Musings from a mercurial mind on all things gaming
If you hang out in some of the online visual novel communities, for example reddit or vndb, you’ll hear people sometimes describe visual novels as “plotless.” Usually, this is taken in a negative context and applied to visual novels that focus on characters and relationships as opposed to action, combat, competition, or mystery. This is … Continue reading Quick Hits: On Plotless(?) Visual Novels
Retrace from Spider Lily Studios follows a group of four friends who set out on a ghost tour and wake up trapped in a world of horrors. You play as Freya, who at the start would much rather enjoy the comforts of her room. She’s lured to join the excursion when she hears Mia, who … Continue reading Review: Retrace – I Have to Go Back
While the spectacular failure of Balan Wonderworld might have made “one button game” a taboo phrase in the eyes of many gamers, the idea isn’t inherently bad. Going for simplicity in the controls theoretically gives a game the opportunity to take a freewheeling approach to everything else. And since most games don't go this route, … Continue reading Quick Hits: Rhythm Doctor—One Button Fun
I was reading Toasty's excellent Dragon Quest restrospective, and never having played the games, I was surprised by his description of this 35 year old entry. Combat is always 1v1, there aren't many actions to choose from, and numbers are low. I jumped on the RPG train a bit later, and got accustomed to damage … Continue reading Turn-based Combat: Making Every Turn Count
Since we recently talked about original English language visual novels (OELVNs), I thought it might be nice to take a deeper dive into Aquadine, an OELVN from developer SoftColors that I recently read. I mentioned I'm interested in OELVNs with a non-Japanese identity, and Aquadine impressed me not only with its stories and characters, but … Continue reading Review: Aquadine – At the Water’s Edge
Visual novels are usually associated with Japan. While early western adventure games like Mystery House share quite a bit of their DNA with visual novels, the conventions we associate with visual novels today were cultivated in Japanese adventure games, while western adventure games largely explored other modes of presentation (you can read a fascinating deep … Continue reading OELVNs and Japan
So I took the leap and started my own site. I've been playing games as long as I can remember, and always enjoyed thinking about what makes them tick. More recently, I've been writing about games, mostly game reviews. It's led me to meet and talk with some cool people, and exercising the critical eye … Continue reading The Journey Begins
Fair Plays by Wes 