In response to Ant's desperate plea to hear about games we're currently
playing, I'll highlight one I just finished which left a very favorable
impression on me.

Having looked forward to The Witcher 3 NextGen patch, and hearing of it's
poor performance, I've switched to focusing on short, palette-cleansing
experiences I'd usually overlook. That led me to finishing both Firewatch
and Aliens Fireteam in short order, both of which I enjoyed. Then I
scrolled through my Amazon Games library (the 'free' ones included with
Prime), checking genre, reviews, and length, and settled on this one:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/504390/Along_the_Edge/
This is a Visual Novel, which tells a story, and has you make simple
dialogue choices that determine your character's appearance, personality,
and destiny over the course of that story, basically a 'Choose Your Own
Path' interaction. I've played only one other VN, Vampire: The Masquerade -
Coteries of New York, in which the dialogue choices had almost zero effect
on the story, and the artstyle grew uninteresting. Along The Edge's story,
in contrast, drew me in right away, and the hand-drawn art is very
attractive. Your choices have substance and feel like actual choices a
person would make; apparently there are 60 possible endings and 400 pages of
possible dialogue. The total length is 3 hours or so, and you're encouraged
to do multiple playthroughs to explore the tree of outcomes (I've only
played through once, and found it very satisfying). Along The Edge is a
good game, check it out!

rms

On 20/12/2022 02:09, rms wrote:
> In response to Ant's desperate plea to hear about games we're currently
> playing, I'll highlight one I just finished which left a very favorable
> impression on me.
>
> Having looked forward to The Witcher 3 NextGen patch, and hearing of
> it's poor performance, I've switched to focusing on short,
> palette-cleansing experiences I'd usually overlook.  That led me to
> finishing both Firewatch and Aliens Fireteam in short order, both of
> which I enjoyed.  Then I scrolled through my Amazon Games library (the
> 'free' ones included with Prime), checking genre, reviews, and length,
> and settled on this one:
>
> https://store.steampowered.com/app/504390/Along_the_Edge/
> This is a Visual Novel, which tells a story, and has you make simple
> dialogue choices that determine your character's appearance,
> personality, and destiny over the course of that story, basically a
> 'Choose Your Own Path' interaction.  I've played only one other VN,
> Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York, in which the dialogue
> choices had almost zero effect on the story, and the artstyle grew
> uninteresting.  Along The Edge's story, in contrast, drew me in right
> away, and the hand-drawn art is very attractive.  Your choices have
> substance and feel like actual choices a person would make; apparently
> there are 60 possible endings and 400 pages of possible dialogue.  The
> total length is 3 hours or so, and you're encouraged to do multiple
> playthroughs to explore the tree of outcomes (I've only played through
> once, and found it very satisfying).  Along The Edge is a good game,
> check it out!
>

My gaming preferences have certainty moved in that direction in the
somewhat pretension games as an experience and not as a challenge and
also games that are shorter to play. Firewatch is a good example of
that. In terms of price vs. hours is a bad deal but I've really enjoyed
both of my play throughs of it.

As an aside, one of the things I like about Amazon games is that even
though there's lots of fluff each month there's also some games I like
the look of but have never heard of as they just don't have the
advertising budget and nor have they generated the buzz that gets them
know to me.

>As an aside, one of the things I like about Amazon games is that even
>though there's lots of fluff each month there's also some games I like the
>look of but have never heard of as they just don't have the advertising
>budget and nor have they generated the buzz that gets them known to me.

I'm looking at Metamorphosis, and another called Liberated to start next,
both 2-4 hours in length.

rms