Recent reviews by Proxy

A short, stylish narrative horror game! I found the writing really charming in how casual it was and how distinctive it made each character's voice. Not a long read, but a memorable one!

i would have more detailed words here but the fact that something grabbed me to the point of playing it for nearly 86 hours in just under 4 weeks is something.

This is a solitaire deckbuilder/base construction title about time and resource management with cosmic horror underpinnings. in a change from Cultist Simulator, This is also a much more relaxed-paced game that rewards patience and adaptive flexibility as you learn its mechanics. The relaxed pacing helps add to the melancholic feeling overall as you make more discoveries within Hush House. The relics of the dark pasts hit more as you let the game's intense amount of detail sink in, with the stirrings of modern necessity to catalog this forbidden knowledge cropping up in the form of guests researching new incidents that involve the Hours.

The flavour is nice, but the gameplay loop is ultimately what keeps me coming back. Figuring out how to best set up my days to either maximize efficiency for assistants to explore the Hush House, to maximize crafting potential, to acquire knowledge and learn new skills, and how to best upgrade my own skills has been fun to figure out. I'm stoked to play way too much more of this game.

Because I'm me, I have to talk about the performance on Steam Deck, which is: abysmal. This is most likely due to the high quality of all of the image assets, but the performance is capped at 30 FPS even after making adjustments. So I would avoid this on Deck once you get to later stages of the game, but it performs well enough for the beginning portions.

tl;dr: the best Vampire Survivors-alike based on a country song. you can also play it on Steam Deck 10/10

After receiving a key for this game, I was like "yea sure I'll stream it" and immediately became entranced by it. I actually streamed a few hours more of it on my Discord after finishing up my Twitch stream. It's got a very satisfying Flash game-esque loop and it rewards really experimenting with its systems! I want to play more of this already, it's a fun little time!

the real star of the show is the wry writing, Heather Flowers' games always are very fun in their text while also becoming very pointed in its messaging. In the case of a title that owes a lot to eras of Flash game design: subtlety is for cowards

For those of you looking to play this on Steam Deck: I recommend turning on the auto-aim, but if you want a neat twin stick experience you could use the trackpads for more aim control. It depends entirely on your weapon choice, but both feel comfortable to me

Umurangi Generation is a game I didn't have any expectations for when booting it up for the first time. Not high expectations, not low expectations, just a complete blank slate. I ended up being blown away by the experience, which is probably why I felt compelled enough to write a Steam review.

The core gameplay loop is satisfying; sure, you can boil it down to "just taking pictures", but given the variety of tools at your disposal even from the start (that expand as you complete sets of photo bounties) you start to consider the actual compositions of your shots. It never feels like a game where you're expected to know how to actually do photography -- I sure as hell don't -- but it rewards you for experimenting. Being able to save the photos you take into a folder after playing is a nice touch, too.

The entire vibe of this game is probably the strongest selling point, though. Despite there being a time limit to "do well" on your photo deliveries, if you ended up exceeding that time limit it doesn't automatically boot you from the stage. This allows you to actually examine your environment, pick up on the details of what's going on in this world, getting a sense of the injustices that the people you are alongside throughout the entire game are going through. All the while, a varied soundtrack that embraces so many varieties of influences (from microtonal jazz to rough analogue house and many more) matches and enhances the vibe. The stylish low-poly graphics add to this charm, and even help bring the experiences that much more down to earth during its shift in its final act.

Despite the fact that there's no dialogue in the game, you really get a strong sense of what's going on through its environmental storytelling. In fact, taking on the role of a photographer encourages this fact, having you consider your surroundings both from a gameplay perspective and from a human perspective.

TL;DR: Umurangi Generation is a great game, balancing appreciation of photography with a story about indigenous resistance against their oppressors. ♥♥♥♥ yeah. More games by indigenous developers need to be celebrated, this one included.

I played the demo for 7 hours and regularly play this just while I’m watching or listening to other things as a way to keep my lizard brain spinning. I am very bad at it and love every second of it.

But seriously, this game is an acquired taste. It’s simplistic/archaic in presentation, but it feels very streamlined and forward; a focus on trial-and-error experimentation until you start to develop resource development strategies helps this game feel as engaging as it does. The music is on the repetitive side, but that means it’s a good multitask game when the music is turned off. The core gameplay has me engaged regularly, constantly trying new things out and attempting to find solutions whether the session is 5 minutes or 5 hours.

I wholly recommend Hypnospace Outlaw if you:

-marveled at the wonders of Geocitie/Angelfire pages in the years of 1998 and 1999
-are a recovering victim of irony poisoning
-enjoy jokes that range from silly to nightmarishly chaotic
-click 'random' on wikipedia and then click through multiple links on an article you know nothing about, wishing to dive deeper and further into each experience

This game is transfixing and there's still more I need to uncover. An absolute gem.

This game is short and revolves around exploring a house and filling in the gaps of a story that has already transpired. If that's not appealing to you from a gameplay standpoint, don't play this game.

If you want a story that's evocative and touching, tapping into some real emotions and their impact on people, play this game. If you want a story about women, particularly queer women, play this game.

To say any more would honestly ruin the experience. Just let Gone Home happen to you. Play it in a single sitting, let it envelop you in its setting and story.

Speaking from first-hand experience, Depression Quest is an accurate portrayal of dealing with depression, as well as a helpful game in terms of understanding the mentality of those living with the condition and potentially urging steps towards managing it. As a game, it's definitely just a Twine visual novel, so it has to stand out on the quality of its writing. Thankfully, it succeeds with flying colours here.

It's not a fun game. It's an important one, though.