Jaeya

Pretty much anything by Popcap. They develop casual games which are massively fun and require very little 'technical knowledge'. Try stuff like Bejeweled, Peggle, Plants vs Zombies..

The only games I ever really feel inclined to 100% are visual novels.

The reason for that is that I love exploring every possible outcome of the story, and seeing how the endings with different characters/choices pan out.

I think that's how I managed to sink around 8 hours into Magical Diary in one sitting. ._.

Recently, I've been playing a lot of visual novels. I'm sure that there are a few individuals out there who would love to dispute the term 'playing' when it comes to the subject of visual novels - after all, they are essentially interactive storybooks. That being said, I am more than happy to abandon all preconceived notions and just enjoy them for what they are. I suppose it helps if you're a particularly empathetic individual, seeing as I tend to spend more time focusing on individual characters and their relationships than I do the actual plot. But, I digress.

I picked up 'Magical Diary' earlier. It's a visual novel with some very obvious influences - the biggest being Harry Potter. As countless other reviews and synopsis' before mine have pointed out, the game seems to present this in a rather "tongue-in-cheek" manner. I actually thought about picking it up before today - it was actually the Steam Summer Sale that drew my attention towards it, but I was reluctant to actually make the purchase since there were other titles I wanted more, - but that obviously didn't happen, so today had to suffice.

I have already poured seven hours into Magical Diary. I've managed to gain three different endings so far, two of which ended with romantic interests. I won't name any character names or give anything away (although I'm sure my achievement list will do that for me when it updates), but I still feel as though there's more to explore in the story. This is something which feels pretty rare in visual novels; the last two I played, Katawa Shoujo & Analogue: A Hate Story felt distinctly linear. Your choices made a pretty big impact on the storyline, sure, but you didn't get to make them very often.

Magical Diary is different. You're presented with a wealth of options in terms of what you want to do with your time, how you want to respond to certain situations, where you want to go.. I feel as though there are less viable romance prospects, but that's actually okay - I'm actually finding myself more interested in exploring the world, in seeing what spells the game has to offer, and in learning more about my classmates and whatever else.

I'm not *entirely* sure what the point of this blog entry was - beyond allowing me to gush about my newfound love of Magical Diary, - but I hope it's been of.. some.. use? Or at the very least, has made for (somewhat) interesting reading.

Jaeya out!

The title says it all, really. For bonus points, would you recommend it to anyone else?

The last TV show I watched was "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia". I would definitely recommend it to others, as I consider it to be one of the funniest TV shows I have ever had the privilege of watching. Admittedly, the humour can be a little outrageous from time to time (the gang tend to come up with ideas which can provoke a cringe-y reaction), but that's actually part of the show's charm. For me, at least.

What about you?

Ataromani is my Twitter account.

Maybe alternate site skins? Particularly if they involve the possibility of changing the general font of the website. I'm not too fond of Arial. (And yes, that is super picky of me.)

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't tend to preorder games too often. I'm a bit of a scrooge in that regard - I'd rather wait until it goes down in price, or I'm able to trade in some existing titles to get it cheaper.

That being said, the last game I preordered was Guild Wars 2. Prior to that, it was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. What about you guys?

Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Everything about that game is legitimately terrifying. They have made inciting fear an art form.

I can't say that queueing for games is something I do often.

I usually end up playing with my phone, though. :3

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale & Magicka are the titles which really stands out for me.

The Binding of Isaac, Analogue: A Hate Story & Dungeon Defenders deserve honourable mentions, though.