Divekick (PC) (2013)

Overview: A 2D fighting game whose gameplay solely revolves the dive kick move.

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20170629:
One of the games in my "Recommended by Filter" category. I played as the character Dive and finished his story.

Setup: I decided to set the jump to the "A" key and the kick to the "X" key.

Steam Game Time: 39 minutes

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20170630:
Today I played with Kung Pao, and finished her story.

Tip: Read the "How to Play" section before playing. It'll describe how to use the meter and special moves. It'll also describe in detail how to use each character's special moves.

Steam Game Time: 95 minutes (cumulative game time) / 56 minutes (session game time)

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Thoughts: (single-player story)
Pros:
+ Simple, fun.
+ A lot of characters and variation

Minor Con:
- No save mode (though I think saving is uncommon in the fighting genre)
- There doesn't seem to be much of a player base for online matches.
- Simple graphics; I wish the characters looked better (for example, at least the quality of the original Street Fighter)

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Summary:
Overall, I had fun playing Divekick. Despite only having two buttons to press, Divekick retains just as much strategy as modern complex fighting games. In fact, this removal of combos and button complexity - stripping modern fighting games down to their core - is refreshing and fun.

In the end, I would recommend the game to players unfamiliar with fighting genre for it's simplicity and to players familiar with the fighting genre looking for something good, but novel.

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20241102:
Today I played against Ben. He did decently well, beating me in first to five matches several times. Maybe even equal record, I would have to review the recording to see.

Gameplay Log:
Ben wins. Kenny vs. Kick. 3-5.
Tim wins. Kenny vs. Kick. 5-0.
Ben wins. Kenny vs. Kick. 4-5.
Ben wins. Kenny vs. Kick. 4-5.
Tim wins. Dive vs. Kick. 5-3.
Tim wins. Dive vs. Kick. 5-4.
Tim wins. Dive vs. Kick. 5-3.

So upon reviewing the record, it looks like we went 4-3. And while I didn't tryhard against him, I also didn't go easy on him. I think instead I focused on being fully intentional with my moves (which could expose me to being attacked) while I let him enough space to get a handle on the controls. He seemed to be somewhere between button mashing and being intentional with his movements. Also, I think the characters have some sort of special moves but I didn't use them - at least not knowingly.

The minimal design of playing with just two buttons is amazing. And for that I would give the game a high score. But not exceedign a 5.0.

Rating: 4.6/5

Steam Game Time: 117 minutes (cumulative game time) / 22 minutes (session game time)

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20241114:
Steam Game Time: 2.7 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.7 hours (session game time)

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20241115:
Steam Game Time: 3.1 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.4 hours (session game time)

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Divekick (PC) (2013)

Relevant Links:
Divekick Website
Divekick (Wikipedia.org)
Divekick (Steam Store Page)

Antenna (PC) (2016)

Overview: A short adventure game.

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20170628 AM:
Looking for games on Astats with "Time to 100% [Accomplishments]," I chose the shortest game that I had not already played: Antenna; since it was free to play, it was a game I implicitly owned, as opposed to a game I explicitly owned.*

Setup: Keyboard and Touchpad. Note that the game often refers to using the mouse scroll. On my laptop, I was able to use the two-finger touch gesture on my touchpad in place of the scroll wheel. However, I later learned that sometimes the arrow keys (left and right) are more precise than my touchpad's two-finger touch gesture. Furthermore, pressing shift will generally alter the left and right keys favorably. That is, the action speeds up when I expected being able to speed up, and slows down when I expected being able to slow down.

Game Mechanics: I don't want to give anything away, but the next morning I noticed that the Steam Store page emphasizes the need for audio in order to solve some of the puzzles. It also says the game requires the use of the mouse scroll.

Log:
While some of the stages took a while to figure out, I managed to figure them out on my own.

However, when I finished the game, something was happening and it was so late at night that I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I realized there was a hidden achievement and I just went ahead and looked it up. Achieving it would require replaying the game, so I left it for another time.

Steam Game Time: 32 min = 2:40AM to 3:12AM (logged as 2.8 hours because I fell asleep)

*Astats has the option to "Show owned games only." When choosing this option, it'll also show free to play games which are implicitly owned by everyone.**
**With that being said, I later realized the game was in my "Recommended by Filter" category... so I might have already downloaded the game and made it part of my library. I'm not sure.

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Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Free
+ Challenging
+ Pleasing art direction (this style has now been found in several games, dominantly black foreground with a colored background)
+ Surprising focus on audio.

Neutral:
~ Short
~ Medium difficulty

[20170628]

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20170630:
I went back and completed the last achievement. Afterwards I completed the game and one of the puzzles was still hard despite knowing the general solution.

Spoiler/Note to Self: The sound-based puzzle which occurs after traveling down the elevator not only depends on the height of the knob, but the distance it traveled to get there.

Steam Game Time: 0.4 hours (session game time)

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Antenna (PC) (2016)

Relevant Links:
Antenna (Steam Store Page)

Cibele (PC) (2015)

Overview: View snapshots of a girl and her first romance through a mixture of media: photos, text, e-mail, etc.

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20170627:
Looking through the list of games under "Recommended By Filter," I decided to play Cibele.

Setup: Touchpad. (I should have gotten my USB mouse, my touchpad is so stiff.)

Tip: After completing the second act* and preparing to quit, I noticed the game specifies that

"Cibele autosaves at the beginning of every act."

The story was excellent and I wanted to keep playing, but it was already getting late.

Steam Game Time: 57 minutes

*Apparently there are three acts.

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Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Great story
+ Excellent presentation

Neutral:
~ I can't help but clicking on every single file. I only skimmed the text.
~ Due to the initial exploratory nature (e.g., "What is this game about?"), the flow of the game starts off a little slow

Con:
- Focuses more on the story and less on being a game

[20170628]

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Summary:
When considering comparisons for Cibele, I first thought of Dinner Date (2010), a video game which guides the player through the experiences of a man as he waits for his date.

Cibele, however, despite being just about as linear as Dinner Date, carries more depth and seeks to develop a more intricate story. Overall, it has more substance and is more of a video game than Dinner Date.

Of course, Dinner Date was written by a single person whereas Cibele - from what I can gather - had a small development team behind it.

With that being said, my guess is that the game could have had more bells and whistles, but was intentionally designed to be simple in order to emphasize the story itself.

Overall, if you're primary attraction to video games is a good story, then I would highly recommend Cibele.

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Cibele (PC) (2015)

Relevant Links:
Cibele (video game) (Wikipedia.org)
Cibele (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Cibele (Steam Store Page)

Pid (PC) (2012)

Overview: Pid is a puzzle-platformer where you play as kid who's trying to find his way home. Early in the game, the player character acquires a device that fires beams of light. The beams of light will push the player character away from the source of the beam.

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20170624: AM
I got my Netflix My List down to 43 items, and while part of me wanted to go full force and finish the list off - whether by watching the movies or removing them, another part of me was tired of watching films. In fact, earlier today I continued watching several episodes of Naruto Shippuden. In any case, with the Steam Summer Sale going on, I thought I'd also play some video games.

To start things off, I decided to play a game called Pid. It's in my "List to play... for reals" Steam Category, but I had no idea what the game was about.

Setup: Keyboard

Log:
Played a little bit.

Finally, at one point, I tried to close the game and it hanged on me. I was so tired that I fell asleep while waiting for the situation to rectify itself; I couldn't press ctrl+alt+del.

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20170624:
In the morning, after waking up I had to use the power button to restart my laptop. Apparently the game was still running in the background because it logged 4.0 hours of playtime on Steam. I've decided to disregard these hours.

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20170625:
Today I replayed the game from the beginning, not quite playing as far as I played before. I left the game to prepare for boarding the plane.

Steam Game Time: 4.1 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.1 hours (session game time) + 4.0 hours (idle time)

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20170626:
Today I tried playing a bit more. Unfortunately, there were moments when I died and felt the deaths were due to the game's unrefined controls. This makes the game difficult in an unwelcomed manner.

Steam Game Time: 4.7 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.6 hours (session game time)

[20170626][20240323 Edit]

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Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Nice art style

Neutral:
~ Poor story.

Cons:
- Beam mechanics aren't smooth. Not a fun experience.
- Slow, slow-paced, boring; mechanics are introduced at such slow pace, there might be more to the game but I can't bear the wait.
- Unrefined controls; compare with a game like Super Meat Boy whose controls feel smooth*

*This might not be a perfect comparison, because Pid is a puzzle platformer, not a difficult platformer, that requires the amount of precision which Super Meat Boy requires. However, it'd be more

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Summary:
I tried my best to enjoy the game, but I couldn't help but find the gameplay lackluster. It's a shame because I liked the artwork and overall look of the game.

I'll consider trying to play the co-op mode, but I won't attempt to do so anytime soon.

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Pid (PC) (2012)

Relevant Links:
Pid (video game) (Wikipedia.org)
Pid (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Pid (Steam Store Page)