Recent reviews by La cautiva

Oh My Gore! is a tower defense game with some nice quirks but pretty shallow gameplay.

PROS:
+ Could be fun for a while if you never played a tower defense game before.

CONS:
- Mediocrity. Looks too unpolished. Art is mediocre. Humor is mediocre. Gameplay is mediocre. Looping music is mediocre. Everything about is mediocre at best. Total borefest.

2/10 If you never played a tower defense game before (which is pretty unlikely) you might give it a try, otherwise stay away. Nothing new here, its a total borefest.

Final installment on beloved franchise. And here is what i experienced as a guy grew up with Lucas adventure games starting early on Commodore era.

PROS:
+ Story starts great and fun.
+ Sound design.

CONS:
- Story after a while. Bad bad bad writing. Theres no tone. Not humorous, too many flat jokes and 'i know he would say that' moments. Not whacky, everything was pretty straightforward and predictable except that abomination of a forced ending. Noone else in this world could come up with a worse ending. Zero characterizations but dumbed down cartoon copies of old characters relying heavily on nostalgia factor.
- Puzzle design. It is way too basic to be a Monkey Island game. Not a single scratching on one's head moment. Easy, shallow. I cant believe they even added an in-game hint system, who did they think would stuck on those puzzles, guinea-pigs or gorillas?
- Art style. I was going to like the attempt of modernization at start, then mid-game it hit me that i didnt like it at all. In Commodore Amiga era, LucasArts standed out with its art, everything was beautiful and detailed to look at, they worked with best artists, now THIS! this just looks like a homework of a Graphic Design student.

FINAL:
5/10 As a guy growing up with adventures of Guybrush, this game doesnt satisfy me at any level. It was good for a while to see bad imitations of old pals, but made me feel guilty for wanting a new Monkey Island game all those years. After 34 years, i still remember the first game of the series and cherish it, but not gonna remember this game after a year, pity.

F. Rockstar and its garbage bussiness practices. I upgraded my computer, tried to launch the game and BOOM: Activation Error! It doesnt allow me to play the game.
Tried everything in their so-called troubleshoot page, nothing worked. Contacted customer support: After 3 customer support r.tards, nothing they suggested works; one of those dum.b.f.cks even advised me to rename the Steam folder to Steam1!!! Can you believe that s.hit? I tried everything, nothing worked. If you want to be entertained how dumb those m'utterf'ers are, ask to me and ill gladly send you the log of our conversations!
Went into forums and saw many people is affected by it, some mentioned new Cpu problems, tried their solutions too, and what did it do: NOTHING, EVER, WORKED!

Here i am not being able to play a game i purchased. Cant redeem it either since i clocked over 10 hours before the upgrade.

F. you Rockstar and all your customer representatives.

A Living Room is a short adn free point'n'click adventure game.

PROS:
+ Art.
+ Story and general idea.
+ Sound design.

FINAL: 9/10
If you like adventure games, go for it blindly. It's free and great for half an hour gameplay. Developer is now on my watchlist for a full game. A nice artistic achievement.

Game of the Year for 2023, game of the decade even, not enough, Best RPG game ever made 'till today. Im not gonna list pros and cons. Perfect game, just perfect!

Lust for Darkness is a walking simulator/light puzzle game with a pretentious story and one craptastic gameplay.

PROS:
+ Some parts of the environment is worked on and looks good.

CONS:
- Too short for price. 2.5 hour-ish content. And i cant say that whole playtime is satisfying at all.
- Craptastic game design. You walk through linear places, solve few basic puzzles. Play some running away from enemy parts (and this is the major turn off for me in any game if it is not superbly designed). I would have accepted it as it is if those running away parts didnt exist. Whats the point of it anyway, it doesnt add tension, it doesnt add a challenge, it is not fun, it leads only to frustration, getting in the way of gameplay and story (if theres any), reloading back to checkpoints again and again until figuring out what dumb pathway you are forced to run by a craptastic game designer.
- Story. It doesnt make any sense. All characters are shallow. Been there seen this done that feeling all over. Crappy world design. Stating this abomination is inspired by stories of Lovecraft and art of Giger is an insult to both names. It is pretentious, it doesnt have any quality at any level. There are no metaphors, no real goosebumps, no real story, no real atmosphere building. This is what happens when you just have an uncooked idea and trying so hard to make it look like something else. Creators of this world is not Lovecraft, is not Giger, and it seems to me they dont have the faintest of idea of what they are trying to do or what do these names stand for.

FINAL:
1/10 Totally forgettable experience with bad story, bad gameplay and few good graphics. I regret purchasing this with their later game. I hope their other game (Lust from Beyond) has a major improvement on this one.

Teleforum is a free, indie, short fmv/light-adventure game.

PROS:
+ Atmosphere! It is horror done right! Zero jumpscares, great set up instead; mystery turning into creeps in seconds. Oh, shivers.
+ Free.

NEUTRAL:
~ Story doesnt have a conclusion but just an abstract nightmare passing through. I suspect it is intended to be this way; more of a good tension building attempt at mystery than actual story-telling.

FINAL:
8/10 I would love to try a full length game from the devs since they proved me with this little gem that they know what 'horror' means. No cheap jumpscares, no cheap effects, no forced elements, but a tension building around a mystery that has all the imprints of a nightmare, sweaty palms, chills and shivers.

Darkest Dungeon II is a follow up title of the original Turn-based-tactics/Roguelite game in a dark, somewhat Lovecraftian setting.

PROS:
+ Does what the first game did good. An addicting loop of turn based combats.
+ General tone and story. Writing and atmosphere is pretty cool.
+ Gfx & sound design. They took the good parts of the first game and instead of a minor make-up, they seem to worked hard on delivering a better experience.
+ Works well on both desktop and SteamDeck.

NEUTRAL:
~ Grindfest. It is the whole point of the game. Try, fail, improve a little, try, fail, try, fail... After 70+ hours i've managed to beat the whole game. The first 30 hours was full with fun, other 30 for grinding more and more, and the last 10 hours was such a pain, i thought i had enough when i finished the game and will not return for a dlc if it is going to be released.
~ Variety. After a while, variety starts to crumble, everything looks and feels the same. A few neat group combos, rest of it feels just there to be a filler.

CONS:
- Long, tiresome and arduous. From my perspective, we are living in a good age for gaming, have so much options and it is just becoming a chore to play a game that its playtime is so forcefully stretched by grinding.

FINAL:
7.5/10 All of its parts and intended gameplay does its job good. Has a good general tone & atmosphere. Is fun for playing in short bursts. Late game is a bit of a chore. A sure go if you are fan of the genre.

How We Know We're Alive is a short-story/walking-simulator game with great pixel art and beautiful writing.

PROS:
+ Story. It is captivating, emotional, and ready to be interpreted by Freudian reading. Characters feel real. Story handles its matter in a pretty and sad way, transforms a small mystery investigation to a probe into human selfishness and biased assumptions. All around, a job well done!
+ Pixel art. It is beautiful. Great use of palette. Beautiful, brilliant use of light.
+ Music. Melts tastefully in atmosphere.

NEUTRAL:
~ I know creators wanted it to be just an experience and used the game as a story telling medium, but i wished dialogue options effect something.

CONS:
- None.

FINAL:
10/10 This is why i love computer games in the first place. A great tool for story-telling. Good visuals, good atmosphere, good story. Go for it. And don't forget to buy the supporter's edition dlc if you can.

The Librarian is a short (very very very very short) point'n'click adventure game by pixel artist Octavi Navarro (see Thimbleweed Park).

Pros:
+ Pixel Art is great as expected.
+ Sound and music is ok.

Cons:
- Too short. I know it is a bite-sized project but still, with easy puzzles, its barely a game.
- Not too much of a story or a wonder factor there.

FINAL:
6/10 And all the points goes to its pixel art. I don't regret buying it to support a good pixel artist but it could have been a free game with supporter pack dlc, therefore it would be a more honest effort. Game itself is very very short (10-15 min tops) and has very basic gameplay and puzzles. It is not bite-sized, it is a crumb. So i cant recommend The Librarian for my own conscience while games such as "How we know we are alive" and "If on a winter's night, four traveler" are offered for free.