Recent reviews by Simon The Vampyre

A good, chill MMORPG.
Whether you only play a little occasionally, or play for long hours, if you like a chill MMORPG, I'd recommend checking it out to see if it's for you, 'cause access to the first two areas is free, so you've got nothing to lose, except a little of your time.

It's also not a very demanding game, so if you're not able to upgrade your PC for the foreseeable future, this could tide you over until you can.

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You start out actively playing to level up skills, but once you get to level 20 in any skill, you start unlocking passive activities you can set your character to do while you're offline, which both level up skills and earn you some coin, or stuff you can sell for coin, or use in other passive activities.

The first two areas are free-gratis to progress through, and once you reach the point where you'd head into the third area, you can choose to either spend 5.99€/month for the recurring sub to get access to later areas, and some extra features, like being able to change your name (which you get to keep even if you cancel your sub), some unique dyes for armor, and trading between players (once that has been implemented), or just continuing to level up your skills and finish your quests in the first two areas, since you'll still have a ways to go before you can finish those quests at that point.


The recurring sub is the only thing you can pay for in this game, and if you do get a recurring sub, you will be allowed to keep the same rate as when you first got it, even if they raise the price once more content is added.

Also, everyone, whether they sub or not, also have two additional character slots, so you can explore all three paths of magic in the game, and if you reach the final levels in all skills of the first two areas on one character, but for whichever reason can't or don't want to get a sub, you can just start a new character in a new slot, and even delete a character if you know you're not going to continue playing them.

It was pretty interesting for a low-budget production, but it doesn't seem like it's possible to watch it anymore.
I keep getting an error message that I need to update the Steam client, and a link for more information on resolving the issue that leads nowhere.
On or off beta, it doesn't seem to matter how up-to-date it is, it keeps giving the same message.

Euro Space Truck Simulator + future combat sim, with microtransactions.
Could stand to take some lessons from Star Trucker (only played the demo thus far, but that was a lot more fun on its own than Elite), and add space walking, and more immersive interactable ship interiors you can actually move around and do stuff in, especially for things like repairs/maintenance.

After all, we were promised space legs, not just landed-on-planet legs or docked-to-space-station legs.

The best free Backrooms game, hands down.

pgWave/IsarL really captured the tense fear and unease of the backrooms, and nails the aesthetic of liminal spaces and analog horror.

I'd compare it to Kyle Edward Ball's Heck, the proof-of-concept short that preceded the film Skinamarink; if you're unsure if you want to spend money on The Complex: Expedition, play Found Footage first.

A really good liminal space/urbex game with a PS1 aesthetic.
Plenty of spooky stuff, with no monsters chasing you.

Heavily inspired by Kane Pixels' Backrooms, and manages to be even more realistic, even unfinished.

pgWave/IsarL does a great job of bringing you into the Backrooms, inducing unease and fear through visual and sound design, and without resorting to cheap jump scares, or cat-n'-mouse chases with monsters that want to kill you.

I tried to map out the first level, and had to stop after it gave me a headache, 'cause the level layout defies mapping, and easily gets you turned around – picking a direction and sticking to it is the only way to get anywhere, which I do love.

Some places are a bit more navigable, but no less eerily liminal.

If Found Footage was akin to Kyle Edward Ball's Heck, this would be like a work-in-progress cut of Skinamarink; if you're not sure if you want to spend the money on this, play Found Footage first (it's free!).

Looking forward to seeing it finished, and the future multiplayer.

It's a neat proof of concept, and I can definitely see why it won the 2022 VtM Game Jam... however...

After playing it through to the end once, I can't say I feel any desire to find any of the other possible endings, because I would have to play through all of it from the start, and, apparently, the other endings are tied to dialogue option dice roll RNG; if succeeding at an "impossible" difficulty roll is how I get a different ending, or success vs failure changes what ending I get, that's neat, but I still don't want to go through all of the game over and over, just to see all the endings.

There's no running, only fairly slow walking, so going anywhere will feel pretty tedious.

Talking to characters two times in a row tends to replay the same dialogue again, which does not help immersion.

While this proof of concept features basic character sheets and a hunger gauge, only the info on the sheets is sort of relevant, as it affects some dialogue options.

TL;DR: If you like WoD/VtM, you might find this interesting, but the novelty may wear off after just one play through.
If you're new to the WoD universe, this is not the place to get in.

As far as I've heard, the rights for the IP have reverted back to Clive Barker, due to a rights dispute with the previous IP holders arising from the fact that Pinhead's voice lines were removed from the game, and made exclusive to those who purchased limited Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) of Pinhead, which also had a random chance to include a code for the chapter.

As of the most recent update at the time of writing, Pinhead has all-new voice lines done by Doug Bradley himself, in a professional studio, and now that I have heard them for myself, I can confirm that they sound great.

So, if you had any very understandable reservations against this DLC, due to the whole NFT thing, it's no longer a detriment to what you get, and so I can wholeheartedly recommend this for anyone who wants to play as Pinhead.

Finally, not only does Pinhead get to come, but we get to come with him.

A relaxing potion making/alchemy simulator, with a nice visual style and soundtrack.

It takes practice, and no small amount of luck to do well with the potion making, as you never know what ingredients you will have access to, and may have to improvise when one runs out.

I've not gotten very far in, but I did complete the demo before picking the game up, and look forward to getting deeper in, especially with the alchemy side of things, as the game develops, as early on it is mostly herbalist potion making.

>495 hrs total, as of October 9th 2024
>100% of achievements

I will say that this game had a few things to like, such as the way it captured the aesthetic of World of Darkness, including through a lot of the cosmetic items, and the character customizations.

However, it doesn't really make sense, on a lot of levels, when compared to the source material:

* It'd make more sense as a Sabbat infighting game than as Camarilla vs Anarchs, not least for the fact that there's no true separation, with everyone starting in the same lobby, and the "Camarilla vs Anarchs" really just being Camarilla infighting.

* It's possible to rack up more than 10 diableries if you are good, which, in reference to the above point, only Sabbat would be able to do; anyone who isn't Sabbat and on a Path would lose all of their humanity, and become unplayable, in the TTRPG.

* The powers that players have available to them don't make sense for starting characters, compared to the TTRPG, unless they're actually Elders, or Sabbat who have diablerized a lot of other characters (see above).

In short, it's fun enough to explore, but far from faithful to the source material, and poorly optimized in many ways.

It could've been better, but the publisher didn't want to put more effort or money into it, so now it's basically dead.