A Building Full of Cats 2
GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/a_building_full_of_cats_2

Another one of the DevCat's Full of Cats games, which mini games that references to other games - Purrtal, Altered Kitty, the Stray comic. The ones that are not hidden object sequences, such as the orchestra conducting mini game has a skip option that can be used without any penalty. The game will act like you played through and successfully completed.

Screen Shots Here:
(I'm not going to reupload them.)
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/take_and_post_a_screenshot_of_what_youre_playing_right_now/post5851


EDIT -

A Park Full of Cats - Complete Edition
https://www.gog.com/en/game/a_park_full_of_cats_complete_edition

The complete edition, which we have here on GOG includes the base game plus the DLC Haunted Ride. Having played this, I'm actually glad that the GOG release was delayed for this version because the game without Haunted Ride is really short. The Haunted Ride part is actually much longer than the Park Full of Cats part.

An Arcade Full of Cats - Complete Edition
GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/an_arcade_full_of_cats_complete_edition

This game may be late coming to GOG (versus some other website), but we get the full game in one package. This contains the original An Arcade Full of Cats game that starts that covers from the year 1980 to 202x. The TimeWarp Trouble DLC levels start with the Western era level and go back further and further in time. However saying that, any of these levels can be played in any order. There is also the 2025 update that added an additional level, which is also included.

Despite it's name, this is entirely a hidden object game involving finding lots and lots of cats. The arcade levels (1980 - 202x plus the 2025 level) reference lots of classic arcade games, like Street Fighter and Dance Dance Revolution, and non-arcade indie games like Celestine, Rusty Lake, and The Binding of Isaac.

My only disappointment is that now that I've played all of the Devcat games available here on GOG, I'll have to patiently wait for them to release more.

Are those really so short games? I was thinking about trying one of them. I guess they haven’t got something like a story, do they? They are just finding... cats in, somewhat, complicated pictures? Interesting in having relaxing moments between tense games (or tense real life!), though.

Hidden Object games tend to be short, somewhere around 2 hours on average. An Arcade Full of Cats is probably at the longer end at around 3-4 hours. If a hidden object game is longer than that and is one of those hidden object adventures, there is going to be a lot of padding. By that, I do mean that you'll be going back and forth a lot, repeating hidden object sequences because you only take one item with you each time. The better ones don't do that because they don't artificially pad the game and make it longer by having you repeat a hidden object screen that you've already played through.

With hidden object games, less is more. The ones on GOG that I can recommend in no specific order:
- Any Devcats game
- Any of the "Cats Hidden in" games
- Hidden Through Time / Hidden Through Time 2
- Hidden Folks

Of the ones that I would recommend above, only the Devcat games have any semblance of a plot/story. All of their games also follow a specific theme with overtones of cat awareness - FIV/FeLV awareness, TNR, adopt don't shop, etc.

In An Arcade Full of Cats, for example, the cats decided to catify the past starting with 1980 then enjoyed it so much that they didn't return to the present. Fofiño and Leo (both cats) recruit the player to help them go time-traveling in a DeLorean (because Back to the Future) to find all the cats that didn't return. They also need to find five batteries along the way to help make sure the time machine car has enough power to return to the present time.

Also Devcats like to stick easter eggs in their games, such as the hidden location in Building Full of Cats 2 where you're just told that the Pwincess is on another floor.

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Now, there's two other types of hidden object games:

1) Hidden Object Resource Management.

This is where you have hidden object screens where you collect ingredients to complete specific tasks. The plots can be dumb, but they're easy to ignore.

2) Hidden Object Adventures.

Okay, I am 100% convinced that the demographic for these games are women who watch the Lifetime Channel.... as in that women oriented tv channel with a reputation for movies that involve a female lead character that is always being stalked by her ex-boyfriend/husband. That channel.

Because far too many of these games have shitty plots that involve a supernatural evil or murder, sometimes a supernatural evil and murderer. He is always hassling a female player character that is going to take matters in her own hands where goes urban exploring through blatantly condemned buildings and dumpster diving through junk piles that are only occasionally in actual dumpsters. She never tells anyone what she's doing or where she's going because let's do safety last. Even when it starts out innocent enough, like let's go visit our childhood home. It turns out that her childhood home is in what is now abandoned town, and the only people that know she's there are also with her if anyone. In the end, she is always going to decide that it's okay that the bad guy did what he did (even if it included murdering other women before her) because he did it all for love. No, I'm not even joking on this.

These games tend to have a lot of padding to make the game unnecessarily longer where you will complete a hidden object screen to claim one item only then return to it thirty minutes later to redo it and claim a different item. There's also a lot of running back and forth.

Of the hidden object adventures on GOG, I have only played Dracula: Love Kills, which has no padding at all... perhaps because the player character (Dracula) is the supernatural evil. However like with all hidden object games that have it, the voice acting is pretty bad. I did enjoy the game but when it comes to the adventure type of hidden object games, there are others that I would recommend far more so that are unfortunately not on GOG.

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup

I'd consider it the arcade version of roguelikes. While something like NetHack simulates all aspects of dungeon crawling, DCSS eliminates the boring parts (like food, weight management and carrying tons of items to sell in shops) to focus on the actual fun part: tactical fights. And there's a LOT of options to deal with monsters. I can see why some people don't like the game but I had a blast with it.

After rollng 200+ characters I managed to win a grand total of 2 times (Formicid Fighter and Gnoll Conjurer), and even then only the basic 3-rune win. I'm putting the game down for now but I plan to go back and attempt a 15-rune win.

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell

Finally finished the last of the Saint Row games on GOG. Like the game that I finished before, FATE - Undiscovered Realms, this is more a standalone expansion than a full new game.

While the story line is nothing spectacular, it still contain the Saint Row shenanigans. It never reach the heights if SR 3 though. The weapons are stupidly enjoyable The new activities Hellblazing and especially Salvations are great.

Johnny Gat is not really my favorite SR character but the commentary notes collectibles makes me warmed up to him. He is a violence addicted gun freak but he's not an empty husk. He'd make a great general in Three Kingdoms era. Kenzie is always good in my book, can't really complain about her.

I only finished them at 99% as I skipped two challenges, Rambulance and Branstorming. I could get them if I wanted to but it just spending hours for repetitive task. Better spend them on other games

Atomfall, Sep 5 (Xbox Game Pass)-This game plays a lot like a budget Prey or System Shock and I thought it was pretty good. There are some growing pains at the beginning when you have no weapons and are forced to stealth. The journal was a little confusing with investigation leads not resolving when I thought they should have. Exploring and reading all the notes was fun. A lot of the game was a little janky and rough around the edges but it all came together nicely and I thought it was very worthwhile if you're looking for a lite immersive sim type game.

Full List

Venba
GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/game/venba

The store page doesn't accurately reflect this game. It is 100% a visual novel. Yes, there are cooking sequences.

However you're not going to actually "Cook (and learn!) authentic dishes" as the game's description states. If you get it wrong and mess something up, you get a complete do over how many times it takes you to get it right. There's no timing, and the game has a built in help to tell you the correct order of things should you need it.

Although the game is listed as choices matter, there is only once ending. There is no branching sequences for the dialogue. The dialogue choices that you make are for the specific conversation only as the relationship outcomes are the same.

While it is listed having 1-2 hours of gameplay, I would put it closer to 1 hour. I finished after 1 hour 30 minutes but did have to go AFK twice.

Ys VI. I guess this would be the first of the modern Ys games, with pre-rendered sprites on 3D backgrounds and completely losing the bump combat in favor of a standard attack-jump-magic system. One twist is that you get three elemental swords to switch among, which does become important in a couple of spots.

For the most part I found it a well-paced and enjoyable adventure. The main thing about the game is that it's one of those where you can tell immediately if you need to grind because you'll enter certain areas and find that you do single digits or even zero damage to the enemies you face, which is the game's way of telling you to back off and pick up at least one, preferably two or three levels. Once you do, you can go back and start having a real fight and getting back to the actual game. So the game's running time is padded out with some grinding. Not an excessive amount, but just enough to make you realize that you'll be spending some sessions just running in circles, killing the same monsters over and over. It does have a good save and fast-travel system, which takes a lot of the sting out of the grinding and needing to return to town for stuff.

Venba

Got to clear those Prime freebies one by one

Nothing to add really as some fellow users already wrote some words about them. But it would be great if the recipe available as a bonus PDF rather than just available in the main screen menu.

Also it reminds me that a supposedly great Indian restaurant was open in a shopping mall food court in my city. Wonder if it still there.

Robocop Rogue City, Sep 8 (Xbox Game Pass)-The game is a a pretty good shooter. The graphics especially the characters are excellent. The plot was serviceable, the writing not great. Voice acting was generally pretty good for main characters and bad for minor characters and it had probably the worst sound mixing I've ever seen. There's some fun to be had here.

Full List

Ancient Enemy

Another GOG freebies, the game was given away at 2023 Summer Sale.

I thought it was just a card battler game (that I was not really good at) so I haven't touched it till now. But actually it was a combination of TriPeaks Solitaire and some light RPG mechanics. You can only have 3 active cards and 3 active items in a battle along with also 3 active and 3 passive abilities. At normal it was quite easy but still fun. Probably because there's a button to restart a battle if you dealt a terrible hand to start. And the start is the most deciding part of this game.

It still an enjoyable game, I have a good time with it.

XIII. I remember being tempted by this when it first came out but never got around to it, especially after people complained that it had certain rough edges like a poor save/checkpoint system and demanding stealth levels. Finally playing through it, I think I get the complaints about it, but basically it's a very good game. I'm not familiar with the original comics, but the story is very Bourne Identity on Steroids.

As an FPS it's not extraordinary but it's perfectly fine. I just had to get used to how spongey many enemies are, unless you used a sniping weapon on them. I think my favorite overall weapon ended up being the crossbow, because it's fun to line up shots and then get that little comic sequence of the guy dropping dead with the bolt stuck in his face.

There are indeed mandatory stealth levels and some of them are "you lose if the alarm goes up REDO THE WHOLE THING LOSER!!!" sequences. But they're really not that hard and I only had to redo a couple of them, especially after I got used to how the enemies see and behave. An important thing to remember is that it's only if the bad guy gets to the alarm button that you lose, and the enemy AI is pretty weird in that some enemies will come down on you but others will glitch out and ignore all the commotion in favor of continuing their patrol. So you've got some room to correct a mistake of being spotted. Late in the game, I started getting back to the charm of smashing chairs over enemies for stealth KOs. It's not exactly Thief, but it might be a slightly better stealth game than FPS overall.

The game of course looks great and is yet another example of how good art direction squashes technical advances. I'm not sure how it compares to the original comic, but it looks great and the cel-shading really captures a comic-like feel. The only major downside is how the cinematics are fuzzy in comparison to the in-engine graphics.

Points for having Adam West voice one of the main characters, demerits for David Duchovny's nasal vocal performance as the hero.

A Juggler's Tale

A charming story for children with a message for adults as well and an unexpected and even shocking twist.
A Puzzle Platformer with few not complicated mechanics (running, jumping, lifting/using objects or levers, aiming and throwing, climbing, swinging a rope) which are easy to handle; so the main focus in overcoming obstacles lies in finding solutions to puzzles. However, completing tasks often requires patience due to the repetitive nature of the needed activities or the difficulty of aiming and throwing at the selected target.
The heart of the game is the unique puppet strings mechanic. They stop the character's movement when encounter obstacles at a height, creating a new type of puzzles compared to typical platform games. Their metaphorical meaning is equally important: the heroine of the game, controlled by the player, is a little girl named Abby - a marionette from a puppet show performed by the game's narrator. The game world, then, resembles a children's theater set, populated by puppets on strings, which occasionally transform seamlessly into a realistic landscape. The game's high graphical quality with dynamic effects (lighting changes, rain, storm, conflagration) deserves praise. But of course, the most important is relationship between the game's narrator, who pulls the puppet's strings; the player, who controls the heroine; and the protagonist herself. The unique message of this game is built on it.
The game is worth recommending due to its charming character and the message it contains, although it may not be appreciated by players looking for arcade challenges.

Full list here.

Dungeons of Dreadrock

Nice puzzler, with bite-sized puzzles that usually make sense and features that are introduced gradually, a few puzzles that make you feel rather clever for figuring them out, and very few that are frustrating or have weird solutions. Maybe the puzzles that are connected to each other are the most interesting. There is a hint function but I never used it, felt like cheating and it wasn't necessary, solutions usually presenting themselves even in the few cases where I didn't have any idea at first. There was one puzzle that I just couldn't figure out, but I just kept trying everything until it just worked without me knowing why, so I checked the solution after it to see exactly what I had accidentally done, so I didn't actually look anything up even then. But I really can't stand this autosave only, when you start a new puzzle, in a single save slot. What if something gets messed up? And... is it a Unity thing to make those logo/title videos unskippable? Also, long loading time unless you add , "auth_timeout": 1 to GalaxyConfig.json if you don't have Galaxy, thanks to mrkgnao for that tip. And of course thanks to Dark_art_ for the game.