Recent reviews by DesignerDave

While the gameplay itself can be frustrating due to poor interpretation of intent, the overall aesthetic and narrative context is well worth exploring. A few extra checkpoints couldn't have hurt, but I understand the intent and it all can be handled by even a noob like me with a little bit of dedication.

This is the open love letter to Dragon Age: Origins that I always wanted.

It has its quirks and unintuitive moments, but this is a DEEP game that you can get lost in for hours. A must try for aspiring game designers as the things attempted here have not been done in ages and I hope it can inspire the next wave of AI driven games.

After a slow start it was a very enjoyable adventure novel. If you're not familiar with White Wolf's: Vampire The Masquerade TTRPG. This is a perfect introduction to a lot of the world lore.

Here's the thing... about this game. It has about a million and one audio issues that are indescribably bad. I give your odds of this working on first try about 1 in 10... Even if you have the real tune cable and all that. If you don't have that, I give it 1 in 1000...
So a game, entirely about learning to play music on a guitar, has MASSIVE audio issues that renders it unplayable the majority of the time... and there is NO solid support solutions anywhere...
How does Ubisoft keep getting away with selling unsupported games? If it doesn't work, Steam should remove it from the store.

If you have fantasies about being a cat, and you like adventure games with (mostly on-rails) action elements and some light puzzles... and you like being immersed in dystopian sci-fi worlds where you can slowly decipher how humanity killed itself this time... Then STRAY is the game for you!

It's Dark Souls for toxic people. It effectively gamifies being positive towards others, which I applaud. Everyone should try to play this at least once a week to immerse in the positive vibes and become better at saying nice things.

This game demonstrates succinctly the importance of the KISS principle of design.
KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!!! :D

Excellent writing supporting meaningful choices through a great tactics based RPG.

Disco Elysium solves a problem I've had with heavy dialogue RPGs for a long time. It makes the DIALOGUE the gameplay. In other RPGs, walls of text feel like they get in-between you and the combat. In Disco, the dialogues are the WHOLE POINT. Thus I feel immersed and interested in everything. It helps that it's incredibly well written, and while having only partial VO might be considered a detriment. For me, it gives me just enough flavor, and then allows me to read at my regular pace while still having the voice in my head. So many voices in my head... how can I quiet them???