So, after the Blaugust aftermath, I haven’t been writing a lot but that’s not a Blaugust issue… rather, it’s a having-to-move-out-but-not-having-a-place-to-stay-at-and-hence-being-busy-with-packing-and-going-to-my-parents-for-a-while type of issue.

Basically, it’s September 19th and I haven’t written many posts at all apart from this one over here that explains why I won’t be on Twitch for a while and a review I published yesterday on a phenomenal Roguelike-Cardbattler that you definitely should check out.

Hence, I apologize for the delay. Here’s my thoughts on this month’s Choice. Huzzah! Better late than never!

So, right away, I don’t think that there are “bad games” in this month’s Choice. There are just good games… and then there’s an FMV and “Deceive Inc.” – and there’s nothing wrong with the FMV but I’m not a fan of FMVs… and there’s a lot wrong with Deceive Inc, so more on that later! All the other games are in my top 4! Yay.

Anyhow, this month’s Choice is packed with value! Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, the Standalone Game to the “Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragonkeep” DLC from Borderlands 2 is on its own more than worth grabbing here with a price tag of 60€ in a bundle that costs a tenner or something. Damn.

If you like Borderlands, chances are you’ll like this game. I love Borderlands, with the Pre-Sequel being my favourite, followed by BL2, and me still having to play BL3… and I love the universe, the humour, the weapons, the fun shenanigans, the easter eggs, and all that. It’s a good franchise. Big fan.

So, I’ll definitely play this! Super excited! I first wanna do another playthrough of the other Borderlands games though… once I’m back to streaming, I’ll go through them all, eventually play BL3 for the first time, and then I’ll jump into Tiny Tina’s!

The Forgotten City is another game that adds value to this month’s Choice with a price tag of 25€. I watched a playthrough of this a while ago and it’s weird and I like it.

You essentially find the ruins of an ancient underground city where you travel 2000 years into the past to ancient Rome, unravelling the mystery of who destroyed it by exploiting the power to wind back time.

Basically, you explore the city, meet the people, and make choices – and from what I’ve heard the storytelling is incredibly well done. I’m fond of time-travel stuff in games when well-written, so I’m looking forward to playing this!

Patch Quest! I like this game. I own it already and will publish my review on it probably tomorrow-ish (?) but essentially this is a super cute exploration-based adventure game developed by mostly one developer.

And I follow that one on YouTube. They’re chill. They also talked about the Unity situation in this video – something I talked about in this post.

Anyway, in Patch Quest, you explore these ruins on a somewhat procedurally generated map and you have to scan the flora and fauna to figure out stuff. You can also tame creatures that will come for you… and you can then utilize their abilities on top of the power-ups you find along the way to try and conquer this strange place.

What had me quite hooked was how you unlock shortcuts permanently, sort of making this more of a Metroidvania-adjacent title, possibly even Roguevania if you wanna call it that.

Patch Quest is difficult but engaging. It’s adorable but actually rather challenging and I really enjoy it! And since I last visited it, they also added a dungeon crawler update with bosses, challenges and ruins to traverse… as well as an editor to create your own levels. Huzzah!

Now, Foretales is Alkemi’s unique take on the adventure game genre with a lot of story paths and board game mechanics and it looks really, really, really cool!

I’ve had it on my wishlist for a while and I’m really excited to play it eventually once I get to it. I love the art style, I love the overall aesthetic, and I can’t wait to check out the plot…

I felt a bit reminded of Omensight and Stories: The Path of Destinies which are games by a different studio but the art style seemed quite similar, at least the fuwwy chawacters – but it’s a different game, combining card gaming and board game mechanics into the storytelling itself.

Btw, I’m not talking about the story itself as I wanna experience that without any prior knowledge. No spoilers for me! Really been excited for this one after all!

Aces & Adventures is a power-based deckbuilding-roguelike-strategy game in a 3D environment that looks incredibly ambitious and I’m just not sure why I didn’t see it before now. It came out this year, even, and I have no clue why didn’t know of it yet.

Maybe it’s because I’m not good at Poker? When I used to play Poker with friends, I’d always go all-in and everyone would trust me when I didn’t even know whether my hand was good or not. I’d win because people didn’t see through my stupidity… and I’d also win because sometimes people would think they saw through but my hand was actually good even when I thought it was bad.

Anyhow, I like Roguelikes. I like Roguelike-Deckbuilders. I absolutely love Astrea, at the moment, a game you definitely should check out, so I’m good at the moment for roguelike-deckbuilders, especially as I’ve also been getting into One Step From Eden these days… but once I’m less well-served, I’ll definitely head into Aces & Adventures and give it a whirl.

So, Denki made this game here called Autonauts. It’s a very cute simulation-type game with automation in it where you craft bots and teach them “via Scratch-style programming how to build an ever-evolving autonomous paradise of agriculture, industry and enlightenment”.

For anyone that doesn’t know what “Scratch” is… it’s a programming language for kids and it’s amazing and I used to try and make complex games with it even if the program is rather limiting in what it can and cannot do. I made it swear a lot because I was childish and I made a card game in it which was cool but super simple.

Anyhow, Autonauts is great!

This game here, though, is “Autonauts vs Piratebots” which is similar but with Strategy elements, I think? The Piratebots are invading, so you have to defend yourself by building, programming and battling your way through the different zones. It’s different but still good from what I’ve heard.

Deceive Inc. is a heist game that also has battle royale elements in it and social deduction… everyone is a spy! Or an AI civilian… oops.

Um, I’m not a fan. I’ve heard great things about it but also incredibly terrible things from the meta being super fast-paced and non-spy-like to the AI being stupid or fights at times dragging out until someone peeks around the corner which sounds incredibly boring.

I’m not a fan. It’s 20 bucks and has battle passes inside of it.

I may give this one away to someone more interested in it than me, especially as the only multiplayer thing I’m playing at the moment is that thing where you clean your apartment and paint the walls, hoping that you get as much money as possible back from your deposit.

It’s like Unpacking but with your father joining in and a friend helping you move everything into the car. – Huh? But of course, it is a lot of fun! How could you question that?

Also, if you’re into boycotting things, remember that Tripwire incident? You know where the boss, John Gibson, “stepped down” after tweeting that he was supporting Texas abortion law and “proud” of the legal outcome that doesn’t affect his body or his choice at all… or that he was a “pro-life game developer”? Yeah, I remember. The rest of the company doesn’t really have anything to do with that but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever I read “Tripwire”.

Note: This is a screenshot from the game btw. Just to get rid of confusions.

Last but not least least… I should have put Deceive Inc here…

Anyway, I don’t like FMV games. I’m not sure why. It may be the bad experiences I had with the actors at times just being… bad… or something… in some games… and uh… now I have a bias.

I don’t know. Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus seems like a fun game about a murder at the annual family quiz… something about the trailer made me cringe, though.

I have friends that enjoy FMVs and if some of them don’t grab this month’s Choice, they’ll get this game.

Anyway, good Choice. Go for it. It’s neat. I’ll try to post my next Humble Choice post at the beginning of the month in October. Apologies.

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well.