Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £4.79
Where To Get It: Steam

Wow. Legend of Homebody doesn’t fuck around. It’s not even spring, and I’m already nearly half dead from stress, despite eating, sleeping, and entertaining myself somewhat reasonably. I’ve earned about 15k and spent about twice that. My father is telling me I’m a useless waste of space, while my mother understandingly sends me the cake that is my lifeline.

And the winner of the “Too fucking real” award for 2021 is…

So yes, Legend of Homebody is a lifesim game about a NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) trying to make their way in the world through creative endeavours, while keeping their health and mood as best they can. And it’s hard. The Education part? False. You won’t get anywhere in the game without the online courses offered to our poor protag, and, while you can do commissions to pay for your bread and butter, that’s time away from the work that might let you make it big.

So, more fool me, I went with what I know: Gamedev. Which led to the aforementioned situation I started with. Who knew that developing and publishing a game on your own was hard?

Well, me. And every solo indie dev. But I digress. The game is pretty clear, UX wise, it’s pretty well translated, it looks good, for something that never leaves a single room (Another Big Mood from the TMW HQ… Sips tea), and it’s easy to work out the basics. Everything else? Is struggle. And it’s meant to be. There’s story mode, several hard modes, a slightly easier mode with less time, and… Robot mode.

And it’s when you play robot mode that it hits home how this is most definitely a game with something to say about how unnecessarily hard it is to live for creative endeavours. Because you find yourself succeeding. Hell, if it hadn’t been for some boneheaded decisions, I could have gotten an indie darling award, which would be a near unreachable dream in story mode. I made a massive profit.

And all because I had no need for food, sleep, or even entertainment or toilet breaks. That’s what it took to turn from a heartbreaking, depressing run to a successful one.

You just need to be a good little robot with no needs, drone. So I applaud this game for the way it ties its message to its mechanics, while simultaneously giving it the nastiest curse I can fling at it, the Too Fucking Real For 2021 Award.

Enjoy it.

Hooo boy. Time to sip a cup of tea. In my room. Writing reviews. Staring at the screen in thought.

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Source: Cashmoneys (My wallet, it weeps. And I ignore it)
Price: £49.99 (Season pass £62.99 (GASP), 21 DLCs ranging from £2.09 to £7.19)
Where To Get It: Steam

Well, since I gave in to the “dangerous to my wallet” urge to get hold of an Atelier game, let’s do a going back on it…

The Atelier JRPG series is, essentially, about cute alchemists and their rise, their personal arcs, and the people that surround them. It’s a series heavy on crafting, with turn based battles, and, sometimes, time limits to the game’s story which mean replaying things on NG+. Yay.

Thankfully, Lydie and Suelle is not one of those, being a pretty relaxing game about two young ladies (dorks), their attempts to become the greatest alchemists (and, keep in mind, this game has protagonists from the previous two, Atelier Sophie and Atelier Firis, appearing) in Merveille, in the kingdom of Adalet.

It’s good stuff, with nice, light music, cool characters, and a slow burn to the plot. That may be a turnoff for some folks, that the stakes don’t get raised until the second act, with minimal foreshadowing before that, but honestly… It was nice.

It was nice to avoid the plot for a while and just craft things. It was nice to enjoy all the fun side content. And funnily enough, that desire to see more of the characters (even the tsundork Lucia, or Liane and her cheery, yet overbearing love for her sister) actually helped, because this is a game that rewards you for seeing all of the plot, doing all the things. And it does it pretty organically, for the most part. The main story won’t progress until you want it to, and, while later items require later dungeons, the progression feels natural.

As to the combat? Well, it’s an interesting one, because, while Lydie and Suelle themselves are by no means weak, they’re still characters who rely on either their special abilities (which run out when you’re out of MP) or… The items they craft. And the game encourages the latter, while adding a nice little mechanical touch to emphasise this narrative. The characters who later join your party can, before a monster attacks, throw themselves in front of Lydie or Suelle, protecting them, while Lydie and Suelle have good synergies as support characters later on. I still kept Suelle, with her dual pistols (which she admits she demanded to be trained in because it looks cool) in the frontline pretty much throughout, but Lydie, in the backline, helped keep another character alive in rough fights.

This has been my first experience with the Atelier series, and it’s left me with a good impression. Cuteness, a mostly relaxing loop, slowly rising stakes with a lot of character moments, with interesting characters to fit? Yeah, sign me up for more, ta!

Cute alchemists should rule the world. Send tweet.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £6.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Leak Elite is the kind of game I’d normally like a lot. It has a storyline about a group of hackers, who aren’t after some evil corporation, just leaking emails, fucking with people, enjoying the process. It has strategy puzzle elements. It would normally be extremely my jam.

But it doesn’t tutorialise well. Beyond the absolute basics, it tells you… Nothing. Ah, okay, I’m meant to block the spawn of a follower using this deallocation, wot removes a tile. This is the first time I’m doing it, game… How?

I didn’t actually work out how. I knew it had something to do with patience, with waiting for patrol paths, so the spawn got blocked… But the security requirement was tight, so I ended up with no clue what to do.

Which is a shame, because its lo-fi aesthetic is pretty good. Its tunes are pretty chill. Its chat logs are… Well, they are indeed believable for a group like this, even down to the casual ableist slur.

But when two of the beginning server nodes, including the important one, are rough af to deal with? Well, that’s a bad sign, and, not being able to complete what’s effectively the tutorial mission, I bowed out.

Sorry, Leak Elite. You are, in fact, too Elite for me. Maybe hardcore strategy puzzle fans will get it better than I did. Maybe not. We’ll have to see.

(EDIT: Since the release of this review, the developer has changed security requirements for some of the levels, and clarified the final part of the first mission. So yes, if you have problems, let the developer know, and please give your feedback constructively.)

Leak Elite, as it turns out, was too 1337 for my n00b ass.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £7.19
Where To Get It: Steam

Content Warnings: Monsterfolk.

(more…)

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £15.49 (Soundtrack £3.99)
Where To Get It: Steam

Hunting tabletop games are fun. One player against multiple, the one trying to stay hidden long enough to win, the others… Well, that’s where the “hunting” part comes in. But, obviously, friends are required.

So I called some in. And we had a great time, right up until timing out a combat led to a softlock. We’d almost taken out Dracula, too. 3 HP. 3. Stinkin’. HP.

Well, I was getting my ass handed to me by that vampire in the last fight anyway. But we were doing so well!

Anyway, yes, Fury of Dracula is, as you might have guessed, an adaptation of the board game of the same name, in which Lord Godalming, Mina Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, and Jonathan Harker attempt to hunt down… Dracula. Bleigh! On the upside, heroes have two turns each compared to Dracula’s one. On the other hand, if Dracula’s canny, he can obfuscate his trail enough that he wins through terror, because his trail runs cold after 6 cities worth of movement. He can also, y’know, leave traps, hoaxes, vampire ambushes, and other fun toys, and can see some of Mina’s cards, since she has an incurable vampire bite.

So, items, allies, and ingenuity versus stealth, trickery, and ambushes. If you’re playing Dracula well, you get to look smug as they hunt you elsewhere… Then less smug if you screw up. Playing as the hunters? It’s fun, discussing where he might be, where he might have escaped, why is he travelling by sea so much? And other fun (legitimately fun) discussions. With friends, it’s really fun.

And it’s faithful to the rules, with some cool artwork. Alas, that’s… Kind of where the charm runs out. Red… Why is red always involved whenever accessibility comes up?

Oh. Yeah. For obvious reasons. Anyway, yes, while rail routes are delineated clearly, carriage routes are not until you try moving, being a dull red that, in most places, is kind of hard to see. Test your games for colourblindness problems, folks, it’s not tough! Similarly, those of us who hadn’t played the game before didn’t quite know how sea travel worked, and the UX was… Less than clear in places, such as effects on combatants, clarification on certain specials (Hi, Mina!), using your hand, and hand limits… Look, we know they’re in the rulebook. Not everyone knows the game.

But, despite all of this (I have faith the devs will hunt down the combat bug, but in the meantime, escape on the 5^th turn if it seems like it’s dragging on), I cannot deny we had fun. I want the game to be more accessible precisely because it’s so fun. There is local (yay) and online (that’s dependent on how many players you can pick up, or whether you can all arrange a match, but that’s fine if you have friends), and you can play solo (although honestly, if you’re playing all humans, it’s not fun, because it’s not intended.) But, at the time of review, whether you’ll like it really depends on how the accessibility affects you.

The Mad Welshman is also a creature of the night who does not drink… Vine… But that’s just his screwed up sleep schedule.

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