planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~

planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~

Planetarian is set 30 years after a devastating war pretty much ended the world and follows the story of an unnamed man entering the ruins of a dangerous city looking for things to scavenge. Instead of supplies, he finds a friendly robot waiting with unwavering optimism for customers to return to the planetarium where she works. The story is rather bleak, but like other titles by Key, it is very moving and quite memorable.

Gameplay: Planetarium is a kinetic novel so there are no choices or branching paths, but although short and linear the story is very good.

Graphics: The visuals show their age with static backgrounds and limited sprites, but the overall art style is still good.

Sound: The game features full voice acting for both its primary characters and is accompanied by a melancholic soundtrack that is quite haunting

Days Gone

Days Gone

Roam around a post-apocalyptic Oregon as Deacon St. John, an ex motorcycle club member trying to survive the aftermath of a virus outbreak that turned the population into violent zombie-like creatures. Deacon lost his wife during the outbreak and the game picks up two years later as he goes on a crusade against the Freakers, bandits, and everyone else who gets in his way. While Days Gone features most of the cliches found in other open-world titles its compelling story, nailbiting combat, and beautiful environments make it worth playing through. It is also filled with enough additional content to keep players coming back for more.

Gameplay: With a large, beautiful map to explore and plenty of missions as well as sidequests there’s always something to do in Days Gone.

Graphics: The game looks incredible on PC and is filled with a lot of detail as well as really good mocap performances.

Sound: Sam Witwer steals the show as the voice of Deacon St. John, but the rest of the cast also delivers stellar performances and the rest of the audio lives up to expectations

Sweet Dreams Alex

Sweet Dreams Alex

Sweet Dreams Alex challenges players to use an array of objects and the terrain to their advantage to protect a small girl from nightmares. Using everything from switches and teleporters to playground equipment and even aquatic life, the goal is to prevent nightmares from reaching a slumbering Alex before the timer runs out. The game starts out simple, but later levels introduce a range of humorous and interesting items to keep the nightmares busy. With over 250 different puzzles and a built-in level editor Sweet Dreams Alex will keep players busy for ages and comes highly recommended.

Gameplay: Construct labyrinths using a small selection of objects to ensure that the nightmares heading for a young girl named Alex don’t reach her in time.

Graphics: The game features beautiful pixel art visuals and the six areas in the game all have unique themes.

Sound: The lofi soundtrack is a great match for the relaxing mood of the game and the ambient sound effects also enhance the experience

TOEM

TOEM

TOEM is a hand-drawn adventure game where players get to travel to various locations and perform good deeds that mostly involve taking photos. The monochrome visuals give the game a unique look and being able to switch between an overhead view and a first-person view is a cool touch. The game is very casual and relaxing, so younger players will enjoy the adventure but is also engaging enough to keep older players hooked.

Gameplay: Travel from one location to the next while snapping photos and helping out people in need.

Graphics: The combination of 2D and 3D elements along with the monochromatic visuals gives TOEM a unique and interesting look.

Sound: TOEM features a great soundtrack, humorous made-up voice-overs, and great ambient sounds

Save Room – Organization Puzzle

Save Room – Organization Puzzle

Save Room – Organization Puzzle builds an entire game around the inventory management system of games like Resident Evil 4. Players are given a limited amount of inventory space and several items that must be stored in the space. Initially, completing a level is as simple as rotating everything into the right spot, but later levels introduce new factors such as crafting ammo and healing items. It’s a relaxing game but will appeal to players who enjoy Inventory Tetris and not those who find it a chore.

Gameplay: Complete levels by rotating, crafting, and combining a variety of items to make sure that everything fits in the available inventory space.

Graphics: The visuals are very basic but functional and get the job done.

Sound: The music is decent, but the game only features one track that plays on every single level

Ravva and the Cyclops Curse

Ravva and the Cyclops Curse

Ravva and the Cyclops Curse is a 2D platform adventure that draws inspiration from the 8-bit NES era. Players must help a young summoner fight through ten levels of monsters to defeat the evil Cyclops that cursed their mother. Along for the ride are four summons that offer different abilities for Ravva to use. Some of these are more useful than others, but they add some variety to the gameplay. The game is very short but offers an entertaining experience while it lasts and should appeal to all retro fans.

Gameplay: Cycle through different summons while platforming through levels filled with traps and monsters.

Graphics: The visuals look authentically 8-bit, but despite the limited color palette everything remains clear and visible.

Sound: Each area only has one tune, but the music is upbeat and cheerful

Q-YO Blaster

Q-YO Blaster

Pick from an assortment of strange characters and save the Earth from an alien insect invasion in this quirky side-scrolling shooter. While the game only features ten levels, it has multiple modes, difficulty settings, special weapons, and characters to choose from. The 2D visuals look good, especially with the CRT filter enabled and the game offers a decent challenge while remaining accessible to newcomers. It does have some annoyances though, and the quality of the English translation leaves a lot to be desired.

Gameplay: Even with only ten levels the game features plenty of characters to choose from and the different modes as well as difficulty settings shake things up a bit.

Graphics: The 2D visuals look good thanks to some impressively large sprites and the characters as well as bosses are unique.

Sound: The soundtrack features a nice assortment of tunes and the sound effects capture the spirit of the genre perfectly

Pretty Girls Tile Match

Pretty Girls Tile Match

Pretty Girls Tile Match tackles the match-three genre and combines it with Mahjong titles and kawai anime girls. The game features 120 levels that increase in complexity with twenty levels allocated to each girl. A combo feature incentivizes players to make matches as quickly as possible, but the addition of help functions and difficulty options keeps the game accessible. While it doesn’t do anything extraordinary it is fun and addictive enough to recommend to fans of the genre.

Gameplay: Match three identical Mahjong tiles to remove them from the board and then continue to do so until everything is cleared.

Graphics: The character designs look great and overall the game is very bright and colorful.

Sound: The soundtrack is quite catchy and all six of the girls are voiced in Japanese

Ookibloks

Ookibloks

Help Ooki the Monkey retrieve his stolen bananas from some nefarious crabs in this classic action puzzler. The game was originally a mobile title but works well on PC and feels more like a long-lost arcade title than something that was designed for a touch screen. It has more than 100 levels to keep players busy along with daily challenges and a score attack mode. While not perfect, it is still an easy recommendation for fans of the genre, especially considering the price.

Gameplay: Pushing Ooki from block to block while gathering bananas and avoiding enemies is trickier than it sounds, especially when trying to get a perfect combo.

Graphics: The visuals are bright and colorful with cut designs for everything from Ooki to the enemies and bosses.

Sound: The soundtrack is very upbeat and catchy, which makes its inclusion as MP3 files within the game folder even better

Neon Chrome

Neon Chrome

Pick a clone and battle through the many floors of a skyscraper to reach the top and take down the evil Overseer in this top-down roguelike shooter. Players must deal with everything from assault drones and cyborgs to military robots and security guards, but fortunately, there’s plenty of firepower to unlock and cybernetic enhancements that can make the job easier. Neon Chrome features plenty of action, but the procedural levels can begin to look too similar after a while and the boss battles are somewhat uninspiring. Nevertheless, blowing up almost everything in sight while upgrading weapons and picking perks is a lot of fun and the game has plenty of replay value.

Gameplay: Battle through procedural levels while collecting loot and unlocking new weapons and perks.

Graphics: The visuals look good and the game fully embraces its cyberpunk aesthetic, but levels look very similar after a while.

Sound: The synthesizer-heavy soundtrack and combination of gunshots and explosions enhance the experience