by Michael At the end of this game, we will be rescuing a princess. Well, I have to take back some of my optimism about this game from the previous posts.  This last segment of the game made me feel as though I was constantly climbing ladders, dodging wine barrels being tossed my way. I’m going to leave out a lot of the deliberations that went into my actions.  A lot of the puzzle solving in this last section came down to pure luck or brute force inventory application.  Sometimes, I could see where I might have been given a hint, had I arrived at a different screen fir ..read more

by Will Moczarski The time has come for the final rating of the "cyberpunk vampire adventure game" BloodNet – or is it a cyberpunk vampire RPG? When I started reviewing this game back in fall 2022, I made two predictions: there’ll be more coincidental Muse lyrics than “time is running out” in my posts before I get to pen the final rating. And “exploring the far reaches of Cyberspace” will surely be a chore. Both of them were wrong. Cyberspace was alright (although there are some who will beg to differ), and I refrained from quoting Muse altogether as far as I'm aware. Before I try to ..read more

Written by Vetinari Next morning, I wake up to a surprise. The landlady, Mrs Bastable, announces that a visitor, a young lady, is waiting for me in the lounge. Now, I haven't mentioned anything about a landlady up to now, and I can hear what you're saying: of course there's a landlady, all sleuths (especially ones who live in London, and in Marylebone, no less) have a landlady. No! You are thinking of Victorian sleuths! Golden Age sleuths have no landladies, only secretaries! She's no Miss Lemon, but Nikki Porter comes a close second. Anyway, going to the lounge I find that this myst ..read more

By Reiko Previously, we discovered Convergence was the head of a secret society who had leads on where to find the items necessary to fix the ship so we can return to Earth, but we still need the TransWarp drive from Solifluction to get back in time to stop the Assassins. So we have to contact his son Raphide again and also find Astatine in Fogram's lab. The Aesthemis constellation unlocks the door to the lab, so I step inside. Please note that this post has fewer screenshots than normal because we have many lengthy conversations in which the only image is the exact same picture of the charac ..read more

by Michael This logo reminds me of another adventure game publisher... So, last post, I said the game wasn’t as bad as I expected.  And that’s still true.  But it is far from the “Pinnacle of Entertainment Software” as their logo in the game loading sequence claims. I probably could have finished the game in this session, but I really needed to take a break.   Recapping from the last time, we’ve crossed 5 of the 10 items off of our to-do list.  So let’s see how to handle the rest of them.  First, my thoughts before I started out: Advertising - I’l ..read more

 Written by Morpheus Kitami Its time for a marathon. Today's topic, Eldritch Games, the company behind The Hound of Shadow and Daughter of Serpents. Two horror adventure games that got missed the first time through, and seemingly ones that deserve the title Missed Classic. But an astute reader will have already noticed that this isn't The Hound of Shadow. Like all good stories, it does not start where you think. Wait, what do you mean Vetinari started up Hound of Shadow? Serves me right for first writing this entry in 2022. The principal team behind Eldritch Games consists of Chris Ell ..read more

 by Will Moczarski Whatever the case: I’m back. Those are the words I ended my previous BloodNet post with, and they are just as suitable for picking up on it again. That was on May 19, 2023, so it almost took me a year to be “back” this time, hopefully for good. Now I could bore you with long explanations why it took me so long but I think it doesn’t matter at this point. Whatever the case: I’m back. Last time, I finally jumped over the huge stumbling block that was the fight inside Grant’s Tomb. The spike in difficulty had been unprecedented at that point and the remainder of the gam ..read more

Written by Vetinari Whoever may have had an however fleeting or passing acquaintance with other famous Lovecraft-adjacent games (or even just stood downwind of someone who had), when faced with a title like The Hound of Shadow knows exactly what to expect: one of the most iconic creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos, the Hound of Tindalos. The main characteristic of these creatures is that once a human becomes known to them as a prey, they will pursue the victim through anything to reach their quarry. Say hello to my little friend. So, starting the game proper I had quite a good idea of wha ..read more

by Michael So, how to start off this post?  How about a shocking thought:  this game is nowhere near as bad as I expected. I'm not saying it's great.  I'm not even saying that it's good.  But there's actually a few things in here so far that are actually an improvement over the last game I played for the blog.  A LucasArts game, remember. For example, some commenters on that last review were distressed by the lack of tool tips or mouse-over item descriptions.  This game has both.  It has icons that function very similarly to that of old-school LucasFilm g ..read more

 Written by Morpheus Kitami Last time, we finished a meeting with Kudo, and we were going to go to class 3-C. Probably. That's Akemi, but it isn't anyone I recognize. Wasn't she missing? Oh, it is Nagumo, but wait, who was the guy the first time? I guess a member of the student council? Jaku asks about the Choujin, Nagumo says he always asks about that, when in the world is he going to get new material? Now two different people are stealing my lines...I have Jaku talk to Nagumo again, and again, Nagumo mocks him and now Akemi is joining in on the fun. I'm going to click on talk to Nagum ..read more