Video Games and Similar Media

Harris

Various games I've been hopping around on that may be of interest (~~and pokemon because I'm a pokemon shill sorry)~~

I may elaborate on any progress/thoughts/etc in follow up posts if the whim strikes me.

Indie Recs -

Backpack Hero - Inventory management roguelike! Stuff all the loot in a bag and tetris it to fit! - Very charming little pixel game, Farwoods-adjacent characters. The gameplay loop is pretty fun, I haven't played through the full story or been as experimental with my builds because I like having a bunch of shivs or poison but there does seem to be a ton of options. I've played the most runs with the starting mouse character but there are a couple others you can unlock, with interesting twists on the mechanics.

Cattails: Wildwood Story - ~~Legally distinct Warrior Cats I love you~~. You get to be a stray cat who lives in the woods, hunt prey, catch bugs, build a 'town' or 'colony' of other cats. Prettier cat portraits from the original game. And boss battles! Honestly you can start with this one, there are a few returning characters but you don't need to have played the original to enjoy it. Although if you're curious, its still fun as well. And very curious you can check out the original fangame Warrior Cats Untold Tales.

Bug Fables - An indie Paper Mario-like game. I LOVE LITTLE BUG PEOPLE SETTING SO MUCH AAA. This game is so funny and I was having a lot of fun with it before drift on my switch got bad (and I was stuck on a hard boss anyway). Need to take this off the shelf and finish it some time Game is Hard to Me.

Kabuto Park - Card based bug collection and battler. My only knock for this is its a short short little game but it was still a very fun time.

No, I'm Not A Human - I've been wanting to dip my toes into more horror games and this was definitely right up my alley. Paranoia in the End of Times. A bit of the discrimination and government corruption like in papers please, definitely evoked some feelings that reminds me of the start of the covid pandemic too. Check CWs and age ratings on this one for sure.

Early Access Games - (Finished enough to a point they're fun to play IMO)

Fields of Mistria - Basically everything I didn't know I wanted in a farming sim. I originally heard about it because of the Sailor Moon inspired art direction (FANTASTIC spritework on the characters), but I had no idea it was going to be so fun to play. Extremely charming villager interactions (they gossip and talk amongst each other, not just the player character). Impressive assortment of player customization options- which you have free access to from the menu at any time, and does not take up inventory space. Bug collecting <3 So excited to see all the features that will be in the full release.

Grimshire - Interesting twist on the farming sim genre! You need to stock up food for the community storage and complete certain questlines or its possible villagers may die. I was doing a play through as Harris, with self imposed restriction not to use slaughter tables or kill any fish personally. (Spoiler alert: this gets ppl killed) Charming sprite art and setting, we love little animal folks in this house.

Upcoming Titles on my Radar:

Haunted Paws - Co-op 'horror' of two doggies teaming up to rescue owner from a haunted mansion. (I mean come on that's just adorable.) Luigi's Mansion vibes.

Grave Seasons (Anticipated age rating: 17+, Pixel art blood/gore in the steam trailer) - Dark narrative farming sim where one of the townsfolk will be randomly chosen to be a supernatural serial killer. It sounds so edgy and I'm so curious how it'll play out.

Mobile games, pet sites -

Pixelcatsend - Often shortened to PCE. A lot of folks in discord found Farwoods through advertisement there, including myself! Collect and breed kitties, decorate scenes, fun flavor text for daily collectables, play rpg mini games, and lovely custom artist content. Free to play, minimal premium content- However you'll need to wait for an open registration window for a new account. Highly recommend trying out.

Pokemon TCG Pocket - I love.. pokemon card art.......... I just started playing this year and honestly not too bad progression for a new player, I've already completed all the collection missions on two sets with no premium currency. It does seem annoying there ARE some paywalled cards and cosmetics but its mostly Pikachus so whateverrrr lol. I'm proud of my Miltank and Donphan deck funny cows go boom.

Friend Code: 6421740470429344

Pokemon Go - I still play this but I don't really recommend it tbh. Imbalance of pokestops in rural areas compared to more urban places. Disagree with things they rolled back on the community has been wanting and monetization tactics are pretty cringe. There are some things they have improved on since the original launch and tons of pokemon from later gens available now. (Strangely some have been released out of order though) If you walk a lot and don't get sucked into that kind of thing its fine, and it can be an okay way to get a shiny pokemon to your switch games if there's a pokemon you want with a spotlight hour coming up.

Not sharing FC on this one due to the location tracking.

Pokemon Sleep - Tracking the horrors of my sleep schedule <3 Friend code is: 8561-5567-1093 if you wanna help give my pokemon candy~

Neopets - There has been Plot stuff going on that I've not been checking super regularly but pretty neat! If you haven't read the short stories on the Altador Cup page, I do recommend checking those out. The Meridell Team story was my favorite.

Webkinz Classic - (I have been meaning to poke in since it did recently re-release the option to play in-browser)

Pokemon General:

(I have at least one version of all the mainline games + several spin offs, so just listing my most recently played/revisited- happy to share thoughts on others though)

Legends Arceus - I put this on hold when I got my controllers fixed for drift, but I was enjoying it. Very pretty and atmospheric art direction. The catching is a neat change of pace and I enjoyed being threatened by aggro wild pokemon.

Legends ZA - I'm having a lot of fun with this! The start game tutorial and railroading is a bit offputting but the charm of the setting and characters is outweighing it for me so far. I tend to get lost easily in 3D enviroments though, so I could see this being another game I might not finish haha.

PMD Sky - I didn't replay the whole game but someone mentioned it in chat so I went messing around with my old file. (Somehow I hit the item storage cap which is wild to me) Did a few of the solo leader only missions with a Beautifly, omni boosting babeyyy.

Pokemon ROM hacks/Fan games:

Sapphire in Reverse - All gym leaders + elite four re-balanced to fight in reverse order. (So Roxanne is Champion and Steven is a Gym 1 level trainer) Saw a Youtube video on it and started a run with Treecko as my starter pokemon. Took a breather after the 4th gym. Definitely a bit of a hurdle to have a steel gym leader right at the start if you don't start Torchic.

Pokemon Lazarus - Don't know too much about it other than its by the same folks who did that really pretty Emerald Seaglass hack iirc? I played about an hour but forgot to save, RIP.

(finished) Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Strung Up by Sketches - The PMD rom hacking scene is a bit newer, been meaning to try more but a lot are still works in progress or didn't hold my attention. However this is a standalone adventure/short game and it was the best of the ones I tried. Definitely not your typical PMD story or gameplay. Unsettling but not over the top edgy 'Lets do Pokemon but with Guns' or a campy creepypasta. Reminds me a bit of OFF but still with some of that optimistic PMD charm (and definitely nothing as explicitly graphic as in OFF). The CW for the family abuse stuff takes place in the Sandshrew storyline for anyone who might be interested in watching a playthrough.

PokeRouge - In browser rougelike battler. A lot of pokemon stats are rebalanced/pokemon are given busted moves, has a 'fusion' mechanic (Combines types, and a nice way of getting better ability on a pokemon), etc. Has some fanmade sprite variations, alternate shiny colors. You need an account to play but its free. Haven't been playing it much recently but a nice time killer every once in a while. Has a main story that you can replay as many times as you want, and afterwards you can unlock an endless mode that goes on until you wipe. Also daily challenges with a specific set of starting pokemon, but I haven't personally beat many of those. Sometimes they have shiny boosted events and such around holidays.

NEOPETS short story tangent (MINOR SPOILERS?)

Referring to all the short stories on the Altador Cup page for the Gray Painter event AKA what all the teams were doing when the cup got cancelled - my quick summaries for each since I already gushed to another discord about them -

(The Meridell one and Haunted Woods were my faves but i really liked reading all of them ^^)

1. Altador; Team Altador are serving as ambassadors for King Skarl, eventually able to make him laugh

2. Team Brightvale; They catch up with their old teammate Squeaky who joined Roo Island and banter a bit- Brightvale are known to be underhanded/cheaters while Squeaky sticks to the rules (I like the idea of Tress/Orie)

3. Dacardia - The newbie team are are all lamenting their bad luck. Rowdy is very 'hate him so bad it makes you look stupid' about Tandrak from Darigan.

“And,” Rowdy added, his cockiness returning, “Maybe this’ll finally get my name up next to Tandrak’s.”

“Ooh, yeah, maybe he’ll finally notice you,” Camila teased.

“Hey!”

4. Darigan Citadel -Tandrak being a mysterious badboy with a heart of gold lol. They launch fire yooyus at Meridell, making them think its an attack, but in actually the yooyus are bringing over supplies. (Ilsa and Fiorina cameo yay)

5. Team Faerieland - Very fluffy, the team go out for ice cream and smoothies and then host an exhibition match for the faeries.

6. Haunted Woods - Very sweet story, Crade Talvos questioning whether becoming Wraith was a good idea or not since he scares ppl now, having a heart to heart with Zo Junior, confirming they would have wanted him on the team regardless of color.

7. Kiko Lake - funny little story about them convincing Poke to give up his big stash of stuff for donations

8. Krawk Island - Pirate. Yuri. (Bluebeard attacks them bc she thought they were smuggling petpets and she loves petpets)

9. Kreludor - Silly cute little story, Ealyn talks Qlydae out of firing off the t-shirt cannon targeting Brightvale specifically (he wanted to rub it in their face that they beat them but theyre like uhhhh grey curse buddy come on dont kick them while theyre down)

10. Lost Desert - One of the team members secretly let a gang of thieves play yooyuball with their equipment, which lead to them thinking it was stolen.

11. Maraqua - Interteam drama, the team are having fun making a game out of cleaning up debris in the ocean, but Elon shows up, puts the goalie down, and the mood sours, concluding he doesn't trust his teammates.

12. Meridell - (Favorite team bias aside this was so sweet) Grandma goat fights plant monsters to get dye, and makes a cute outfit for her implied trans teammate <3

13. Moltara - Big aroace loneliness vibes from Talulah, but a promise and reassurance from her bestie they'll always have eachother. (Also canon gay husbands, Aldric and Neeraj) Harlis Neyhbol and Wila Benne also have a cross team romance.

14. Mystery Island - Not a ton of focus on the MI team, tbh, more spotlight for team Dacardia, since they're going to visit them. They're building a giant yooyu ball, and they share an anecdote about practicing with Darigain team while they were on the island for vacation. But still a cute little moment of them encouraging the newbies.

15. Roo Island - Jair struggles with juggling both the yooyu ball team and the circus, starting to burn out- her teammates support her taking a break.

16. Shenkuu - Timu struggles with imposter syndrome, previously being considered a 'prodigy'. Her teammate Mirsha encourages her.

Terror Mountain - Osielle confesses to the team he was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and is going blind. His teammates are concerned and support him.

Tyrannia - Loryche has been bringing her kids to watch practice since her babysitter was effected with the grey curse. Wila feels uncertain about motherhood and Loryche encourages her.

19: Virtupets - DOWN WITH AI BABEY!! Sela argues with V for trying to rely too much on 'programming' and 'simulations' instead of trusting their instincts and kicks them off the team when they suggest cloning a team mate.

EXCERPTS I ESPECIALLY LIKED: (actual spoilers again)

Haunted Woods -

“So… do you want to go back to being purple?”

Crade thought about it for a moment. He looked out at the treetops again, and listened to the howl of the werelupes, and the shuffling of branches, and the cackling of witches… and he caught sight, once more, of the wisps of smoke and light swirling and dissipating from him. As the mix of darkness and light faded into the mist, Crade smiled. He liked how that looked—and in that moment, he realised that he felt more at home here, and in his own skin, than ever. Here in the Haunted Woods, where scary was good, and where he had found his place among friends.

“...No,” he said at last, and as the word left his mouth, he was surprised to find how true it was. “I don’t.”

(transgender to me.......)

Krawk Island -

In the chaos, Coco opened the hatchway to the cargo hold. Before Zayle could get a shot off with the blunderbuss, Coco used her full force to tackle Bluebeard below deck. The Varwolf pirate cushioned Coco’s landing. When she opened her eyes, she found Bluebeard holding her, as if protecting her from the fall. The captain’s fluffy namesake tickled Coco’s cheek, and she rolled away, blushing through her spots.

(pirate yuri.....)

Tyrannia -

“Why don’t they like me?” Wila said softly.

“Oh, hun, they’re toddlers. Their interests change per bowel movement.” Loryche laughed, but noticed Wila slouch more. “They’ll come around, darling. Just give it time.” “Maybe it’s a sign… that I won’t be a good mom,” Wila said, somehow even softer than before. “At least not like you.”

poor wila </3

Meridell -

The night before Illusen Day, with colourful knitted garlands lending warmth to the grey old town, Ethel gifted all of her teammates new jumpers: bright red and blue for Team Meridell.

She sat by Ilsa and watched her unfold two different sweaters, both perfectly sized to her tall stature. One flowed like her skirt, while the other resembled the boxier garments that Ilsa had worn before.

“I wanted to make sure you were comfortable no matter which felt… right for you, the day of the festival. Though either would go fine with skirts or trousers!”

A smile spread across the red Ixi’s face. “You are not to be underestimated,” she said, and wrapped her arms around Ethel in a big hug. “Thank you, Ethel.”

end of excerpts