Recent reviews by Tablis

I am conflicted about this game, it has its strengths (art style, mood), but I wouldn’t recommend if you don’t have a very specific taste.

First, this is NOT a detective game. You really do not use logic to put investigation forward. You just need to interact with nearly everything and use nearly all dialogue options. You gather ‘clues’, but what yields them is mostly random. Dialogue option is described as it is nothing but small talk, but no, clue there. There is a room with hundreds of books, just interact with them, protagonist will miraculously find what is needed.

There are sections of searching through web posts. There, which post is important and which is not is even more arbitrary. There are groups of posts which mention the same thing, but only one contains a clue. Many posts are written like they are random gibberish from clueless people (game is quite realistic here), but some of those still contain clues!

Moreover, all of this is quite slow. Characters comment on everything you do, no matter how simple and obvious it is. It is like a visual novel (which I enjoy) but slowed down by lots of clicking and comments about nothing.

But frankly, I would not write this review if not for the ending. The creators really wanted to make a big, big twist. And they made it so big it effectively retcons most of the plot. You finish the game and learn it was lying to you, all the time. And what really happened is depicted as insanely convoluted and conspiratorial.

You may mistake spectacular twists for clever writing, but here really, it is not. It is not hard to write a twist which requires for working making half of what you knew obsolete + the rest is supposedly due to bizarre, unexplained machinations.

Quite a nice anomaly game. Its environment definitely stands out. The titular bar is more engaging than what we see in most other games in the genre. It also has a nice balance of varied types of anomalies.

What was a little disappointing was the main horror theme. The story is basically about a scary ghost lady, it was generic and it lacked something more unique to be truly frightening. I enjoyed the creepy mood of the bar more than the actual horror elements.

What a perfect Christmas game. All about growing your family and performing rituals about ancient beings. It also shows a beautiful moral lesson about how being a good parent is important, otherwise some bad stuff could happen.

How queer can you make a game? Is even a single person straight here? Can you romance this arch-demon who presents themselves as a 2 meters tall woman, or sometimes as an angel, or as a monster with a chainsaw? I love it. This is a game made by people who made it as they wanted, and it shows.

A logical game with clever mechanics and beautiful abstract aesthetics. Definitely a game which stands out from the crowd. Due to the minimal guiding few times I was stuck not due to logic but not knowing where to go, but overall a very nice experience.

Quite a charming and quirky little game. The art direction and mood are just fantastic. There are many funny and sympathetic characters here and entertaining mini-games.

What can be somewhat frustrating is that this is in huge part an adventure game with problems that this genre has. As the title suggests you need to find 30 birds and if you miss some interaction you can get stuck with little to no idea what to do next. Some more involved tip system would help.

Still, if someone like me likes unique experiences this is definitely a good choice.

This is one of those works for which you wonder how many drugs were used in order to make it. Which is a compliment. One time you think this is all deeply symbolic, the other time you think this is all deeply absurdist. Impossible to replicate in any case.

If I could I would give a neutral review. This is a short and cosy puzzle game centred around magnets. It is quite polished and it flows nicely, but at the same time is somewhat simplistic and bland.

The idea for the main mechanics is nice and the puzzles are well thought-out. It is just that the levels are small (most fit on a single screen) and there are not many options for what you can do. As a result I went through the vast majority of this game on autopilot, barely even thinking about what I am doing. There were only a few puzzles I needed to really think about, and I got stuck on one which required outside the box thinking (which is fine).

This is worse at the end where you would expect some sort of finale, but it is kind of not there. The last three puzzles are in one room, but they are not connected mechanically, so it does not change much and for me they were actually simpler than the stuff before. The room also looked just like all other rooms. The ending was definitely disappointing.

The game is also in a kind of awkward spot in how it manages plot and characters. Both are so rudimentary it might be better if they were not there at all. There are 4 characters and none has any personality. The most I can say is the main robot character seems to like helping people. It is telling that in the ending characters just don’t know what to do with themselves.

Similarly with music - not bad, relaxing, but also bland and forgettable. Overall I didn’t have a bad time per se, but with many puzzle games to choose it is reasonable to ask for something more engaging or unique.

I like stories which do not allow you to forget them and this is definitely one of those. I finished this game weeks ago and I am still thinking about it from time to time.

It does not hold its emotional punches, it is a very sad and tragic story, but beside absurdist setting quite universal. It made me think not only about those characters (which are great), but also about people as a whole by going deep into our negative emotions, and this is what a truly great horror does.

It'd be bad to have good gameplay expectations when you buy a porn game, but sometimes you can be nicely surprised. This is actually a good metroidvania which closely replicates the castlevania feel. After boss fights you get a sex scene, and they are all great! Beautifully drawn, well voice acted. I liked the plot too, it is simple, but it works. The characters have their “castle adventure” and have a lot of sex along their way because essentially they just like it. It is not forced and the characters feel sympathetic due to that.