Sympathy Kiss Review

Sympathy Kiss is a slice-of-life, office romance, otome visual novel that was first released in Japan in November 2022 for the Nintendo Switch. The game was developed by Design Factory / Otomate, and published by Idea Factory, then later localised in English and brought to the west by Idea Factory International in February 2024.

I’d been desperately awaiting Sympathy Kiss ever since it was announced for localisation in July 2023 and it remained as my most anticipated release ever since. After getting stuck straight into the game on release day and finishing it all in less than 2 weeks, I can now confidently say that I was right to be so excited as I thoroughly enjoyed every second! After digesting my experience, I can now say I loved Sympathy Kiss even more than I initially thought – so much so, that I felt compelled to write a review!

The Co-op Chronicles: 7 Top-Tier Co-op Games

Today, this little blog celebrates it’s 7th birthday! A lot has changed over the years with this space starting life as a place for Guild Wars 2 guides and Smite patch notes, evolving into a spot for some sporadic game reviews, anime lists and now even music posts, but despite the content changing, one thing has always remained the same… I’ve always come back to share my favourite things over the years.

I was struggling to come up with an idea on how I should mark this pretty huge milestone, until it suddenly became obvious that there’s one small section of my gaming preferences that I don’t often talk about here – local co-op games! When people typically think about local co-op games, it’s usually party games that come to mind. I decided to specifically avoid party games on this occasion to show that there are plenty of other amazing games out there that you can play with a friend, or three, that have much more depth to them. I absolutely LOVE to play video games with my fiancée and we’ve found some absolute bangers over the years, so today I’d like to kick off The Co-op Chronicles, a blogging series dedicated to co-op gaming, and share 7 of our favourite local co-op games that I think everyone should give a go!

HORRORWE’EN [2023]

Every October, I like to dedicate my gaming time to play a bunch of horror games and celebrate the spooky season! This year was no exception, and I managed to play a selection of varied games throughout the month (and beyond) from visual novels, to survival horror, and even a party game! I know I’m late this year, but I still wanted to share our experiences before the year is up, so here it is! If you haven’t seen our previous posts, you can check those out for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 by following the links to discover even more games horror games over many genres!

HORRORWE’EN [2022]

Spooky Season is has come around once again, and what better way to celebrate than to dedicate the month to horror games! Not only do I plan to post this year’s horror picks, but I’ve also raised last year’s post from the dead 👻 This post features all seven games we played during October 2022, including a couple of older classics and three brand new 2022 releases! We’ve also mixed up the genres a bit to represent a wide range of horror games that many people can enjoy. If you haven’t seen our previous posts, you can check those out for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 by following the links to discover even more games that are perfect for this time of year!

The Storyteller’s Festival: March 2023

I’m all for getting involved in Steam Games Festivals, and the Storyteller’s Festival was no exception! Hosted by Two and a Half Studios from Saturday the 25th of March to Saturday the 1st April, this festival was dedicated to games with great stories and included over 170 games in its showcase. This festival also provided Steam users the chance to download a selection of demos to try for free – so obviously, I had to get involved! These demos are still available for download on Steam even since the event ended, so go give them a go if any take your fancy!

Let’s play some demos!

American McGee’s Alice: Review (#MaybeInMarch 2023)

I only just about made it in time! #MaybeInMarch is an event hosted by Kim over at Later Levels that follows on from #LoveYouBacklogMonth. As part of the event last month, Kim asked us which game has been sat on our backlogs the longest and then challenged us (with no pressure) to get this title checked off the list during March.

Top 11 Games of 2022

It’s time to share my favourite games of 2022 (I know it’s late, but better late than never)! Much like last year, I chose my favourite 11 releases from the past 12 months to talk about in this post. Overall, I don’t think the list is as strong as it was last year, but I did still find a selection of excellent games across multiple genres that I would highly recommend! Without wasting any more time, let’s take a look at my Top 11 Games of 2022!

Completions List: 2021

Every year, it’s become a tradition of mine to record my gaming progress in a nerdy spreadsheet. I started these records as a handy reminder for myself, but I also post this info on Twitter as part of a Completions mega-thread. Since January marks the start of a new thread for the year ahead, I’ll be reviewing all the games I completed during 2021 in this post! So let’s take a look at my 2021 gaming stats:

Top 11 Games of 2021

My first post of 2022 is the most important list of the year – the time when I get to share my favourite games from the last 12 months! 2021 was a top year for gaming with plenty of new releases to look forward to. I managed to play more than 20 new titles last year, making a pretty strong nomination list for a post exclusively featuring 2021 titles! In true gamergal.exe fashion, I’ll feature 11 games in this list, but all of which will have been released sometime during 2021.

The Steam Awards 2021: Nominations

The Steam Autumn Sale also brings nomination voting for The Steam Awards 2021. Although this has been and gone, the nominees for each category are now being revealed with the final votes taking place between the 22nd of December and the 3rd January. I’ve contributed to these awards every year since they began in 2016, and I’ve only shared my choices on the blog once before. Since I’ve played quite a few 2021 releases this year I thought this would make another interesting post, and I’ve also brought WesleyWhale along with me this time to share his choices too.

Before we start, I’d like to point out that Steam won’t let you vote for the same game in multiple categories and you are only able to select games added to Steam during 2021 (excluding the Labour of Love category). We both completed our nominations before discussing our answers with each other and although quite a few of the categories present polar opposite answers, we were also surprised to see some of our choices match up or overlap in some circumstances. For each category image, you can find my pick (Skylar-Mei) at the top and WesleyWhale’s underneath.