Recent reviews by TheJDude

Just as a disclaimer, beepsoft has been a near lifelong friend and seeing the work they've put out in recent years has been incredible, so this may come off a little biased at points.

I am not much of a visual novel reader although I've been getting a bit more into them in recent years. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed In The Foundations from front to back. What the dev has accomplished here is excellent for the small amount of time it was in development and there's a lot to digest without getting into any sort of spoilers. The type of existential dread that's delved into feels completely relatable with just enough of a horror and mystery tinge to feel interesting and worth seeing each of the outcomes.

Much how we all have moments we don't like to reflect on, places we don't want to be or feel we don't belong at, In The Foundations feels like staring deeply into every inch of that. Whether it's in defiance, or acceptance, or whatever feeling the game gives to those playing it, I can't recommend it enough if you've got a few hours to spare.

Not sure where to begin with this one, it's my favorite indie game in quite a while.

Void Stranger is sokoban, a sokoban obsessed with pushing the limits of what that genre usually entails. There's a world of color painted through it's characters and elements of it's story, despite the monochromatic nature of the visuals. It's packed with secrets, many of which are quite outside the box. It's also messy, and can border outstaying it's welcome (I've done essentially everything except for one or two things)

There are, in my mind, two versions of this game. One is a simple, at face value playthrough of the game engaging with it's mechanics and not thinking too deeply of it. Eventually, playing this way has a culmination where I find the story, gameplay, and the game's themes to be at their absolute peak and this is how I'd recommend most people looking for a puzzle game like it says on the tin to play up through, while looking into and engaging with the rest through other means.

The other version of this game is absolutely teeming with layers upon layers of hidden things, the further the thread is unravelled, the more is revealed and often, the harder (or easier, pending) things become. This version of the game seems like the ideal vision, and is phenomenal yet slightly over-extends itself I feel. Without spoiling anything, some elements of the game and rules learned across tens of hours can suddenly change, and certain endgame challenges feel very out of the blue, and as exciting as they are can be substantially more challenging or different than what most people simply looking to solve puzzles might be into.

If either of these things sounds up your alley, definitely check this game out. The price is absurdly reasonable for something this content packed, and it's certainly a special game even engaged with at the bare minimum of what it expects from the player.

System Erasure is absolutely a developer to keep an eye on. Between this and their first offering, "Zero Ranger", it's clear they have a very unique approach and a great care towards the games they make, and the influences they take from to make them.

Full disclosure, this project was created by a friend.

Without taking that into mind though, this stands as an impressive and short Visual Novel experience. It says what it wants to say and it says it quickly, no part of this game wastes the player's time, and there's still plenty to find for those that want to explore and look for additional things to do or see.

I ended up obtaining all achievements in just over an hour, and came away thinking about things which I'm fairly sure is the intent of the game. Definitely check this out if you're looking for something bite sized, it's the price of a coffee and will give you food for thought for quite a bit longer than the mild buzz of aforementioned coffee.

At nearly 500 hours it's difficult to not recommend Aseprite above most other pixel editing softwares. I've probably garnered a couple hundred hours in old tools such as Paint or Photoshop over the years, and nearly multiple thousands using Graphicsgale when it was the go-to.

Aseprite just has much kinder tools for the end user, and more frequent updates built and tailored specifically for pixel artists. It's hard to imagine going back to any of those other tools, and when I have to use Graphicsgale for one of the primary projects I work on, I frequently find myself fumbling at the lack of features.

Now, the program isn't perfect, the interface is a little cutesy and possibly a little too game-y feeling to start with, generally you'll want to go under the preferences and turn off it's custom cursor in favor of using your default. It's square and circle selection tools are kind of wonky, and it's font tool pales in comparison to some other programs, however when it comes to onion skinning, doing multiple animations using a single file, or controlling and tagging your files and animations in a feasible manner, Aseprite is absolutely the best, it's hotkeys and shortcuts become second nature and it's incredible how fast I'm able to animate using just my mouse and keyboard compared to the other available tools that exist.

There's many other features I haven't even used yet, such as symmetrical drawing tools for symmetry, a tile editor that may or may not be out yet (I haven't kept track when the update was set to go live) and a variety of other things such as a very clean and distinctive palette tool, tons of pre-built palettes for simple projects, and the ability to utilize custom skins if the default setup isn't to your liking.

Definitely check out Aseprite if you're looking to move on from a previous tool, or if you're looking to get started with pixel art in general. It may have a light learning curve to begin with, but after a handful of hours it'll start getting easier and your progress and productivity will snowball like crazy.