still a 2D point and click game at heart but it has added quests; RPG style character traits; a map system; partial voice acting; and more. My favourite add on was the RPG style traits. You pick at the start which traits are most important to you and it gives you a level based on that. 70% for the most important and then less for each depending on their order. These traits come into play during dialogue as well as solving certain puzzles as having a high enough trait can unlock different conversation options as well as puzzle solutions. The game doesn’t lock you into these options though, it is till possible to complete the demo regardless of what special options you see. The quests are optional for the most part but doing them allows you to acquire jokes to use later so it is required to complete a certain amount although you could choose which ones to do still. The voice acting was well done although it highlights why I am not a huge fan of partial voice acting. It seems weird to have the character’s voice come on for some sentences but not others. The graphics have the same style as the original which works well and I like. The map system helps show you different areas to explore which will allow you to find quests more easily. The demo section did a good job of showing and referencing characters and events from the original without becoming bogged down in it. Open Mic still had it’s own distinct story. If you enjoyed the original’s focus on story and humour then you’ll probably enjoy Open Mic as it is much of the same style. I played Clam Man 2: Open Mic on Linux. It never crashed. I did notice a couple issues though. The resolution option topped out at 1920x1080 which means I couldn’t use my full resolution. The original supported my resolution of 2560x1440 and they use the same game engine so I see no reason why the demo of the sequel tops out lower. I also found one area of the map where Clam man would get stuck walking into a mail box. I had to go around it carefully or he would just try to walk through it which wouldn’t work. There are no graphics options aside from resolution. You can manually save but not during conversations. This presented an issue at the beginning of the demo as the first twenty minutes or so was a long conversation so that was twenty minutes where I couldn’t save. Hopefully the full version has less of these stretches. There are four save slots. Performance was great but one thing I will highlight was the demo used an absurd amount of VRAM. I had enough to not be an issue but I have seen full fledged AAA games with much more intensive graphics not come close to what Open Mic used. Hopefully the full game improves the optimization. The game didn’t have a v-sync option but did respect my refresh rate. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Disk Space Used: 1.2 GB Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse Graphics Settings: 1920x1080 GPU Usage: 0-91 % VRAM Usage: 5877-6120 MB CPU Usage: 2-7 % RAM Usage: 3.7-4.9 GB Frame Rate: 153-165 FPS Overall I came away hopeful and impressed. I recently played the original Clam man and this demo makes me think the sequel will be bigger and better in almost every way. It does have some work to do in tweaking optimization and some other technical issues but the game play; audio and graphics are all as good or better which is great. I finished the demo in one hour and sixteen minutes. If you enjoy point and click games that focus on story and humour I would check it out. My Score: 8/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Mesa 23.1.5 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Kernel 6.4.8-zen1-1-zen | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz