Christopher Lannoo's Reviews
Now for the difficult part. How do you give a score to a game that is more of an experience than an actual video game? How do you give a numerical value to people’s lives being shared and them being vulnerable with you? I’ll give my score, but it’s with a huge caveat: this game is a must-play, but only if you’re able to, and if you’re willing to forgive its flaws. In my personal opinion, those flaws accentuate the humanity behind this game beautifully, but I get that not everyone will share that feeling. But if you are queer or a person of colour, or if you want to know what it’s like to be either or both of those, then don’t skip on Plum Road Tea Dream.
If you adore Sokoban puzzles, I think you really owe it to yourself to give Club Soko a try. It takes everything fun about the genre, puts it in a really cool setting, and makes it really accessible to play. So even if you weren’t a fan of the genre before, you could still give it a go. It’s an excellent introduction to a genre that holds a lot of interesting takes, and it’s one you’ll find yourself going back to to uncover more of its secrets time and time again.
What fun this game is. At times it can feel almost overwhelming, especially when shops run out of ingredients while a bunch of garbirds are roaming the streets, you’re puking rainbows and all of your storage is full. But it never becomes frustrating, and you always find a way out of trouble. Or you can thrive in the chaos, if you’d prefer. Go-Go Town! leaves it up to you. It’s a full-on toybox where you get to decide just how you want to play, and you’ll have a blast no matter
The return to the world of Tavern Talk with this prequel is one that doesn’t offer much difference from previous entries, but it’s different enough to make it stand out as a game of its own. In a similar move to the Coffee Talk series, you are welcomed in with gameplay that feels like a warm embrace, where you might know what to expect but will still end up pleasantly surprised by the twists of the stories and the warmth of the new characters. If the developers keep this high standard up in future entries, I’ll certainly be there to play each and every one of them.
As far as narrative-driven visual novels go, there aren’t many more high-profile series than the Coffee Talk games. This sequel/spin-off serves up more of the same, but in the best of ways. Familiar and new characters meet up and get to witness the magic of this little coffee shop in Tokyo for themselves and learn some valuable life lessons from sources they might never have expected to. You’ll fall in love with each and every one of these characters and will feel the need to brew them the perfect beverage every time (although the vagueness of their queries doesn’t always help). It’s just such a shame that there’s unfulfilled potential left here.
Spellgarden Games are unapologetically forward with their inclusive values, and they welcome in one and all to just enjoy the vibes with them. Thrifty Business feels more like an evolution of the developer’s first game Sticky Business rather than something completely new, but in this case that’s actually a great thing. The sense of community from that debut game is multiplied here by you actually meeting the people you’re selling to and buying from, and you get to feel like an actual part of the community you’re helping to build. If only the real world could be more like the worlds Spellgarden Games build.
Mixtape’s series of musical vignettes is a breath of fresh air and yet another example of how indie games can do it better. There’s so much variety in the activities you actually perform, but in the end it all boils down to a story about three kids who don’t have the easiest lives, find each other, and now have to face an uncertain future. It’s a hell of a throwback, with the soundtrack to end all soundtracks, and it literally brought me to tears through its fantastic writing and, like Stacy, knowing which song to play at just the right moment.
I am completely smitten with the world of Wax Heads. It has so much to offer, and it feels like a game that was made for me and my particular tastes. The game delivers on all fronts, especially as an innately human experience, much like music itself. And like a good record, this game elevates your day by spending time with it, getting in touch with its intricacies, and allowing itself to open up to you.
I’ve always wondered what it must be like to have siblings. Growing up as an only child, I never had to deal with the messiness that comes from sharing a household with another kid. Dosa Divas beautifully shows us just how messy things can get. Sure, it’s all a bit blown up, what with the sisters having owned their own restaurant where they cooked with spirit mechs, but still, this is a game about family relationships at heart, and Outerloop Games prove once again that no one in the gaming world does it like they do.
Grief is something we often hide from. We run from it, not wanting to feel it or deal with it. Alo is very human in that regard, not knowing how to deal with the huge amount of emotions coming her way as she deals with the love of her Jaja, the pandemic, and the new start she’s making away from home. But, together with Paplet, she goes on a journey to move beyond the running, beyond the hiding. And it sees her bloom. If you’ve been struggling with moving forward in life, I strongly suggest playing this game and letting it allow you to go on a path of self-discovery too. That’s how good this game is. Thank you, Alo.
Even though I feel everyone could benefit from some therapy, I have to concede that not everyone is up for it. In a similar vein, Vampire Therapist will also not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if the concept of the game interests you even the littlest bit, I urge you to give it a go. The warmth and humanity it has to offer feels like a warm blanket in increasingly colder times, and with Sam we have a protagonist worth rooting for, even if his past has been a bit shady. Yes, we can debate some of the logic used during the therapy sessions, especially when it comes to labelling ourselves (some lines just can’t be crossed and then ignored), but all of it is interesting food for thought, and ultimately that’s all this game and therapy in general can do: make you consider things from a different perspective.
Pieced Together is a delightful exploration of friendship, the beauty a relationship like that can bring into life, and the sadness you can experience once that seemingly unbreakable bond seems to drift apart. It has clearly been created by people who have learned important lessons from life and are able to look back at their younger selves with a level of reflection that evades so many people. This is an experience for gamers of a certain age, with millennials set to be hit straight in the nostalgia while also relating to Connie’s life as a 30-something. Maybe I should get back in touch with some long-lost friends after all…
The game asks you once again: who do you trust? And who are you willing to fight for? Are you ready to face the consequences of the choices you’ve made? Do you even realise how serious those consequences can get? Just like Sybil, Kaneeka’s mother, Scarlet Hollow seems to be answering questions by raising even more questions. But answers are coming, and you might not like what you’ll get.
I’m a bit of a sucker for games that tackle themes like grief and loss, and Death Howl is a prime example of how to not just use story beats to do that but include gameplay in that storytelling as well. There is beauty in the determination and grit that Ro shows, but it feels like there are things she still needs to learn about herself as well. Exploring that story and playing the wonderful grid-based and card-based combat is exquisite, if you’re up to dealing with dying over and over again.
Plenty of skateboard games nail what skating is all about, even if your opinion on what that actually is differs. From Tony Hawk to the Skate and Olli Olli series, there’s always a part of skateboarding culture that is perfectly translated. Skate Story doesn’t try to be any of those games and still nails that feeling too, even if you are playing as a glass demon trying to swallow the moon. Cruising around has rarely felt this good, and the surrounding atmosphere is just brilliant, from the setting to the music and everything in between.
Have you ever wanted to spend a semester at uni trying to avert the apocalypse with a bunch of friends? Then you can’t go wrong with Demonschool, as it pays homage to horror media from past to present, all the while bringing the turn-based RPG genre into modern times. You might get lured in by the gorgeous visuals, but it’s the stellar combat that will get you hooked and will keep you coming back to the game again and again.
There are few places that can match the modern history of a city like Berlin. The past century has seen regimes rise and fall in a massive way, due to which we often forget that the city was inhabited by regular people like ourselves. These are stories of victims, of those who refused to let these huge events stop their lives, of survivors. They are also tales of the beauty of the human spirit. The Berlin Apartment is a beautiful testimony to the perseverance of the people of Berlin and to human kindness itself.
Having not been all that good at video games for most of my life, I fell in love with games that focused on great stories, usually with interactions a bit more limited than in fully fledged RPGs and the like. It’s why I still adore series like Life is Strange and (most of) the Telltale games. AdHoc Studios takes the foundations of those games and brings them up to the next level. The polish is astounding, with perfect performances, brilliant art and music, and fantastic, thoughtful writing hidden underneath a heap of swear words. Dispatch is brilliant, and you should play it.
Translating an actual life into a video game is not an easy task, but Jenny Jiaso Hsia and her colleagues have managed it beautifully here. Through a collection of fun and short minigames, we get to dive into the soul of young Jenny and discover that our experiences might be more universal than we had thought. Carrying the pressures of your parents along with your own is not easy, and it’s just delightful to see how she has handled it all.
Arctic Awakening is a beautiful walking simulator that clearly takes inspiration from those that made the genre great to begin with, and while it makes valiant attempts at creating its own mysteries and forging its own connections between its characters, it just fails to land the final punch. Choices don’t feel impactful enough, with the game remaining very linear despite the dialogue options on offer, and the game’s bugs do enough to sour the experience as a whole.