Misthold Welcomes You

The Hex (2018) is a multi-genre mystery game starring six protagonists from different fictional video games. The main story is a murder mystery (sort of), but each protagonist has their own goal which then culminate into a wowzer of an ending. They're also self-aware-- they know they're video game characters-- and their creator also plays a part in their story. The more you unravel their backstory, the more interesting and exciting it gets.

It was super fun getting to try out different genres, actually. I normally only play adventure/puzzle games, so it was neat to try out shooters and strategy games. And despite switching genres with every character, it's actually pretty easy to play. That's great for people who don't normally play certain types of games, as it means you won't get stuck somewhere too long. And if you die, it just resets to immediately before your death. Nice!



The best part was finding the different pieces of the story and unraveling the protags' stories and the ACTUAL main story of The Hex. There's tons of stuff to find, like weird glitchy things, "hacking" into game parts, secret clickable things, etc. A lot of it involves "breaking" the game in some way, or doing things totally incorrect for whatever genre you're currently in.

For instance, in one part of the game you get a power-up from the villain, which then breaks the normal game mode but allows you to do things necessary for The Hex's storyline. In another part, you literally go "behind the scenes" to the game creator's bedroom. There's lots of little things to find, all very meta to The Hex's game and the video game industry.

It's obvious that The Hex was made by someone who really loves video games, and who loves playing around with the medium of video games. I really enjoyed playing it!

Apparently there's a second secret ending if you play through again, too. I haven't done that yet, but I'm definitely adding it onto my "sometime in the future" list.

Price: $10

Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. I played it on macOS and it took me about 8 hours to finish.

This was part of the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality.

One-Eyed Lee and the Dinner Party (2019) is a puzzle/visual novel game set in a fantasy world where spirits exist and, sometimes, merge with living humans to become...something else. One-Eyed Lee is a something else, and Beracus is the doctor trying to figure out how to change him back. Or at least make him less volatile...

Beracus and Lee get tipped off about a whole heap of spirits in an abandoned bunker-- only to become trapped inside with a family of living skeletons. You (playing as Beracus) must solve puzzles, talk to the skeletons (whether they like it or not), and keep Lee alive to get out of the bunker!

I had heaps of fun playing this game. The art is fantastic, Beracus and Lee have a very interesting partnership, and the bunker-skeleton family setting was great. It starts off uncanny, as a post-apocolyptic bunker without an apocalypse to go with it, and then gets super creepy by the time you leave and find out wtf really happened.


The puzzles are solved through finding clues (e.g. clicking on everything), talking to the skeletons, and matching clue to mystery in a specific order. I'm not sure if it was just my computer or if it's part of the game, but there was a small amount of lag between hovering over a clue and the highlight turning on, which mean I had to go a little slower than I usually do. Also, the highlight was a dark red color, which was a little difficult to see even for a non-colorblind person like me. (The whole bunker is heavy on red/orange tones.)

Side note that you can click on objects multiple times, and some of them lead to funny interactions! Or new clues! So that's cool.

Because you're also talking to people, you have some choices on how to proceed through the puzzles. For instance, there's some tricky situations where you could lock yourself out of a set of dialogue cues that change interactions between Beracus and Lee. Or you could leave behind an item that would come in handy at the very end! There are 8 total endings, so it's worth going back and trying different routes to try and get them all.

To make it easier to get the different endings, the game has a History option (to read back through the text), a Skip option (to zoom past text you've already seen), and a Back button if you immediately regret choosing a specific option. There's also a Journal tab, which keeps short notes about the story/clues, and even gives a few subtle hints on where to go next if you're a little stuck.

It took me about 3 hours to get all 8 endings; I used some hints from the dev (on the Itch.io page) to figure out what I needed to do at the end, and made sure to try different options than I did the first time. The last part is very tricky! I did notice that once I got the happiest ending, the loading screen illustration was also happy! When I got the bummer ending(s), it was super sad. Such a nice little touch in an already detail-filled game.

Great characters, good writing, humorous moments and spooky ones, too: I really enjoyed playing this and highly recommend checking it out!

Price: $4.99

This is apparently the first of a series of games the dev is planning on making with Beracus and Lee, and I can't wait to play them!

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

A Normal Lost Phone (2017) is a puzzle game. I played the Mac OS version.

The story about a trans girl figuring herself out, told through phone apps, emails, and text messages. Some puzzles (mostly finding the right codes), but more just reading a lot of text. Feels a little bit like creeping on a stranger to dig so deeply into their personal stuff, but it's an interesting plot device. Good music! Good art! Really nice design for the phone. I'd call it a visual novel except there are no plot choices or options, and you can't change the outcome of anything. Does that still count? Not sure.

About an hour's worth of play, longer if you read EVERYTHING (I skipped some of the forum posts, but they had good "what does it mean to be trans" info for newbies).

Price: $2.99

Content notes: Homophobia/transphobia, suicide/self-harm, bullying.

Arcade Spirits (2019) is a LOVELY game, one I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys playing romantic visual novels. It's set in the near future, in an alternate timeline where video games are even more popular than they are in this timeline. You play as Ari Cader, a down-on-their-luck dreamer with no ambitions. ( More words and three images )

I definitely want to go back and play a few different choices. The nice thing is that I can do that but still maintain my Kindly personality type if I want, because not all plot choices lead to personality type choices. For instance, for this first play-through I chose to build a retro arcade. Maybe the next one I'll pick a family-friendly esports center! etc. Or I wonder what would've happened if I sold out earlier on in the game, or was harsher with some trouble-makers. That's the exciting thing about this game: it has lots of replayability!

It took me about 6? hours to play through the first time and even with the speed-run options, it'll probably still take another 3 for EACH of the different romance/plot points. And now that I've done it once, I can speed through some scenes and go back and make other choices IN the game. Nice!

Price: $19.99

Content notes: Parental abuse, depression (/disassociation?), guns/knives (teenage gangs), sexism.

Originally posted at my personal journal. Crossposted to indie_games.