Week of 27 Oct 2024
“Remember: Good girls take their medicine.”
Achievements Earned In:
- A Little to the Left
- The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna
- True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 1
- Rewind or Die
- Scholar's Mate
- The Glass Staircase
- A Night on the Farm
- Backrooms: Partygoers
- Minecraft
- Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
I was just getting back from my getaway on Sunday, so I had my blog to do and was pretty wiped, so it was back to A Little to the Left for a quick achievement as I recovered. This one was partway through the final chapter of the base game, so I’m actually pretty close finally to finishing a single playthrough of this.
Achievements unlocked: 38 (+1) | Completion: 58%
My first spooky game for the week was on Monday, when I loaded up The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna, and… this isn’t spooky at all! I mean, unless you find bullying spooky. It’s actually pretty boring if I do say so myself, as it is one of those walking simulators where that’s legit almost all you do, besides the three very simplistic switch puzzles you have to solve. The acting is also pretty bad, and the story is conveyed via glowing blobs in the environment. It’s just not very interesting or intriguing, and I’m so glad this was so easy and short.
Achievements unlocked: 12 (+12) | Completed
At least it’s a pretty stroll.
To correct my horrid (and boring) non-spooky choice, I decided to also do True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 1 on Monday evening. I’ve played a variety of genres this month, so this was a “hidden object” type game. But spooky. This of course means the entire game is very easy with a guide, laying out what I need to grab and when. The story is something about a spooky dead(?) sister the protagonist is looking for, but it wasn’t really what I was here for. The “difficulty” in the completion comes with beating the entire game without using hints and all in one sitting, which is also very simple following a guide. You also have to beat it on Expert, but you can just perform a quick difficulty switch before walking through the final doorway. Neat! Definitely better than that last game…
Achievements unlocked: 30 (+30) | Completed
Ohhhh, kinky.
Tuesday, it was back to something of more fun quality: another Puppet Combo title! Like Bloodwash a few weeks ago, this was only published by them, not developed, so it had a different vibe to it while keeping the 80s VHS aesthetic. Rewind or Die is about a typical video rental store employee trying to survive a shift while a serial killer is loose. The quality is really good, and this one feels the most smooth when moving around and interacting with the world. But, of course, like all these games it’s very short and straightforward and easy. And, fun! Even moreso when you can finish a game without having to refer to a guide to make sure you’re being efficient enough. The only time I felt the game’s pace fell off was a lengthy section in a sewer where you have to seek out multiple levers to proceed while Slaw, the killer, hunts you down. It was stressful and spooky, but just felt it went on a tad too long. The whole game is only about an hour, though, so a pretty minor issue.
Achievements unlocked: 17 (+17) | Completed
Excuse me, sir, we’re closed. Please go away.
Hadn’t done an “escape room” style game yet this week, so I dove into Scholar's Mate on Wednesday. You find yourself in a mental institution, having to find various items and clues to open door around the two-floored building, while a spooky fella named Eddie patrols. The trick here is that Eddie can hear and see you, so if you walk a little too quickly on the floor directly above or below where he’s currently at, he’ll hear and come a-runnin’. I only had one issue during my completion, where I couldn’t get him to plow through a particular door for both an achievement and progression. You had to draw his attention from the other side, then let him smash through and lose him. He kept seeing me! It took until I realized he outright won’t enter the side rooms usually when searching for you that I simply got his attention and hid in a corner behind a folding screen until he bothered off. The rest of the game is pretty easy if you take it slow (and, say it with me, follow a guide), and you can even switch to the hardest difficulty as you’re about to open the final door for that achievement. A pretty good game!
Achievements unlocked: 18 (+18) | Completed
That is the idea, game!
Spooky Month was coming to an end, so I figured after Scholar’s Mate I’d get to another short Puppet Combo game: The Glass Staircase. This one is actually a little tougher than their other titles, as you have actual combat and enemies to deal with. Only in the latter part of the game, but still. You play as girls stuck in an old house, and really that’s all I can say without spoilers. It’s very spooky, and actually a tad obtuse when it comes to what you’re supposed to be doing. Granted, you could read the documents left for you that tell you what to do… but nahhhhh. I actually used a guide solely for the various documents lying around to get the achievements for reading them all, but I used the location descriptions in the guide to figure out where I was heading each time. Helped a lot! Then you get to the end and things get knocked up a few notches and you’re dodging enemies and running to survive. A fun little adrenaline spike, and another winner from the New York developer!
Achievements unlocked: 16 (+16) | Completed
Okay, this sleepaway campe has officially become WAY too hot for me to handle.
I’m sure my game on Thursday, A Night on the Farm, would be fun if you’re playing it without a guide since it’s still fairly easy and straightforward… but I’m in a hurry. There’s actually no written guide anywhere for this one, so I quickly watched a video guide on YouTube and transcribed the steps into a text document so I could follow along that way. I also have a good memory for movements/directions, so with the steps I’d typed up it was very easy to blow through the entire game in only about 20 minutes, with all the collectibles and endings. This one spooked me a few times, with the jumpy scares and loud musical stings. There’s also no threat, so it’s another big escape room essentially. The endings can luckily be cheesed by getting the achievement and reloading before progressing to the actual end of the game to do the next one. Again, I’m sure this would be more enjoyable and just as easy playing it legit, but I ain’t got time for that right now. There were also small collectibles scattered around to find, which is obviously easiest with a guide. Also also, it was Halloween, so I was busy otherwise.
Achievements unlocked: 11 (+11) | Completed
So… did the alien/Mothman leave these around?
That last game was so quick, it actually left me with a bit more time in Spooky Month to squeeze another game in. I figured I’d take a chance and go with a very recent release: Backrooms: Partygoers, a Ratalika joint. Usually this means an easy go of it, but you never know! Well, I can safely say this is the usual fare from them, but it could prove a little annoying based on RNG odds. In this game you wander a take on the “Level Fun” of the meme and game The Backrooms, avoiding the Partygoers while you search for eight randomly-spawning lockboxes. The completion requires you simply find six of them, but also find six corpses lying around the zone. The latter can be found with little concern and are always in static locations, but if you die your progress with the former resets, so you have to slowly search the (confusingly designed) expansive room to find the boxes. Even worse, the device you use to locate them lets out a loud beeping sound when one is located, alerting the Partygoers to your location and they come sprinting over. One nice thing is the monster doesn’t outright kill you, requiring two hits to kill you, and you regenerate your health over time if you escape. Overall, still a very easy and quick completion, with this one only taking me 30 minutes. But I think that was a nice end to Spooky Month! Even for such an easy and simple game, it spooked me quite a few times with the random jumpscares as you wander.
Achievements unlocked: 12 (+12) | Completed
I don’t think I like this party.
Even though Friday was now a new month, and the end of my “complete a spooky game every night” event, I still had to keep my streak going and decided to play Minecraft on Nintendo Switch. I just needed a single achievement before heading out for dinner with friends, but the achievement server I usually use was full! Luckily, apparently using seed 1410403532 allowed for easy access to a hidden igloo lab (64, 64, 172) where you can quickly and easily get the achievement for curing a zombie villager. I didn’t even know that kind of stuff existed!
Achievements unlocked: 113 (+1) | Completion: 88%
Heading into Saturday, I really didn’t know what to play. Maybe work on something already started? Start something new? Well, didn’t take long to decide when I saw the next batch of game leaving Game Pass and spotted Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name on there. I love the series, but this entry is actually the most reasonable when it comes to completion time, sitting in the 20- to 30-hour range, compared to the usual 100+ hours the series usually sits at. It’s also a really new game, and boy is it pretty! I’m only a few hours in, but I’m really enjoying it so far. I’m finding the story interesting (even missing the context of the events of games 2-6) and the gameplay is just as fun as it was in Kiwami. I also love the simulator aspects of the game, and walking around the very-detailed “Sotenbori” fictional district of Osaka just makes me wanna go out and enjoy the nightlife… which I did IRL that evening. I look forward to playing more!
Achievements unlocked: 4 (+4) | Completion: 7%
Highest ratio: 3.15
Zombie Doctor (Minecraft)
Lowest ratio: 1.00
Welcome home (The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna)
What really happened. (True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 1)
Just a normal day. (Rewind or Die)
The Awakening (Scholar's Mate)
Good Girls Take Their Medicine (The Glass Staircase)
No Turning Back (A Night on the Farm)
Welcome to the backrooms (Backrooms: Partygoers)
