Vinrafel Gaming

A while back I picked up a strange indie game that was on sale. It would be a while before I played it, but eventually I made a few videos on Kentucky Route Zero . After another break, because I guess that’s just how it goes, I decided to finally finish what we started. Kentucky Route Zero is a narrative point and click adventure that is made by the developers Cardboard Computer. It follows the story an old man and his dog as they deliver antiques to a strange address. The gameplay is fairly standard for a point and click experience. The player can move the characters around by clicking on the ground and interact with different interactable objects. Unlike most others of its genre, Kentucky Route Zero does away with two features: puzzles and pixel hunting. All of the interactable objects are clearly presented to the player as pop ups on the screen, eliminating any of the random clicking that occurs in other point and click titles. The gameplay is then streamlined by removing ...

You wake up after a fierce tornado to find yourself in a strange world. This isn’t the Wizard of Oz , it’s Path to Thalamus . This is a puzzle game that came out back in 2015. You play as a man who has been thrust into his own mind-scape as he thinks back over his long, dark history. In a lot of arenas, Mind seems to push the envelope, such as their successful combination of gameplay and thematic elements, however it has its own problems at the same time. In terms of the gameplay, the player walks around the environment usually looking for strange balls. These can be used to activate different nodes that affect either the weather or time in the environment around the player. By combining the different nodes, puzzles are created which usually require the player to either pass through a certain area or enter a portal at some point. These puzzles were a bit of a mixed bag. Each of the elements was fairly successfully presented to the player by isolating them. From there, the com...

On the shore of a strange island a child awakens. With little more than a small red cape, he sets out to discover what happened to him. RiME is a game from Tequila Works that is similar to games like Journey and ABZU . It mixes a bit of exploration with simple puzzles as the player tries to discover how this boy ended up stranded on the island. RiME falls into a genre that I would call the spectacle game. These games focus on providing the player with gorgeous landscapes and cinematographic moments. Generally, gameplay is streamlined to allow the player to more easily move from spectacle to spectacle. In order to facilitate the artistic moments, spectacle games make use of automated cameras and changing perspectives to get the best angle on every shot. Other games that I would consider to be in this genre would be the aforementioned Journey and ABZU . Being a spectacle game, the gameplay elements are more limited. The player generally goes between solving puzzles and explo...

With no knowledge of where you are or why you’re here, you end up in front of a strange structure. Inside is a mess of corridors, puzzles and, most importantly, tapes. You are clearly heading somewhere, but who knows what awaits you at the end. Small Radios, Big Televisions is an experimental game published by Adult Swim Games. It is a mix of a puzzle and adventure game that focuses on strange tapes that the player finds throughout the game. As has been said, the core gameplay of Small Radios, Big Televisions is the puzzles scattered throughout the environment. These range from swapping around gears to turning water valves. Few of the puzzles were very challenging, but that did not detract too much from the experience. It was more fun to explore the world and get closer to understanding what is going on than the actual puzzle solving. The one puzzle that was particularly difficult was mostly so due to poor design, as the puzzle was supposed to be solved by wall markings that, even...