Games

Games I Played in January 2022

Games

I was gifted a Backbone for Christmas, which is essentially a controller that attaches to your phone. Along with providing better controls when playing on my phone, the Backbone also came with a month of Xbox Gamepass, which has provided me access to a number of indie and small games that I might not have been able to play otherwise. It’s been a great month of games.

Pentiment is a narrative-driven adventure game from Obsidian Entertainment. Set in 16th century in the fictional town of Tassing, Bavaria, the game centers on Andreas Maler, an illuminator (artist) working at the local Abbey. When a murder of a prominent noble occurs, Andreas begins an investigation in the name of helping a friend. The player is able to wander around the town, interviewing various characters in an attempt to get at the truth — despite the fact that there never seems to be enough time and the answers seem hard to unravel.

Pentiment (2022, Obsidian Entertainment)

One of the many things that makes this game so compelling to me is how it presents various perspectives on the truth (eliminating any clear objectivity) and how it deals with the passage of time. As the title hints at (a pentiment is an underlying image or forms that have been painted over), the “truth” is often a layering of stories and time.

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Games I Loved Playing in 2022

Games, Review

Over the past year or so, I’ve been trying to reach outside of my comfort zone and play a greater of variety of games. In addition to my usual RPG, puzzle platformer, and adventure games, this year, I also dipped my toes into the roguelike, community management, and simulation genres. Expanding in this way has led to some amazing discoveries in terms of gameplay and the ways in which games can tell stories — and I’ve found some new favorites along the way.

As of writing this, there are a couple of games I’m currently playing that might have made the list, if I was closer to completion, including Somerville and 2018’s God of War. They may just end up on next year’s list.

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Exit Veil Blends Horror, Science Fiction, and the Occult in a Dark New JRPG

Games, Journalism

Surreal labyrinthine dreamscapes filled with strange, ethereal entities await in Exit Veil, the latest game from Cherrymochi Studio. Recently announced through Kickstarter, the game is said to be a “darkly psychedelic JRPG” with a fully integrated tarot deck.

Cherrymochi is an independent game studio based near Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 2014 by Jon Williams (penname Imazato) and run by an international team of developers, the studio Kickstarter funded its first game, Tokyo Dark, which was launched in 2017. Presented with a 2D anime art style, Tokyo Dark is a mystery horror game that blends visual novel elements with a point-and-click adventure.

With Exit Veil, Cherrymochi is taking on an even more ambitious project, moving from 2D to 3D format and opening up the gameplay with RPG mechanics and turn-based combat. 

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Games I Loved Playing in 2021

Games I Loved Playing in 2021

Games, Review

I feel like I’ve completed more games in 2021 than I have in the entire last decade, and most of those games occurred in the last few months of the year — partially initiated by the Game Writing Master Class that I took, which inspired me to explore gameplay from a new point of view.

In general, I’ve found that games provide a unique escape from the day to day grind, whether its the heart-pounding exploration of a horror game to the delightful antics of a more relaxing puzzler. Out of all the games that I completed, here were some of my favorite experiences.  

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