#49 - Say No! More

Say No! More is a relatively short but comical game about empowering people to say "no" more often.  It mostly plays itself, with you interacting enthusiastically at key points throughout the gameplay.

The game starts with you creating a character.  You can pick one of their 16 presets, or create your own.  I modeled mine after my wife, because she's really good at saying "no." 😅

Next, you pick the way you say "no."  There are 17 languages, with both a masculine and feminine voice to choose from.  I think my favorite is Irish Gaelic.  Instead of a 2-letter word, theirs is long and super complicated sounding.

Then the game opens up on a video game called "Wizards of Nay," where you play as a wizard who fights imps and a Devil King by using the word "nay."

When you get a game over, it zooms out of your cell phone to show your character sitting on a park bench.  Your roommate approaches you and offers you a custom lunchbox he made, with a home-cooked meal inside.  How nice!

But was he just buttering you up?  Because the very next thing he asks is if you can cover the rent this month... AGAIN.  He has all sorts of excuses as to why.  He's short on cash, still job hunting, etc.  You try to respond to him and all you can muster is a "..."  Which he takes as "we'll discuss it later" and he lets you run off.  It's your first day of work at a new company!

You arrive at work and meet up with two other interns, who are already waiting with your new supervisor.  He reprimands you for being late and when you can't respond with an excuse, he threatens to fire you before lunch if you don't learn to speak up.  But he's one of those supervisors, who tries to play off all aggression as just a joke.

He instructs all three of you to say "yes" all the time if you want to promote within the company.  The other two interns are motivated and on board, but again, all you can muster is a weak "..."

He decides to have a practice run.  He claims he's hungry and wants your lunchbox.  What do you say to that...?

When you can't give a straight response, he laughs it off, saying it's just a joke and no one will take your lunch.  At least, not yet...

You and the other interns go off to the tiny cramped corner behind the vending machines that has your new desks.  After the other two interns are called away, your supervisor pokes his head around the corner and claims he actually forgot his lunch and really needs one today.  So...?

Unable to give a response, he takes it as a "yes" and runs off with your lunchbox.  You bang your head on your keyboard, defeated.

That is, until a cassette player drops on your head from somewhere. Inside is a cassette tape labeled, "NO!"  You put on some headphones and listen to it.

You're introduced to the confident voice of a motivational speaker!  He instructs you to have confidence in yourself and speak one magic word: NO!

He has you practice using the word a few times, then shows you how to laugh at people, to confuse them and break their confidence so your "no" is that much more powerful against them.

You chase down your supervisor in the office and use the new word you just learned against him.  It's super effective!

You relentlessly pursue him through the office, throwing your powerful word at him, attempting to shake him so he gives your lunchbox back.  All your coworkers jump in your way to ask you to do menial "intern tasks" for them, but you can knock them back with the word "no!"

From here, your lunchbox gets passed around to various levels of leadership in the office, while you continue to chase after it.

Thanks to the motivational speaker on your cassette tape, you learn how to say no in different ways to affect different types of people.  You have the standard angry no, but you will also learn a cold no, bored no, and wacky no.  On top of that, you learn an add-on response to shake your target and make your "no" more brutal.  You start with laughing at them before hitting them with a "no," but you will also learn how to slow clap, nod in agreement before saying "no," and a sarcastic "hmm" before landing that solid "no."

Eventually, your coworkers notice you speaking up against management and they start rallying behind you.  You go out to lunch together and teach them all how to say "no" as well.  Before you know it, you have a whole crowd of employees willing to say the word "no."

The game gets more wacky and outlandish as you go on, with all sorts of hilarious twists and turns to the plot.  It's a fun journey through a day in an office where the word "no" is banned.  Like I said, the game mostly plays itself and you just shout the word "no" at every opportunity you can.  You can probably beat it in about an hour, but it's so much fun, I've already played through it a few times.

Despite all its silliness, this game comes with a pretty decent moral at the end about standing up for yourself, but also knowing when to say "yes" too.  So take charge of your life!  Learn to say "no" instead of caving to social pressure!  And empower those around you!

#48 - Death From Above

Note: I set this game to display in 4K resolution, but it enabled a resolution scale and wouldn't scale larger than 1080p for some reason.  After I beat the game, I realized I was in borderless windowed mode.  Changing it to fullscreen granted the full 4K resolution.  So these screenshots are all going to be 1080p instead of my usual 4K.

Death From Above takes place in the Ukrainian town of Nenatsk during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.  You play a Ukrainian drone operator who is captured by invading Russian forces.  But you're freed by a little old lady whom the Russians took for granted.

You grab a drone and a bunch of grenades and set out to clear the region from Russian invaders.

You can customize your drone and its pilot.  As per usual, I switched to a female drone pilot.  I also chose a camo pattern for my drone with Ukrainian colors and a Ukrainian flag trail behind it.  Not very good camouflage in real life, but colorful and fun for a game!

You set out to restore communications with your military unit.  There's an antenna nearby, guarded by several Russian military members, so you move to engage them.  You can switch between your pilot and your drone, and for the most part, you only fight with your drone.  Your pilot can't pick up a weapon and engage the enemy, so you want to keep them tucked away somewhere safe.  Your drone has some seriously good range on it though (and unlimited battery life), so raise it high enough in the sky so as not to be seen by enemy forces and go scope out the target area ahead.

You can also turn on thermal imaging to make people and vehicles show up easier.  Good for finding those stubborn forces hiding in the woods.

An interesting detail is that every time you kill a Russian combatant, their body immediately sprouts sunflowers.  The sunflower is Ukraine's national flower, and if you haven't heard the story, there was a Ukrainian woman recorded on video who approached an occupying Russian military member and offered sunflower seeds to put in his pockets, so his dead body would blossom sunflowers. (Source)

Once you restore communications, you receive a message from Special Forces HQ, asking you to clear out Russian forces in the nearby village.  From this point, you'll receive messages from HQ after each mission, directing you toward your next mission.

Also, you'll see a wanted poster of Putin on the wall in this room.  Make sure you improve the poster for a huge score bonus.  There are several of these posters to be found around the map.  Don't forget to deface all of them!

To take out enemy forces, you switch your drone to a bomb view, giving you a target reticle directly below your drone.  In this mode, you can drop your grenades on enemies.

Also, you can ask troops to surrender using the drone.

I've only had one guy surrender to me so far, but I got blown away by a tank before I could accept his surrender.  The tanks just sat there idly, unmoving.  I didn't realize they were armed and ready to target my pilot as soon as she wandered close.  Oops.

The Russian troops were looting washing machines from homes, but after you clear out the enemies, you can pick up the washing machines with your drone and drop them onto designated pallets for homeowners to reclaim when they move back in.  It doesn't matter which pallets in an area you drop them on; they get beamed up into the sky every time you drop one off, as well as giving you a score bonus.

Once you take over a Russian command post, you'll find the FPV drone.  It acts like a guided missile; when you launch it, it shoots rapidly in the direction you're facing and blows up whatever target it hits.

You have some control over its direction, but it needs space to make big turns and it has a very short battery life that will drain in seconds, so make sure you're prepared when you launch it toward a target.

I should mention that you have unlimited ammunition in this game.  Despite blowing up the FPV drone on each use, it will respawn in your inventory after a few seconds.  Also, your regular drone can only hold 6 grenades at a time, but every time you fly it close to your pilot, it automatically refills all your grenades.  So go nuts and take down as many enemies as you can from a safe vantage point!

By the way, the soundtrack for this game is awesome!  Starring all Ukrainian bands.  You can download it on Steam.  The title song, also called "Death From Above," was made and performed by the band Antytila.  They have three versions of the song: an English version, Ukrainian version, and a 21-minute instrumental version.  I've been playing this song on repeat for months now; it's my favorite on the soundtrack!

There's also the band Surface Tension, who released their single "Завтра (Tomorrow)," both the original song and an instrumental version.

The band Odarka Zyrko released their single "за тобою (Behind You)," also the original version and an instrumental version.

Finally, there's GO_A with their single "Kalyna," which is the Ukrainian name for the guelder rose.  It's a prominent symbol in Ukrainian culture, showing up in a lot of their media.  This is probably my second most favorite song on the soundtrack.

You can hear "Death From Above" playing on radios scattered all throughout the game.  But in the first village you come across, if you follow the sound of music, you'll find the actual band jamming in a house!  Sadly, you can only watch from a single window.  I had to take 2 screenshots to get all the band members in there.

This game actually benefits Ukrainian forces in their ongoing war.  The publisher, Lesser Evil, claims that 30% of their proceeds are donated to two organizations helping the Ukraine war effort: "Come Back Alive" and "Army of Drones."  Once they've earned back their production costs, they'll change their donation amount to 70%, using the remaining 30% to continue improving this game.

So if you want to show support for Ukraine (while also experiencing what it's like to operate a combat drone in occupied territory), I highly recommend playing this game. It's only $10 on Steam, or $16.46 for the supporter's edition, which includes this rockin' soundtrack and more skins for your pilot and drone.

If I had anything to complain about, it's that the controls currently can't be changed.  I'm used to using Shift and Ctrl to go up and down in helicopters in other games, but you use E and Q to fly your drone up and down in this game.  It took me a while to adapt to their controls, and I kept getting them confused and dipping into enemies instead of flying away.  Developers, please let us change the controls!

Also, the game is relatively short.  The whole game takes place on a single large map, but you are directed toward missions in specific regions of the map.  There are 8 missions in total (plus a secret warship mission!).  If you rushed through it, you could probably beat the whole game in an hour or less.  But you earn points toward your total score for every little thing you accomplish in game - every enemy you kill, every vehicle you destroy, every flag you raise or propaganda site you discover.  Heck, every washing machine you return gives you a boost to your score.  So if you were to run around doing everything you possibly can... well, it took me about 4 hours to complete, and I know I missed a bunch of stuff.

Your total score gives you a global ranking, which you can see on the main menu.  I started last night at #5,549 (I had previously played the first mission then quit), and by the time I beat the game, I was #194 globally.

So long story short, this was an extremely fun game with an amazing soundtrack, if not a bit short on gameplay and clunky controls.  I hope they continue to improve on it and make it much more enjoyable.  Lesser Evil, on their Steam page, claims, "We are uncompromisingly anti-authoritarian, anti-prejudice, and pro-democracy. We publish video games with clear political or social intent and messaging. We publish games that take a stand."  So even though it's a short game, it's meant to deliver a message against fascism.  And I think it did a pretty good job in getting that point across in the span of its gameplay.  Slava Ukraini!

#47 - Cult of the Lamb

Cult of the Lamb is a cute game about building, maintaining, and running a cult in order to overthrow the four Bishops controlling the Old Faith.  But is there such a thing as a good cult...?

You play as The Lamb, about to be put to death by the four Bishops.  They've eliminated all of your kind to prevent a prophecy of "The One Who Waits" returning.  With your sacrifice, the prophecy will be impossible to fulfill.

As soon as the blade lands, you wake up in a strange land, in front of The One Who Waits.  He's imprisoned by four chains.  He says that the Bishops, in trying to keep you from him, ended up sending you directly to him.  He claims that he will grant you life again if you would start a cult in his name.  Your choice is either "yes" or "absolutely."  No middle ground option, I see.

He gives you his Red Crown, which revives you and grants you the power to command the loyalty of your followers and strike fear into the hearts of your enemies.  You awaken at the sacrificial grounds, renewed with life, and fight your way out, taking out some of the Bishop's cultists along the way.

On your way out, you run into Ratau, a former vessel of The One Who Waits.  He was instructed to help you with starting your cult.  He will pop in and give you advice and guidance from time to time.

He also instructs you to save a poor soul about to be sacrificed.  The grateful sacrifice will be your very first convert.

From here, you learn how to build your own cult grounds.  It takes some work!  You can't just leave your cult members to their own devices; you need to check in on them, provide food and shelter, task them with jobs, and overall just ensure they're happy and loyal so they continue to praise and worship you.

The more loyalty they have, the more power you build and the larger you can build your cult.  Placing a shrine in the middle of your cult grounds will give your followers a place to pray and grant devotion, a sort of currency that you can use to upgrade various aspects of your cult.

You will also need to build a temple in order to give sermons, enriching your followers and also collecting more devotion from them.

Cultists can be tasked with collecting resources, which are needed to build up your cult grounds.  But you also need money and more followers, both of which can be obtained by fighting your way through the lands of the Old Faith.

You ultimately need to end the lives of the four Bishops in order to release your imprisoned leader, so working your way through each of their lands is your overall goal.  But it takes time to build up a cult and gain power, so you will slowly work your way up to each Bishop.  As you gain more followers, each of the four lands will open up so you can travel through them for resources, money, followers, and power.

Good luck in building a faithful following!  And remember: