Aimlessly Going Forward

blog by Tomas Sedovic

Games Played in 2024

video-game, retrospective

Table of Contents

The theme of "Tomas has no time for games and especially no solid chunks thereof" unsurprisingly continued. But I did manage to find some time regardless.

Telling Lies

A white woman lying in bed apparently talking to someone on the phone. The subtitles say: "And she's right, that's what's so infuriating"

I have not actually played Telling Lies on account of it being essentially unplayable.

However, I was invested in the characters and so I found an edit on youtube that played the videos side-by-side (as the game should have let you).

And it’s good! Great acting, I’ve enjoyed the whole story, went places I hadn’t expected.

This would have been a fantastic game if it were…​ you know…​ playable.

(maybe it’s just me who struggled so hard there?)

(Steam page)

Slay the Princess

A princess (woman with a crown, long hair, long dress) lying on the floor. Her right hand is chained and touching her chest where a dagger is buried. She's saying: "Do you actually believe this was enough to kill me?"

Lovely little horror VN by the Black Tabby Games (them of Scarlet Hollow). Played it a good bunch times, enjoyed it a lot.

It is gruesome and scary, but more weird (in a good, fascinating way) than actually frightening.

Definitely fun, but can’t wait for new Scarlet Hollow episodes.

(website, review)

OPUS: The Day We Found Earth

A sci-fi science station with a huge display showing the galaxy and multiple smaller displays and work stations. Two characters are standing in the room, one is a semi translucent woman all in blue (a hologram) with a white lab coat and a small levitating robot called Emeth. Emeth is asking: "What happened to the ship?"

This is a nice little narrative game about a cutesy little robot on a mission to find Earth, centuries after humanity left it.

It’s about 80% visual novel with bits of gameplay where you scan galaxies to look for planets similar to what the databases and myths said Earth would be like.

You talk to your creator to learn why humanity’s looking for Earth again and what happened. It’s a sweet short melancholic little story. Can and should be played in one sitting.

I’ve played it on the iPad and found that the planet exploration and space travel part of the story was barely interactive at all only to find out, that on the PC, those sections are a bit more involved and puzzly.

This isn’t a strong rec, but it’s a lovely little game providing nice change of pace.

(website)

Thumper

A neon-lit rail is extending to a seemingly infinite distance. There is a metallic beetle on the rail, lit by the light, sparks flying where it touches the railing on both sides.

I absolutely adore Thumper. It is metal, violent, anxiety inducing, but when you get in the zone, it’s calming and delightful.

The music is amazing and the game looks great.

I’ve picked it up again at the beginning of the year and spent wonderful two weeks with it.

However, what this game wants (demands) is some dedicated regular play time. You can’t just dip in and out or you’ll lose your ability to play it and pretty much have to re-learn everything (or at least I do).

This is fun, but also frustrating: I want to either progress in the game, or get better so I can flow through the earlier levels, enjoying the feeling of mastery.

After putting it down for a few days, I get nothing and need to start from the beginning to build the ability up again. You need to keep playing to build and maintain a momentum.

And that’s not something I can actually dedicate time to these days.

But it is a wonderful game that in another situation I’d be all over.

Thumper plays wonderfully on the Steam Deck.

(website, previous thoughts)

Baldur’s Gate III

A black woman with short curly ashen hair and purple highlights, dressed in leather armour has her eyes closed and hands raised as if experiencing a terrible headache. The caption says: "Narrator: As you wake, the tadpole squirms in your skull."

This took most of my game playing time this year and I genuinely worried I won’t be able to finish it before the went by.

But I did and the game is absolutely fantastic. But it is way too long.

I’d love to see what Larian do next, but I genuinely don’t think I’ll be able to pick it up.

(website, review)

Life is Strange: Double Exposure

A white woman with shoulder-length brown hair with red tips, wearing a purple winter hat and coat with a hoodie underneath. She looks dreamy. Subtitles say: "Max: Urban exploration is kind of my thing. I can't see a busted old place and simply not go into it."

The last game I’ve played in 2024. Had a week-long vacation scheduled for December and basically played an episode a day. It was perfect.

Perfect as in the situation was great, not the game itself.

I liked it, but it’s definitely got issues. Which, to be fair, is true for every Life is Strange game.

Being back with Max felt great, but the absence of Chloe (forced upon the game because the team decided to let both endings of the original game stay) was jarring.

Still though, I’ve definitely enjoyed it and I’m happy the game exists.

(website, review)

Done With

Won’t Even Think About Playing

Any AAA RPG. And basically anything that’s over 20 hours long is out of the question pretty much. I’ve burned so much time on Baldur’s Gate III and I’m burnt out on long games. They can be fun, but I just can’t fit them in my current schedule.

And even if I do pick one, it’ll take over the year and I won’t get to a ton of smaller games I’d really enjoy too.

Plus, Mass Effect 5 (or whatever they’re going to call it) will come out at some point and I will definitely want to play that and it will be a huge.

So goodbye to:

Next

Screenshot and link to the website for the Dose Response game

Hi! I wrote a game! It's an open-world roguelike where you play an addict called Dose Response. You can get it on the game's website (pay what you want!), it's cross-platform, works in the browser and it's open source! If you give it a go, let me know how you liked it, please!