We’re back with another exciting volume of Brief Looks! This is the third one I’ve done this year and will be the last since 2023 is quickly coming to an end. I played a lot of great games in 2023, both old and new. Sometimes I play where I don’t have that many thoughts to offer. So instead of writing a full review I instead save them up for what is a collection of smaller reviews. Helps me save up a lot of time while still offering my take on titles I think are worth giving a look. Today we have eleven different games to look into. All of these games can be beaten within a weekend, so if you want a quick ‘n easy pick or give an easily digestible game to your gamer friend then some of these may be good choices. With that out of the way let’s dive right int.
Mundaun
I really wanted to enjoy Mundaun. On the surface it looked like a survival horror title with a nice pencil drawing-esque artstyle. The premise seemed interesting enough and I was ready to gobble up what was on offer. The story follows Curdin as he journeys to his grandfather’s hometown of Mundaun for his funeral. It’s a sad day for Curdin, but upon arriving at the town he notices a few strange things. His grandfather died during a barn fire, but upon investigating the barn he finds a body in it. He experiences some strange visions and an old man with a sickly voice appears. The old man burns Curdin’s hand and applies an effect that causes Curdin’s fingers to bend in weird directions. When Curdin wakes up he finds the body gone. He attempts to ask the town reverend about his grandfather not receiving a proper burial. Only to then discover his tombstone is now empty. Stranger things start to happen when Curdin starts to see things no other person can see and hay creatures pop up at night. This leads Curdin to explore Mundaun, figure out the truth of what is going on, and uncover a dark past surrounding his grandfather, his time at war, and what he did to survive.
Mundaun has a pretty good narrative to be honest with you. It kept me interested till the end and if not for the presentation I probably would have dropped the game during the first hour. This is what brings me to my complaints with Mundaun. It was two hours in and I quickly realized I was not having fun. This is a very boring game to play and despite being five to six hours long it felt like a slog by the end. Now I know some people are going to defend Mundaun and say fun isn’t the focus. This is supposed to be an artistic experience and not every video game needs to have fun gameplay, which is true. I’m someone who values both good gameplay and storytelling. The greatest games I’ve played are narrative driven experiences. Sometimes a game has harsh design decisions for a reason. Bloodborne is hard, but it’s hard so that the feeling of exploring a world gone to hell works. When you finally overcome the difficulty barriers it feels wonderful because you understand the rules of the universe. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim has one of the best stories I’ve seen in a game. Is it fun? Well that’s debatable since combat can be repetitive after a bit and the game mostly throws story scenes that play like a visual novel. Yet, it is still engaging because the story is presenting me with interesting characters, connections, and plot twists.
Mundaun did not have to be a FUN video game and puts an emphasis on artistic vision and style. However, it really feels like they tacked on gameplay so that it may be considered a game. There are moments where you have to sneak by enemies or fight them. Combat in this game is so bad that half the time you want to avoid it. Yet again it’s pretty hard when none of the environments aren’t built around stealth. You can run, but enemies slow you down if you get within a certain range or when they start applying an effect on you which happens quickly. You have pitchforks to defend yourself, but these break after three hits and there’s a very small number of them in the game. There’s a rifle later on, but you aim it like if you just walked out of a bar after having three ales. There’s stats for which you can level up, but just like the combat it’s just. As if any of this mattered because half of the time you are gonna be walking and solving a bunch of bizarrely designed puzzles. Somewhere around the midway point I had to get into a hut. I could not find the key to open the door, so I began exploring the area. I discovered the key was underneath a bridge along a path no one would possibly check out. This bridge was also in the previous area, so I’m wondering how anyone would find this without a guide. It felt like a walking simulator, but even titles like The Beginner’s Guide work better due to their tight linear focus. I do not hate Mundaun. I give it a 7.5/10 for being okay. I just didn’t love it and felt like a waste of time.
Norco
Norco is another game I really wanted to like, but by the end I felt pretty disappointed with it. It’s a click and point adventure, and normally I really enjoy these types of games. It might be one of my five favorite genres. I’m not sure. The game switches between two different narratives. The first follows Kay, a young woman returning home after getting into an argument with her mother. She finds her mother has died, her belongings were taken by a nearby corporation occupying the town, and she must get them back. The other story follows Kay’s mother a few weeks after the argument. She’s diagnosed with cancer and is taking on dangerous jobs so that she may pay off her treatment and housing expenses. This all leads to a bizarre plot with weird encounters, twists, and learning to reconcile after a broken family relationship. The game has beautiful pixel work, and comprehensible enough puzzles. Ones where you don’t get confused and wonder what mad person designed them. Norco had everything I wanted to see in this kind of game, so why didn’t I like it? Unlike Mundaun it wasn’t because I was bored. I think what is unique here is unique and a lot of players are gonna get a kick out of this. My enjoyment with Norco is truly because I don’t think I understand it. The plot did not work for me, I found none of the characters likable, and the ending feels both poorly written and completely out of nowhere.
The game is depressing, but here comes an argument that may tick some readers off. Depressing does not automatically make your story deep. Most games with sad and depressing themes have them for a reason. Lsa: The Painful is a truly depressing game. The backstory surround the main protagonist is f*cked up. The journey he goes on and how he ends up at the end is f*cked up as well. There are themes of rape, drug addiction, suicide, and they recur alot throughout the game. There are moments of humor, but a majority of the time it’s crude or connects back to how sad and depressing the world of Lisa is. However, despite all of this Lisa: The Painful still comes out with a powerful message by the end. One about how abuse begets more abuse. I don’t know what Norco's message was. At first I thought it was about reconciling with your family, but the ending and everything leading up to it completely contradicted what I was thinking. There’s weird stuff, but the weird stuff feels completely out of place for a game trying to have a realistic setting and concepts. None of the characters clicked for me and I struggle to remember the names of any of them besides the protagonist and her robot friend. Norco does not need to be joyous. I am not saying the devs have to change their vision because that would be an insult to artistic expression. Again, I just did not like this game and I wish I could understand it.
Portal
Almost a decade I watched my cousin play through the first and second Portal. They are both considered two of the best games Valve have ever made and alongside Half-Life helped pave the way for their legacy. I never played either games myself, but last year I played Portal 2 for the first time. It holds up incredibly well and still feels like it came out recently. Now jumping from the second game to the first is going to bring up a lot of unfair comparisons. I’m not going to be one of those individuals who says the first aged badly and all old games don’t age well. I think we should all look at old games as products of their time and understand what made them good to warrant a sequel. The original Portal is still a great game. One thing the first does really well is the moment to moment gameplay and puzzles. The pacing is good, the puzzle difficulty does not scale to drastically, and the game knows when to wrap itself up. I keep seeing this argument whether Portal or Portal 2 is better and each time I’m surprised to see how many people choose the first game over the second. Not because of 2007 nostalgia, but because Portal in some way is a better video game. Portal 2 is a masterpiece, but the set pieces and droning of characters might turn some folks off. Yahtzee Croshaw summarizes this best by saying, “Portal was deep down a puzzle game. Portal 2 meanwhile is a sightseeing tour with the occasional puzzle sprinkled in.”
Portal is more consistent when it comes to being a video game, but personally I like Portal 2 a tad bit more. The first game walked so that the second could run. Portal 2 took the mechanics of the first game and stretched them out with more complex puzzles and elements to work with. It builds upon the world and universe, which adds a bunch of needed depth. The environments are more varied including the test chambers. Portal 2 feels more like an actual product, but maybe it is because the original was packaged alongside a bundle. When Valve was ready to release the second episode of Half-Life 2 they realized it wasn’t enough to justify a full 60 dollar price. They did package it alongside the full game and first episode, but it wasn’t enough. So they then decided to release two games they were working on to justify the purchase. Those two games are Team Fortress 2 and Portal, and they called the bundle The Orange Box. The first Portal was not expected to blow up, but it did and that’s how we ended up with the sequel. I do like Portal and thoroughly recommend checking it out if you want to see how the series started. If anything, play that then the second to see how far they went with the sequel. 8/10 for being pretty good.
Dujanah
Dujanah is weird, but it’s the good kind of weird. The one that makes the artist’s and his vision clear. The kind of weird that truly stands out and has something to say. It’s probably the shortest game on this list though, which explains why it only costs seven bucks. There’s a lot of sights to be seen and NPCs to interact with, but the main story doesn’t take too long to complete if you know who to talk to and where to go. Hint: You talk to a spider and go play three arcade games to win tokens. Then you do what the spider does and the game ends. However, it’s the story that makes Dujanah worth it. The premise is that your husband and daughter disappeared. They went into the desert to bury your daughter’s dead hamster, but went missing when soldiers saw them. It has been a few weeks and you decide to get to the bottom of the mystery. You eventually learn what has happened to them and put on a funeral. Walking through a graveyard of several other civilians who died needlessly to warfare. The game’s Steam page has one word to describe it. “Apolitical,” and honestly that’s all it needed to say. Dujanah is a bizarre yet meaningful game about warfare overseas. How we promote it even though it brings nothing but harm in the end. How children end up orphans or parents never get to see their children grow up due to what we decide to promote. How we continue to fight and bicker for something we don’t need. It makes me feel bad. Knowing something could have been done to help those lives, or wonder why we have not ceased fire yet. I don’t want to get too political. 8/10, pretty good.
Journey
Journey is beautiful. It’s a hopeful experience about ascending up a mountain. Even if you get kicked to rock bottom you get back up and keep going. This is the same studio that would bring us That Sky Game, and some devs would break off to form their own indie studio. That studio being Giant Squid who made Abzu and The Pathless which I thoroughly recommend. Journey is a work of art, but would I say it is a must play indie title? That I don’t know. The game has a lot of magic from beginning to end, but there’s no reason to go back after a first playthrough. There are collectibles, but they don’t do much nor unlock a secret ending. You can run into players who are playing at the same time as you with a hidden multiplayer component. You can chirp with each other and offer quick boost regains. It’s nice having a buddy by your side to remind you that you don’t have to brave the journey alone. Pun intended. However, it’s not necessary and it's real easy to get separated from that other player. The game is fifthteen bucks which is cheap for most people, but fifthteen dollars for what is a one hour game is hard to justify. I think it’s worth experiencing once for all the magical high points. 8/10.
Off
We are back to the world of RPG Maker games and this one was recommended to me by my dear sibling. Off is developed by solo dev Mortis Ghost and has received countless updates over the years. Specifically with the translations, because Mortis Ghost is french. The game is free if you can find Ghost’s Tumblr page containing download links, and that was an absolute steal for me. Played through it during the weekend and was surprised with what it had to offer. Off is a game about when you go too far. The Batter, our protagonist, has to clear three zones so that he may fulfill his mission of purifying the world. These zones are worlds containing life and inhabitants. The creatures you fight are mutated monsters and at first your mission is justified. Purify the zones so that these monsters don’t run amuck. Then things take a sharp turn. The civilians who inhabit these zones start standing in your way and you begin killing them. They are a threat and they mutate, so they must be monsters. Then they start pleading for their lives and saying if you continue purifying zones all life will be whipped out. You reach the end and it’s revealed that you were the monster this whole time. Your effort to aid the Batter on his quest made you forget what was actually going on. I say it does the whole “You’re a monster” thing better than Undertale as at least here it feels less in your face. The game’s pixelwork is not the best, but it has charm to it. I like how each zone is colorful and full of detail, but when you purify it it turns colorless. A ton of its detail is lost, areas are closed off, and the color disappears.
Off is worth it for the story and twists alone, but does that mean it’s a good video game? Kinda. It’s a retro JRPG where you explore, fight, and level up. You obtain companions to help you and your quest, but they are quite literally floating rings. Why? I don’t know, but it feels off. Pun intended. The exploration isn’t very good and there’s some sections of the game where a map would have been really helpful. Second zone specifically because you navigate a two floor library and several familiar looking hallways with no way of telling what is what. The combat is even worse. It might be some of the worst turn based combat I’ve seen in an RPG. It’s much like Final Fantasy 6 where you and your allies' action bars charge up with time. When one is full you can do something, and you do things until the enemies are dead. I don’t like it, not because its turn-based combat shouldn’t have real time systems. Earlier we brought up 13 Sentinels and the turn based combat there is entirely real time focused. Why did I even call it turn based anyways? I understand what they were going for as Off is more about management than taking turns. However, for the style of gameplay Off was going for that being classic JRPG the real time systems don’t work well. It sucks. I can't plan out a clever string of attacks. It sucks I don’t have a clear indication of when the enemy attacks and how I can prepare. That isn’t to say the combat is hard, because it’s pretty easy. Instead the combat gets really boring really quickly. It’s a good thing they have an auto feature built in, because without it I would have quit this game easily. It’s the boss fights though where you have to pay attention, but sometimes you can just hit auto and chime in whenever someone’s health is too low. Off sucks at being a JRPG, but if you can power through you get a fulfilling experience with a satisfying ending. 8/10.
The Swapper
The Swapper is a neat little side-scrolling puzzle game where you use a gun called the Swapper to create clones of yourself. You use said clones to solve puzzles and explore a space station that has been abandoned. I don’t remember much of the story to be honest with you. Most of it is told through scriptures found throughout the world and for me it was hard to understand what was even being told. I’m gonna assume it’s a story about copies possibly having souls and trying to play good with technology beyond your comprehension. There were alien rocks and I don’t even remember what they were. The story of The Swapper is basically Soma if it took a backseat, but that’s not why you are here to play The Swapper. It’s for the puzzles, and let me tell you moment to moment gameplay is very much akin to the first Portal. You explore a massive space station as if this were a metroidvania and each direction seems to house a new puzzle. The game never stops you rambling on about what is going on and even if it does these moments are short and aren’t very long. The Swapper can do two things. Create up to three clones of yourself and help you switch between these clones. These clones move and jump whenever you do, and touching them will make them vanish. Most puzzles involve you touching these mystical orbs, so it’s all about knowing where to place clones and position yourself so you can reach your goal.
The game throws in new challenges to spice up the puzzle design. Such as lights that don’t allow you to create clones, swap to clones, do anything at all, or cause your clones to vanish. You can die of pitfalls and being crushed, but you can swap to your clone to escape death which can help create tension for what is a really calm game. Backtracking isn’t too bad especially with the nice amount of checkpoints and fast travel spots throughout the station. The game has a unique style where everything is made of clay. From the character, environments, backgrounds, and more. It surprises me how they were able to create such a smooth run animation, because the thing about clay is that it takes a lot of time to animate with. Everything is colored either gray, blue, or black. Combine this with the atmosphere and you get yourself a place where you feel purely alone. This game is great, but it does have some problems. Later puzzles get too bizarre and by the end the game really starts to run out of steam. The story is put on the backburner like we said earlier, and if you were to ask me if this is one of my favorite indie puzzle games I’d probably tell you no. I say The Swapper is unique, but there’s elements holding back from being a stellar experience. I do recommend though because it’s not often we get good puzzle games. 8.5/10.
Ib
Ib is great. It’s not one of the best RPG Maker games and it’s probably the least replayable one, but much like Off and Dujanah this is a game packing style and artistic vision. You are Ib, and your parents decide to take you to an art museum to appreciate the fine works of the human race. Strange things start to happen, everyone in the museum disappears, the hallways change, and the paintings come to life. You are trapped there and must figure out how to escape this nightmare. Explore, solve puzzles, and make a friend midway through who may help out and serve as an older brotherly figure you never had. The artwork is great especially for a game mainly made up of pixels, and I love the character designs. They are tame, but they have this iconic look to them. The puzzles are all well designed and you are given a good idea of what to do even during the more complicated ones. There are moments when monsters appear and all you gotta do is know how to out flank them and run towards your goal. You have a rose which dictates how many hits you can take. You can replenish this rose, but vases usually only contain one full recharge and if you run out of hits you die. There are some really fun horror segments and one in particular is the most stressful thing I’ve done all year. There’s four different endings you can obtain and they all depend on what characters live and how you decide to treat them. Ib is a work of art very much like the art it tries to portray. The game costs thirteen dollars and that price tag may be difficult to justify for some. It took me two hours to beat this game, and like I said earlier there’s not a whole lot of reasons to replay Ib maybe besides to get one different ending. Still, Ib is a great game and I really enjoyed my time with it. 9/10.
Dome Keeper
Originally I thought I wasn’t going to love Dome Keeper. I’ve been getting roguelike fatigue and have been struggling to find one that clicks for me. This year I tried to get into Wizard of Legend, Dicey Dungeons, Enter The Gungeon, and the original Risk of Rain. I’m not gonna say these are bad games and some of them I enjoyed for the time I played them. However, for a genre centered around repetition these games got old really quickly. Dome Keeper is a roguelike where you dig and mine resources, and that's gonna sound really boring for a lot of people. Yet, Dome Keeper ended up clicking for me and while I don’t have that many hours put in I can safely say this is a roguelike highly worth checking out. You are a Dome Keeper and you crash down to an unsafe planet to see if you can make it habitable. Your dome is comfy, but there are tons of monsters lurking about who will attack every so often. You have a cannon to defend yourself, but the waves of monsters get worse with time and your current strength is not enough. That’s why you must dig underground to find minerals for which you can use to upgrade your tools and defenses. Eventually you’ll find an artifact and you can bring it back to base. It'll completely wipe out all of the monsters no matter if your dome is nearly destroyed, save your dome, and allow you to live peace.
Gameplay is fairly straightforward, but it’s the progression and difficulty that makes it fun. You dig, bring back resources, upgrade, and defend. You could get upgrades that help you dig faster or bring back more supplies, but then you have to consider your little dome and how each wave the monsters will get harder. You start equipping your dome with stronger stuff and through that you can manage the ever scaling difficulty. Some monsters are quick but easy to kill, but others will require your attention as their attacks will deal more damage to your dome. There are two different diggers to play as. One of them can dig in all eight directions, and the other one can do one block at a time but has magical orbs to bounce around and destroy other blocks. The second was added during an update to provide more variety to gameplay, but honestly the first is much better and is more fitted to the style of gameplay Dome Keeper goes for. There’s a ton of options and customization for whenever you start a new game. A different game mode besides artifact hunt, tools to start with, changing the size of the playspace you work in, and the difficulty. I like this because it means you create either a game where you have to work against the clock or one where you just play for casual, peaceful fun. I was stressed during exam time, so I chose to make games that helped me relax. An easy going session within a medium space so that my runs would not end too short. I do feel like they still need to add more stuff to Dome Keeper. It has a ton of replayability, but the amount of content right now is lacking. It won’t have the staying power a title like Dead Cells or Slay The Spire has, but I do think it sits alongside them for being one of the more well designed in the roguelike genre. 9/10.
Lil Gator Game
Lil Gator Game is a game about a gator. It was made by the same dev who made A Short Hike, and it makes a lot of sense seeing the design philosophy both of these games go for. You follow a little gator who's trying to reconnect with his older sister who is in college. They’ve grown quite distant over the years, and the little gator hopes to create a game for which both can enjoy. One much like the childhood games they played when they were younger. To do that he must gain the help of other children in the area, and so he goes on a grand adventure to get them to play his lil game. It’s a charming little experience and it has what is one of the most satisfying endings I’ve seen in a very long time. Lil Gator Game goes for the same art style as A Short Hike and uses the exact same engine. Everyone has this cut big headed design and the environments are made up of mainly fall colors. Gameplay follows you venturing across an open world and it’s very much inspired by Breath of The Wild. In fact, it gives you a glider to glide across long distances and they make fun of how enemies rag doll in those games. I would say I very much like this game a lot more though. One because it’s not full of repetition activities, and two is because it does not overstay its welcome. Everything you have to do to get more friends to aid you varies and it helps create scenarios where you have to figure out what to specifically do. Providing variation along your adventure. You obtain different tools to utilize and you have a ton of ways to solve a problem or get to where you need to go. The playspace isn’t too big and it’s easy to keep track of where you need to go thanks to environmental changes and landmarks. Lil Gator Game is great and favors the type of open world design I love. It’s charming, heartful, and I think anyone can enjoy it for what it is. 9/10, excellence.
Later Alligator
Hey, would you look at that! The two last games on this list both have cute gators in them. Isn’t that cool? Anyways, Later Alligator isn’t the best video game on here but it’s probably the one I ended up liking the most. You are an investigator hired by Pat. This cute gator thinks one of the thirty three gators in his family is out to kill him during a secret event. He wants you to find out who is gonna kill him by asking them questions, playing their silly little games, and he goes into hiding. Pat’s a lovable character. He’s a goofball, easily scared, and a little too anxious. That is why every so often you have to play a minigame with him to help lower his anxiety. You explore four different areas, meet the members of the family, and play fun minigames with them. Every time you beat one you gain a family member badge. Each of the gators have a unique personality and all of their games vary. I wouldn’t say they are all well designed. Some of them are pure trial and error, and others will require a guide for you to properly beat. For example, there’s this one minigame where you play pinball. You get four attempts before you fail, but sometimes the ball will launch outside the playspace before you can actually rack up any points. There’s a dating sim one and you have to say very specific things or else you fail. These minigames are fun for the most part, and it doesn’t take too much time to clear them. The art style is charming with all the characters drawn funnily and the world around them being black and white. Jazz music plays as you explore the world and it creates this classy feel. One that I am very much a fan of. There’s a time system and while there aren’t any consequences for wasting time you do get railroaded into what are story sections. The game is forced to end, but you can keep going to find the other family members. Progress is carried between runs and eventually you’ll be able to get the true ending. A very sweet ending I ended up chuckling at. Later Alligator is fantastic. Much like our last game I think anyone can enjoy this no matter what their preferences in gaming are or what their skill level is. Strongly recommend it and I give it a score of 9/10 for excellence at best.
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