x The Game Journal
As two long-time game enthusiasts, my spouse and I now play many games together. This is log of those games and a reminder of the many hours together.
x Played
✦ Octopath Traveler
✦ Octopath Traveler II
✦ Heaven's Vault
✦ Corru Observer
✦ Disco Elysium
- The Quiet Year
- Dialect
✦ Triangle Strategy
✦ Stray Gods
✦ Looking for Aliens
- Toem
- Oddada
- Shadows over Loathing
- Edge of Eternity
- It Takes Two
- Divinity Original Sins
- Picross
- Morrowind
- Trauma Center
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Dungeon Siege
- Echos of Wisdom


x Comment
x Filters
x Oddada
Pitch: Make music with toys!
Platform: PC
Length: roughly 20 minutes per song
Date Played: September 2024
Tags: Musical, Fun
Rating: Made some cool songs, unlocked some fun musical toys 10/10
Oddada

What fun, what whimsy! What cool and silly and fun musical tracks we can make!
x Triangle Strategy
Pitch: What if square enix did a grid based 3 Kingdoms game?
Platform: PC
Length: 100+ hours
Date Played: July 2024
Tags: Strategy, turn based, faction, high replay value, character collection and customization
Rating: 10/10 interesting and engaging grid based combat, with character/enemy abilities that feel distinct

Why yes, my spouse and I replayed this game to get all four endings and all 30 party member. The political intrigue and moral choices were nice bonuses too.
x It Takes Two
Pitch: Role play as a divorcing couple, while platforming through levels designed for two players
Platform: PC
Length: 20 hours
Date Played: January 2024
Tags: Musical, Mythology, Romanance, Replayable, Life and Death
Rating: 9/10
It Takes Two

I found it charming, and the novelty of having a game designed for two players made up for the occasionally eye-rolling dialogue. I found the gyrating book funny, and I still quote him.
x Stray Gods
Pitch: Suddenly a Muse, and thrust into the heart of murder mystery between modern greek gods
Platform: PC
Length: 20+ hours per playthrough
Date Played: January 2024
Tags: Musical, Mythology, Romanance, Replayable, Life and Death
Rating: Loved it. ♥ 10/10
Stray Gods

I enjoyed this immensely and spent weeks singing these songs, watching videos of all the dialogue options, playing a few times through. Smart, funny, and with impactful choices involving real moral dilemmas. Eros and Hermes were easy faves, and I was smitten with Pan of course.


x Corru Observer                                                 
Pitch: Investigating a fragmented alien biocomputer
Platform: Browser game.
Development: Work-in-progress.
Length: 14-15 hours.
Date Played: May 2024
Tags: Transhumanism, scifi, alien, music
Rating: I keep thinking about this game and it's expression of "others" 9/10
Corru Observer
x Looking for Aliens
Pitch: Where's Waldo, but in alien filled space.
Platform: PC
Length: 6 hours
Date Played: Dec 2023
Tags: Hidden object, cute, cozy game
Rating: 7/10 was great to play while cold and ill

Clicking around the find the little gags and alien buddies was fun and just low-effort enough to entertain me while I had Covid. Comfortable. Not every object has to be found every level, so difficult items could be skipped, creating an adjustable difficulty based on mental energy.
x Octopath Traveler II
Pitch: What if Octopath Traveler 1 but even better? Quality of life updates, even more gorgeous graphics, and expanded cross-character interaction and story with eight new lovable travelers. My favorite is the sassy cleric.
Platform: Switch and PC
Length: 60+ hours
Date Played: Autumn 2023 (and multiple replays since)
Tags: Pixel, jRPG, story, strategy
Rating: Loved it. ♥ 10/10
Octopath Traveler 2
x Toem
Pitch: Be a cute little guy and take pictures of cute little guys.
Platform: PC
Length: 5 hours
Date Played: September 2023
Tags: Cute, Cozy, Photography, Hand drawn
Rating: 8/10
Toem

Fun little afternoon game, wandering around enviroments and taking pictures for quests.
x Shadows over Loathing
Pitch: You can stick your hand into spitoons.
Platform: PC
Length: 80 hours
Date Played: January 2023
Tags: Comedy, irreverant, turn based, puzzles, weird
Rating: Loved it, just as I loved the knob goblins of original Kingdom of Loathing. ♥ 10/10
Shadows over Loathing

Full of gags, jokes, and humor. So much to do and see and read.
x Edge of Eternity
Pitch: A sweeping jRPG, but not final fantasy
Platform: PC
Length: 70 hours
Date Played: February 2022
Tags: Crystals, Turn based, World-ending disease, pretty sets
Rating: 6/10
Edge of Eternity

Finished the game because... because we just had to know. How do they tie up these threads? What is going on? A trainwreck of a narrative, but was engaged enough to finish the game. Decent combat with a hex grid, which is different from the other jRPGs I've played.
x Disco Elysium
Pitch: A depressed drunkard cop grappling with existential problems and an unsolved murder, while being harrassed by his own ineptitute.
Platform: PC
Length: 60+ hours
Date Played: January 2022
Tags: Dice rolling, stats, narrative, choice, existential dread
Rating: 10/10 made me contemplate death

This game is incredibly well written, entirely voice acted, and it hurts like therapy. Kitsuragi is love.
x Divinity: Original Sins 2
Pitch: 6 baddies and/or their player character friend travel to become (or destroy) divinity. Deep combat using a modified D20 system, unique classes, and interactable enviroment.
Platform: PC
Length: 300+ hours and still counting
Date Played: Autumn 2019
Tags: Capital R role playing game, deep tactical combat, origin stories, replayable, multiplayer!
Rating: Loved it. Try to make all our friends play it ♥ 10/10
x Heaven's Vault
Pitch: Play as an anthropolist who is disciphering the true history of their civilization by translating and decrypting an ancient unknown language.
Platform: Switch and PC
Length: 30 hours
Date Played: August 2019
Tags: Anthropology, Linguistics, Space, Robots, Story, Choice
Rating: Best translation mechanics I've ever seen in a game; always recommending this one 10/10

This is a game about context; what symbols may have originally be interpretted as "servant" may later be contextually be understood as "slave", or "birth" may come to mean "celebration". The more lanuage you learn, the more context you have, the more you can communicate and learn. Travel the asteriods and settlements of your civilization with your little robot companion whose history you unfold together.
Heaven's Vault
x Octopath Traveler
Pitch: Eight acquaintances traveling around, discovering their intertwined stories and fate. A modern jRPG with gorgeous high-def pixel art.
Platform: Switch and PC
Length: 60+ hours
Date Played: Autumn 2018 (and multiple replays since)
Tags: Pixel, jRPG, story, strategy
Rating: Loved it, but a bit grindy if wanting to do end game stuff. End game content was REALLY DIFFICULT. 9/10
Octopath Traveler
x The Quiet Year
Pitch: Create a community, with a set of prompts and a deck of cards
Platform: Table top
Length: 2+ hours per playthrough
Date Played: don't recall
Tags: table top, map builder
Rating: Heard it on Friends At The Table, and had to play it myself ♥ 10/10
The Quiet Year by Buried Without Ceremony

From the website "You define the struggles of a community living after the collapse of civilization, and attempt to build something good within their quiet year. Every decision and every action is set against a backdrop of dwindling time and rising concern.

The game is played using a deck of cards – each of the 52 cards corresponds to a week during the quiet year. Each card triggers certain events – bringing bad news, good omens, project delays and sudden changes in luck. At the end of the quiet year, the Frost Shepherds will come, ending the game.

The Quiet Year occupies an interesting space – part roleplaying game, part cartographic poetry. "
x Dialect
Pitch: A role playing game about lanuage, by two linguists
Platform: Tabletop
Length: 3-4 hours per playthrough
Date Played: don't recall
Tags: Language, communities, creative play
Rating: Loved it. ♥ 10/10
Dialect

Because I care deeply about (and am precious about) language, I actually found this difficult to play. There is a lot of vulnerability required for this game, as it heavily relies on collaborative story telling.