Recent reviews by 🍒 Lilly (🌸◠‿◠)

After the release of Voxelgram back in 2019, I didn’t manage to find another Picross adaptation that could live up to it… until I discovered Nonogram 3D : Mega Puzzle. The two games share a lot of common mechanics and similarities in the way they are designed and played. However, each of them brings a unique characteristic into the mix.

Voxelgram features Steam workshop integration through which a sizable number of players constantly unleash their creativity into crafting new levels, continuously adding to the hefty set of puzzles that the base game already offers. Nonogram 3D : Mega Puzzle’s innovative mechanic lies in using two fill colors instead of one. This opens up a new dimension of thinking and how one should approach nonogram puzzles, and the tricks you learned from dozens of hours of solving nonogram levels in other games won't always work. This mechanic reaches an even deeper level of complexity when it is integrated with other restrictions such as having a specific number of gaps or groups for a row or column. The presence of two colors also requires you to think of both before you can safely remove empty blocks.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3393628531
A notable difference between the two games is the handling of player errors. In Voxelgram, a row or column is highlighted as an error only if the numeric conditions are not satisfied anymore. Nonogram 3D : Mega Puzzle has a “hitpoint“ mechanic in which you start a level with five lives and each erroneous click costs you one life. Here you don’t find out what your mistake is because the game doesn’t show you along which axes you made a logical error. Additionally, with the condition of a maximum of 5 possible mistakes, Nonogram 3D : Mega Puzzle feels more restrictive than Voxelgram which allows infinite errors. On the other hand, in Voxelgram, because nothing is preventing you from continuing after you erroneously mark a certain block, that logical mistake can propagate until close to the end of the level and in some cases it might even be easier to restart the puzzle rather than backtracking your way to identify which block you incorrectly marked.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3393628231
The team behind Nonogram 3D : Mega Puzzle is very open to players’ suggestions for making the game even more enjoyable and so far a lot of quality-of-life improvements have already been implemented. Things like being able to assign specific key bindings for the most commonly used actions, having the mouse cursor indicate the active color to help reduce potential mistakes, and fully unfolding a cube with one key press after several of its layers have been hidden ease the gameplay a lot. There are still a number of ways the user interaction with the game could be improved, for example, a button to remove all “0” blocks at the beginning of a level. This operation is redundant and there’s no reason not to have it automated.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3393628080
One awesome thing in Nonogram 3D : Mega Puzzle is that a block changes its shape into the final one as soon as the row and column to which it belongs are fully solved (including the removal of the empty voxels). The end image isn’t formed from voxels but from blocks of various shapes, curvatures, angles and colors, which when combined form a 3D object. 3D nonogram puzzles already give the player a strong feeling of “sculpting” their way to a certain shape, but here you can literally see how the level transforms into something else with every block you solve.

In conclusion, both Voxelgram and Nonogram 3D : Mega Puzzle are great games and on par with each other, although unique in their own ways. Both are similarly priced, and both will provide dozens of hours of puzzly enjoyment.

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Becca is a simple point-and-click game with a heartfelt story about the healing power of an affectionate pet, pursuing your dreams, creating new friendships and even finding love as a teenager after moving to a new town. The game plays very much like an interactive storybook in which you dwell on a page for mere seconds, clicking around to trigger various events before you move to the next page. There are a few puzzles to solve, but all of them are very easy to figure out. There is neither time pressure nor any logical process involved, as the game is designed to immerse the player into its story instead of providing challenging puzzles.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3387279173
Becca takes roughly one hour to complete and all the achievements can be obtained in a single playthrough. To progress through the game, you will need to find the key in each chapter that unlocks the next one. Aside from keys, there are two special items to find, but they are not exactly missable as you can replay past chapters after you complete the main story.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3387279253
The family-friendly concept of Becca together with the warm message that it sends makes it suitable for younger audiences as well as for more mature players who want to take a brief trip into their childhood memories. It's a short, sweet and cozy game, with a unique hand-drawn art style.

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In Gnomdom, you are tasked to find 12 little gnomes to attend Grandpa’s 100th birthday party. They’re hidden in 12 different locations harboring several puzzles each, which are often chained together. Gnomdom is a short game (it takes around ~1.5 hours to complete it). The adorable hand-drawn art style and wholesome animations make it a very cozy experience despite not having a narrated story.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385682656
The puzzles’ difficulty alternates between easy and average, and there are also some new creative puzzles added to the mix. Those who have played point & click / adventure / hidden object games will likely be very familiar with them. Encountered here are variations of the Hanoi Tower, sliding blocks, Hungarian rings, lights out, matching pairs puzzles, etc. Most of them are pretty straightforward to figure out even for less experienced players, although the game doesn’t provide any information about what the objective of each puzzle is. I can recall only a very few spots where clarifying the objective could have saved me a bit of time, as I wasn’t sure which of the several possible approaches was the expected one (thus, I had to try them all).

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385682693
In addition to a description of the puzzle goals, some might find it useful to have a hint system. Personally, I would only love to see Steam achievements implemented, as well as a way to track the 12 collectible photos that one can gather for Grandpa’s photo album. Completed locations are marked accordingly on the map, but the information on whether one can still get collectibles from a certain location is currently missing.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3385682614
All-in-all, Gnomdom is a very sweet, beautiful and wholesome little game, very suitable to be played during a chill evening. It’s somewhat similar in style to an Amanita Design game with puzzles that are neither too easy nor too difficult.

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Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 3 marks the 6th and the latest installment of the HoTK franchise. The games are built with the same engine and art elements but have unconnected stories that allow them to be played independently of each other. In The Lost Tales 3, the player reprises their role as Brent the hunter, his current goal being to uncover the plans of Fendrel (also known as "the Dark Lord" of the kingdom) who has returned to this realm and is now preparing a massive attack. Additionally, Brent's trusted dragon friend Muriel has fallen ill and he's seeking a cure to help her heal.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3373786195
HoTK games belong to the point & click genre, although their execution doesn't fully match what you'd expect from a point & click game. There's no player character to control, no interaction with the items in your inventory, and no flavor text aside from quests. The quest requirements are tightly woven into each other, although they do provide some sort of linearity. They're given to you all at once but ultimately they can be completed only in a specific order, your task being to identify where the sequence starts and in what order they should be completed. It's pretty much like this: to kill a certain enemy, you need a special potion. To craft that potion, you need to gather some ingredients. To get those ingredients, you need to fight specific monsters that drop them. To fight them, you first need to learn how to use a certain weapon. To unlock this, you need to complete the quest that a certain NPC gives you. And so on. Multiply that a few times, and imagine having several of these sequences simultaneously. Although one can get temporarily stuck on one quest (if so, then there's usually something undiscovered - either a new location or a different quest), finding the "hook" in all this is quite satisfactory, because then everything falls into place like a domino effect.

The game doesn't need more than a mouse to be played and runs on low-budget / old PCs too. Collecting items from the environment, fighting enemies, turning in quests, and traversing the game world from one location to another are done through a single mouse click. Icons visible above enemies or NPCs clearly indicate whether you have all the requirements to perform a certain action or to complete a quest. There's a map you can use to fast travel, although it doesn't display in which locations new quests are available - this is something you need to find out yourself by exploring each region of the map.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3373785842
Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 3 takes around five hours to complete and there are no missable achievements. You can continue playing after the story ends, but you'll probably unlock all the achievements before that while going through all the quest chains. Like in all the other games from the series, there's a built-in hack to get infinite money by crafting potions or cheese with ingredients you can buy from NPCs abd then selling these goods for extra income. Like everything else in the game, the goal is to provide a stress-free experience and HoTK games certainly manage to achieve that.

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B-Project Ryusei Fantasia is part of a bigger franchise that started back in 2015. There are several anime series[myanimelist.net], a manga adaptation[bpro.fandom.com], a rhythm game, a stage play, multiple music CDs, and a range of related merchandise.

The game is a no-romance josei-muke about several J-Pop boy bands that are merged together into one big group called “B-Project”, formed under the Gandara Music record label. The main character, Tsubasa Sumisora, is a newly appointed A & R representative (artist & repertoire) or simply put, a person who is in charge of these idols, who oversees their schedule and helps them prepare for shows. She is not only knowledgeable about music but also helpful and considerate towards the boys, earning their trust and admiration very fast.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371095334
The story focuses on the 14 members’ trainee days and the challenges they faced on the road to success. It’s a slice-of-life visual novel, arguably with a coming-of-age narrative, as the idols are still very young (17 - 20 years old). While Tsubasa Sumisora’s age isn’t clearly specified, she seems to be not much older than the boys but acts very maturely and responsible towards the boys, while also constantly keeping a friendly, supportive and deeply caring attitude towards them.

Getting used to the individual personalities of each of the boys might seem difficult in the beginning, but the game facilitates this by introducing them one by one, based on their original group. Each of the boys has a unique personality that stands out from the rest of the group in a specific way and you’ll also get to know them one by one through individual conversations, but also through their interactions with the rest of the group, which are always adorable. There’s a lot of banter between them and plenty of funny and cheerful exchanges, topped with some heartwarming one-on-one dialogues.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371095286
To help the player easily identify them, the logo of their individual group is visible on the side of the dialogue box when a character speaks and their names are also color-matched to their outfits or portraits. The design in this regard is well done, although I felt that one missing element was displaying the connection between their stage name and their actual name, which the player has to always keep in mind as it’s not visible.

Since it’s a music-oriented VN, the soundtrack is obviously outstanding and the J-Pop songs performed by the band are all stellar. The game is also fully voiced, with the voice acting being on par with the soundtrack. The main protagonist might sound familiar to you, as she is voiced by the same voice actress who worked on the corresponding character from the anime series, but other voice actors also reprise their roles. With B-Project Ryusei Fantasia being the latest release of the franchise, the game thus feels like a continuation of the anime, although it can perfectly be considered as a standalone title too.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371095350
Due to the high-quality design and lengthy content (~65 hours, more if you want to explore all endings), B-Project Ryusei Fantasia is an easy recommendation not only for the fans of the franchise but also to anyone who is into J-Pop and likes reading VNs. Keep in mind that it’s not an otome game (if that has any relevance to you anyway), but the dynamics and chemistry between the characters are all great.

B-Project Ryusei Fantasia in a nutshell:

• Deep narrative
  
• Immersive atmosphere
  
• Large cast
  
• Story centered around the growth of the characters
  
• The choices are aimed at unlocking bonus content (five stories for each character) for the characters and only a few of them seem to influence the ending
  
• Good pacing, it might feel a bit slow in the beginning while the characters are introduced, but it picks up the pace rather fast when you start diving into the personal stories of each of the characters.
  
• Likable characters
  
• Excellent soundtrack with very catchy songs
  
• No sexual content
  
• Two routes, each of them focusing on different characters, leading to different groups of endings
  
• Live2D animated characters
  
• Fully voice-acted protagonist
  
  

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Art Detective: Hidden Through Ancient China is a short hidden object game that requires you to find certain items based on their images, in levels styled as famous ancient Chinese ink paintings.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371081694
The highlight of the game is certainly the beautiful art style (although it’s a Unity asset), with these levels extending on multiple screens and enriched with small details. Each level will have you search for 70 different items, with the downside of being able to see only 7 of them at a time (once you find an object, a new one to find replaces it in the list). I would prefer having a scrollable list of all items to find instead of it being so limited because it often happens that while searching for a specific item you notice several others, but you can't click them yet as they're not included in the current list of items to find. This is a standard mechanic for HOGs, but usually, the ratio between the total number of items to find and the counter for the current list (2:1 or 3:1) is much more forgiving than here (10:1).

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371081677
There's a pretty good mix of items that stand out from the rest of the painting due to their vivid colors contrasting with the dull brown backgrounds, and other items that are well hidden and thus very hard to find. Luckily the game has a hint feature that you can use indefinitely, with only 30 seconds of recharge time. Most of the objects are quite small-sized, but you can zoom in to see them better. Another good feature is that the game remembers your progress for each level, so you can resume it at a later point in time.

Completing the 10 levels of Art Detective: Hidden Through Ancient China takes around 3 hours, and achievements are awarded for finding all the objects in all levels.

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Among the several GameHouse games I’ve had the pleasure of playing so far, Arcane Arts series was probably one of my least favorite. However, its third installment, Sorcerer's Quest, completely changed my mind about it, as it turned out to be one of the most entertaining games of the franchise, not only in regards to the story but also in regards to the core concept of the game.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3339178355
In Arcane Arts, the magical coven is divided between those who practice Order magic (who cast spells based on formulas and logic) and those who are adepts of Chaos magic (who base their spellcasting on intuition and emotion). Because of the different nature of the magic they use, the relations between the two factions have always been tense. Erika (our protagonist) is caught in the middle of this conflict, at the brink of war. She is a student of the Order Academy whose dean is her grandmother, but also the daughter of the Chaos Extremists group led by her father. Additionally, she is proficient in both Order Magic, as well as in Chaos Magic, although she tries to hide her skill for the latter. The game starts with Erika being wrongfully accused of collaborating with her father and being a spy for the Chaos Extremists. She is thus imprisoned and sent to trial in the Court of Magic, but with the help of her friends, she manages to escape before the verdict is released so that she can freely focus on saving the arcane world.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3339178274
The events from Arcane Arts: Sorcerer's Quest then mostly follow Erika and her friends in their quest to acquire three special artifacts needed for a ritual presumed to prevent the impending war. To retrieve these relics, the team will visit various parallel dimensions… which coincidentally are places encountered in other recently released GameHouse games. In other words, Arcane Arts: Sorcerer's Quest masterfully integrates crossover levels with Barbarous - Tavern Of Emyr, Elena's Journal - Unfinished Expedition and the main characters from Primrose Lake and Undercover series also make small cameos in some cutscenes. As someone who experienced all these games, seeing them come to life as part of a different series was really joyful.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3339178285
The gameplay is balanced a bit differently than most of the other games, although it maintains the same mechanics as usual. You will still play as different characters and fulfill customer orders, handing out the items or the dishes they require and in the end billing them. However, Arcane Arts: Sorcerer's Quest levels feel more intense because of the increased number of customers and the size of their offers. A lot of these levels feel like rush hour, and I sometimes had a hard time keeping up with all requests and optimizing my movement. On the other hand, the levels seem to be a tad shorter than usual, and the level objectives also seem to require fewer steps.

Due to all the crossover content making up over a third of the game, Arcane Arts: Sorcerer's Quest is a true delight for fans of SQRT3-developed GameHouse titles who already played their recent releases (from the past ~2 years). For those new to this universe, the characters you meet will still be interesting, but less flavorful than if you knew their backstories.

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Caravan SandWitch is a relaxing open-world adventure whose peaceful gameplay is focused mainly on exploration, solving light puzzles and interacting with the characters of the game world through dialogues and various quests. You take the role of a young girl called Sauge, who receives a distress signal from her sister's ship, six years after she mysteriously vanished from their home planet Cigalo. Sauge then decides to travel back to Cigalo to find the source of the signal and further investigate the circumstances of her sister's disappearance. Upon arrival, she finds the planet in a semi-apocalyptic state, with her family and friends being among the last survivors.

Caravan SandWitch’s gameplay consists mainly of exploring the wasteland of Cigalo in a cozy, rusty car-a-van and visiting every ruin to collect old computer parts or items needed for quests. The map is fairly small, and after a couple of hours of gameplay, you will have already become familiar with it like the back of your hand. However, the progression is heavily gated by the upgrades you can buy for your van, which obviously require a certain amount / type of computer parts to craft. Thus the gameplay loop boils down to visiting the major locations more or less every time you get a new upgrade (which happens 3-4 times in the game) that allows you to go one level further into the ruins. They’re designed in a linear way, making it very easy for the player to know where to go or what floors are blocked by not having unlocked a certain upgrade yet. The computer parts to collect are very abundant and found everywhere on the map, even outside ruined locations too (thus there will be no grinding for those), yet scattered in a way that motivates you to progressively visit new places. There’s some light puzzling involved in some locations, where you will need to press a button to activate doors and open new paths, but there’s nothing complicated about it, nor anything requiring deep logic.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3338514525
The gadgets you can unlock for your van are very fun to use. Aside from a radar that will highlight all collectible components, doors, generators and other essential game elements within an area around the player, you will further unlock a grappling hook that can be attached to poles located on higher platforms, thus creating a zip line for you to slide up there. This will also be used to uncover hidden containers in the sand or to pull down doors, Mad Max style. With further van upgrades, you will be able to hack platforms and communication terminals, allowing you to read the secret messages that Sauge’s sister tried to send to Cigalo.

The story slowly unravels as you explore the planet and its abandoned compounds. It’s a sci-fi story that has an environmentalism theme at its core, as Cigalo’s now-arid habitat proves to be the result of human resource exploitation. The “SandWitch” in the title refers to the fact that Sauge’s every step is monitored from afar by an enigmatic creature presumed to belong to the controversial Sand Witches faction.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3338514503
The peaceful vibe of Caravan SandWitch is given not only by the lack of combat but also by the interactions with the NPCs and their own stories filled with nostalgia. Aside from humans, two races live on the planet in harmony with the nomads, and their own narratives, shared as they prepare to soon become extinct, will also tug at your heartstrings. Everything here is topped up with an outstanding soundtrack, bound to stir up even more emotions inside you.

To fully complete Caravan SandWitch will take you around 12h-15h. While there is no requirement to collect all computer parts available, some of the achievements are extremely missable. The game offers a few very nice QoL features, such as returning to the van or the garage with a button press from any location, however, there’s nothing that can help players with these missable achievements. The hardest to obtain are the ones requiring you to use all the springboards and to visit all locations. These are indicated on the map, but not highlighted in any way when you visit them. More so, some locations are quite hidden even if they’re visible on the map (or reachable only by foot) and the game doesn’t naturally send you there through its storylines. It’s quite difficult to track these without any outside help, some of them also being very small. Having a check mark applied on the map whenever you use a springboard or visit a location would be a tremendous improvement. Without it, I ended up spending an extra 3 hours aimlessly roaming around, revisiting every visible spot on the map and while the game was a very pleasant experience for me, this last bit was quite infuriating.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3338513295
I would compare Caravan SandWitch either to Lake (although Lake is mainly about driving your van to deliver packages) or to Death Stranding, although the latter is much more complex. It's certainly a very chill and easy game, that I would warmly recommend to fans of cozy games and wholesome stories.

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The second installment of GameHouse’s Secret Diaries time management series is set in the same universe as its predecessor, Secret Diaries: Manage a Manor, but centers its story around a different character, while also preserving the main cast from the first game. Secret Diaries: Manage a Manor tells the story of Jane Ashford coming to Red Orchard to find a husband before the end of the season to fulfill the terms of her uncle’s will and thus receive her promised inheritance, but eventually finding love instead and giving up on everything else.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3330032228
Secret Diaries - Royal Wedding is told from the perspective of Emily (to not be confused with the Emily from the Delicious series) - Jane’s maid who she befriends in the first game because of their similar backgrounds and dreams. Emily is tasked with dealing with all the issues that come up during the preparation of Jane’s wedding, while also trying to find her place in high society. As Jane’s maid, she is treated by the majority of the guests as an errand girl, but as a close friend of Jane, she expects to be asked to be her bridesmaid, which might not be appropriate due to her commoner status. The obstacles she encounters are made even more difficult due to her not being in a position of power, thus not being taken seriously or in any way as a priority. Compared to other GameHouse games, the inner struggles of the protagonist seem intensified and more clearly fleshed out. But, as it is still a GameHouse game, the story maintains a constant heartwarming vibe and soon enough Emily receives some well-deserved support from two kind characters and also falls in love.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3330032147
In regards to the gameplay, Secret Diaries - Royal Wedding has the exact same mechanics as any other GameHouse game. You’ll play as different characters, fulfilling customers’ orders and billing them. However, the gameplay seems to be comparatively easier than other similar games, both in regards to how many orders you’ll have to deliver in each level (the “rush” factor), as well as how comfortable your pathing is. More so, only one of the locations (in fact, only some levels from that location) contains a dish that requires timed preparation, while in other games there is usually at least one (often two) of these in each location. The “Normal” mode here plays like the “Easy” mode in similar games, which makes Secret Diaries - Royal Wedding a very relaxing experience. The achievements are also designed so that they can be obtained in a single playthrough without having to replay any level (to reach a certain number of minigames completed in one location, for example), as long as you make sure to find the mouse in each level, complete the level objectives and get the 3-stars score.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3330032252
If you haven’t played any GameHouse games before, Secret Diaries - Royal Wedding would be a good introduction to the franchise due to it being easier than others. You won’t need to have played Secret Diaries: Manage a Manor beforehand; although the stories of the two games connect, they can be experienced individually from each other, and in the second game you’ll get the plot from the first game explained anyway, as a refresher.

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Home Snatch is a very short horror walking simulator about a Bulgarian gang kidnapping people from their homes for gruesome purposes. You are one of their victims, trying to escape their capture. There are some very mild jump scares and a couple of gory scenes, but it's overall quite friendly to people who enjoy mainly light horror games.

Currently, only the first four chapters are implemented, totaling around 30 mins of gameplay. The graphics are simple yet pleasant, and the cutscenes are quite nice. In the current release, the story doesn't conclude at the end of the fourth chapter. Instead, the game ends with a "to be continued" note, promising future content to be released. A walkthrough for the existing content has already been made available by the developers (Part 1 & Part 2 & Part 3).

Home Snatch has five in-game achievements, all story-related (no missables). These will hopefully be implemented as Steam achievements in the future, but there's currently no information about whether this will happen or not. For a 30-minute game, I find the $4 asking price a bit too steep, but perhaps it was set that high to cover future content too.

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