Senaste recensioner av Joy

The best free VN I've ever played. Despite the name implying romance, this is a pretty dark exploration of the human psyche and the darker sides of love and desire. I found the concept unique, and the characters are very interesting. I ended up 100% completing the game because I found myself hungry for every tidbit I could get about these fascinating characters. They all feel very much like real, complex people. Even the kindest among them has a dark side. However, the story is not without hope, depending on the ending you choose.

My biggest criticism is that many of the backgrounds are lacking and the character sprites are stiff. Really only their expressions and clothing changes, and I feel like just tilting the heads or moving the arms a bit could have added a lot of expressiveness. The art for the more surreal sequences is superb and a highlight.

This game is more like a creatively-structured visual novel than anything else. Don't expect much in the way of puzzles or strategy. It's very linear. Reminds me a bit of Analogue.

That said, I like it. It's an immersive way to tell a story. The writing isn't the greatest but it does well enough. It accomplishes its goal of getting you caught up enough in what's going on that you later find yourself questioning how easily you made certain assumptions.

I'm pretty invested in the story and I want to see where it goes. It's a little early to see how much your choices can effect things but I'm hoping that will result in different end states, since you essentially play information gatekeeper for the government, deciding what they do and do not see about the people you're snooping on.

In its current state, at 3 episodes, I think it would take most people about 2.5 hours to complete. Less if you didn't care about reading everything.

Super fun restaurant-themed game! I wouldn't call it a sim because you don't have a huge amount of control over the restaurant. It's more of a fast-paced strategy game that requires good memory and quick reflexes.

You are basically a one-person restaurant. You have to set a menu each day, and you don't want to keep the same food on for too long because you'll recieve a penalty (keeps you from just breezing through the game after getting good with a few foods). This becomes deceptively complicated as you go. Too many unhealthy foods and people will find your restaurant less appealing (resulting in less customers), but people tend to like comfort foods when it's raining. More complex recipes generally make you more money, but so does getting an unbroken streak of perfect orders, which complicated dishes make it harder to do. And then what do you do when you get one of the special challenges that offers a huge cash bonus if you use certain recipes and get a long streak with them, but they're ones you're not very good at?

The recipes themselves amount to QTEs, effectively. Each key (or button, if using a controller) corresponds to an ingredient or action. I haven't played with a controller, but the keybindings for each recipe are fully customizable so you can go with makes the most sense to you. And you'll need to do that, because you can't be as fast as the game requires without memorizing some combos. It's very challenging and nerve-wracking at first, but it feels really satisfying when you get to the point where your fingers just fly over the keys so fast, the ingredient screen barely showed up.

There's also a significant time management factor when you're serving customers. You might want to start steaks and potatoes before fast things like ice cream and drinks because you know the former will have a cooking time after you get the ingredients together... But maybe it's rush hour and you're trying to shove as many people out the door as possible, so you take all the fast orders as they come and only get the slow ones when the customer is about to ditch.

Profits are the main way you progress through the game. You'll advance in restaurant stars as you go, unlocking more and more twists and challenges, such as dealing with health inspectors or getting robbed. The money you earn can buy upgrades for your restaurant, new recipes, or upgrades for existing recipes (which raise the price of the dish but also add complexity).

The game can get reptitive because it ramps up slowly, but I think that's also a plus. This means more levels, so the fun lasts longer. This isn't the sort of game you marathon anyway, but one you pick up and play a few levels whenever you've got the time.

The game is definitely worth its full price, so if you see it on sale, jump on it.

Classic point-and-click adventure game, and one of the best ever made. The story and characters are great. The graphics are absolutely awful. But then, it's over ten years old. Can be a bit fiddly on new PCs due to this.

If you're a fan of the genre at all, you should play it. Even if you're not too much a fan of the genre, you might want to try it. The game is much more story based and has much easier puzzles than, say, Myst (EXCEPT FOR THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DUCK PUZZLE but I think that was the devs trolling).