Misthold Welcomes You

Data Loss (2020) is a puzzle game where you play a hacker trying to infect an evil corporation's computers to steal their money. It's fast-paced and fun, with an old-school design like a 1990s computer.

To find the computers to infect you need to switch between two modes: Search and Infect. Search will briefly pop up nodes; Infect will then let you click on the nodes to, well, infect them. However, once you switch from Search to Infect, the nodes turn invisible, so you'll need to remember where they were in order to click on them.

Complicating the game play is: a timer, limited moves, and a scanner which will suck away your time if it intersects with either your Search or your Infect actions. Because nodes are connected, sometimes you hit a node that goes further than you expected, and the scanner finds you when you meant to dodge instead.

Running out of either time or moves without completely infecting every node will take away money from your bank. Go into a negative balance and you're out of the game and have to start all over.


Also, the further along you get into the corporation, the more penalties pile up. You might lose some moves, or un-infected node prices rise higher.

Things that will help you win: finding a special green node adds 15 seconds to your timer and slows down the scanner, leftover time/moves gives you bonus money, and you can buy upgrades to either dodge the scanner, infect nodes faster, or get more money at the end of the round.

But! Buy too many upgrades and you'll be more prone to running out of money when you inevitably have un-infected nodes the next round.

So you basically have to have a decent memory for where the individual nodes are, be fast at clicking, and figure out the scanner pattern to dodge it enough to finish the level. It took me about half an hour before I was good enough to make it to level 10 (out of 25), and I think the more I play the better I'll get at it. (Update: I played again after writing this review and got to level 15!) I really liked it, and I could see getting sucked into a couple hours' worth of playing.

Bonus points for customizable colors so red/green colorblind players can adjust to something easier to see.

Price: $3.00 CAD

This game is still in development.

Available for Windows, Mac and Linux. I played the Mac OS version.

Fat Bear Week (2020) is an action game where you play as a cute round bear rolling around trying to eat things. The more you eat, the chonkier the bear gets! After a few levels you can start unlocking other bears and areas, but you start with Holly the brown bear. Round friend!!

Unfortunately, this game sucked up all my processing power and made my laptop start overheating, so had to quit after two rounds. I also couldn't get a handle on the WASD controls (I'm right handed and find arrows easier) but there's no options to switch. Also, the camera movements made me motion sick.

Cute idea, though!

Price: Free (?)

Available for Windows and Mac. I played the MAC OS version.

Cats Are Liquid: A Light in the Shadows (2015) is a 2D platformer about a cat abandoned by her owner and put into a world she must try to escape. Basically, you just move the cat around different levels, jumping/rolling/squishing it through each obstacle.

It's cute! The cat is white and glowing, with an emoji face and a blobby body. The game mechanics make for fun visuals-- any time the cat squishes down into a tiny area is fantastic-- and the levels are all bright primary colors. Good background music, too.

There are 90 levels; I played about 5 or 6 before quitting. Apparently in later levels you get new powers, like flying and exploding. It has a story element which keeps it more interesting than just a typical "jump over things" platformer, but I'm really more into narrative games at the moment, so I set this one aside for now.

Price: $1.00

Available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. I played the Mac version.

Death & Taxes is a 2D narrative point & click game where you play as a corporate Grim Reaper assigned to choose who lives and dies from a selection of profiles sent to you by your boss, Fate. Depending on what you choose to do, you can either save the world or condemn it to destruction.

I liked the dialogue, the art and the voice overs. I thought the whole concept was very interesting, similar to Papers, Please but with a more surreal, gothic theme.

So how you play is: get a bundle of profiles and instructions on what to do with them, then go to Fate for a daily review, then check the shop/dressing room and then go to bed. You'll get an employee review at 7 days, 14 days, and 30 days. 30 days is when the game ends, unless you get fired before then. You can buy widgets to decorate your desk, clothing items, and important observational items which are only useful once you complete the game.

The main goal is make your way through the 30 days, trying to get whatever ending you want. Your only action is to pick which profiles live/die, and to talk to Fate afterwards. Your choices of who lives and dies causes ripple effects, but it's not super obvious which track you're on until closer to week 2. Some cause damage, some help. Meanwhile, which dialogue you choose to use with Fate determine how he feels about you, which eventually affects the ending. ( More words (mostly complaining) and 1 image )

Price: $12.99

Available for Windows, Mac, Linux. I played the Mac OS version.

For a minute I thought it had genderqueer secondary characters and then I realized that the humans' profiles are probably randomly generated and they didn't want to bother matching names with genders (or whatever), and THAT'S why everyone is "they."

Neat thing in the settings for streamers-- special interactive elements you can use in your Twitch stream/chat!

Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise (2019) is a point-and-click puzzle adventure game with a SPY theme! You play as a genderless secret agent trying to track down international spy Ruby La Rouge, who recently blew up your boss and is threatening to blow up your coworkers. I played the Nintendo Switch version.

The basic game is to click through a set of rooms looking for clues to solve puzzles to move the storyline along. I enjoyed the brightly-colored locations, the background music, and the subtitles for any speaking parts. The puzzles were, for the most part, not too difficult to solve-- the built-in screenshot button on the Switch definitely helped me keep track of clues I found three rooms away. Some of them were really fun, like dialing a phone to call a spy supply store to get a thing to solve the next-to-last puzzle.

I think I only had to look for help two or three times, and only because I couldn't figure out that there was another path off to the side of one screen. Most of the puzzles involved finding pieces in interesting places and bringing them back to a main location to unlock the next part of the game.

Which brings me to my main problem: actually DOING that is really annoying, because you can really only solve MAYBE two puzzles at a time. ( 1 image under here and the rest of the review of course )

That said, overall I did enjoy playing this game. It took maybe four hours to beat? I recommend using a stylus to speed some of the point-and-clicking up-- or just grabbing the mobile version, I suppose.

Price: $19.99, but I bought it on sale for $2 which it does pretty frequently.

Originally posted at my personal journal.