Master of Pottery: Nuff Said (Review)

Do you ever just watch Ghost and go “man I really wish I could just learn pottery, leave this whole sexy haunting thing out of it”? Well then I’ve got the game for you.

Found in the dark Walmart style bargain bins of Steam was Master of Pottery waiting for me. This is a game designed to assist you in becoming the artisanal potting virtuoso you’ve always wanted to be. You have arrived at your friend’s house and as friends do they have left with very little explanation and assumed you will take over their business for them. Friendship is cool. They will periodically communicate with you about how to run the business as well as sending you an allowance that is about as much as your aunt sent you on Christmas as a kid via mail. (Starting to see why their business wasn’t doing too hot if they’re using snail mail as primary communication.)

You must create pots, fire them up in your kiln, display them in your gallery, and promote said gallery for money. The goal is pretty much just fun, there really isn’t much else. It’s a pottery simulation game. I will be 1000% honest with you, I bought this game because of a feature that you unlock at Level 5. During Level 5 you are allowed to upload your own images to place upon any pottery you make, and I had a vision. A goal that I needed to achieve. That….of the Shia Labeouf “Just Do It” vase. (see first picture) So I slapped that purchase button on Steam harder than I ever have before and installed it with a fervor.

Master of Pottery is an early access game so there were a few minor bugs and some translation issues, but nothing game breaking. You’re given a set of basic tools to create a variety of differently shaped ceramics. You can begin throwing immediately, and shape to your heart’s content. Once you are finished with a shape that you like, you can glaze it and throw it into the fires. A mini-game ensues where you have to keep a line within a certain range to fire the piece properly. After that you can choose what to display within your exhibition hall. You have a limited number of spots, but can purchase more stands as you go along. If you promote things well enough within newspapers, and on TV more people will purchase tickets hence more money and you may just catch the eye of a collector who knows quality when they see it.

Once you’re done you can even share your works with friends.

The game doesn’t censor you, and it doesn’t really care what you do. I was able to create a lot of things that are blessings upon the eyeballs and I had an absolute blast. Bear in mind this is also an app and can be played anywhere on your phone or other device. For the low price of $4 this game is hours of fun.

I had several artists in the chat who played this differently than me. They were more serious about it, and genuinely enjoyed it. That’s how you can tell this game is just fun in general. You can approach it from a time wasting or serious direction and still enjoy it.

By the end of this I felt like the Master of Pottery, and if you’re not sure please check out one of the creations below:

Pros:
-Controls are good
-Image placement is fantastic feature
-Fun
-Very good price

Cons:

-Some minor bugs since early access

9/10

 

 

Cowpocalypse Now

No I haven’t lost my mind. Cowpocalypse was a very real and very free game on Steam. It is one of those gems you find one late night when going down ten rabbit holes researching something random. Maybe that’s just me though, a private detective of time wasting.

Moove over other games cause this game is udderly unbelievable. Okay, I’ll stop now. Cowpocalypse tells the story of this kid that looks like they shrunk Zack from Saved by the Bell. He wakes up to find a reindeer has crashed into the roof over his bed (butt first oddly) and all of his parent’s cows are gone from the property. Typical problems of a youth. Cue up the My Chemical Romance youngster. 

Worried about the fact his father will somehow blame him for all this, Zack decides to find the cows. Along the way he solves puzzles, meets a drunken Russian Santa, and talks to trees. I know…

You’re sitting there thinking we’ve seen this a million times Jess! Oh great! ANOTHER little boy adventure with missing cows, talking trees, and drunken Russian Santas. Originality people? Have you heard of it? Hear me out though.

This is not a good game. This is a fun game. I think there can be a distinction. The perfect intersection of fun and good is when you get a perfect game, but when you have a fun bad game it’s like a B movie. If Mystery Science Theater watched games this would be on their viewing list.

This story can’t just be told in one part, it’s an episodic series. Part 1 of 3 Cowpocalypse leaves you with a massive cliffhanger which left me howling with laughter but also ready to play the next two. They have sadly not been released yet, crowdfunding is currently taking place on the second one. Be on the lookout for updates on the status of the crowdfunding for part 2 on Steam and also be on the lookout for me to play it on my stream! I love these weird little oddities so we’ll definitely be finishing it up as they come out.

There are lots of problems with this game so I don’t feel it’s fair to give it a final rating as I’m biased. The puzzles have no logical sense, there are spelling errors out of every corner, and it can be buggy in the hit boxes but this is my kind of game. It’s a blast though. There were so many times I was laughing at the sheer “what in the world” factor of the whole thing. It’s bombastic, in your face, and I think it knows that it’s crazy.

Can you spot what’s wrong in this picture? Or are you “stucked”?

It was also made by one person and it was their dream to make it. They decided to undertake simply for the sake of achieving that dream. That’s pretty admirable and honestly it’s not too shabby for a one person endeavor.

If you’re curious and you have some time to kill you can get the first episode here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1075430/Cowpocalypse__Episode_1/

If not I completely understand.

 

Mortician Addams

-played off stream-

Laundry Bear Games has created a love story to the “death positive movement” with A Mortician’s Tale. If you’ve never heard of “death positivity”, outside of Bones being so positive when he says “He’s dead, Jim” to Captain Kirk, it’s a social movement encouraging people to speak more openly about death. Ya know, put that fun back into funeral. It’s a way to make it more acceptable and to better understand what happens when we shuffle off this mortal coil.

It’s not really a game though, it’s more of an educational tool. The short length and very few game mechanics make it so.

You play as Charlie, a fresh mortician right out of school. She just started at Rose and Daughters a mom and pop run funeral home. You never leave the funeral home, in fact the game takes place in one of 3 locations throughout. At the start of a “day” you’ll check your email which is filled with both work and non-work related correspondence. Once you accept your job for the day you have to clean, prepare, and host a funeral for a client.

Everything has its routine, there is no deviation, and the game consistently gives you instructions on what to do. I loved the constant routine, it makes you sit with the subject matter and really think about it. The constant tutorial aspects though became frustrating and would pull me out of the experience. After the third time doing something I know that I need to scrub the body, put in the eye caps, etc. Just like at a real job. Which is a testament to how well Laundry Bear crafted the new employee atmosphere.

Whatever object you’re supposed to tackle next will have a radioactive glow, it is always in the order listed above. Emails are interesting and informative about funeral life, but not so much about the character’s lives. This is really the only opportunity for us to learn about Charlie as well as her coworkers/friends as Charlie never speaks. We also never see the other characters in person. These interactions always seem a little two dimensional and forced though. There is a moment when Matthew, the hearse driver, recalls a story about his friend dying in an accident and how he dealt with that loss via email. Why would you email this? He supposedly frequents the funeral home in person so I feel like you would tell this story in person. It just feels off, and you never truly feel like you know the people in the game.

After finishing your emails you’ll accept a job from your director. Once you accept the job you’ll go over and prepare the body for either an open casket funeral or cremation. The tasks repeat and the game repeats what to do unnecessarily. When you’ve completed preparing the body you’ll have a funeral that you attend.

The funerals are supposed to give us insight and poignancy into the grief process as well as seeing those left behind. Unfortunately as a character that does not speak or interact with anyone they just felt odd to me. You’ll walk in, eavesdrop on a few conversations, pay your respects to the deceased then leave. It feels like Wedding Crashers except you’re the mortician.

The conversations can also be really strange. Like the one below:

These interactions again fall under that forced feeling I had throughout. There is one instance where you have to prepare the body of a homeless man. As such nobody attends his funeral, but you hold one anyway out of respect. The visual of an urn in an empty room is supposed to be extremely impactful but it ended up making me wonder why you needed the spectacle. Couldn’t you have paid your respects without pointing out the fact nobody knew they had passed? It made me feel the opposite of what they were going for.

It started to feel as if taking out the characters and making it strict educational game about funeral work would have almost been better. 

The sound design is minimal in this game which can add to the atmosphere, but its not great to listen to. I played the game for about 2 hours and eventually turned the music off and turned on my own. It sounded too much like elevator music to enjoy for an extended period of time. Some mellow classical might have been better suited to the mood.

The art design is where A Mortician’s Tale really shine. The art is minimal, but really visually engaging. Yes bodies aren’t accurate, that terrible bike accident victim looks exactly like the woman who passed away in her sleep, but it works. It takes away the gore of funeral work and focuses on the people, the death aspect. I think that suited it well. The mellow purples, grays, and other colors used make it seem somber but not sad. Angular lines make it a little disconcerting at times, but not uncomfortable. Everything is balanced. The thing lacking from the rest of the game.

Now I’ve been really harsh on this so I will say I think what they tried to do here is admirable. I also feel like as an educational tool I learned a lot, it just didn’t feel like a game. Or it felt like a game in the same way that Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was, yes technically it’s a game but it’s mostly a device for learning. I’ve always been fascinated by subjects like these so I genuinely enjoyed my time with this game. Just be aware that if you’re wanting a high level of engagement you may not find it here.

If you’re curious the steam link is here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/578720/A_Morticians_Tale/

6.5/10

Pros:
-Great art
-Interesting information
-Short play time

Cons:
-Not enough game mechanics
-Repetitive instructions shown
-BG music is annoying
-Don’t really get to know characters

 

Singin in the Rainswept

Rainswept is a game that tests your ability to deal with tragic backstories on the regular. Main character, tragic backstory. Secondary character, tragic backstory. Random pedestrian on the street, tragic backstory. It’s like a teenage CW drama met up with a Lifetime movie of the week and had an ugly baby they put up for adoption promptly.

The Steam reviews involved with this game are utterly glowing so we must have played something different. I wanted to like Rainswept a lot, but it failed to deliver on many levels. If you don’t know me well,

1. how dare you and

2. mysteries are my bread and butter.

I’ve always loved a good detective game since I was a tiny human so when I saw Rainswept’s premise and art style I was beyond excited.

Rainswept is a detective point and click where you play as Detective Stone. Stone is investigating the deaths of Chris and Diane, a troubled couple that just recently moved into a new town. It appears as if it was a murder/suicide but Stone believes there is something else that happened. Stone is a troubled detective, he’s seeing visions and can’t sleep very well. He has that wonderful mixture of five o’clock shadow, cigarette smoke, trenchcoat, and angst we all love from private eyes.

The majority of the game is played as Stone, but you’ll occasionally participate in flashbacks of the deceased’s lives (always with some flimsy explanation as to how you know this information) where you’ll play as them. My favorite excuse for a flashback is when Stone finds a photo and it thankfully has extensive details of what happened the night the photo was taken written on the back. You know, like we all did in the 90’s.

I loved the game at the outset. The variety of the tertiary characters in the town was interesting, the art style was minimalist but engaging, and I adored the beginning of the mystery. It’s unfortunate that it had to take such a turn, but as the story progresses the plot holes became the size of potholes in Indiana. The characters begin to break down becoming two dimensional platforms for tragic backstories that feel like you’re being emotionally manipulated into caring for a story that is losing momentum. The writing feels like they tried to tie everything up too fast even though the game itself feels like its pacing is dragging past the quarter mark.

The gameplay is so minimal it borders on visual novel territory which creates an issue since the game relies heavily on a story that is not very well crafted. When your story is in prime focus, the minute errors will become more evident. There are not really any puzzles and the interactions are pretty standard fare from section to section. Go to an area listed in your journal, interview the people there, gather any clues, and then go to next area. Rinse and repeat.

Dialogue between characters over time weakens. Interactions were lively and engaging with lots of quirky townsfolk ala Twin Peaks, but you can only have so many interactions with the same people saying essentially the same thing before it becomes dry. Gameplay really doesn’t engage you because the amount of things you have to do are so few. It becomes a boring trek towards a climax that feels like you have to suspend all your disbelief.

It felt that they used dark subject matter to garner more positive reviews. Dark subject matters need to be brought to light but these subjects should be done so in a graceful way with purpose. Rainswept feels like it slaps them on characters in order to serve as plot motivators and nothing more.

That being said there are some characters that walk away from this not looking like two dimensional trains on their way to the end game. Officer Blunt, detective Stone’s partner, is a well rounded and likeable individual. There is a coffee shop owner that frequently discusses aspects of the case with you that I enjoyed. Its moments like these that again show the potential of the game lying just beneath the surface.

The audio and art are what really drive this game. They fit the game well. As previously mentioned the art style is just beautiful to look at, so full of color and life in stark contrast to its subject matter. They serve the story well not drawing away attention from the writing but rather breaking the character’s down to their basics. Breaking the very atmosphere down to its basics. It felt like the art and audio understood that this was going to be a game about deconstructing these people’s lives and mimicked that in its approach.

The overall dislike that I feel for the game and the criticisms may feel unwarranted but when you’re playing up a story you have to really solidify the details…particularly when it’s a mystery. True crimes may not have neat reasoning and clear guidelines but fictional crimes typically do in the genre. You have to be prepared as a mystery writer for the audience to call you out if they see inconsistencies. Rainswept feels like a beautiful but rushed mess that I can only recommend on sale.

If you want to check it out for yourself the Steam link is here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/772290/Rainswept/

Pros:
-Great audio
-Great visuals

Cons:

-Terrible story
-no replay value
-poor mechanics

3/10

CSI: Criminally Slow Investigations

Painscreek Killings is a game from EQ Studios. The basic premise is that you are trying to find the killer of Vivian Roberts, a local well to do woman. The actual premise is that you walk around an empty town desperately trying to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to be doing. I can see why they put the former  description on the Steam packaging. Wandering around desperately trying to figure out what to do with my life is what I do daily, don’t really need that in a digital format.

Short disclaimer: I rage quit this game just like Outlast 2 and watched someone else suffer through the ending for me. Just like Outlast 2 I have zero regrets about that decision. But Jess, you may be asking yourself, how can you quit such a slow and fun exploration of nothing? It’s so nihilistic and right up your alley. Well stop talking to yourself I won’t be able to hear everything. It’s not deep, it feels ill thought out and empty. A crime scene may be cleared out after an investigation. A whole town is not.

You play as a rarely talked about detective named Janet, slowly walking around gathering clues to the murder of Vivian and finding out about the townspeople. She’s no Nancy Drew and you start to wonder if she’s some intern stuck with the worst cold cases. EQ wanted to emulate a real life detective’s work so they made it slow and methodical. The idea is admirable, the execution less so. It becomes repetitive fast. Find a key, open a door, find a code, open a safe. The only thing killing Janet is her legs. There is no suspense, no tension. I felt like there was little payoff to me finding all of these “clues.” It doesn’t feel like emulating a real crime scene unless you had everyone clear off the scene then pack up and move. Sorry neighbors there was a murder so you’ll have to get a new mortgage somewhere else.

All that is left of the townspeople are their letters and diaries since everyone in the town was apparently contractually obliged to leave their diary in the open for no reason. The bookstore in town must have been booming since they would only write on one page before quitting and buying a new diary.

Painscreek Killings fails to engage you. There are no puzzles and the town feels like only 10 people even lived there in the first place. As one person in my chat pointed out the constant talk of a mayoral campaign being run is odd since there is basically only one person running every year. That’s a dictatorship Painscreek not an election, deal with it.

I wanted to like this game a lot. My anticipation was high for it and I stuck it out as long as I could but walking and finding keys does not make a murder mystery game. By hour 6 when I realized it was gonna be more of the same key to door swapping and keypad unlocking from vague letters, I quit. At that point I was fairly certain in the knowledge I had solved the murder, I should’ve trusted this gut feeling and left the town for an early ending which is an option because I was correct.

Not only is it slow but it is also quite laggy. Even on a newly built computer, frames dropped and I had to wait a couple minutes during load times. I don’t mind slowness but when the game isn’t engaging to begin with it is difficult to wait through black screens or frame drops.

For those who did like this game take heart, there is a sequel coming out very soon. Perhaps we’ll give it a try but I’m not likely to re-visit Painscreek much like its townsfolk .

4.5/10

Pros:

-Good Visuals
-Nice Music
-Neat Idea

Cons:
-Slow Pace
-No puzzles
-Repetitive structure
-Lagging

Scrabble and Sudoku Madness in Lexica

Not to be confused with the similar nomenclature of “World of Lexica” which is a tablet based children’s RPG game from Schell Games. Lexica is a puzzle game that was a collaborative effort of Vexus Puzzle Design  and Merge Games. Vexus Puzzle Design created the puzzles themselves while Merge helped publish and market the game.  Lexica was gifted to me during the Steam Summer Sale, and it has become my go to break time game.
To preface this review, if you are not a fan of word/puzzle games this won’t be a good fit for you. There is no end goal, it’s just how many puzzles can you complete in the various “packs” with 13 Steam achievements unlocking based upon quantity and time taken for each puzzle.
I’m a fan of most puzzles, to give you an indication of how much I love word based puzzles I’ll let you know a secret. Will Shortz was one of the idols of my teenage years. Yes, the guy who developed his own degree at Indiana University called enigmatology and helped create the modern NY Times crossword was a favorite of my teenage heart. So you can guess that when I saw this puzzle gem I was intrigued by its format. This game is an interesting mixture of several different forms of word puzzles. Combining the grid system of Sudoku with the black and white tiling of crossword puzzles, and topping it all off with the recombining of words ala Scrabble, Lexica gives its players a unique puzzle experience. This mixture is what drew me in, and it is what kept me playing through the various puzzle packs.

Lexica has three levels of game packs: easy, medium, and hard. The packs total around 96 puzzles according to the Merge Games site, but I’ve only completed between 20-30 at the moment. The game begins by you selecting a difficulty level and then proceeding to go through the puzzle while a clock monitors your time. You may exit at any point, and you can even go to another puzzle with the option to return at any point available to you. The point is to slide all the letter tiles into their correct places in order to create a set of interlocking words. These words are set already so it’s up to you to merely find them. The varying difficulty levels are definitely good indicators of the puzzle difficulty, but I found that even a few of the easy ones afforded their own challenge.
It’s definitely a fun word puzzle game and one that I would recommend. However the simplicity of its design and content make me think that it is definitely a Steam Sale game at its core. Unless you’re absolutely certain you want a game of this type, it would be best to wait til it is marked down as there is very little replay value once you’ve solved a puzzle. This is definitely a game that much like a puzzle book you’ll do once and then never touch again so be wary with your money. That being said, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and I think that puzzle fans will too.

8/10

Full Steam Ahead: How Steam is Becoming My One True Love

Ok, so I’ve never really been part of the PC Master Race. I tried it, but honestly I still prefer a good ol’ fashioned controller and console. So what does Steam decide to do? Come out with their own beautiful and extremely functional controller that I simply must have in my life immediately.

The controller is a really interesting design, almost looking like a flattened Xbox controller but with sleeker pads. I think that the description on the Steam store adequately says everything you need to know about the controller, it “is an innovative input device that allows you to play games from all genres, including traditional gamepad-style games as well as games usually reserved for play with a mouse and keyboard. The Controllers are wireless and completely configurable.”

The only sad thing is that the controller is in limited quantity, and won’t be out until this October 16th. That means that pre-ordering is essential at the moment and my wallet is screaming at me for taking anything out of it. Sad days, but that doesn’t mean it should stop you from grabbing one and letting me know how it is!

After that wonderful news I still had my reservations about getting into a serious relationship with  computer games only because it’s not just the controller that’s my problem. Don’t misunderstand me I love the enhanced graphics, the fact I’m already at my desktop anyway, the selection of games etc etc. But I hate the lack of refunds! Oh wait, you’re going to give me refunds too? Well shoot.

Steam just announced last week as well that they will be offering refunds. Now this comes with some stipulations that as yet haven’t been fully defined by the company. Mostly stating that if they catch users abusing the refund option than they would ban said user from refunds and other nasty affairs, but that refunds would be offered on all games up to two weeks after purchase. Not only that, but if you buy a game and it goes on sale you are eligible to get the sale price as a refund. Too much awesome to handle. But wait there is more…

Not only all of the above but their iconic Steam Summer Sale starts this June 11th. My wallet is officially going to hate me. Now I know that truly I’ll always be a console girl at heart and vocally but Steam is definitely making me cheat on my Playstation with my desktop this summer and fall.