demo-a-day

right off the bat, i knew i would be interested in this game because it features polyamory, but i'd honestly totally forgotten about that when i opened up the demo to play. without the promise of a non-monogamous protag, what else was there? a whole lot! i enjoyed this demo from start to finish. a fun, snarky protag, plenty of enjoyable characters to go along with him, a unique tarot-like mechanic... what's not to love?

in pivot of hearts, you play as wén xiàn (usually called wen), a game programmer in brazil. the studio he works for is hard at work on a new game, and on weekends he's started playing dungeons and dragons for the first time in a while. it's called something else, but i already forgot what that was. he's making new friends with the new art director and reconnecting with old ones. all the characters are super endearing!

to make choices, rather than skill checks, this game utilizes a simple tarot-based system. you start out with one of each suit of cards and you can gain more depending on certain options you pick. certain options also require you to spend some of your cards. the game explains this right off the bat, though you can skip it if you've played before, then showcases the system with a memory-based dream sequence. i thought this was pretty effective; it's simple and doesn't take too much time, and the dream also gives you a glimpse into wen's character. in high school, he was struggling with some kind of relationship; the demo never explains if this was a romantic partner who was monopolizing all his time or perhaps someone who was struggling and needed his help. either way, he wasn't honest about it with his friends, which put a strain on his other friendships. i'm sure the full game expands on this, but the glimpse i got already said quite a bit.

the game is mostly pretty realistic in setting and tone, but the demo ends off with another dream sequence - this time a very strange one. in it, wen has to fight off the slime queen from the game he's working on. everything is heavily distorted and glitching out. it's super surreal and i liked it quite a bit! i imagine there'll be quite a bit of that in the full game as well.

another small tidbit i appreciated was that, when it makes specific references to brazilian culture that others might not get, it highlights them and explains them when you hover over them. i thought that was really cool! it allowed me to both understand the game better and learn a little more about brazil without taking me out of the experience.

this game is definitely worth a buy! once i get paid, it's going in my cart. i highly recommend giving the demo a shot! it's on sale as of writing this, so don't be afraid to take a look!

this game was more impressive than i initially thought it'd be. it has such a silly premise that i wasn't expecting much, but that's my mistake. in plastic trick, you play as serena brightmore, a shopaholic who spends every weekend at the mall. one day, you find that some of the mannequins are coming to life and trying to romance you?!?

this is an entirely goofy premise, but the game plays it surprisingly straight. the mannequins all have distinct personalities and i can tell they're bound to get more fleshed out as the game goes on. the writing doesn't have the same kind of silly tone you'd expect from a game like this; rather than loading the game up with fourth wall-breaking nods to how weird and crazy the idea is, it's taken seriously. i really appreciated this! i don't mind stuff like that, but it's honestly funnier when the game isn't taking time that could be dedicated to story with wink-wink-nudge-nudging the audience, not to mention the fact that it gives us the opportunity for a more genuine story.

this game has three love interests: ettore, a buff, haughty man who speaks like he's from another planet; velvet, a fashion-forward woman stationed at serena's favorite store; and midnight vaden, a mannequin modeled after a movie star with a big ego. velvet is my favorite by far, but i ended up on midnight's route the first time. to determine what path you take, you go shopping every day. different items will fill up different characters' progress bars. a good sale will fill up serena's progress bar. i'm not feeling the best tonight, so i only played a couple days past the first one. rather than following a linear story from day to day, the routes i ended up on determined how the night of the common route ended.

this game was a blast! i'm definitely getting the full thing when i can. i'm intrigued about each mannequin and i want to see where their stories lead. if you like games with silly premises that aren't too preoccupied with joking about how weird they are, definitely check this one out!

this was a pretty fun one! you play as a janitor on an airship that's just begun its first flight. the message at the end of the demo suggests there may be some murder in the final game too...? exciting. the game starts off with you going to a lesbian bar with your coworker biff, who insistently refers to herself as an ally. she thinks it means a girl who likes girls. this game is so silly.

as far as i can tell, there are three love interests. you get started on the route you want basically right away. i started off talking to shi, a beautiful masked woman with an air of mystery. you share several drinks together, and she says if you drink ten you can see what's under her mask, but i didn't drink the tenth drink. i would have... but the final choices were all gibberish. i was just too drunk. no cutscene for me, but that's okay because i can always go back and play again.

my next choice was leba, who is my alternate evil self. she's pretty sensitive about this, but that's fair because apparently evil selves get a lot of flack. we made out in the boiler room, but i made one too many social faux pas and she took off in a huff. unfortunate, but hopefully i can make it up to her in the full game.

then i talked to alex. she's a nerdy maintenance worker for the airship and she romanced me by playing an old video game for me. she's obsessed with a character called oomfie, which is a silly name but a relatable sentiment. we snuggled while she played and then we chatted until we passed out. shi may be my favorite design-wise and i love her mystery, but alex's route was definitely the sweetest. i love them.

all in all, i like this game! it has a weird, quirky sense of humor that won't appeal to everybody - i remember there was a point near the beginning where i was rolling my eyes a bit - but it's a good time. i'll probably get the full game at some point, but since i'm a bit short on money at the moment and there are a few games i have my eye on i'll probably have to save it for later.

also i was totally gonna play 2-3 demos today but i'm watching my friend play hollow knight and we're in some deep shit so it's just one demo today. more tomorrow though!

sorry for the lack of updates! i've been in a huge slump lately. luckily, the arrival of the fall in love visual novel festival on steam has pulled me out of it. it's hosted by studio elan, known for their wonderful yuri games that i... unfortunately have not played a lot of! i think most of them are on sale for this festival, though, and i know some of them have demos too, so expect to see at least one game by them here.

today's first game is celestia. it's a really pretty visual novel starring aria (name changeable), the daughter of an angel and a demon. on her 18th birthday, she gets an invitation to celestia academy, a school of magic for angels and demons - or angelus and daemon, as they call themselves. i didn't get far in this demo since i wanted to play multiple demos today, but i really enjoyed what i played!

the characters are all pretty cute and entertaining. aria has a great rapport with her family, which is always nice to see. i like the surrounding lore of the story, too, though i was initially confused about what kind of time period it takes place in. visually, it all seems to veer toward historical, but then when aria is leaving for celestia academy her brother fynn mentions cell phones. maybe i just assumed it was historical because they were dukes and duchesses? the general costuming of the characters gives off a high fantasy vibe. cell phones apparently cannot be used at the academy, though, so i probably won't see a lot of modern tech either way.

my only real critique so far is that the writing is sometimes a bit redundant. the narration has a habit of saying "they reacted to the thing that just happened" a lot. for example, when fynn gets huffy about something, it says "we all laughed at his reaction" when i feel like "we all laughed" would have sufficed. that might just be a me thing, though.

all in all, a great demo! i'll definitely be playing the rest of it. i'm excited to see what the rest of the festival has in store! (i write these immediately after playing the game so i don't lose my train of thought haha, so i haven't played anything else yet.)

i told you you'd see a studio elan game here! though it's not developed by them, just published by them. still. twofold is about a college student, olive, who's struggling not to flunk out. they're given the option to take either an art or an english class to help boost their gpa, and end up getting caught between two rivalling friends and their clubs. the demo is split up into segments - one an exclusive demo story, and the rest all parts of the prologue.

this game is sooo good so far but man did the first part prologue stress me out. i also struggled with college for a while and i completely related to olive's struggles. i was dying when they called their mom to tell her about their gpa. i mean this all with a lot of love, though. it's great when a game can make you feel something, even when that something is dread. at least their mom was chill about it.

every character is a delight, from the main four to the side characters. right away you get a good feeling of their personalities and relationships. olive is a hard worker, but they struggle to believe in themself. caprice is boisterous and cheery, though later scenes show she can be pretty mean when she tries. millie is the calmer of the two club leaders, carrying more of an air of... not quite sophistication, but she carries herself in a way that suggests something similar. hayley is clearly caught between the two, hoping that her friends can reconcile.

all in all, i highly recommend this. i only didn't finish the demo because my friend started streaming and i wanted to watch. i'm excited to see where this story goes and i really hope i can help caprice and millie work things out!!!

this was an interesting one. muse is a game about an artist struggling with self-doubt where you navigate surreal scenes representing her subconscious. this may involve a full minigame, or it may just involve clicking around. the description of the game promises puzzles, but the demo doesn't have any. the minigame the demo did have... just did not work for me.

you see that painting there? it loses its color, and you have to recolor it while fending off ghosts. this is one of the most annoying things i have ever done in a game. it's not hard in theory, but the paintbrush only holds enough color for two clicks while each part of the painting takes several. taking out a ghost uses up your entire color. it took me a bit to figure out the right strategy for fending them off so my work kept getting erased before i could get anywhere. i did not have fun. i can see what they were going for - self-doubt, low self-esteem, and cruel words sap you of motivation and strip your world of color and joy - but it just didn't work for me. most of my time in this demo was spent on this minigame.

the rest of it was fine. despite also being an artist that struggles with believing in myself, i didn't really connect with the story or have any strong feelings about it. that could just be a consequence of the demo being so short, though; you don't get a lot of time with clara or her feelings. after the painting minigame, you take a look at some memory fragments and see clara in her studio. this was really cool visually, but it was so short!

despite my negativity, i don't think this is a bad game at all. it has its merits, and i can really see what they're aiming for. i think it has the potential to say some really profound things about creation. i want to like it, but it's not clicking with me. i probably won't be getting the full game when it releases, but it's still worth taking a look at it yourself! you might resonate with it more than i did. you may like the painting minigame. try it and see!

my original plan was to cover a different game, but i don't think i'm going to see all that demo has to offer tonight, so i decided to look at this demo too. my girlfriend played this game a long time ago, but i don't remember what she thought of it. the characters are certainly unique, by which i mean they're completely fucking weird. that's the whole point, though, and i love that for them. my favorite guys are marshmallow, the rudeass kid who loves food, and saeki, my classmate that can't say a coherent sentence. the writing in this game is pretty simple, but it works.

i didn't get much of a handle on the plot during my playthrough, and the steam page doesn't give many more clues on what it's meant to be. it's kind of like a weird slice-of-life but i get the feeling there's going to be a bit more to it later down the line. whatever's going on here, it's really interesting.

i'll probably play more of the demo before i decide if i want to buy it, but i'm intrigued! i love the pixel art style (of course) and the characters are just so weird that i want to hear them talk more. give it a look if you like zany characters!