Smith's Shorter Sagas

Completed: Jan. 29, 2025 Grade: A This game was hilarious. It is a point and click adventure game using Baroque paintings for the art, and music from the same era. Like any adventure game, some of the puzzles are a little obscure, and I needed to look up some of the answers (particularly after having started over the weekend then having to put it down as the work week started - I had forgotten what I was doing when I picked it back up). There is a cheat where you can stab your way through the game, and I started down that path, but decided to restart and play without murder. It has a highly satisfying ending, and even more satisfying credit scene - probably one of the most brilliant ways to handle credits that I could imagine in the context of the game. All in all, it was a lot of fun!

Completed: 27 Apr. 2025 Grade: B- This was a fun game, but I think I may have had higher expectations. I knew the gameplay was moving a hole around, swallowing objects in the hole, which makes it grow bigger and allows the player to swallow up larger objects. Nice and easy, and something I thought would be a good game to play while watching TV. It was that, and added some more mechanics to play around with the physics of the hole, such as launching a catapult or frogs or other things to interact with the environment. So the gameplay itself was fun, but I felt like the levels were too short, and that a lot of time was wasted with the story. The story was cute, but I felt it just detracted from the gameplay. I would have liked to see the levels drawn out more and grow to weirder scales. But still, the concept was great, and the levels were very clever, so I really did enjoy the game. Being a little short wasn't a bad thing either.

Completed: 24 Apr. 2025 Grade: A This was a surprisingly good game. I have long had a small interest in dinosaurs, but never really pursued that interest in great detail. I often saw this Dinosaur park builder on sale for the Switch, and so had put it on my want list, and recently decided to pull the trigger when it was available for about $5. The game's campaign mode takes the player through an easy progression to learn the mechanics at a satisfying, but not overwhelming pace. The dinosaur models are fun, and the combination of trying to find fossils to get 'Dino DNA,' piece together gene sequences, and even manipulating them to bring out certain traits is fun on its own. But then there is the extra challenge of trying to make sure the environment for the dinosaurs is enough to keep them docile, and to also satisfy the needs of guests visiting the park.  This was a great game to play while also watching television in the evening. As such, I racked up over 105 hours in the ...

Completed: Feb. 22, 2025 Grade: A+ This was a fantastic story game. My only gripe is that sometimes I was unsure of my objectives, and that early on I didn’t realize I had more time to getter evidence (but I worked this out as the game went on). Otherwise, there is so much to like about this, particularly as it appeals to my background of being a Medievalist. The game takes place in the midst of the upheavals of the later Middle Ages that ushers in the renaissance. The Reformation is starting, as is the printing press, and humanistic research into the past all play background roles in the lives of the small Bavarian town of Tassing. The creators of the game really did some excellent research into the time period, and this plays out in the character actions and visuals (such as the use of different handwriting to denote status, and even how the characters walk!). The game is essentially a murder mystery that the player attempts to solve by finding evidence and interviewing the townsp...

Completed: 29 Mar. 2025 Grade: B- I've decided Kirby games are the right thing to play during the Spring time. Probably because of the pastel coloring and its association with Easter, but also because this is a tough time of the school year, and so an easier and relatively mindless game is welcomed. Kirby Star Allies was a fun little adventure which had the typical Kirby abilities, copied by swallowing enemies, and a silly progression to epic proportions. The gimmick for this outing was the ability to turn enemies into allies, have them fight alongside, and then combine powers together. The power combining was interesting, but sometimes difficult to trigger, and was usually only helpful with a power which emulated a weapon (such as the sword or cutter abilities), which encouraged me to favor those powers over elemental powers (Such as fire or freezing). I wish I had played through some of the other Kirby games before getting to this one. While I have played some, Star Allies felt l...