Unoriginal and Uncreative【Game Log: Post-July 2025】
Tried a lot of stuff out, with reasonable success.
Major Timesinks and Finished Games
Wheel World is the most recent game from Messhof. It's an open-world cyclic games where you ride around an island finding random bike parts and challenging riders to races. The cycling is immediately intuitive and great fun. But beyond the first tutorial area, everything about it becomes frustrating. The races are simultaneously unchallenging and annoying. There's a second area that ultimately requires need 100% of every side-objective to finish. And the bike-modifying mechanic is completely irrelevant because there's always a best option from beating boss races.
I got most of the way through Cipher Zero. The puzzle's difficulty ramps up in a reasonably satisfying way towards the end. But ultimately suffers from eternally being stuck on one puzzle with no other options.
Mashina is the latest game from the creators of Judero. It's a charming claymation game about the titular Mashina and her friends. Mashina digs through a 2D cave for minerals and fun items for her chums. There's no real story, but there's a lot of fun interactions between the characters. There's also a great soundtrack in the form of FM radio stations, which have their own associated host drama.
Strange Jigsaws is the follow up to 20 Small Mazes. It's a collection of wacky puzzles that vaguely resemble Jigsaws. There's a great sense of humour and originality to the puzzles and "story" of the game. It does suffer from the occasional obtuse puzzle, and frequently these are chokepoints in the game (unlike 20 Small Mazes). But there is also a provided walkthrough if you really get stuck. Despite its flaws I had a fantastic time.
Is This Seat Taken? is a Wholesome Games (tm) pty ltd LLC patent pending Donut Steal, puzzle game about arranging characters in seats based on their preferences. It's a fairly solid game, and frequently the puzzles are fairly satisfying. But there's also a lot of ambiguous language and ridiculous assumptions in the game that are just frustrating (Hungry and Thirsty are treated as synonyms, characters that "want to look out the window" will happily sit with their backs to it). Unlike with Strange Jigsaws, there's something about it that makes every minor bug intolerable.
Still playing a lot of OpenTTD. Changing the cargo distribution from "default" to "assymetric" makes the passengers in the game have a specific destination, rather than happily be distributed anywhere. It makes the game much more interesting, but much harder.
Tried Out, Revisited Briefly, or Viscerally Hated
The Necromancer's Tale is a stat-heavy CRPG with a loooong statbuilding intro, about the son of a military hero returning home to investigate his death. It is rough around the edges and held together by string. But I've enjoyed it a lot. I've put it down for the short-term due to near daily bugfix patches.
Complex 629 is a top-down adventure/mystery/puzzle game set in a haunted apartment complex in winter. It is highly weird, every conversation is deranged, and there's a giant grandfather crawling the halls. The protagonist has two mouse controlled limbs to pick up things and throw with. Looking forward to playing more.
Brigand: Oaxaca an ambitious and very low-fi FPS RPG mostly from a single developer. I built vagabond character who could charm and seduce characters into doing their will. Then I struck a gas tank with an axe and died.
July Game of the Month
The Drifter, one of the best Australian games ever, and a fantastic adventure game thriller.
All Games Played
OpenTTD: GREAT
Automobolista 2: Good
RAMP 2025: GREAT (Notable)
Cipher Zero: Good
The Necromancer's Tale: Good
Wheel World: OK
Complex 629: Good
Mashina: GREAT (Notable)
Strange Jigsaws: Good
Brigand - Oaxaca: Good
Is This Seat Taken?: OK
Tried a lot of stuff out, with reasonable success.
Major Timesinks and Finished Games
Wheel World is the most recent game from Messhof. It's an open-world cyclic games where you ride around an island finding random bike parts and challenging riders to races. The cycling is immediately intuitive and great fun. But beyond the first tutorial area, everything about it becomes frustrating. The races are simultaneously unchallenging and annoying. There's a second area that ultimately requires need 100% of every side-objective to finish. And the bike-modifying mechanic is completely irrelevant because there's always a best option from beating boss races.
I got most of the way through Cipher Zero. The puzzle's difficulty ramps up in a reasonably satisfying way towards the end. But ultimately suffers from eternally being stuck on one puzzle with no other options.
Mashina is the latest game from the creators of Judero. It's a charming claymation game about the titular Mashina and her friends. Mashina digs through a 2D cave for minerals and fun items for her chums. There's no real story, but there's a lot of fun interactions between the characters. There's also a great soundtrack in the form of FM radio stations, which have their own associated host drama.
Strange Jigsaws is the follow up to 20 Small Mazes. It's a collection of wacky puzzles that vaguely resemble Jigsaws. There's a great sense of humour and originality to the puzzles and "story" of the game. It does suffer from the occasional obtuse puzzle, and frequently these are chokepoints in the game (unlike 20 Small Mazes). But there is also a provided walkthrough if you really get stuck. Despite its flaws I had a fantastic time.
Is This Seat Taken? is a Wholesome Games (tm) pty ltd LLC patent pending Donut Steal, puzzle game about arranging characters in seats based on their preferences. It's a fairly solid game, and frequently the puzzles are fairly satisfying. But there's also a lot of ambiguous language and ridiculous assumptions in the game that are just frustrating (Hungry and Thirsty are treated as synonyms, characters that "want to look out the window" will happily sit with their backs to it). Unlike with Strange Jigsaws, there's something about it that makes every minor bug intolerable.
Still playing a lot of OpenTTD. Changing the cargo distribution from "default" to "assymetric" makes the passengers in the game have a specific destination, rather than happily be distributed anywhere. It makes the game much more interesting, but much harder.
Tried Out, Revisited Briefly, or Viscerally Hated
The Necromancer's Tale is a stat-heavy CRPG with a loooong statbuilding intro, about the son of a military hero returning home to investigate his death. It is rough around the edges and held together by string. But I've enjoyed it a lot. I've put it down for the short-term due to near daily bugfix patches.
Complex 629 is a top-down adventure/mystery/puzzle game set in a haunted apartment complex in winter. It is highly weird, every conversation is deranged, and there's a giant grandfather crawling the halls. The protagonist has two mouse controlled limbs to pick up things and throw with. Looking forward to playing more.
Brigand: Oaxaca an ambitious and very low-fi FPS RPG mostly from a single developer. I built vagabond character who could charm and seduce characters into doing their will. Then I struck a gas tank with an axe and died.
July Game of the Month
The Drifter, one of the best Australian games ever, and a fantastic adventure game thriller.
All Games Played
OpenTTD: GREAT
Automobolista 2: Good
RAMP 2025: GREAT (Notable)
Cipher Zero: Good
The Necromancer's Tale: Good
Wheel World: OK
Complex 629: Good
Mashina: GREAT (Notable)
Strange Jigsaws: Good
Brigand - Oaxaca: Good
Is This Seat Taken?: OK
Laughing Coyote Software
