Vladimere's Lhore

I was hesitant to make this review, because I only played one game in this collection, the one I got it for because I really needed to know what it was like. The game which tugged at my curiosity and pushed me to get it. Make Beautiful. It is a very short experience, woefully incomplete. Immediately after completing it 100%, I restarted it. Played the whole thing again. Listened to all the commentary on it. I needed to understand. To see the vision. And I heard the original vision for it, the version of the game we never got, [spoiler]an RPG in which the player slowly "corrects" pieces of themself to their idealized self, but never quite reaching it, finally facing down their idealized self as the final boss. The message, in this version, seems to be not to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. To change, to try, even if what you seek is unattainable, because there is meaning in the attempt.[/spoiler] That is not the version of the game we got. I'm trans. And like many trans people, I struggle with dysphoria, both physical, and social. My body feels like a prison. My place in society is defined for me, against my will, by people who hate me. And I hoped that Make Beaut…

This is an awesome collection from an awesome dev. I'm still playing through them all, and I'll leave a better review when I'm done, but I just wanted to say if you love horror anthologies, this is def. one to get. And since it's an anthology, I'm gonna review each game on its own merits! [b]EDIT: Finally played them all! Thoughts below[/b] The commentaries: Honestly, I say play with these on because they add this really nice touch to the whole experience. Well worth your time to listen to them if you care about the dev or their games at all. [h1]KillDeath:[/h1] It's a basic Atari-esque game that does exactly what it says on the tin: lets you kill death in all the 2D glory that was the OG console era (well, 2nd gen, but who's counting?). Simply but fun for what it is. [h1]No Strings Attached:[/h1] A really good puzzle game made in an NES style that is a lot of fun to play and explore. It can get a little tedious if you don't play perfectly (IE: knowing where every item goes and where) with a lot of back tracking and limited inventory space, but it's still a lot of fun to play and try and solve the mystery of a booty-call gone wrong :P Yeah, it's the horror equivalent of a tind…

I wish I could put a mid rating. Like this collection of games isn't bad per say but it has its moments. Overall I enjoyed it and had fun. Here are my highlights Good: The UI and Museum are great! I love how everything loads so quickly. I like the charm and overall vibe of the launcher and collection. I think the best games by far are the more narrative stories like Unchainged and Hellenore Its quick and easy to pick up so no major time investment. Cute collection of games. You can really see how the skills of Vladimere has improved. Bad: Make Beautiful. Extremely problematic in general and the gameplay feels off. Like I [spoiler] am upset that the character creator amounts to nothing as it doesn't even matter. If I am gonna go deeper into the meaning and messaging I find it absurd that this is an allegory for being trans. I had to do a double take with my friends (we played it together) when it came to the game and commentary. I'm not hating too hard but I feel like that is probably the least good thing in the collection to put it lightly. [/spoiler] Achievements. I'm a big achievement guy. I found some of them completely obnoxious. The biggest offende…

Been a fan of Vlad's work for a while, so this was an obvious purchase for me. I still have yet to fully explore the collection yet, but what i've experienced so far has been a blast, especially Hellenore. Also, as someone who absolutely loves the original Namco Museum games for the PS1, back when there was a virtual museum to walk through, I absolutely adore the museum mode. I honestly lost a lot of time just wandering around and enjoying the vibes!

"Vladimere's Lhore" is a nice game anthology collecting ten years of gaming development by the titular dev. I personally like anthologies, so I was intrigued. Keep in mind, that a lot of them are really short and tend to be more a proof of concept. And expect a little jank. My personal favorites are "No Strings Attached", a really solid NES-style survival-horror-puzzler and "Hellenore", a short 3D-collectathon platformer (whish they make a sequel), plus "C.H.A.I.N.G.E.D" just for the WTF-moments and the extremely blatant Nietzsche reference. Overall tonewise I would categorizes them in horror with the right amount of campiness in it, but titles like "The Arrogance of Man" also nail it in the somber and dark atmosphere department. It is also quite wild that they also made a full in-game museum of the collection plus achievements and commentary for every game: there is definetly passion there! The asked price may be a bit steep for some, but hey, it goes right in the hands of passion projects!

A really neat collection of games. I played some of these before on the Madvent collections and it's nice to hear the dev commentary on their design choices. My favourite one was Hellenore, the 3d platformer.