Recent reviews by PublicNuisance

Shadow Warrior strikes me as how to reimagine a game properly. It still retains it’s old school feel but it has a lot of new goodies as well. I have played a lot of “remastered” games and usually I am disappointed because they change the core game play in ways I dislike or try to shove modern politics into a game that never had any to start with. The story is pretty simple overall as you have to seek out a sword for your boss. The expanded story that you learn as you go in regards to the shadow realm and it’s history is actually pretty decent although I found it could have been explained a bit better at parts. It still offers a more fleshed out story than many action games tend to. The weapon selection is great and fives you plenty of options for ranged, close range, and melee weapons. The combat with the sword is one of the better first person melee experiences I have had. You can dismember enemies in various ways, block, and learn a variety of special attacks with it. Speaking of the special attacks there are lots of varied skills and upgrades you can strive for as you find money, crystals, and earn karma. I did find the karma you earn to be rather hit and miss in how it is calculated. The idea is that the more varied and special the attacks you do combined with how fast you finish them off will get you more karma but in my experience I rarely found the score matched with how I thought I did not to mention that many times I took more damage and took longer but because I used a better variety of weapons I got more karma than when I was more efficient yet boring. There was a good selection of enemies to fight. They all had their own styles and strategies to match up to your weapon selection. The boss fights were decent but they made it very obvious how to beat them and they were all pretty much the same. The level design was varied in location but I found many times it felt very maze like. The game does give you slight hints of where to go but even then I felt it could have been better mapped out. The sequel has really remedied this thankfully. Something else the sequel did better was allow you to carry health packs. In this game you can’t hold them, you use them as soon as you touch them. I can hold onto a half dozen weapons as well as hundreds of rounds of ammo but not a health pack. I also don’t like how early in the game you pretty much need to have hints turned on. For instance at one point you must heal to progress and another you must learn a specific power but neither time does the game tell you this without hints on. The graphics were fairly good for when it was released and hold up pretty well over a decade later. Nothing was a standout for 2013 but everything was at least solid or above average. The voice acting was good and the humour was top notch.

I played Shadow Warrior’s native Linux version. The game has a vertical FOV slider that ranges from 50-90, four AF settings, toggles for AA, SSAO, and v-sync as well as eight other graphics settings. You can change difficulty any time you want. You can manually save any time you want and there are auto checkpoints as well. You can skip cut scenes. Performance wise the game ran great which isn’t shocking given it’s age and my hardware. There were a couple issues such ass the game crashed to desktop twice. An enemy was able to attack me through a wall one time, and a barrel exploded just by me touching it one time.

Game Engine: Road Hog Engine
Disk Space Used: 7GB
Input Used: Keyboard and mouse
Game Settings Used: 2560x1440, FXAA, 16x AF, v-sync on, highest settings
GPU Usage: 12-75 %
VRAM Usage: 1848-2918MB
CPU Usage: 13-28 %
System RAM Usage: 4.5-5.8 GB
Frame Rate: 72-135 FPS

If you love action games with good humour you should try Shadow Warrior. You don’t have to have played the original old school version to enjoy this one. It currently retails for $33.99 CAD plus tax which may seem like a lot for a ten year old game but I enjoyed this more than many newer games even after all these years. I finished the main story on normal difficulty in eleven hours and thirty six minutes.

My Score: 8.5/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Linux Mint 22 | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.26.1 | Kernel 6.8.0-51-generic | Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz

It Paints Me was a tough game to judge. On one hand it had great music and atmosphere, a decent amount of choices, and decent voice acting. The story is where I felt conflicted. I felt too much was missing from it. I know this was a jam game so it was going to be short but I felt like not enough backstory was given on Sam or Marie. We get a glimpse of details but not much more. I also found Sam a little whiny and distrustful. If I was supposed to then good job but if not then something got crossed between the game and I.


I played It Paints Me on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors. You can save whenever you want and it has fifty four save slots.



Game Engine: Ren'Py 8.2.1.24030407

Graphics API: OpenGL

Disk Space Used: 280 MB

GPU Usage: 7-10 %

VRAM Usage: 1701-2168 MB

CPU Usage: 6-8 %

System RAM Usage: 4.5-4.6 GB



I can't say I disliked the game but I also can't say i did like it overall. It has a lot going for it and I think given how well everything but the story was great in my eyes that given the right material I'm bound to enjoy some of the developer's future work. I finished three endings in twenty one minutes. Visual novels are tough to judge even when free because there are lot of good free visual novels out there. It’s stiffer competition than some genres.



My Score: 6.5/10


My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Linux Mint | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.26.1 | Kernel 6.8.0-45-generic | Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2

Kona is the kind of survival game I can enjoy. It has a lot of similar features as other survival games but it doesn't take them to a masochistic level. You have to manage inventory weight, cold, stress, and health but at no time was I pulling my hair out dealing with them. The story is very well done although I do think it could have done a bit better of explaining it near the end. Despite that I really liked the direction the story took. I think that the fact the game doesn't have a stated goal is good and bad. The game usually did a good job at letting you know what things need to be done without listing it on the screen or having a quest marker. I found the journal to be fairly useless at keeping track of things though. The map was great although it would have been nice if it listed which places you had visited. The graphics were decent but not spectacular. Nothing from object detail to clothes, faces, etc were mind blowing but they were not an eye sore either. I will give a shout to to the fact that your footprints in the snow stay a while. Many games don't go through the trouble to even have footprints in the snow. The sound effects were very well done. Everything from the sounds of feet crunching on snow to the sounds of doors, the truck, the snowmobile, etc were all great. The music was decent but repetitive. The game did employ invisible walls a couple times which is a cheap way to block your path. Other times they properly find good reason why you can't go somewhere so not sure why they didn't other times. I found it a tad weird that you can't view the map while driving the snowmobile while you can in the truck. I've never driven a snowmobile before so maybe this is realistic.

I played Kona on Linux. The game never crashed. I did notice a couple minor glitches such as weapons going through Carl's body and shrubs going through the floor of the truck. Nothing major though. The game has an FOV slider that goes from 65-90, an AA toggle, a v-sync toggle, two AO settings, and twelve other graphics options. Performance was great with the exception of the game having the odd micro stutter. The frame rate never dropped low but for a second or so the game would stutter. It didn't happen often enough to ruin my experience. I will also say that the game took way more horsepower than expected given the graphical detail. The game has a manual save system but the game doesn't load you back to where you saved, it loads you to the last location your non manual save occurred such as a cabin or fire. The manual save does save progress and inventory though. There is only one save slot but the game does allow you to have multiple different game files if more than one person wanted their own play through.

Game Engine: Unity
Graphics API: Vulkan
Disk Space Used: 2.9 GB
Input Used: Keyboard and mouse

Graphics Settings Used: 2560x1440, motion blur and depth of field off, everything else on highest or turned on, 90 FOV
GPU Usage: 35-86 %
VRAM Usage: 3459-4672 MB
CPU Usage: 17-41 %
System RAM Usage: 5.7-8.6 GB
Frame Rate: 134-165 FPS

Despite the little nitpicks I have with Kona it was a highly enjoyable experience that I recommend. It had good mechanics and a good story. I finished this play through in four hours and fifty five minutes. I paid $20 CAD for it when it originally came out so the current price of $16.94 CAD is more than fair for what you get.

My Score: 9/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Artix | Dasharo 1.1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Kernel 6.10.10-artix1-1 | Mesa 24.2.2-arch1.1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz

Ladykiller in a Bind has a lot going for it. It’s got some really interesting characters, a great setting, and an interesting story. It loses a lot of the momentum as it goes though. It is a game that takes place over the course of seven days and it makes you choose how to spend your time on the ship which means on a single play through I not only have to spend time with some characters that I didn’t care about but also couldn’t spend as much time with those I did. For instance my two favourite characters were the Photographer and The Swimmer but you have to choose between them early on so right off the bat I can’t spend time with both of my favourites. I also am forced to spend time with The Hacker or The Beauty each day. I didn’t mind either of them but I enjoyed my time with The Bro and The Lieutenant more. The game does have a lot of customization to it which is nice. You can choose custom nicknames for pretty much every character. You can choose to skip lewd scenes. There was one choice that still wasn’t much of a choice though. There is one borderline non consensual sex scene that you can skip but it still happens because the dialogue afterwards still implies it took place, you just didn’t have to watch it. I would have preferred that skipping it means it takes it out of the plot. The sex scenes in any case are mostly dialogue as there is little but still images on screen and even then many just involve sensual touching or acts rather than full blown sex. Basically if one were to play the game mainly for the lewd scenes they will come away disappointed. Even if you don’t come just for those you still may. By the end I had many questions about just what the overall goal of The Brother was and what role certain people played. They just randomly did things with little to no explanation and then take random potshots at capitalism. The visuals had a pretty good style and the music was decent. The menu system was pretty unique as many Ren’Py games end up with really similar menu systems where Ladykiller went for their own style.

I played Ladykiller on Linux. It had a weird issue where it froze on my three times. If I left it there for about twenty to thirty seconds it would unfreeze on it’s own. This was really strange because I have played hundreds of visual novels over the years and I can’t remember any of them freezing on me, the genre is usually pretty bug free. The game has a manual save system with no save game limit I could tell but you can’t save at any point however it is almost any point. One of the biggest technical drawbacks to the game was the lack of a back button for the text. Basically as the dialogue progresses and you get to make a choice that isn’t the only choice you get. If you let the dialogue keep going without choosing you can sometimes get additional choices but other times you lose the ability to make some or all choices. I really disliked this system. I would have preferred we get to see all choices at once. This way I clearly see what my options and and don’t lose out on any dialogue. This system is especially annoying combined with the lack of a back button I mentioned earlier.

Game Engine: Ren’Py 6.99.6.739
Disk Space Used: 654 MB
Game Version Played: Build 786

CPU Usage: 5-12 %
System RAM Usage: 4.2-5.7 GB

I would say that Ladykiller in a Bind ended up as a good game. It started off great but sadly a combination of technical issues and choices with the weird twists to the story hampered it. The other issue would be it’s current price. It retails for $25.99 plus tax CAD which is pretty high for a visual novel. I finished my first play through in five hours and fifteen minutes. I’d say that the price range of $10-15 would have been better. The length seemed fine as what the game needed wasn’t more content but a more cohesive story and better freedom with what characters you spent time with.

My Score: 7.5/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.5-gnu

The prologue to Hauma - A Detective Noir Story had me hooked pretty much from the start. I love the comic book visuals and the game had some good voice acting to boot. There are certain “puzzles” to solve in order to progress. I use the word mostly due to lack of a better one. It’s really just finding certain items you need or discovering clues through dialogue that you can use on another person to further things. It’s not difficult but it does add an extra element so the game isn’t strictly a visual novel and it does all make logical sense which I appreciate. The music is also well done.

I played the prologue on Linux using Proton. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs or spelling errors. There is no menu at all and no options. The prologue also didn’t seem to have a save system. Hopefully these things change for the full game. Performance was great even on Intel onboard graphics. Despite not having a v-sync option the game respected my refresh rate.


Game Engine: Godot
Graphics API: OpenGL
Disk Space Used: 456 MB

GPU Usage: 36-89 %
CPU Usage: 5-12 %
System RAM Usage: 4.5-4.7 GB
Frame Rate: 100-165 FPS


If you enjoy visual novels or light puzzle games I would suggest trying Hauma - A Detective Noir Story. It has a fantastic style, an interesting story, and some decent mechanics. I finished the prologue in thirty one minutes and am looking forward to getting the full game.

My Score: 9/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.3-gnu | Proton 9.0-1

The Mildew Children’s free chapter did it’s job. I am most certainly interested in the full game. The setting is delightfully eerie. The characters are interesting. There appears to be a very deep lore to the game with a lot going on behind the scenes. That is almost my only real gripe that the game drops you in this world with little to no explanation as if you already know all about the traditions and people. A codex would have been nice. This didn’t harm my enjoyment of it though. If you pay attention you can pick up enough. The art style is fantastic. The music is well done. The sound effects are good as well, used often enough to break up silence without being overbearing. The game does a good job of being more than just a visual novel. You move around places, there is an in game map, there is a decent rhythm game as well as a decent QTE section. The QTE part actually is pretty challenging as you not only have to contend with keeping the bar in a certain section but you still have to click through the dialogue to further the game. There are two difficulty settings to the mini game as well as the option to turn them off so it should satisfy everybody. One other thing I would like to see changed is when it says you can “proceed” certain places it would be nice if it said where or what that place is.

I played The Mildew Children’s first chapter on Linux using Proton. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. There was one spelling/grammar mistake though. There are no graphics options at all. There are three audio options thought o control separate types of audio which is nice. There is an auto save system but I could not tell when the game actually saves. A manual save system would have been nice. The game ran on my Intel onboard graphics but at a pretty low frame rate in the 30’s and 40’s. It ran without any issue at all on my RX 590 system. This may seem expected but in my opinion I was a little surprised at this. The art style may be very nice but the game doesn’t look like it should be very demanding. I used both my keyboard/mouse as well as a Logitech F310 game pad. I would highly suggest using a game pad for the QTE section as I found it nearly impossible on keyboard. It was still tough but was far less strenuous on the wrist.

Graphics Engine: Unity
Graphics API: DXVK
Disk Space Used: 2GB

GPU Usage: 3-93 %
VRAM Usage: 2435-2907 MB
CPU Usage: 12-21 %
System RAM Usage: 3.9-4.1 GB
Frame Rate: 99-144 FPS

Overall if the idea of a game that combines a 2D side scroller, visual novel, QTE events, rhythm games, and a really dark lore then I would at least give this free chapter a try. It could use a few tweaks but overall was fun and felt unique. I finished it in eighteen minutes.

My Score: 8/10

My System:

AMD FX-9590 | 16GB DDR3-2133 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Samsung QVO 860 1TB | EndeavourOS | Kernel 6.9.3-arch-1 | Mesa 24.1.1-arch1.1 | Mate 1.28.2 | Proton 9.0-1

She Sees red has an interesting story locked away in it somewhere but it’s annoying to try to find it. I like it when games branch the story based on choices where it changes your journey to the end and the end itself but the way that She Sees Red is setup I have to play through multiple times making different combos of choices just to see more of the main story. This means 20-30 minutes each time just to get an extra crumb of the story. It would have been much better if the game would let you load the game from each choice or allow you manual saves to cut down on the back tracking. It does have a skip feature but I think it was broken for me because any scene where I tried to skip it didn’t do anything. It didn’t give an error, it just did nothing. I did like that the game allowed you to choose the original Russian voices with subtitles as I don’t enjoy media with dubbing. I find it just takes me out of it and looks weird, this was no exception. The acting was decent but to be fair the actors weren’t given a lot to work with dialogue wise. The game also seemed to jump around a lot as to events that happened at different times and it just gave things a spastic feel that I didn’t like.

I played She Sees Red on Linux using Proton. It never crashed but it did have other issues. There were these strange pauses where the game would just pause until I hit the escape key to bring up the menu and then again to go back to the game. They happened more frequently as the story went on. The English subtitles also had one spelling error. There was one setting for resolution. You could also save and exit the game bringing you back to the point next time you loaded. The game ran great even on Intel onboard graphics.

Game Engine: Unity
Graphics API: DXVK
Disk Space Used: 2.7 GB

Resolution: 2560x1440
CPU Usage: 18-21 %
System RAM Usage: 5.9-6.9 GB
Frame Rate: 111-122 FPS

I wanted to know more about the backstory and the characters but found the game mechanics to be annoying. I did two playthroughs and found there were still a lot of loose ends and didn’t find it worth trying to find more answers. It took thirty six minutes for my first play through and thirty eight minutes for my second. I paid $2.69 CAD for the game and don’t think that the sale price or the current normal price of $8.97 CAD plus tax are bad for the amount of content I still can’t recommend the game in either case. There are a lot of better FMV games out there. I would be interested in more Rhintotales games if they adjust their mechanics a bit and sort out their technical issues as I did find the story interesting.

My Score: 5.5/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.1-gnu | Proton 9.0-1 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

The Complex had a good story to it up until near the end. I felt it threw a few too many twists into the mix and got a little too complex for it’s own good. Until that point I’d say the story was well done. The acting was good as were the production values. There were a good amount of choices along the way although at least a couple had minimal to no impact. I would have liked a little more in the way of an epilogue as in my ending enough major events happened that I felt it was warranted. I was just left with questions as to how things really turned out.

I played The Complex on Linux using Proton. The game froze one time when I tried to alt tab out of it but other than I encountered no issues at all. The game allows you to pause but not to skip scenes. It has a save system but it never told me when it was saving. I simply played it all the way through when I had time to not have an issue with the saving. The game ran great even on Intel onboard graphics.

Game Engine: Unity
Graphics API: DXVK
Disk Space Used: 10.5 GB

Resolution: 2560x1440
CPU Usage: 14-22 %
System RAM Usage: 6.5-8.1 GB
Frame Rate: 69-86 FPS

The game had a good length to it, about the length of an average movie. Despite my feelings about the plot going off the rails near the end it is a solid FMV game that fans of the genre should enjoy. It could have had a few features that other games in the genre have such as a better save system and the ability to skip scenes. I paid $6.16 CAD for it and can say it is easily worth that price. The normal price of $19.49 CAD plus tax is a bit steep, I’d say $15 would be my upper limit for it. I finished my first play through in one hour and thirty minutes.

My Score: 8/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.1-gnu | Proton 9.0-1MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz

Kathy Rain has a lot going for it. The story starts off pretty interesting and only gets more so. The music is well done. The puzzles are largely great. There are a few downsides though. While the story starts of well by the end it does leave several questions open and I found didn’t do a very good job explaining just what was going on. Several interesting side plots are also brought up but not resolved. I also didn’t like how the majority of responses from Kathy are just hostile and impolite. It didn’t make me like the character much. I will single out the padlock puzzle, the IT puzzle, and the briefcase puzzle as my favourites. I didn’t like the poem puzzle much. Overall I liked that most of the puzzles made sense. I wasn’t a huge fan of the graphics but then again I’m not much of a fan of pixel graphics. There is very little detail on much of the game. I get that it’s meant to be a throw back to the old days but some pixel games do manage to make things look a little better than this although most are on par. The voice acting was very well done.

I played Kathy Rain on Linux using Steam’s Proton. It never crashed during game play but had some other issues. The game sometimes wouldn’t launch. It wouldn’t give me an error message but just would never open. I found I had to validate the files, of which usually one was bad and had to be downloaded, and then restart Steam. The game would also crash if I set the Nearest Neighbour Filter setting to anything over 6x. Once the game could get going I had zero issues during game play. There is just the Nearest Neighbour Filter for graphical options. You can’t turn the subtitles off. You can manually save any time except for when making a dialogue choice and I didn’t notice any limit for how many save slots there are. The game had a frame rate cap of 40 FPS which is kind of strange and low. It managed to stay at a constant 40 FPS even on my Intel UHD 770 onboard GPU so at least performance was good. I’m not sure if my technical issues were related to Proton or if they would have happened on Windows as well.

Game Engine: Adventure Game Studio
Graphics API: DXVK
Game Version Played: 1.0.4
Disk Space Used: 537 MB

Nearest Neighbour Filter: 6x
CPU Usage: 4-12 %
System RAM Usage: 4.3-5.3 GB
Frame Rate: 40 FPS Constant

Overall I would recommend Kathy Rain to those who like point and click games and even to those that don’t. As unfulfilling as the story was it was a great ride along the way. The puzzles were also largely well done and despite some technical issues the game can be run on damn near any system well. The audio was great overall and the graphics were fine for what they were but don’t hinder the enjoyment of the game. I paid $3.39 CAD for Kathy Rain and would say it is easily worth that price and is also worth it’s current asking price of $12.99 CAD. That being said I would recommend going for the new directors cut as you get native Linux support and apparently they have put work into fleshing out the ending among other things. I finished the story in seven hours and fourteen minutes.

My Score: 8/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.8.9-gnu | Trisquel 11.0.1| Proton 9.0-1

Analogue: A Hate Story impressed me with it’s depth but at the same time that was almost it’s undoing. The two main things you will be doing is interacting with one of the ship’s AI and going through records and diary entries of various people trying to piece together what happened onboard. The AI were both great to deal with and my favourite part of the game was chatting with them. The logs and other entries had incredible depth and even included detailed family trees. They were very dry however and by the end I was just skimming them for important bits instead of reading every word like I started out doing. In visual novels I prefer to move the story forward and to be interacting with people through dialogue so this part of the game was a slog for me even though i can appreciate the effort put in by the developers. It’s not like I don’t enjoy similar concepts. For instance I enjoyed Her, Daemon 9, Jessika and others which all included going over logs as part of the main game mechanic but at the same time these were video logs rather than written. There was one more area of the game I didn’t like and that was a timed mission. The game gives you what I felt was a good length to complete your tasks but still I have never, and will never, enjoy timed missions. I also didn’t enjoy using the terminal. My main issue with it is the lack of realism. One thing I like about using the terminal every day in real life is that I mainly use the same commands and can use the up arrow to simply cycle through past commands but the in game terminal lacks this feature and I have to type the commands in full every time I have to use them which made it more of a chore.

I played Analogue on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. There were however other issues. The game would not work properly with more than one monitor. If I chose full-screen mode the game would try to stretch across both of my two monitors. I had to run the game in windowed mode to be able to see everything properly. I suspect if the developer upgraded to a newer version of the Ren’Py engine this may have been solved. You can manually save whenever you want and there are sixteen save slots.

Game Engine: Ren’Py 6.13.11.1715
Graphics API: OpenGL
Disk Space Used: 132MB

CPU Usage: 3-8 %
RAM Usage: 3.5-3.9 GB

It may sound like I hated the game but that actually isn’t true. I really enjoyed the story and the AI characters. So much so that I was willing to put up with the things I didn’t like to push on. It’s tough to say I recommend the game because that is borderline but when it’s good it’s really good. I finished the game this play through in two hours and thirty six minutes. My first play through lasted three hours and fifty four minutes. The current normal price for the game of $12.99 CAD isn’t bad although an even $10 would be better.

My Score: 7/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Trisquel 11 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.7.9-gnu