Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Celebrating All Things Spooky: The Midnight Scenes Series

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 052022
 

For our first spooky review this October, I’m actually going to discuss three games, a trio of short adventure games in a series called Midnight Scenes.

Midnight Scenes is framed as a fictional TV show, with each game presented as a new episode.

Each is fairly short and can be completed in a single sitting. They’re completely standalone, with no connections between them (aside from the fictional show).

Let’s go through each of them in turn.

Midnight Scenes Episode 1: The Highway

The first game is titled The Highway and follows a woman stranded along the highway. It is a fairly basic adventure game with a few simple puzzles to solve and takes about 10 minutes to complete. It has a creepy atmosphere, but I found the end to be somewhat underwhelming.

Midnight Scenes Episode 2: The Goodbye Note

Though the Steam version doesn’t list its full title, the second game is called The Goodbye Note. This one puts you in the shoes of a scientist getting on a plane, with a frame story from the perspective of a letter he’s writing, in which he apologizes to his wife for not telling her the terrible truth about his trip.

I found the suspense in this one to be much stronger. It has an interesting story and a gripping build-up. I did feel like the letter gave away a bit too much a bit too soon, which dampened some of the horror, but overall it’s my favorite of the three. It was also longer, taking me around 25 minutes.

Midnight Scenes: The Nanny

The first one without a number, probably because each game is a standalone story, the third and so far final Midnight Scenes game is titled The Nanny. It’s the longest of the three at around 30 minutes long.

While this one starts out fairly calm, it builds a creepy atmosphere quickly. It also has the strongest ending, with some truly unsettling moments. I’d hoped for more story details to build toward the conclusion, which is why the second game is my favorite, but The Nanny is quite a good little horror story nevertheless.

Conclusion

None of the three games feature complex puzzles or complicated mechanics, but they’re simple slices of horror aiming to deliver an unsettling atmosphere. Strangely, only the second game allows you to save; I’d hoped to see that carry over to the third game, but at least they’re short enough that it doesn’t matter too much.

As of now, these are the only games in the series, but due to their format, I wouldn’t be surprised if the developer makes more Midnight Scenes episodes in the future. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a bite-sized horror adventure game, the three Midnight Scenes games are worth checking out.

Now our spooky celebration is in full swing! Join in by leaving a comment below, and check the introductory post to learn more about the event and this year’s contest!

Celebrating All Things Spooky 2022 Begins!

 Celebrating All Things Spooky  8 Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Oct 032022
 

Cover art for The Book at Dernier, The Zombie Mishape, and It Came Back

October is here, and that means it’s time to celebrate ghosts, ghouls, and every manner of spooky thing with a new Celebrating All Things Spooky month!

So let’s get into the sales, the contest, and what you can expect to see this year.

Sales

I’ve got a special promotion to kick off the spooky season. From now until Friday, you can get a free ebook copy of The Zombie Mishap, my comedy novella about two scientists who accidentally create a zombie and set out to stop it before anyone finds out. Since it’s a comedy, it’s on the lighter side of things, so consider checking it out even if horror isn’t usually your thing!

Meanwhile, ebook copies of The Book at Dernier and It Came Back will be on sale for $0.99 each for the rest of October. These two are both horror novellas, with The Book at Dernier being cosmic horror about a scholar investigating a strange incident in a small town and It Came Back dealing with the supernatural curse of a demon stalking its victims in dreams.

Remember, the free promotion of The Zombie Mishap will last through this Friday, October 7, while The Book at Dernier and It Came Back will be on sale through October 31.

Contest

Between now and Halloween, you also have a chance to win a prize at the end of the month just by leaving comments and interacting! The contest rules are slightly different than they were last year, so be sure to read them carefully.

Prizes:

  • Not It: Spookiest Edition (gift sent through Steam)
  • Silent Hill 4: The Room (gift sent through GOG)
  • Resident Evil Village (gift sent through Steam)
  • Dead Age (Steam code)
  • Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location (Steam code)
  • Lakeview Cabin Collection (Steam code)
  • eBook copy of The Book at Dernier
  • eBook copy of It Came Back
  • $15 sent through PayPal
  • You pick a game for me to review!

If you choose the review option, your chosen game must be something I either own or is easily obtainable, which you can discuss with me beforehand. It must be a single game, not a collection (although the chosen game can be part of a collection). I will start playing it in November.

Rules

  • No purchase is necessary.
  • Only comments and retweets made between October 3, 2022 at 12:00 PM EST and October 31, 2022 at 11:59 PM EST will be counted.
  • 1 non-spam, non-anonymous comment on any Celebrating All Things Spooky blog post = 1 point.
  • Retweeting any Celebrating All Things Spooky tweet from me = 1 point.
  • You must use an email address or website URL (or include another way of contacting you) in your comment so I can contact you if you win.
  • The top 3 point earners will win prizes.
  • The person with the most points will get their first pick of the prizes. The person with the second most points will pick second, and the person with the third most points will pick third.
  • In the event of a tie, tied winners will be contacted at the same time. A tie for third place will allow for more than 3 winners. If tied winners choose the same prize, duplicate prizes will be possible.
  • The winner will be contacted by November 2, 2022.

Content

I’ve got an exciting lineup of spooky game reviews planned, so here’s hoping you learn about some new horror games you might have overlooked.

Like in our mystery game celebration earlier this year, I’ll leave open the possibility of having a non-themed post once a week in case some especially exciting news comes out in October (like if Capcom wanted to announce a new Ace Attorney game, just saying).

Now it’s time to begin our month-long celebration of games and other media that are spooky, creepy, or otherwise fitting for October! Do you plan to play any special games for Halloween this October?

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Pony Island

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 292021
 

Pony Island is not really a game about playing the endless runner called Pony Island. It’s a game about being trapped in limbo, forced to play the Devil’s badly-made games.

(This is not a spoiler. Pony Island makes no pretense of actually being a cheerful pony game and reveals Lucifer pretty quickly.)

In theory, you’ll be stuck playing Pony Island forever, possibly with the option of giving the Devil your soul. However, it’s a simple matter to exploit the game’s flaws and hack into it in search of a way to escape.

Pony Island is… bizarre. I’d call it a puzzle game first and foremost, since you’ll frequently search for clues of how to proceed and play “hacking” mini-games that involve rearranging tiles to redirect a key down the path you want. There are also some endless runner sections, though, and a few other parts that switch up the gameplay even further.

It’s an entertaining experience. The game is both creepy and funny, and it also has one of the best fourth wall breaking tricks I’ve seen in any game.

Click for Pony Island spoilers
One of the bosses requires you to keep your eyes on him, so you lose if you pause, minimize, open the Steam overlay, etc. At one point in this section, the game mimics you receiving Steam messages from one of your actual Steam friends.

I don’t know how the game chooses which friend to mimic, but for me it picked someone who had actually sent me a real message right ahead of the fight, which made the trick even more effective.

Now, the narrative falls a little short for me. I expected it to do more with its premise, and there are also some inconsistencies due to its different aspects – you’ve got an in-game desktop with multiple programs and games, but it’s also an arcade machine? Okay, maybe nitpicking the logistics of the Devil’s gaming machine isn’t important, but then there’s the fact that much of it is designed so that you, the player, are the main character, yet you can learn more about the main character’s identity and past.

Those are just a couple of minor things that made the game less effective than it could have been, but enough of the things it did were clever enough that I don’t mind.

So if you want a puzzle game that’s creepy, funny, and overall a bizarre experience, check out Pony Island.

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