Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £6.19 (£2.09 for soundtrack)
Where to Get It: Steam

Dreams can be powerful things. Many believe they can tell us about a person. Their hopes, their fears… But the meaning is nearly always hidden, sometimes just by being personal, sometimes by being heavily symbolic. And, although it’s not always coherent… They can tell a story.

And that symbolism, finding it within a chaotic landscape, is what My Hidden Things is about. As well as a number of other subjects, like grief, finding yourself, dementia… All in a hidden object game where the objective is to make the objects from other ones, based on silhouettes. Not that you always see what you’re meant to make in the later levels, but… That’s your basics.

A black and white art style ensures most elements are easily visible, and colourblind friendly, although when it ends up black on black or white on white, it… Is annoying at best. And that does happen, occasionally. But mostly, it’s accessible, with minimalist music that nonetheless fits the mood. Sometimes it’s dark, sometimes it’s contemplative… But the simple stories are what got me.

Vignettes of lives, sometimes intertwining, and… One in particular being dark, the aforementioned dementia vignette, where you can see what they’re having trouble seeing, and understand where it’s going… Until Xary, your guide through these dreams, tells you… There’s nothing more you can do here.

I looked and felt a bit grim after that one… But I went the full rollercoaster with another, earlier one, where a child tries to come to terms with her dad being ill, and… Well, it has its rough spots, but the feelings aren’t all negative. Indeed, there’s most usually a mix of emotions in each little vignette.

This is a short game, but it knows what it’s aiming for, and I appreciate that. It wants to tell those stories, for you to see the symbolism, both in the objects you’re making (or what they turn into), and the rest of it. I would recommend this one to hidden object fans who want something a little different.

Generally speaking, I take a bundle of words and another bundle of words, and mash bits of them together to create a review. So I’m experienced in this sort of thing.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £12.39
Where To Get It: Steam

Other Reviews: Early Access 1 Early Access 2

I’ve spoken a few times before about how enjoyable I find the many tactics you can find in the simple decks of Dungeontop, the aesthetic, the battles.

And now, I’m faced with a door. A door to the final level. Between me and the final level is… A lock. And, not having encountered a key anywhere else but the first level, I think to myself.

Ah. So I have to survive four bosses without a heal after each one, to get to this, the final level. Sod.

So, yes, Dungeontop now has a challenge mode level. And it both amuses and frustrates, tipping toward the former. After all, you can exit the dungeon, earning your due gold for a run, at this point. Still… Mean.

A recap for folks, then. Spellsword Cards: Dungeontop is a strategy deckbuilding roguelike, which is to say, you start with a deck taken from your class (Warrior, Mage, Rogue) and your allegiance (Hand of Karim, Guardians of Helm, Tribes of the North.) From there, you go through a dungeon, moving from fight to fight, and the fights…

The fights are a grid, on which you play units, and have a hero. You have 3 mana, cards cost between 1 and 3 mana, can only be placed adjacent to each other (or your hero), and they get to move, attack, or both (Some folks have abilities like multistrike or leap, which changes this.) Kill the enemy hero, you win the fight. Your hero dies, you lose. Them’s the basics.

Now, we’ve talked about the various decks in previous reviews, but what we haven’t covered is the final faction, the Tribes of the North. They’re a pretty interesting one, because many of their units rely… On fungus spores. It makes them grow in power, so setting up a good spore economy means your units have the potential to be absolute shitkickers… Provided they live long enough, because many of them are individually weak. Also in the deck are Evolve cards. These ones are also interesting, because every time they kill a minion, everything with evolve gets an ability. Where Helm relies on bruisers, and Karim relies on sacrificing your own, the Tribes of the North rely on teamwork and growth. So… I’m liking the cut of their jib!

Nonetheless, as mentioned earlier, the aesthetics are good, with some solid card art, some good atmosphere in the music, and sounds that do the job. The menu is still, somehow, a little small, not unreadably so, but… There’s a lot of screen real estate they aren’t using, and it somewhat annoys me.

Beyond this, though, Spellsword Cards: Dungeontop is a strong roguelike of its ilk, and comes recommended. It’s got a lot to play with, a lot to unlock, and the tactical end of things, even by the time you become familiar with the enemies you come across, is interesting. Worth a try!

Teamwork shall destroy our enemies far better than throwing others to the wolves.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £15.49 (£17.70 for game, OST, and art book, OST and art book £2.09 each)
Where To Get It: Steam

Magic has a Price. This is a common theme in fantasy fiction, especially in magical realism or urban fantasy, in which yes, magic takes a toll, isn’t always predictable, and sometimes… That price is too much. And when you are only just starting out? Well… A beginning is a delicate time.

Good thing you’re able to go through it over and over again until you know what’s going on, know the consequences, and are maybe… Maybe able to deal with them.

And I’ll admit, the first few endings I got, I was… A little disappointed. I fucked things up royally several times, got myself in a coma… But eventually, I found other endings, the good ones… And I appreciated it for the good, queer funtime that it can be, when you get that happy ending.

One straight ending, and a whole lot of gay ones, including a transgender character. Yep, fair! Still… The writing, and the voice acting…

They are… Alright. The premise is a good one, a groundhog day of a witch whose magic always has an unintended price, with a shady organisation (or, more accurately, way of life, the One Right Way) behind the scenes… Mostly… Still, the One Right Way speech, by the nominal villainess, is an interesting one, and unsubtle. People do often go through the world thinking there is One Right Way of living your life. One Right Type of Relationship. One Right Way to look at it all. I can’t really say more without spoiling things, but alas, the character who represents ORW, and their philosophy is… An unsurprising choice. Still, seeing some trans-euphoria happen in a story is definitely nice, so… Another good reason to like this.

Aesthetically, it’s a clear visual novel, it’s voiced, its progress checkpoints are both a system I rarely see outside of, say, the wild rides of Kotaro Uchikoshi (look them up, I’ve reviewed Zero Time Dilemma and 428: Shibuya Scramble here, as fine examples), and well represented and checkpointed, letting you know where you can find more endings…

Overall, I must say I’ve enjoyed my time with Wicked Willow. It’s writing may be a little stiff or overdone in a few places, but overall, it is, as the technical term goes, “Dat Good Queer Shit.”

Yes, “Dat Good Queer Shit” is a technical term. Don’t @ me.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £15.49
Where To Get It: Steam

“Are you sure you want to leave this awesome game?” Well… Yes, because I have reviews to write, food to cook, life to live, etcetera, and… You’re sounding a little confident there, game!

Nonetheless, although The Last Regiment is in Early Access, although there are things I dislike about it, it definitely shows promise. Some stuff, however, it needs to work on, before I could give something approaching a thumbs up. So let’s summarise what it is, and get the stuff it needs to work on out the way fast.

So, The Last Regiment is a fantasy turn based strategy game, in which… Ehehe, the units are represented by cards you draw from a deck, with the addition of some building only cards you can draw from occupied buildings, but it’s… Only sort of a deckbuilder. More accurately, the cards, be they units or abilities you get in a campaign mission are pretty set, but in Skirmish and Multiplayer modes, you can pick and choose to make a deck consisting of twelve types of cards, 1 set rare (1 each in the deck), 1 set uncommon (2 of each in the deck), and 1 set common (3 of each), limited still by the faction you pick. It’s not a bad idea, honestly, and it seems to work just fine.

However, that UX is definitely something that needs fixing. The menus are fine. But when you get into battle, and you can juuuust about see those tiny action buttons in the bottom left corner, that’s… No, that needs fixing, or at least be scalable for people who aren’t perfectly comfortable with the concept of eyestrain. Otherwise on the accessibility front, colours seem okay, elements, apart from the size relatively clear, tooltips are alright, and it starts with subtitles on, which should be a god-damn standard.

Play wise, well… The idea that cards are randomly drawn, on top of the usual resource management inherent to a turn based strategy game like this, isn’t nearly as bad as you’d think, because there are things that make units last longer, even if they’re still limited in what they can do. They can assault, rather than just attack, minimising damage (but not stopping, say, other attackers from engaging in a normal battle with the unit), fortify, buff, upgrade no matter where they are… It’s a game where I can see myself exploring it and not feeling cheated by worse than average odds, because I can even them out some, buy more time to build up defenses, or sneak around to capture things.

I’m less fond of the campaign being fully linear, however. There’s multiple factions, and while I appreciate that the story’s meant to be shifting from one to the other as things go forward, it just feels needlessly limiting, and I have to go to skirmish mode to explore a faction before I play their campaign, and experience their story. This is, however, a personal taste thing, as is finding some of the Live2D animations a little off.

Overall, though? This shows promise as a strategy game, and worth a poke.

Props on having goblins be the first faction, though. Goblins need more love.

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