Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. Things quieted down a bit this week, so there’s less to cover, but still some great games worth checking out. Genshin Impact is a little quiet at the moment, so I’ve had more time for other games. My favorite new release is a PC port called UNREAL LIFE, which I hadn’t heard of before but took me completely by surprise. I also got through more of Unheard, but I’m starting to wonder if I’m smart enough for it. Anyway, let’s get started!

UNREAL LIFE

UNREAL LIFE follows a young girl named Hal who lost her memory. She’s accompanied by an artificial intelligent traffic light and learns that she has the ability to touch objects and get a glimpse into their past. She comes across a memory of Miss Sakura and decides to go look for her. She meets all sorts of strange creatures like talking penguins, flying fish, and shrimp-loving turtles. I’ve really been enjoying both learning more about Hal and this word, as well as solving the puzzles. I’m not sure how long the game is, but I’ve spent a couple of hours with it so far and it keeps surprising me. I’m looking forward to playing more over the weekend and would highly recommend it if you like these kinds of games. I’m also working on a walkthrough here if you need help.

VEREDA – Escape Room Adventure

VEREDA is a new room escape game from M9 Creative, in which you need to look for clues and solve puzzles in order to make your way out of each area and into the next. The puzzles so far haven’t been groundbreaking, but they’ve been enjoyable enough. My main complaint is that the movement is awkward, as you you use four directional buttons instead of a joystick. It’s also hard to tell what’s interactive until you walk right up to it, and because of that I’ve been getting a lot of motion sickness from it. So far I played about a half hour but got stuck on a color puzzle that I couldn’t find a clue for. I’ll try to make more progress later, but the motion sickness might prevent me from completing it. You can watch some of my gameplay video below if you want to see what it’s like.

Unheard

Last week, I was blown away by Unheard, a game that has you listening to voices in surveillance footage to solve a crime. You can’t see any of the people, only their movement. In each map, you need to identify each person and then solve a mystery or two based on the information you hear. It’s a lot of fun and I was eager to get back to it and play more. I’ve since completed all five chapters of the main game and started the bonus DLC. I say “started” because that video is 20 minutes long and has 16 different people to identify. Not only that, but 8 of those people are actors playing the other 8 and you have to figure out who they’re each playing. I spent nearly two hours with it and my head is spinning. It’s possible I’m not smart enough to figure this one out on my own, but I’m certainly going to try.

Night Skate

I made a pretty mediocre video of Night Skate last week, before I really truly understood how it works. Since then, I’ve been playing a lot on my iPhone and managed to unlock all three areas and even pull off some impressive combos. I tried to record a video today of me breaking all of my records but, sadly, the video got corrupted and didn’t save. I’ll try to make another next week. But basically, in the first stage you need to try and land on top of traffic cones, and jump from obstacle to obstacle building up your combos so you get more points. Once I realized I should stop jumping over cones and instead land on them for more points, everything came together. And in the second area, the forest, it’s easier to take damage and lose points, but it’s also a lot easier to build them up. It’s so satisfying when you get a whole change of those eyeball ghosts and manage to hop from one to the other all the way down without messing up. I’m really upset that I had a great run there that didn’t record. Hopefully I can do just as well again. Now, the final area is a robot factory and it really takes the difficulty up a notch. Instead of just one or two ways you could cause the run to end, there’s like fifteen different ways. Basically, everything is trying to push you off the left side of the screen and end your run. But if you manage to keep going and not take too much damage, there are far more multipliers to rack up, especially in the underground area. I’ll definitely be practicing more, especially now that I’m finally getting the hang of it. If you like endless runners, this would be a great addiction to your collection.

Silent Dot

I covered Silent Dot last week and even started a walkthrough. I had finished the normal and medium difficulty levels and liked the general idea of the game but felt it could use more mechanics to shake things up. I was curious about the hard levels so I gave them a try and played through the first ten. As I suspected, the main challenge that’s added is that more moves are required for each level. The mechanics have stayed the same, but you need to dance around more and spend those moves in order to get to the goal. It doesn’t feel great, because you basically either have to count the moves and plan it out ahead or just go through trial and error, redoing it if you mess up. There’s no undo button, so you always have to start from scratch. I’m not sure I’ll finish the game because it’s starting to feel tedious when the move count is already at 23 for some levels. I recommend watching some of my gameplay videos before deciding whether to buy it.

Genshin Impact

And last, I continued playing Genshin Impact, but there isn’t much going on right now. There’s a a new event called Divine Ingenuity in which you can create your own dungeons, kind of like Mario Maker. The problem is, it feels really bad to both make and play these dungeons on a touchscreen, so I’ve just been putting in minimal effort to get all the rewards and that’s it. Otherwise, I’ve been preparing for Kokomi’s rerun in a few days, as I should be able to guarantee her before her banner ends. Once I have her, I’ll try pairing her with Yae Miko in the new Spiral Abyss and also the overworld.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I also watched a French movie with a friend called Meander. It’s about a woman who’s abducted and forced to crawl through a series of pipes on a timer. It’s basically torture porn with a really bad plot and an even worse “explanation” for everything that happened. I do not recommend it unless you just like watching bad movies. I also feel bad for the actress because it did not look like a fun movie to make. Besides that, I’ve watched more of Marcella and I’m now on the third season. I don’t even know why I stuck with it this long, to be honest. It’s one of the most cynical shows I’ve ever seen, where just about every person is horrible, even the ones who seem good at first. But at this point I’ll probably see it through to the end. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re enjoying and I’ll see you next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!