Some Games I Played in 2023: A Retrospective

What prompted me to create a place for game reviews on my site in the first place is the fact that I played a ton of good stuff in 2023, including an unprecedented amount of demos! I keep track on what I play during the year, and at some point it occured to me that I should write a couple of lines about the games I liked the most. So here we are!

Some of the games here will literally have only a couple of lines written about them. Initially, I didn't intend to produce any sort of wrap-up post at the end of 2023 so I didn't record my thoughts on games throughout the year. Therefore, I'm fuzzy on quite a few details. However, though I may have forgotten quite a lot, I sure didn't forget the vibes!

The games in question are divided into three categories: replays, new-to-me games and demo versions.

Perhaps someone will even find this useful!

replays

Lamplight City (2018)

The first game I played in 2023 was a replay of a great game I’d played once in 2019, Lamplight City. It’s a steampunk-ish noir-ish point-and-click adventure game set in an alternate universe where North America is still a part of the British Empire and slavery has just been abolished because steam technology is becoming more widespread, rendering human labor unnecessary. The world-building is pretty much my favorite part of the game! There clearly was so much thought put into the history of Vespuccia. The pixel visuals were stunning too! There are several endings (there is one canon story, but its ending can be experienced in several ways depending on your choices), and I loved that the game doesn’t hold the player’s hand when it comes to the investigation. It’s not difficult at all, but you can totally end up accusing the wrong person if you don’t pay attention.

The rest of the games I replayed were a bunch of Nancy Drew games I’d replayed a million times before. I won’t be going into the details on those here; I'd rather save it for my future Nancy Drew shrine!

new-to-me

Night Cascades (2022)

I can’t help but group the two games I’m going to start this category with into what I like to call The Lesbian Visual Novel Duo. The first game is Night Cascades, which is set in an alternate 1980s America circa Satanic panic. The protagonist is offered a job as a police consultant for a series of cases that may or may not be connected to the occult, and the detective she’s assigned to turns out to be her ex. This is a kinetic visual novel – that is, it doesn’t have playable branches or multiple endings. The gameplay is minimal, but it does exist in the form of easy minigames that add variety to the playing experience. I rather enjoyed this game, especially the relationship between the two women (which is the reason I got this game in the first place). The ending hints at a possible sequel, too, which hopefully happens someday.

A Summer's End - Hong Kong 1986 (2020)

The other game, A Summer’s End – Hong Kong 1986, is a little more complex story-wise. As far as I remember, it has two endings and your choices actually matter - there are scenes you can unlock if you get enough points for the dialogue options you select. I enjoyed the vibrant aesthetic of 1980s Hong Kong, the beautiful artwork and the references to classic wlw movies. The story, while sweet, also deals with topics like homophobia and cultural identity. This game is about lesbian desire and is thus meant to be experienced with the adult patch, but you won’t miss anything substantial if you don’t install it – at least that’s what I remember reading on the game’s website. With or without the patch, I very much recommend this VN.

Lake (2021)

In a peculiar turn of events, this game also takes place in 1986! Lake is a Hallmark movie of a game where the main character, Meredith, temporarily leaves her Big City Job and moves back to her tiny hometown to fill in for her father, a local postman, while he is on holiday. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is one of the coziest games I’ve ever played! It feels like it was made for me, really. The whole game consists of driving through the town delivering mail and doing little stress-free quests for the locals. There’s a male and a female romance options, and since the game takes place in a highly romanticized version of the 80s, there’s no homophobia or any other prejudice whatsoever. 10000/10 would recommend. Oh, and it has three endings! There’s also a holiday prequel DLC that came out last year where you play as Meredith’s father. I haven’t played it yet, but I for sure will next holiday season!

Unpacking (2021)

I was quite late to the party with this one and I don't think I can say anything about it that hasn't already been said multiple times... but it’s not like I’m ever original in my reviews, lol. Unpacking was an enjoyable and soothing experience the first time, but then I found myself coming back to it over and over again whenever I needed to calm down, and it was that familiarity that *really* did the trick. I don’t normally replay games of any genre so soon after my first playthrough, and yet there was something so uniquely calming about Unpacking that made me want to come back to it. And there are just enough ways to unpack stuff to ensure replayability! I also loved the way the objects were telling the main character’s story.

Strange Horticulture (2022)

Such an interesting game with such an interesting game mechanic! In Strange Horticulture, you play as the owner of the titular plant shop in a fantasy world. You find new plants, identify them, put tags on them, organize and water them, and sell your customers the plants that suit their needs best – or worst, if you want to be an agent of chaos. As you find and sell more plants, the main story unfolds.

This game is very calm and unhurried and, above all, immersive. While I played, I would sometimes just sit in my quaint little shop and listen to the rain and the purring of the cat (who can be petted, by the way!). My other favorite thing was uncovering new locations on the map – I thought the puzzles for that were really clever and unlike anything I’d seen before. Overall a great game!

Sucker for Love: First Date (2022)

A Lovecraftian horror dating sim in the aesthetic of 90s anime. What? Yes! This combination has no business working as well as it did in this game, to be honest, and there are few games of late that I enjoyed as much as this one. It’s just so damn fun! AND it's very funny! The protagonist’s whole shtick is that he really wants to smooch eldritch girlies, and I respect that. There are 3 love interests and, if I remember correctly, each of the three chapters is dedicated to one of them, plus each chapter has multiple outcomes. The gameplay consists of performing rituals using your pink Necronomicon. Hard recommend. Like I said, I found it incredibly enjoyable, both visually and narratively. The combination of Cthulhu mythos and pastel anime aesthetic is very pleasing, and the writing adds the necessary comedy to the incomprehensible horrors our protagonist is sometimes forced to endure.

Note for fellow Nancy Drew fans: one of the love interests is voiced by Lani Minella!

Links of interest: H.P.Lovecraft Is Rolling in His Grave - Sucker for Love: First Date

The Innsmouth Case (2020)

This is another Lovecraftian visual novel/text adventure that combines horror and comedy, but it’s very different from the previous one. This game is more like an interactive storybook where you play as a detective tasked to find a missing girl in the town of Innsmouth. At time of writing, The Innsmouth Case has mixed reviews on Steam and honestly? I get why. It becomes repetitive real fast and many jokes don’t quite land, especially for a game that claims to be a unique blend of horror and comedy or whatever. Still, there’s just something compelling about it! One redeeming factor for me was the amount of achievements and endings. I enjoyed playing this game and I know I’ll enjoy it again when I come back to it to collect the rest of the achievements. I don’t think I’d recommend it to anyone, though – if this game didn’t have those delicious achievements to lure me in, I doubt I’d be writing about it here at all.

Mask of the Rose (2023)

Another somewhat ~controversial~ game on my list, Mask of the Rose is a visual novel/datesim prequel to the browser text-based game Fallen London (and other games set in the same universe). In 1862, London was stolen by bats and fell underground; the game takes place roughly 200 days after the fall as Londoners begin to adjust to the strangeness of their new life. The player’s main objective doesn’t have to be full-on romance, it can be friendship or something in between. Though this game is a part of an already existing universe, you don’t need to be familiar with it to play.

The “controversy” of the game lies in its somewhat strange mechanics and in the fact that it had a slightly bumpy start with pacing issues. Also, if I remember correctly, MotR was heavily marketed as a dating sim, while in reality the dating isn’t the main focus of the game. I guess many fans were disappointed because of that as well. Anyway, the legitimate problems have been fixed by now. As for the rest, it’s purely a matter of taste! The game is designed to be explored and replayed multiple times and it even warns new players that their first try is probably going to be quite unsuccessful. I understand that it can be annoying. In fact, my first two playthroughs didn’t end the way I hoped they would, and it was only the third time that I finally [redacted] that giant [redacted] [redacted] and reached the desired outcome! I find that these peculiarities of the game don't make me enjoy it any less, though. I love the Fallen London universe and I love exploring it. The writing is superb, as it always is where Failbetter Games is involved. I think this game is great and I look forward to replaying it many more times!

Slay the Princess (2023)

An absolutely incredible psychological horror visual novel that fills you with existential dread. You, the Hero, are tasked by the Narrator to slay the princess, and that’s really it. No further explanation. You can choose to slay her or talk to her first to see if she really is evil. The story is told in chapters; you die at the end of each chapter, and your choices in the given chapter determine which narrative path you take and which chapter will be next. You also get new inner voices in each chapter that try to sway you in different directions.

It’s hard to pinpoint this game because it’s so expansive and raises so many philosophical questions and is so absurdist at times, but for me, this is first and foremost a story about love and the many forms it can take. I’m afraid I’ve got brain scramblies and can’t do the game justice with my description. Just play it, okay. Trust me. The writing is magnificent, as is the voicework by Jonathan Sims and Nichole Goodnight. Seriously, those people are mind-bogglingly talented. The hand-drawn graphics are also beautiful and refreshing.

demos

upcoming releases

Alex Hill: Whispers at White Oak Inn

Starting with not-yet-released games I'm most excited for, here's Whispers at White Oak Inn! Being a Nancy Drew girlie, I long for first person point-and-click adventure games in a similar vein. Thankfully, some of my fellow Nancy fans are now making their own Nancy-inspired games! More information can be found on the game's Itch page. In short, Alex Hill is a detective who comes to White Oak Inn to investigate threatening letters and ghostly occurences. Even though the demo is rather short and has no puzzles yet, I enjoyed it a lot and can hardly wait for the full game!

Play the demo // Wishlist on Steam

Sucker for Love: Date to Die For

Another game from the Sucker for Love series, which means more eldritch horror dating in the style of 90s anime! We have a new protagonist who ends up in a town full of cultists and accidentally summons Rhok'zan, The Black Goat of the Woods. This game was originally supposed to come out in February 2024, but the release was delayed - it's going to come out on April 23rd now. Judging by the demo, there’s more point-and-click elements in Date to Die For than its predecessor First Date. There will also be jumpscares, but the game will have a setting enabling jumpscare warnings. I’ll definitely be using that!

Finally, here’s a funny screenshot I took when I played the demo.

You can spray an eldritch horror with water if you don’t want them to hit on you :D I think that’s hilarious, but also? I actively want to be hit on by older women/eldritch abominations, so this feature will probably remain unused.

I grouped all of these games together because I played the demos pretty much one after the other, and they all have some spooky paranormal element to them. Plus these are all 3rd person point-and-click adventures, naturally. Foolish Mortals takes place in 1930s Louisiana and is about a guy who wants to find a historic treasure in an apparently ghost-filled manor, but accidentally awakens an evil spirit in the process. I loved the cozy vibes of the demo and the beautiful graphics, and Louisiana as a setting is always a plus for me! The demo for The Season of the Warlock reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s works and Gothic horror movies starring Vincent Price (the main character kinda looks like him, even). You alternate between playing as an aristocrat and his manservant. They come to a small fictional European country because the aristocrat wants to study a mythical warlock that allegedly lived there and prove he really did exist. Then he discovers that not only did the guy exist, his evil spirit is also trapped inside one of the paintings in the house they are staying in. Slender Threads is about a travelling salesman and aspiring writer who arrives to a peculiar small town and ends up being involved in some spooky goings-on. All three of these demos were very enjoyable and I can't wait to play the full games!

The Darkest Files

This is a historical game about prosecuting Nazis in the 1950s, inspired by true events. I greatly enjoyed this demo and the way it tells real stories in such an engaging way! Besides, as the game takes place only about ten years after WW2, it was somewhat therapeutic for me to play as a character in the aftermath of a traumatic event of this proportion who's making sure bad people get their due. The comic book art style of this game is beautiful; I also loved that you need to actually work to reconstruct the crime scenes and pay attention to solve the cases.

Arctic Awakening

This game is clearly inspired by my beloved Firewatch, so I'm very excited for its release! Arctic Awakening takes place in the near future. The main character, Kai, is a cargo plane pilot whose aircraft crashes in the woods somewhere in Alaska. Now Kai has to find his co-pilot Donovan and get out of the woods alive, with the help of Donovan over the radio and a court-mandated therapy robot that follows Kai everywhere. Oh, and something super strange is happening in the Arctic wilderness.

This is my second time playing the demo – I played the first version in 2022, and it’s nice to see the feedback-based improvements being implemented by the devs! The Firewatch vibe is very much present in the visuals as well as the premise, but this game has its own unique flair and I have a feeling it may take an entirely different path than Firewatch. Fingers crossed for a full release somethime this year!

Prim

I adore the art style and the vibe of this game! It reminds me a little of early Tim Burton. Prim is the name of the main character, a teenage girl who finds out her dad is the actual Grim Reaper. After her mother dies, Prim is forced to live with her estranged father in the Underworld, which she isn’t too thrilled about. One day she escapes, and all Hell breaks loose (haha!). This looks like it’s going to be a solid point-and-click adventure and I’m very much looking forward to playing it in full.

Loco Motive

This one is a fun pixel murder mystery set on a train in the 1930s! A rich old woman is murdered and you have to investigate who killed her. There are (at least) three suspects, including yourself, and you alternate between all three as you play. I don’t remember the details as I played this a long time ago, but I did enjoy the puzzles! The vibes of this game are immaculate overall – I mean, a murder mystery? On a train? Sign me the hell up.

released

These games have been released in full since I played the demo versions (in some cases they had been out even before that, and I just wanted to see if I like the game before purchasing it in full). I thought about omitting this part since writing about demo versions of games when there's a full product available doesn't make much sense, but I enjoyed these demos enough to want to mention them here. This backlog simply won't be complete without them!

Good Bones

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley

Good Bones is a cozy horror game about a woman who moves into an old house with her teenage daughter after the death of her wife. When they discover the house is haunted by the ghost of a woman who can’t remember who she is or how she died, it’s up to them to help her recover her missing memories. This game has a very cozy vibe, probably because of the color palette and art style. The beginning also reminded me a little of the beginning of Dream Daddy, which is firmly associated with coziness in my brain. I’ve bought the full version recently and am very excited to play.

Boxes: Lost Fragments is an escape room puzzle game about opening intricately designed boxes. Judging by the demo, there isn’t much in terms of plot, so I’m not quite sure how playing the full game will feel like: I may or may not get bored after a while. However, the full game has very positive reviews, so maybe there’s nothing to worry about!

I’m a big fan of Agatha Christie and the games based on her works, but I’m yet to play any of the recent ones. Looks like I’m going to start with The ABC Murders! This is a third person point-and-click detective game where you play as Poirot. As far as I remember, the gameplay is more complex than simple clicking or combining inventory items. You can also get points for behaving like canon Poirot :D

I don’t remember much about Later Alligator besides it being really fun! The animations are so cute! I remember enjoying the minigames as well. Very curious about this game.

At time of writing, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is in early access. This is a game about two siblings in an extremely toxic relationship who witness a satanic ritual gone wrong and then decide to perform one themselves. They also engage in cannibalism. Seems like a really fun game tbh!