Hi hi!

I know I originally said next diary entry would be after the game jams, and that's still happening, but I decided to clear some games off my backlog on top of some recent buys and I just kinda wanna yap about them. I guess for any reader that isn't me, these are just some game recommendations if anything. I'm also not far in any of these games as expected, I just enough progress that there's something worth talking about lol.

Cradle of Nightmare: Flowers to you

Y'know, it's probably supposed to be called Cradle of Nightmares, but English isn't the dev's first language... or any of the dev's languages for that matter so I'll let it slide. Still though, it's funny, guess it's all just one big nightmare lmao.

A couple things before I start talking about it. First of all, little note that this game's native language is Chinese & while it doesn't have an official English translation, there is a good fanmade one that I've been using to play it. Second, this is a Dark Fantasy game, mainly inspired by the "Black Souls" & "Fear & Hunger" games. While the game isn't as dark as the BS series to the point of controversy, it's just worth pointing out, avoid this section & this game if you're not into or can't handle very dark universes.

This game is really cool, honestly might be my sole favorite RPGMaker game now, I can't find anything I hate about this game. The artstyle is beautiful, obviously taking inspiration from F&H while adding the developer's touch to it. The gameplay is basically if Black Souls 3 was real and that's a compliment considering BS2's gameplay. The gameplay is basically if you took all of BS2's good parts and multiplied them by 10. The build variety is goated, enemies have telegraph statuses that makes it way easier to reactively make actions, & I love how this game handles your companion(since BS dev really did NOT like how BS1 could be cheesed by summons in comparison). The story is honestly pretty goated, I like how every spell in this universe's version of magic(Soul) is learned through books that literally details how it is used down to the technique to learn it, it's so peak.

I think I said enough tbh, I'm gonna continue this game next time I have free time and not beat it ASAP so I can prolong having to do DLC3 on BS2! :DDDDDD

Mirage Feathers

Technically this wasn't a backlog game, because I did indeed actually play this game after I bought it when I picked it up during Bullet Fest, but I still wanna talk about it because it's pretty brief. The game is an arcade style rail shooter. That tells us one thing...the game is really short. I could've probably beat it in the same sitting if I was commited to doing so but it wasn't the only game I bought so it just couldn't be. Still though, this game is super cool, it has a style with its art(especially UI design) that I really love and as my first rail shooter experience it's pretty solid. Next time I play it I'll probably beat it, we'll see.

Oh, also the game's main character as well as main antagionist are lolis, just fyi.

Pawns of War

An...interesting gacha game. Not in a bad way, just that...well. Look, it's a currently WIP gacha game made by a literal indie team, that should tell you that much that this is definitely a conundrum of a game.

First of all, at least at the current moment, the game itself has no sort of microtransactions, so that obviously rules out the devs doing it for the money and probably moreso to be in line with its inspiration, Girls' Frontline 1. GF1 itself is already kinda a gacha in terms of obtaining gameplay affecting things, this game full sends the gacha but makes it as friendly to players as possible. Currency is extremely easy to amass, rates on the gacha are good, higher rarity units while they do have better statlines, clearly aren't what the game is balanced around, and there's still a ton of aspects that determine the strength of units other than their stats. It's weird and confusing just like GF1 even despite the game's best efforts with its tutorial but at least this game has 100% less jank than GF1 does!

While currently really small since the current story content in the game is only the tutorial and the current event at the time of writing, it's very clearly inspired by GF1's story. Honestly, it's probably the most inspired thing in this game lol, the current event plays out a lot like a GF1 event story. As you'd guess, this is all a compliment, GF1 has amazing storywriting that I mentioned in my gacha obsessions.

The game very clearly still has ways to go, but it's worth checking out if you ask me. Don't let the gacha tag fool you, it's not anything like other gachas out there, it's not trying to siphon your wallet or your time, it's just a normal game. It's free so do it whenever on your own time.

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Dead as Disco was supposed to be here too, but it's really short with Mirage Feathers currently and has much less worth talking about so far. Still an absolutely goated game, you should get it! Anyways, as always...

Thanks for listening to this lone voice within the void!~