i'm progging top it's a brutal raid but this 2nd group i put together seems all round chill and nice, i hope we can stick together long enough

gbf: unfortunately i started playing this slightly less casually too old crew had nobody active any more even to put up buffs so i left and joined a tier a and slacc crew, it's been? a new experience? i guess?? they've helped me with some of the r200+ raids but can't do it often bc of timezones

it's taken a turn for the money grubbing even by its own previous standards in the past couple years and i can't honestly recommend it to anyone but... music good.... dragons good...... number go up

1bitHeart (2015) - completed yesterday, i still haven't gotten around to neo twewy and i'm probably past the point of willingly paying money a dangan or persona game ever again but this scratched all those itches and a few more thematic ones in a compact and stylish package, liked it a lot! it's good!

1BeatHeart (2017) - sequel to the above, takes on regency mysteries and ace attorney, still fun and super creative with the engine but not as much my vibe as the first one. ending was a bit disappointing, seems like there won't be a third?

also while the music choices were still on point it unnecessarily cracked me up that the same royalty free track used as sakuya's character theme in hatoful got picked out to use for a serious scene in this game, i'm sorry about pigeons

Hylics (2015) - dreamlike jrpg-like..... thing. good for playing while half asleep and probably also while on lsd, randomly generated dialogue, impeccable Vibes, i'm keeping an eye out for the 2nd one to go on sale now. ffiv got nothing on it

Will This Bitter Night Bring Change? (2022) - it's a surreal-stressful-creepy dystopian vn about 1-2 hours long, gorgeously and painfully written and illustrated, raw and ugly, several of the final scenes are stuck in my brain since last week and have prevented me from sleeping, it's real good!! wish i could sleep tho

on itch here

Kirby Triple Deluxe (2014) - i hacked my 3ds when they closed the eshop and it's as easy as the meme says it is, so obv the first crimes i committed were some of the kirby games i missed out on

triple deluxe is fine, like pretty much every kirby game it's a few hours of stress free fun, that's what you sign up for

Kirby Planet Robobot (2016) - ...but the following game is an unexpected banger and an upgrade in every way! it was worth playing triple deluxe first for a reintroduction to the series and to compare them tbf, but i was really surprised by how much i ended up loving it

peak aesthetic too btw, i discovered that for some weird licensing reason it's the only kirby game to have its ost officially on spotify and im happy to have it there tbh

it's up there with forgotten land, amazing mirror and 64 as series favs now i think! i simply think every game should have a big robot that you can ride and fly around and punch things with. this should be the baseline of all game design

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe (2016) - having way more fun than i expected with robobot extended to both of the subgames so i crimed this too, the core gameplay loop is fun but only bc i edited the save file to get rid of the no longer available microtransaction model. honestly this model sucks ass and i'm glad i didn't support it when it was live

also ffxiv has spoiled me bc i want to play dress up in every game with different outfits but in this game you're stuck with that outfit's stats, absolutely criminal, let me glue the endgame gear stats to this sparkly fish

The Gray Garden (2012) - non horror rpgmaker game from the creator of wadanohara, found it ok but repetitive and not super standout in the genre, actually assumed it must have released earlier than this until i looked up the date just now lol

wish there was less sexual assault in it tbh but that is what the creator is about

Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening (2020) - speaking of rpgmaker standouts!! this is an indie rpg that leans into both the earthbound comedy rpg tradition and its explorer horror lineage and you'd think that leads to splitting its focus but it does both things shockingly well

and also nails the spirit of the cosmic horror genre while bringing its own highly personable twist on things, and also is really deftly balanced as a game that leans into starving you for resources like survival horror does but never feels unfair on the default difficulty setting bc you have a strong range of options after the early game

and also it's chunky, this thing took me 20 hours to beat without counting a couple things in the postgame

it's freeware bc of the terms of use of some of the music but hot damn this would be worth money and i strongly intend to look at the devs' other rpgmaker projects at some point

Attack of the Friday Monsters (2013) - short and cute adventure game, i thought i knew what it would be going for and then i didn't! the nostalgia vibe is ultra strong but not in a bad way, gave me vague and not so vague ghibli vibes

story is simple but strongly written, also the prerendered bgs are beautiful, the card game gimmick is surprisingly engaging and doesn't outstay its welcome, and i am in full support of big kaiju actually

Solstice (2016) - it says up front it's a dystopia vn and it's not kidding, clever and beautiful but really fuckin bleak despite initial appearances, had to sit down and sit with it for a while after getting most of the endings lol

a bit too depressing to be My Thing ultimately but it's very well done for what it wants to be

Monster Sanctuary (2020) - released its final content patch on all platforms yesterday and i still think it's a gem really strongly scratches the finicky team building optimisation itch that gbf also does for me but way more balanced, the game balance as of 2.1 is a work of art... and has the upside of not being a gacha

in terms of pure qol, enabling you to just try out whatever team combos or gimmicks you want, i think every other monster taming game ive tried to date including mainline pkmn could use some lessons from it tbh

i'm looking forward to moi rai's next project Aethermancer, i do enjoy a roguelite every now and then

The House in Fata Morgana (2016) - please play this.

pls be aware that it is a visual novel containing every content warning under the sun and doesn't exactly take long to start bringing them in, and this includes tackling lgbtq themes in ways i really wasn't expecting from a japanese game in particular, but hoooly shit it's so good

up there with umineko and it's difficult to not compare and contrast ngl just bc of where each story goes, but ultimately they are about different things and better for it

Kirby's Dream Land 2 (1995) - i haven't actually finished this one yet but how the heck was some 8yo 30 years ago supposed to get the rainbow shard just now that involves taking the damn fish through a minute long above-water autoscroller, removing your ability in order to break 1 block and then picking it back up before it disappeared without savestates

"are you complaining about difficulty in a kirby game and also the game is 30 years old" i am! that was obnoxious!