I’ve worked through an entire soulslike game since the last review I put up, but that’s embargoed until December 2nd, so I’m mainly putting this up to mention that stuff is coming once that embargo drops.

Also, I want to highlight how depressing December is going to be if my request for Cyberpunk 2077 (which I put in on a different site; it’s not available on Keymailer) doesn’t go through. That’s the third request I’ve put in for a CD Projekt RED game, and right now I’m batting 0/2 because they never send enough keys for everyone. Considering that it was the reaction to one of their early games that led me to create this site in the first place, that’s not great. 8½ years, 1.45 million words, and half a thousand reviews. I’ve paid my goddamned dues. Needless to say, I won’t be covering the game if that doesn’t go through. I have a long memory and zero desire to play catchup with companies who make running a site like this even harder.

Chronos: Before the Ashes

That segues nicely into the first game that I already have requested (there literally aren’t enough interesting games I haven’t already requested to fill a short article, so all of these will be pre-requested), Chronos: Before the Ashes. This is a non-VR version of a game that was previously exclusive to that hardware, and while I could probably get my hands on this pretty reliably by requesting it through another intermediary, Gunfire Games and/or their publisher previously ignored a key request that I put in for Remnant: From the Ashes, which this is a prequel to. God, these games have generic names. Anyway, I’m interested, but only if they make up for ignoring me earlier by accepting this new request. I couldn’t be fair to the game without someone taking that first step. And honestly, I’m only barely interested to begin with.

Oh, and I did that whole “checking in on rejections and stuff” thing first, as per usual. I finally just turned down that early access key that I didn’t ask for because the game had come out of early access and I missed the release date while busy with other stuff. I still have Mists of Noyah sitting around, though, and my plan for that one has changed slightly; instead of covering it in November as per the plan, I think I’ll wait until the next update (which is scheduled for right before Christmas, according to the last update).

Call of the Sea

Call of the Sea is a puzzle game that looks to have a heavy narrative focus, telling the story of a wife who ventures to a mysterious island looking for her missing husband. Its Art Style looks colorful and engaging, somewhere between Firewatch and Sea of Thieves, but this one will ultimately sink or swim based on how well its story resolves. Firewatch‘s fizzled-out ending left me cold, while Draugen went in a weird enough direction to surprise me despite some of its broad-strokes revelations being predictable. Pacing and storytelling are everything in a game like Call of the Sea, though that art style and voice acting could definitely paper over some minor flaws, and I’m interested in seeing what types of puzzles lie in wait.

Woodsalt, Override 2, Arise: A Simple Story

I should probably mention that I’m operating on about an hour and a half of sleep right now. Because of that, I totally lost the plot around this point and forgot what I was doing, skipping over previously-requested games in favor of looking for interesting new ones that don’t exist. So! Here’s what I skipped:

– Woodsalt, a narrative sci-fi adventure game with multiple endings, a cartoony art style reminiscent of Lost Sphear and Noahmund, and what appears to be a dash of welcome creepiness and violence. Neat.

– Override 2, which is a sequel to Override: Mech City Brawl. I liked that game quite a bit, and my article about how to unlock cosmetics by automatically grinding has performed better than most other things I’ve written. I’m also interested in seeing where I stand with Modus leading up to 2021’s promising Cris Tales.

– Arise, A Simple Story, which is a—wait for it—narrative game with puzzles. This one has an interesting time travel mechanic, apparently. This came out in 2019 on the Epic Games Store and consoles, so it’s only releasing onto Steam for the first time, but months are sometimes so barren that you have to make do.

Finding games, requesting games: 11/29/20 first appeared on Killa Penguin