Checking Out Some More Demos!

I played 6 demos and I wanted to talk about them!

There have been some demos I’ve been meaning to play and with some extra time on my hands I went to finally play them!

A Little To The Left

I played this one a while ago too, but back then it really only had what…two or three levels? Well this time around there’s more levels to try out! 10 levels to be exact. Throughout all of the levels, you’ll be organizing the objects in front of you to complete the level. It can be organizing books to organizing a drawer. There’s also a cat around and it seems the cat will show up with its cute little paws to cause some havoc. Most of the levels are pretty easy, but some do have you thinking a bit longer. Not to mention that some levels even have multiple ways of organizing the objects so you can go back and try to figure that out. Like organizing the keys have three different ways to organize them and there are two ways you can organize the books. One way, by thickness of the books, just kills me inside. Almost as much as books in the same series being different heights and you must put them together cause it would be even weirder if you split them up.

I actually do kind of like this one, there’s just something about organizing in games that I like (and it’s probably because I organize things irl).

a pet shop after dark

Okay it’s a bit weird writing out a title of a game all lowercase like that. You take up the job of watching over a pet shop after dark. All you have to do is water the plants and feed the pets, no matter if you can see them or not, for one night and you’ll get a big wad of cash. Seems pretty easy. Well, that is until you take a nap and you weirdly hear a voice and you wake up in the main room. And well, the person that hired you says something strange once your character leaves and you hear that voice again before being put at the game’s title. And of course you’ll go in and play again, especially when the title screen changed just a bit and going in it seems even the character you play remembers…and some more strange aspects starts happening. And soon enough, you’ll be trying to get to the bottom of this, and the only way you can do that is by going into your game files to manipulate the game to help out your character.

This is a pretty cute game, and it uses manipulating the game files outside the game pretty well.

I Just Want To Be Single!!

I actually played the demo for I Just Want To Be Single!! a while and while I thought I wrote and published my thoughts on it…it turns out I didn’t. Opps. Well, better late than never! I love dating sims, specifically otome, but whem I heard this was an anti-dating sim it caught my attention. And then when the protagonist is socially awkward and shy like me? Yah I had to play the demo. You play as a young, socially awkward girl named Aya who moved to a new school in her senior year. Being the new girl as a senior is bad enough…but for some reason every other girl wants to date Aya!! Becoming friends is a-okay but becoming girlfriends is a bit too quick…even if Aya was sure she wanted a girlfriend. While the whole school wants to date Aya, this focuses on 5 specific girls: Akane the top athlete, Katsumi the school idol and chef, Shizuka the quiet artist, Kaede the total neeeeerd, and Nozomin who totally is the unstoppable hero. Ii like all of these characters so far, though Katsumi is def speaking to me.

With this being a VN where you try to not date someone, you have to navigate around those conversations while still trying to be nice to not get them to stop being your friend (don’t worry, there is an affection meter!). There are a couple systems here that you’ll work with throughout the game. There are dialogue choices (and even timed choices), but instead of just picking it you type it out yourself. Some dialogue will also have a intensity meter that you charge, the more you hold it the more intense Aya will say the line; and while I didn’t know this until now there are secret dialogue choices as well. There will even be minigames, with the one featured here asking you to draw a character.

It does also look like you’ll be quizzed on what was said before, like the school’s name and what clubs someone was in. Or at least, during this beginning part. I am definitely going to be bad at these (and I was here lol), but at least in this demo it unlocks a secret if you answer all of them right.

I’m for sure looking forward to I Just Want To Be Single!! It’s a unique premise and I really did like how the story has been written so far. It also seems like there is some meta aspects here so that’ll be interesting to see what happens regarding that.

It’s A Wrap!

This one is pretty cool and unique. Not a lot of games go down the route of having players “film” a movie let alone have a puzzle platformer being the genre for it. As you can probably guess from that, It’s A Wrap revolves around you filming a 1980s Hollywood movie. Every level is split between you setting up the scene correctly and playing the lead actor going through it. At the start of the level, you get to see the script and then be at an editing station (well, of course it’s not going to be like how it is irl, but game-wise it works) where each part of the scene has it’s own bar on the timeline. Some can’t be moved, but otherwise you have to figure out when each set piece should go off. You can preview the scene to see how it plays and tweak it some more before you call “Action!”. Once you call “Action!” you’ll switch to controlling the main actor. You may have solved the puzzle, but you have to actually get him to his ending point, which involves platforming and making sure to avoid the hazards (or else the director will yell “Cut!” so you can tweak it some more and/or restart the scene). Granted, you also have to get to the end before time runs out even if you set everything perfectly.

I quite liked this one. I was drawn in by the interesting and unique premise and gameplay and it did not disappoint. Just have to remember you’re controlling how the set is set up and the actor (totally didn’t get stuck because I forgot about this aspect…totally not).

Slay the Princess

Short Answer: Wow.
Before I knew there was another fest with a bunch of demos being released and showcased, I saw a playthrough of Slay the Princess through ManlyBaddassHero’s playthrough showing up in my subscription feed. It looked interesting based on the thumbnail so I didn’t watch it and instead went to download the demo. Slay the Princess has you, well, slaying the princess, but there’s much more going on than you first think. The game starts with you on the path to a cabin, with a Narrator narrating what’s happening and telling you that you need to slay the princess to save the world. You’re not given any specifics, but it is said that if she takes a step out of the cabin the world will end. She has been in there for years and it’s time for you to slay her. There is also another voice there, the Hero, who isn’t too jazzed about this situation and wants to talk to her and maybe free her. Something is definitely going on here.

Choices you can pick are shown to the right, remember there are more you just have to scroll down, and it can range from questioning the narrator, talking to the Princess, and making choices. You can even toss the narrator’s suggestion away and try to avoid the cabin…if you think that’ll work. Once you arrive at the cabin, there’s a knife on the table and a door to a basement. First impressions of the Princess is nice enough, making you doubt this quest, but as you talk to her more it feels strange. And as you pick different choices to get the different outcomes…yah there is definitely something not right about her.

I also really love the art style, especially with how the Princess is drawn. She really has those eyes that can easily go from innocent, to stern, to malicious in a second. And that’s not even including her body language and her other forms that we get to see.

I can’t wait until the full game comes out. The developer has already said that the demo endings are going to be more fleshed out.

Me

Super Bullet Break

It’s great being able to take games on the go. For me it’s mainly Nintendo’s handhelds, but a lot of people have phone games (and I wish I do but I never had a good enough phone). Well what if one day all of your phone games suddenly glitch out so much they became unplayable (and it isn’t because of the game’s code as the icon itself is glitching. This is what happens in Super Bullet Break. It turns out that it’s the work of a rogue AI who is the boss character from a game called Bullet Break. And this is even making characters within these games self aware. It’s up to you to figure out how Bullet Break’s boss broke out of her game, defeat her, and restore the games to their original state.

While only one game is available for the demo, each of them are based on different genres, with the first being based on turn-based strategy. Though this doesn’t really affect the gameplay all that much other than the girls (or “Bullets”) that you get to use as cards. This is pretty similar to Slay the Spire if you’ve played that. There is a map laid out for each floor, with at least three floors if the first game/level is any indicator, and you get to choose which way you want to go. It’ll either be a fight, a cafe where you get to heal up, a treasure block where you can get a reward like a new Bullet or coins, a shop to buy more Bullets, or a town to get an event. Battles, in particular, have you draw the girls you collected, or Bullets as they’re called, and you play them to defeat enemies. They all have their own effects, like healing or giving you armor, but no matter what they can attack and damage the enemy (which is pretty cool). Though they each cost energy blocks, which you can look at on the top of the screen as this determines when your turn ends and when the enemy attacks. And well, that’s the most of it. You’ll be battling enemies you run across and try to defeat the bosses of each map.

I didn’t really end up liking this one. The cute girls are indeed cute, and I loved the ones I unlocked though. If you really love Slay the Spire, and wished it had more cute girls, you’d probably like Super Bullet Break.