Izzy's 2024 gaming year in review.

[isthatallyougot]

Deep cut izzy strikes again !

A very non-deep-cut. Ha. Although, very old:

# 41 Nintendogs (DS - 2005) 3/5 (around 10+ hours playtime)



Likely inspired at least somewhat by the Tamagotchi craze within Japan in the 90s, Nintendo released a virtual pet simulator in the form of Nintendogs for the DS in 2005. And similarly, it had quite the buzz. I never really considered playing it when it was popular, but the fact that I was very aware of it likely speaks to the sensation it was at the time. (I checked after writing that sentence, and indeed it sold almost 24 million copies, only bested by New Super Mario Bros. on the dual-screen Nintendo machine.) But for whatever reason, I had a lingering curiosity - probably because of that popularity - and so I decided to scratch the itch behind my ear in 2024.

Overall, it's a pretty simple game. It's a basic simulation of pet care where you feed, wash, play with, and walk your dog. Beside those basic interactions, you can enter frisbee catch competitions and obedience contests. There's a variety of food and drink to sustain your pet along with myriad toys and doggie clothes (sheesh, I shudder) to entertain among a few other items of interest to purchase. There is a pretty nice routine that develops as you interact with your pup, and after a few days I had a pretty consistent rhythm where I would get up and feed “Buddy,” spend time playing with and petting him, teach him some voice commands for behaviors, take him for walks, and so on. When you go out for a stroll, your dog will pick up presents he finds on the route - gift-wrapped packages, oddly enough, lol. Along with that, you will run into other dogs who your animal can interact with, along with their disembodied pet owners who often offer you “well-intentioned” advice as part of the tutorial process. Sometimes your dog will be friendly with other animals, and sometimes he won't like them. But the animations for the animals were pretty well done, given the modest hardware, and that went a long way towards the convincing nature of the experience. And in terms of teaching your animal new tricks, there was a nice curve of having to repeat phrases contextually into the DS mic before your dog officially “learned” to respond appropriately. And animal behavior was pretty realistic because your dog would not respond perfectly 100% of the time, giving the animal a believable sense of autonomy rather than simply being a digital robot. Overall, the basic concept and execution worked pretty well.

However, everything was only a mild sort of fun in the end. Despite it being pretty polished and well-made, it wasn't very exciting. Also, there were some slower menu prompts that made things feel like they dragged unnecessarily in spots. And the walks, if you take a long one, can be pretty slow as your dog must stop to piss, shit, and smell every few steps - too realistic, lol. You can get your animal to run with you, which minimizes a bit of the tedium, but things did feel like they dragged on too long at times, even as I attempted to drag along my hound. Granted, it's not a game for lengthy play sessions. You're meant to check in and care for your animal two or three times per day, and the DS lends itself well to that sort of investment. If you don't check in often enough, we are told that our doggo can run away for a while. How he does this, I have no idea - there must be an invisible doggy door or something, lol. Overall I probably spent 10 to 12 hours with my little pup over the course of a month or so, won a few competitions with prize money and trophies, bought some upgrades, and had a decent time, but it was never really something that stimulating. Mild fun, and I got enough enjoyment from it, but it's certainly not a strong recommendation. If you really love dogs, you've probably got one, a real one. And if you don't, why would you play it? Well, I guess I'm in that cross-section, lol, but I've had dogs in the past. Overall, just an average, if well-made, pet simulator. 3/5.

[canedaddy]

And the walks, if you take a long one, can be pretty slow as your dog must stop to piss, shit, and smell every few steps - too realistic, lol.

My life every day walking my beagle

[isthatallyougot]

My life every day walking my beagle

Ha! Beagles sure can be some cute little critters!

#40 Saint Maker (PC - 2023) 3/5 (7 hours playtime)



Finding myself in the Halloween spirit within the month of the holiday, I was looking for something that fit the mood. I dug around a bit in my backlog and found a visual novel called Saint Maker, which caught my attention, and I fired it up. I didn't know much about it other than that it came from the developer of 'The Letter', another well-loved visual novel by Yangyang still sitting in my library. The only clue to the content was some religious oriented imagery on the title image along with the title itself. Whatever your feelings on religion in all its various colors, I find that to often be a backdrop for a good creepy tale, if done well.

Well, in Saint Maker, we occupy the shoes of a teen named Holly who finds herself in a convent for a ‘Recollection’ after having been sent there for some “fixing” by her very strict parents. The fact that she was there seemed quite unnecessary fairly quickly after getting to know her, although the overbearing nature of her home life, at least from her and her sister's perspective, surely provided some explanation. She had the personality of a people-pleaser who did all she could in order to fit in and was not someone you'd expect to be removed for some discipline. Granted, she surely held some repressed anger within, like most who suppress themselves in deference to others, for reasons that would eventually become clear, but on the surface she was in no need of such a dismissal from family and mainstream society. Within this convent, we also meet one other girl there for some recalibration, a girl named Gabby. She is more honest/direct on the surface and free in her expressions of frustration and anger, and these two differing personas rub each other the wrong way in the beginning before discovering how much they share in common and developing a bond. The other primary character is Mother Adira who has been in this convent since she was little and is now running the mostly vacant and relatively uninhabited facility, “helping” whoever happens to be sent there. She's initially got the flavor of a stern, yet good-intentioned, motherly figure who is out to discipline you for your own good, at least as she sees things. But she's obviously inculcated within a culture of fear and, operating on such primitive programming, she is extremely rigid, as one might expect in a person inhabiting such a role. There's also a couple of other significant characters that inform the overall narrative, but those three are the primary players on this stage for most of the story. I won't go into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that there's clear indication that something in this convent and its history is not quite right, appropriately enough given the horror-themed genre SM occupies. I thought that the game did a good job of slowly peeling away layers of these characters and their personal stories in a way that kept my curiosity mostly engaged. It wasn't clear just exactly what was going on or had happened in the past in both the convent location as well as the primary characters' lives, and that gradual unfolding was at least moderately engaging as things developed. And there were surely some pretty spooky moments, if lacking any serious frights, some dark content notwithstanding. There was also some good sound work in terms of some of the environmental sounds, and some of the abundant voice work was well acted.

Despite some genuine strengths, there were some notable negatives that undermined a good bit of the pluses here. In the first place, the environments in which this story unfolds are quite limited, making things feel pretty uninteresting over time. Granted, the primary focus is the story, but it is a VISUAL novel after-all, and it could have really used more locations to make the game world feel less small. Also, characters had little animations like hair and, surprisingly, moving mouths - even if they weren't accurately synced to speech, and I appreciated those nice touches. But there was little effort to convey much in the way of movement. For example, in one scene a character is throwing rocks against a wall, and she grunts to signify the effort, but there was no added still frame to convey the act of throwing, and I didn't even know that's what was happening until she expressed it aloud after several tosses. It wouldn't have been too much effort to include an extra artwork still-shot of a character engaged in a throwing motion. Saint Maker felt very low-budget in this aspect and some others. There were also a variety of other odd thuds and clanks that just sounded weird and out of place, sounds that were meant to convey action but didn't necessarily resemble anything you'd associate with the intended action or scene. One sound resembled a wet dump or something similar, and I could NOT work out how THAT sound fit any potential actions that were happening, given the environment and context. Maybe it's better to have remained a mystery, lol. And while some of the voice work was nicely done, there was too much exaggeration with plenty of anime-styled grunts and hyperbolic squeaks and intonations that felt a bit over the top, removing any sense of realism. I also had a corrupted save late into the game that I later found affected others as well. Thankfully I had utilized all of the game's plentiful save slots and was able to go back to an earlier point and fast forward up to where I was and move along from there until after I had passed the point where saves wouldn't load again. But worst of all, the story wasn't really that memorable. I don't mind unrealistic elements in games...not at all. It's possible to present a surreal world where the bizarre is kind of accepted and you revel in that fantasy. But this felt grounded in a realistic setting to the point that, I don't know, it just didn't quite land, despite some interesting elements in isolation. It certainly wasn't horrible, but it came off a bit long-winded for the content on offer as well as feeling a little hokey rather than sinister or delivering the tense horror I'd hoped to find. And of course, if you're religious - Christian or Catholic in particular - you may be put off by the setting and iconography within. Personally, I'm not religious, but neither am I a ‘black or white’ sort. I think good and bad can be found within all things, and so I have no ‘sacred cows,’ so to speak. But YMMV depending on your own personal context and beliefs.

In the end, Saint Maker did enough well that I did find some enjoyment in the seven hours it took to complete. It was a kinetic visual novel, without any real choice, so everything hinged upon the story and delivery. And while there were enough strengths that I wanted to complete things, I didn't feel overly impressed with the total package upon conclusion or reflection. I've come to enjoy the visual novel genre in recent years and have played some really good ones, but this is on the lower end of average for me. A soft 3/5.

[isthatallyougot]

#39 Critters for Sale (PC - 2021) 3/5 (2.7 hours playtime)




I picked up a strange and intriguing-looking game called Critters for Sale this year. What initially grabbed my attention was the visuals and tone from the trailer. Everything is in a monochromatic/black-and-white style with shimmering, pixelated visuals. The sharp contrast along with the unique overall style was quite striking. And the tone is of a style that is full of mystery and maybe purposefully obtuse. That sort of thing usually gets me curious. The general method of interaction is akin to a visual novel blended with a point-and-click adventure, I suppose. There are 5 paths to navigate, each represented by a different creature in the main menu. You select from a snake, goat, monkey, dragon, and spider and enter these little story vignettes where you meet a wide range of beings, both normal and mystical, spanning a wide range of time periods and settings. Within these spokes, there are multiple paths to unlock, which can result in you experiencing a total of 18 different endings. Also thrown into the mix are a variety of mini-games to flesh things out beyond simple binary decision-making. There are sliding block puzzles where you must form a picture, Simon-Says-type memory games, word recognition memory games, and timed-reaction games, among others. Some of these were pretty fun, while others could be a little annoying. The timed-reaction games could be really punishing in terms of necessary response time to win, and while they were doable, they weren't fun at all. The others were pretty enjoyable, though, and gave an extra layer of interaction to an otherwise mostly passive experience. And the overall narrative was nicely mysterious, if often inscrutable, as you inhabited beings that are apparently born and reborn across ages on some sort of expansive time-stretching quest. There is the flavor of secret societies, esoteric knowledge, conspiracies, and all the sorts of things you'd expect in that type of tale. It kind of reminded me of Killer 7 in tone, which I really love. In premise and execution, I was mostly engaged.

On the other side of the coin, some of the serious tone was undermined by the inclusion of a real-world famous figure who made things feel a little more silly than intense. There's also too much wasted screen real estate as the primary action occurs in a very small portion of the overall viewable area. Also, I will note for reference that if you're uncomfortable with references to darkness/evil/Satan and/or religious iconography, maybe you should avoid this. Personally, I have no issue with such references in fiction, and in fact, in life itself. I've always been of the mind that if you love “goodness," you are acknowledging your love for its opposite due to the fact that nothing can be defined or exist at all without the contrast that brings it into existence. A blank (single color) canvas tells no tale. We know white because of black (or vice versa), hot because of cold, love because of hate, and on and on. There is no "good" without framing it against something “not good”. In other words, they are interdependent, integrated, and wholly reliant upon one another. So while you may prefer the “good,” you must realize that it has no flavor or meaning in a vacuum, without the opposite polarity as a point of reference. If you eradicate all “evil” you have paradoxically also destroyed all “good.” In a world of pure goodness, there is, in effect, no such thing. When you love one side of a coin and pick it up, you put the whole coin in your pocket, not just one face of it. You embrace or reject ALL, ultimately. Philosophical babbling concluded. Finally, replaying the various paths to unlock other endings was tedious and didn't vary enough overall to justify the full exploration of every possible outcome. Most of the events and interactions would be identical from one run to the next, and that kept me from really wanting to fully sink my teeth into things.

But, overall, the game was decent enough; however, it didn't engage me enough for me to want to experience all permutations. Despite the really alluring visual presentation and general theming that stimulated my curiosity, I ended up just finding the whole experience rather average on balance, if admittedly different. I like strange, but I want more than just the unusual in order for me to really connect with a title. Critters for Sale was a little too simplistic and repetitive for me to give it a strong recommendation. It wasn't bad, but it isn't something I'll remember for very long. Its strengths are quite strong, but it just didn't have enough substance to contrast and accentuate its style. A rather soft, if interesting, 3/5.

[argyle]

Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk... is in my backlog, I picked it up super cheap in a Switch eshop sale last year. I didn't read your review, because it looks like the type of game that the less you know going in, the better. And hey, I'll take a 3-star review from Izzy on a game I already had an interest in as a solid-enough recommend.

[isthatallyougot]

Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk... is in my backlog, I picked it up super cheap in a Switch eshop sale last year. I didn't read your review, because it looks like the type of game that the less you know going in, the better. And hey, I'll take a 3-star review from Izzy on a game I already had an interest in as a solid-enough recommend.

Yeah, for *me* a 3/5 is a good game. Of course, it's all relative. But a 3 for me had enough going for it that I would say I enjoyed it overall, even if it wasn't spectacular. And Milk is only 20-ish minutes. (I don't know about the second one.)

Edit: I just noticed that this thread has (at the time of this writing) like 123K views.



I only look at this thread when I post in it (once), to proofread it (twice) or to reply to someone (three). Maybe I've viewed this thread 50 times overall. I have no need to refer to it, lol.



Now I'm not sure exactly what to think, but I've come up with a few possibilities.

1) I have a cyber stalker. Kind of cool, but nah, I'll pass.

2) Tons of bots, although I don't know why this thread is getting a disproportionate level of clicks. Strange.

3) One of you is secretly in love with me. How sweet!

I'm really at a loss. Oh well, I'll watch the numbers spin, or stop now that I've acknowledged it.

[canedaddy]

Edit: I just noticed that this thread has (at the time of this writing) like 123K views.



I only look at this thread when I post in it (once), to proofread it (twice) or to reply to someone (three). Maybe I've viewed this thread 50 times overall. I have no need to refer to it, lol.



Now I'm not sure exactly what to think, but I've come up with a few possibilities.

1) I have a cyber stalker. Kind of cool, but nah, I'll pass.

2) Tons of bots, although I don't know why this thread is getting a disproportionate level of clicks. Strange.

3) One of you is secretly in love with me. How sweet!

I'm really at a loss. Oh well, I'll watch the numbers spin, or stop now that I've acknowledged it.

We're all secretly in love with you, but it has to be either 2) or the counter is out of wack.

Just looking at the screenshots of that black-and-white game is giving me a migraine.

[isthatallyougot]

We're all secretly in love with you, but it has to be either 2) or the counter is out of wack.

Just looking at the screenshots of that black-and-white game is giving me a migraine.

Ha, I'm all tingly inside. Well I would have suggested my ex-wife who I don't think has ever gotten over me (no thanks), even though she initiated our split - much to my ultimate gratitude and state of relief. But I don't think she ever knew anything about this place or much of anything regarding the details of my gaming interests. And the numbers would indicate a greater degree of insanity than I ever suspected. Oh well, the universe is full of mysteries, ha.



Yeah, Critters for Sale is unique visually and has harsh contrast and some aspects I could see being annoying.

[argyle]

Well I would have suggested my ex-wife who I don't think has ever gotten over me (no thanks), even though she initiated our split - much to my ultimate gratitude and state of relief.

Heh, I'll drink to exes who did at least one thing right, and that's know when to GTFO.

cheers.gif (1.27 MiB) Viewed 10823 times

[isthatallyougot]

Heh, I'll drink to exes who did at least one thing right, and that's know when to GTFO.


cheers.gif

Indeed