Balls, Dreams, And Death
AntonBall Deluxe
Between the 2 modes I played through, AntonBall and PunchBall, I preferred PunchBall. I'd say AntonBall was the more novel mode though, it's like if Breakout was a platformer, while Punchball is like Mario Bros but if your method of killing enemies was throwing a ball. Saying it's just copying other games is reductive though, in particular the level designs add a lot of the game's unique flavor.
The graphics are pretty cute.
Inadvertently(?) similar to arcade classics of old, it's weird to look back on as a fan of future material (in this case, AntonBlast), and see what things were and weren't established at this point. The bizarre collectable tapes? Were established. Anton being angry all the time? Wasn't established.
By the way, this game goes for really cheap during sales.
SomnaBuster
I love how whimsical this game is. The whole game has a sort of special feeling to me, and while I don't think it's grown to become a favorite of mine, it feels like it could've if given a different time of my life. There are some very sweet moments to remember.
The I find all the visuals especially appealing, there are so many striking color palettes used all throughout.
The backgrounds get really extravagant.
I was worried at first that the gameplay would end up pretty lacking, since I found the level design in the first world underwhelming, but it quickly steps things up in the second. It doesn't go super crazy and push mechanics to their logical extremes, but things are pushed enough to make the game fun for me.
My biggest issue with the game was the music. I believe it was going for a sort of Sega Genesis style, but regardless of what it was going for, I personally found it grating. I also had some issue with the button prompts not lining up with my controller, settings for button prompts would've been nice.
I know I'm kinda making this sweet celebration about me, but it felt weird seeing just how little this game bas sold, a day after I finished playing through the game.
This is just one of those games I think more people should play I guess. It's quite the charmer.
Also, random technical issue I had, for a month the Steam Deck menus just wouldn't play any sound for me, and this game wouldn't play sound either. Turns out the fix for both was unmuting Steam in desktop mode.
Buckshot Roulette
This game's distinctly much darker than the other 2 in this post. I just slapped these 3 together because I don't got a much better way to group them up with any of the other stuff I've played recently.
Anyways, this game's sick and twisted in a way I like. There's a very ominous atmosphere, fitting for shady people playing with a gun.
Mechanically, it's a lot about calculating risk, but it's not super complicated upfront, so it's great for people like me who like math (nerds), but not super duper much (fake nerds). When throwing multiplayer into the mix, there adds some mind games, which I think turns the game into a fun party game. Unfortunately the multiplayer is online only.
The biggest issue I have with the game is that it's just slow. It works fine in the single player to an extent because it really lets the uncomfortableness of pointing a gun at yourself set in, but once you're playing primarily for the mechanics over the vibe, the animations feel really tedious. The multiplayer speeds up the animations, but a natural consequence of playing with more than one other person is that you have more people to wait through in between your turns. I imagine actually playing with friends and chatting with them would remedy the tedium though.
Another issue I have is with the matchmaking. There's no way to tell who's hosting a lobby, or what rules they have set (beyond their player limit). Without many lobbies straying from the default rules, the lack of rules showing isn't a big deal, but it's annoying to hop into a lobby, wait a while and realize the host is AFK, then back out and accidentally click on the same lobby.
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