Detective Games: Escape Room Edition 1

  08/12/2026       Act      Add Comment

I’ve been on a kick within a kick.

Good: The early Cube Escape/Rusty Lake games, Rusty Lake: Roots, Escape from Mystwood Mansion

Meh: Escape Simulator, The Inheritance of Crimson Manor, Escape First Alchemist

Bad: Escape Academy, Havsala

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   Puzzle, Video Games      , , , , , , ,

Slay the Princess

  07/28/2026       St. Elmo's Fire      1 Comment

I was surprised to see we never reviewed this. That was probably because I was still sorting through my feelings on it back when it first came out and then forgot about it, but it attracted my attention again after I started reading The Fury of a Shattered Mirror and I watched the new content added in The Pristine Cut.

If you’re not familiar, Slay the Princess is a visual novel where you interact with various iterations of a trapped princess. The narrator is a distinct character with an agenda: He insists that the Princess will end the world if she is freed, so to save the world you must slay her. No matter what you do in your first meeting, you end up dying horribly, wherupon the scenario resets, but with the Princess altered to reflect your actions and opinions towards her in your first meeting. The narration also uses a similar schtick to Disco Elysium, with each scenario granting you additional voices alongside the Narrator with their own personalities and suggestions.

My overall opinion is that this game isn’t nearly as clever as it thinks it is.

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   Horror, Video Games, Visual Novels     

QuickRecs: Roguelikes

  06/20/2026       Act      12 Comments

I’ve been on a big roguelike kick lately (well, more than usual).

These are largely three subgenres — 2D bullet heavens, twin-stick dungeon crawlers, and roguelike deckbuilders. These are the three genders, actually.

These are gameplay-first, not narrative, largely because I’ve been very, very tired but also because sometimes you just want games to be fun.

Inside: Dogpile, Army of Ruin, Pesticide Not Required, Machick, DunHero, Juicy Realm

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   Roguelike, Video Games      , , , ,

Darkest Dungeon 2: Secrets of the Coven

  05/29/2026       St. Elmo's Fire      10 Comments

So I thought I was finished with Darkest Dungeon 2 after I reviewed it on release, but it turns out that while I wasn’t looking they released a whole new game mode that’s more like a strategy game. In general I think the new game mode works a lot better with the core gameplay, but that’s not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is one of the story modules that goes with it, which is “What if witches were actually inhuman monsters and it was okay to kill them to the last?”

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   Roguelike, RPGs, Video Games      ,

QuickRecs: Shop Sim Edition

  04/04/2026       Act      3 Comments

I love shop sims. I do sometimes wonder what it says about me that I write about like, marxism for work and then go roleplay business for fun, but frankly I don’t have the time or energy to unpack that. Though if we could reconfigure things so that capitalism was only in video games I would call it a win for everyone.

Anyway, here’s some trading and shop games I enjoyed. Capitalism, ho!

(I waited too long to write these so some of them will be quite brief. Alas.)

Inside: Final Profit, Potion Permit, Winkeltje, Weapon Shop Fantasy, World End Diner, Potionomics, Amber Isle

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   Shop Sim, Sim, Video Games      , , , , , ,

MURDERED: SOUL SUSPECT (TM)

  03/01/2026       Act      2 Comments

(Airtight Games & Square Enix, 2014)

I haven’t done any AAA games yet. Honestly can’t even remember last time I played one that wasn’t Nintendo. Do they all title themselves so obnoxiously in Steam?

This is a bad game, and while for a while it was entertainingly bad, I ultimately DNFed it when it got boring under its own self-seriousness. It’s also textbook copaganda.

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   Adventure, Video Games