Bacon – The Game, Chroniric XIX, Shapeuku, Behind the Screen, Hamcorollin’, Lamplight City, Grimvalor
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another installment of My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. I may or may not have also started watching Schitt’s Creek this past week, which is eating up some of my gaming time. I still have a good number of games to talk about, though. So strap in and enjoy!
Bacon – The Game
Philipp Stollenmayer, aka Kamibox, is not new to the game of throwing food, but his latest one, Bacon – The Game, may be the weirdest. Instead of stacking flipping pancakes or stacking burgers, you’re throwing a single strip of bacon onto all sorts of objects. You start off throwing it onto a normal burger, but soon enough you’re tossing it onto America, Kevin Bacon, and the Chinese symbol for pleasure. It’s a ridiculous game that’s as much about luck as as it is skill, and it’s driven me close to stark-raving mad on some levels. But it’s free with just a banner ad at the bottom, so give it try. I also have a walkthrough guide here if you get stuck.
Chroniric XIX
I really wanted to love the narrative choice-based game, Chroniric XIX, published by Plug In Digital, the folks behind A Normal Lost Phone and it’s sequel. The game involves time travel and using Wikipedia to look up certain facts about historical figures. I was really enjoying it at first. But the dialogue started to get a bit silly, which ruined the immersion. But the real issue was that I hit a glitch that ended the game after — I’m told — only 15% of the story. The epilogue I played after was also incredibly repetitive, as I was stuck in a loop where I couldn’t skip the dialogue I’d seen before. The later part of the game also had a lot of typos and there were some incoherent choices throughout, giving me the sense that it was rushed. The developer said they’re working on an update to fix the glitch that ended the game early for me, but based on everything I’ve seen, I don’t see myself starting over from scratch to see where the game goes. I have a full review here if you want to know more about the game, as well as gameplay videos below.
Shapeuku
Shapeuku is a puzzle game advertised as a meeting between Picross and Sudoku. Basically, you have some numbered rows and columns and then some Tetris-shaped pieces that you can place down on the grid. You need each of the rows and columns to have the right number of boxes in them. It’s a game that feels very familiar, and starts off fairly easy, but does get trickier as you progress. My only real complaint is that it looks very plain. Even if the puzzles are crafted well, my other senses are kind of bored while I’m playing, so I don’t see playing this a ton, at least not all at once. It is something I can see pulling out when I have a few minutes to kill here and there. It’s certainly not a bad game by any means, just not terribly thrilling either and it starts to feel a bit same-y after a while. But check out my gameplay video below to see if it’s something you might enjoy.
Behind the Screen
18Light Game’s Behind the Screen is a very strange game. I haven’t played that much of it, but from what I gather, you’re playing through the memories of a suspected murderer. You start in a school full of young children, where they don’t seem to be treated well, as the teacher seems to be very mean. Although, it could just be how the protagonist remembers it. You have some sliding tile or Sokoban puzzles where you need to slide sleeping children around the room so you can move your character through. Despite some confusion and clumsiness in the controls, I was enjoying it at first. But then it veered off into sneaking puzzles where you had to avoid teachers walking around with flashlights and hide in piles of stuffed animals. The tap controls made that awkward, and it was also unclear at times where I’d be safe. But I managed to pass it…only to be thrown into an auto-running mini game, where I had to tap left or right to avoid obstacles and outrun the teacher who was now a giant spider. While there were checkpoints, the section I kept dying on felt too long and too unforgiving and I finally gave up trying. The rest of the game might be interesting, but I really wasn’t looking for a half-baked autorunner, so I don’t see myself finishing it. But again, you can watch some of my video below to see if it’s something you might enjoy.
Hamcorollin’
Hamcorollin’ is a cute little game where you roll a round animal through the environment to reach the star at the end. The controls consist of dragging an arrow in the direction you want to roll and then pressing the “explode” button when the meter hits the top, so you get more momentum going. You also collect new animals that each have their own skills to shake things up a bit. I haven’t played that much, but the game didn’t really grab me. Despite each level looking different, they all felt like the same thing over and over. I never really felt like it was evolving much. I also didn’t like the controls, especially for navigating the town. Still, it’s free to download, so give it a try or watch my gameplay first.
Lamplight City
Grundislav Games’ Lamplight City is only available on PC at the moment, and it’s already been out for a few weeks, but I finally got to trying it. It takes place in 19th century Cholmondeley and you play a detective called in about a series of strange burglaries at a flower shop, where the thief left money for the flowers he snuck in and stole. I’ve only played about a half hour and I don’t want to spoil it, but I am enjoying it quite a bit so far. The dialogue is well-written and I’m eager to see where the story takes me. The only problem is that I really don’t like playing on my PC, so I hope it does come to iOS one day. I’ll probably continue it, but I’m not sure I’ll record my entire playthrough. Still, you can see my first half hour of gameplay below.
Grimvalor
Direlight’s gorgeous action platformer, Grimvalor, doesn’t release until October 10th, but I was lucky enough to get it a week early. I’ve played about a half hour so far and am really impressed with the visuals. I’m a bit disappointed that the controls are on-screen buttons instead of swipes or even a joystick. It means I spend a lot of time looking at the buttons to make sure my fingers land on them. I even had to switch from my iPad to my iPhone because it didn’t feel right on my iPad, when with the limited ability to adjust the controls. Thankfully it has iCloud sync, though, so you’re not forced to start over on another device if you decide to switch. It’s also not an easy game, but I hope I can handle it. The artwork and animations are incredible and I would hate to have to miss out on it because I can’t beat a boss or whatnot. I’ll hopefully get deeper into it before release and have more impressions for you, but for now you can watch my gameplay video to see what it’s like.
And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week! I also tried a few more times to beat the third boss in Barbearian, but was sadly unsuccessful. I’m stubborn and don’t want to lower the difficulty, so I’m just going to keep trying. There’s also a super polished puzzle game releasing next week that I’ve been playing but can’t talk about yet. So keep an eye out for that, as I’ll definitely be covering it once I’m allowed to. And make sure to tell me in the comments section which games you’ve been playing. Until next time, that’s My Week Unwrapped!
