Ling's Report

Into the Drowning Deep is the first book by Seanan McGuire (writing under the pseudonym of “Mira Grant”) that I've ever read, and it is a very good first impression of the author. Embarrassingly, I didn't know this book was a sequel to Rolling in the Deep , but thankfully knowledge of the first book wasn't a requirement to understand and enjoy the sequel. Be warned that this review will contain mild spoilers for the first book. Seven years ago, Imagine Network sent a crew out on the Atargatis to film a mockumentary on mermaids. The entire crew was lost at sea, leaving behind only a recording that hinted at a grim fate for all on board. Now a new crew is setting out to discover the truth behind the Atargatis incident, and on board is Victoria "Tory" Stewart, a scientist and the younger sister of one of the missing crew members. She hopes to find answers and closure, but soon discovers just how dangerous the mermaids she and the others had been chasing tr...

I am a big fan of the works of Emily Carroll . When I heard that she helped develop a game, I told myself that I had to check it out. That is how I discovered The Yawhg , a choose-your-own-adventure game developed by Emily Carroll and Damian Sommer. The Yawhg can be played by up to four people. Each player takes the role of a civilian going about their lives, unaware that the Yawhg will arrive in six weeks. The game has a bunch of randomized events that can help players build up their skills, screw up their lives, or both. However, once the Yawhg comes, these skills will determine whether the characters successfully rebuild their lives and hometown or do the equivalent of trying to put out a fire with gasoline. There are quite a few story chains to discover, and the randomization of the game means that there's no guarantee you'll actually see a story chain to its very end. Nevertheless, the story chains make for very interesting reads, even if the events ...

The Expression: Amrilato is one of the more unique visual novels that I ever played. Developed by SukeraSparo , The Expression: Amrilato is a yuri visual novel that tells the story of two girls trying to learn how to communicate with each other while also teaching players the language of Esperanto. The protagonist of the game is Rin Takatoh, a 17-year-old girl who finds herself transported to another world where Juliamo (known as Esperanto in the real world) is the official spoken language. Rin has no idea how to communicate with anyone, let alone how to get back home. Fortunately for her, she soon meets a girl named Ruka, who can understand and speak a tiny bit of Japanese. Ruka lets Rin stay at her home, and also offers to teach Rin how to speak Juliamo. As Rin learns more about the language, she finds herself growing closer to Ruka as the language barriers begin to break down. One unique feature of this visual novel is that it occasionally throws quiz minigam...

A while ago, I pledged money to a Kickstarter campaign for a game called Hunt the Night . One of the updates to that Kickstarter announced a collaboration with a game called The Count Lucanor  by Baroque Decay, stating a character from the game would be a boss. Intrigued, I decided to check out The Count Lucanor to see what kind of game it was. The Count Lucanor tells the story of a little boy named Hans. Hans and his mother live in poverty, and Hans becomes sick and tired of said life. He decides to set off on his own to find treasure, and his search soon takes him to the castle of Count Lucanor. There, he meets a kobold who informs him that the Count is seeking an heir, and that anyone who completes the Count's challenge can inherit his wealth. Unfortunately for Hans, the castle is full of nasty traps and vicious monsters eager to take a bite out of him. I love the atmosphere and setting of this game. The Count Lucanor reads and plays like an old fairy...

As someone who loves reading, I have a certain fondness for text-based games despite not having played many. The most recent one I've played is The Ghost of You , a text-based horror game by Noodletub Games . Seeing how June is LGBTQ Pride Month, I figured it's a good time to talk about this game. You play as Libretto Pansatto, a young woman and aspiring violinist still reeling from the death of her mother. She is invited to a performance celebrating the reopening of the town symphony hall, where her best friend and ex-girlfriend will be performing. However, while the symphony plays, Libertto is suddenly knocked out by a mysterious figure while the people around her start dying horribly. When she wakes up, she finds the symphony hall has become a scene of horrors, and her friends are nowhere to be seen. She has to find her friends, find a way to escape, and find out why this is happening to her. The game has a very simple look to it, having no pictures save fo...

This is my first post on this blog in...wow, four years. After I got my first job, I neglected maintaining this blog while trying to acclimate to my new workplace, and then just...sort of forgot about it. In hindsight, it was a bad idea to just leave it gathering dust, so I've decided to take it off the shelf and begin using it again. Those who have visited this blog before will notice that several reviews are gone, mostly the video game reviews. The site that the reviews were hosted on no longer exists, so I deleted the posts since they now consist of dead links. Any video game reviews I write from now on will be posted directly on this blog. I have also removed my web story The Stolen City  from the blog. I'm planning to rewrite it into something better, though I might not get to that any time soon. I hope to post more regularly on this blog from now on. I will probably not have a regular schedule, but I hope that what I do post encourages readers to go out and expe...