2064: Read Only Memories
point-and-click in theory, visual novel in practice. this one's pretty popular but it didn't grab me! there's no auto-scrolling feature for the text, which is displayed one very short sentence at a time, so it's just frustratingly low. not much to do besides read the flavor text (which i didn't find interesting) and follow the story (which i also didn't find interesting). shrugs! a completely normal dating simulation that is definitely completely sweet, innocent and normal
a joke bad-on-purpose visual novel that i think was made by a kid? there's one joke that made me laugh.
A Mortician's Tale
short visual novel about being a mortician. not much else to it. it's fine.
Airships: Conquer The Skies
kinda complicated steampunk-ish ship-building strategy combat/resource management game. you build an airship and then fight other airships with it. i found it kind of janky and frustrating as well as being overly fiddly. i did like that you can customize your airship a lot and make it look really stupid, though. no story as far as i can tell.
🚫 Animal Lover
a mediocre straight dating sim with nothing in particular that's good about it and quite a few glaring mistakes and writing fumbles. bad game.
Anodyne
a zeldaish top-down pixelly adventure game. has some kind of mysterious story.
🚫 Arcade Spirits
visual novel w/ dating sim components about working in an arcade. has voice acting and decent art. juvenile and cheesy and poorly-written and somewhat racist. i could complain forever about this. don't play it.
As We Know It
a dating sim with an interesting premise that fails to live up to it. repetitive and clunky, with very bad pacing.
BEACON
top-down action game where you run around shooting robots. no story. has an interesting dna upgrade system type thing and a nice slick look and aesthetic. items and upgrades have well-written flavor text. i hate this kind of game but it seems good for people who like that kind of thing.
belong
a forgettable small dating sim with only three love interests. the route i played was deeply bizarre and had a lot of very poorly-done mental illness PSA stuff.
Bestiary (Unspeakable)
one of those games that's more like a toy than a game. you are given a picture of a funny-looking creature and a blank document which you can type in to name it and describe it. it's too freeform to be fun for me.
Bitcoin Miner: Remastered
a very slick-looking idle/clicker game. it doesn't have any real sense of humor or fun flavor text, so it's a bit barebones; i prefer clicker games that have goals, like fill the oceans, or that are a bit more weird/funny. this one felt a bit too simple for my taste.
Brassica: A Marry Tale
an unfinished dating game, set up like a fairy tale. i really like the style and visuals, but it isn't a finished game so there's no real point in playing this. not very memorable.
🚫 Calico
cutesy cat cafe / friend-making game. the controls were janky, the animations look weird, there are a number of spelling or translation errors, the characters are pretty much all the same, and i hated the cooking minigame. cute aesthetic though. i was REALLY disappointed in this one, i'd heard good things but it's just not good.
Catlateral Damage
no story. just a cat going on a rampage knocking stuff over. pretty fun! not terribly engaging, but it's not trying to be. lots of cute cat pictures and collectibles, so it's good if you're into that kind of completionism collecty type stuff.
Celeste
this game has won a lot of awards and lots of people say it is very good! i gave it a try and discovered that i still do not like platformers, especially not ones where you have to jump off walls.
Changeling
a just okay straight visual novel. pretty much a YA fantasy novel, complete with secretly faerie snarky teen girl protagonist, handsome vampires, and basically everything you'd expect from that kind of thing. it's decent and has a lot of story content outside of the heterosexual romance options, and i think every romance route has multiple non-romantic friendship endings. LOTS of endings to unlock. not Amazing, but probably good for people who like stuff like the spiderwick chronicles or shadowhunters. too straight for me to play more than one route (i did ewan's), but decent enough that i finished it.
Clean ATTACK!
a window-washing game with very frustrating controls. i think they're frustrating on purpose? and it seems like this game might be some kind of inside joke? i couldn't really figure it out. not especially fun. wouldn't recommend.
Crashed Lander
i couldn't get my computer to open this!
Crest
a godgame settlement manager type of game where your control is a bit indirect, as you have to manage your guys with decrees that can be misinterpreted or changed over time. i think this is neat! i also discovered through this (and odd realm) that godgames aren't as much my thing as other types of management/sim games.
Dates & Wires
a dating game set in a cyberpunk-style bar. apparently all the characters are from the dev's webcomic! it's probably pretty funny if you read the webcomic. if you haven't, like me, it's a bit more lacking as an experience. i think it's funny that all the characters are really annoying and bad dates, but it isn't very funny.
Death and Taxes
i had this game on my wishlist for a while, actually. then i played it and... i actually don't remember anything about it. i was disappointed by it, anyway; despite it being extremely up my alley in many ways, it just didn't make an impression at all.
Democratic Socialism Simulator
a simulator game where you have a job that I DIDNT like, amazingly. it's fine, but just kinda boring. too simple. art and ui are fine but nothing special.
🚫 Destiny Fails Us: A New Life
an unfinished dating game. the characters are all off-putting. there's an implied larger story at the end of this that doesn't have any real detail in it, but might be fun eventually? i'm unclear on whether this is ever going to be finished. i was unimpressed with the writing and dating options, and found a lot of it off-putting.
Don't Take It Personally, I Just Don't Like You: The Camping Trip
a just-fine little visual novel demo that is absolutely not a finished game or even a complete experience as-is. the characters are solid and the teasers for the full game do make it seem reasonably interesting, although i'm not sure it's interesting enough to make up for the weird dirtbaggy move of putting a free demo in a charity bundle to advertise the full paid version whose proceeds are Not going to charity.
Dungeons and Lesbians
dating game, kind of? it only takes about twenty minutes to finish a "route" . I found the writing annoying. the game appears to have been taken down anyway, though.
🚫 Errant Kingdom
a vaguely medieval-fantasy-ish visual novel with dating elements. over-promised and underdelivered. i could complain forever about this, but i'll keep it to this: the game is so bad that the devs felt the need to post a public apology for doing such a bad job writing it. it is not funny-bad, it's just bad.
EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER
decently written and fairly interesting, bad but skippable gameplay, and doesn't hang together super well bc of how much of the character interactions are skippable. or maybe it's supposed to be mysterious? can't really tell. it wasn't finished when i played it, but now it is and has a sequel as well.
Flat Kingdom
puzzleish actionish platformerish. you change shapes to do various puzzles. just didn't click with me.
From Orbit
tower defense/resource-gathering strategy game in space w/ procedurally generated levels. no tutorial so it's kind of confusing trying to figure out what you're doing?? gathering rocks and getting killed by aliens mostly it seems. it's pretty hard, has no story, but has a fairly slick look and v simple UI.
Fugue In Void
an abstract artsy type thing that I don't Get. it starts with a ten minute video that's mostly shapes slowly moving around and then you walk around some rooms. apparently it's only like an hour long but I got lost and was not invested enough in it to try and get unlost
Gladiabots
programming-esque game where u make robots do fights. boring and kinda complicated. probably great if you like that kinda thing though?? no story or characters, not much color or aesthetic
Haque
top down pixel art roguelike thing w glitch effects. shrugs.
Highway Blossoms
f/f visual novel about a desert road trip slash treasure hunt. the love interest girl is the stupidest person on the planet and acts like a child so I stopped after like half an hour. maybe good if you like that kind of "born sexy yesterday" romance I Guess. i have absolutely no patience for it.
HRT Simulator 2023
a short visual novel about a young trans man taking his first testosterone shot with the support of his friends. i did not find it funny or charming; enjoying it is 100% dependent on you finding it funny and/or charming.
Ise & Kai: Chosen Throne
yet another unfinished dating game. this one centers around a rebellious princess in a vaguely medieval-fantasy world and her two love interests: a yandere bodyguard and a silly demon king. it's fine. it's not done, though, and might not ever be.
LAZA KNITEZ!!
a jousting action game. no story just driving around with laser lances and guns smashing into other little guys. Fine but not my thing
Lenna's Inception
a zeldaish game but the hero dies so some lady has to save the day instead. seems fine but I don't like pixelly Zelda games it turns out.
LongStory
a visual novel about middle schoolers having middle school drama and accepting themselves and learning valuable lessons for children. probably great if you're 10-15; i am not.
Love Hues!
mediocre dating game featuring an insufferable protagonist. there's a million of these and there's not much to say about them. would not recommend.
Mech_Romancer
a short visual novel about a mech pilot dating a robot. it's fine.
MewnBase
its dont starve but youre a cat on the moon and theres no monsters (at least not in the tutorial version)! p good but i dont actually like dont starve that much.
Micro Mages
2d pixelgraphics platformer. autoscroller also.
MidBoss
top-down turnbased pixelart dungeon crawler thing. you're a demon who lives in an adventuring dungeon. i couldn't get the hang of the controls.
Monstrata Fracture
an unfinished dating game that broke partway through the route i was trying to play. cheesy run of the mill YA fantasy.
Mu Cartographer
rather opaque game in which you try to figure out how to operate a weird fiddly alien interface while looking at a bunch of wiggly colors to piece together tiny bits of story. intriguing but made me nauseous, and the pieces of story you get are like 2-3 sentences so it seems like it'd be p time-consuming to get a better picture of whats going on.
NIGHT OF THE CONSUMERS
first-person jumpscarey horror game where you work at a retail store. couldn't figure out the controls and found the look of it offputtingly ugly. not my thing. i'm really easily startled.
No Delivery
another horror game about having a job, this time at a fnaf-esque pizza place with animatronics and stuff. a little confusing but i thought it was fine and reasonably enjoyable! no jumpscares, just a kinda silly "chuck e cheese but everythings covered in BLOOOOD" vibe. it's not actually trying very hard to be scary and is more like a kinda undertaleish vibe where you're just kinda palling around with ghosts and stuff. might play more of this one at some point.
Nuclear Throne
topdown shooter roguelike type thing. idk.
Odd Realm
top-down pixelly colony-building/resource management sim. kinda complicated and dull, didn't feel like finishing the tutorial. dont rly like these kinds of things, too slow and too much to keep track of. nice music though!
Oikospiel Book I
you know that experimental avant-garde music thats just like, people screeching and banging on pots and pans and stuff? this is like that but in video game form. it's some kind of avant-garde art thing and is completely incomprehensible to me. feels like being trapped in a neural network's nightmare. i think it might be good, but i really couldn't say.
Peckin Pixels
a very small chicken farming game. fun for the very brief time you play it; not much to it, though.
Pixross
a simple picross game! the puzzles were way too easy for me, but if you want to solve some easy picross puzzles... it has those.
Potion Commotion
potion-making game! a bit too simple/grindy for me.
Prince of Cats
a pretty good dating sim; you play as a fairy whose prince has run away to the human world. you try to find him and along the way befriend various characters from shakespeare plays. not amazing and a bit clunky, but has some fun concepts.
Repurpose
a dating game set in the afterlife. i found it unfunny and the characters irritating.
songs and flowers
a somewhat entertaining straight dating game; not excellent, but not awful. there are a couple of actually funny jokes, which is a significant accomplishment in the field of visual novels!
Roll+Heart
a dating game about playing DnD, wherein you have to actually play through some DnD encounters. the first dnd battle broke in such a way that i could not continue the game. the option to skip the battles did not work. would not recommend, since the game was literally unplayable.
Seduce Me The Complete Story
a straight dating game about a teen girl with a house full of incubuses. the boys are all unappealing and the fact that they are sex demons is basically irrelevant. weird.
Sky Rogue
a flight simulator where you fire missiles at things. pretty nice retro ps2-feeling aesthetic and peppy music
🚫 Slasher U: An 18+ Horror Movie Dating Sim Act One
not only is this game unfinished, it's also nearly incoherent and completely depends on you already being familiar with and really fond of the dev's OCs. which i was not. the mechanics don't work very well at all and it's difficult to parse what's going on or what you're supposed to do.
songs and flowers
a kinda cute kinda funny straight-dating visual novel. it's not good enough to recommend, but it is still better than most of the other visual novels i played from these bundles.
Starlight Shores
very realistic portrait of a very ordinary group of teen friends having a bad evening at the beach, which is not especially interesting or fun to read for me but maybe for you. the player character is ridiculously passive and everyone acts like teenagers despite theoretically being adults.
Terroir
a winemaking game about running a winery! it's fine. i found it a bit boring and lacking in mechanics.
Talk To Me
fine. extremely clunky and bad at the beginning but kinda settled into a groove as it went on. mostly it is just about an unpleasant normal guy with brain problems having brain problems and kind of trying to date people to get over the brain problems but it doesn't work.
The Three-Body Problem
a short piece of interactive fiction about running around in the woods doing BDSM roleplay.
The Lost Art of Innkeeping
an innkeeping management game. has a little bit of story. it's fun! nothing much to say about it, though. the story is so short it feels sort of extraneous. i had fun but wasn't wild about it, it doesn't have enough to do to be really grabby the way i like sim/management games to be.
🚫 The Space Between
extremely tiresome pretentious narrative game about a dude wandering around w/ retro ps1 graphics. so dull I didn't bother to finish it even though I think it's quite short.
Vilmonic
a pixel art evolution/life simulator with a bunch of funny alien monsters. i could not figure out how to play it and died.
Walden, A Game
a first-person walking-sim/exploration game where you play as henry david thoreau, wandering around walden pond for some reason. it crashed twice when i was opening it and it ran very poorly on my computer, probably because the game has recreated the entirety (??) of walden pond in a lot of detail and is kind of intense. you can look at & identify plants and animals. has a lot of what i assume is direct quotation from thoreau's writing and letters sent to him. a nice idea seemingly well executed, but i do not care about thoreau and have been to walden pond in person many times, so all the plants and animals are already familiar to me. maybe nice if you have a hankering for a walk in the woods and also really love thoreau?
Wheels of Aurelia
road trip/dialogue game set in Italy in the 70s. really nice art but extremely janky? I cannot figure out how I'm supposed to play it so the dialogue makes sense and am having a very hard time piecing together what it's about.
🚫 Whipped and Steamy Cosplay Cafe
a tacky visual novel/job sim about a bored girl who works in a sexual cosplay cafe. it's supposed to be funny; most of the jokes are just "you are being sexually harassed at work! how zany and wacky!" i find this genre of teehee wink-nudge sex-comedy that makes no effort to be actually sexy really obnoxious.
Who Killed My Father Academy!
protagonist enrolls at a school to find out who killed her father. some mystery-solving elements, but they're disappointingly minor. some interesting concepts very boringly put together and the back half draaaaags.
WitchWay
pixel art puzzle platformer.
