Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. I spent most of my time finishing Wish Us Luck, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was also a huge Genshin Impact update, which consumed the rest of my time, so there wasn’t much left for other games. I did squeeze some in, including one new one. Keep reading to see what I thought.

The Queen’s Gambit Chess

The Queen’s Gambit Chess, as you might imagine, is a chess game based off of the hit Netflix series. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s a puzzle game based off of chess. For instance, the board will be set up a specific way and you’re told to get a check mate in two moves. The puzzles themselves are interesting and have tripped me up a few times — though once it was because I mistook my Queen for a King and thought I could only move one tile at a time. What’s frustrating, though, is that the game feels so bloated for what it is. It’s not a free-to-play game with mictrotransactions, but it has all the trappings of one. That makes me think either it was meant to be F2P initially or the developers just don’t know how to get away from that format. There are coins you earn that can be used to unlock avatars, chess sets and more. But then there are also star ratings for every puzzle. When it’s based on move counts I can sort of see the point, but when a puzzle simply asks you to choose the two exact moves that would get you a check mate, it’s asinine that there’s a timer. And because of the timer — and the star system as a whole — it’s painfully slow to restart a level when you mess up. I was pulling out my hair over the amount of time wasted on absolute nonsense. If they stripped this game down to just the puzzles and streamlined it so it didn’t waste my time, I could see sticking with it. But as is, I don’t think I have the patience for all the minutes of my time wasted just to restart a level. It’s a shame, because there’s a rather interesting game under all the bloat. I still recommend trying it if you have a Netflix account, but you’re going to need some patience with it.

Wish Us Luck

Wish Us Luck ended up being longer than I expected — 13 chapters’ and about 8 hours’ worth — and since I was so engrossed in it, I spent most of my week playing. As I suspected, getting a good ending for a specific character led to a bad ending for another. So I ended up with two good endings and one bad. However, there were some options I had that maybe could have resulted in good endings for all three. Since it’s a fairly long game, I doubt I’ll play through it again. Plus, I kind of like the mystery of it. The theme of the game is luck and how much you can control it. There were quite a few times where I wondered how much of a difference my choices made and I’m not sure I want to replay and lift the screen, revealing all the answers. I also liked how you have choices at times to improve the luck of one character to the detriment of another. I don’t think there were too many easy choices in this game, which is hard to achieve in interactive fiction. And everything held up pretty well, too except for a couple of things that bothered me. The first is that I’m pretty sure one my of characters lost an object but then magically had it again later. And the other is a slight spoiler, so stop reading if that bothers you. Basically, the woman, Alice, gets pregnant without trying with a guy she’s no longer even with. She’s broke and trying to work on her career. But at no point in the game did she or anyone else question whether she was keeping the baby. It was like abortion doesn’t exist and getting pregnant means you automatically have to give birth. I wouldn’t mind if she actively made the decision to keep it, but in all this time spent with her, it bothered me that the option never even came up. It’s not a huge deal, but it surprised me for a game with pretty solid writing and fleshed-out characters. In any case, it’s certainly not a reason to skip the game. Definitely play it if you have any interest in interactive fiction and choice-based games. I also have my full playthrough here if you want to watch it.

Omen Exitio: Plague

I’m still playing Omen Exitio: Plague and a lot has happened since last week. I was recruited by some powerful cult, then used their trust to take them down — or so I thought. They’re not as easy to get rid of as I thought. The writing is still holding my attention and I’m curious to see where it will go, so I’m still sticking with it. I’ll have further impressions for you next week.

Cyber Manhunt

I played through the first four chapters of Cyber Manhunt back when it first released on iOS, but had to wait for the rest of it to get ported. The fifth chapter plus two DLCs came out while I was dealing with a lot of personal stuff, so I pushed off playing it. But today I had some time and spent two hours playing through the fifth chapter — only to be stalled by what I’m pretty sure is a bug. I looked up a walkthrough online and it said I was supposed to be able to collect a certain piece of information that I couldn’t collect. So I’m not sure what I’ll do now. I was enjoying the game, but I’m not about to restart that whole chapter to see if it fixes the bug. For now I guess I’m just going to wait and see what happens. I also reached out to the developer, so I’ll update you all if I hear from him.

Genshin Impact

And last but not least, the 4.0 update arrived in Genshin Impact this week, bringing with it a massive new area called Fontaine. There is so much to do that I’m not even sure what to choose when I log on. They introduced diving and a whole underwater world to explore with its own puzzles and new mechanics. I got pulled into a weird quest with talking hydro animals and there’s just so much in every direction. I’m especially partial to the new boss that’s two robots ballroom dancing. Overall, this update has surpassed my expectations and reminded me why I love the game so much. My favorite part of the game is the exploration, but I didn’t really like the desert — and we got three desert updates! So I’m finally enjoying myself again and I think it’s safe to say that Genshin will be a priority for a little while. There are some amazing games releasing next week, though, so I will definitely make time for those, too. If you’ve taken a break from Genshin, though, now is a good time to come back.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week. I also watched the New Zealand black comedy, Creamerie, about a virus that kills off all the men. I’m still looking for my next show to watch, so feel free to recommend some! Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re playing and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped!