Rae

29

Jan

By Rae

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Roots Devour : Give Thanks for Mother’s Gift

I’m kind of a fan of Eldritch horrors. You might have been able to guess this by my putting Cultist Simulator second in my top ten games (despite having several complaints about the game as well). Or my almost 200 hours in that game. Or my dedicated shelf of Lovecraftian…

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27

Jun

By Rae

Latest News

Deck of Haunts : The Deckbuilder You Should Be Watching

I love board games. I actually met my boyfriend by playtesting his board game. So when he found Deck of Haunts, he effectively pitched it to me as being similar to Betrayal at House on the Hill, except that instead of playing as a survivor who might turn traitor, you…

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21

May

By Rae

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Monster Train 2 : A Hellishly Good Time

Monster Train was my introduction to the genre of roguelike deckbuilders. I came across it in a list of games leaving Game Pass and decided to try it. By the time it actually left Game Pass a week later, I had bought it on Steam and unlocked most, if not…

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05

Mar

By Rae

Latest News

Impressions : Roots Devour : W(h)ither Do You Wander(?)

Roots Devour is a game of Eldritch horror, but it’s not a horror game. Like many games in the Eldritch subcategory, in this one, you play as the horror, specifically, as a sentient mass of roots trying to drink up enough blood to…do something. It’s not clear what that something…

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13

Feb

By Rae

Latest News

Impressions : Heart of the Machine

Heart of the Machine from Arcen Games describes itself as a blend of a lot genres, including city builder, 4X, and several others that I forgot as soon as I read them. A lot of genres I don’t have a ton of experience with, let’s put it that way. But…

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29

Jan

By Rae

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Sword of the Necromancer Resurrection : FORWARD!

I never played the original Sword of the Necromancer. I hadn’t even heard of it until this remake was announced. It’s not a game I would normally have looked at--I mean, it doesn’t even have cooking! Even Kingdom Hearts 3 has a cooking mini-game (even though it’s locked behind the…

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03

Oct

By Rae

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Frostpunk 2 : Embrace The Frost

(Yeah, that’s the option I picked. What about it?) A week before Frostpunk 2 came out, I replayed through the main story of Frostpunk 1. Aside from getting thoroughly carried away, I found myself wondering at the end what the studio could do with a Frostpunk 2. I hadn’t looked…

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03

Sep

By Rae

Reviews

Review : Elemental Exiles : Ashes to ashes

As a general rule, I suck at roguelikes and roguelites. But I do love a good deck-builder in the genre. When I found Monster Train, I spent about a week doing very little other than playing it. When I started Slay The Spire, I was astonished to realize that it…

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01

Sep

By Rae

Latest News, Reviews

Review : DREDGE The Iron Rig : We Need To Go Deeper

Confession: I never finished The Pale Reach. This is because, as I kind of alluded to in an opinion piece a while ago, a not-insignificant part of me doesn’t like finishing games. Games are a playground, and part of me sees finishing the game as closing that playground down. So…

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30

Aug

By Rae

Latest News

All (f)or Nothing: The Concord “Dialogue” Needs to Stop

I'll be honest. I don't really care if Concord is a good game. I was never going to play it anyway. I am notorious for my ability to get lost in video games, which only gets worse in first person; I lack the reflexes to pull off shooters with any…

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23

Jul

By Rae

Latest News

Zenless Zone Zero : Hoyoverse’s First “ZZZ”

I love Hoyoverse’s work. I’ve played everything that they have on the market. I don’t do much with Tears of Themis; not really my genre, but I’ve tried it. And I’ve played a ton of everything else. I’ve put money into each game except for Tears because I love playing…

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02

Jul

By Rae

Articles, Latest News

The Must-Play Cozy Game You’ve Never Heard Of

Touhou Project is a bullet-hell franchise that has launched a thousand fan creations. The franchise has main titles going all the way back to the PC-98 era (and somehow never officially translated into English), and it even sports its own dedicated convention. It also has more fan games than main…

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05

Jun

By Rae

Articles, Latest News

Don’t Waste My Time, or, the Power of the DNF

It’s poor form in both video games and in books to review an item you didn’t finish. Book spaces, however, have a term for such items, books that you tried to get through and put time into but just weren’t worth the effort to finish for the sake of a…

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04

Jun

By Rae

Articles, Latest News

JRPGs and the Power of the Human Heart

Uncontroversial opinion: Elden Ring is not a JRPG. Slightly less uncontroversial opinion: That isn’t because of the art style. When Xenoblade Chronicles 3 dropped, Rick Hoeg amusedly told the Bitcast “I’m totally ready to save the world with the power of our humanity.” I haven’t gotten around to that game,…

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22

May

By Rae

Articles, Latest News

BookTok, Live Services, and Fast Fashion : Are Our Hobbies Actually Getting Worse?

Back in January, an article came out that swept up book-focused social media in controversy. The premise of this article was simple: the rise of this social media subgenre had led to the books that come out, well… getting worse. This isn’t Seasoned Reading, so I won’t bore you with…

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