The third week of Spooktober is done! And because I managed to wrap up Bloomtown, This Bed We Made and Slay the Princess with more than 1 week left in the month, I included one more game in the play-along list: Gloomy Eyes. This one is a puzzle game with Tim Burton-inspired vibes, where you take turns as a human and a zombie to solve challenges. It’s a very interesting concept of self co-op game.
I got the game in the Cozy After Dark showcase Humble Bundle, here is the link if you’re interested in checking it out (non-sponsored).
What is Spooktober? Jump back in:
I think I talked about Bloomtown a lot in the last 2 updates, since it was the longest game I played this month, so I won’t repeat myself too much today.
The last hours of the game were in line with the rest, so my opinion stays the same: I think it had good potential, but the bloat in the gameplay and questionable combat design got in the way of the story. Either way, I still enjoyed my time (enough that I didn’t feel like abandoning the game) and discussing it with Margot as we had similar pet peeves. Ending the game was sweet. Reaching that finish line made me realize that despite my complaints, I still liked the characters a lot.
Then, I picked up This Bed We Made and finished it in about 5 hours. This HAS to be the game with the best opening hook I’ve ever seen. Playing it gave me the same feeling as reading an Agatha Christie’s novel, I was so locked in and on the edge of my seat. I don’t want to give away too much, as this is yet again one of those games that you should go in blind, but I’m pretty sure you’d like it if you’re into investigative games and don’t mind some of the more disturbing elements that are listed in the trigger warnings. Important to note that this one is not a horror game, by the way.
The last game I finished this week was Slay the Princess. My partner was my player 2 for this one – it’s not a co-op game, but he was making decisions with me and we took turns with the controller. As soon as we finished it, I said: “we are playing it again next year, right?”.
Even though it’s psychological horror and it has some gore and disturbing elements, there aren’t jumpscares and I really recommend it to anyone that, just like me, is not a fan of horror but feels like dipping the toes in the genre.
My friend Strawberry joined me in playing this game. We compared our experiences and realized they were really different. Without spoiling anything, you unlock different things in a single playthrough, so we were comparing notes on what we got. That’s also the reason why I felt like it will be a good game to play again one day, I’m curious to see what other paths I could’ve taken.
I liked the game a lot, but it did feel very dense, which is surprising for such a short play time (I finished it in about 4 hours). I’ll need some time, and probably listening to some podcasts, to properly process the whole experience.
Week 4 of Spooktober will be just wrapping up Gloomy Eyes for me.
What about you?
-Luna
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