Advent NEON – 26 minutes completed demo. This is a great Sonic clone with some fighting as well and a lot of feeling of speed. The graphics are excellent, the controls are easy to get used to with the Series X controller, there are grades for each level, fun fights, good boss fights and a story that seems to be whatever. This is the first Sonic like game I’ve liked a decent amount in quite a while. This might have ruined me for the rest of the platforming games during the fest. 10/10
Aethermancer – 73 minutes lost on one run but beat a level fully. This is a nice-looking pixel graphics rogue like monster raising Pokémon like game. You generate aether to do attacks and you want to attack enemy monsters with the color of their shields which when they are gone kind of stun the enemy for a turn. It’s very tough in the second zone and I was losing a monster a battle. It’s pretty fun and I did enjoy it enough to finish that run. It’s not amazing, but it’s a lot more original than some monster battle games. I would get it cheap or bundled. 7.5/10
AFTERBLAST – 16 minutes lost against boss in demo. This one is an arena FPS where you go around and shoot enemies, activate some skills, dodge and also have a hook shoot type weapon which when you go in melees the enemies and gives shield/health when they’re blue (low health) similar to Doom. This one was pretty fun although the boss seemed extremely unfair with the heavy damage dealing bullets. It was very solid and controlled very well with mouse and keyboard. I didn’t like that there wasn’t a map feature and the gun stuff seemed a bit weird as well (it’s like a stack of guns…who knows). Overall, though very high quality and a lot of fun although the difficulty and HP spongey enemies suggest co-op is meant for the bosses. 7/10
Aliosso – 17 minutes abandoned run. This is a dice rolling pixelated looking rogue lite game. What I didn’t like about this one was easily the numbers on the dice. The enemies are way too much HP sponges and you don’t roll enough. Also you don’t start with any defense on dies other than the water which triggers abilities, like shield for 5, but it doesn’t replenish. I wasn’t enjoying myself much at all, and in my loss before this (HP way too high for enemies and they were beating me down) I didn’t unlock anything to keep me going on. 5/10
Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit – 16 minutes lost all my lives on two levels. This one is a Mega Man clone that is very tough especially the bosses, but the graphics are quite good, the cheap hits are there, and the AVGN is there with some sound clips now and then. Overall, I thought it was a decent enough game. It’s just bundle fodder for me, but it plays better than some Mega Man clones. 7/10
Arcane Board – 26 minutes completed demo, but was ready for the game to be done. This one is a strange mix between Tetris and icons on the board to shield/do damage/skills/spells. You need to full clear lines to get the effects of the icons in them. You try to mitigate what your opponent does and sometimes they throw junk on your board as well. There are also abilities that charge over time and some things that activate at the beginning of combat. The music/graphics/sound were all just okay. I didn’t like this game that much, mainly because I never knew of the pieces that were coming, but it just felt super repetitive already. There is good stuff in here, but it just wasn’t for me. 6/10
Batter Up – 4 minutes. A small arena baseball field kill the enemies and upgrade after waves game. I didn’t like this much but it was unique about hitting a baseball and only that can hurt enemies unless you have upgrades for your bat to hurt. It looked OK enough and the sound and music were really simple. I just didn’t find the gameplay too fun, but it has potential. 6/10
Bermuda Survivor – 6 minutes lost on first run. I just didn’t like this. This is a survivor game where you go around collecting crystals which open up gates to reach a goal. Also, some get chests. You also can get little red pellets which level you up and you choose skills and they also turn into big crystals. The graphics were OK and the main character was doing their best Duke Nukem impersonation. I just was not jiving with the gameplay and it was really repetitive and boring to me. 5.5/10
Berserk Warrior: Infinite Roguelike – 3 minutes abandoned run. This one is a survivor like game where you play some berserk looking knight who attacks and can use a fire ring and can do a dash. The enemies were super HP sponges, the graphics looked flat and weird in a 3D environment, and I was having no fun. The level up abilities were very basic as well. 4.5/10
Beyond the Ice Palace 2 – 43 minutes. This one is a very well animated/sounding Metroidvania game. The main issue with the game is the very sluggish controls and it made one of the boss battles a nightmare as you had to swing from chains and the movement for that is near terrible at times. There are some really good things here, but a super HP spongey hard to dodge boss is not going to win me over. I would still get it bundled though. 6.5/10
Big Helmet Heroes – 62 minutes completed demo. This one is a 3D beat em up with knights and it’s fretty frantic, a little floaty, looks decent enough, controls well with the Series X controller and has lot of weapons and an okay number of combos. Honestly it was decent and you can switch characters which act different and have different moves. There are maze levels and the one in the demo sucks. It’s just not exciting, but this would be a great bundle game. Still very decent for a beat em up. 7/10
Block Shop – 67 minutes got to level 23 and got stuck. This is one of those assembly line puzzles where there is a destination with a specific object and you have to figure out how to get there. There is timing in some puzzles which makes it confusing. You can squish things different ways, expand, shrink and split into multiple ways your assembly lines. This is very well done, but also very hard. I would only get it bundled, but it’s very decent quality. 7/10
Blood Rush – 9 minutes died multiple times. This one is an arena FPS rogue lite with unforgiving difficulty. I could only beat the first stage every time and I died one the second. This is not my type of game although I can see masochists loving the difficulty. You can get upgrades from chalices and they never explain any of the symbols for doors. Not for me and I would only try it again bundled. 6/10
Blood Typers – This is a strange homage to Typing of the Dead except Resident Evil where to move you type and it’s so clunky. To fight you also have to switch to combat and type words. I think I would have preffered it just being on rails because it was not fun to move around. The graphics are a little unpolished as well. Not my type of game at all, and I just wanted to type to do stuff like combat. 6/10
Best Served Cold – 66 minutes completed demo. This one is a very slow game about a bartender in a speak easy who is trying to figure out a murder by interviewing others, gathering clues, making drinks in a pointless mini game of following icons with your mouse (I hope you can turn this off in the full version), and matching clues together and presenting them to people and seeing if you can figure out the murderers. I’m not really into these games but the graphics other than the tiny font are excellent, as it the music. This one feels like a real detective game where you slowly piece together everything to solve crimes. I can see this being popular with some, and for me it’s a great quality game, although not of my preferred genre. Only a bundle game, but I would buy the bundle quickly. 7/10
Bundle of Joy – 9 minutes. This one is a mini game collection about taking care of a baby during lockdown or something. Frankly the person in the game gets frustrated very easily so you get an annoying breathing mini game. This is interesting, but feels more annoying than anything, which is probably what the author wants us to feel. It just feels a bit extreme for how fast the stress piles up. The graphics and sound were alright enough. The controls were with the mouse and keyboard and were generally alright. Only a bundle game for me 6/10
Calice – 35 minutes fully completed one level. This one is a deck building battle game where the targeting of enemies is random (unless you use a card, or find a rare artifact like I did) and you have 2 decks of cards numbers and effect cards. The effect cards say like use numbers less than 5 to deal 7 damage or something. The game is about Alice exploring Wonderland in some not super well localized dialogue. The little animations are cute though. Honestly the game is just alright and the one boss I faced was a massive HP sponge. It has good ideas, but it’s just kind of boring. Nothing terrible about this one, but nothing exciting either. I would only get it bundled. 6.5/10
CardScrawl – 13 minutes makes no sense. This auto battler takes place on a chess board and you rule for monster mana. You get to summon some and there are enchantments of which each monster can have one. They go forward one space at a time unless they’re special. So little of this makes sense and it’s not easy to see what affects what. The tutorial is a mess too especially when explaining enchantments. It has decent graphics, sound and music, but it felt slow and just wasn’t intuitive at all. There is a lot of potential here, but I’ll only see it if it’s bundled. 6.5/10
ChainStaff – 47 minutes completed demo. I think there is AI generated stuff in this but the look is pretty wild for a game where you have a chain that can swing you, attack hard, and do a whole lot of other things especially for movement and combat. You go around running and gunning while trying to get the end of an area. In this one there is a hard boss at the end as the controls can be clunky at times on the Series X controller. I enjoyed the music which is generic heavy metal. The art is strange but cool looking. It doesn’t look super visually polished, but isn’t terrible either. 7/10
Chambers – 18 minutes died two times. I really didn’t like this open world FPS at all. It didn’t run that well with some random stuttering for me, and it didn’t look that well either. The music and sounds were fine. The controls also didn’t feel amazing with mouse and keyboard. What really pushed this over the top for me disliking it was cowboys across the map shooting at me with generally good accuracy. You also have a random catch a bullet move that can send bullets back but it would take so much practice to be able to do that one. I just died and enemies were shooting me from everywhere in very rough environments. Also, you just kind of go through doors and such, even if it’s closed. There may be something here, but enjoyed Cowboy 3030 a lot more for western FPS, although that one is futuristic. 5.5/10
Chaos Caster – 12 minutes died on my run. This one is a spell slinging arena fighting game. You have to manage your mana and do the most damage while dodging other magic and attacks. This game was alright overall and controlled okay enough with mouse and keyboard and looked OK as well. It didn’t feel too original overall and the skill system was not super intuitive. It seems like a fine enough bundle game, but I wouldn’t get it. It does have potential. 6.5/10
Chaos Front – 10 minutes completed a mission. This is a very indie feeling Super Robot Wars like turn based space game. The UI is a tiny bit clunky, but it plays alright and the graphics are nice. The music is a little genericy and loud, but it’s not too bad. There aren’t too many games like this, so it’s a nice one to play. I still haven’t really gotten into these turn based strategy space games, but I would happily get this in a bundle. 7/10
Chrono Crimes – 8 minutes. 3D slow clunky movement time travel detective game. In this one you go back to the past and investigate around for something happening. You must not get spotted or fail. You can retry over and over, but it was annoying since I got 4 times, I think. I think this has decent ideas, but this was annoying moving around and the environments weren’t amazing either. This needs polish for sure and I think would have made a better visual novel type game. 5.5/10
Chumini: Tiny Army – 13 minutes died on two runs. This one is a survivor game with little blobs who act in a certain way and can attack enemies. For example, the green ones are shy and go away from you. There are abilities on countdown and you go around collecting XP to level up. This one takes a while to get going and I only had 3 types in my army at a time, which felt like too little. I thought this one was cute, but nothing too special. I do like the little blob army. 6.5/10
City of Rampage – 25 minutes made it to second level. This one is a Streets of Rage clone but it has a more complicated fighting system where dodging and blocking are a must unless you want to die. I think it looks good and while the controls are clunky a little bit and animation is slower, it’s alright until you get to bosses or hard to react to enemies. This game is pretty hard and the first boss is a beater. What makes it worse and what makes my rating lower is that in the second level you always restart with whatever you had the previous, which in my case is 25% health. This is awful and an outdated difficulty enabler. This would only be a bundle game and needs an easier difficulty. 6.5/10
Clutchtime™: Basketball Deckbuilder – 9 minutes. This is a weird basketball deck building game where you lay cards to get shots off, block, foul (not sure how this works), and prepare for future turns. I didn’t really enjoy this too much and the game felt a bit long already (quit before half time). It’s a novel idea but I think it needed a little more interesting cards to get it going. 5.5/10
Cowboy 3030 – 26 minutes finished 3 runs in defeat. This is a weird arena FPS rogue lite game about shooting robots in an old west town. There is a big ol skill tree where you gain level ups after stages. You can buy improvements of percentile in shapes to this skill tree. You have a main attack and skills on cooldown. It feels like an unpolished Unity type project, but it’s fun and it controls and feels OK. I would love to get this cheap or bundled and would gladly play it once a day to try a run or so. I believe the skill trees are randomized each run. The bosses are also very challenging but doable. 7/10
CyberTaxi: Lunatic Nights – 12 minutes. I didn’t like this demo at all. This one is a 3D roaming game and then a driving taxi game with the taxi having a gun. The controls feel a bit wonky with the Series X controller and the driving controls are terrible. I also didn’t know where to go for my first mission. It feels way too early and just isn’t fun at all to play. 5/10
DATING OF THE FUTURE – 33 minutes got really bored of the writing. This one is a strange 18+ game (nothing too bad in the time I played) about robots and the one we play is a director at a porn studio or something. I choose someone to star in a movie and a lot of drama ensues with so much bad writing that was very hard to read. I’m not sure if it’s done on purpose but there where a lot of spelling errors and it looked like texts from people using slang a lot. The graphics were nice, as was okay music, but I just could not stand the story after a while. After an incident happens during filming you do what the title says and date in the future. It’s just not very exciting and very, very verbose on a whole lot of things I was not interested in. There is potential here, but I’m not the target audience at all. 5.5/10
Dawnfolk – 26 minutes complete demo city. This one is a settlement builder generate stuff over time and fight against darkness by illuminating areas and fighting enemies. There are little mini games for some activities. Everything controls wonderfully with the Series X controller. The graphics and music are nice overall. I’m usually not into city/settlement builders, but a rogue lite one can be good. I can see the gameplay getting monotonous, but I had fun and would get this bundled. It’s pretty much an idle city builder which is nice. 7/10
Day of the Shell – 53 minutes lost a few runs. This one is a rogue lite turn-based kind of X-COM like where you shoot your gun, hide when bullets come, miss a lot of shots (even point-blank bones), and generally go to the next level where you may get upgrades with some elemental stuff to make your shots stronger. It’s a decent game even though some enemies have so much HP and missing crucial moments may cost you your run. I would likely only get it bundled, but it’s a solid enough game. 7/10
Death Kid – 9 minutes. This is another demo I didn’t like much. This one is an arena brawler where you defend spirit things till they break a seal. This feels clunky to control and feels super repetitive already. I didn’t care about the story and skipped the beginning story cutscene. Just not my type of game at all. 5.5/10
Deliver At All Costs – 107 minutes completed the demo. This one is one of the most interesting old school janky as all heck driving like in GTA delivering in a weird alternate timeline place where stuff is all junky. You pretty much play a guy who needs a job and goes to be a delivery guy because of a radio ad. They give you a chance and you get to drive around and do things and have some side activities. Every mission in this is supposed to be unique. The graphics are pretty solid except for the character animations during cut scenes. I liked the music too being period specific as well. This is not super polished in a way, but I was having some fun and I would get this on sale or in a bundle as it was pretty unique. It is super jank paradise, but it’s not unplayable jank paradise. 8/10
Despolete – 18 minutes completed demo. This one is a 2 deep 4 me game about soccer, Equador, a kid obsessed with soccer, interesting flick soccer controls and just living in a time where Equador is trying to qualify for the world cup. I didn’t like the way the backgrounds looked and they contrasted highly to the kind of papercraft models. It was alright, but it wasn’t really telling me much other than kids like to play and not listen to adults. 6/10
Dice Legends – 19 minutes completed demo. This is a relatively simple dice rolling deck building activate cards to beat enemies. It’s really easy to understand and has some depth. The graphics/music/sound are all pretty simple. This one is pretty fun although a bit repetitive. I always like these choose your best of what you have games. The dice add quite a bit of RNG, but it didn’t feel terrible. 7/10
Dice With Death – 13 minutes completed 2 runs with one a win. This is a weird almost Yahtzee like game where you must roll something to keep going. You can keep some between rolls and according to the dice it deals some damage. It’s just a weird RNG dice rolling game, and it’s super repetitive. I like the idea overall and can see it doing alright very cheap since your players do influence the game as well as dice you get, but I’m not sure of the staying value. 6.5/10
Dive The Depths – 10 minutes lost 2 times. This one is more of a Risk of Rain type game where you are a diver and fight stuff in the depths to get money and get items like Risk of Rain to eventually challenge a boss. It controls a little funky with the Series X controller, but it’s not terrible. The graphics, music and sound are solid. The difficulty seems hard. I can see this being a good one for sure, even though it didn’t make me too excited. 7/10
Dobbel Dungeon – 16 minutes completed two areas. This one is a turn-based strategy RPG game with clay looking graphics, OK music, and you roll dice to figure out how your actions work. It’s not too bad overall although a bit boring at times. It plays pretty easily though the UI for selecting actions is a bit janky. I could have played more fights, but I was already getting a bit bored. I could see this one being alright in a bundle, but it’s just not very exciting. I could see it getting tough especially if die rolls don’t go your way, which is in the rogue-lite part of this game. 7/10
Dolls Nest – 17 minutes. Just a really boring barren mecha action game with somewhat floaty controls, no music in some weird place with robots you can shoot and fight along with exploring and finding other items. It felt unpolished and was just not exciting. I kept asking myself what is really pushing me along since there was no story I saw at least. Just wasn’t a good demo at all. 5/10
Dragonkin: The Banished – 32 minutes beat the beginning part. This one is a Diablo like with decent graphics, good enough action, an okay but generic fantasy story, easy controls with the mouse and keyboard, with good enough voice action and sound/music as well. I don’t have much to say other than it felt a bit generic (good vs evil with dragons) and I’m not really into Diablo likes these days. Doesn’t seem like a bad representation of it, but I would only get it in a bundle. 7/10
Driveloop – 14 minutes. This is a survivor game except you’re in a car and shoot your guns, drift, and get upgrades and eventually passenger who add their own weapons/abilities to your car. This one is a pretty decent one although the driving with the Series X controller takes getting used to. I got stuck a few times and had a hard time turning other times, but otherwise it’s not bad at all. Some of the upgrades seem lamer with bad range and all, so I can see some tuning needed for the game. I would get the game very cheap or in a bundle. 7/10
Escape the Mad Manor – 6 minutes. This one is a turn based real time battle rogue like game where you are exploring a dungeon and using skills and such. This one felt okay enough even though the combat was a little just okay. It controlled okay enough and the graphics/sound and all were just okay. It really needs to be zoomed in since the details are hard to tell for the characters and such. I generally like takes on rogue games, but I wasn’t too excited here. 6.5/10
Everywayne – 31 minutes completed demo. This is a multi-character deck building game with a small area for navigating in battles 2x2. This one has very decent graphics and is pretty fun overall. I don’t think the navigation is that good along with clarity of where damage is going and effects as well. Otherwise, it’s a party based Slay the Spire like game. It’s very solid though and would be nice bundled or very cheap. 7/10
Fledgling Manor – 10 minutes completed demo. This is a weird kind of gothic black and white graphics vampire game where your characters get in an accident and wakes up in a cell and they say you’re a vampire now. The thing is in this place there are a bunch of other vampires and you’re on a survival show literally with voting out members who die afterwards. The music and character graphics are pretty decent. The premise is not really to my liking, but could be interesting. Overall, it looks like it could be a quality game, and has positive reviews, but it’s not really my style. 7/10
Gutbuster – 18 minutes completed demo. This is pretty much Pang AKA Buster Bros in some obese furry’s body. It’s labeled an adult game, but honestly the person eating of which you have to shoot food to complete levels and you get upgrades in a shop. It’s extremely repetitive and dumb, but not terrible. It’s weird seeing the belly of the furry get bigger and the other graphics for characters are quite good. Not my type of game, but higher quality than most. 6.5/10
The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily – 38 minutes completed demo. This one is a very nice-looking nonsense story strategy game with turn-based battles that must be won in a few turns or your fail. So much of the story made no sense especially the beginning. The first chapter is a bit better, but it feels very stereotypical and not interesting. The turn-based battles are kind of Fire Emblem like with some building up to skills things. Honestly this feels super half baked and I was just skipping through the story with maybe the emperor dead and this girl Scarlet being crazy or something and fighting and streaming to distract people. Just a mess overall and likely one to be skipped, although the production values are excellent. 6/10
Hark the Ghoul – 20 minutes. This one is a slow-moving kind of King’s Field feeling fighting bugs in a pixelated environment game. The action is okay enough although a tiny bit clunky. It doesn’t tell you anything you just use items and go exploring. This was an okay enough game, but I don’t care for those games much. I got a bit tired of exploring, but I know this does have potential. 6/10
Is This Seat Taken? – 16 minutes completed demo. This feels like one of those mobile logic games where you place characters to satisfy there needs. An example is a cab and someone wants to be on a window seat so you place them near the window. It’s really cute and pretty chill with a silly story, but it’s super simple as well. I would get this very cheap, but it feels like a perfect bundle game. It’s not super complicated but the puzzles are fun enough. 7/10
Kumitantei: Old-School Slaughter – 37 minutes completed demo. This is one of the most blatant Danganronpa inspired games I’ve played so far. One bad thing it is also kept the very annoying 3D exploration as well. It would be so much easier with visual novel elements for exploring since it’s relatively rough 3D environments. The graphics look so much like Danganronpa and the setup is similar as well with absolutes as well. I’m impressed overall and I’m sure this could turn out to be a good game similar to that. I loved the music as well. The writing is similar as well and a bit zany and interesting to say the least. I would get this one release if the price is right. 8/10
Lightning Katana – 18 minutes completed demo. This one was a kind of like Angry Foot I think it was called. You have a katana and you need to make it to the end of the level. You can slice up enemies and eventually get a gun as well (finger gun to be exact). You have very little health though so it’s very frantic. I enjoyed it quite a bit and only one part pissed me off (a fighting arena where you die in two hits). The music is generic but OK, and the sounds are nice. The graphics look like typical throwback FPS game, but the gameplay stands out. Overall, this would be a great cheaper game or a bundled game, but it played much better than I thought it would. 7/10
MEAT-GRINDER – 18 minutes completed demo. This is a nonsense visual novel with nonsense writing, okay visuals and a whole lot of whatever happening that generally leads to someone dying. I was speed reading this as I was not interested at all, and was waiting to see what random scene would happen next. It has good reviews on Steam, but I really disliked it other than the ending theme and the graphics. 5/10
Mindlock - The Apartment – 20 minutes completed demo. This is a weird adventure game about a guy not really happy with his job or anything and a bunch of a weird stuff happens in his apartment. I like the art style quite a bit and the voice acting seemed good. The puzzles were not crazy or anything, but were tricky a little. I think there is some messages in this and it’s likely worth a play on a good sale or bundled. 7/10
Mirage Noir – 60 minutes exactly! I completed the demo and this feels like a cross between a detective visual novel with evidence and stuff to actually figure out a case. There are probably some active choices too, but I went easy at that part as I mainly am playing for the story and detective gameplay. You play a girl who works in a detective agency that gets to examine a crime scene with a jerk boss. You have a vision at the very beginning of the game and you eventually get to see the people from the vision. The graphics in this are excellent and this is an otome so the guys look good too. The music was solid and the writing was pretty good for the most part. This seems like a high quality visual novel that I would likely get on a sale or in a bundle. 8/10
Neon Inferno – 29 minutes died one too many times, but beat the game on medium. This is an interesting cyberpunk futuristic run and gun with Sunset Heroes’ movement of dodging and shooting in the background. It is so hard though and arcade and hard are both very hard and if you die (and you will to start) you start at the beginning of the level. IF I ever got this, I would need to turn down the difficulty because it was too hard. The graphics are excellent as is the music and sound. It controls okay enough with the Series X controller. I liked this one, but it would likely be a very cheap or bundle game for me. It’s very high quality but the difficulty is quite high for my tastes. 7.5/10
Kaya’s Prophecy – 18 minutes got bored. This one is a weird basic Slay the Spire like mixed with a card villager builder with timers’ kind of like Cultist Simulator. The screen shaking in battles drove me nuts and timers were really slow for building things. The music was kind of annoying as well, but that’s more for it being very generic. The graphics were OK enough. I just didn’t like the gameplay at all of the village building with having to discover cards and gather on certain cards and combining cards to craft things. You have to discard cards to get blood for booster packs too, and my game bugged out by not giving me blood for two discards. The worse thing is no way to skip time to the next day. I just didn’t like the wasted time in the card city building and the generic Slay the Spire battle system with way too much screen shake (can’t turn It off). It feels like a mobile game. 5.5/10
Knightica – 64 minutes beat game with Necromancer class and lost 2 times with Knight I think it was. This one is a super solid auto battler using a field and different rarities of your troops. Commons start the game but eventually you go up to uncommon, rare and epic I think it is (pink I don’t remember). You also start with a smaller field and can only field up to some of them until you spend money to build more field. It’s not the most advanced game but looks great, plays and is generally easy to understand, and is a good no controller type game. I’m guessing it came from mobile, but I could be wrong. You go through battles and between them you buy troops. Same troops fuse and give pips for level ups (you want higher than level one troops). Every few levels you can take on an epic monster for big rewards (very, very hard), or other event spaces like healing for your main character, better shops with advanced troops, spell shops, and a few other spaces. The demo is worth playing and I can see this game being a very fun one on release. 8/10
K-pop Idol Stories - Road to Debut – 36 minutes completed demo. This one was an alright simulation game, in this case an idol simulator. I think this should be called J-Pop simulator instead because it has idols graduating and the concert that starts the game is very J-Pop with lots of fans with glow sticks. Probably more research would have helped there, but the idea is you get a job after your group retires. You need to scout and train up your idols to prepare for a competition. None have debuted I don’t think other than as kids. You set up schedules and there are mini games that come up that get money/more stats. The interactions with the idols were OK. I do feel the visuals may be AI generated for the idols/characters, but I’m not sure. They just may be a bit generic feeling. Overall, I feel this would be an alright game if you like raising stat games like Princess Maker. I do and I would likely get it cheaper or bundled. 7/10 although that’s very generous.
Little Big Adventure - Twinsen's Quest – 11 minutes. This is another game in the Little Big Adventure series and it feels just as clunky and old school as the other. The controls feel awkward on the Series X controller. The adventure elements are strange and the fighting is near horrible. I remember having the original game in this series and I tried really hard but it didn’t control very well and was extremely obtuse. This felt similar and I was done with it. The story was not very interesting either. 5/10
Ruffy and the Riverside – 28 minutes pretty much completed the demo. I thought this was a kind of floaty 3D collectathon platformer where you try to solve puzzles and get stars. The graphics are this weird papercraft look and the music and levels are alright. I didn’t get every star in the demo, as one was this awful trick competition and I barely earned the cheap star. You basically search for them and some come from puzzles. The main gimmick of this game is Ruffy can scan things to get their attributes stored, such as wooden from a ladder. You can then throw this attribute to make a stone block wooden, which is breakable with punches. It’s unique and alright enough, but I wasn’t crazy about it. I was missing jumps and needing to redo sections. I would like this game bundled or pretty cheap, but it just felt a bit too floaty and not amazing in controls overall. Still very playable. 7/10
Yellow House – 18 minutes completed demo. A very Russian visual novel with bleak visuals, a bleak story, and a kind of wonky UI, good graphics overall and a story about a girl I think who comes home and it’s pretty much gone to poop. It’s very bleak and rainy and she has to take pills, though you can refuse to do that. Supposedly it’s nonlinear, but the ending I got didn’t seem good. It’s interesting enough to get bundled, but I think I’d pass on it otherwise. It’s unique and not just a junk visual novel at least. 6/10
A Week in the Life of Asocial Giraffe – 13 minutes completed demo. This is pretty much a pretty nice looking and animated puzzle game about an antisocial giraffe who if they come into contact with any trying to socialize, they will explode. You pretty much have to figure out how to get whatever the task is done without interacting with anyone. It’s silly and a bit slow at times for movement. Still was fun enough and would be a decent bundle game. 7/10
Winter Girl – 15 minutes completed demo. This is a very well animated visual novel with moving characters, little animated cutscenes, a decent enough soundtrack, voice acting and a silly story about an otaku who is obsessed with a blue haired girl he met when he was little. He is friends with a childhood friend and one day a portal opens in her house and out comes an alien with blue hair who loves earth and wants to take it. The guy saying she is the girl of his dreams says he will teach her about earth and marry her and she agrees not knowing what the word means. This looks really silly and cute and I liked the production values a lot. I wasn’t expecting anything, and it seemed better than the usual visual novel games I play during the fest. 8/10
