Monday, June 25, 2018

Circadian Preview: Single Pixel-based MOTHER (PC Demo)

    (I know the horror movie references really good, huh?)

    As the conclusion for my arbitrary Steam-free month, I'm looking at a game I saw among my Twitter replies/likes. It's also another game in development, like Super Lesbian Animal RPG, but this one is probably one no one's heard of yet. Of course, I'm saying that when I was just showing people an RPG with furry characters and strong LGBT themes (which now has a stat on save files for how many times Melody and Alison have kissed that file.) Today's game is the MOTHER-'em-up Circadian, by Jeff Brooks! (demo) (main website)
DAAAAAAAA-DA-DA-DADA-DADAAAAA! ...What do you mean "wrong song"?

Monday, June 18, 2018

Super Lesbian Animal RPG Demo Preview: Some Real Girl Power and a Blogger's Confessions (PC Demo)

    Preface: Well, E3 has come and gone, and while I had surprisingly little interest in it, I have to say something about it. Here's what I can remember:

  • Ooh, Ooblets has dance battles instead of normal combat! How cute!
  • The new Super Smash Bros. game has every previous character? Neat.
  • Ridley is showing up too? I really hope they give him the goofy voice Diabeetus does for him.
Oh, and I know it's a bit late, but I want to do a joke about Detroit: Become Human and it's incredibly ham-handed handling of African American Civil Rights Movement symbols. Sing along to the tune of Centerfold, originally by the J. Geils Band, as sung by Captain Jack:
"Ayy-yo! Cap'n Jack!"
My blood runs cold! My history has just been sold!
Hammer in the metaphor! Hammer in the metaphor!
My blood runs cold! My history has just been sold
*dooo doo do-do do do*
Hammer in the metaphor!

That was very dumb, and I'm sorry. But when I first thought of that joke watching a review for The Smurfs movie, I had to throw it out there eventually. On to the actual preview.
-----
    Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else, I've never really told anyone this, and I have no idea what kind of people you are, but I have a confession. You see, I'm not a merperson, I'm not an artist.

I'm... 

I'm...

I'm...

*Try Everything by Shakira starts playing*

    A bit of a furry.
Hey, c'mon. It's not that terrible. I'm not into harassing woman or slinging around homophobic/transphobic jokes on Twitter.
    Why'd I wait till now to admit that I'd probably be a red rabbit? Partially it's because I have the art skills of your average elementary school kid, and most furries seem to have some really good art skills. Partially because I learned my cousin is also one and even makes fursuits, so I felt like I had someone in the community I could relate to. Either way, it's a opportune time to mention my furriness since I'm previewing what will likely be seen as a furry game today. It's the demo for Bobby Schroeder's Super Lesbian Animal RPG!
Somewhere in the world, this game and it's title is making a jerkass spew bile all over his computer.

Monday, June 11, 2018

Grand Dad Reboot Review: A GRAND Adventure (PC, Mac)

   For those of you that saw the last post, I'm doing some games that don't require Steam for the rest of the month. I gave out some clues to the identity of the games, and the first one is here. And it's a meme game, so hope you're all fans of inside jokes and references to bootleg NES games! If you're not, too bad! It's the side-scrolling platformer Grand Dad Reboot, by 'RED-FIRE' on Game Jolt!
"YYYYYYABBA-DABBA-DOO!!!"
    'Grand Dad' is the unofficial name of a bootleg character of the character above: a bizarre mix of animated caveman Fred Flintstone and Mario. According to the game's intro (rendered in glorious bootleg Engrish,) he's one of many bootleg creatures looking to take over Earth. They come not from China, not from Russia, not from Vietnam, but from space! However, our caveplumber has rebelled against his own kind and now must fight against them and their copyright-infringing terror in order to save humanity!

Friday, June 8, 2018

Arbitrarily Announcing Steam-Free Month!

    Hello, everyone. I was planning on reviewing Cultist Simulator, a card game by Fallen London alumni that caught my attention recently. However, something bigger has caught my attention: Steam/Valve doing something extremely stupid. You've probably heard about how recently Steam has had some trouble with some adult-oriented anime visual novels (shamelessly self-promoting my writing!) as well as a game basically about being a school shooter, a touchy subject in the only country where this is a big problem. Steam's solution? Throw their hands in the air and say "Fine! If you don't like how we curate, we'll just open the floodgates!"
    It's actions like this that make me pretend to take a sullen drink from a beer and reminisce about the time a game like Bad Rats was an anomaly among actually decent games. Steam's policy now is anything goes, unless it's illegal (does it consider each country's laws? Would Night in the Woods be illegal in Saudi Arabia for having a gay couple?), "straight up trolling" (whatever that incredibly ambiguous definition means,) and doesn't meet their standards of quality.

Seriously, I had no idea they had standards of quality.

Friday, June 1, 2018

Siralim 3 Review: Mashing My Monsters Against Other Monsters (PC, Mac, Linux, Android, IOS, PS4, Xbox One, Switch)

    As a kid, I played a good bit of Pokémon, starting off with the third generation. I enjoyed it a good bit, even though I always rolled my eyes a bit at the way they acted like friendship was the most important part of being a trainer. Sure, you love that Shuckle, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a crappy Pokémon that Electivire could kill make faint in seconds. And don't act like you never filled your PC Boxes with Pokémon you collect solely so you can say you "caught 'em all." I wound up being disillusioned and leaving the fandom around Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 when I found that the whole "maybe capturing Pokémon and forcing them to fight is bad" thing was a BS lie by the villains, who could be seen literally kicking a Pokémon like half an hour after their introduction. That's a lack of subtlety worthy of David Cage attempting to talk race politics in a video game! It didn't help that when I considered going back in for Sun and Moon that Nintendo decided to start throwing out DMCAs against good fan games like a creepy guy throwing out candy with razors in it for Halloween (allegedly, because that doesn't happen.) Anyway, what I'm saying is that this is one of those Monster Collection games. It's Thylacine Studios' Siralim 3 (Early Access version 0.1.5!)