Tag: Video Games

The Last Time I Saw You Isn’t Easy When A Tsunami Is Closing In

Let’s not forget about the Yokai this Halloween season, and while the scares are light in romantic adventure, The Last Time I Saw You will entertain for a fortnight before the ghosts are unleashed!

Moroboshi ArtworksThe Last Time I Saw You Card

The Last Time I Saw You is a visually beautiful video game that explores the supernatural side of Japan. Here, players must attempt to save a village from a natural disaster. This nicely designed side-scroller may be light on the RPG side, but I’m sure the choices made matter. I’m confident the goal is to avert another typhoon ready to assault this sea-side community!

Here, players are assuming the role of Ayami. He’s a very precocious boy who has certain tasks to do each day. But when a storm is slowly coming, Ayami must balance what he needs to do versus simply exploring. This helped me get familiar with where everything is, and that includes the friends and strangers this kid meets.

But when a mysterious older girl appears in this boy’s dreams, that can spell trouble. I thought she might be a crush at first. But as other details emerged during play, I suspect there’s more to her than meets the eye. Part of the game involves figuring out who she is, and why she saved him from attacking ghosts that look like Gastly from Pokémon. That’s how the game starts, and as for what other nasties are hiding in the forest, that’d be saying too much.

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Seeking Mavis Beacon, Because Her Face is Well-Known All Around The World

When not everyone can touch type, is Seeking Mavis Beacon important? What this documentary is effective at examining is in why a certain look was needed, and how that would later influence a generation of not only black women in the corporate world, but also shape the state of an AI industry, especially chatbots.

Seeking Mavis Beacon Movie Poster
Test your typing speed with the online version here.

To find if this documentary is playing at a theatre near you, please visit the official website.

When the people Seeking Mavis Beacon think of the software designed to teach typing as a videogame, I’m sure this telling documentary can ask Where in the World is Mavis Becon instead of Carmen Sandiego. At least, when comparing Broderbund/The Learning Company’s product to The Software Toolworks‘ deception, the lines of reality is not as blurry. Back when both games were released, everyone thought these characters were real!

However, for a generation who grew up learning how to touch type and improving their typing speed with this “person,” she’s an iconic role model many people will not dispute. Until the information was made public, not everyone knew she was a made up figure. A real person was involved in selling the product, but that was only for a day. Renee L’esperance was already a well established fashion model who was mostly better known in Haiti than other parts of the world. And when Les Crane, Walt Bilofsky, and Mike Duffy knew she was the one to become the face of their learning app, their plan can be scorned now instead of back then.

They only offered her $500 to pose for a simple photo shoot, and never offered her a contract for residuals. Had she known just how influential this program would become, she’d be as rich as Bill Gates! The last software release occurred in 2020, a detail this film journal did not take a deep dive into.

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Rogue-Like Touhou Genso Wanderer – FORESIGHT is Ready to Rumble with Dungeon Crawls and Much More!

Fans of the Touhou Genso Wanderer franchise will be thrilled to play this latest entry, and it’s discounted on Steam till the end of this month!

Touhou Genso Wanderer -FORESIGHTTouhou Genso Wanderer -FORESIGHT-, the turn-based RPG Touhou Project fan game from publisher Phoenixx and developer AQUASTYLE, is here for the PC via Steam for $34.99, along with the Winter outfit DLC pack for $2.99. Early birds can enjoy a 10% discount ($31.49), and a game-and-DLC bundle for $32.06 until Tuesday, May 28th at 10:00 AM PT.

After a series of unfortunate events befall the Hakurei Shrine, guide Shrine Maiden Reimu alongside longtime friend Marisa and solve strange happenings that occur one after another to save Gensokyo from the hands of a mysterious enemy. Brave the perils of randomly generated roguelike dungeons, and save Gensokyo once again in the latest chapter of the Genso Wanderer series.

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Summoning Up Players for Magic Chaos May Be The Greatest Challenge of Them All

After spending two weeks in Magic Chaos, the real challenge is in finding folks interested in trying this party game with you.

Magic Chaos Title CardMagic Chaos is a type of video game where you can play a magical girl become a Terminator! Although I expected cut scenes showing these heroines transforming into new modes (costumes) between matches, I had not progressed far enough to find out. Instead, what’s created by Super Starmine is a party-based player versus player product rather than something to enjoy alone. It’ll most likely do well at an anime convention’s arcade room, and thus, in that environment, finding people to play against is not as difficult as online.

I adjusted my schedule to Japan time to see if I could find anyone during the time I spent with this early release, and didn’t find many folks. Players can set up rooms for other gamers to join, and during the times I checked, there were not many. The fact they are “locked” made me think the option exists to limit who you want in. When I turned to Discord, the mostly Japanese written discussion forum made it tough to figure out which channel is appropriate to ask if someone would like to take part in a match.

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With Nyaaaanvy, Video Gamers Don’t Have To Be Fighter-Saavy to Enjoy the Craziness Going On

The reason why this videogame is called Nyaaaanvy is that the Japanese onomatopoeia for cat’s meow is nya!

Nyaaaanvy Title CardNow Available on Steam and Nintendo Switch

Nyaaaanvy is a rather fun physics-based 3D fighting game which features sausage-like kitties attacking each other with their butts! It’s less about claiming an alpha status on every rooftop (or other oddly shaped arenas with moving parts) where they nest. Like real life cats, they have their places where they prefer to hang out, and here, it’s all about who has the power.

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Bahnsen Knights is Ready to Fright!

This ain’t no ordinary road trip! Just what Bahnsen Knights offers is more than your typical X-Files frightmare!

Bahnsen Knights Title CardLCB Game Studio
Chorus Worldwide

Any fan of the retro style Pixel Pulps series of interactive adventure, will be thrilled to hear Bahnsen Knights is now here! It’s available to play on multiple platforms, like the Nintendo Switch, PS4|5, X Box with support for English, Spanish, German, French, and Japanese languages. That is, if you’ve played either Mothmen 1966 (review) and Varney Lake, this next novel will be on the shopping list! This third work in the series looks promising, and for any fan of pulp fiction or that 80s digital style, this game is for you!

From the Press Release: 

Follow Toni, the cult’s leader and former car salesman, to figure out what happened to Boulder’s friend and missing partner, Cupra. Learn just exactly what these “route exorcisms” are that everyone’s talking about before Boulder meets an untimely demise. Here, you’ll be driving through multiple outcomes of dark conclusions and explore a choice-based detective tale that branches into different aspects of humanity’s capacity for terror.

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