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I really wanna see more games that have time loops, have their mc slowly descend to insanity Like it's both charming and intriguing

I was joking and said 200 😮

Would you consider The Council similar?

oh, i thought you were gonna show palworld reference sprites

Dooze ex...

Here

I finished In Stars and Time yesterday for the first time, and I couldn't be more glad I played it. It's become my favourite game of all time, no question. The final loop and end had me sobbing for 2 hours straight, man

The infection won't break out of the knight in the first two endings. Just something I wanted to point out

Only issue I have with the game is that I wish I noticed the (not) banana peel sooner, spend half the game waiting through the whole sleepover scene every time I needed to go back in Dormont And I learned to use the knife on myself before finding it, and got disappointed that Siffrin wasn't willing to use it in the village

The mechanics of doing the same things over and over again and of the charming dialogues becoming more and more annoying as they repeat is extremely effective at putting you in Siffrin's shoes, so much that I couldn't put the game down because I desperately wanted to break free 9f the loop as well. Every bit of new content left me craving more: answering questions and bringing up other, bringing my party to lovable companions to annoyances that I still cared about and back to loving them whenever I finally get some new dialogue and events from them... And the looping system is designed in such a way that you only need to repeat small portions at a time, and of course gaining skills and levels means that you're breezing through faster and faster, so while you feel a bit annoyed, it's never annoying enough to make you loose interest Never thought it was possible to make repetitive loops that are intentionally boring engaging, it really immerses you very deeply in what the protagonist is going through

hello? can you pet the dog? can you play as the cat? 10/10

Masterpiece Game indeed. Only recently finished and I have enjoyed pretty much every moment. I hope more people watch this video. More.

How could you make this list without Citizen Sleeper?

Balatro being where it is is INSANE. It is an instant classic

Algorithm BOOST, GO!

I sad I beat palworld did everything feels so empty after

I think the problem is that the category of "cozy" is like the "gluten-free" of gaming

Isat took alot of time for me to care about the characters, I hated Isabeau around Act 3 But when Act 5 came around I had to take multiple breaks during Siffrins "Hang-Outs" because of how bad it made me feel because by then I loved these characters as much as Sif

Minor correction around 18:00- Siffrin is not a man! The game makes this pretty clear both in internal monologue "Not that you're a man, but..." and in external dialogue, with Odile asking Mirabelle if she wants to talk about the men in their lives, riffing on the Bechdel Test, and Mirabelle replying that they only have 'the one man', referring to Isabeau. Siffrin is a canonically nonbinary protagonist!

the salt series is still the number 1 best 2d souls types i just beat 2 couple months ago

steel rising i just found out of last week i cant run it good so will be playing that on a 5070

It may not be a video essay, but In Stars And Time filled me with so much emotion that it finally got me back into drawing (even participated in the ISAT month -- lasted only 26 days, but that's a record!) and i still find myself drawing a Siffrin or a Loop sometimes on my notebook. Thank you so much for the game! It still fills my head even 4 months after my playthrough. Also it was nice listening to the interview, wish it had more views

You might be fine with it, but I’m not sure it’ll sit right with me if ISAT never becomes an indie darling. There isn’t much that compares to the humour and chemistry the characters display, only highlighted further by emotional gut punches that are all the more cathartic because you know and care about the party. I don’t want to be “that guy”, but I honestly think people should hold it up the same way they do Undertale or Cave Story, as the sort of gold standard in independent storytelling that we can aspire to. It’s certainly got a lot more characterization going on, I could tell you a lot more about The King than I could tell you about Asgore; you really get into everyone’s heads in this game, especially Siffrin’s, and it’s a genuine writing accomplishment to define your characters that well. This game should be recognized, and people should experience it.

I don't trust critics tbh. It's either a very personally motivated review (like the infamous cuphead review) or a review based on how marketable it is and how good it sounds on paper (like almost all of these). It's no longer about how good a game is, just how well it panders to its core audience, or hit pieces because the reviewer has some kinda beef with the devs. I mostly rely on TH-cam videos essays, steam reviews, or personal experience.

how i LOVE games that emotionally manipulate you...

I love how all of the characters in the game feel so real, like they all have real personalities and dreams and fears and likes and dislikes and everything, and the bond that they have with each other is very engaging. It’s really easy to relate to Siffrin because you end up falling in love with the characters too, and the way he genuinely cares about everyone, wanting to make them happy, not wanting to feel like a burden, not wanting to let them go all feels too real. And I’ve always found innocent looking games with darker themes fascinating, Siffrin’s decent into madness and depression is sad of course (and that’s the thing, it’s not just them that’s relatable but you can also understand just how worried the party members get) but it also feels like such a realistic reaction that other games don’t really do and I love it. I hope it gets a nice little fandom but I also hope it doesn’t blow up quite as much as something like Undertale, as the more popular something gets the more hateful and crazy people can get too. But I adore this game, it’s such a beautiful little gem

If Sony handled the game better it could have been huge

Commenting for the algorithm, just finished it yesterday and wanted to watch some videos about it but sasly there's not so much longform analysis videos

I think my profile pic says it all: one of my new fave gamrs

obviously nothing is quite like DE but i got into it after cross-contamination with the Pathologic fandom

I dont know if anyone else does this but in Ghost of Tsushima I sometimes do a Boss rush challenge where I go into a save where I've 100% every duel, and I do every duel until I die or beat every duel. Its a fun challenge I just wish it was something you could do in the multiplayer with a boss rush mode.

Anyone I know that replayed BioShock infinite said they don't understand why they thought they liked it so much. I feel like it was great at its time but it doesn't hold up anymore

you spelt Sable wrong in the timestamps

"Took a dark turn" when? When the first level begins?

270hrs on palworld I’m just hoping they finish this game properly and fix the damm bugs

Is a 75% considered good? I don’t bother playing anything that isn’t considered legendary, ‘cause I’m busy.

I believe silksong is really coming 2024 it is coming this year 🎉

I’m gonna be honest, I never got bored, it was so fun just grinding for levels, seeing what new dialog comes up, finding out that *DAMN* wishcraft book puzzle (that annoyed me the most) and generally talking to all the characters. In the end, (spoilers) when Siffrin tries to attack his friends, I immediately went to find another solution because I knew Siffrin would never try to hurt their friends. Lo and behold, the game knows that too and there’s only one option in ‘Craft’.. to attack the *player* Luckily mirabelle can heal huh

Hey! Just lyk, Siffrin in the game goes by He/They, and is non-binary!

First

Siphrin is he/they btw. I don't know if he is considered a "young man" if he's nonbinary.

I was in the smurfs clan

Does anyone know of a farming simulator game that's not pixel graphics that actually turned out really good in the last couple years? All the ones I've tried have had something rather hollow about them....

I will say I was horribly disappointed about paleo pines. But I also came in after playing the demo so I knew how hollow a lot of it was. I don't really feel like I paid too much for it since I only paid 20ish dollars for it. I haven't beat it and I already got 40 hours out of it so fair enough as far as I'm concerned. I bought the game pretty much solely because of the dinosaurs. I'm a complete sucker for any game that has dinosaurs in it. My steam library pretty much is only dinosaur games at this point.

in stars and time is such a good story and an even better game

I loved listening to this interview! I love Monster Prom so it was nice to see an interview with one of its writers! Also, her attitude towards giving others joy is so heartwarming!

Can't believe he didn't put minecraft, literally the biggest game of all time, in the second tier. insane.

hotline miami should def be here, i love how it is able to convey the themes of guilt and trauma and the concept of everything good ending, never lasting

What an elevated take. In Stars and Time reminds you to take it seriously every time you start getting used to it.

I honestly feel like most games that are actually cozy have a lot of character and time put into them, which doesnt always work when people try to make as many cute games as they can with as little work as possible. A game that comes to mind for being cozy but not in the cozy genre is Lost in Random which does have combat but is mostly story driven and all combat gives you ample time to think and plan. Even still cozy is extremely relative and whatever comforts one person might creep out the next, so it really begs the question: what even are cozy games suppsoed to be? Like when you go into the cozy game section what are you hoping to find?