Eternal Afternoon

 Eternal Afternoon is an indie game where you spend the last 20 minutes of your life doing something before a giant wave comes and destroys all of creation.   

There are plenty of missions and things to accomplish in these last 20 minutes, from writing a love letter to a girl you were too nervous to talk to, finding your lost dad, playing a video game within the video game - and many collectables/achievements.

The game is a long dialog about loss and the end as you encounter various people in your neighborhood, and eventually embrace the inevitable - however the developer added a number of in-game glitches where you can "Kobayashi" the game (the mission Kirk cheated to win IIRC) and escape in some fashion ala Stanley Parable in some cases.

A great idea and well executed.

The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante

...

Kind of liked the game.   Then kind of hated it there at the end.

This game played out in a series of text pages where you participate in the novel as the third born of a household and born to the common class.  "The Lots" of people in society was a big focus on the novel and your decisions affect your characters statistics in some fashion, making you more noble or cunning or whatever based on the particular event.

I tend to make "the hero choices" in these games, feeling that's what the developer assumes is the right path - so in this story I rush to the aid of "Sophia" who is about to be run over by a carriage.  I get injured pretty bad.  Fine, it's the hero's lot.  Ten years later I see her trying to escape someone chasing her, she's part of some secret organization trying to get equal rights for people - she wants me to join her and I help recruit more to the cause to end "the Lot system".  

It ends up she is a double agent.  Wait .. what?
Everyone you recruited is killed.   Wait ... seriously?
She please for her handler to spare your life, you might be useful to their cause.  ...

I refused ... Game over.   Wait wait wait wait ... Seriously seriously?

There were no clues!  This was the heroes path!

Was this game expecting me to side with the people who just executed a room full of people that *I* was responsible for being there?   

"The Gods" ask in the end what you thought of them/life/free will.  Heartless/Cruel/None.   Decent story at the start, infuriating at the end TBH.   The idea of playing this again, even a restore game knowing this betrayal was on the horizon ... Nah.  Pack it up.  

Assassin's Creed - Mirage

Assassin's Creed is a cow that is being milked so hard.

You can tell because they don't number them, if they did - logically 3 would be better than 2.   Assassin's Creed Mirage had me hiding in the bushes, 4 feet from some guards - and whistle them one at a time over to my bush to knife them.  They all said "huh?"

It's a visually stunning game, and was an amazingly interesting concept when it first arrived - the idea of going into past lives to sort of treasure hunt is *brilliant* - but they use the same formula every time of some ancient alien intelligence awakening ...

The *same* story *every* game.   I was speed running dialog that I've heard many times before just in a different accent

Kerbal Space Program

I've heard people rave that this game is fantastic.

You manage a space program, and with the little that I played - you incrementally gain science in order to construct better ships to go further and do better science-y things.  The first few of which are just being able to launch a ship into orbit.

To me it felt heavily like I was about to be managing a spreadsheet of slowly incrementing variables.  Unlocking boosters that are level 2 ... in order to unlock a space module level 3 and stay an extra 3 revolutions for 100 more science points and my first space walk.

There was probably a time for this game to shine, and I'm just playing it at a different point in time.  

Is Guilty

 Is Guilty is a quick little game that has you working the graveyard shift at a small coffee shop, with the additional task of keeping an eye out for certain criminals that you are informed about at the beginning of the shift.

The game is full of quick little jump scares to try and give that creepy "working too late at night" feel, including thunderstorms and power outages, but what I found most frustrating is that when I found people who fit the profile *perfectly* I was still getting things wrong, which ends up being part of the story at the end of the week.

(Spoilers ...) Your brother who has been getting you to work this shift to help pay for some sort of surgery is actually the real criminal and needs the money for a passport and there never was a really guilty car coming through the drive-through with all the hints, it was all subterfuge to try and get you to pay attention to your brother? .. or something ..

Indie feel - but well made.

Resident Evil Village

I don't typically care for "scary" games and put off playing this for a while, but I'm glad I finally got to it.

Resident Evil Village is a deviation from the typical RE franchise of zombie games.   It's set as a prequel of sorts where the main nemesis is a sorceress who is building monsters ala Dr. Moreau, lycans, vampires, ... blobby kronenberg mutations.   I suppose the lore would be Umbrella Corporation is the company who understood the formula for the zombie virus?

Your daughter is taken and your wife's ghost leads/taunts you on your journey to defeat these creature lords that Madam Miranda has created.  It's pretty formula and on rails for the most part, complete with an odd merchant who shows up in every odd haunted location to sell his wares and buy the treasures you have collected.

It was a great game atmospherically when it was going for that, there is a point where it shifts pretty hard into generic FPS shooter, which is where I lost my interest.

I ended up watching someone play the end and had no desire to finish it myself, very much "empty clip in baddie while strafing and avoiding the fire".  But I am looking forward to the next now ... 

The Vale: Shadow of the Crown

This game was an interesting concept, and full of fantastic voice acting.

You play at the blind daughter of the previous king, and your carriage is upended in an attack when you are travelling because of "realm politics".   The game has to travel, mostly on rails, but occasionally seeking out audio hotspots (like the clanging of a blacksmith's hammer or someone saying "over here!").

Game play is audio storytelling with interspersed segments where you're fighting wolves/humans/monsters listening to their audio cues and reacting directionally with shield/sword/bow.   It works okay, the hotspots seem fairly generous, and like I mentioned the voice acting is fantastic - I imagine there to be an interesting story (I'm guessing the brother in league with the fae instigated the civil unrest to seize the crown?) but so the path is overly littered with bandits and wolves, which ended up feeling a bit boring/repetitive.  DNF.