Recent reviews by AceEmpress

Heather Flowers has done it again I am enraptured - an incredibly fulfilling, simple, and tense core loop of "try and find weird fish you have bounties on", roguelike progression and a constant shadow of new mechanics and mysteries yet to be unlocked/discovered, combined with the "choose your own hubris" of Snake Farm, where there's the immediate, palpable, and intense risk reward. Combine that with incredible music and the satisfaction of watching that "Life Debt" number tick down each run as the corpses of ghostless fish pile up.

If any part of the pitch of this game appeals to you I deeply recommend this fish-em-up :p

(Also R.I.P. Fishbug)

This game is frankly sublime. Mechanics and levels that create tough situations you will feel incredibly clever to get out of, decisions that are constantly simple yet deep and rewarding, incredibly funny humour that doesn't undercut the tone or plot, characters that have depth and ooze style. This is a game that will suck you in and drag you along for the ride - my 20 hours were over the span of less than a week and were I not ill at the time my social life would have suffered even more for it. 10/10, if any part of this sounds appealing to you I promise you won't regret picking this game up.

I just picked up com__et while looking for something to celebrate finishing a deadline and it's absolutely incredible! The way it plays with obscuring and withholding text captures a sense of doubt and pressure in a way that feels both honest and sets me really on edge, and the mess of trying to navigate it and revealing things is extremely clever! If you're looking for something short, sweet, queer, and clever then you should absolutely buy it too.

It's a game about being a pig farmer who decides to stop disposing of bodies for the mob
or
well
it's a game where the main character is a pig farmer who decides to stop disposing of bodies for the mob.
it's a game about putting your affairs in order, and about things left unfinished.
it's a game about the things we want to say, but can't quite bring ourselves to do so.
it's a game about goodbyes.
it's short (took me about 2 hours, there's probably 3 hours of game in there, I know steam says 0.5 hours but the playtime counter and the clock in front of me all disagree so I don't really know), it's brilliant, it's sad, it left me breaking down in tears in places.
the art takes a minute to get used to, but it does the job really well and it really grew on me.
the mechanics are limited in scope, but range from good, simple ways to convey a sense that yes, these are two friends talking, and not simply random strangers, without requiring too much player oversight, to a simple UI choice that might feel cheap elsewhere but here it works beautifully for conveying a sense of the character.
In short, this game is beautiful, and if you like narrative, atmospheric, story rich games, I would fully recommend Adios, it is well worth the price tag.

Uhhh I can't really say anything more about this without spoiling it just go play it it's short and amazing

There's not a lot I can say that hasn't already been said, it's just a really really interesting, fun game, with tons of replayability and lore. It's taken the core experience of Sunless Sea and improved upon it vastly in every possible way