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Drop Duchy (PC) by dkirschner (Oct 12th, 2026 at 18:12:59)

This really grew on me. It's a clever blend of Tetris, a city builder, and a roguelite. There's no story to speak of, so I can just explain how the game works. You choose a faction, say, The Duchy (there are only three aside from DLC). You have a few starting cards. At first, cards are either production buildings or military buildings. Production buildings generate resources (you start with the basics: food, lumber, gold), while military buildings generate troops (archers, axemen, swordsmen). You'll start on a standard roguelite map, the Slay-the-Spire-type three-lane path, and choose to move along it from encounter to encounter. You'll land on resources, peaceful regions, or battles at first (more types get unlocked).

Here's how battles work. You're on a Tetris grid. Tetris pieces appear, just like that game, and you rotate and place them, just like that game. Except the pieces are different types of terrain (say, forest, plains, and rivers). And your production and military buildings are also Tetris pieces that appear. And your enemy's military buildings are also in the deck of Tetris pieces. Buildings have various conditions and results. For example, the Farm (production building) turns nearby plains into fields and generates food. The Watchtower (military building) gives an archer for each plain in range and three archers for each field in range. You already see the synergy between these two buildings! When you complete a row, it is considered "explored", and you get resources for every terrain tile in the row (food for fields, lumber for trees, etc.). The row doesn't disappear (as in Tetris), so you have a limited amount of space to place the blocks in the deck before the round ends. If you explore multiple rows at once, you get bonus resources. So, every match is a game of managing terrain, production, and military buildings to generate resources AND to limit your opponent from generating soldiers. That is, when their Watchtower piece comes up, you want to place it next to some woods or some rocks, definitely not smack in the middle of a bunch of fields, where yours hopefully is.

You are always trying to minimize the army the enemy can raise because at the end of the round, you fight. Battles are a rock-paper-scissors affair between archers, axemen, and swordsmen. You basically move groups of units into other groups of units which stacks groups and sends them into battle. This is kind of hard to explain, but the game provides clear rules for how it works based on the size and type of groups that you're moving around, and the order in which battle happens. Just know that you want to be on the winning end of those rock-paper-scissors battles and you want to really, really think through the order in which you group your troops. One miscalculation can ruin the whole fight and lose the game.

When you complete an encounter, you choose a new card, and are thus always growing your deck. You use the resources harvested during rounds to upgrade cards. So, at the larger deck-building level, you're looking for synergies between cards, building a deck with some sort of theme, and balancing production and military. Not enough production and you can't upgrade stuff. Not enough military and you can't win battles. In my last game, my first full win, I actually had the fewest buildings I'd ever had. I'd unlocked "technology" cards, which are passive (e.g., every time you explore a field, gain 4 additional food; or, all military building upgrades are 20% cheaper; etc.). I was able to synergize really well and build a deck focused on fields. Fields all the way! I turned woods to plains, plains to fields, got food bonuses for fields, had buildings that created plains and fields when placed, military buildings with bonuses for fields, etc. I pretty much annihilated Act 3 and the last boss.

Speaking of bosses, I had no idea how they would do this. I thought bosses would just be like regular battles but with buffed cards, or maybe with more cards. But no! Boss battles fundamentally alter the grid in some way, alter your typical strategies, etc. For example, the last boss (who had killed me once before) requires "bribes," or else it'll throw you military buildings to deal with. To bribe it, you have to generate x resources over y turns and keep it up throughout the match. Every time you don't meet the bribe amount, the enemy sends a military building. And, every time you place a piece, there are squares on the grid that will automatically generate enemy troops if you place a piece there, and the squares change every piece, so you're constantly working around restrictions on the grid too. The first time I fought this boss, I got overwhelmed and lost. This time, the boss didn't send a single military building and I beat it by almost 100 troops, which is a lot.

This was inevitable, I think, because there are a ton of upgrades in the meta-progression. Tons of new cards, even new mechanics. For example, you can unlock religious buildings and the "faith" mechanic, unlock mercenaries, unlock the "constellation" mechanic (which lets you manipulate a piece every 10 or so pieces, depending), you can unlock technology cards, "noble" cards, and so on. You also upgrade your starting decks and resources with each faction as you play them. I am really tempted to win with each faction before setting the game aside, but I have so much other stuff to play. I'll keep it installed and probably come back in the future!

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Beacon Pines (PC) by dkirschner (Oct 9th, 2026 at 11:18:41)

Cute little narrative game with a good, darker-than-expected story. The art style is excellent (I love the different ways that tears come out of the characters’ eyes) and the sound and music perfectly complement the setting and story. You play as Luka, a kid in Beacon Pines who discovers that some strange things are happening, and all the adults, including his grandmother, seem to be involved. Hmm…! Pal up with some friends to uncover the town’s secrets.

It features a mechanic where the narrative branches based on words that you discover (e.g., shame, fight, flight, chill, etc.). In certain situations (“turning points”), you can select from some words to use, which will change the course of the story. This was intriguing, but wasn’t used to its full potential. The game’s description oversells the impact of turning points. If you use the “wrong” word, you get a “the end” shortly thereafter. The game’s description says that using different words DRASTICALLY CHANGES EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS and that you’ll jump back and forth between ENTIRELY DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE STORY! Not really. At a “the end” screen, you go back to the turning point (through a menu) and choose a different word. You’ll either get another ending in a second, or it’ll be the “correct” word that continues the story. There are some actual branches, but interestingly, the game still proceeds linearly. For example, you have to go down branch A to get to branch B to get back to branch A. In other words, there is only one way through the story. Oddly, there are some words that are never used. You can’t just choose any word in your stock during turning points; only specific ones are available, which narrows the potential of this mechanic further.

This mechanic reminded me a bit of Great God Grove, which is another “word game”, wherein you use phrases spoken by NPCs to solve dialogue puzzles. Instead of using whole phrases or sentences, here you just occasionally are prompted to use a word to complete a storybook narration, which determines what a character does and therefore what happens. Great God Grove also felt limiting. I suppose that is because language is near limitless, and that makes for tough narrative design.

Despite its simplicity, I thoroughly enjoyed playing through the mystery of Beacon Pines. I wonder if they’ll make a sequel. I’d be interested to see what Luka and his friends get up to next!

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Crime O'Clock (NSW) by jp (Oct 8th, 2026 at 09:44:19)

First, what a banger of a name for a game. Ha!

I picked this up from the box art. It looked like this was "MicroMacro: Crime City" in videogame form. A good thing in my mind. What made MicroMacro cool/fun is that it's a giant "where's wally" with an extra twist - you have to find things but then also "trace" them over time. So, a character might be dead in part of the "map", but you can look around to and see the character still alive walking to the place where they're dead, and so on. So, you trace time through space.. it's hard to describe.

This game - at least from what I've played so far does exactly the same thing with two differences. First, the map (illustration) changes - so, there are different maps for different snapshots in time (some things change others stay the same from what I can tell). Second, there are occasional mini-interactive activities you have to do (not quite enough depth to call them minigames) - these represent "computer analysis" moments - like tracing a cell phone being used to towers, or identi-kit-style assembling the portrait of a perp. They take place in a sort of "computer network" visualization that's all black background which is in direct contrast to the main map that's on white.

The art style is all black line drawing comic-style characters (like MicroMacro, but different enough) on a white background with color used very sparingly for UI-stuff.. I think it looks great.

The maps (only played on one, the tutorial and the first case) are fun to look at with lots of little easter egg style details.

I think I'm going to enjoy this!

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Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek (PS4) by jp (Sep 27th, 2026 at 16:53:00)

I knew this game hadn't reviewed well when I bought it, but it was cheap and I was curious.

I think it's worse than what I expected. I may be a bit unfair hear, but I reacted really negatively to the game's onboarding experience - or what I would call a lack of onboarding. The game starts with a cut-scene showing your character (a young girl) playing with her brother. The game's hide and seek and you hide in a hallway cupboard, are quickly found and then...you're in control. Your brother is close by, his back turned and he's "counting" (like you do when playing hide and seek). Ok! I must run around and find a new place to hide. This makes sense with the game's title. There aren't many places to go, I run up the stairs, enter a room and somehow manage to make my way onto a shelf that's nailed to the wall a good height above the floor. This seems like a good place to "hide" - it's also, the only place I think other than just waiting in a corner? There's a bunch of looked doors but I can only peer through keyholes and none of the doors seem to open. I only "learn" this from poking into the game settings to see what the controls are.

Ok. This is fine - I just need to wait for my brother to stop counting and start searching and we'll see what happens.

Nothing happens. Oh. Am I supposed to hide in a special pre-determined hiding location? I jump off the shelf and start wandering around - maybe I missed something. I learn I can crouch - but there's a space that's too low for me to crouch under. I peer through the key holes of all the doors to see if I'm missed something. Nothing. I go back into the settings to remind myself of the "use button" (R1?). I go back to a door leading out of the room at the top of the stairs...and nothing. But then, it works and the door opens. Oh, I guess that door does open. I never go back to check the others because a cut-scene cues in and it's the girl just standing behind the door as her brother runs and in immediately finds her. The camera then pans to a clock on a dresser and control is now back in my hands.

I realize a dresser drawer opens, I can use it to jump up..and somehow pick up a dunce cap of sorts (paper cone with flag on top) and a pillow? I can't seem to use them for anything..so uh, I jump back down and open the door to leave the room and...

..it opens into a different space. Now we're in "imaginary land" - a large space with household furniture that's too large and warped and so on. This reminds me of some of the Psychonauts levels - sort of wonky geometry that looks different. Still fine, it's like the kids are imagining they're someplace they're not but there's still references to real-world things - and they're large because you're a small kid. It's ok.

I'm still holding the pillow (or the dunce cap?) and...dont' know what to do. So, I start wandering...there's a large bird creature...I see a stake under the water but can't pick it up. Oh. Then, suddenly my brother appears (in a sort of tiger costume)...and it's game over, go back to the start - I mean, a reset and I'm at the part where I entered this fantasy land space.

I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Hide again? Find the pre-designated hiding spot, find "the spot" which triggers the cut-scene? Leave the area?

I start exploring and see a large lounge chair at the top of a rock mountain. Ok, lets go there. I make my way up (not easy, jumping is weak, you slide off things, etc.)...get to the chair - but it's more like a couch. There's a ovaloid rock...I pick it up. There's also a sort of plush animal. Pick that up also. Nothing happens.

Uh. Maybe I'm supposed to go somewhere else? There are things that seem high up and out of reach... I end up throwing the rock and the plushie - sort of by mistake (R2)... I wander/fall down...get caught by my brother.

Still no idea what to do. Time to consult a guide.

Oh, it turns out you're supposed to find these plushies and put them in a basket. What? How was I supposed to figure that out? No idea.

I do some wandering and find a door that serves as a ramp to the top of a large basket - which is where you're supposed to drop the plushies. There's a cardboard sign with...16 of them? Lots of them. I found one, but now have no idea where it is.

I decide to restart, maybe there was a bug and a tutorial was supposed to fire but didn't? No, it's the same. Fine. I go back to the top of the rock mountain, get the plushie and drop it in the basket. There's a ding noise...and that's it. I have no idea how many are left. As far as I could tell the sign stayed the same, no checks or crossed-out plushies. I find another plushie inside a large, very large, bucket I was able to fall into after jumping higher thanks to a geyser. Nice. Oh, there's no way to get out of the bucket. I hit the menu and there's a "I'm stuck" option - this triggers a cutscene of a bird that swings down and takes you back to the start. Oh. Seems like a solution to a problem than shouldn't exist. I get it if you squirrelled your way behind some strange geometry and don't want to lose the game state. It's almost elegant in that context. Here it just feels lazy - put a required item inside an inescapable object to force you to use the bird. Ok, maybe that was on purposes (so you learn the bird thing. But, I had to poke around in the menus - instead of it triggering a tutorial text - "Hey, you're stuck inside the bucket, if that ever happens do this..".

I gave up in frustration soon after that. I was able to pick up the raw steak at one point...but the general physics and navigation felt so poor that adding the pressure of your brother coming at you to reset your place in the level felt at odds with the experience. This wasn't hide and seek now, it was a scavenger hunt...and not a particularly interesting one at that either.

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Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (NSW) by jp (Sep 22nd, 2026 at 07:38:16)

The night before last I played some more and beat the gauntlet! I felt very chuffed about that...kept on going, got to another boss (Parn!) beat that, and immediately after was ANOTHER boss...I lost really quickly and got really mad. In my mind it was boss gauntlet + Parn + final boss...with no saves in between and the thought of doing it all over was too much. So, I put the game down pretty confident that I'd just have to watch the ending on Youtube or something.

Last night I picked it up for a "last attempt" of sorts - before that though I scoured the map and found a few secret areas I had missed! And one area that was now accessible I had forgotten about. Good thing I did, I got a new weapon (the Chakram?) with great range, for a little less damage, but just the sort of thing I'd need for the final boss fight. I then stocked up on potions, swapped my spell to one I thought might work better, and went back in.

And success! (I think I had to try twice)

And in the end, was it all a dream. Sure. With some more to it...but still. The epilogue was nice, though it was weird to going back to level 1 with none of the additional movement unlocked - not that there was any challenge.

It feels strange to beat a game like this. I usually bail a lot earlier due to my lack of interest in practicing enough to improve enough so I can clear certain challenges. This game hit the sweet spot for me - it wasn't trivial, and I felt like I improved and learned the game's systems over time.

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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open, you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries) for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.

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