Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Fun

I want indie games to continue flying towards the sun

Posted on by • 0 Comments

In the last few months, I have played several indie games that have left a mark on me. For good and bad reasons in not-so-equal measures. I want to talk about two of them because they have thrilled and frustrated me while playing them, but I appreciate both of them for reaching for the sun. I will probably compare them as I did a bit in the last post because they both have pretty big things that annoy the fuck out of me.

They are, of course, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) and Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works). The reason I compare them is because they are both made by indie devs and the games weren’t expected to be hits. One was and one wasn’t. While I’m not going to delve into that very much, I do find it very interesting.

I wrote obsessively about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as I played it because I could not stop playing it. I was not enjoying it as I played, but I could not stop. I hated the combat, and I found the story to be, to put it kindly, hot trash. It looked gorgeous, yes, but the levels were terrible as I constantly got lost, and I was often worn-out at the end of a session. In the beginning, I could only play an hour at a time before tapping out. That lengthened later on, but it took some time to get to that point.

I was the odd person out. Everyone else was gushing about how great the game was whereas I was definitely underwhelmed. I don’t know why I kept playing it, but I could not stop. I ended up finishing the game, and I gave it a solid 7, and I stand by that. You can go back and read the dozen posts I wrote about it if you really want to know how I feel about the game.

Suffice to say, it wasn’t going to be my game of the year. Still isn’t.

The other game, I’m still playing. It’s the Promise Mascot Agency, and today is the first day since I started playing it that I probably won’t play it. When I think of playing it, I have a small internal sigh.

I’m also playing Dark Souls Remastered in order to get Big Hat Logan’s big hat. I rarely get it because his quest is so involved and takes 180,000 souls (yes, I looked it up). You have to save him in Sen’s Fortress, then find him at Firelink Shrine. I think you may have to buy all his spells here in order to get him to move, or maybe it’s event-dependent. At any rate, at some point, he moves to The Duke’s Archives, and he’s locked up. You have to get captured by Seath, get thrown in jail, go down to get the key to get out, and then make it to the second The Duke Archive’s bonfire.

Then, you have to get the key to free BHL, and then go back to where he’s locked up. I hate The Duke’s Archives, and it’s been a while since I’ve done it. I also don’t have much health because I’m running an intelligence build, which means I’m very squishy. Then, you have to talk to BHL in The Duke’s Archives and buy all his spells. I am up to this point of his quest and thought I could just trigger the next step by buying all his spells, but, no. I have to beat Seath first.

Back to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Promise Mascot Agency. With both of them, the more I play, the more my interest wanes. It’s slow and barely noticeable with PMA, but it’s still there. It hit me in the face when the game introduced a new mechanic and instead of me being delighted by it, I felt weighted down and burdened.

This is my point. Finally. With both of these games, they throw so many things at you. Everything but the kitchen sink. Some of them work, and some of them don’t. In PMA in particular, I think they could have cut half the mini-games/side quests, and the game would not have suffered for it. In fact, I think it might have been better because then each mini-game/side quest would actually mean something. Now, as I mentioned in the last post, many of them feel very fetch-quest-y.

If it were up to me., I would cut out the crane game, much of the driving or at least make it decent from the beginning, and the goddamn fucking artificial timer. I must say, including the artificial time pressure slashes at least one whole point from the game, if not more. This is the one I can’t get over and the one that makkes me sigh when I think about booting up the game.

Honestly, it feels so shitty and ill-conceived. The game devs created a world I really wanted to explore, but just when I got into the groove of it–I had to go find an ATM and send money to keep my yakuza mother from being killed. If I don’t, she dies and I get kicked back to my previous save. The consequence of this is that I’m constantly saving, and I do micro-saves after picking up anything important or doing a bunch of chores.

In addition, if the screen is fairly dark red (the indication that mother is about to be killed), I abandoned the meticulous exploring I’m doing in order to find an ATM or a phone booth so I can fast-travel back to the hotel where there’s an ATM. I try to note the important things I’ve missed, but because of my horrendous lack of direction and the fact that the map doesn’t note the side quests I need to do, I can’t find them again.

I just thought of something I could do. I could mark the map where there’s a cluster of activity. I can place one waypoint on the map at a time, which feels very limited. I hate having to pass by a bunch of stuff, especially the ones that give me truck upgrades.

I honestly don’t understand why it’s there. As I said, I can imagine the devs wanted to give the game a sense of urgency, but that’s at odds with how much there is to explore. I think the game would be much better without it, and it’s the one big reason I’m not enjoying the game. It’s hard to get into the flow of things knowing that every five or ten minutes, I’ll have to stop and find an ATM. I absolutely hate it and wish there was a way to disable it. Hm. Nope. There’s no mod to disable having to send money. I didn’t think there would be, but I looked it up just in case.

I don’t normally like mods, but I hate this mechanic so much, I would seriously consider a mod if there was one. I cannot emphasize enough how much it hampers my enjoyment to have to stop every ten minutes to send money. The game is not immerzive in the first place because it’s so wacky, but when I’m in the groove, I can feel like I’m flowing.

Until I have to send the damn money.

Here’s the thing, though. With both the games, if I had the choice between taking them as is and not having them at all, I would instantly choose the former. Both of them are quite frustrating to me for different reasons, but they are also both games I’m very glad I’ve played. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is more streamline and mainstream-friendly, whereas Promise Mascot Agency is much more niche and downright weird. It’s not for everyone, and that’s ok!

I have played a half-dozen indie games in the last few months, and while I did not get on with all of them, I appreciated each one for the fresh new take it had. They have all stood out in my mind for different reasons, and I am pleased by the state of indie games right now.

More on that tomorrow.

Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works)–A Quick Look, part three

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I’ve played more of Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works), and I need to talk about it. I love so much about it–but there are a few things that really drag it down. In my last post, I touched on two of the things that really annoy me about the game, and I want to go even more in depth about them.

The first is the artificial timer. I have given the million yen, but the timer is still there. At least it’s not a red banner at the top left of my screen, screaming at me all the time. Once I hit the mill, it disappeared. But it shows up again if I don’t send money for awhile.

I. Hate. This. Mechanic. Especially in the beginning when I was barely scraping by with fifty thousand yen in my pocket. In tandem with not clearly explaining the contract situation (perks I offer whhen recruiting the mascots are repeatable. Meaning, the bonus perk of fifty-thousand yen repeats every seven jobs. Yes, it’s written in the contract, but the game throws so much at you in the beginning, it went right over my head.

Having to pay one of three mascots an extra fifty thou after seven jobs was painful. As I mentioned in the last post, having only two mascots doing 10 thou jobs was not making me much money.

Speaking of which, the tutorial has two problems: they throw way too many things at you at one time, and they don’t explain them very well if at all. There’s a ton of reading to do as well. I like reading, but my eyes started glazing over when I had yet another thing to read. Also, the game introduces a mechanic in which I can ask Pinky, my assistant (and a mascot representation of a tip of a  pinky) questions. I didn’t fully realize that I *should* ask Pinky questions now and again because they were tips as to where I could find more mascots, jobs, and other tidbits like that. I hadn’t done it since the beginning of the game, so I had a shitton of new places, jobs, and mascots to get. Why the hell didn’t the game tell me I SHOULD talk to Pinky? Not just ‘oh, if you need help, talk to Pinky’?

The game really gets in its own way too often. I’m getting that open world fatigue I get when I mainline an open world game. When all the side quests start blending together because they’re all the same. In this case, they’re fetch quests. Amusingly-described fetch quests, but fetch quests, nonetheless.  Old arcade games for one support here; the child cats of a cat of another support here; various DVDS (CDs? No, I think it’s DVDs) for another. They are scattered around the map, and finding them improves the stats of the support here who requested them.


Continue Reading

Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works)–A Quick Look, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I am obsessed with Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works), so I’m doing another quick look (or extended look. whichever). I was saying yesterday that I was having difficulty with the driving–which is usually my least-favorite part of any given game. It was janky and jerky, no matter how much I fiddled with the controls. I was worried that I would have  to give up on the game because it was not going well–and it was making me slightly sick to boot. I was sad at the thought of putting the game aside, but I was not sure I could play several more hours of the game as it was.

Fortunately, there is a mechanic in the game for whom you do jobs and side quests. One of them nets you upgrades for your truck. One of those upgrades is a Pinky-launcher. I eman that literally, by the way. It launches Pinky from the truck, which means I can get past some barriers I could not break through with my truck. I figured that out yesterday, by the way. It was so frustrating because I could see something twinkling behind a barrier, but I could not reach, no matter what I did. Now, I just blast the barrier with the Pinky launcher, and I’m in!

It’s also good for doing a bunch of mundane chores, such as cleaning up the trash on the road and running over the signs of the mayor scattered around the city. And, more importantly, for the frustrating wa to get the upgrades themselves. I don’t want to spoil how you do that exactly, but I had a hard time with doing it the way you’re supposed to do it. It’s me and my specific blend of disabilities, but I can’t be the only one.

Another upgrade was to make the truck faster. Not only is it faster, though, it runs WAY smoother. Not so much herk and jerk, and my nausea is much less as well. And while I’m very appreciative of it, I have no idea why it was so shitty in the first place. Again, I know that’s probably a me-thing, but the way the truck runs now makes it very clear that it was a choice to make it so shitty in the beginning.

Yes, I know it’s Michi’s whole schtick–to be a very bare-bone, no-frill kind of guy. He carries a broom with him that the mother of his yakuza family gave him in order to clean up, literally, after natural disaster (I think that’s what it was). His clothes are pretty basic as well, and while you can change Pinky’s nail throughout the game, there doesn’t seem to be any outfits for Michi. I’m fine with that, by the way. I do like changing my fits, but it’s not necessary or something I miss when it’s not there.


Continue Reading

Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works)–A Quick Look

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I heard tell of a quirky independent  game called Promise Mascot Agency (Kaizen Game Works (a UK-based developer)) that is set in Japan. There was a demo for it, but I never got around to it. The premise is that a yakuza member is disgraced and has to fake his death. He is responsible (in a way) for a huge sum of money lost, which has cause a loss of face for the matriarch of his yakuza family. The protag is called Michizane Sugawara, also known as The Janitor. His nickname is Michi.

Oh! This is the dev who did Paradise Killer. Oh, man. I wanted to play that game so badly, but it was first-person and highly nausea-inducing. I bore it for a few hours, but I just could not do it, sadly. I really liked the weirdness and the vibe, but I had to throw in the towel.

Back to this game. I have included theannouncement trailer below. You can see that it’s oozing with charm, albeit a twisted charm. I really dug the vibes and the vivid characters. In a world of very bland video games that blend together and become one glob of a game, it’s refreshing to have one that stands out visually.

It’s brightly-colored, unabashedly weird, and has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. The game is quite clear that it revels in being cheeky, dirty (in the sexual sense), and fast-paced. I love everything about the environments and the audio.

After Michi digraces his family, he cuts off his pinky and then is driven waaaaay outside the city. He is dumped off at a love hotel that is run by a character called Pinky, who is, I realized an hour into the game, an actual pinky. At least the tip of one. The back of her head is a painted nail, and I only have to assume that it’s a sly wink to the fact that disgraced yakuza members cut off their pinky (as Michi did above) as a show of remorse.

Pinky is annoying as hell, but she is meant to be. And she has grown on me already, two hours into the game. She had ran the mascot agency, but the mayor pulled her license after an incident at his daughter’s birthday party in which Pirky did something he did not like. Michi is a smooth talker and is able to convince the mayor that he will be a better owner/manager (and will give the mayor a cut).

After that, it’s off to the races. There was so much to do, I was a bit overwhelmed. I had to recruit mascots, recruit support heroes (who help the mascots if the mascots need it), and had a half-dozen other tasks thrown at me fairly soon thereafter.


Continue Reading

The perfect Poirot game, part five

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have more to say about my perfect detective game. In yesterday’s post, I hard-swung to why it had to be a Poirot game. Poirot is my favorite detective, and there has yet to be a good game based on him. Whatever I think of the Sherlock Holmes video games (and I think they’re horseshit), the world thinks very highly of them. And there are so many of them. I just checked. There are nine. Not as many as I thought, but still a lot. I have played over half of them, but only finished…one I think. I hated them, and I ‘m not saying that lightly.

But there are many. And they are beloved. I have no idea why Agatha Christie detectives have not been as celebrated. (Cough, sexism, cough cough.) Granted, Poirot has had many successful movies and TV shows (moreso than Miss Marple, I fear), but I don’t know why he hasn’t been as beloved in the video game world as Sherlock Holmes.

It’s difficult to create the perfect video game because I just do not like the traditional point-and-click genre that has been dubbed as the only way to go with detective games. I don’t know why in this particular genre, people have decided that innovation is over–well, actually, I do. Or at least I have a theory.

Here’s my theory. It’s not well-thought out, so stick with me as I muse about it.

Point-and-click detective games are pretty niche.

Huh. I was just looking up the Sherlock Holmes games, and apparently the most recent game that I thought was a remake is also a sequel to Chapter One (the game before it). So, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened, released in 2023, is not just a remake. Apparently, Chapter One was a reboot of the series, and The Awakened would have taken place later because Chapter One was about a young Holmes. I don’t know what to think about that so I’m going to ignore it for now.

I was talking about how niche point-and-click detective games are. Detective Duck: The Secret Salami (Happy Broccoli Games), a recent detective point-andclick, sold roughly 150,000 copies across platforms. Thimbleweed Park (Terrible Toybox), released in 2017, sold about 300,000 copies. Sherlock Holmes Crime & Punishment (Frogwares), released in 2014, had about the same number of sales (300,0000).

In contrast, the best-selling Call of Duty game (Black Ops III, many developers involved) sold 43 million copies. Is that a fair comaparison? Probably not, but it’s underscoring my point that point-and-click detective games are niche. Ha, I originally wrote cliched instead of niche. Freudian slip?


Continue Reading

My perfect detective game, part four

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I’m still looking for the perfect detective game. I recently talked about two that were great, but with notable flaws (especially Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO)).I know that there is no way to make a perfect anything, but I think I could come close. Here is my last post about the subject, which I wrote a few days ago.

Hercule Poirot is my favorite fictional detective. There are many things so wrong with the books (and the TV series), but I manage to overlook that as I read/watch (classism, racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.). I will say that I get frustrated when the TV series strays too far from the books, but I recgonize tha tthey are two very different things.

I will say, though, that we do not need another Poirot played by a British actor. David Suchet was the Platonic ideal of Poirot, and no one can do it better. I have not seen the Branagh movies, but I winced at the overacting in the trailers.

Honestly, the only thing I want is a series from his younger years when he was on the Belgian police force, and I want Poirot to be played by an actual Belgian actor. There is one case that was set back in those fdays, and it would be a great way to start off the series. Or end it. Either way, it’s one of the only cases in which Poirot will admit to making a mistake. It’s called The Chocolate Box, and the TV series did do a version of it. Would not mind another if, as I said, Poirot is played by a Belgian actor.

I have read every novel at least three times, and some of them up to dozens of time. I’ve watched the entire series six or seven times as well. I have seen every movie prior to the Branagh ones. I will say the worst one was the Molina one, through no fault of his own. It was set in modern (for that time) times, which meant cell phones, laptops, and pdas. And they changed the roles of several of the characters to make them more modern as well. They had a stellar cast, but that was wasted by the horrible script.

I will say, though, that the Poirot version is probably one of the weaker episodes of the series as it changes the ending severely in a way that was very off-putting. Still. He was amazing in it as always.

Fun fact: David Suchet played Chief Inspector Japp in the Peter Ustinov version of Thirteen at Dinner. For some unimaginable reason, the director decided he should be eating all the time. It was fun to see him in that role, but, of course, he’s much better as Poirot.


Continue Reading

Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO)–My Official Review

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I rolled credits on Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO) after fifteen hours, and it was mostly a fun ride. I talked about the demo in this post, which was the first two chapters of the game. That took roughly three hours–maybe four? The rest of the game is four more chapters, which is six in total. So given how long the game took me to complete, that’s just under four hours per chapter. Let’s remember that I talk at least twice as long as other people do to finish a game, so I think we can safely say that most people can finish it in seven or eight hours.

I mentioned my biggest gripe about the game in the last post I wrote about my perfect detective  game. It’s the super-shitty get through the maze to escape the giant maw of your dead father who is trying to devour you.

In the last chappter of the game, there’s another shitty gameplay section in which I, playing as Afu (Shen Chung-ping’s assistant), have to sneak around the police station at night. At least that one saves after every floor climbed. But my god, it was tedious and really had no need to be in the game.

I think that’s my biggest problem with the game. There are way too many different ways of solving the cases that could just be lumped together. And the logic doesn’t always logic. I’ll get to the latter in a bit, but I’d like to focus on the former for now.

I want to stress that I know this game takes a lot of its inspiration from the Ace Attorney games. It’s very clear that the DNA of this game is that series. I did not like those games when I tried them out for a few reasons. One is the hamminess of the games. Two is because of the ridicilousness of the logic.

In this game, I really think they could have benefited from paring back on the different kinds of deductions. I’ve included a gameplay trailer below to show the different things you can do in the  game. There’s investigating the crime scene (fine), talking to witnesses (fine), looking at the surrounding environments (fine), and then there’s the bunch of things that sound so damn similiar. These aren’t the actual names, but there’s interrogation, debate, finding inconsistencies in evidence, and a bunch of others. I don’t understand why they can’t just lump them together.


Continue Reading

The Roottrees Are Dead (Evil Trout Inc.)–My Official Review

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I finished The Roottrees Are Dead (Evil Trout Inc.) tonight. For a game that I at first did not get at all (why someone would play it), I jumped into it with both feet when it clicked (which was very soon after the second time I tried to play it).

The premise is shaky, but that’s quickly forgiven and forgotten. To recap, the president of a candy empire, his wife, and their three daughters die in a plane crash. I’m a private detective, and a shadowy figure slips an envelope under my door with several disparate pieces of information. The person adds a note that says they will return when I had a certain numbers of Roottrees (by birth, not spouses), their pictures, and their occupations correctly identified. Then, the person would return to give me more info.

The devs had their own search engine in the game, and as I’ve said, they were smart to set the game in the late nineties before the internet exploded and went completely wild. I was a little frustrated that you had to find exact search terms to come up with information, but I think that’s a shortcoming of my brain rather than an issue with the game. I don’t think like other people do, so it was a struggle from time to time to find what the terms they wanted me to use.

It felt incredible, though, when I was able to figure things out. And I was damn near a genius when it came to the special little optional bit at the end. Seriously, I mentally patted on my back for getting that shit right. I figured out the twist fairly early on, but I needed one piece of info from late in the game to nail down the details.

The way the game interweaves the intricate details is astounding. But, also confusing. And while I did start taking notes, it was still hard to know what would be useful and what wouldn’t. Hm. Let me rephrase that. Much of the time, it was pretty clear what you were looking for in a search result. Sometimes, though, there was nothing that really caught my eye. I knew if I got a result, there was something that mattered in it. Well, except for one name as he was a Roottree, but not related. At least not in this game.

There’s another game that unlocks after you finish the first game, and it’s alll about finding all the Roottrees who were born out of wedlock. I started it, got the intro and the new batch of information before shutting the game down. Finishing the first game took longer than I anticipated, so I decided that I would not tackle the second mystery properly until tomorrow.


Continue Reading

What I want an a detective game, part three

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have been musing about detective/mystery games for the past week or so because I’ve been obsessed with them lately. Here is my post from yesterday in which I griped about more things I hate in detective games.

In this post, I’m going to try to focus more on what I want from a detective game, not what I don’t want. But, there will be some of the latter because it’s unavoidable. At least for me. I tend to think of things in terms of what I don’t want. It helps me discard the chaff and focus on the wheat.

What I want, what I really really want.

1. Characters that I really care about. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there was a character who really touched my heart. When they turned out to be the murderer, I felt so bad for them. I did not want to turn them in, but I knew I had to.

By the way, I was given three choices of how to present the evidence. I picked two of them, thinking they would be gentler than just turning them in. Joseph (the prrosecutor) told me that those were not acceptable, so I chose the third one. It turned out to be the most lenient of all, but I had no way of knowing that just by reading the choices.

I was lamenting about this yesterday, and I will continue now. Why am I given choices if there really is only one correct choice? And, while I’m happy that I don’t get a penalty for choosing the wrong one, it makes the choice meaningless.

2. To put it in a more positive way, give me meaningful choices, but ones that don’t have an objective right and wrong answer. Yes, I know that the point of detective games is to ferret out the truth, but there can be room for gray, right?

3. Simplified deductions. I don’t want elaborate or tortuous trains of thoughts that are the mental equivalent of ‘combine a piece of yarn, a tire iron, a broom, and a can of pop to make a key’. I still love Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES Studio), but I love it despite itself. It can’t help being a big ol’ pain in the ass when it comes to laborious inferences and obscure clues that make no sense.

Or, if it the devs have enough money, then I would be down with them having two ways to solve things. One, the elaborate, fifteen-step deduction that takes greater leaps of faith than I am capable of making. Two, simple, clear steps with maybe just a few twists that are juuuust hard enough to make me feel clever.


Continue Reading

Seeking the perfect detective game, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I have played more of Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES Studio), and while I still enjoy it muchly, there are more things that are irritating me. Such as the fact that they introduce new mechanics without explaining them. Or give a very brief explanation that doesn’t really tell you what to do. Here’s my post from yesterday. I was planning to talk today about what I do want in a detective game, but we’ll see if I actually get there.

Oh, and when I went to check my achievements in game, all the ones I unlocked playing the demo unlocked for real. Since I was fretting about having to go back and doing them again, I was glad that happened.

Side note: I have a pet peeve with indie games that I fear will never be resolved. I have mentioned it many times, but I want to moan about it again. It’s bad gameplay in a game that isn’t focused on gameplay. Seriously. I would rather have no gameplay than shitty gameplay.

I mention this because there was a truly atrocious bit in Murders on the Yangtze River that had me cursing. Chung-ping is doing some research, and it stretches on for hours. He falls asleep and has a nightmare. I learn a bit more about his childhood (and it’s truly horrific), and then I have to navigate his nightmare. It’s him as a small child running away from the giant face of his father, crying, as his father devours him.

There’s a maze as it were in the library where I am. And as my father is chasing me, I have to navigate around tables, piles of books, etc. It’s up/down arrows or W/S, but there’s a micro-second of delay between input and action. And if you get snagged on an obstacle, you cannot untangle yourself fast enough to get away from the giant face. So, basically, you have to memorize where the obstacles are. This goes on for several rooms with no chance to save anywhere. And there is no skipping it.

It was incredible to me that the reason I might have to stop playing the game was a shitty maze. Honestly, I may knock a whole point off my mental score for the game because of this and other bad mechanics. Fortunately, I managed to memorize the layout (not easy either given how shitty my memory is now), but it left such a sour taste in my mouth.

I want to say that it’s because of my motor skill issues. I’m sure other people did it easily, but I really wish devs would just put in a little skip button. I could not finish Stray (BlueTwelve Studio), a lovely game about a cat, because of the QTEs and bad platforming. I really wish they would have given me the option to skip the QTEs after, say, five tries or allowed me to hold down the button instead of madly tapping it.


Continue Reading