Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: a quick look

Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock): A Quick Look, part three

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock) continues to frustrate me. In yesterday’s post, I ruminated on those frustrations to a lengthy extent. I think part of the reason I’m so frustrated with it is because I can see what it’s trying to be–and what I want it to be. Also, when I’m not loving a game that is beloved by so many other people, I have to ask myself why. I tend to think there’s something wrong with me, but then again, I tend to think there’s something wrong with me in general.

I want to like this game. I need to be very clear about that. I really want to like this game. It seems like it should be up my alley. It’s heavy on the emotions, and many people reviewing it talk about that aspect of the game.

Which, I’m down for! Except.

How do I put this gently and kindly? The emotions feel very hollow to me right now. Too much is revealed with little prompting, and that doesn’t make me feel comfortable. I mean, in real life, but also in the game. I know that’s how some of these dating games work, but it’s not really my jam.

I already have one person telling me that she would not mind going on a date with me, even though we’ve talked a handful of times. I don’t mind that so much because some people work that way, but it feels rushed to me.

In addition, there are dramas and intrigues between people that I think are going to make me uncomfortable. Again, this is how real life works, yes, but it doesn’t feel earned yet in the game. I think that’s my main issue–all the gameplay and resource gathering is so incredibly slow; yet, the relationship building is rushed.

Let’s talk about the relationships, shall we? I like most of the peoaple, but I don’t really have time to talk to them because I’m trying to get all the resources I need to get shit done. I do try to get my once-a-day talk to each resident done, but I find myself resenting it, frankly. Espceially as I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I have to give gifts to them to further our relationship. I risked giving the old sea salt a fish stew as a gift, and he thanked me for thinking of him–then added something about even if my thinking was bad or wrong or something like that.

I mean, what? Not only was the fish stew not what he wanted, but he was going to insult me as well? I actually know one of the things he wants, but because the meat shop was closed for three days in a row, I could not get what I needed until Tuesday.


Continue Reading

Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock): A Quick Look, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I want to talk more about Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock). This is part two of my A Quick Look at the game. Here is my first post in which I talked a bit about my first impressions. I said in that post that I was worried that the game would get out of control. I didn’t phrase it like that, but that was the worry that was running through my brain as I played the game. I was chafing at the fact that my stamina bar was so tiny and that every action took so much energy. I knew that there were ways to mitigate that at some point in the future, but I wasn’t sure I was willing to play the game until then.

I’ve played nine hours or so. And I have to say that I’m still waiting for the game to balance itself out. I feel like I’m spending all my time just trying to stay three steps behind and not fall behind any further.

There are several things that are closed, and I was wondering how I was going to open then, and what would trigger the ability to open them. I never thought anything other than I was going to be the one to unlock/open them because that’s how these games go. The one closest to me was the mine. I’m not sure what triggered the specific townperson to come talk to me about the mine, but when she did, I laughed at how ridiculously easy it was going to be. It was something like give the woodworker two hundred gold, ten planks of wood, and a few stones (I looked it up. It’s 100 gold, ten planks of wood, and five stones), he’ll open the mine.

Seriously. That’s it? And no one could do it earlier? I don’t demand that everything in my games be realistic, but come on. That’s ridiculous.

This is one of my issues with the game. I can suspend my disbelief to a great extent for a cozy game if it hits me right (see Promise Mascot Agency,Kaizen Game Works), but this game is not doing that.

I mentioned yesterday that one of the weird things about the game is that if you can’t talk to a townsperson any more on any given day, they just stand there. You can walk through them, and they don’t even blink. It’s a really strange choice. In addition, if they’re in their place of work, they will just sit there/stand there docilely as if their body is just a husk.

Now, there are more things you can do with each person, but that actually makes it more frustrating because, well, let me put it this way. There are roughly twenty townspeople. You can have a meaningful conversation each one once a day. Now, I can also give them gifts and talk to them about specific tasks they’ve given me. Also, if I’m doing a bulletin quest for them, there’s the choice to talk to them about that as well.


Continue Reading

Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock): A Quick Look

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I heard about a cozy farming/dating sim called Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock) and saw it had a demo on Steam. I decided to give it a go since I gave up on Tiny Bookshop (long story, will do an official review at some point). I liked the demo well enough though I did have some reservations about it. But, there’s a black cat you can pet; Erika Ishii is a datable character in it; and I was intrigued by the premise so I bought it. The time I spent in the demo transferred to the game itself, which was nice. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t mind either way because I don’t expect it from an indie demo. AAA game? Yeah, I expect it, but I still won’t be anything more than miffed if it’s not there.

There will be light spoilers in this post, but nothing too big. The basic premise is that you’re a city woman called Tara who goes to a small town to help her grandmother with her (grandmother’s) farm.

I will say it’s it’s strange to play a game that doesn’t have a customizable character or an invisible protagonist (meaning you can’t customize them, but they’re not visible, either). I don’t usually play games that don’t allow me to customize my character.  Wait. That’s not true, at least not for the last several games. Still. It felt weird in this game.

Also, I wish I had retained that this started out as a mobile game (which I had seen from looking up the game, but had immediately forgotten) because it does feel like one to a certain extent. Not in terms of content, but in terms of gameplay, how much grinding you have to do, and the whiff of microtransactions No, there are no microtransactions in the game, but there are the ‘this crop will take four in-game days to grow’ issues, which are very annoying.

So here’s the premise. Tara is a young city woman who is laid off and broke up with/was dumped by? her fiance at roughly the same time. She flees to her grandmother, Hazel’s, farm, ostensibly to help her ailing grandmother, but also to lick the wounds of her broken heart. The farm is in disrepair, and it’s up to Tara to fix everything.

In the demo, I spent a lot of time just going around meeting people. Weirdly, the mayor gives me an order that I have to meet every resident of the town (for which I got an achievement), and the game makes a big deal of it. It has Tara asking several people if they had to do it, if they thought it was really weird, and just in general highlighting it beyond what I thought was reasonable. It was an odd tone at the beginning of the game.


Continue Reading

Tiny Bookshop (neoludic games)–A Quick Look, part two

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I’m still playing Tiny Bookshop (neoludic games), and I have more to say about it. I left off part one by saying this is the perfect small bites game; I still think it is. I also said that I had several small complaints, and I want to expand on that a bit.

First, though, I am still enjoying the game. I still play several days at a time, and go for longer than I had planned. It’s very much has that ‘just one more day’ feel to it, and I give in to the impulse more often than not.

However, there are some small issues with the game that keep me from thoroughly enjoying my time in Bookstonbury-by-the-Sea. That’s t he name of the fictional coastal time, and it reminds me of Boston for whatever reason. I keep calling it Boston in my head, though Boston is not a coastal town.

I mentioned that during the demo, I would stress over making a bad recmmendation. Then, during the first few hours of the actual game, I was over that stress. Now, though, I am frazzled when I get requests like, “I ilke plays. I like nonfiction. I like to read books in a series.” And it’s clearly not possible to get all three. I am having a devil of a time figuring out which is most important. It’s usually the first one, but sometimes, if I find a book that fits the other two statements, I might be able to slide on the first. Or not. I’m not sure.

That’s my issue with this part of the game. Every time I think I figure out how the recommendations work, the game throws me for a loop. Also, I’ve played long enough to get repeat dialogue, so I think that the way it works is that each person has a set number of statements, and then the game just mixes them at random. Each request is rated one to four (or five) stars for easy to difficult. Actually, I’ve only seen one star and four stars, so maybe it’s a binary choice. Hm. I may have seen a five star difficulty, but it might have been four, too.

Anyway, I’m never quite sure what is going to be acceptable and what isn’.t My firiend in the RKG Discord has mentioned the same thing. It feels like a roll of the dice if a suggestion will work or not. And, of course, there’s RNG involved because you can only have forty books on the shelves for sale. I can choose how many of each genre I want to set out, but I can’t pick the actual books.

That’s too much RNG for me. I would like to be able to make a good rec every time or a decent one, but that’s not always possible. I hate not making any suggestion at all. I try to make one no matter what because sometimes, the game surprises me. I have not been able to figure out if the recmmendations actually matter or not except for certain NPC quests, which leads me to my next quibble with the game.


Continue Reading

Tiny Bookshop (neoludic games)–A Quick Look

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I’ve been on a cozy game kick for the last few weeks. I’m just done with hard games. It’s taken me quite a while to realize that I don’t really like ‘hard’ games for a variety of reasons. I play FromSoft games for the exploration, the exquisite level design, and for the lore. I suffer through/put up with the difficulty because the rest of it makes up for it.

I don’t know for how much longer because I’m getting older. I know we all are, but in this specific case, I mention it because I had terrible reflexes even before my medical crisis. And very little depth perception. After my medical crisis, it’s just gotten worse and worse.

It’s been a relief to play games that are cozy and casual. Nothing to stress me out and nothing that makkes me feel sad/bad because I can’t do it. (Holds back massive treatise on FromSoft and the current state of the company.) I am looking to be comforted in my gaming, and the indie/cozy game devs are showing up in spades.

During the Wholesome Direct of 2025 which was a few months ago, I downloaded a bunch of demos (one thing I really love about indie games) on Steam to try. One of them was Tiny Bookshop (neoludic games), and it immediately grabbed my attention. I had considered buying a bookstore once upon a time, and I was attracted to the idea of leaving it all to open a tiny moving bookshop in a small town where everyone knew each other.

I eagerly checked out the demo, and to my dismay, I did not gel with it. I loved the vibes, the visuals, and everything about the enviroment. I just did not click with the characters in the game or the actual gameplay. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t fall in love with it the way I thought I would.

One thing that stressed me out was that a customer would ask me for a recommendation, and if they didn’t like what I suggested to them, they would be upset. That didn’t really matter as far as gameplay. Well, I mean, it might have, but that wasn’t the reason I was upset. I just didn’t like when I didn’t get it right or when I didn’t have a book I could recommend.

I was sad when I uninstalled the demo, but it just wasn’t for me. Then, it was officially released ten days ago, and a friend of mine in the RKG Discord (we joke that we are the same person) mentioned it to me that I might like it. I decided to check the demo out again, and to my surprise, I liked it quite a bit this time.

I decided to buy it. This is one of the great things with small, indie games. This game was $19.99 at release and already 10% off. That means I bought it for $17.99. At that price, I’m willing to gamble on a game with a big heart that is made by an indie developer. I recognize it as an absolute privilege, but I don’t mind if I don’t love a game or play it for more than a few hours if I spend less than twenty dollars on it.


Continue Reading

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

Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO)–A Quick Look

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I am still on my murder mystery game kick. And for whatever reason, I was looking at Steam. Well, no. I know exacttly why. I wanted to look at mystery games precisely because I’m on this kick. I found a game that immediately intrigued me. I think I had heard of it before, but I shrugged it off. It’s Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES Studio), and it’s an Ace Attorney-like game, but set in China during the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle era (or thereabouts–meaning early twentieth century). The protag is a Chinese lawyer who went to law school in Boston (I think–definitely overseas). There was a demo for it on Steam, so I downloaded it to give it a go.

I thought it was going to be like the first chunk of the first case, but it was much more than that. The premise is that Shen Chung-ping, the aforementioned protagonist, is trying to find out what happened to his brother, who was found dead in his apartment in London (where he’s attending grad school and/or working on an opium cessation drug).

That’s the background for Shen Chung-ping journeying with his apprentice, Afu, to the home of a famous Chinese murder writer–the Chinese equivalent of Sherlock Holmes (who gets liberally mentioned in the demo). Afu is impetuous, but technically/mechanically savvy, and he’s obsessed with food. Shen Chung-ping is more diffident, reserved, and quite the thinker.

I have to say that I’m quite pleased that this was made by an independent Chinese studio. China is starting to become better known for game development, and while I have issues with this politically, I’m glad on a personal level that it’s just not Japan (as far as East Asian developers).

I really dig the aesthetics, too. It’s chibi but not exaggeratedly cute. I like when that the dialogue is in Mandarin, except when Chung-ping is in London–and then he speaks flawless English. A bit too well (he sounds like a native speaker, which he would not as he grew up in China), but I can forgive that.

One thing I appreciate is that the characters are not without flaws. This is a trap devs can fall into sometimes, and I am glad that this studio has sidestepped that. The main character is pretty archetypal of the strong, silent type, but he’s wracked with nightmares, anger, and fear about his family situation. I’ll get to that in a bit.

In the first case, he’s going to meet the famous Chinese mystery writer, Lo Pei, because the latter’s most recent book is identical to how Chung-ping’s brother was found dead. When he arrives, he eats a rice cake Lo Pei offers him and passes out. When he wakes up, Lo Pei is murdererd, and the cop in charge (Officer Ma Ta-wei) is brandishing a sword and shouting at him. Lo Pei’s nephew is also there, sobbing his heart out, as is the judge, Judge Chang.


Continue Reading

The Roottrees Are Dead (Evil Trout Inc.)–A Quick Look

Posted on by • 0 Comments

When the first Golden Idol game came out, I desperately wanted to like it because it seemed to be way up my alley. Sadly, I could not get into it, so I put it aside. Then along came The Roottrees Are Dead. Someone in the RKG Discord was really pushing it, and I bought it when it was on sale one day. I tried it out, didn’t vibe with it, and uninstalled it. A few days ago, because of my detective game kick, I decided to give it another go, and I really dug it. So much so, I gobbled it up for the next few days.

Here’s the basic premise. There is a famous and wealthy business family named the Roottrees. They are a candy mogul/empire, and at the start of the game, the president, his wife, and their three daughters die in a plane crash. A mysterious person dropped off a bunch of infoon my doorstep with a note. I’m a private investigator/detective, and of course, I’m intrigued.

I have to figure out who all the members of the family are and how they are all related to each other. Why? Purportedly for the purpose of the will. Who gets to inherit and all that. I’m given a family tree with all the pictures, names, and occupations blanked out. All the ties are noted (like spouse, children, etc. And if someone divorced their spouse).

By the way, I’ve been ragging on point-and-clicks, but mentioned that Kathy Rain (Clifftop Games) was one I really liked despite the flaws of the genre–until the third act. I said because of how poorly it did, Clifftop Games scrapped the two planned sequels. For whatever reason, as I was looking up something, Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer came up. Excuse me, what???? I Googled it and it was a sequel that came out about a month ago. My gob was truly smacked because I had not heard even a whisper of it. Apparently, diehard fans of the first game clamored for a sequel, and it finally gct made.

I also read that many people were not happy with the third act of the game. I’m glad it wasn’t me! In part it’s beacuse the marketing for it was very much “here’s a gritty detective noir story about a hard-bitten ’90s female detective that is grim and dark”. To have the ending come out of seemingly nowhere the way it did took many people by surprise, and that was one big reason people were not happy with it.

Now, of course, I have to buy and play the sequel. Oh, and the Director’s Cut of the original, which I already had in my inventory. I bet it was a free update for people who already had it, and I have it installed now. I just have to decide if I want to play that or the sequel next.

Anyway, back to this game. The first thing I’m instructed to do is lock in six (I think) Roottrees. Not their spouses, but those who are actual Roottrees. And  it was from the notable (starred) Roottrees list that my mysterious employer gave to me.

The way I’m to do my research is by using the web (they have their own search engine, and you can look up anything on it. And they have a publication search engine (for magazines and such) and a book/author search engine as well. You have to use the words that will trigger the articles, which can be frustrating sometimes, but there is also a hint system if you get too stuck.


Continue Reading

Inspector Waffles (Goloso Games)–A Quick Look

Posted on by • 0 Comments

This is both A Quick Look at Inspector Waffles (Goloso Games) and a rant about point-and-clicks in general.

A brief history: Eons ago, I thought I would really like point-and-clicks. Why? Because I like detective/murder stories/mysteries. I tried a bunch of the Wadjet Eye Games (Lauren Blackwell series), and my god, were they an exercise in frustration. So much pixel hunting. So much nonsensical “logic”. I had to make connections that made no sense in my mind, and within minutes, I was poring over a walkthrough to see whatI needed to do.

I am not gonig to mince words. I had way too high expectations for the games, and I hated every one I played. I don’t think I’ve finished any of them. Not the classic ones and not any of the newer ones. In fact, one of the ‘newer’ ones I tried was Unavowed, also by Wadjet Eye Games. I was unbelievably excited about it because it looked amazing, and it seemed like it had an interesting story. Unfortunately, it had the same nonsense as the earlier games, and I didn’t finish it.

Another was Kathy Rain: A Detective is Born (Clifftop Games). It was set in the ’90s with a motorcycle-riding, cigarette-smoking, hard-bitten female protagonist (the titular Kathy Rain). And even though I had to use a walkthrough to do several of the puzzles, I was really engaged with the story. I actually finished this one, and I was so let down by the third act.

I’m not going to reveal what happneed, but I could not have been more disappointed. The devs carefully built up a taut mystery with several strong characters, only to cop out in the end. I finished the game, really wishing they had gone done a different path. I remember hoping that they would do better in their second game. However, sadly, even though they had planned on doing a trilogy, they stopped with one game because it did not do well at all.

This is all backstory for my A Quick Look at this game. I didn’t realize it was a point-and-click. I bought it ages ago on sale because it had a cat as a detective. That was it–the whole reason.

As is my wont, I forgot about it for years. Now, I’m on an animal detective kick, and I decided to try this one out. It has that crunchy pixel look (meaning you can’t really tell what anything is because they are too blocky to discern). It’s fine. It’s not my preferred graphic style, but it’s not unpleasing to my eyes, either.

The game immediately irritated me, though. Why? Because the systems to interact with things and talk with other characters are clunky. I was looking for the controls, but could not find any. My heart sank when I realized that it was a point-and-click. And that you have to go through the same dialogue every time you want to talk to a character. What I mean is that if you want to ask a suspect about an item, you have to go through the tree in which that item would fit first. I could not figure it out until I looked it up, messed around, and something clicked in my brain.


Continue Reading