BailerAppleby's recent activity

  1. Comment on Reminder to myself that my employer does not give a shit about me in ~life

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    I hear you. Your reminder is a reminder to me that I am replaceable, even for all the worry and concern I put into my job. All the corrections I make, all the strategic initiatives I propose... I...

    I hear you. Your reminder is a reminder to me that I am replaceable, even for all the worry and concern I put into my job. All the corrections I make, all the strategic initiatives I propose... I need to remind myself that I'm just a follower who doesn't need to be listened to. Especially when I am right.

    Hunker down. Don't stand out. Answer with "will do", and "received with thanks". Be more agreeable. Make for a better workplace.

    8 votes

  2. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    Blackberry Honey I may have gotten in over my head with this one. Click for more So I got this free. And I think to myself, why not? So I give it a try. And now I'm overwhelmed. Blackberry Honey...

    Blackberry Honey

    I may have gotten in over my head with this one.

    Click for more

    So I got this free. And I think to myself, why not? So I give it a try. And now I'm overwhelmed.

    Blackberry Honey is what I think is called a yuri story. Not knowing which side of the LGBT tag this on, whether realistic or fantasy, lurid or sober, I booted up this linear visual novel to have exactly half of my expectations met, and the other half wildly exceeded.

    The story follows Lorina, a plucky young woman who takes up a new job working as a maid at the Lennard mansion who finds oppressive work conditions, unfriendly coworkers, a gruelling lifestyle, and love.

    The things I have come to dread about this genre are all here. As a visual novel, the story likes to take its time, wallowing at a slow pace during story beats that go nowhere, making it so that each button press feels satisfying as another step taken in this mammoth journey of words. More than that, visual novels tend embrace their limitations wholeheartedly, resulting in long passages where you're looking at nothing but a background image, or only ever see character portraits of the main characters. And I was not prepared for that.

    These ladies are loaded for bear. They have personality to spare, so to speak. Or to be more colloquial about it, remember that graphic artist from the Conan show who was featured many times for his hobby of drawing anime woman with enormous breasts? This is Pierre territory. Honkers if you're horny. Like, 5318008 times a million. Like, if the state allowed people to choose their own capital punishment, and you said "motorboat," this would be your death.

    It could be that I'm very superficial to focus on these points of interest, but the fact remains that the story never brings it up. No one talks about it; it never once becomes relevant to the story. The characters have massive boobs; deal with it. And so the story goes on.

    And how it does. Maybe others have used it before, but there's a genre I like to call "suffering porn". It's usually a soap opera about an unlucky person and the oppression they encounter every day. As the lowest person they know, every encounter shows the hero to be exploited and picked. It brings a lot of satisfaction to the viewer for being an audience stand-in; you get to sympathize with someone else's suffering and also enjoy it blamelessly. It's a show of solidarity that acknowledges the injustice of the system without the messiness of directly challenging it.

    And, very smartly, that's what Blackberry Honey is: an indictment of the class struggle that is Victorian England. All of the conflicts and injustice come from this unfair system that oppresses people like Lorina. There is no escape from the exploitation inherent this world.

    But Blackberry Honey wasn't written by Charles Dickens, who might've had a big boob fetish, it's possible. The story uses the backdrop of an unjust Victoria England and populates it a complicated character like Lorina. For one thing, she's very naive. When she calls out the other maids for not being good workers, the others rightfully call her out for allowing herself to be exploited. To what use are her demonstrated traits of loyalty and diligence if she is just meat to be ground up, never to be appreciated? If she's not smart enough to avoid work like the others, then it's on her. What's more, Lorina isn't as virtuous as she may think she is. She is full of malice, wishing retribution on her fellow maids and her 12-year-old mistress, Constance.

    This is all to say that she's a complicated character. She's not some Mary Sue, or some helpless damsel. No, she's somebody with conflicting morals. That has gargantuan breasts. Like, back-problems-by-30-sized chest pillows that she is depicted as using one arm to hoist up in order to stand. It's like you have to divorce the text from the visuals, that her oversexualized appearance is somehow inconsequential to the suffering porn of the story. It's like it's not supposed to be titillating, but there most definitely will be porn be to come. I understand that this is a slow burn, that the agony of the daily oppression will build up Lorina's eventual lesbian lay-up with Taohua who, from where I am currently in the story, only shows up once but remains top-of-mind. But I'm too engrossed to get the Kleenex out.

    Blackberry Honey is very far removed from other LGBT-type games I've played before like Get in the Car, Loser and Arcade Spirits that have more realistic contemporary portrayals. It's a long way before I get to the end, but I'm most interested to see what the game has to say about Victorian England, but I feel the lesbian love story will get in the way of that.

    Stray Observations (so far)

    • Redheads? From France?
    • This all-female depiction of Victorian England is a lot like the 70s Blaxploitation technique of creating all-black worlds, like The Wiz.
    • I suppose Lorina can be viewed as a moral character who isn't dumb and has to do the right thing, even if that means accepting her exploitation. I guess. Having this interpretation sure won't get in the way of the porn.
    2 votes

  3. Comment on Neuromancer | Teaser trailer in ~movies

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    Tell your Kalshi bookie to bet the house on this being the better cyberpunk show over Blade Runner 2099. If there's money left over, the small bet is that out of the two, this one will also be the...

    Tell your Kalshi bookie to bet the house on this being the better cyberpunk show over Blade Runner 2099. If there's money left over, the small bet is that out of the two, this one will also be the one to fail.

    The world is not fair: that's such a great theme for these streaming services to have in their shows.

    13 votes

  4. Comment on Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO | Teaser PV in ~anime

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    I've seen the error of my ways, and do not want to miss out on any more robo homo fomo. Will look into your rec some more.

    I've seen the error of my ways, and do not want to miss out on any more robo homo fomo. Will look into your rec some more.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO | Teaser PV in ~anime

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? I would totally watch an anime that was directed by Michael Mann, had dialog from a Christopher Nolan movie and looked like a UFC promotional poster.

    A mecha show powered by vibes and incredible homoerotic energy

    Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? I would totally watch an anime that was directed by Michael Mann, had dialog from a Christopher Nolan movie and looked like a UFC promotional poster.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO | Teaser PV in ~anime

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    Thanks for the rec. Don't take this the wrong way, but that trailer looks too reasonable for me. The internet is pretty great sometimes. I was all ready to be told off, that the cape has a in...

    Thanks for the rec. Don't take this the wrong way, but that trailer looks too reasonable for me.

    The internet is pretty great sometimes. I was all ready to be told off, that the cape has a in depth, in-show reason, that there's some canonical reason that this particular giant made-of-steel robot needs to wear a fluttery made-of-textile cape like he rides a giant robot horse and it gets cold at night in outer space, but then stuff like this happens. Thanks.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on A friend showed me another "learned a new language" site in ~comp

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    Is the mentoring any good? That seems to be the big draw of this site, though I think I've seen it elsewhere too. How did your friend introduce this site as -- what's the word on it?

    Is the mentoring any good? That seems to be the big draw of this site, though I think I've seen it elsewhere too. How did your friend introduce this site as -- what's the word on it?

    3 votes

  8. Comment on An unusual-looking raccoon nicknamed Jimothy is winning hearts across the internet for his short, round body in ~enviro

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    It's too late; the trend has exceeded its shelf life for hipness. The brands have already hijacked the trend on their socials. I found out about from The Daily Show, which mean I had exactly 12...

    It's too late; the trend has exceeded its shelf life for hipness. The brands have already hijacked the trend on their socials. I found out about from The Daily Show, which mean I had exactly 12 hours to crow about before the olds are talking about it on Facebook.

    All the same, Jimothy is cute, even for a trash panda.

    19 votes

  9. Comment on Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO | Teaser PV in ~anime

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    I hope the cape big enough for a giant gundam robot is never explained. The same way I keep hoping there's a scene where they'll be fighting, and the hero gets pinned to the ground without his...

    I hope the cape big enough for a giant gundam robot is never explained. The same way I keep hoping there's a scene where they'll be fighting, and the hero gets pinned to the ground without his laser sword/giant gun, he reaches around in desperation, finally finds something just before he's choked to death, and smashes the enemy robot's head with a to-scale giant glass bottle. Like a humongous five-foot high glass bottle. Please, never bring it up again, not even in the prequels.

    5 votes

  10. Comment on Blade Runner 2099 | Official teaser in ~tv

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    Yes. Another show from Amazon about overambitious corporations that take over the world. After Fallout and The Boys, I can't wait to see their latest take on corporate overreach. I'm so glad that...

    Yes. Another show from Amazon about overambitious corporations that take over the world. After Fallout and The Boys, I can't wait to see their latest take on corporate overreach. I'm so glad that the cyberpunk dystopia will be available for me as a consumer to share and enjoy as licensed merchandise. I'm putting in the preorder for the Dr. Eldon Tyrell hand juicer that works by pressing your thumbs into his eye sockets.

    11 votes

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    Dude, Rubinite looks amazing: pixel art souls-like with washed pastels and great animation? Its difficulty could take years off my life and I would still play it. LarsGadiel looks like as if...

    Dude, Rubinite looks amazing: pixel art souls-like with washed pastels and great animation? Its difficulty could take years off my life and I would still play it. LarsGadiel looks like as if Tarantino wasn't into movies but was a nerd for obscure sidescrollers; it looks so crammed full of influences, but I couldn't name any.

    Impeccable taste, good sir. Your Steam wishlist beggars my imagination.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Atari makes Universal movie deal for ten iconic game properties in ~movies

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    It's not whether or these games are worth making movies out of, it's whether or not you own the licensing. The current keeper of Atari looks to make bank by exploiting these properties in a game...

    It's not whether or these games are worth making movies out of, it's whether or not you own the licensing. The current keeper of Atari looks to make bank by exploiting these properties in a game where they own all the rules.

    Well-made movies can flop. Movie stars grow old and become controversial. No, if you're a savvy investor, you'll put your money into a licensed property, one that allows for licensing merchandise, one that can replace actors at will. It doesn't matter if it stinks; what matters is that they keep all the money, especially in a situation where it becomes a hit.

    This isn't surprising news at all. They've been doing this for years with board games and toys, and the new trend involves internet trends something something backrooms. Michael Bay is doing a movie about the Skibidi toilet meme. Even though smash hits like The Odyssey suggest moviegoers like watching good movies about good stories, we're not going to get breakout original Hollywood movies like Back to the Future again. Investors aren't going to pony up for a shot in the dark when they can invest in something that already has huge name recognition like Pong and Centipede.

    And it will make money. Atari has huge cultural significance with the 50+ crowd. It's huge for retro gaming and know-it-all hipsters. Sure, it's not Call of Duty, but to an investor, it still represents a safe bet that will be huge if it pays off.

    It doesn't matter if these movies will be good or not. It doesn't matter if they are authentic to the lore or if Chris Pratt will dress as a game-accurate green rectangle as he jumps around in a field of mushrooms. This is the way that big blockbuster movies will be made from now on. It won't be made unless somebody somewhere can make a billion dollars off of it.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    Many kind people from the Kingdom of Tildes have shared their games with me, but I have unfortunately not played any yet except Gato Roboto) That's because I have fallen down a typing game rabbit...

    Many kind people from the Kingdom of Tildes have shared their games with me, but I have unfortunately not played any yet except Gato Roboto) That's because I have fallen down a typing game rabbit hole. They include:

    • Cryptmaster: BEST OVERALL
    • Typing of the Dead: BEST ACTION
    • Poetry Pigeon: BEST DESIGN
    • Sisyphe's Backspace: BEST CONCEPT
    • SPACE BEAR: BEST ALL CAPS

    After the sublime experience of Cryptmaster, I wanted more. And though there is nothing like Cryptmaster, there are a lot of typing games, so I picked up Typing of the Dead during the Summer Sale; it wasn't on a big discount, but I knew I would play it if I bought it, and I was right.

    But there's a problem: none of these games teach you typing; they're not going to improve your skills or give you any helpful feedback. For example, none of these four games tell you your average words per minute typed, meaning you won't know if playing them improves your typing. But there is one...

    Keeb Quest: Typing Battles

    The typing tutor with RPG game-fication that features a good enough balance between video game and educational software that it actually can improve your typing.

    Click for more

    The worst thing for me about Keeb Quest: Typing Battles is that it doesn't quite deliver on its name and marketing. The game unfortunately comes up short as an RPG that allows you to explore dungeons and fight monsters with words, making for a worthwhile grind that let's you practice your typing. Instead, there's a Classic mode that allows you to word-fight successive rounds of enemies punctuated by the occasion mini-boss; it's reminiscent of the RPG experience, but definitely not anything close to the real deal.

    But. It's hard to be disappointed when Keeb Quest generously delivers a wide variety of game modes that are aligned with its role as a typing tutor. In addition to Classic mode, there are:

    • Adventure Mode: Practice your skills by typing out a branching interactive story. Again, sounds great, but falls short, mostly to do with the game's copious use of AI assets for its text and accompanying visuals. The stories are all bland, and none of the choices feel consequential. It's just nice that this mode maintains the same RPG genre themes for a unified playthough.

    • Boss Rush: Take on the mini-bosses found in Classic mode. Feels like Arcade mode. Good for a quick round; this game keeps a frenetic pace, so in no time flat it will change from way too slow to way too fast. An ongoing problem with typing games is that sometimes the gameplay displays words in a way that won't help with your typing progress, like the way the words fall from the top of the screen for the King Slime mini-boss.

    • Academy Mode: touch typing lessons and drills. This by far is the best thing about this game for me. Sure, there are other typing tutorials that do the same, but they don't do it with the style and game-fication of Keeb Quest, which kept me engaged enough that I can feel my skills improving.

    • Stats and Leaderboard: See your progression and compare yourself to other players. This is another big benefit to this game. There are stats up the wazoo here. Separate stats and leaderboards for the different modes; report cards shown at the end of every game take to show you where you went wrong.

    I've been looking a long time for the perfect dungeon crawling typing game. Cryptmaster came close, and now Keeb Quest does its thing by actually being effective at helping you make demonstrable growth. The dev is very responsive; having gotten out of Early Access earlier this year, the game received its most recent update just yesterday.

    I am most interested in trying out The Chef's Shift, Touch Type Tale, and Blood Typers next. Until then, I've tried out a few free typing games:

    • Keyboard Soldier: Patently unfair, but one of the better made "type a word before it comes murder you" games.
    • Funny Bones: Macabre typing tutor that leans more on its great style than actionable gameplay.
    • Letterword: Off putting presentation, but this typing roguelike where you're a letter who has to perform chores or die could grow on you.

    Also playing Orbi's Chronicles, but it hasn't grown on me yet even though its an RPG-type game that allows you to grind in dungeons by solving word puzzles, doing what Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey and Spellspire both alluded to but never ended up delivering.

  14. Comment on Avengers: Doomsday | Official trailer in ~movies

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    If we're taking this seriously, I would have to say that the proper casting for Uncle Ben is Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man was Peter Parker's surrogate dad, so if RDJ is coming back as Doom, then PP...

    If we're taking this seriously, I would have to say that the proper casting for Uncle Ben is Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man was Peter Parker's surrogate dad, so if RDJ is coming back as Doom, then PP will consider Doom to be his surrogate dad too. By that logic, if there is an Uncle Ben around, it would make sense for it to be RDJ or someone that looks/acts like him.

    AI Stan Lee makes sense until you consider you're casting a dead actor for a character whose defining trait is his death. Too many goodbyes, sorry.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Avengers: Doomsday | Official trailer in ~movies

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    Dear online comrade, for your health and sanity, please don't watch anything else by the Russos. In fact, just pretend in the nine (!) years since Infinity War, just pretend the Russos have done...

    Dear online comrade, for your health and sanity, please don't watch anything else by the Russos. In fact, just pretend in the nine (!) years since Infinity War, just pretend the Russos have done nothing. Just pretend that Feige kept them cryogenically sealed in the lower vaults at Disney. Do not look up anything to do with their involvement in the most expensive movie ever made designed to watched while scrolling through social media on your phone. Do not search how the enormous success of a billion dollar movie revealed them to be total hacks incapable of developing original ideas.

    Dude, just watch Endgame again. You'll always have that. And the paintball episodes, those were cool.

    9 votes

  16. Comment on Avengers: Doomsday | Official trailer in ~movies

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    Because you can't win anything unless you risk it all, here are more unsolicited, wild predictions to add to the heap of previously mentioned predictions that I'm staking my nerd cred on: The...

    Because you can't win anything unless you risk it all, here are more unsolicited, wild predictions to add to the heap of previously mentioned predictions that I'm staking my nerd cred on:

    • The Thunderbolts? Barely an inconvenience: So, if you haven't heard, there was a whole movie that explained the lovable, ragtag scamps called The Thunderbolts are the new Avengers, setting the stage for a showdown. I'm predicting this issue will barely be mentioned in the final film. It will be resolved off-screen or in a single line of dialog. The Russos don't care, you don't care, but I will miss John Walker, an asshole true to his heart.
    • Self-referential reverence: Avengers movies mark the end of an era. It's natural for such a tent-pole movie to look back at the road that led to it. For this movie, there was very little lead up, but that won't stop the Russo who will cram it full of references to prior Marvel movies. My longshot prediction is that the Russos are snobs and will choose to reference only the most important Marvel movies: the ones they made. So expect nods to the last two Avengers movies and Captain America's second solo movie.
    • Subverting the subversion: It is a cliche by this point -- a moment of lividity will be broken up by a snide, self-aware remark (I think done to perfect by the 2nd Guardians "Look at us standing in a circle" speech). The Russos know this, and will fake us out by doing a dramatic scene for real... but with many pregnant pauses, trolling the audience that the 4th wall will be broken, but it won't.
    • Fan service for the infamishable: Marvel is parked so far back in the doghouse that they know they have got to give fans what they want. Like how the Spider-Man pointing meme made its way into No Way Home, there are going to copious amount of fan service in this movie. Hulk doesn't bust out of the Hulkbuster? He will here. "Avengers Assemble" doesn't get spoken enough? It will be said not once, not twice, but three times here (not by the same person, like one of them will be Doctor Doom).
    • Impossible longshot so I'm just going to say it: There is one huge thing that has been missing from the MCU. I think it will appear sooner than later, but I don't see how it will fit into this movie. It's most likely (I think) to show up in the Spider-Man movie following this year's. And that's Uncle Ben. The MCU Spider-Man was an underdeveloped hero for the longest time. He really only reached the level of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man by No Way Home. This is because the MCU didn't fully become Spider-Man until he gets told "with great power comes great responsibility". This line has always been Uncle Ben's, but since this gets attributed to Aunt May in the MCU, Uncle Ben becomes a unnecessary character. This will change when his character finally gets introduced. I don't think in this movie, but if it does, he won't say much, just wiggle his eyebrows as Peter Parker's Spider-Sense confirms his identity as true. But because the stakes are so high, I have a hunch Uncle Ben will get introduced in this movie.
    10 votes

  17. Comment on Avengers: Doomsday | Official trailer in ~movies

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    No. They. Do. Not.

    but the Russo’s always manage to pull it off.

    The Grey Man
    The Electric State

    No. They. Do. Not.

    10 votes

  18. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    BailerAppleby
    Link Parent
    Thanks for the recommendation, looks delightfully unhinged! So the 4K rhythm game is a representation of the way the protagonists types, spamming the internet in an attempt to win it for her...

    Thanks for the recommendation, looks delightfully unhinged! So the 4K rhythm game is a representation of the way the protagonists types, spamming the internet in an attempt to win it for her obsession? What a premise, I can't believe it hasn't been used before AFAIK.

    This game does not look marketable at all. But a quick look at dev/publisher Alliance Arts shows a roster full of counter-culture games that don't make for good merchandising. I have got to keep my eye out for these guys.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    BailerAppleby
    Link
    Sisyphe's Backspace The Divekick of typing games that dares to ask if it's better to not type anything at all makes for a strong proof of concept that is better to talk about than to play. Click...

    Sisyphe's Backspace

    The Divekick of typing games that dares to ask if it's better to not type anything at all makes for a strong proof of concept that is better to talk about than to play.

    Click for more

    If you really need to say something, text it instead; and if you really need to text something, don't. There can be no stronger guidelines governing the use of SMS messaging than these commandments that accept the limits of a medium that prizes efficiency over intimacy. But for all the glory that Gen Z proffers to it, the ubiquity of text messaging hasn't translated well to other media. Films and TV shows struggle to show text messaging that isn't awkward and intrusive. Video games have been more successful, with one example being Bury Me, My Love, a choice-irrelevant visual novel that demonstrates that asking someone to "text me once you get there so I know you're safe" doesn't apply to refugees.

    And now, there's Sisyphe's Backspace, the SMS video game that explores the lost poetry of words better left unsaid. As an anti-typing game, this short, 5-minute game gives players control over one thing and one thing only: the backspace button. Yes, you're not role playing as someone hoping to reveal herself to her crush: no, you're her wisdom, her better judgment, her conscience that knows she'll be killing her friendship if she goes through with it.

    Sisyphe's Backspace lets us drink from the misery of its protagonist, doomed to pour her heart out in a text box, only to delete it before pushing "Send". We our hero's heart-felt confession get expunged by the same cowardly heart. It's an agonizing wretchedness that can only be hinted at by the "...is now typing" prompt, a delay full of promise and dread.

    Sisyphe's Backspace is a very good proof-of-concept game with a clever gimmick. What it isn't is smartly written. There's a good game to be found with the "delete to progress story" type of narrative, but it's not here, unfortunately. The feels are there, but the story is not.

    The game deftly shows the protagonist (cleverly named "Phe" as alluded to in the title) pouring her soul out in an unrequited effort. The story should end with her ready to push Sisyphus' boulder up the hill again, but this gets negated in one of the secret achievements when the story allows Phe to finally bare her soul, betraying the whole point of the story/gimmick. What's more, the game isn't actually a one-button game, unlike what the direction "only use Backspace to play" tells us. And for a game that uses SMS messaging as its foundation, it doesn't adopt its informality and casualness, instead showing us a confession that took the time to write in sentences with punctuation, demonstrating that heartfelt confessions must be done with proper grammar.

    But what's most annoying of all is that this game missed out on giving us the perfect secret achievement, one that makes sense for the story and is aligned with gamer culture. Instead of giving an out to the player to say "I love you" (without the decency of showing us what happened afterwards), the secret achievement should have been to require the player to individually press Backspace for every character of every word not used by the hero; no holding down Backspace, you'll need to tap tap tap your way to 100% completion. Gamers are used to fulfilling absurd requirements for the final achievements to unlock, and for a "one-button game", this would have been the perfect way to realize that goal.

    In the end, Sisyphe's Backspace is still a bittersweet game that packs an emotional punch in its short running time. It doesn't fulfill a romance-ravenous audience's need for a happy ending. But, with these tender sentiments being lost to the digital netherworld, need we follow our heart's innermost desire that burns with a fire that consumes endlessly, driving us to ruin, leaving the sole satisfaction of having followed an irrationality to its empty end?

    Epilogue (because it's too dark to end like that):

    This game is just the middle of the story. If I were to continue it and to have the hero do the right thing, I would have her break off the friendship; don't admit your feelings in a text (no, Gen Z, no). There'd be some drama and confusion over it, but this is to give the hero of the story space to figure things out. After not too long of time, if the hero still feels the same way (and they do, in this story), then they should go through with the confession. This way, you're being fair to the crush, giving her a chance to see you as something other than the friend they have always come to trust and love you for being.

    Grotto

    Grotto may be the most sober game I've played about hallucinogenic drugs I've ever played.

    Click for more

    Adventure games have traditionally been rigorous trials of wit and fortitude, requiring questers to journey far and wide over various landscapes, each more exotic than the last. Not in Grotto. In this game, you play as that old blind seer in the cave that requires you to beat a mini-boss first. For the same reason why fishing mini-games don't spin-off into their own full-fledged iteration, Grotto is the anti-adventure game that dares to ask: "What else does that guy say after: 'It's dangerous out there! Take this.'"

    Grotto is a very slow paced game. It is not very rewarding. It uses is first-person perspective as a way to emphasize the confines of the player's environment, giving you the agency to fully experience the claustrophobia of the two rooms of your titular home.

    Grotto is a very unsettling game. It stinks of musky, damp earth, smelling of death and life all at once, stuck in a place where the only thing you can see out of a hole in the ceiling is the night sky. As the resident shaman, you need to "read" the constellations to find the answers that your petitioners seek.
    That's your job. That's the game.

    There's a story here, one concerning the people that meet you, each looking for divine guidance before acting on decisions with huge ramifications. They're fending off invaders, challenges to the line of succession, drought and famine. The thing is, as the all-powerful seer who stuck in this cave, it doesn't matter to me.

    This could be the point of the game. As the one guy who can deliver divine messages, you have your thumb on the scale. Don't like one omen? Swap it for another. No one can stop you or read your chicken bones after you roll them. The message is whatever you want it to be. And yet, by being stuck in this cave, I'm beyond the cares of the world. Hey, guy who is making a power play to become the chief: I could make or break you with whichever advice I choose to give you, but what do I care? However it turns out for you, I'll still be stuck in this two-room cave in all its cell-shaded glory.

    To me, the realest part of the game is the giant, glowing, looming face that appears when you're tripping balls. Unlike all the other people you meet, this insect-faced devil doesn't want answers out of you. Instead, it's trying to persuade you that the others are out to get you. You know, he's trying to protect you by getting you to become more paranoid than you already are, balls be tripping as they are sure to do.

    Maybe there's an ending to all this, but I'm not likely to get there. The game is a chore, this two-room 3D environment chugs on my laptop, and I've absorbed as much David Lynchian subwoofer soundtrack as I can muster. I've gone as far as I can go. Playing more will probably lower my opinion of this game.

    It's been so weird to give world-altering advice in which each day is your first day on the job, and then feel completely detached and removed from a world impacted by your decisions. In that way, this game is unique, but not unique enough for me to recommend it. Firstly, I don't like it enough to recommend, and secondly because I'm am pretty sure no many other people will like it either. Not a crowd pleaser, although it has a 75 Metacritic score and the Steam reviews are mostly positive from players that are gripped by Grotto's captivating narrative of people asking you for favors, and then leaving without an update or, at the very least, not even a thank you. Would it kill you to say a short, little "thanks"?

    If I'm an old man stuck in a cave, and you come to me and ask me what I see, I'm going tell you what I see: the only stars that are viewable from a crack in the roof, the way the chicken bones fall from my hands, the shadows that flicker on the wall from the fire in the room. You asked me. Whether you believe it or not, that's on you.

    Honest Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf that Loved to Tell Lies

    Do you find that traditional fairy tales aren't conservative enough? Do you enjoy having traditional gender roles reinforced through cutesy anime characters in a free visual novel?

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    Honest Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf that Loved to Tell Lies is the revised, version of the classic bedtime story that trad wives should be clamoring to read to their children before being led back to their cages to rest before the next day's chores begin. By shunting its antagonist to leading man status, this story finally grants readers the happy ending they've always wanted.

    A short explainer on plucky female Asian protagonists that don't wield katana blades with whom you don't want to cross: traditional Asian heroines are girls. Like, literally and, if it has to be said, in that way where "physicality" and "technicality" meet. These non-women deal with every problem using only their looks and virtue. They don't change, they don't grow; they must persist in their pure, chaste forms until finally meeting the perfect man with whom they will attract and fix using indirect communication. Faced with a cruel and corruptive world, Asian heroine need to "batten down the hatches", as the saying goes.

    This short story is a devoted disciple of the School of the Asian Heroine. What's astonishing about this interactive story is that the one agency afforded to the reader is whether or not you believe the corruptive lies of the Wolf antagonist in this post-Twilight world. You can kind of guess where this is going, but there is will spoiler tags from here on out for a free game you can complete in 15 minutes (provided you can read Mandarin Chinese).

    Spoilers for real this time

    The only good ending to this game is only achievable if you choose to believe the Wolf-Boy's lies. All of them. As the heroine, you must not deviate from your virtues; the only path to victory is to follow the lies to their end with the hope that the man of the story will finally receive the epiphany the has been waiting for all his life, but had never yet met a chaste enough girl as you. This would mean that this (and every) traditional story belongs to the male hero, but the true victor is the heroine; she's the model for the reader to follow.

    Patience pays off. Like Cinderella waiting for the prince to arrive with her shoe or Snow White waiting to be resurrected from the dead, the Little Red Riding Hood of this story is a passive participant to her own fate. She needs to suffer the indignities of the character that means her ill-will until her the check of her virtue finally cashes in.

    This retelling does a neat trick by splitting the Wolf character in two. By making some doppelganger pretend to be the grandmother, the Wolf-Boy can have that change of heart to show that his wild ways can finally be tamed by a true and righteous heart.

    The best part of all is the "IF" ending. All alternate endings are triggered by "no" answers that ominously tell you that Little Red Riding Hood's rejection of Wolf-Boy obvious lies is what causes his death, or hers. But if you choose to believe him all times except for the last, the game goes into overdrive with a bonkers soap opera ending in which it is revealed Little Red Riding Hood is actually a scheming, two-face harlot. She hides her worldly wisdom with an innocent demeanor as a way to delude everyone. She heartlessly manipulates her mother into shooting Wolf-Boy dead, crying crocodile tears. It's deliciously dark and, if nothing else, true to the genre.

    This game is an effective visual novel that makes great use of its meagre assets with a innovative set up. It's a decent read that should be noteworthy for introducing the term "flower holocaust" to the lexicon. Again, true to the genre.

    Poetry Pigeon

    So "pigeon poetry" is a thing. Apparently, sad urban misanthropes have been using the much-maligned flying rodent as the muse for their poetry. Embolded by a never-ending supply of bread crumbs, these perennial pavement oppressors have been inspiring artists in cities worldwide to dream, to write, and to make video games using the most obvious influence that even an ee cummings poem would put their dot on it: Flappy Bird.

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    Poetry Pigeon is a hard-as-balls typing game where every flap of the titular bird needs to correspond with the next letter of a poem. Another way to put it: Poetry Pigeon is a one-button Flappy Bird clone in which the one button is subdivided into the 26 letters of the alphabet. And, unlike the original, Poetry Pigeon flies into hard mode fast, requiring you to tap like a fiend as familiar green pipes scroll to the left at a Dark Souls-like pace, allowing you to enjoy the beginning of the poem over and over again.

    You will cry. You will cry, "Unfair!" You will also gain a newfound appreciation for the short, concise stylings of Emily Dickinson and Oscar Wilde. You will not have properly enjoyed "Ozymandias" until you've died a thousand deaths trying to type it out in a stilted rhythm that will not be taught in any typing tutor.

    There's a casual mode without pipes, sure. But then the game reminds us that Thomas Pynchon prose is a thing and challenges us to write the poems backwards and without looking. It is most definitely challenging and invigorating, but what good poetry shouldn't be?

    4 votes

  20. Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of July 12 in ~games

    BailerAppleby
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    2K Megahits 2026 Bundle CA$21.16 for 15 games. Nothing too recent here, but there are certainly some bangers from yesteryear that include: Bioshock Infinite Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition...

    2K Megahits 2026 Bundle

    CA$21.16 for 15 games. Nothing too recent here, but there are certainly some bangers from yesteryear that include:

    • Bioshock Infinite
    • Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition
    • Borderlands 3
    • Tales from the Borderlands
    • Tiny Tina's Wonderlands
    • Risk of Rain 2
    • The Quarry
    • Mafia II
      and the rest

    Quite a mixed bag. Didn't realize how much I don't like 2K games until I discovered I have next to nothing in this bundle. The Quarry seems like an outlier from the others: a very recent release that isn't a FPS shooter. Probably most interested in "Kill your dick" Bulletstorm and The Quarry.