Recent reviews by E.M.J. ㋛

Stuttering, language errors and very amateurish voice acting with seemingly no direction aside, I found myself to be surprisingly drawn in by the story. A cozy horror mystery more than a jump scare cavalcade, short and sweet, lots of mini puzzles for the first part and mostly walking sim by the end. Felt inspired both visually and storywise, despite aforementioned huge flaws.

Only major downside for me personally was a piano puzzle that I have no idea how you were supposed to figure out on your own, unless maybe you can play the piano for reals? Oh, and at times the music felt a bit like it played 2 layers over each other. Oh, and also the layout of the main house was infuriating in terms of wasted living/storage space!

Otherwise it was pretty cute and I don't recognize the assets.

BEST SPOT THE ANOMALIES GAME UP TO THIS POINT. PERIOD.

Superb atmosphere, nice environmental storytelling (if simplistic), and the anomalies feels fair. It also has the benefit of no repeated anomalies in one single playthrough, which really helps keep track of things. You can tick boxes off as you play, once starting to recognize them. Also, there are both visual/audio surprises as well as actual threats to the player, something that caught me off guard in a positive way when first encountering them. Like wow, the designs of events are inspired!

I love it, such a cozy horror game for Halloween. <3

Slight spoilers but the basic premise of the game I think it obvious. Creepy dolls, right? As of this review the game was basically just released and some patches to sort things out have allready been released. But as it stands right now, it is a bit buggy and yanky, so keep that in mind.

I had one fatal crash, and there are only save points betweeen chapters so you have to replay whole chapters when crashing to desktop. Apart from that some of the directives are a bit confusing to interpret correctly which leads to frustation. For example, I was instructed to pack and send a doll that moved on its own to be inspected. Out of all the different ways the dolls might move on their own, which one is the correct in *this* instance? There's some trial and error involved in order to get things right.

Likewise I had items never show up in my shop that were needed for a certain ending. I thought maybe items you can't afford won't show, but I had loads of cash and from the very start of the game you can see a list of items that are grayed out when you don't have the funds for them yet.

There's also some weird phrasings, like a machine "doesn't require" a doll (like it only required, say, the clothes) when a better line would be "this is not the requested doll", and "press spacebar to skip" when it should be "press spacebar to continue". A small thing, but still.

I *love* the concept and the gameplay loop with the variations to each day. But, yeah, it's a little yanky in its current state. Hope it gets perfected!

So, in the fresh genre of no-ventures, I mistankingly assumed this was a simple rip off of Negative Nancy. But it turns out this was made before that, or at least released before Nancy on Steam. Though the basic idea of the power of saying no is the core theme in both, they are still different enough in style and execution that they both are interesting in their own right. That is, if you are fan of this kind of whacky silly humour and distinct exaggerated art style.

The gameplay is alot like a rail shooter, but you blasting peoples demands or suggestions with nos of different categories and powers rather than with a gun. Or you can let things play out without disagreeing, at least to a certain extent and in certain situations. You can also laugh at people, be ironically "mhm"-ing, etc.
There are checkpoints between chapters and they are thankfully rather short, snappy and to the point. There is a character creator of fitting size for this kind of project, it's not padded or overstaying it's welcome, BUT, some of the achievements are INSANE. I suspect they are a joke on the theme of the game itself, but considering the short run time and limited replay value, I think they are kind of mean toward completionists.

I have to say I was surprisingly moved by this in the end. Perhaps it was just a very fitting timing for me to play it when I did, but dayum, there's some poignant points conveyed rather nicely.

Well, I was just at the ending after the credits, and was like, "well well, A Freebird Game I didn't cry at". And then at a late line of dialouge my eyes just exploded with tears. Allthough "To the Moon" will remain my favourite in the series, I have to admit that Ken Gao is one of the best writers in modern time. It's just a fact.

If you're like me and it's been maybe a year or some between episodes you might want to refresh your memories and read up a bit about previous episodes characters for maximum effect.

Absolutely delightful rythm game with super cute art, fun humour and great music! It made me smile.

Well, there's no question it's one of the greatest games ever made.

When it comes to NSFW/adult games (though mind you, there is only 1 adult scene here and it is very tame as to not get in the way of the story too much I feel, but I also suspect this is more a proof of concept than a full fledged game, which is fine, it wasn't expensive to begin with) this is def one of the best ones I've played so far, top 3 no doubt.

It looks simply STUNNING and the human models are the best I've ever seen in this type of genre. I don't know if the dev created them and all assets himself (I doubt it) but either way they are utilized to their full potential, especially being a one man endevour.

What one critical player percieved as homophobic elements I read as character motivation, especially with the setting being in a clergy in the 1940's. I don't believe the creators intention was to say anything negative about any sexual orientation, certainly not with how sexualized both women and men are portrayed here, with even more lingering erotic shots of men than the one woman in the story. The male gaze is in full swing, bisexually, to my great joy.

The writing could be improved, especially with some spelling and grammar corrections, and the sound is a bit unbalanced. You can however tweak the effects/music and the voice overs in menu options which helps. As for story it is way way better and way more interesting than most in the genre. Very impressive.

Super relaxing. However when I last played it during Nov 2023 it was a bit hard to find all dirt left even with help. It might have been updated since then though and made a bit easier to identify. The cleaning and photographing game categories are one of my faves alternative to regular FPS shooters.

Loved it! Super relaxing and cute. I just missunderstood an achievement hence the play time. Not much replay value once you got all achievements.