Mr. Massagy: Mayo Edition from Publisher and Developer Green Lava Studios
Humorous “Mature” dating sim.
Mr. Massagy: A dating Sim
You play as Johnny. Your “wingman” recommends a new dating app, Linger, to find girls that are up for giving massages.
Like most dating sims you have different conversational responses to choose from when you’re on your dates. Some are innuendos, puns, and even cartoon references while others are kinda douche-y or “normal”. Some of the responses were not what we would’ve expected to say the least.
Each character in your Linger app requires a certain player level to potentially match up with them. They also have specific preferences so you’ll need to match your profile description to what they’re looking for in order to be successfully matched up. You’ll earn stars for successful dates which let you progress onto the higher level character dates.
The star rating challenge for each of the dates adds some replayability for the people who want that while others will replay the dates just to see what happens with the other dialog options.
You have a total of 10 characters to choose from for dates. Some of them are the craziest cast of characters you might ever see in a videogame let alone the scariest dates you might ever go on. A couple of them are a little bit psycho and can lead to the opposite of a “happy ending”.
The gimmick in the game is that the controller vibrates a LOT. Like, you’re gonna wanna have fresh batteries or a wired controller when you play this game. Depending on how much your date likes your responses the controller will vibrate a little or a lot. And if your date is successful enough to get you a massage it’ll vibrate more. Successful dates with each person will lead to a different massage experience, both in terms of the pace and intensity of the vibrations. You are able to replay the date over and over again trying to get a better rating by picking different responses. You can also replay just the massage portion of any date you successfully completed.
You’ll want a turbo controller for this.
My Name is Mayo: A clicking game “with an emotional story”
This might be the strangest game ever. You literally just press a button to tap on a jar of mayo thousands of times. As each achievement unlocks the in-game achievement list will reveal the next lines in the short stories. There are multiple different “story lines” in the achievements/trophies as well as some random facts which are tied to specific milestone numbers of clicks.
In order to progress each storyline you’ll need to click on the achievement picture in-game. Some of these will equip a new outfit on your jar of mayonnaise. You’ll then need to keep tapping to unlock the next achievement/outfit in that story line and repeat the process of equipping the new achievement and clicking some more until the whole storyline is unlocked.
This part could’ve been organized or laid out in a much clearer and more obvious way. The current setup has the storylines all mixed together so it’s harder to see the connections between the achievements. They help themselves a little by color coding the text for each storyline and the locked achievement titles are a reference to the preceding achievement that needs to be equipped to unlock them. At first we weren’t able to follow that there were actual story lines at all due to the jumbled nature of the list.
Mr. Massagy: Mayo Edition is available on Xbox One. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Aircraft Evolution from Publisher Sometimes You and Developer Satur Entertainment
Overall a pretty enjoyable game, decent graphics but a little short as it can be completed in about 3 hours.
A shoot ‘em up like, action, side scroller with a hint of RPG elements.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to fight your way through 4 time periods, starting from early WWI all the way to a futuristic war. You’ll be attacking the enemy and reducing their bases to smoldering ruins. You need to utilize all of the weapons in your arsenal to accomplish this objective.
There are a total of 40 levels to play through. As you move through the levels and through time from WWI and into the future, both your available aircraft and the enemy equipment will evolve. The enemies start out as simple tanks and soldiers before evolving into plasma cannons on tanks, airships, and turrets.
While your enemies evolve automatically you do not. You will unlock different aircraft after collecting experience and leveling up. You can upgrade your aircraft using the in game currency. The upgrade system is done very well as it is easy and clear what your upgrade will do for your aircraft.
There are random resource drops in the form of crates floating down with a parachute. These contain fuel, repair kits, and different types of bombs (which are your primary weapon) all of which you can use as soon as you pick them up. The repair kits and cluster bombs come in very handy.
You are also able to purchase these same items from the store between levels. We found that each of the bombs are useful for different strategies or play styles. We ended up finding our favorite and sticking with it most of the time as it seemed to work better for our play style.
At the end of each of the era’s you will come across a boss type battle which helps break up the repetitiveness of the levels as it adds a bit of a challenge and serves as a landmark and transition to the next time period.
Aircraft Evolution is available on Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Liquid Sunshine from Publisher and Developer God As A Cucumber
Fun puzzles. Great story and soundtrack. You might want to wear sunglasses because it’s really bright.
A Graphic Novel and Puzzle game in 1 package
It is a side scroller puzzle with 3 characters that you control; a Monkey, a Horse, and a Rhino. Each character has its own mechanics, strengths, and weaknesses that you will discover throughout the game. Some of the puzzles you will come across require the use of 1, 2, or all 3 of the characters to find the solution. All 3 of the characters need to make it to the right side of the screen before proceeding to the next puzzle or chapter.
Like most puzzle games, it starts out pretty easy with basic puzzles teaching you the mechanics which it does nicely. The real challenge comes in the later puzzles, which require more and more steps to complete, making you move characters back and forth over the screen and replacing one character location for another when finding out that you need that for a later part of the puzzle.
The story is told to you in the form of a graphic novel between levels. You start to learn and understand the relationship between the characters all while enjoying the Graphic Novel. This was an interesting choice and done very well. The Graphic Novel really earns the graphic part of its name as it has mature themes including violence, drug use, and crime. The visuals are great and are done in a black and white minimalistic design. They are able to get a surprising amount of detail only using black and white images both in the novel and with the level design. We experienced some eye fatigue caused by staring at the screen with the bright white areas contrasting with the black areas. There’s just so much stark white on the screen it’s like staring at a very bright bulb.
There are hidden diamonds on each of the levels for you to locate. Sadly there’s not much to do after completing the rather short game which can be completed in 1-2 hours depending on skill. Locating missed diamonds or rereading the graphic novel between the levels are the only reasons to replay the levels. We would have loved to see an option to read the graphic novel on its own without having to recomplete the levels.
There is no voice over work in the game at all, just a really good soundtrack (almost retro feel) and sound effects. The game does a really good job between the soundtrack and effects you almost forget and don’t notice that there was not a single word spoken.
Overall its an enjoyable puzzler, with a good soundtrack and interesting choice of artstyle.
Liquid Sunshine is available on Xbox One and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
The Great Perhaps from Publisher Drageus Games and Developer Caligari Games
Unexpectedly good story for a cool puzzles game.
2D Side Scroller Time Travel Puzzler
You play as an astronaut named Kosmos. While working on a space station something happens; the Earth as you know it is destroyed by natural cataclysms. You choose to go into cryo sleep hoping to be woken up once it is safe to return home. After 36,524 days (otherwise known as 100 years), you are finally woken up to find out there is no communication with Earth and you have no idea what happened. You decide to make your way back to earth to discover what happened and what is left.
You travel back to earth with L9, an AI that accompanies you on your journey trying to discover what happened to the earth. While back on earth L9 is able to find one human signature left on the planet. While trying to locate the one human left on the planet you find an old lantern that allows you to travel between the current timeline and the past from before the cataclysms. This is the main mechanic for the game.
You will come across puzzles and mini-games that will require you to get items that are only accessible in one or the other timelines. Your AI companion will give you hints if you get lost or are having issues finding the solution to the puzzles. It’s easy to spot the items you can interact with as they have an effect that makes them glimmer. At first you might be a little unsure what to do with the item but after a few minutes of doing the wrong thing with it L9 will step in with a hint. Each of the timelines has enemies and objects you will need to avoid. This is often accomplished by switching between them.
The alternate timelines game mechanic is done very well and is enjoyable. This is used throughout the game for everything including solving puzzles, bypassing obstacles, storytelling, and progression.
The artstyle is hand drawn which is great to see and is done nicely. It reminded us of Valiant Hearts. The soundtrack is great and is a little different depending on which timeline you are in. They did a good job making the music fit the state of the world in the different timelines.
The story is good and takes you to several places in Russia. You get to interact with a few other characters in the past and have real conversations with them. You start to see the relationship develop between Kosmos and L9 throughout the later parts of the story. L9 becomes more than just an AI, she starts to become a real character.
The game does a good job at making you empathetic toward the characters. Both the writing and voice acting are great and make the conversations and people feel real.
Sadly it is rather short and can be completed in around 2 hours. After completing the story there is very little reason to replay the game.
The Great Perhaps is available on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
Superliminal from Publisher and Developer Pillow Castle Games
Overall an enjoyable 3D puzzle experience. Fun narration and mechanics. Reminiscent of portal but definitely a different take on the 3D puzzle genre.
A puzzle game that uses perception to find the solution.
Superliminal is a first person puzzler. You’ll be interacting with and manipulating objects using perspective to solve puzzles, overcome obstacles, and work your way through the stages to get to the exit. The game has a few similarities to the first portal game and likely drew some inspiration from there.
The game does a good job teaching you the basics and giving you ideas of what is possible to do during the introductory stages. The key mechanic centers around relative perspective with objects. There are a lot of optical illusions throughout the stages. Some of these are related to how to solve the puzzles and some are just there to add to the perception bending experience. This mechanic is used very well and can be fun to play around with seeing what you can interact with and how changing the perception or viewing angle alters reality.
There are a number of hidden collectibles across the 9 levels. Fortunately, the level select menu tells you which types you’re missing some of. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you how many of each are on each level or how many you’re still missing. Finding all of the collectibles and secret areas are the only thing that really provides much in the way of replayability since the puzzles and solutions are always the same.
The game has a really great lofi soundtrack which helps keep you relaxed when you get stuck on the more complicated puzzles. They’ve also done a great job with the sound effects produced by the different items. Smaller versions of items make quieter higher pitched sounds while larger versions of items make louder lower pitched sounds.
Most of the puzzles can be figured out within a few minutes depending on player skill though executing the solution can be a little tougher at times. There are a few puzzles that ramp up the challenge/difficulty and can take a long time to figure out the solution. There are also secret areas and what seem to be red herrings to distract you from the finish line.
We did run into a few small issues with items glitching or clipping through other objects. We also saw some of these items disappear and then respawn in their original locations. The perspective in the hallways and some of the rooms can also feel a little trippy. One of our reviewers found that their eyes tired quickly playing the game and they needed to take breaks to rest their eyes.
Superliminal is available on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and Steam. A digital copy of this game was provided to SimpleGameReviews for the purposes of reviewing the game.
