Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. The new Genshin Impact update arrived, so I have been spending more time there, but I still fit a lot of other games into my week and some are definitely worth playing. The highlight for me was Rusty Lake’s first co-op game, but I also spent a huge chunk of my days working on my walkthrough for the latest Adventure Escape game. There’s a lot to discuss, so let’s get to it.
The Past Within
I had been looking forward to Rusty Lake’s The Past Within ever since it was first announced. I learned a few years ago that I love co-op puzzle games, but there just aren’t many of them. Well, I’m happy to say that The Past Within was everything I was hoping for and more. I highly recommend buying a copy for yourself and a good friend to play with. If you need more convincing, I have a full review here but no videos, since it’s hard to make them for a game like this.
Isle of Arrows – Tower Defense
Isle of Arrows is a really interesting tower defense game where you create the path that enemies walk down. I’ve never seen anything like this before and it’s quite compelling. Each turn, you’re given a tile that you can place. If you don’t like it, you can use two coins to skip it and use the next one. The idea is to build a path for enemies to follow and construct archery towers and other traps around it to take them out before they get to your crystal. It took me a few tries to even beat the intro area, so I definitely have some learning to do. But I’m looking forward to spending more time with it over the weekend. I recommend watching some of my video to get a better idea of what it’s like, or just grab it if you’re a fan of tower defense games.
A Memoir Blue
A Memoir Blue has been out on other platforms since February, but it just released on iOS this week. After playing it, I’m surprised mobile wasn’t including in the original launch date, as it’s perfect for touchscreens. It’s more of an interactive story than a game, though there aren’t any words. You play through a series of vignettes that explore a woman’s memories of her mother and herself as a little girl. Mostly, you’re looking for the interactive objects in each scene, but it’s very tactile. Mostly you’ll be pushing and pulling on things, but occasionally you use your finger to wipe away dirt or fog. So it really is a natural fit for touchscreens. It is a short game that only took me an hour to finish, and I had mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed it but felt like there was something lacking in the end. Also, there are achievements on other platforms, but I couldn’t find them on the iOS version. So just be aware of that if achievements are important to you. I would recommend watching some of my gameplay below if you want a better idea of what the game is like before buying.
How to Say Goodbye
I really wanted to love How to Say Goodbye. On paper, it ticked off all the boxes for me. It’s a relaxing puzzler with a great aesthetic and a meaningful story. But in practice, I just wasn’t enjoying it. I found the mechanics weird and fiddly, the way you move parts of the floor to move your characters. Is also encountered issues where doors wouldn’t respond when I was tapping on them, unless I touched a very specific spot. So that was frustrating. But what sealed the deal for me was a level where the camera moved over to the right and I couldn’t get it to move back. I wasn’t sure if I could still solve the puzzle in that state, so I tried going back to the main menu, hoping it might reset the level. But it reset the entire chapter! I don’t understand how a game like this doesn’t have either a way to reset a level or save your progress within a chapter. At that point, I decided to quit until it gets some quality of life updates. If these things don’t bother you, by all means give it a chance. But I recommend watching some of my gameplay video first.
Escape from Crimson Manor Ep.2
I had mixed feelings about the first episode of Escape from Crimson Manor, but since the second episode was only $0.99, I wanted to give it a chance. Unfortunately, I’m experiencing similar issues as with the first one. It’s a first-person 3D game and the camera movement gives me motion sickness almost immediately. Aside from that, I was completely turned off by the children’s book in the game that made absolutely no sense. I don’t know if that was by design or not, but the English was so bad for every line, I just couldn’t understand what it was trying to say. So when I was around twenty minutes in and couldn’t figure out what to do next, I was happy to take a break. I might go back to it, but the motion sickness is not a great selling point. I guess if you liked the first episode, you can give this one a chance. It’s dirt cheap, at least.
DobbyxEscape: Adventure Story
DobbyxEscape is a Halloween adventure game about witches and cats. You need to make potions and explore a graveyard, and also prepare a Halloween party. I love the art style, and the puzzles so far have struck a nice balance, not too hard or easy. It’s been a crazy busy week, though, so I’ve not played too much of it yet. But I do plan to play more this coming week. Again, if you want to see it in action, check out some of my gameplay video below. Also, the developer is very involved in trap, neuter, release (TNR) programs in Cyprus and said that all proceeds from this game will go towards those efforts. So your money will go to good use!
Adventure Escape Mysteries: Legend of the Time Stones
I’m almost done with my step-by-step walkthrough of the latest Adventure Escape game and I’ve been enjoying it. There are some clever time travel puzzles, and I’m always a fan of those. I especially like placing things in the past to see them change in the future. I’ll likely start on my videos over the weekend.
Genshin Impact
And last, the 3.2 update finally arrived in Genshin Impact, bringing with it Nahida as a playable character, as well as a new archon quest. I pulled for her and managed to win my 50/50 at 82 pity. I was hoping for an earlier win, but I’m just glad I didn’t have to go past pity for her. Now I can still guarantee two Yae Miko cons when her banner arrives next. I also played through the archon quest, which brings with it a new weekly boss battle against Scaramouche. The story was great, but I do have some questions now. Also, I really want Dottore as a playable character. The archon quest also dumped a ton of lore on us and again, I have questions! But it all makes me look forward to what’s coming.
And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I also binged Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities and really enjoyed it. I hope it will get another season. I also realized that I never watched the third season of the awful show Manifest, so I just started that now. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’ve been playing and I’ll see you back her next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!
I really love your reviews and walkthroughs but am sad that so many of the games I then want to play are seemingly unavailable on android. Have said this too often now and promise to stop, 😬😁
Hello Ms. Unwrapper,
Just a quick note re Crimson Manor Ep 2
My stubbornness paid off The pig book has 3 pull tabs each on the two illustrated pages
Warm regards, sTinkerBell
Both the Crimson Manor games have actually managed to make me angry. The developer’s first language is Spanish (Media City is based in Tegucigalpa) and, after I couldn’t first episode one because I couldn’t get past the appalling English and the fact that he’d done precisely ZERO research on life in Victorian England, I wrote to him and never heard back.
What annoys me is that, if you’re going to release a game in a language which isn’t your mother tongue you hire translators. If you can’t afford to have the story professionally translated, I’m sure you can find people willing to help on social media. If I was a game dev, I’d NEVER consider releasing in Spanish, because my Spanish is as good as Homero’s English is (Media City is run by Homero Rojas).
English is basically the world’s lingua franca, and he might have got away with poor English had he chosen to make a game about, Cortez and the fabled Aztec cities of gold, or the mysteries of the Mayan Empire (speaking of the Mayans, this sounds petty, but he chose to call the twin daughters in CM2 Mia and Maya, which aren’t English names (although they’re fairly popular here now) and certainly wouldn’t have been names given to little girls in Victorian England! The most common names for girls back then were flower names, saints’ names, and virtues).
What pissed me off about the book was that he’d used a male pronoun with a female noun. Mother in Spanish, as I’m sure you know, is madre, so surely he’d have known not to use a male pronoun! I can’t see that’s even been run though Google Translate because, as shite as that is, the tech is surely advanced enough now to recognise a female noun, especially in a widely-spoken language like Spanish.
I didn’t get further than doing the ridiculously easy maze puzzle and unlocking Nicholas’s room (at least that’s a name that was fairly common in Victorian times). What I didn’t understand were why a boy who looked no more than about 5 would have a set of blocks spelling ‘EUREKA’ and write in block letters using language that would be more associated with someone a decade older. Back then, children were taught copperplate (I used to have a set of books called The Child’s Compendia of Wonder, which had belonged to my dad’s mum’s dad’s dad (so my great-great-grandpa) which was a collection of lessons and things that children in the 1860s should know, and I remember the handwriting lessons). I mention this because it wouldn’t have taken much research to learn that.
The other thing it wouldn’t have taken much research to find out is that we weren’t using the metric system in Victorian times (and also, spelling! The use of American English spelling in a game which is supposed to be about life in Victorian England, really irked me).
Finally St West – I thought he must’ve meant West St (as in West Street) but, no, he meant west as a name. Someone from a Catholic country thinks there’s a saint called west. The only saint called West is Kanye’s kid.
I’m an autist, so perhaps, I notice and become annoyed by things other wouldn’t but, that said, if you’re going to develop a game about a period of history in a country whose language isn’t even a distant relative, let alone your mother tongue, perhaps, y’know, you just maybe shouldn’t…?
That said, as good as the Da Vinci trilogy was, I did find it slightly weird that Renaissance Italians were speaking with Home Counties/cockney British accents but, because the English was (almost) perfect and the research and attention to detail were impeccable, I could overlook that.
Oh and, yes, the movement even made ME feel queasy – and I’ve never been prone to motion sickness. What helped me was connecting my iPad to my MacBook Pro using handoff and Universal Control and using the trackpad.
I’ve just looked at the reviews on the App Store – it has a 4.9 rating (Ep1 is 3.9)… WTAF…?! Are these people being PAID to leave positive reviews…?! Did they receive the game for free in exchange for a good review…?! Oh wait, the reviews are written in English as good as the game is… Cynical…? Moi…?
No help for the past within? I’m having trouble signing into Discord because I didn’t realize I had an older account. So for now I can’t get help from there and this used to be my go to site for walk-through help