I’m not a very constant gamer and, as I mentioned recently, my Nintendo Switch has been inactive for a long time: I even left it at home during my short railroad trip last Spring. For the Summer holidays, on the other hand, the perspective of longer train rides convinced me to find alternatives to watching films and journaling, so, finally, during this second part of the year I have played a few games.

Since travelling was the main setting for the gaming hours, I looked for games that I thought would be capable of holding my attention, so that I wouldn’t notice long hours passing, that wouldn’t feel too repetitive. Furthermore, I avoided 3D world-exploring because they would be more likely to give me a higher risk of motion sickness.
That’s why I ended up mostly playing adventure games and RPGs - rather than action games and platform games - but also why I didn’t try neither Super Mario Wonder nor The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: I loved Breath of the Wild but it took so much of my time.

Before getting to the games, let me recognise Netflix’s effort with gaming: their selection allowed me to try several titles without spending a cent (in addition to my under-used Netflix subscription, of course).

Here are the games I played. Spoiler alert: as usual, I’m a difficult customer…

  • Lucky Luna (by Snowman, via Netflix Games, iOS): this is the only platformer I played this year. I have learnt about it from a blog post (which I’ll try to find back) where the post’s author mentioned it as a delightful game. They were right: I especially liked the variety of different levels, as each one of them includes small changes in the game mechanics. Despite liking it quite a lot, I stopped playing it as it was getting a bit challenging for casual gaming. But I’ll return to it. Status: unfinished

  • The Case of the Golden Idol (by Color Gray Games, via Netflix Games, iPadOS): I heard about this game first on the Eggplant podcast, where it was praised for its innovative approach to a murder mystery game. A plus in my book: the developers are two brothers from Latvia. I enjoyed solving a dozen levels or so, but the graphics style was a bit confusing for me (I struggled to recognise the same character from one level to the next) and the way the investigation unfolds made it not as ‘immediate’ as I needed for travelling. Still, I liked the level of reasoning required to solve each murder, and I’m sure I’ll go back to it - starting it from scratch and trying to forget the spoiler about the ending I heard from the podcast. Status: unfinished

  • Minesweeper (by Smoking Gun Interactive, via Netflix Games, iOS): a modern take on Windows’ classic game of logic, it adds colour and a geography-based structure but doesn’t change the substance of the game. I preferred the original, but this is ok for casual gaming - just not as compelling. Status: unfinished

  • Pinball Masters (by Zen Studios, via Netflix Games, iPadOS): I have a lot of personal affection for pinballs, and one of my dreams is to own a ‘real’ one. In the meantime, I’ve played a lot Digital Illusions’ pinball PC Games (especially Pinball Fantasies). Pinball Masters is along the same lines, even if the tables are very complicated and it’s better to focus on one at a time (I ended up mostly on, surprise surprise, The Addams Family table). Good fun. Status: unfinishable

  • Thank Goodness You’re Here! (by Coal Supper, published by Panic Inc., Nintendo Switch): thank goodness this game was created by two developers in Yorkshire, because if it had been developed anywhere outside the UK it could qualify as hate crime, due to the way life in a small town in Northern England is portrayed. Everyone raved about this game when it was released, so maybe I had high expectations for a funny adventure game. In my oh-so-humble opinion, well, an adventure game has puzzles, and this one doesn’t: you end up going around aimlessly kicking and punching anything and everything (there are no ‘actions’, just jumping, and beating whatever is in your way), until you somehow do something that has an effect (which you mostly wouldn’t be able to predict). And as for the fun: I believe I have a taste for absurdist humour, and I’m a Monty Python fan, but this often goes in a different direction from my definition of funny; an innuendo or two work, the rest feels just ‘something that is there’. But, in the game’s defence, I am also known for my distaste for a certain type of British humour which makes people very close to me laugh out loud. So, probably, the problem is me. And, after all, it made me nostalgic about spending a few days per month in an English town. Status: finished - ⭐️⭐️½

  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door(by Intelligent Systems, published by Nintendo, Nintendo Switch): this kind of light exploration with cartoon characters is very close to my favourite RPG style (also see below). Plus, I have a soft spot for Mario, even though the story is essentially always the same. So, after finishing Thank Goodness, this was the game I spent most of my train time on. I appreciated the fact that its different worlds always try to offer something new, but I was less keen on the repetitive fighting system - and there is a world here that it’s just about fighting. It went on a bit too long - especially the never-ending final section -, but I reached my goal to be entertained for the time I needed to. Status: finished - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Pentiment(by Obsidian Entertainment, published by Xbox Game Studios, Nintendo Switch): another game I have heard of on the Eggplant podcast - and I remember it being on a lot of ‘best-of-year’ games list. Before it was released for the Switch more than a year passed, so all I remembered when I bought was its intriguing ‘medieval painting’ style. I liked that it leaves the player wondering, for a considerable amount of time, what the game is about: does it want to teach you to be a blacksmith? Or just a ‘medieval life simulator’? Then when the actual plot kicked in, I was intrigued… for a while, because it felt like a narration that, on the surface, pretends to be driven a lot by the player’s choices, but finally it felt like none of my decisions mattered. Do I have to accuse someone of murder? Now? Even if I don’t want to? Ok…
    Therefore, the main hero’s destiny felt unearned, and I grew more and more impatient during the second and (so I thought) final act. But then a third act started, with a different protagonist altogether - a capital sin in my book… and the game is called Pentiment! I do wonder if anything would change if I replayed the game being super-rude to anyone. Status: finished - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Fear the Spotlight(by Cozy Game Pals, published by Blumhouse Games, Nintendo Switch): I have written about this game in the post linked at the top of this one, so, in summary: a lacklustre first chapter, followed by an unexpected and surprisingly very good second one. Status: finished - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • The legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (by Nintendo and Grezzo, published by Nintendo, Nintendo Switch): cartoony Zelda is absolutely my favourite kind of easy RPG, that is, the kind that’s more akin to an adventure game. Again, like for Super Mario games, it’s the same story over and over (except, this time, the lead character is called Zelda), and it’s even the same world, with the same landmarks. But that’s not what matters: what matters is visiting Hyrule by making ladders out of tables and rocks and trampolines, and bridges out of beds. And, most importantly, you don’t have to fight, delegating instead the hard work to an expendable workforce, like a real Princess and/or Manager. Maybe this will turn out to be too long and repetitive as well, but for the time being, I’m enjoying it quite a lot. Status: ongoing

  • Monument Valley III(by Ustwo Games, published by Netflix Games, iOS): like everybody else I loved the first Monument Valley. I remember feeling underwhelmed by the second game, which didn’t give me the same satisfaction. It might be that a longer time has passed since the last game, but the third chapter looks to me like a return to form, with new ideas and additional mechanics. Status: finished (though the ending promises ‘seasonal add-ons’) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

  • Framed (browser game): I had a full post about Framed in the Italian section of this blog, so now that is no longer available. In short: I’m still playing this web game that takes only a few seconds per day, where you have to identify a film by a maximum of six still frames. It feels enormously rewarding when I manage to do that in just one frame (I’ve been planning to add a page in the ’list’ section here to brag about the times that happened). Status: ongoing (and unfinishable)

  • Duolingo(iOS): I include Duolingo in this list, because I’ve spent a lot of time on it during the year, and it’s a game much more than a language course (it can be a starting point, no doubt, but what serious language class doesn’t even try to teach you grammar?). Anyway, it’s a daily appointment that I’ve been keeping for… (he checks) … 260 days now (including all the ‘cheating’ possibilities that the app gives to ‘freeze’ the streak), starting with Chinese, then realising I’ll probably never visit China and moving to Japanese (with a Norwegian-based intermission aimed to be able to be slightly less lost for my Scandinavian Summer holidays). The result of all my hard work is I can recognise a word here and there while watching J-Horrors. Status: ongoing (Japanese - Unit 22, to be specific)