Day 5

:::spoiler Look Mum No Computer — Twin-stick shooter adventure

• Trying the demo purely because of the weird trailer
• Very retro PC gaming vibe. SID chip music!
• Rough introduction. Big info dump right at the start before I know what I’m doing
• Music changes as you change the installed skills, which are presented as synthesizer modules
• Struggling with visibility. Hard to quickly tell what’s an enemy and what’s background art. Also hard to tell what’s collidable and what’s clear
• I’m not finding the combat here very intersting

Pass :::

:::spoiler Morsels — Action roguelike (Isaaclike?) with creature collecting

• Gross and cute
• The classics from Rogue: traps, unexplained stuff, retrying a lot until you start to understand
• Demo shows a small but varied range of creatures with different abilities, which always come with a randomly selected bonus
• Quick switch between your roster of three
• At least in this early part of the game, ammo count is really low and even ranged attacks don’t go far
• Great presentation. Pixel art feels kind of like claymation

Pass. I liked the demo a lot, but I’m already playing a lot of roguelikes and my wishlist already has ones I’m more excited for :::

:::spoiler ODDCORE — Surreal boomer shooter

• Maximalism. An exhilarating force-feeding of the senses.
• Liminal spaces but actually awesome and fun. Exterminate the Backrooms! Shoot the jump scare monsters in their faces!
• Excursions into the Oddcore only last 5 minutes unless you buy time extensions
• Interesting idea: you can teleport home (almost) whenever you want to buy upgrades or more time
• Chaotic level progression, like really channel surfing through the multiverse. Sometimes, instead of warping to the next level, you end up in a corrupted level or a bonus level or just some weird, mildly creepy room

Wishlisted :::