Cats vs Pickles: Cows vs Aliens… but Puppies vs Squeaks too??

3 / 7 / 233 / 17 / 23

I was recently made aware of a specific excerpt in the February 2023 edition of the Big Toy Book which I have highlighted below:

And while I had been already aware of Cows vs Aliens and had been waiting for the first reveal of them (as I know they were shown to investors already at this point), I don’t think anyone was aware of the reveal of Puppies vs Squeaks as well.

I still don’t entirely know how to feel about Cows vs Aliens, which may be partially because I feel like everything in the Versus World is already way too much to keep up with without adding new series to the moniker. I only have a couple of Kittens I’m still trying to get (Lil Gumbo and Lil Moo, where art thou?* T~T) which I’m hoping to finish up before new releases, but even then, I have no idea when the next batch Gold Wave will drop either. There’s also still the matter of various Beans that were added to the Gold Wave sheet on the website before being removed– my personal theory is maybe a second batch of the Blue Striped Wave. Only a guess though.

*I know what stores they’re stocking in. Those stores are just not around here.

Regardless, Cows vs Aliens do look very cute and I’m already tempted at least by these three. But I also am curious about the Cow right above the Alien in the middle too:

As for the Puppies, I already am really excited to see more of them. I love Dogs so much and so the Puppies really calling out to me is not a surprise (though, my Wallet is less excited). If I also narrowed it down to three, I would say these are the biggest ones for me:

I’m also really curious about the Puppy to the right of the Pink Squirl (It reminds me of Alice, who is my favorite of the Dogs). Lil Brenda and Lil Hazel (the bottom left and bottom right respectively) also look very cute. With the catalog out, I hope maybe more pictures can be shared of the ones we can expect in the first batches of each… If only to keep track of the ones I want ahead of time.

It’s just crazy to think these are coming out this Summer alongside likely more batches of Gold Wave and also, one of Cepia’s newest lines of plushies, Pop Art Soft, is getting their second animal this Summer as well: Turtles!

I haven’t spoken about Pop Art Soft too much here yet, partially as I wanted to do so along with my Collection video update (which has been… taking a while– it’s hard finding a shelf that works with the Condos), but for those unaware, they’re cute Elephants (and well, eventually Turtles).

If you really like the feeling of the Cats vs Pickles, but wanted something a bit more proportionally weighted than how the Jumbos are, I’d highly recommend checking out Pop Art Soft. There’s three sizes: Mini (About the same size as a regular CvP Bean), Mighty (About CvP Jumbo size, slightly smaller), and Mammoth (Not as big as huggers, but fairly big and soft):

Can you tell who my favorite is? :P

I have various Minis, 1 Mighty, and 1 Mammoth… But you may notice three others that are a bit bigger than the one Mighty. Those are the retired size that was only available through the Soft Launch: Jumbo which is about an inch or so bigger than the current Mighty Size. You could get them either through the Lake Zurich Learning Express (which does take phone orders, but I don’t believe many, if any, art left) and CvP’s Official Store Front which is currently down for maintenance and only had a small selection. These are also the only places currently carrying one of the Mammoth Designs– Sugar. That said, if you happen to be going to Planet Comicon in Kansas City, Cepia will have an Exhibitor’s Booth there and the Jumbo size for sale as well.

Considering their MSRP (5$ for Minis, $10 for Mighty, $20 for Mammoth), I feel like what you get is very much worth it, though Minis are unfortunately through Blindbags only. Despite that, I am impatiently wanting this new Mini that was shown in the magazine as well:

As for the Turtles, I will say I don’t know if I like their design as much as the Elephants, but I am absolutely in love with this Turtle design at least and if nothing else, I definitely will be picking up this one:

I think this one also looks pretty neat:

Also in the magazine was a sneak peek of another new species to Pop Art Soft: Giraffes! (And confirmation that yes, more animals are to come)

I think I like the plush base better for the Giraffes, but not sure if any design jumps out at me just yet… Maybe the smallest one. I like the Mini Sundae Turtle too.

Anyway, are you excited for Cows vs Aliens and/or Puppies vs Squeaks? Are you overwhelmed by how much is coming out when there’s still so much already that hasn’t yet? All of the above? Do you like Pop Art Soft? Are you Team Elephants, Turtles, or Giraffes? Let me know! I think I’m mostly excited… but also still very stressed.

I will say I am working on something though that will hopefully make things at least a bit overwhelming… Or at least it will for me.

Accessibility shouldn’t be a Punishment

2 / 21 / 23

This is something I think about a lot, as someone who generally doesn’t play games for the challenge. It doesn’t mean I can’t or necessarily have the inability to, but a combination of various factors such as:

I need to focus on something relaxing/engaging without the stress
I’m not feeling well, but really want to continue the story of a game or progressing in general
This is a type of content I struggle with or just do not enjoy doing to the point of it being a huge detriment to my enjoyment when I truly do adore everything else.

Too often getting a Hint can penalize you. Using a certain power-up or mode can make you ineligible to finish or unlock certain endings. Assist mode may help, but your save file will always have a mark saying you had to use it. It’s essentially giving you a permanent demerit for something that only you will see anyway. The most frustrating part is games will advertise this accessibility and yet have that demerit on that you needed help and it’s just… permanently there. You can’t unlock everything and you are permanently prevented from accessing everything.

Sometimes, you can rectify it quickly by replaying the one section or level maybe you needed the extra help with, but other times you literally would have to restart from the very beginning or even wipe your save and as someone who doesn’t even replay things I enjoy, I’m not going to replay something in a way I wouldn’t even enjoy it just to have that proper ending or to not see some stupid mark on my save file saying how I didn’t play it the way the game wanted me to.

And that’s what gets me. If you want your game just for people who enjoy that challenge, who want that difficulty, fine! Cool! That’s great. But DON’T add those modes then. You can’t say you want your game to also appeal to others and set it up for that just to mark them in some way to say they aren’t good enough for the real thing or even lessen their rewards. A lot of the times, these are single player games or at least, there’s no big high score table linked to it (and honestly, high score stuff shouldn’t be linked to collectibles– most people interested in high scores are doing it for the challenge itself, not some in-game collectible and it’s obnoxious when they are stuck to these types of things, but I digress), so forcing these people who, for whatever reason, maybe can’t do the game or level or challenge at its normal difficulty or maybe made several mistakes along the way to be constantly reminded they weren’t good enough is just really obnoxious.

I don’t really know what started with calling people out for wanting to be able to play a game that makes it more comfortable for them. Nobody judges people who play hardcore or randomizer modes in games, but playing a game easier?? Limiting survival stats? Starting off with more money (Or heck, with Sims, giving yourself infinite)? You’re apparently ruining the game and not getting the full enjoyment value. People get enjoyment their own ways! Unless they do this and start complaining about the game being too short, which what did you expect then, there is no reason to judge people for wanting to play in a way that fits them better, whether it be a personal thing, a skill thing, or even just general life stuff that makes it hard to devote as much time to a game. If it doesn’t have an actual effect on other people and only applies to the person playing, I just don’t see the problem and why it has to constantly be such a fake compromise.

Either let the game actually be accessible to people who may have more trouble or don’t. Stop pretending you really want them to if you’re going to make them feel bad about it or force them to do it without that accessibility.

I especially want to give a big shout-out to Finji who I feel is one of a few companies that really went all out with just how accessible they COULD make their game. Chicory and Tunic both have quite a bit of fighting in them, and yet you can make yourself near immortal if you want. Heck, in Chicory, you can skip bosses altogether. And that doesn’t stop you from earning 100%. That doesn’t stop you from finding all the collectibles and secrets. It doesn’t hurt you at all and so if it’s something that you struggle with or stresses you out, you can actually pick those options with no caveats. You’re not permanently marked as someone who used easy mode. You’re just playing the game in a way that works for you and that’s so refreshing. I haven’t gotten Tunic yet, but knowing they have those options too has made me plan to even though it’s a game I would normally struggle with quite a bit due to those battles.

When it comes down to it, I just wish everyone shared this message.

Games should be enjoyed by as many people as possible. https://t.co/9t9nhTYVn1

— Finji (@FinjiCo) October 16, 2022

Not everything has to be a competition and someone having an easier time doesn’t take away others’ accomplishments. I hope in the future when more people consider Accessibility and Assist modes, they’re not taking away from your game. They’re just opening the door for more people to enjoy them when they normally wouldn’t be able to do so. And maybe one day, they will be able to work towards playing it the “normal” way, but they shouldn’t have to be penalized first to get there.

In a similar sense, if your game is relatively calm and relaxing and accessible until the last stage or a final area (whether optional or not), it runs under this same problem. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a challenge mode for people who want that, but I am saying that it absolutely doesn’t have to be the only option. A lot of people who want that challenge will DO it for that challenge alone. Just look how popular Pokemon Nuzlockes are.

But there is some silly idea that people who play more relaxing or casual don’t actually want to experience everything and that isn’t true. They just want to experience it in a way that is still fun and/or possible for them. And I wish people would realize letting everyone be able to have that chance is entirely possible without taking away their challenge mode which for most of the people doing that is rewarding in itself.

My favorite Demos from February 2023’s Steam Nextfest!

2 / 21 / 23

I was asked by a few people now which my favorites were and while I gave a short list on Discord, I figured I’d talk about it more here and what my favorite things were. This unfortunately got delayed a bit due to some health stuff, but many still have Demos up so I hope it’s still informative.

Before I start, I want to at least bring up a few things including 5 games that will NOT be listed in the extended part below, but are ones I’m just as excited for:

Any games where I’ve previously played the demo, even if I played the newer ones, I will not be talking about below. This essentially includes Mail Time and Shumi Come Home which are two games I’ve already said I’m quite excited for and that hasn’t changed. They did an adorable collaboration between each other with their demos this round so I still wanted to shout them out regardless.
Similarly, games I played previously that did not have demo updates like Mineko’s Night Market and Townseek! Still very excited for both. Townseek is a tricky one since I don’t believe I mentioned it above like the other games I’ve mentioned so far, but it’s because I actually played the Game Jam version back in 2021. I absolutely loved it and the new Demo with the full release announcement as well. JUST as excited for it, even though I don’t think I’ve spoken about it as much. Again, this is just due to having played the Game Jam version and my very specific rules or we would’ve had that most so much longer for all the games without release dates I haven’t tried yet.
And finally, any sequels. Like I adored Seaberry Keep and have very much been looking forward to the continuation, so I really enjoyed the demo for Chippy’s Escape, but like the above, I don’t really have more to say that I haven’t already. Still shouting it out though.
Any Demos where I didn’t really get to see any gameplay. I am still very much interested in SunnySide, but since the demo was just a Character Creator, it’s hard to say much about it just yet.

So, in short, I’ll only be focusing on games where either I hadn’t heard of them prior to this OR I haven’t gotten to try them before! Despite that, I actually downloaded 88 total Demos, including the ones I mentioned above, so I’m picking a handful of my most favorites, and ones I am most intrigued to see more from, in no particular order.

Steam Nextfest for February 2023 is unfortunately over now, but not all demos go away at the end so if any of these games interest you, definitely try and check to see if they are still available! Each link will go to my Playthrough of the Demo, but in each of the descriptions, you can find a link to the game’s steam page. And if they aren’t available, you can still wishlist them and keep an eye out as they often will rotate demos back in.

First up, A Tower Full of Cats! DevCats seems to have really found a groove with the ___ Full of Cats games they’ve been doing and I find it interesting how they have been weaving in a story to go with it. It’s one of the few games where the different poses haven’t really driven me nuts and I really appreciate that there is a hidden counter as well so you know how long you need to click around for. That said, the extra hidden items are a new layer of difficulty and I’m still angry at one particular bolt that decided the best place to be was outside the initial area. Either way, very excited for the game’s full release. The Demo is also still available!
Next, Pekoe! This is another one of those games where I’ve been following for a long time and I was so excited to see it finally get a Demo! I did run into a few bugs, but that didn’t make it less fun to play. The tea sets are so pretty. The Demo is also still available!
Coming from the same people who made Behind the Frame, another game that I really liked and also made me cry, is The Star Named EOS and while it ended on a rather ominous note that has me a little nervous to see what’s to come, I really want to see the journey unfold and enjoyed everything I got to do in the Demo and I can’t wait for the game’s release. I also hope it’ll end in a less bittersweet way than Behind the Frame did.
Arcade Party is very silly, but also really fun and you essentially play through various Mario Party-esque minigames to defeat enemies and it’s just… genuinely a lot of fun and done in a less intense way than other similar games can be. The customization is neat too. The Demo is still available!
Sound Hidden Forest is an adorable puzzle game where you have to interact with various things in the overworld in order to mimic back the song the bird is singing. Some are VERY tricky though and even items of the same type can sound slightly different. I have pretty good hearing and even I struggled on a couple. If it ever adds an accessibility mode (Such as adding a floating set of notes or the musical chord when interacting with something), I think that could help it find a lot more people too. The Demo is still available!
Moonlight in Garland was maybe one of the biggest surprises for me in the sense of games I didn’t expect to see at all. Something kind of refreshing is turning the usual “moving somewhere new” on its head a bit where instead of going to some idyllic village in the outskirts of nowhere, you’re actually moving to a city which is really neat. I DO WISH WE COULD’VE PICKED UP TRASH IMMEDIATELY THOUGH!!! XP Regardless, I had a lot of fun, even if I kept getting mercilessly lost, and am excited to see how the story goes and hope we can help everyone out despite where we stay. The Demo is still available!
In contrast to talking about the game that most surprised me, next up is another game I’ve been waiting on for a long time: Mika and the Witch’s Mountain. I don’t know, there’s something about flying around delivering things to people and helping them out. The Demo is a bit short, but I definitely really enjoyed what I played. I should probably finish Summer in Mara finally before the game releases though…
Going into more of a Puzzle focus, I want to bring up two that I’m really excited to see more from: Boxes: Lost Fragments and Puzzle Compound, both which I played along with my husband. We both really enjoy Escape Room and Puzzle Cube-esque games (and genuinely had been saying earlier this year how fun it’d be to have a game where you just open up Puzzle Boxes) and both were genuinely a lot of fun. I think my only critiques I mentioned in the description of my videos and those still stand, but definitely want to play more of both. Both Demos are still available: Boxes: Lost Fragments, Puzzle Compound.
Ribby: The Game is a very strange game, but I am very intrigued none the less and need to see how the story unfolds. I will forever be haunted by the photo I missed. On a positive note, I did get a Certificate! The Demo is still available!
Our final game on this list, The Empress Quest: Full Moons Saga! I can be really picky with Point & Click games where the cursor can have multiple modes (I find it a bit overwhelming and have trouble keeping track of what I did plus as someone who just loves doing EVERYTHING, having to suddenly click 3-4 times an item versus once gets really painful after a while), I really enjoyed this and I just really hope both Kobi and the Empress can get home safely. The Demo is still available!

I’m going to cut the list off there, but for those who have been wondering, here you go! There’s a few other games I debated adding as well, but I wanted to try and keep the list somewhat short. There were a lot of neat games though and I’m glad I got to try out so many neat things during the recent Steam Nextfest.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – It’s time for Update 3!

2 / 16 / 232 / 18 / 23

Update 3 is officially here!! As always, you can find my video playthrough over on Youtube as well.

First thing I ended up doing was checking out some of the new things. Seeing how many new recipes there were (Just one– Buñuelos. It’s made with Wheat, Cheese, Eggs, Milk, but you’ll also learn how to make it through Mirabel’s story). Unfortunately, as soon as I brought up the Premium Shop, my entire excitement died and my mood dropped as I saw the prices.

They’re bad. They’re really bad. Or more specifically, they are very expensive. The Star Path (the game’s mission/season pass) costs 2,500 Moonstones and usually has multiple furniture items, clothes, decals, etc. These packs are 3,000-5,000 for three pieces of furniture or a Premium House Skin which is… just… crazy to me? Like I don’t know how those prices were thought to be fair. To make matters even worse, the items rotate out after 5 days. And I was so worried when they decided to increase the daily moonstone price that the prices would be expensive, and yet this is still so much worse than I imagined.

I also can’t help but think from the POV of someone who gets the game free to play and like… What will 250 (assuming they find their daily chest each day– as mentioned, I suck at finding mine) get them? Nothing. The items will rotate out before they even have a fraction of the amount they need for anything.

I don’t even like everything from each pack, but you have to buy the bundle, and just… I don’t know what to do. I don’t really want to pay those prices, though I do have enough Moonstones due to having the Ultimate Edition, but I also don’t want to miss out on things due to the Collector side of me. I’d like to hope maybe they will reconsider these prices as I haven’t really seen anyone actually happy about them, but who knows when that could happen and the items could rotate out first. I don’t even mind buying things from time to time, but the value has to balance out and I can’t see how any of these cost more than the Star Path does. I was expecting 500-1,000 at most if it was on the higher end. I never expected over 3,000 at the lowest.

For those who don’t play, to give an idea of value, $5 of Moonstones is 1,200, $10 is 2,500 (The Star Path price), $20 is 5,500, and $50 is 14,500 which as usual with these things, the highest is the best value. It’s 15,005 for all four “packs” currently in the store. $50 isn’t even enough to cover that. You may still have enough if bought the Ultimate pack and have kept up with your Star Path rewards and Daily Moonstones, but it’ll still take up most of your reserves.

I don’t really have words for just how… incredibly disheartened I’ve been with the whole situation. I really hope they do something, but at the same time, I feel like anything that could be done won’t be quick enough before anything switches out. The trailer even showed more items that will clearly be in the Premium Store so plenty are planned, which isn’t surprising if they are rotating out every 5 days and we get game updates bi-monthly.

Moving onto actual story stuff and not feeling like I got backstabbed by the new series of microtransactions, the main story continued with Frosted Height’s now covered in a blizzard. Towards the back of the area, there was a locked door with some footprints.

Inside was Olaf and honestly, I feel awful that he’s just been trapped here waiting for us to find him. That’s really heartbreaking. It’s clearly been years, but who knows how long it felt in the Valley itself.

After getting back his nose and buttons from the Dark Squirrels, we just needed to find his arms. Meanwhile, we continue to see the Forgetting being evil. I still hate their outfit. And Elsa has some of her own advice to give to the situation. I’ll be honest, I’m bad at letting go of stuff in real life, let alone game me as well apparently.

To get his arms, we needed to reach through the portal as they were apparently still holding onto the Orb.

With Olaf’s arms returned to him, he was able to finally give us a warm hug and thanks to the power of ~~warm hugs~~ love, the Frosted Height’s Orb was rejuvenated. Honestly, I could use a Warm Hug in real life right now.

With the Orb now back to life, it was time to put it back in its pillar. It is very pretty. We also got our own little Dark Squirrel friend from Olaf so… I guess they really were playing with him? Maybe?

Now, it was time to find the other new character and to lead us there, a golden doorknob was found in Peaceful Meadows near one one of the ways down to Dazzle Beach.

While getting to work on this, I also had Olaf on to follow me so I could work on his friendship quests. He wanted to put on a play like he used to in order to make everyone smile. In the end, for whatever reason, he decided to make the play about our character’s story. Though, honestly, it seems to focus more on Donald and what happened in the Forest of Valor in the end. I also find it interesting we essentially got to make popcorn, but still can’t actually make it? (For anyone who needs a reminder of the recipe, it’s 2 Corn, Sugarcane, Butter, and Pure Ice.

Once I got through the latest part of Olaf’s quest, I got back to working on Mirabel’s and she finally returned along with the Mini-Casita… Or more accurately, the Mini-Casita decided to come back with Mirabel in tow. The Mini-Casita is absolutely huge, honestly. I think the only thing “mini” about it is that it only contains Mirabel’s room.

Before continuing with Mirabel’s storyline, I decided to finish up Olaf’s first. At least we got the stage after considering how many other quests just… take the items away and we never get to have them for ourselves.

It was then time to help out Mirabel and get her room set back up. During it, we had to do some things for our house as well, so I took advantage of the new door appearance feature. I really need to buy more of the door designs more. I initially thought changing it would not actually “use” the item, but I guess it makes sense it does.

While working on the Star Path stuff in-between everything, I also noticed Remy’s restaurant had gotten an upgrade. And yet, most of the tables continue to remain empty which is especially frustrating as I get super unlucky with the Star Path tasks this time around.

Despite the steady progress, I did hit a breaking point in the next step after finding the parts of the table. Essentially, I need to wait for Kristoff, Anna, and Elsa to finish fixing the table and Moana to finish working on the tablecloth to continue. I have no clue when this will be done (I would guess at least a day? Maybe?), but I’ll update this post later and put out a second video once that finally finishes.

As an aside, if anyone is struggling with finding things with Mirabel’s quest, I found Scrooge’s Key near the back of Anna and Kristoff’s house (buried, you have to dig for it) and the parts of the table had two partially buried that you had to dig up and two just laying around.

Meanwhile, the Potato mystery just got weirder. For one, there was a Red Potato in Remy’s house. I know some people are thinking maybe this is a way to get the Golden Potato without the code, but I don’t think the code has an expiration date so I don’t know if that is necessary.

But with one new Potato, we also found new steps for how to proceed with our Golden Potato… In Merlin’s house, you can see the book and multiple of these stone diamonds. There is one next to the book as well.

Going into the Cave on Dazzle Beach, placing the Golden Potato on one you can find as you headed down caused a Golden Carrot to spawn.

The next one was on the table in Elsa’s Cave. Putting the Golden Carrot there caused a Golden Crab to spawn.

Then, at the top of the castle on the railing, putting the golden Grab there made a Golden Night Thorn spawn.

Heading back to Merlin’s house, we could then place the Golden Night Thorn by the book which caused us to get a Gleaming Gold Potion. As for what to do next… That’s what I’m still currently trying to figure out.

I ended up finishing off things mostly trying to get as many Star Path tasks done as possible, especially as now I just feel… even more demotivated than usual with it. It doesn’t help that one of the new tasks is having 5 daily conversations with the same character which means it gets completion-walled for 5 days… Technically, 6 for me counting today because I spoke to Mickey during Mirabel’s quest before I got this task. -_- Regardless, as always, I got the new Critter first.

I also placed some of the new furniture I got from Olaf’s friendship quest.

And, of course, I changed my House to the pink variant. I do wish it was a pale pink instead of so white though. Not pink enough at all. Which is a shame as I feel like every other color option HAS a lot more of that color than the pink one.

(As an aside, also not a huge fan of the new chest design? I don’t have the patience to craft and replace so many chests either so I really wish they chests just upgraded based off your house size like the chest you start with. I miss when we could buy crafted items from Scrooge)

I’ll likely check back in later to see if maybe I can get any other Star Path stuff done or if Mirabel’s final quest part can be continued, but otherwise, just expect an edit and additional video tomorrow.

Edit as of 7:15PM on February 16th, 2023: The objective for Moana ended up ticking about 3-4 hours later. Still no change on the other objective part though, but I would assume it’ll definitely be done sometime tomorrow. Anna specifically says it’ll take them “a day” so it’s a matter of if just a new day/rollover will be enough or if it’ll actually require 24 hours.

Edit as of 3:04PM on February 17th, 2023: As expected, the other objective ticked after about 24 hours, so I finished up Mirabel’s quest. What kills me a bit with these wait periods on the final quest is that the task that follows is like… 3-5 minutes long at best so it’s just a super unsatisfying wait and makes the walling feel a lot more obnoxious. The photo moment was cute though and once again, I’m glad they’re giving us the items now.

I also got these cute Earrings in Scrooge’s today:

The only Star Path task I have left now is just having to have 5 Daily Discussions with Mickey so I’ll likely be back on the “Just buying from Scrooge each day” task. That said, I still can’t seem to find my daily chest at all -_-

Edit as of February 18th, 2023: Apparently, we could do more with the Red Potato as well, hinted by a new post-it note in Remy’s Realm.

Cooking the Red Potato, Lobster, Raspberries, Chili Pepper, and Slush Ice together makes the “Icy-Red Stew… Yuck”. You then place it in the Serving Section in Remy’s Realm in order to spawn the Raging Red Potion.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – The Latest Intermediary

2 / 15 / 232 / 15 / 23

The next update releases tomorrow and with the teasers on the recent Nintendo Direct for April’s event as well (Especially with confirmation for Nala– she and Kiara are my favorite Lion King characters), it’s hard to not be excited for everything upcoming. That said, with updates at two-month intervals, I am concerned how long it could take to see more Disney characters added. There are tons I’m really wanting to see show up such as Rapunzel, Belle, Winnie the Pooh, Bianca and Bernard, Basil… And while I know at least two are definitely coming at some point, hopefully, who knows about the others.

I still haven’t done much in decorating, unlike I think everyone else who plays as often as I do, due to a combination of wanting to still get several items I have yet to (and preferably, everything but at this rate, who knows when that will happen) and worrying about accidentally covering up something where a story-related thing could spawn. I’ll hopefully build up to working on stuff eventually (and with it looking like we may get house customization in the upcoming update, I may at least finally move my house where I want to).

I know there will likely be more biomes in the future as well though, which then there’s the concern that a biome will show up that I like more and having to slowly move everything again if I finally set-up… Maybe I’ll have a better idea when the game is “released”, even if updates will continue. I just work better when I know everything that is available over in parts and with constant updates. It’s part of why I don’t really enjoy that kind of game schedule.

Regardless, my usual plan in the meantime has just been continuing to check Scrooge’s shop. I have everything else done so I’ve been desperately trying to get the items I’m missing. The one clothing item I’m still missing I assume just doesn’t actually exist at this point, but I’ve only managed to get about 667 furniture items so far and while it’s more than half, still missing certain items I’ve been really wanting kind of sucks. At least Holiday items stick around because I’ve sure been unlucky actually seeing any. I don’t even want to think of how much flooring and wallpaper I’m missing…

I did get a few new things I was really excited about though alongside my new favorite wallpaper. Still a few I really want (and a favorite flooring already), but I feel like this definitely brought the room styles together.

I also finally got this fountain I have been wanting for ages. I bought 16 additional ones too.

Meanwhile, reading over the patch notes, I definitely have a lot of feelings as the update looms ahead. My thoughts and theories:

Main story updates = Always exciting. I can’t wait.
We’ve seen hints on how we’ll meet Mirabel, but haven’t gotten much information yet on Olaf. I’m super curious if he’ll just show up or not. Considering the mentions of a Snowstorm, that could be the case entirely.
I’m SO EXCITED to finally have different house colors! Sorry to those who love the yellow house, but it’s not really for me. That said, I am very curious about the “Premium House Skins”– both in what they will entail and the pricing.
I didn’t expect to see the Premium Shop open up until Free to Play started so that’s probably the most surprising part for me and also what I’m most worried about. We don’t have any indication of the prices and when the increase of the daily Moonstones from 10 to 50 (which… I still wish they just went to your mailbox because I never remember to look for the chest each day), it feels like everything may be expensive? They also mention to check it often which makes me think many things could be limited (or maybe it’s just a daily/weekly rotation, who knows– either way, not fond of either as it increases FOMO). As a huge item collector, I feel like I may be pressured to want to get everything, but I also just don’t think that’s feasible. I’ll wait until I see the prices tomorrow to go more into this, but I’m at least concerned for the moment.
Honestly, I can’t be excited about new items in Scrooge’s Store when I’m still missing hundreds of items with constant repeats. But here’s hoping for more pink stuff.
VERY excited for bigger storage, but also not looking forward to having to remake so many chests. Once again, I wish we could still buy crafted items from Scrooge after making it once.
It’ll be nice to actually be able to put my ingredients in the Fridge. I just hope it’s a really big storage. At least the new sorting and transfer features should help.
VERY excited to finally be able to change the looks of doors, though, I’m not sure I actually have anything that fits the theme I’m going for yet. Sure hope one of the new items is a nice pink door. Or just a nice Princess-y door.
I’m genuinely excited for the Role Training Manuals because I’ve actually really wanted to switch villagers to roles that fit them more like having Goofy a fisher over miner.
“The g[REDACTED] ” Really hope this means we’ll finally be able to do something with the Golden Potato.

As for non-in-game stuff, but still related to to the game itself, I got a very fun surprise in the mail today as part of the Dreamlight Creator program!

You can watch me unbox it below as well or head directly over to Youtube!:

What makes a Game Genre?

2 / 13 / 23

This is something I’ve found myself thinking of a lot lately as certain types of game tropes become more prevalent than others. It first came up when my husband and I were discussing wanting a specific type of game that just… does not exist because certain aspects always end up becoming part of the concept even though by genre alone, they shouldn’t be required.

In a similar boat, I stumbled upon people’s comments that A LOT of games under “Casual Simulation” “Wholesome” tend to have very similar mechanics such as many of the games having farming and when I kind of sat on it, and while I’m still looking forward to many of the games, it’s kind of true. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s another situation of wondering why this suddenly became a thing. Animal Crossing is a big series and even recently went the route of adding both farming and crafting in their most recent installment which most people enjoyed (farming more so than crafting though) but was something that really dragged the game down for me and tainted a series that was one of my all-time favorites.

And since Animal Crossing: New Horizon, I’ve constantly wondered why they felt they needed to add farming and crafting. Why is it that Simulation games seem to constantly need those features? I enjoyed both Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, but for different things and the actual farming aspect of the latter was never the most enjoyable part for me. Unlike most people who play these games, I struggle with overly repetitive tasks. Sometimes the goal can outweigh it (For example, unless the mechanic is terrible, I can usually deal with fishing up to a certain point as long as I feel I have some control over it and the end goal motivates me).

For the most part, I actually enjoy catching Fish in Animal Crossing up until I accomplish the following goals:

I’ve caught one of each fish for the encyclopedia
I’ve completed that part of the museum
I have all the fish I’d want to just keep

And that’s it. Catching multiple of the same for exchanges? I may be able to stand it for a little while, but depending on rarity and the fishing mechanic, I can quickly find it grating. Catching to sell for gold? The monotony just gets to me. Which is exactly why farming tends to bore me because the entire point of it is constantly replanting items to sell for money. I can do one of each for maybe filling out some kind of encyclopedia, but anything more than that just isn’t very fun to me. So, as much as I love the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons series, the joy for me came from caring for Animals and talking to characters– not the actual crop management system.

When I play a simulation game, I’m generally playing for customization fun, collecting, and relaxing, not grinding. Regardless of my personal feelings on it though, I think the biggest problem from all of this is that games constantly having these same features has honestly taken away from their uniqueness. So many games are just that same set-up with a different coat of paint and again, that isn’t always bad– there are tons of games where I’ve maybe really liked but just wished certain things were a bit different. The difference here is that somehow so many of the games in the same genre just… have a lot of the same features.

I loved Animal Crossing for the fun idea of moving out on our own and just befriending this town and making friends and meeting the NPCs. It was always a more relaxing time between just… having this house you can upgrade and collecting items and helping the store grow. And then it just… kept becoming more convoluted. You don’t just have to worry about your house and Nook’s, so many stores have upgrades. Oh, you have a tent now, forget starting with a house. Oh, you need to rebuild the entire town. Oh, you need to constantly gather up items for crafting (which, as someone who literally puts in the effort to stop making certain things even spawn due to my repetition issue, that has a whole slew of issues for me), and it’s like… I just want a cute game where I can collect items and hang out with these silly animals and decorate my house.

I think some customization can be fun– I think our role in New Leaf was nice and made things interesting without feeling overwhelming, even if there were so many different things to upgrade and open up which I had mixed feelings on but could handle. New Horizons was just… too much and even now (I started writing this post early last year for reference), my feelings on the game have gotten just… more dower, not better. Even the part of me that really wanted to play more Happy Home Paradise hasn’t felt motivated to and it’s made me so worried for what could be the next installment in a series that was very important to me.

In the same sense, Harvest Moon 64 has stuck around as my favorite Harvest Moon game for many reasons, between the smaller town, commemorative photos for certain cutscenes, and how house updates worked. I still loved the customization of A New Beginning and I think, if I could just buy stuff and switch out certain styles to customize over placing new furniture everywhere, that’s all I’d really want from it. And well, playing as a girl I can customize. But sometimes a concept is simple enough without needing to constantly add more and more to it.

Moving to other genres of games and what my husband and I first spoke about: The Exploration Genre which often goes hand and hand with both Crafting and Survival elements. And I hate both of these. My husband doesn’t mind the crafting as much, but he’s also not a huge fan of survival-based gameplay, partially as they tend to be fairly unrealistic (you will not die from hunger after a few hours of in-game time despite how much those games seem to want you to), but it’s just kind of annoying to have to keep checking into when you just want to explore.

For me, I’d find crafting a lot more palatable if rather than constantly needing to gather up a resource, once you discover it, you just have infinite of it to use. I like the discovery in exploration, but resource management and gathering is just exhausting for me and quickly grows stale, especially if I have to worry about my character’s health on top of it.

Our dream game would be exploring and finding like… cool artifacts to then display in whatever fashion and having a fun collectibles book and yet, any game we can think of with that element ends up adding usually at least a few of the following:

Survival
Crafting
Fighting/Some kind enemies
Stealth
RPG elements

And in my case, I like things more controlled. Full open Sandboxes often feel overwhelming, so I like when things feel a little more linear, so I don’t get distracted every 5 seconds checking every nook and cranny before taking more than two steps at any given time.

All of it just makes me wonder why so many elements go hand in hand. RPG stands for Roleplaying Game, yet you’ll rarely see it mentioned unless fighting is involved in some way, despite roleplaying being all kinds of things.

Survival almost always has Crafting, but why isn’t that solely on cooking and rather than building things up, you need to find things as you go? Survival can be brutal, but apparently you have the carpentry skills of a God I guess.

Crafting could so easily be its own thing for people who enjoy exploring and resource management, but it doesn’t always have to be tied into a way to make people stress. In the same sense, not every Simulation game needs to have crafting either or this slow build up. Sometimes you truly just want to take it slow and that’s okay.

Obviously, a lot of people like these genres or even the additions to them. Other times, maybe less actually do and certain other circumstances cause a game to blow up despite that.

I just wish we could continue to see more unique parts of a genre over seeing similar types of games rehash the exact same things over and over. It’s okay to do things simple and it’s okay to make things optional, but I wish more people would like at something and ask “Does the game actually benefit from adding this? Or is it just because *insertgameinspirationshere* is doing it?” And honestly, if the only reason is to extend game time, then it’s just the same excuse given for walling things altogether. Especially in simulation and exploration games, sometimes the best things come from just letting people go and do what they want and make their own goals– not having to slowly build up from nothing that by the time you get to where you need to be, you may not even be having fun anymore.

My Fluffy Life – Valentine’s Day 2023!

2 / 12 / 23

The Valentine’s Day Event has returned for 2023 and it’s genuinely one of my favorites, if only because it’s a lot more relaxing and less grindy than I feel other events are. It’s really fun to make the Valentine’s and not too intensive to send out and you earn quite a bit of Love for each Valentine you receive. I’m also really happy our old cards were still there safe and sound.

If you’re new to the event, I’d recommend reading my prior post where I talk about it, but for those familiar, there’s 6 new stationery items (rounding up the previous 9 to 15) and 8 new clothing items– 4 Accessories (3 Head, 1 Hand) and 4 Dresses.

Dress #9 (the one on the left in the picture below) is probably my favorite and I’m hoping if the dyeing system returns, I can make it pink.

I also had fun making a cute scrapbook page set-up with a combination of all the new and old Valentine’s Day Stationery.

In general, I’ve been doing a bit more with my scrapbook and even made a little bit of an introduction page along with playing around with more options with pages.

I put together a new Winter page too showing off my favorite Snow Teddy.

That’s really it for now, but I’m keeping an eye out incase anything else is added :)

In which I yell about what I’m most excited about from the recent Nintendo Direct

2 / 10 / 23

I had initially considered writing up a post with my short thoughts similar to what I do for E3/Gamer Christmas due to Twitter’s continued demise, but it did end up coming back up so I just did my usual Twitter thread, but there were some BIG announcements during it that have made this recent Nintendo Direct one of my favorites ever. If you haven’t seen the Nintendo Direct yet, I highly recommend it. I feel like there was really something for everyone and so many surprises.

I’m going to mainly focus on the games I am most looking forward to playing (though, if anyone wants me to expand on anything I mentioned on Twitter, feel free), but I just have a lot of feelings about some of the announcements, so this is a way for me to try and get that energy out while I ~~impatiently~~ wait for these games to release, because unfortunately, none of them had release dates (besides this year in which I just hope they won’t all release at once).

First up, I want to start with Fashion Dreamer which essentially had my screaming. It looked incredibly similar to the Style Savvy/Style Boutique/Girls Mode series and I figured from the start, it was either finally Style Savvy 5 or maybe we were finally getting another Model Debut game localized (though, it didn’t seem like it). When it finished with the new name, I initially thought I was wrong or maybe it could at least be a spiritual successor, even if by an entirely new team, because the hype is still there and, honestly, more games like these are kind of falling to the wayside, generally being either romance or mobile-focused and not just… a fun dress-up game with a story.

Regardless, I was soon made aware that the game IS being developed by syn Sophia who is the original creator of the Style Savvy series. Which kind of makes me wonder why the name change– the only difference is it seems Marvelous (and therefore XSEED for the localization) will be taking care of the publishing this time, but considering the game is still exclusive to Nintendo, I don’t think it would’ve been a name conflict/copyright situation. Who knows, maybe they just wanted a new universal name as the Switch is Region Free.

Either way, I don’t care (I’m just curious)– I’m just happy to see it back in SOME form and it looks so good. One of the things I think Style Savvy suffered from with its three different 3DS games is each one sacrificed at least one really good feature, or some extended amount of customization, for a brand-new feature and while the new features may be nice, they were never enough to justify what we lost. With the Switch, I’m really hoping that the past games were looked into and a lot of those features I’ve long since missed will make a return alongside things I hope will be done better in the series overall, such as:

Make up your mind on the time. Either do real time like Animal Crossing or have it so the date is wherever you start, but each day moves forward after. Or even Harvest Moon-esque time. Just not the “days pass but the month is the same”– the problem with this is that you could finish the entire story in the same Season and just… not end up seeing a lot of new stuff for ages because of whenever it launched if you play too much.
More flexibility on what you want to do. Don’t limit how much can be done in a day and don’t force people to the next day either.
More cameos! I love seeing the characters from past games.
More commemorative photos! I always love seeing these, honestly, whether due to completing certain story stuff or just fun model things.
There’s so many good designs across the games, I hope as many will return as possible.
Just… don’t downgrade. If I could have 3 of something in a previous game, don’t make it so I only have one now.
Bring back expanded customization for your own room/house!
Bring back expanded customization for the outside of your store as well! …Assuming you still have one.
Long curly/wavy ponytails exist, please stop making the only option a tiny short one. At the very least, it does look like this one may be covered (I hope we can still set different bangs separately! They at least showed a few diffeerent options on one screen):
I also hope we’ll have a lot of options for hair at the start as the game usually is pretty lacking in this regard.
I really hope the VIP Booth returns
Fashion Shows be less obnoxious. I don’t expect the concerts to return, but I’d still like more catchy songs.

I’ve written reviews for all three of the 3DS titles, so if you haven’t played any of those or only one, feel free to check them out: Trendsetters (the second game), Fashion Forward (the third game), and Styling Star (the fourth game). If you do want to play these in anticipation for the new game, I’d recommend Trendsetters and ONE of the other two depending on which has more features you like. Not enough changes overall for me to really recommend playing both unless you really want to– they feel less like a sequel and more like Sister Games. While Trendsetters felt like a proper sequel, the other two felt more like experiments for what other features they could do.

One thing I was quite happy to see is that it looks like you can also play as a guy this time! I know of so many different types of people who play and it’s nice if they let people have a more masculine option if they prefer, maybe even going the Animal Crossing: New Horizons route in that regard (though, I hope we’ll still have some customization options to tweak things to fit us best). This should also hopefully mean there will be plenty of new masculine brands as well as I know many people wanted more when we could finally sell clothing to male characters as well.

The online feature also seems interesting. I hope we’ll be able to see people from all over the world for one, but I think being able to just “Like” someone’s outfit to get items in your closet is a nice way to build it up without necessarily making yourself broke.

In general, I’m not much of a fashion-minded person. I don’t know what’s in, I don’t know what a fashion faux pas is (which is probably the thing I failed most at in the game because it may tell me what labels describe things, but I still have no idea what a fashion do and a fashion don’t is), and I’ve always been a “wear what I like” type of person. Even in the game itself, I often would mix and match several brands: Marble Lily (The Lolita brand) alongside the Gothic Lolita brand and the brand for essentially Modest, Elegant, and Girly clothing.

What really made the game for me is getting to enjoy the dress-up function while not compromising my own style for the most part. So many fashion games constantly require you to spend your money on items you maybe don’t even like to just barely pass a challenge and Style Savvy is a series that is just so much more flexible. Any item you buy for your shop is given to your closet for free. Your outfit is always set (and remembered for times you do have to change it)– you just help other customers find outfits.

The look of the town reminds me a lot of how it looked in Fashion Forward and I love that it seems we can freely walk around for once over just… zapping places (though, as someone who still frequently gets lost, I’d appreciate some quick travel option too). I’m really hoping there may be other places we can travel to again as well, even if it’s more simplified. If we have this much freedom to move, I’ll be so sad if there aren’t any cutscenes.

It looks like they are really taking the amount of customization options to the next level as well along with giving you many more color options at a time. I hope it’s not as convoluted to unlock color palette stuff in the game as it has in some of the past ones. I also hope that not too much of the regular gameplay and many of the pre-existing items are sacrificed for the customization feature. Customizing can be fun, but it rarely manages to capture all the existing items in it.

If you haven’t checked out the trailer yet, here it is below for your convenience:

I hope we’ll have a release date for the game soon as I feel like it’s exactly what I want right now to just… play a game where I’m not stressed 24/7.

Next up, I want to bring up some Level 5 stuff…

First, Fantasy Life is finally getting a proper sequel!

I loved this game so much and while there were times the grinding could be pretty rough, it’s one of the few of these types of games where I truly maxed out everything I could. Being able to play with friends made it even better.

While I’m a little concerned about how much you need to set-up this town (I am in the group that much prefers things already being set up and done with and we just add on to it, not build it back up) and any kind of terraforming due to how Animal Crossing: New Horizons ended up falling rather flat for me in the long run, I still have such a soft spot for this game series and am just excited to see the story continue in a way that isn’t a mobile game.

And second… Professor Layton is back! One thing I noticed especially is there were so many Detective/Mystery games as part of the Direct which is really exciting! But I will admit of all of them, Professor Layton has my heart the most.

The game is really special to me and I bonded with a lot of people from it. I even went to Japan for the movie when it first premiered and was in the top 50 of the Layton World puzzle campaign for Layton’s Mystery Journey.

I love the story, I love the characters, I truly love the puzzles. I love that it’s an ACTUAL puzzle game and not a strategy/RNG-matching game that just gets slapped with that moniker despite it not actually fitting. The game even seems to be picking up after Unwound Future which I’m really excited for. I think the original trilogy was its strongest and to be honest, just giving us more adventures of Professor Layton and Luke was all we ever really needed. We didn’t need to go to extreme lengths of backstory. I do hope Flora will be remembered though, even if she isn’t traveling with them. She really got the short end of the stick between not even showing at the end of the movie and everything with Katrielle… Where even if Layton and Luke were gone, why was Flora just completely MIA?

In general, I think most people had mixed feelings about Layton’s Mystery Journey. There’s still a lot of questions with both Alfendi and Katrielle in the end (even if we got some answers for her in the anime) and the game itself ended on a cliffhanger that only really got answered in the anime… in a solution that I think may be the weirdest yet. The pacing was strange, but I suppose that was an issue with the game as well due to having multiple contained storylines before trying to have this big twist and surprise at the end.

For the most part, when it comes to story and puzzles, I don’t have too many expectations. I’m excited to see what happens (though, if there’s no slide puzzles, I’d be thrilled). My only concerns are really in the sense of any post-game. I haven’t really enjoyed the daily puzzles from the more recent games because it’s just… the same puzzle over and over slowly going up in difficulty, but I just got burnt out. It didn’t vary enough for me to stay interested. I don’t really care for the daily puzzles.

If they do anything like that again, I’d love to see a return of London Life which I genuinely found a ton of fun. Maybe a little less picky with certain things, but it was just a really enjoyable time and I’m still really happy with how my character and her room came out.

Either way, I can’t wait for the next part of Professor Layton’s story. Hopefully it won’t make me cry too much.

While Fashion Dreamer and Fantasy Life are both currently dated for 2023, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam currently doesn’t have any release date at all. I don’t mind waiting– I waited this long, but I just hope we hear more soon for all of them.

My Favorite Games of 2022 and Most Anticipated for 2023

1 / 11 / 231 / 11 / 23

I had been asked if I considered doing this and well, considering we’re already over a week into January, clearly not. I actually really struggle with picking favorites so this definitely isn’t really a “My most favorite games” list so much as a “I had a really good time playing this game” or in the case of anticipated, are ones I either heard about or played the Demo for in 2022 (and the game has a confirmed 2023 release date– if there is currently no ETA, they weren’t in the running at the time of writing this).

The game doesn’t necessarily have to have been released in 2022– I just would have had to play it for the first time IN 2022. Similarly, there are games where I played the Demo and released late 2022 that I am really excited for, but as I haven’t gotten to play them yet, it doesn’t feel fair to put them on this list just yet.

There’s no particular order, but I hope the list is enjoyable regardless.

My Favorite Games that I played in 2022

The Frog Detective Series – I ended up playing the first one back in January 2022 and followed up with the second one in May 2022. The games came out in 2018 and 2019 respectively, but the third and final Frog Detective game released October 2022 and well, at least by playing both of the first two games as late as I did, I didn’t have to wait too long for the final installment. I really loved these games. I love mysteries, the characters are always a lot of fun, there’s cute dance parties, and it’s just… genuinely really enjoyable? I’m really sad the series has come to an end, but I’m glad it got a proper send-off. Frog Detective may not be the #1 Best Detective, but he’s #1 in my heart.

Co-Open is a really cute game where you’re going grocery shopping by yourself for the first time. There’s so much more than you expect from the initial concept, and it can be a little overwhelming, but I genuinely enjoyed doing everything in the game quite a bit.

A Little to the Left – A cute organizational puzzle game. I’m still playing it daily for the Daily Tidy and let’s be honest, I’m pretty bad at playing most things daily so that already says a lot. Some of the puzzles can be a little unintuitive, but I still genuinely had a lot of fun with the game.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land – Probably my most debated one on if I should put this on this list or not which I think would surprise most people. There’s a lot I love about it and honestly, it may be one of my favorites since Kirby 64. The detriments came in a really sad Casual mode and the frustrating achievements for some of the Waddle Dee. I really enjoyed finding the hidden ones, but the extra achievements for levels took away so much when I played through it. Ignoring that though, it had so many really fun levels and a really intriguing story and I think my only other complaint would be that I couldn’t upgrade Kirby’s house to display more figures (or be able to customize beyond that). Being able to play the game alongside with my husband helped a lot too.

Button City – Button City technically released in 2021, but I only got to play it in 2022, so it’s going on here anyway! This is a really cute game of trying to save the Arcade with your new friends while also doing various tasks to help out characters. This is just… such a cute and comfy game and I’m really glad it ended happily. I’m honestly pretty awful with the game in a game though which I guess would be the only bad part for me, but I had so much fun otherwise I still powered through regardless.

Ooblets – I’ve been playing Ooblets since Early Access, but the game only actually released in Summer of 2022, so it still counts! Mostly because there was still so much not in until the very end. The game is just… very fun and goofy in all the best ways. The Ooblets are adorable. Rockstack came back. The story is also really interesting and went in a direction I really couldn’t predict. I only have a couple of things left I want to do in the game (find the final Gleamy I need and get a pinker skirt), but I genuinely love the game with all my heart and had a blast playing it. I think my only regret is not doing a gameblog alongside playing it.

Tales of Grumville: A Legendary Pie and A Nameless Statue – It’s hard to say too much without spoiling the plot, but this is a charming visual novel that was made for the Nanoreno 2022. It’s really sweet and has a lot of heart (and also made me cry). It will make you want pie. Or maybe that’s just me.

Here comes Niko! – Another game that technically released in 2021, but I only finally played in 2022. This was such a fun game, the art style is super charming, and there’s also a really heart wrenching story in the middle. I’m very excited for the update that is supposed to come soon with a new area to explore and I can’t wait to get back into the game once it releases.

Carto may be one of the oldest games on here, but I did only finally play it last year after deciding to try the Demo and really enjoying it. Due to my lack of directional sense, I was a bit concerned I would be absolutely terrible at it, but I ended up absolutely adoring the puzzle mechanics and story and I’m really glad I ended up picking it up and playing it.

Escape Simulator – Another game that technically released in 2021, but hey, both DLCs did release in 2022! And with Community Rooms, there’s almost always some new levels too. As you may have guessed from this list, or if you know me in general, I love puzzles. I don’t have much experience with Escape Rooms, as I’ve never personally done one, but I always really love puzzles and being able to do them alongside my husband makes it even better. As long as they keep making new DLC, we’ll definitely keep playing.

A ____ Full of Cats – DevCats has made a handful of neat games, but their recent hidden object game A Building Full of Cats and its follow-up, A Castle Full of Cats were definitely some of my favorites. A Building Full of Cats was already super cute and really relaxing and A Castle Full of Cats just… fully upped all of that adding in a full new story and some extra puzzles as well. While I have mixed feelings on the boss fight, it didn’t take away my overall enjoyment and I’m looking forward to their next game in the series, A Tower Full of Cats which would also be listed below, but I feel like I cover it here.

LumbearJack – A game where you play as a Bear who helps restore the forest. This was honestly so much more fun than I ever expected and was done in such a fun and cute way that it felt really relaxing. Would absolutely play more levels.

Beacon Pines – From the moment I saw, “Winnie Pooh meets Gravity Falls”, I was already sold. With reassurance that there was an ending where everything would be okay, I put my full support and anticipation into the game and backed it on Kickstarter. The game didn’t left me down. I’ve written about the game on my site already, so I’ll keep this short, but I love the game so much. Looking forward to the content update and hoping we do get some answers from some lingering questions one day…

Lil Gator Game – This was such a pure delight to play, honestly. It’s just relaxing and fun and while I struggled navigating at times, there were still ways to make it easy for me to finish and find what I missed. It was so fun helping out characters, exploring, and doing every quest a hero can do, with a very emotional ending. Really can’t say enough positive about this game.

Placid Plastic Duck Simulator – I love Rubber Ducks. Did you know there is Rubber Duck Race? Very interesting to watch. Regardless, while the game is literally just watching Ducks float around in the pool, it’s honestly a lot of fun and slowly, each Duck has its own personality from a Duck that often likes to fly away to another that often sets some on fire. To the right, you can see two of my favorite Ducks, but the game is just so much fun and clearly has some of its own secrets hidden below the surface… (or maybe the Dev is just messing with us, who knows)

My Most Anticipated games for 2023

Mail Time – You play as a cute mushroom person and deliver mail!! And help people!! And it’s pretty much everything I really love in a game in a small enough zone where I don’t feel overwhelmed and like I’m going to get lost forever. YOU EVEN COLLECT BADGES!!! BADGES!!!! You even get a cute Bee friend! And look how cute my little mushroom girl is!! I enjoyed the Demo so much and even the lovely additional holiday stuff. I even found the special badge and all the candy canes. I am so ready to 100% this game as soon as it is released. I actually backed this game on Kickstarter as I had been enamored with it pretty quickly.

Puzzles for Clef is a really neat Puzzle Platformer with beautiful art. I found myself pulled into the story so quickly and I can’t wait to learn what happens in the game. It’s hard to say too much right now, but I’m really looking forward to playing the game further once it releases later this year.

Storyteller – A puzzle game where you place characters and different settings to match the different titles. It’s honestly just really fun to play around with the various panels and figure out what stories you can end up telling. Really excited to see all the options when the game releases later this year.

Our Life: Now & Forever – Considering how much I adored the first Our Life game, it shouldn’t be any surprise the second one is on here. This series may be one of my favorite “otome-esque” visual novel games between the well-written characters, romance being optional, and the number of choices to really customize your MC and have the game actually reflect that. Despite the fact that I’ve tried many visual novels, few rarely stick with me, either because I don’t care for the characters, the romance feels too forced, and/or I can’t relate to the MC at all. Generally, if I end up still liking a game, it’s because there’s a large mystery aspect/romance isn’t part of it at all, or a certain character or dynamic super interests me (or maybe the characters are likeable enough for me to deal with the MC or more awkward parts). I really can’t say enough how nice it is to be able to play and feel both comfortable and represented playing it without having to worry about most of the things that usually take me out of other games like this.

Shumi Come Home – You play as a very cute Mushroom!! You can talk to all kinds of neat residents! And you collect things and learn about mushrooms as you try to find your way home. I’m a bit worried about getting lost myself (the map in the demo already turned me around quite often), but I’m still really looking forward to it.

Sunset Hills – Despite some finickiness with the controls, the art style and characters pulled me in so quickly. I’m already intrigued quite a bit with the various mysteries and events, but the world itself is already so lovely and I’m excited to see the full story unfold.

SEASON: A letter to the future – Even though I’m very concerned this game will make me cry, I can’t help but be intrigued by the element of exploring and collecting memories and souvenirs as we go. The game actually comes out at the end of the month and while I’m not sure I’ll get to it immediately (though, fingers crossed), I’m looking forward to finding everything we can.

A Weekend in Puzzleburg – This genuinely just felt like such a fun relaxing game and I always appreciate little touches that help make your playthrough really feel personal to you. I can’t wait to interact with more characters, and I hope I can do as much as possible in that weekend.

Mineko’s Night Market – I’ve been following this game for years at this point and I can’t believe it’s finally so close to release. I had so much fun just in my short time with the demo and I can’t wait to continue the journey once the game releases. Also, you can pet Cats!!

There’s actually a lot more I expected to have in this section, but either:

They have no current release date yet or any year estimate
They actually DID release late 2022 and I haven’t gotten to them yet

So, I guess we’ll have to wait until another one of these for some of those ^^; If you liked this though, would you want to see some kind of thing where I talk briefly (a short little blurb, essentially) about every game I played or tried in the year? It could be one post I continually update or something. Let me know!