Hi! It was one of the first dramas I watched. I think the first scene (and last scene? Maybe it's raining, in the evening?) is them crossing over a busy street from opposite directions. I think they split up several times so the drama is telling the stories of when they find each other again, but in the end they never get back together. It would be from 2019 latest, likely a bit earlier, but afai remember, the actors' styling is the current contemporary look (not boys over flowers hairstyling!) I think so not too old.
Would anyone recognise this with those scarce clues?

i live with my partner and a roommate. my partner and i are struggling right now. a lot has been brewing between us but the lid hasn’t quite popped off yet so we’re in the odd stage. i barely speak to the roommate as we’re in opposite schedules. my mom and my sister tell each other everything so i not only feel excluded but i also feel that i can’t tell either of them anything because without a doubt the other will find out. (seriously a major issue, even when i specifically ask them to not tell anyone) i also have no friends. it’s kind of getting to the point where i wonder if i’m the problem but i don’t feel like i am? i had a close friend from high school but had to stop talking to them due to them crossing boundaries and becoming borderline obsessed/stalker ish. i made a new friend last year but they were very touch and go. we last spoke when they got mad because i was upset that they had cancelled plans (for the third time in a row). i wished them a happy birthday but they never answered. i speak to my coworkers, but not outside of work. and i’ve mentioned holding a housewarming party but several have told me directly that they wouldn’t come. i have a pleasant time at work and i like talking to most of my coworkers, but i don’t think i could consider them friends. almost all of them are fresh out of high school (i’m only in my early 20s, but i feel like this is the age where that gap feels largest). there’s a lot of drama because of their age, and i don’t tolerate which makes some of them not want to talk to me at all. i don’t really mind those ones. i’m really not sure how to make friends. i’m not sure if that would make this feeling go away. my partner says i just need to go to places regularly and meet people organically, but they’ve been in the same friend group for nearly 10 years and have no need or want for new friends, not they they would have an issue if they did. i’m sure my negative mindset has some sort of role in the struggle, but i have a lot of personal issue going on outside of this, and i’m not really in a place to improve myself mentally. i’m not even sure what i hope to gain from posting this, it’s nothing i haven’t cried about already. i truly just feel like i’ve tried all that i feel i’m capable of trying in order to fix this. i know if i tell my mom and sister to not tell each other my business anymore that one if not both of them would be upset to the point of it causing a huge argument. i really hate arguing with my partner and even if we just have a discussion it’s going to be heavy and emotional which would just be so draining and i’m not sure if i could handle that right now. i can’t. change mine or roommates schedule to make it easier to talk more. i’m starting to think the few years difference between my coworkers and i is just a bridge that can’t be crossed and this semi-friendly relationship is as good as it’s going to get. as far as making personally friends, i really have no clue where to start. now that i think about it, the most recent friend i met through my partner, and the high school friend was obviously from high school so i didn’t even really make those friends myself anyways. i don’t know if i’m socially stunted or what the deal is but even people that i should be able to depend on i just don’t think i can right now. i have so much on my plate and seemingly no one to share it with. there’s so much emotional weight on me and i cannot carry it anymore.
i’m sorry this is so long, i debated deleting lame of it to make it more concise and easy to read but i figured if this wasn’t the right place to rant then what is?

Been thinking about my gender for months now and I still have no clue as to what the hell I am. One of the major things holding me back is how my feelings fluctuate over time tbh.
Like a majority fraction of the time I'll have this burning desire to be a woman, to be feminine. I get jealous of other girls and lament the fact that I can't be like them, I tearfully self-insert into wlw fiction, and I can barely stand certain aspects of my body. Doing affirming stuff while in this state typically feels good (anywhere from relief to euphoria) and I crave HRT as a means to get out of what I perceive as a slowly rotting shell, a body that doesn't even feel like mine.
But I have phases of increased ambivalence where these feelings nearly vanish. I don't know if I'd say I "like" being a guy, but it feels relatively natural (never was a social person, so who knows what's just general social awkwardness). I still kinda want to be a girl, but the feeling is far more muted, nearly warped to tbe point of being unrecognizable...and certainly doesn't feel like it warrants me coming out or transitionning (as a matter of a fact doing so feels like it would be wrong) both of which seem scary and massive. Feminine pronouns feel like they're only used to placate me during this time, and while fem stuff still feels good, it's not something I feel I have to do. I still get the odd bit of dysphoria and gender envy though, but far less.
And it's driving me crazy. How can two seemingly opposite feelings coexist? How can I feel relatively comfortable in my own skin one week and want to tear it off the week after? How can I hate my blocky frame and body hair one day and be perfectly fine ignoring it the next?
When I feel relatively comfortable too I start doubting whether or not the other stuff was even real, or if it's all just some elaborate form of OCD or obsession. I know this is cyclical, as the feelings have kept coming back...but in the meantime this whole "questioning my gender" thing is tearing me apart and wrecking my life. I'm depressed, anxious and I feel miserable. Sometimes I even want to forget this ever happened.
Like whenever I get to that second part I feel like I've been in some sort of fever dream for weeks and I hate it and I just want the longing to keep going because then at least I could transition without wondering if I'll change my mind down the line. Maybe I'm being obtuse but I want the girl inside to win and I low key hate that the boy is still so strong.

I just completed the final main story mission and what I was predicting would happen was the complete opposite.
From early on in the story, I thought Professor Fig was going to break bad. Perhaps to avenge Miriam, to harness the power for himself, to prevent it from getting in the wrong hands, to finally uncover what his wife had been researching, etc.. This seemed to be affirmed by the Keepers and other characters saying things like ‘not everyone is who they may seem to be,’ and other quotes that sounded like they were alluding to the idea that there could be a traitor amongst.
It would’ve made perfect sense, too. He could’ve used the player to defeat Ranrok and Rookwood and to access the Final Repository, and then try to kill them and take the power himself, like the final final boss. I kept waiting for the evil laugh and the dramatic turn.
Except that’s not what happened. He was loyal until the absolute end, and used up the last of his strength to defend the player. And now I’m sad, because I spent the entire game trying to pick apart clues from all of his dialogue when he was a good guy all along.
I’m not disappointed about Professor Fig’s character. I’m merely disappointed that I didn’t appreciate him more.

"Happiness comes from a perception of life. Life is a pursuit of singular moments, experiences and sacrifices. It is the limitations of this perception that make those moments possible. For such a limitation a sacrifice must be made, a sacrifice towards a perception of death."
Raanu was the boy who read these words out-loud to his mom and dad. He was in the hospital bed when he read aloud the last speech bubble in his comic book stack. He had read the entire series of Silver Swordsman, knew every adventure as though they were his own. His parents had denied him comic books, especially violent and strange ones like Silver Swordsman. They didn't understand the giant robots and mutants and suicidal immortals of the future. It was all very frightening and disturbing content and they had not let him have such stories.
That had changed when they discovered he had a rare malignancy in his heart that would result in his death within months. Raanu was not afraid. He told his parents that since he was going to die it would make sense to let him read comic books, even Silver Swordsman. In fact, it was the Silver Swordsman comics he was most interested in.
The stories began with the boy Raanu sitting by the water with his friend: a giant robot named Unit Three-Sixteen. Raanu was the youngest human on the planet, or one of the youngest. In the future everyone lived forever and it was rare for new people to be born. New people, children, were especially interesting and cared for by the other immortals. Thus, in a world attended by some mere hundreds of giant robots with super powers, Raanu was accompanied by his very own, personal giant robot.
He asked the robot about things like war and death, things that had become obsolete before the advent of the giant robots. In all of its wisdom it could do no more than define such things. Then people came to where Raanu and the giant robot were sitting. Across the water was a temple that controlled the flow of energy in their world. Energy generated by human emotions. As long as the world had existed in tranquility and harmony there was no pain or suffering of any kind.
Raanu and his giant robot watched as the people went into the temple and used its power to obliterate themselves. The lethean energies flowed outward and corrupted the giant robots. Only Unit Three-Sixteen was unaffected, because of its exact proximity when it all started. Unit Three-Sixteen was hit the hardest with the blast of awful energy and was knocked out by it and left with its emotitronics intact, more-or-less. The others of its race did not fare so well. The other empathicals rampaged and the horror escalated as they fed on the new and horrible energy from the humans.
It was Raanu who stood up to the machines and he died a hero. His sacrifice and courage activated Unit Three-Sixteen. The surviving humans made a weapon for the last of their defenders. Thus it became Silver Swordsman, as it did what had to be done. Of the entire giant race, only one remained, for that one had killed all of its own kind in defense of the humans. And for its efforts it became a symbol of oppression and destruction, as it now stood in place of all of its kind.
That was just the first issue of Silver Swordsman. His parents had originally confiscated it and forbade him to read any more. He was an obedient child and did not defy his mother or father. Even when his thoughts made him daydream of the story, he wished away his imaginings, and focused on schoolwork.
At night when his parents left the hospital he would lay awake and thank God he was dying. He no longer had to eat his vegetables, he no longer had to do any schoolwork and he got to read all of the Silver Swordsman comics. His parents hated the books he was reading but he loved them and so they allowed it.
As he dreamed: he went to the places he had seen in the stories. So vivid and full of color and detail. The amount of adventure and action was almost overwhelming. There were many passages with strange ideas in them, the thoughts and musings of the characters, so that he often had to ask his father what was meant.
At first, his father was very guarded about speculating on the meaning of the aggregate of concepts that the books frequently struggled with. Characters had very strange ideas about death, gratitude, love, time, regret, courage, justice, perseverance, immortality, healing, warfare and truth. In short, the heroes rejected the common understanding of all of these things and replaced them with strange new definitions.
Raanu's father, Mukherjee, was a philosophical man. On one hand he put his business first so that he could provide for his family. Otherwise, Mukherjee valued wisdom and understanding and was willing to ruminate to discover the truth about something.
He paid attention to his son's understanding of the characters and their world. In the context of the stories, everything they believed made perfect sense. To his son the characters appealed for a more careful perception of one's own life. To enter the world of Silver Swordsman was to realize that life is so precious and that the struggle to survive is what appraises the value of one's life.
After one hundred and thirty one issues the series ended. It ended with the last humans standing on the precipice of the universe in the path of an implacable force. Death was certain for the characters and Silver Swordsman. They had battled all throughout the stories against increasingly impossible adversaries. Then, as the quest neared completion, it was certain that all would be obliterated anyway, in the end.
It was confusing and scary and disturbing. The entire comic book series was, in fact, quite depressing. One by one the heroes all fell against enemies that could not be defeated. Even Silver Swordsman could barely stand against the villains and was usually beaten down rather than victorious.
Mukherjee asked the man at the comic book store about Silver Swordsman comics. What he was told made it all the more frightening. The reason the comics had ended was because the lead writer was now deceased. He was diagnosed with a rare malignancy in his heart and he had walked out into a cold Christmas night and sat down in the frost to die. This was all known to the guy at the comic book store, yet the comics themselves held a unique status among fans.
Silver Swordsman comics were already rare at the time they were published. Mukherjee had to pay a small fortune for the whole series. The comic book guy had asked him why he was so interested. He explained that these comics were an oddity. They were extremely violent and creepy and filled with strange ideas about how people should perceive their lives. Mukherjee looked at him and asked:
"Is all of that different from other comic books?" He asked.
"The opposite of other comic books. Of fiction, in-general, sir." The comic book guy explained carefully. "Comic books should make you happy, laugh, thrilled and make you want more. Silver Swordsman, isn't it just this guy's weird ideas? It deals heavily with suicide and he actually killed himself. I wouldn't let my kids read this stuff, I don't even want to read this stuff."
"My son is reading these books." Mukherjee said soberly. "They make him happy."
To this the man decided to respond professionally and to make no further comments. Another man in the comic book store walked over with Wonder Woman Volume Three. He knew Mukherjee's family and said:
"That man's son is Raanu and he is dying." The friend of Mukherjee said.
"Everyone who reads Silver Swordsman finds some personal connection to it." The comic book guy recalled.
The snow was falling outside his hospital window. Raanu sighed and opened issue seventy-one. There was something he wanted to check on. He had noticed that the darkness, named Umbraeon, was already creeping across the sky in the background before Svetlana waded into the Pool Of Time. This meant that there was more to Umbraeon's arrival. Raanu had suspected that Umbraeon was always growing before anyone had noticed. He had thought that in some silent and hidden corner of the story: the most terrifying and formidable opponent of-all was growing all-along.
Encouraged to search for more clues he did so. He discovered that in some panels the characters seemed to be speaking directly to him. He read those ones with greater care. They were instructing him to do as they did, to seek the places where the silence had taken form, to find and annihilate the shadows where they were growing like a cancer. His eyes widened as he realized and said out-loud:
"It's real."
And he grinned. In these stories, death was no more powerful than lies or pain, had no more authority than gratitude or justice. In the world of Silver Swordsman, death was an idea, an illusion. If the stories were all true then that meant that they were right about death. Which meant he need not die in vain.
Mukherjee saw that his son had not slept. While his wife had gone to get lunch he asked his son:
"Have the comics kept you awake?" He asked patiently.
"Yes, father!" Raanu said excitedly. "The comics are real! The stories are all true!"
"No." Mukherjee said. "They were written by a man who was sick. The truth of those stories is all sickness."
"Who is he father? Is he sick like me?" Raanu asked.
"He got sick just like you. He chose to let himself die. I am afraid of what his words are doing to you." Mukherjee was honest with his son.
"His words have taught me that death is not worth fearing. That it is more important to embrace the moment of life. He has taught me that when it ends, all that matters is what we left behind, what we did to make the world better while we were here. That it is evil to live a life of self-indulgence. That it was such an evil that will destroy the world if we do not change our ways. When I read these stories, father, it is like a mirror. It is like it is with you, talking to my own father about life and death, about stories and truth." Raanu explained without hesitation. He had learned much from the books. Mukherjee's fears were slaughtered by the shining sword of his son's beautiful words. The father began to cry in front of his son and then he apologized.
Of all the monsters and villains in the stories only one could be held responsible like a father. Svetlana's long lost father Arvil. He was a very important villain because he had promoted ignorance of both his family and his people. He was not a singular villain but rather the sum of his society. He was a famous poet and it was he that had started the group of people that had killed themselves and sparked the end of their world.
Raanu told his own father just how much he loved and appreciated him. He knew that his own father was the opposite of the character he had in mind. Mukherjee was the enemy of ignorance and he would do anything to protect his family or save his people. The boy wished that somehow his own father's face would appear in the stories to somehow guide the last surviving heroes and Silver Swordsman to a happier destiny. Maybe in the end they could save the universe from ultimate destruction. Raanu knew that is not how the story was supposed to end, but looking at his own father it felt possible.
A month later it was Christmas and a sort of darkness stood like a black hole in the sky. The street lights flickered and the trees twisted off the snow and wandered in search of robots to devour. Marauders shed their humanity to steal immortality and feathered dragons tore the snow filled skies. In a fever he could only recall his favorite moments, grinning and laughing. He would turn and tighten only to see his mom and dad watching and he would relax and smile for them.
It was snowing on Christmas night after his parents left. Raanu had grown very weak, but his unfading smile bore his parents to their rest. Silver Swordsman stood in terrible vigil over the boy like an angel.
"When it is time...to the Temple take me." Raanu told Silver Swordsman. "I must set things right in your world. I have a job to do there."
"I know, my boy. It is almost time." Silver Swordsman towered over him in the hospital room: time and space becoming less relevant with each passing moment. The whole place seemed to stretch to fit the giant robot and the snow was swirling everywhere, inside and out.
Then a kind of silence, a sort of stillness seemed to be holding it all as a snowglobe. There in his hospital bed lay his remains. He looked at them, at the stack of comics next to his body. Then he turned and saw that the wall was as though he were looking up out of water at a blue sky. He went into this, and the light left the room behind, and went with him, and it was him, he was the light.
He sat looking at his reflection in the still waters he had gone through to be here. The ground was level in all directions and the great Temple Of Humanity stood across from him where he sat at the Pool Of Time. Beside him was the giant robot Unit Three-Sixteen.
"I knew that this would happen. As soon as I died I came here. This is where I am supposed to be. I was just there to know why." Raanu stood up and proclaimed.
"Died?" Unit Three-Sixteen asked.
"That's right, you don't know anything about death yet." Raanu puzzled out-loud. He suddenly realized he was in issue number one of Silver Swordsman, the absolute beginning of everything. With a worried look he glanced over and saw that the Cyclists were coming. It wasn't too late to put a stop to everything bad that was going to happen.
"Those people plan to die inside the Temple Of Humanity. They will release a lot of negative anima at once. It will be the end of GAIA. The world will know nothing more than hunger and suffering and you will be the last of your kind." Raanu told Unit Three-Sixteen frantically.
"I can feel your fear, Raanu. What do I do?" Unit Three-Sixteen worried. It knew something was dreadfully wrong with the scene.
"Get me to them, quickly!" Raanu commanded. The giant robot obeyed him and lifted him to its shoulder and strode to the Temple Of Humanity. Raanu was placed on the path of the Cyclists to confront them.
"You should not be here, Raanu. You are just a child, you cannot understand." Arvil told the boy. He and the rest of the first wave of Cyclists stood in robes of patterns in black and white and many wore comedy or tragedy masks of opposing shades.
"I understand exactly what you are about to do. I've seen what happens, the world ends because of you. People hate you after this." Raanu pointed at them each.
"You don't know what it is like to live the way we have, for so long. It becomes meaningless. We need this, we need a final experience." Shatia spoke up in her high voice. She took off her mask and beheld her descendant. Like a little prince, she mused.
"What you are doing will destroy the world. I have had this final experience already. It only taught me that we are all meant for more, meant to do more, say more and feel more than we do. We live in ignorance, forging our own darkness and our own silence. You have made a death for yourselves in your minds and now you intend to inflict it on everyone." Raanu, like his father, could say the truth to someone without cowardice.
"How? How can you stand there and stop us?" Arvil felt his ancient resolve weakening. As a poet, it broke his heart to hear the plain truth. It was like a gleaming sword, cutting through the nonsense that he and his followers had invented.
"I will die over and over again, it seems, until this moment is dragged out into the light of day. There is a darkness behind every panel, a silence behind every period and a shadow over everyone's head. I know, I went back and read it all again to be sure. It was here all-along. It started at the very beginning with the very shadows you are casting now. By the end, only enough light is left in all the universe for one of the last people to say one last thing. Then it all goes to darkness and death, forever." Raanu recalled vividly.
"You would have us turn back. Go back to unending misery?" Shatia asked her great-nephew. She was one of the youngest among the Cyclists.
"Both are choices. One of these choices, I have explained, is a path that will start with your deaths and never end until the whole universe is dead." Raanu nodded.
"We have a right to die." Arvil protested.
"Svetlana meets you in the future, in the past before this happens, but she never finds out why you wrote Argosy, your most famous poem." Raanu was not afraid of Arvil's cowardice. He knew the man better than he knew himself.
Arvil willingly recited his poem to avoid the explanation:
"See now this plain of spoil,
Where cowed all Mans' toil,
To sit bemused without,
Thoughts belabored in drought,
So forth she clings to East,
Or North she turns to least,
But never strays her heart,
Not fallen since the start,
And plants her seed of truth,
The sun rises as proof,
Sacred words she has kept,
How the mighty have wept."
"So what does it mean? This?" Raanu tried not to smile when he saw he had broken the character Arvil. Arvil fell to his knees as he realized he had become the enemy of his own truth. It had not occurred to him until he was confronted with the truth laid bare and obvious. There was no shadow to hide his feelings within. Death would never be an escape from his self loathing, it would only be the proof of it. He himself became the mighty one weeping at the end.
"What have I done?" He tore off his robes and flung them away. He turned on his followers and screamed a damnation upon them for standing behind him. He walked through them and left them there. Without him, many of them did the same. Some left with their masks still on, unwilling to reveal who they were.
Raanu stood there alone with his giant robot. The Temple Of Humanity was operating at low power and the surge of excitement from the boy made the empathicals all around the world stand up and chuckle happily. The giant robots were genius artisans and sculptors and architects that had sat in boredom and decline for too long. Renewal lit them up with vitality and inspiration.
Overcome with a sense of purpose and triumph: he laughed.

Okay, so... this seems weird to me. I get the general principle that it's good to try and organize stuff, but surely, we're not going to have the time or ability to map this out very well, right? At least not to this extent...
I guess that brings up another problem: what the hell is the software actually like? Will bar exam be like a Themis practice test? Is it totally opposite? Do they give scratch paper or some form of note taking ability in the program? Cut and paste? I have 0 clue here and my state's website is entirely inadequate on answering any of this.
Thoughts?

(At ~14 months, we’re about to age out of this sub, but I find it much friendlier here than in /dogs.)
I’m just a nervous wreck. We’re going tomorrow. I wanted to wait closer to 18 months (he’s ~65 lbs). But I found out that I will have no choice but to board him at the end of this month (for the first time ever - another fear for another post). And if he’s not neutered, he doesn’t get to be in the play groups. He’d just be all by himself, alone for a week, minus brief staff interactions.
And I think borderline solitary confinement - in a scary loud environment, when he’s never been away from me for more than 24 hours since he was a baby - would be much worse for his psyche in the long run… so we’re snipping.
But it makes me feel so guilty that he’s sitting here curled up with his head on my lap, and doesn’t have the slightest clue what I’m gonna have to put him through tomorrow.
And I’ve heard people say it makes them sweeter and more trainable - but I’ve also heard the EXACT opposite. Honestly I don’t want him to change at all either way, I love him as he is :(

Hello again fellow RBBers! I'm recovering from an especially weird visit with my mother. Someone recently posted that our body's reaction to our pwBPD is like an allergic reaction -- and holy shirt balls, is that ever apt! It's been just over two weeks since I saw my mother -- and got my PTSD and chronic illness nice and triggered -- and I'm just now starting to come out of the allergic reaction.
So, in the interest of returning to 'normal', I thought it'd be a good idea to get it all out on the page to a kind and understanding audience (I appreciate this community so, so much!).
Content warning for homophobia.
​
I came out to my mother a couple of years ago, and it was the beginning of the end of our relationship as it was (where I was in the FOG big time). She got real weird about it. I saw another post here recently about how they like to use gifts to gain access to you, and this is my mother to a T. She kept trying to bring random stuff to my house and then pleaded with me not to cut her off after I declined to go to a family gathering. I felt like she was trying to crawl inside and wear me like a skin suit.
This recent visit was to introduce my girlfriend to her. We're moving in together in a couple of months, and my plan was to stagger telling her about my girlfriend, then doing the intro, then telling her about the move-in. In hindsight, she was going to be weird about it no matter what so I didn't need to put this much thought into it.
Anyway, I knew my mother would be intense and say inappropriate things, and it would be a strange visit, so I prepared my girlfriend as much as I could. She has challenging parents too, so she's well-versed in these things. But I was not prepared for how my mother would act. She was cold and intense and rude. I knew she'd say inappropriate things (and did she ever!). But she's usually intense in an overbearing, loud, uncomfortably affectionate way. This visit was the opposite. She was the quietest I have ever seen her. It was like she'd been body snatched. The only thing she said in my girlfriend's direction was an insult about her job. She didn't ask me or my girlfriend a single question. She picked up the word 'gender' from an anecdote about gender reveal parties and jumped on the opportunity to go on a rant about why are people coming out since hetero people don't have to, and parties to celebrate what is that etc, etc. It was so awkward and uncomfortable.
Apparently, all that talk about how she's accepting of same-sex relationships since all that matters is that you're happy is complete BS. She's homophobic. And not okay at all with me having a girlfriend. It makes me think of all the other things she lied to me about. I've had to sift through so many things and work out what is actually true and what isn't. I don't even know if she lied to me deliberately or if she was lying to herself and just saying what she wanted to be true. I guess it doesn't matter - either way, it twisted up my head.
Whenever she's called out for hurting someone, she always says she didn't intend to. As if her supposed good intentions are enough to excuse away the hurt for the other person. I got caught in that loop myself for years -- can't break away from her, say or think bad things about her, or accuse my mother of anything because she means well. But does she? And if she does, does it even matter? At a certain point, I don't think you can say you mean well if you don't care about the impact it has on other people. Her alleged good intentions are her shield.
I almost wish she'd had a full-on tantrum and/or dramatic disowning instead of the creepy, quiet awkwardness. It's hard to explain to other people why it was so bad -- my explanations just can't capture the whole thing.
My girlfriend gets it though. We had been jokingly debating which of our mothers is the "final boss" (as in video games), and after we left the house, she said, "okay you win, your mom is the final boss". The guilt trip via gifts and general vibe even worked on her, and afterward, she felt so guilty, she messaged both her parents. And she had her own allergic reaction for the rest of the afternoon. I was surprised that my mother triggered her parental stuff and now feel guilty for exposing her to my mother. In hindsight, it wasn't necessary.
I dissociated for a couple of days and felt nothing emotionally. Until it all crashed down and I went into flare-up mode and had a real rough couple of weeks. I think it's finally, truly clicked that she is bad for my mental and physical health, and guilt and obligation aren't good enough reasons to put myself through that. And I'm never putting my girlfriend through that again.
I feel like I've been tossed off my mother's pedestal. She's taken the gripesofwrath suit off. My theory is that it's because this is a development where I've gone too far away from her. She can't get her head around or relate to me being gay. She can't absorb this new information and still tell herself I'm an extension of her. After the meeting, she said (well, whispered in my ear during one of her hugs that always makes me feel grossed out) something along the lines of, I'm happy to see you're happy. But I felt dismissed. More deception - she said one thing, but it's empty, and she doesn't mean it. In a way, it's psychological freedom. If she's rejecting me, then I don't have to feel guilty about not talking to her. And it's sad. Now I don't have any parents. I didn't really before (my estranged, alcoholic father died over a decade ago, and my stepdad hates me and we don't interact at all), but now it feels like a more stark reality. I only "get" a mother if I'm the person she wants me to be and it gets to be all about her. And being rejected for daring to be my own person is just sad. For her, mostly. But also for me.
The guilt is strong, though. She has a degenerative illness, and her relationship with my stepdad has been vitriolic for decades. She's dealing with my grandmother, who likely has dementia but my mother won't even entertain the idea, but otherwise, she doesn't really do anything. She spends most of her time sitting in her chair, listening to audiobooks and doing crosswords. Her life just makes me sad. But I can't help her. Even when I was sucked into it all, she didn't make any changes or feel any better. It's like she's committed to being grumpy and morose.
I was kind of waiting for a distinct event to justify going NC with her, but maybe it's this instead, a highly weird yet quiet fizzling away. I guess I expected fireworks. Is what I'm feeling now disappointment? Resignation? Disassociation? Maybe I should be feeling more angry, but I think maybe my deep well of anger has finally dried up.
So I'm still processing all this, and having nightmares about her. Writing it all down really helps. Sorry it's so long! I can't say enough how grateful I am for this community. You all make me feel seen, validated, and less alone.
Thank you <3

Whatever the opposite of charisma is, I have it. I’ve been treated like I was disgusting my whole life, and it was always so hard to make friends. Today, I don’t get actively picked on, and people aren’t nasty anymore, they just avoid acknowledging me unless they ABSOLUTELY have to. Making friends is too rare and difficult to be worth the effort right now.
Only problem is, I can’t improve my social anxiety or social skills if no one ever wants to talk to me in the first place. Most people don’t seem to relate as they can walk into most rooms and instantly find people to talk to. I can count on one hand the amount of times this has happened. If that makes me a loser, so be it.
All I know is it’s not a personality issue because I never get the chance to talk to them. I’m not intimidating, plenty of intimidating people have no trouble making friends, and if I’m really ugly, I guess I can’t see it, so I have no clue what to improve on.
Y’all are just gonna have to take me at my word that I’m not some lazy neckbeard who sits on his ass, not doing anything with his life. I do everything right but people feel disgust when they see me.

Whatever the opposite of charisma is, I have it. I’ve been treated like I was disgusting my whole life, and it was always so hard to make friends. Today, I don’t get actively picked on, and people aren’t nasty anymore, they just avoid acknowledging me unless they ABSOLUTELY have to. Making friends is too rare and difficult to be worth the effort right now.
Only problem is, I can’t improve my social anxiety or social skills if no one ever wants to talk to me in the first place. Most people don’t seem to relate as they can walk into most rooms and instantly find people to talk to. I can count on one hand the amount of times this has happened. If that makes me a loser, so be it.
All I know is it’s not a personality issue because I never get the chance to talk to them. I’m not intimidating, plenty of intimidating people have no trouble making friends, and if I’m really ugly, I guess I can’t see it, so I have no clue what to improve on.
Y’all are just gonna have to take me at my word that I’m not some lazy neckbeard who sits on his ass, not doing anything with his life. I do everything right but people feel disgust when they see me.

https://preview.redd.it/xhgfmfhmk84b1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73f4e85cbfebbda63629e6d23d6f97871e78df01
This is PART VI of our Gorou Amamiya / Aqua Hoshino series. Last time we discussed a big chunk of Aqua's influence on the creation of the "15-Year Lie" movie script and what this means in particular for his relation towards his friends and acquaintances. We'll today pick up from there and analyze how exactly Aqua forced Ai's secret to be leaked in the first place. It'll be great!
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But before that I have to address a little mistake I made in my last essay. I wrote:
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"As you recall [...] he told her that he wired her sometime after his love for her ended."

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But instead of "my Love" the original Japanese version actually says “今ガチ” which means LoveNow as pointed out by a fine user in the comment section. Aqua states that he apparently planted the GPS Tracker some time after the Reality TV show ended. So by that it appears she was wired for like over a year. I'm glad this was pointed out to me, but not because it refutes my position but actually makes my picture of Aqua even more coherent.
First of all his statement in itself is not believable. If he planted the tracker after LoveNow he would have at least removed it when he thought his father is dead and kissed Akane in Takachiho. There was no reason anymore to invade her privacy. The fact that he didn't remove it, refutes the idea that he really planted it at that time.
The conclusion is that he simply lied in order to hurt and alienate her. She needs to stop to get involved, he don't want to put her in danger. So to archive this he ultimately says that she was wrong about him the whole time. He basically says he never fall for Taiki's version of their dead father, he always knew his father is still alive and he used Akane nonstop to get closer to him. He didn't even tried to be her boyfriend but it was essentially just an act all the way. That kiss was a lie.
I then wrote:

" Well, we will later see how the helping and selfless ambivalence of Gorou's soul will have a saying in that too."

... and really by my mistake I underrestimated how intentional Aqua chose all his words to archive the most for Akane hurtfull outcome afterall. That lie might not be backed by reality but it truely is the most insulting explanation he could come up with when asked about the tracker. Instead of a "slight" invasion of her privacy it's a complete betrayel. He never was her's, it was a lost cause right from the start. At least that's the image he insinuates. He needs her to stop carrying about him, she needs to "stop playing dangerous games".
So, I stick to my view that he installed the device only after he learned that his father is alive. He understood that she tricked him by not pointing out the obvious flaw in Taiki's story and then decided to wire Akane. But he certainly planned a perfect dialog for his little showdown with her. There is another hidden detail:
When he left he thought that he's glad he doesn't need to put her in danger anymore. Basically what this refers to is that he was pretty obsessive monitoring her movement for a serious amount of time. He basically stalked her nonstop because he needed to be sure that he prevents her into running into real danger. This surely was immense pressure on him. We don't know for how long this was going on but I suspect it took some time, since I don't think that Akane came in touch with Hikaru's white roses just after Aqua installed the Tracker but that there was a timeskip between Aqua's redpill and Akane's red carpet event. Just a little detail I want to point out. The manga gave us panels that wanted to express with an insane level of modesty though. Modesty is really a general theme in Aqua's narration of the story anyway, to say the least...
In the coming chapter we'll see how Aqua will utilize the same ambivalent deceptiveness in his plot to get Ai's secret exposed. After this you'll probably agree with me - if you don't already - that Aqua intentionally tried to hurt but also to protect Akane as much as possible from potential harm by Kamiki but also to prepare her for a life after Aqua's death:
"Don't love me, don't crave for me, but hate me, I do not deserve love anyway. I decided to decent to hell". And this attitude he tries to force on any of his friends. And even on any of us... the fourth wall that judges over him... with a judgement he intentionally planted into our hearts... Is it really a coincidence that Aqua is so hated by the fandom? After all that hard digging we had to do over a course of this 6 part series to unveal his true problems? We'lll get back to that thought later...
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"I can't go back anymore. I have no choice but to take this road" Chapter 98

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Mastermind
Now, the point about Aqua's involvement around Ai's exposure and especially how much he controlled Kana's actions during this process always led to heated debates within the community. I'll argue for almost total involvement but with a completely new perspective in both the premises that we established in the last parts but also evidence I will present today. For this lets get all the premises listed that evoke such a position, then we will look at the evidence.

• Aqua knew about Ai's wish to make her secret(s) public since Age 15 but decided to postpone it until he finds out who his father is
  • Now that he knows Hikaru's name he definitely needs to force the exposure of her secret to activate Gotanda. Keep in mind that Aqua knows that Gotanda made these videos with Ai and probably also about his movie script, but Gotanda doesn't know that Aqua knows, because Gotanda doesn't know the content of Aqua's DVD yet
• Double black starry people are insanely creative in manipulation, they can predict and influence outcomes with almost superhuman precision.
  • The way Ruby explained her plot around the cosplay-affair would - if some theorycrafter on reddit had constructed it- be refuted as a massive stretch. But Aka made schemes of this complexity basically canon. Thus I believe if we can point out good evidence from the source material then the position becomes acceptable. We'll see how the source material I will use as evidence is not randomly picked but all follow a general theme, almost like intended hints by Aka.
  • We also noted in PART V that Aqua's intellect, dead serious conviction and amount of information versus Ruby's little scheme are unquestionable superior. So take the skill Ruby showed and basically potentiate it by 10. This is what we're talking about and its scary!
  • An interesting fact about Ruby's scheme was the attention she invested to make sure nobody really looses anything. So she had a high amount of damage control planned into her plot, some sort of morality although with an somewhat arrogant self-centered attitude. We might find this also in Aqua's plot... In fact we pointed it out already as a theme during Aqua's tracking of Akane's movement for a significant amount of time and the pressuring obligation he had to protect her while using her very dangeriously. That's his morals kicking in.
  • Collateral to that she also knew exactly which people she needs to get involved and set up together to produce the intended outcome. This might be something we witness in Aqua's plot too...

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These are basically the only premises we need: Now that he knows his father's name he is highly motivated to get Ai's secret exposed and he's highly capable in pushing his own envisioned agenda of a future movie in doing so.
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Gamemaster
Kana's thought after the barter. Little she know how true this is.
From C99 until C102 we have basically two sides of the same coin unfolding. The first one is a depiction of Kana's identity crises as an Idol, an Actor and her relationship to Aqua. The intention is to show to us the reader what is going on in her mind but at the same time this also has the function to teach us that Aqua knows this as well and fundamentally designed his plot to exploit exactly these critical moments in Kana's psyche.
C99 starts with Ruby's manager to complain about what happened to his sister, while Ruby proposed to invite her into B-Komachi. I personally don't see this incident to be part of Aqua's plot although it might be possible that he ultimately leaked the infos about the sister. Anyway even if not this scene serves mainly to ultimately give us a quick rundown on the development inside B-Komachi and thus of Kana's position.
Before the video clips they shot in Takachiho went viral Kana was the center girl of B-Komachi. This and the fact that she felt backed by Aqua motivated her to accept the idol job as a surrogat for acting. However the power structure inside the group did a 180 after Ruby's awakening which eventually led to her undisputed overtake and Kana found herself to be Ruby's extra that can't pull any clout.
Ruby's careless proposal to get the manager's sister involved spiked Kana's feeling of inferiority since the sister shares basically her features and would be actually competition for her even on the back rank. So in her mind it's a total alienation from the group that is starting to form. At the same time she realizes again how much she wants to become an actor again.
However it really starts to get interesting when she got the text message from her actress collleague. In that membership-based club scene are a lot of clues that hint to Aqua's involvement. First of all lets talk about that friend of her's Mako Azami.
https://preview.redd.it/xiwccyad074b1.jpg?width=3268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee5fb2d4201d2aa0ee407dab1925021be3c716c0
I think it's obvious what I'm getting at here, so I won't lose much words on that. There is a high chance that she's acting in bad faith. They are basically in a club where artists hook up with each other. While Kana had to come because Shima is such a big deal, Shima came because he's interested in Kana as an actor but, well, he is also a womanizer so that kind of club is his prefered territory to get closer to somebody he's interested in as an director.
Kana was so desperate that when Azami offered her alocohol she almost took the bait. Her goal was to get Kana drunk and careless. However Shima stopped her in last moment and took her drink. This is also a hint that he is essentially a good guy (... Aqua's plots would never put his friends in real danger...) Azami however wants to provoke a scandal. She allured Kana to a fishy place and wanted her to get hooked up with Shima. In fact I believe Aqua was the one you helped her to come up with that plan.
It's just too random for a colleague that wasn't in touch with her for such a long time ("Hey Arima, long time no see!") to propose her such a high class meeting out of the blue. While Kana is clearly way to desperate to see the dangers, I think Azami and for that matter Aqua are very well aware that Shima's place is under constant observation from Paparazzis. It's a setup. Azami is basically Aqua's plot device just like that attention seeking erotic-cosplay-model was Ruby's plot device. It's these types of disingenuous characters inside the entertainment world. They are easy to make use off.
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https://preview.redd.it/hskjwicq274b1.jpg?width=1634&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1463d9f318ec784578790409be63780d6f3f9e53
There we have them. The magic words to access Kana's heart. There is no doubt that Aqua calculated the importance to get this man near to Kana. He is the only one with the boldness to position himself as that kind of competent "saviour" and a golden ticket back into the acting world. He is the only one Kana would even follow in the middle of the night to his apartment. At least in this particular scene he spoke the magic words to exchange their Line accounts.
C100 is straight forward. Not much I can say. It just follows the motives of each in the progression layed out protagonists. Kana is desperate and alienated in B-Komachi, Shima wants to recruite Kana and wants to know more about her, Aqua was behind Azami's manipulation. Of course that chapter also serves to tell us how big of a deal going out as an idol actually is. While other agencies are very strikt with their artists, Miyako has a different philosophy. That's convenient and for that matter Aqua's premise to even design a plot where Kana can go with Shima to his apartment. If the rules of their agency would've been different, Aqua had to find a completely different way for his plan, hence Kana would never have met Shima so out of the blue. But with that much freedom for Kana to meet Shima and grap food is a no brainer.
However the paparazzi wasn't set up by Aqua, they were just a constant factor he could count on in his calculation. We found out later, that it wasn't about Kana at all but that Shima's place is under constant observation anyway. He's a known womanizer and probably it's not the first time he was seen with an artist entering his apartment in the middle of the night. Aqua knows that though, so he was indeed the perfect candidate for his plan.
In C102 we learn that Love coverage isn't that big of a deal like it used to be a decade ago. And this is really interesting because this puts the whole plot into the perspective of damage control. If the Kana-Affair actually isn't a big deal, then for Aqua to archive a barter later is not a challenge, And we'll look now step by step into Aqua's damage control methodology. This makes it more believable that he is actually involved.
Her conversation with Shima in his apartment in C101 again serves the purpose of that two-coin-dualism. On the one side we learn about her conviction to get back into acting as she almost sleeps with him but it also teaches us about her feelings for Aqua, so that we as the reader learn what Aqua knew already the whole time: Kana loves him. And additonally the scene also serves his strive for damage control. He knew that Shima is a guy who would back off and wouldn't get offended or try to extort her. That "But I didn't do naughty things with you" and his cool response is something Aqua anticipated from that guy right from the start, same as he anticipated that Kana wouldn't do something with him. There was no reason to fear that Shima might try to harm Kana. At the same time Aqua would'e never let a desperate girl go into the apartment of a pig.
To elaborate this lets talk about the worst case scenario of Aqua's plan: Kana's story simply gets published. What exactly is her stake in that? Well in the end it doesnt matter at all. She already is alienated from B-Komachi, proven by the fact that even after the story never went public she still decided to leave. And on the contrary: She realized that she wants to go back into acting, was connected to a director who actually values her with the uttermost respect ("I'm a movie director. My job is to make something that feels much better than sex") who is her golden ticket to become a movie star (literally her dream).
For that matter I believe that Aqua was also behind the leaks of the manager's sister. A replacement for Kana was essential to help Kana to dissociate from any professional obligations she felt towards B-Komachi. She can leave with a clean conscience. And for that matter the dissociating was as mentioned important to let her really go full in on Shima. Aqua's plot is perfect in the sense that even if it fails it's in the long run "perfect" for Kana and not bad for B-Komachi for that matter. But there is also a guilty feeling in Aqua himself. He knows that she only became an Idol because he asked her to be one. He has to fix this. We'll see later how.
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https://preview.redd.it/qfnkv4k0a74b1.jpg?width=1488&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb4423109950e4c4c43f2a45b0788c242e411ab2
Well, the conclusion of Aqua's chat with Mem-Cho at the end of C102 basically gave his involvement away. That "Right? ..." is rhetorical, the monologue and this order of panals tell us it was planned to get back in touch with her the moment he alienated Akane. And CHAPTER 108 is so clear on that it's not even a debate anymore:
https://preview.redd.it/yf42dg52b74b1.jpg?width=1438&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=afe2af5a5ee3765cd2f42fe45c5d9c686d1518c0
But lets rewind back. We still have to talk about his meeting with the journalist to propose a banter. Before his meeting we again get two sides of the same coin. One side is ment to explain basic entertainment world concepts like how this kind of journalism works, what barter is but also - damage control - Aqua's full understanding of how indifferent Kana actually is against the leaks. That scene where she angerly shouts at her potential new haters and Aqua's stream of it to Miyako served as a plot device to tell the reader that Aqua calculated this into his plan too. He just knows she doesn't care and she'll be just fine. In fact he would've never come up with a plan where Kana becomes the center of it if there wouldn't be a gain and minimum harm to her. Both exterior as a public relations issue but also interior to her own psyche.
But... actually his plan is even better than this and this is actually mind blowing. It's my favorite scene in this mini-arc.
Now the actual meeting with the Journalist is an ingenious scene where Aka Akasaka blends both strands together: Aqua's plan but also his attention to damage control. Because even if Kana gains so much in the worst case scenario the perfectionist Aqua wants to get the cleanest outcome in case the barter fails. At the same time the means he uses to negotiate and the reaction he earns lead to his total victory and the total integretiy of Kana. He can't lose, it's literally impossible. Here is why:
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The Barter
The most obvious while also the most surface level and therefore the most false interpretation of Aqua's meeting with the reporter is that he tried to negotiate a less hatmful report but eventually fails and had no choice left then to offer a barter. But, this is wrong. Additionaly he also wasn't trying to guilt trip the reporter directly. It's just a method for a totally different purpose...
Aqua wants Ai's secret to get exposed, this is the most important thing for him now. It's the reason for this entire plot. After he figured the name of his father, he wants to move forward with Ai's wish. But the story about an idol who was killed a decade ago, that became a mother as a teenager, kept her children a secret plus the publication of her children's identity as minor high school students and their full name while they are also pretty famous: Now THIS is a hell of a story. You need to identify a journalist first who is actually willing to publish this, you need somebody who is immoral enough to withstand the viral public discussion that follows. Kana and Shima were basically his decoy to find such a journalist.
Aqua's goal at that meeting was to figure out if that reporter has the guts to do it. Aqua's questiosn regarding Kana's name and his arguments why it's wrong to publish her identiy was his nifty way to figure out if this reporter will actually publish the full stoy about Ai's secret after he heard it. There is no point to share the story with him before he isn't sure that that's the right guy for the job. Remember: The paparazzi in front of Shima's apartment was basically the only variable that wasn't in Aqua's full control. So he had to check the reporter out first.
Here are some excerpts:
In Aqua's head: \"Would he write 'Famous Idol Group Member' instead of 'Ai Hoshino' or 'Ruby Hoshino'? .. ah he wouldn't!. Very good\"
In Aqua's head: \"Lets check his moral compass... Very good, that's what I need\"
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It turned out a total victory for Aqua. There was basically no way for Kana to loose: If that reporter would hear out Aqua's arguments and therefore redact Kana's personal information then nothing at all happens while she still got her foot back into acting with an amazing new connection and if the reporter in fact wouldn't back down then he is the perfect candicate for barter in which case Aqua gets what he was after the whole time and again Kana is protected from the scandal and is back into acting with an amazing connection. It wasn't damage control afterall, because the way he designed his scheme was eliminating any chance for damage to begin with. It's just a wonderfully written plot. I'm lovin it!
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The Starry Eye
Last but not least we shall talk about the meaning behind Aqua's and Ruby's chat. And this scene basically serves again two functions. It contains very important information about Ruby's and Aqua's core personality but it was also important for Aqua to let Ruby know in advance who is to blame for the leaks.
https://preview.redd.it/pr1ofni2984b1.jpg?width=1017&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5945ed4858f1f974f4d257094629dfb67b652000
As you can see they both develope the white starigan when it's about helping their friends. To come back to that quote regarding Akane:

" Well, we will later see how the helping and selfless ambivalence of Gorou's soul will have a saying in that too."

Aqua's eye shines white because thinking about that Kana just became an idol for him while she actually wants to be an actor fills him with guilt. "She walked on this path because you asked her to" - And with his plot he made up for it. That panel is again evidence that he designed that plot to liberate her from her idol career and liberale her from himself so that she can go back to acting and find artistic fullfillment even if he's dead.
He knows that she became an obsolete B-Komachi member and don't want her to shrink further in a place where she shouldn't be anyway if not for his sake. As a member of B-Komachi she can literally be replaced by the manager's sister. As an actor she is a gift to a good director who knows how to make us of her. His white shining star is a hint to us that he only has her best interest in mind, at least her best interest as he sees it. Part of his self-sacrifial delusion is to deny his worth to his friends and that they actually don't want him to die obviously.
Aqua's "helper theme" runs like a golden thread through his separation for Akane's, his plot for Kana's and ultimately his family breakup for Ruby's sake, that follows after the exposure of Ai's secret. For that matter it's not a question of overprotectivness that he didn't tell Ruby about his DVD but because his DVD would calm her down. Aqua doesn't want this. The level of self-abnegation in his behaviour is literally insane.
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He wants to descend to hell, so he tries to establish for each of them happiness that is independend from his existence.

• If Kana is just an idol because of him, then she has to get back to acting because if he dies there is literally nothing for her left to do as an idol. So Aqua organized her the perfect pitch to get back to her forte.
• Akane is crazy in love for Aqua and would sacrifice herself for his sake so he had to hurt her so much that she wouldn't put herself in danger anymore but also doesn't come up with impulsive suicidal thoughts. If you think about that scene after the audition when Akane told Aqua that she'll stop his plan it's basically proof that he succeded in her alienation. This is the first time Akane would oppose him directly. That's her (by Aqua forced) character development. From "I'll kill him with you together, I don't care if you are in the wrong" to "Aqua is now unstoppable" to "I'll stop you no matter what" - Aqua's wild reaction after that was an calculated act to strengthen her opposition.
• Ruby feels a bond to Aqua due to their bond through Ai. He needs to hurt her with the ultimate betrayal, with the lie that he values another girl - in this case Kana - more than Ai. He acted with utter indifference and pragmatism to tilt Ruby beyond recovery.
• I mentioned it earlier but I'd like to repea that too: Aqua may have helped to find a replacement for Kana's role in B-Komachi so for that sake he also stabilized B-Komachi's group balance.

And he ends his dispute with with the words:
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"This is necessary. So you can live in a world ... even after I'm gone"

This quote goes for each of them. Akane, Kana and Ruby at the same time.
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Epilog
In the dawn of the movie, his plan to play the culprit and his goal to not be forgivin will from now on go hand in hand with any malicious outburst he might bark at his precious friends. There is not much for me left to say as we have basically returned to the current timeline of affairs. It is my vision for the plot to go into a dramatic exchange as predicted in PART IV und PART V. But there are too many uncertainties with the biggest of them all: Hikaru Kamiki. What's his next move? Is he already involved in the movie - Did he help Ruby to secure the role for the movie by killing Yura and manipulate Frill through text messages? It's very possible but also very speculative.
We'll for now stop this series. A little follow up to discuss Gorou's and Sarina's fundamental reason to be chosen to wield the heroe's sword might be written soon. This will discuss some possibities in Gorou's and Sarina's previous lifes and backgrounds. But for that I'd like first to wait how the plot with Marina unfolds. I have a suspicion but I need more info.
I teased you with that "fourth wall" topic. Well, lets postpone it for now. We will definitely look at it some time again. But generally it was just an interesting observation that the highly shared negativity towards Aqua is not a failed main character design by sloppy writting but an actual function of the story as it just mirrors his self-sacrificial delusion into provoking us to hate him.
Thus he is the least trustworthy narrator. In this regard I'm not so sure anymore if my study series really enhanced the enjoyment of Oshi No Ko lol. From the point of view that it's a necessary function to hate Aqua I kinda feel bad for my transformation! But no, that's just a joke. I think this character study was all in all a success!
We close our study with Aqua words:
https://preview.redd.it/rq6jh8tvh84b1.jpg?width=986&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=08c81da8313163724b5c7e08311e9134280bad7d
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Thanks for reading
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***

Kathy Evenson, Strangely Reluctant
Kathy looked at the large wooden box on the second entertainment center, where it had been for the past several years.
"I guess you don't really even need this anymore," she said. Nick put his hands on his hips and stared at it.
"I guess I don't. Weird, I never even thought about it until right now..."
"I don't know what to do with it," she said. She opened the door and looked inside. The outside was decorated, with channels cut into the wood in the shape of Celtic knots along the edges and a nice, dark stain that matched the rest of the furniture. But the inside was where most of the work had been done.
A cushioned 'chair' with no feet and thick arms sat in the middle of one wall. A microphone stretched out in front, with the cable leading to a stack of small plastic boxes in the corner. Across from it, a twenty-seven-inch computer monitor was mounted to the other wall. A calendar of nude pin-ups hung on the wall next to it, only this calendar was made of regular printing paper and had been scaled down to about a third of the usual size. One of the pages had not been lined up with the others when the spine was stapled together and it stood out like a sore thumb. On the other side of the television, a piece of black-dyed leather, the edges singed and scratched, was mounted in a glass display case with an ornate wood frame. The glass had a circle with a diagonal line through it drawn on it in red sharpie by a truly sloppy hand.
Along the back wall, a series of tiny, plastic robotic arms stood, each one a child's project bought from the toy store. They each had wires leading into the stack of plastic boxes, as well. Each could be controlled by voice commands. Between them were smaller storage boxes with big, bulbous handles on the top-opening lids for the robotic arms to easily grasp.
Nick stepped up next to her and peered inside.
"Maybe I'll just get my stuff out of it," he muttered. "Then we can trash the rest."
"Yeah," Kathy said. "Seems a shame, though. Lya and I worked a lot on your box."
"You could donate the arms and Raspberry Pi's to one of the schools down in Baltimore," Nick suggested. "Probably the monitor, too."
Kathy thought about that. "I guess we could do that. The school would appreciate it. Are you sure you don't want it?"
Nick winced. "I won't have room, I don't think. My new place is an efficiency."
"Have you gotten furniture, yet?" Kathy asked. Nick shook his head. "Not really, just a bed and a television. I won't have room for much more."
Kathy sighed and turned. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, Lya and I are happy to have you for a while longer. I know money's tight for you right now..."
"Yeah, I'm sure," Nick said. "A cot on your bedroom floor suits me well enough, but I've walked in on you guys getting freaky twice now, and that's just awkward. It'll keep happening until I move out, and I'd rather not get to the point where you're getting pissed at me."
"Nick," Kathy deadpanned. "There is nothing you could do in the future that would compare to the shit I've already forgiven you for."
"Fair enough. But allow me to channel Sookie for a moment and point out that I know exactly what your butthole looks like when you're having an orgasm."
Kathy winced. That was actually a great argument. She was perfectly cool with him living here, fine hanging out and talking, even happy getting out of the house and doing stuff with Nick. But him having any knowledge of her sex life was creepy as shit, even if she trusted him not to do anything creepy. At least, to never again do anything creepy.
But the fact that she wasn't flashing back to the day she'd met him, so many years ago, was a good thing. The words he'd spoken, the sensations of him abusing her... Once, those things had lived rent free in her head. These days, she had to make an effort to recall them, and she was beginning to doubt if she'd retain them for much longer. They'd gotten fuzzier to the point that she had to fill in the gaps with reasoning.
She looked him up and down and didn't see the psychotic priest of an evil god. She didn't see a rapist, a bully, a murderer. She saw a werewolf.
Nick reminded her so much of a story she'd read many years ago, when she was still a teenager. It had been about a werewolf, but it was not a horror story. It followed the man on the day following one of his changes, as he dealt with the consequences of what he'd done. That story, whose name she couldn't even recall, had made an enormous impact on her. People who had done bad things and had to live with the guilt of that, she thought of them as werewolves, now. Nick, Glenda, even Jerry. They were all werewolves, in her mind.
"You could postpone it for a few weeks, build up some more cash. Hell, if you got your security deposit back, you might even be able to get a nicer apartment." But Nick started shaking his head even before she'd finished.
"I've got some money left over, still," he said. "It's not about the initial cost, but the rent. I'm trying to keep it cheap, so as to save money."
"You could save money by staying here," Lya said from where she'd been sitting on the couch, ignoring the rest of them.
"This is a one bedroom apartment," Nick said. "Buttholes, remember?"
"I will show you my butthole right now if you will agree to stay for another month," Lya said. "Just to put an end to this drama."
Both Kathy and Nick rounded on her, Nick unconsciously copying Kathy's pose. Hands on hips, chin thrust forward, brows drawn down. It was a pose Kathy had picked up from her father, and which Nick must have seen often enough during their talks that he was doing it himself, now that he had a body to do it with.
Lya laughed. Kathy turned to Nick. "Maybe you could stay with my parents? They have the spare room."
Nick gave her an incredulous look. "Oh, yeah, I can see that now. 'Hi, Mr and Mrs Evenson. Remember when your daughter was kidnapped and brutally, sexually abused by a psychopathic doomsday cult? Well, I was the cult leader. And now I've come to live with you!' "
He finished with a bright smile and a little wave that made Kathy chuckle at the ridiculousness of it. "Okay, fair point," she said.
Lya shook her head. "Tsss, vous avez vraiment aucune gêne," she said. Kathy turned back to her.
"Je te l'ai déjà dit, ça fait partie du processus," she said patiently. "C'est nécessaire pour guérir."
Lya nodded. "Je sais bien. Mais vous avez quand même des conversations super bizarres."
Kathy chuckled and admitted "Heh, c'est vrai."
Lya got a twinkle in her eye. "Non mais sinon, je peux lui montrer mon trou."
Kathy's eyes lit up with mischief as well, and she replied innocently, "Si tu en as tant envie que ça..."
"Je rigole," Lya laughed. Nick took a step forward and stammered out his best attempt at joining the conversation. "Nous aimons, uh... Nous avons nécessaire de parler ça," he said. Kathy blinked, her brain not translating that right away, but Lya simply raised a finger, wagging it at Nick in the way she did whenever either of them said something wrong.
"Tu peux dire 'Nous avons besoin d'en parler.' Ou alors 'C'est nécessaire d'en parler'," she said mildly.
Nick muttered "Nous avons besoin d'en parler," to himself as Kathy addressed Lya.
"Sinon, tu pourrais le prendre par les sentiments pour qu'il reste. En le faisant culpabiliser un peu, ça devrait marcher."
Lya's face went blank.
"Juste un petit peu?" Kathy asked. Lya shook her head, instead. "Si c'est ce qu'il veut faire, autant le laisser," she said.
Kathy sighed. "I know," she said, returning to English. She looked at Nick again. "Let's just leave the box here for now. You can take your stuff out, and we'll figure out what to do with it later, okay?"
"Sounds good," Nick said. He reached in and grabbed the calendar, flipping the pages back to January. The pin-up was a redhead with a pixie cut, completely nude and with her ankles crossed behind her head. Kathy had made the calendar for Nick last year, as a present. It had been a homemade white elephant gift from this past Christmas from Sookie. Nick had actually been delighted to get it, and spoke for days about decorating his box like an auto shop to make it fit in better.
He gave the image a good look, then folded it shut and tucked it into a pocket. "That's all I really want for now. The beanies and that little wand Sookie made me can keep for a bit."
Kathy shook her head at the mention of the wand. "You should take the wand."
"No, he should not," Lya said. Kathy rounded on her, one eyebrow quirked.
"Don't look at me like that. It's not like it goes inside you."
"Lya, do you want the wand?" Nick asked.
"Oui," Lya said, never taking her eyes off Kathy.
"Then you can have the wand."
Kathy shook her head again. "You accuse us of having the strangest conversations, yet you just accepted a second-hand masturbation toy from him." Lya grinned.
----
Nick Beaufort, On His Own For the First Time in Years
Nick stuck the calendar to the wall, then sat on the folding chair he'd found in someone's trash and carried here. He had two phone calls to make. One of them would be harder than the other, so he made that one, first.
"What?" Julie Beaufort said by way of greeting. Nick winced. He couldn't blame her for the cold welcome, of course, but it still stung.
"I uh..." he said, then cursed himself silently for not rehearsing.
"You what, Nick?" Julie demanded.
He took a deep breath. "I have a body. I'm not just a disembodied head anymore. And I've gotten a job, too. I have some money now. I want to send it to you, to help Nickie pay for college."
"You're not seeing him," Julie stated flatly.
"I know," Nick said. "I know, I just... I want to help. I'm not asking for anything in return. I just want to know how to get the money to you."
Julie sighed. "Send it via Paypal," she said. She read off an email address and Nick quickly wrote it on his hand with a pen.
"Got it," he said.
"Okay," Julie responded. Silence stretched out for a while. Eventually, Nick couldn't stand it any more.
"All right, I'll let you go. I hope everything's going well for both of you."
"Uh huh," Julie said, then the line went dead. Nick sighed and looked at the Ended Call screen until his phone's display dimmed itself, ready to turn off. He tapped the screen to brighten it back up, then made the second phone call. This one was pretty much the opposite of the first.
"Yo, head-case!" Sookie answered. "What you up to?"
"Watching The Little Mermaid and jerking off," Nick said, his mind already on his goal for this call. He eyed his TV, still in the box.
His phone dinged, so he checked the screen to see that Sookie had turned on her camera and requested a video call. He laughed and accepted. When the screen popped up, he squinted at it in confusion.
"What am I looking at?" he asked. The blurry red shapes on the screen came into focus as the camera was pulled back from Sookie's crotch. Suddenly, it made sense. It was a pussy. Sookie's coloring and the blurriness had been the source of his confusion.
"What's with the t-shirt, buddy?" she asked as her face came into view. "You're gonna get it sticky when you throw ropes on it."
Nick laughed. "I was joking! Jesus, Sookie, calm down!"
Sookie groaned and the view shifted as she placed the phone on her nightstand. She was laying in bed, naked, the mid-day sun on the West Coast playing over her body. Nick started growing a chub at the sight. Sookie was so fucking hot, especially in her normal body, with the scales and the bony plates and the horns...
"I could planewalk to you," she said. "We haven't hooked up since you got a body." The offer was very tempting, but not really what he was after.
"I thought Zelda told you that I'm pretty pathetic in bed," Nick responded. It was true, he knew. This new body had some pretty intense sensations, much more so than he remembered. And he'd put it together without a lot of thought to his dick, so it had come out slightly smaller than his original one. He figured he was just a hair below average now, and was already forming plans to correct it without having to cut it off.
Sookie just shrugged. "Fucking is a skill, and skills can be trained."
"Hah!" Nick laughed. "Maybe I'll take you up on that later. For now, I have a favor to ask."
Sookie sighed. "Fine," she said. "It's probably for the best. I've been edging for a week, getting ready for something. I'm super fucking horny right now." She grabbed the camera and panned it down to her waist, but keeping it at a distance. She was laying on one of those doggy pads, the kinds they sell for older dogs who can't control their bladders, to put on their beds. From what Nick could tell, she would need to change this one, soon.
"Leaking like sieve," Sookie said.
"You ain't doing a very good job of convincing me it's for the best to not invite you over for a fisting session," Nick said.
Sookie sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes as she put the phone back. "I'm imagining you grabbing one of my horns and using it to yank my head back while you jam you-" she cut herself off and leaped off the bed.
"Shit, I almost made myself cum," she grumbled.
Nick laughed again. "I better get to the point before you ruin whatever you're holding out for."
"Yes, please," Sookie said. He could see her at the edge of the video, bouncing on her feet and shaking her hands. After a few seconds, she sat down on the edge of the bed and faced him.
"So, I was wondering if I could get Zelda's number off you," he said. Sookie leaned forward, eyes widening.
"Really?" she asked, continuing to move forward until only one blurry eye was visible.
"Yes, really. I had a really good time, last time. I'd like to see her again."
"Dude, you picked her up on the street and paid her three hundred bucks for a blowie and some light domme shit."
"There was more to it than that," Nick objected. Sookie leaned back.
"I know, I know," she said. "She's got that breeding kink, so she made you nut inside her at least once."
"That's not what I meant," Nick said. "We talked for a while in between."
"Oh yeah, refractory period," Sookie said. "The bane of my existence, let me tell you."
"So?" Nick prompted.
Sookie sighed. "Fine, I'll text it to you. I gave her a waterproof case, so it should still be working. But she doesn't usually answer."
"I'll take my chances," Nick said with a grin.
"Okay, I'm gonna hang up now, because if I don't, I'm gonna come over there and make you go down on me."
"What have you been edging for?" Nick asked. Sookie narrowed her eyes, even as a mischievous glint appeared in them.
"Revenge," she said solemnly. Nick laughed again and shook his head. "Okay, and thanks, Sookie."
"No problem. When you guys hook up, stick a finger in her ass and tell her that's from me."
"Will do," Nick said and hung up. A second later, a new text message notification popped up. He clicked on it and looked at the number there, then tapped the number to send it to the phone app and hit the call button.
"Hello?" Zelda's voice answered on the first ring. She sounded confused, but her voice wasn't bubbly or muted, so he thought she might be in the open air.
"Hi, Zelda," Nick said. "It's Nick, the guy from Bronson Boulevard, a few weeks ago."
"Ahh yes, your spawn are little demons who make my life a living hell." Nick blinked at that remark. He wasn't sure how to respond.
"Uhh, I'm sorry?" he offered. Zelda made a dismissive sound. "Do not be. That is a good thing. It means they have a strong spirit, and will likely survive childhood. They will be off on their own in a few months, and I expect most of them will see adulthood."
Nick thought about that and felt some disappointment creeping in.
"So you're pretty busy taking care of them, huh?"
"It is my primary task at the moment, yes."
"So you wouldn't be able to get away and come to the material world for an evening, would you?"
"I have a sister whom I trust not to consume them. Why? Is there some task that needs be done there?"
"Well, I was just... I mean, I had a good time that day. Not just fucking and fooling around, but when we were talking about that convention and NASCAR and stuff."
"Yes, it was an enjoyable conversation," Zelda said. Nick's disappointment began to fade.
"So I was wondering if we could get together again? I could take you out, this time. I don't, uh... I don't have the money to keep paying you like that, that was kind of a one-time splurge, you know? But I'd like to maybe get some coffee or something?"
"I do not drink coffee," Zelda said. Nick sighed. She was a really hard one to get a read on. She talked like a Klingon from Star Trek. All flat, declaratory sentences with no contractions and the only emotion he could ever hear was annoyance or anger, though admittedly, those were rare.
"Well, it doesn't have to be coffee. We could get drinks, or just go to the park and talk, or hang out at my place."
"Very well, that is acceptable," Zelda said and hung up.
He was still looking at his phone, wondering if he should call her back now to actually plan their date when a knock sounded at his door. He turned off the screen and stood, wondering if Sookie's willpower had failed.
When he opened the door, however, he found Kathy and Lya there. Kathy was carrying a chair, and Lya had a box with pictures of a small dining table on it.
"We bought you some furniture," Kathy said. Nick's face split into a grin and he moved out of the way so they could come in.
"There's more in the car," Lya said.
"Thanks, guys," Nick said. "I really appreciate this."
"Well, we figured that if you're going to do this, we could help," Kathy said.
"The Group pays me well," Lya added. "And you are a part of our family, for better or worse. We can't let you live here without furniture."
They put their loads down, then all three of them walked out to Lya's corvette, which had the back hatch open with large boxes sticking out.
"Christ, that must have been hell to drive around with," Nick said, hoisting one of the larger boxes.
"It was fine," Lya said, grabbing another box.
"Except when we were backing out of the parking lot and you almost ran over that old lady," Kathy said. Lya flashed her a look.
"Almost only counts with hand grenades," Lya said. "And besides, my reverse lights were on, and she could see that my rear-view mirror was blocked. She shouldn't have walked behind me."
Nick chuckled as they brought the furniture upstairs. They dropped it off and came back down for the last couple of boxes.
"I can put all this stuff together tomorrow," Nick said. "I had to buy some tools for work, so I've got them in my truck if I need them."
"Nope," Kathy said. "We're putting it together tonight. We've already made plan. We're hooking up your TV first and finding some movies to put on, then we'll put together the furniture, and order pizza for dinner."
Nick grinned at her back as she stepped through his front door ahead of him. He marveled, and not for the first time, how a woman he'd done so much harm to would come to be his closest friend. Her capacity for forgiveness was truly awe-inspiring.
"Is your air conditioner broken?" Lya asked. Nick turned to her and noticed she was sweating. He realized that he was, too, and a quick glance at Kathy confirmed that they all were. "No," he said. "I just hadn't turned it on. I'll get it, now."
"Mon dieu," Lya said, pulling her overshirt off to reveal a tank top underneath. "There's no airflow in here."
"Sorry," Nick said, flipping the AC on and setting the thermostat to seventy-three. "I was living rough for so long that I forgot about stuff like that. I was just sitting here boiling until you said something."
"It'll cool off in a few minutes," Kathy said. She stripped down to her own tank top and Nick thought twice, then muttered "Fuck it," to himself and pulled his own t-shirt off. The cool air from the vents on his skin was refreshing.
"YOU HAD LED ME TO BELIEVE THIS WAS AN EXCLUSIVE AFFAIR!" an angry voice shouted. All three of them spun to find a naked brunette woman with a pixie haircut standing in the open doorway. Her legs were rippling strangely, as if threatening to turn into tentacles.
"Zelda!" Nick gasped. "I didn't expect you..."
"What do you mean? I came here to speak and copulate with you, per your offer to do so. Yet, I have found you undressing with other females! I would not begrudge you the chance to spread your seed, but it is insulting for you to do so in my presence!"
Lya picked her shirt up and pulled it back on quickly. Kathy stood there, her expression of surprise changing to one of amusement.
"You didn't tell us you had plans, Nick," she said.
"I uh... I didn't expect her, uh, you, Zelda, to show up so quickly."
"Did we not just make arrangements over the phone?" Zelda asked.
"We did, but we never specified a time. You just agreed and then hung up."
"Does that not imply that the time is now?"
"She's got you there, Nick," Lya said. Nick groaned.
"Listen, Zelda, they came by unannounced. I ain't planning to fuck either of them, not ever. They're my friends not... Well, not that. They bought me some furniture for my new apartment, and they were going to help me put it together tonight. Listen..." Nick took a deep breath and thought for a second. He thought he caught a whiff of burning gears, but that was normal when he was thinking.
"Okay, I made my plans with you first, so I'll let you decide. We can all watch some movies and put the furniture together and have some pizza, and then they'll go and you and I can do whatever we like. Or, if you insist, I'll ask them to go, even though they just did something nice for me, and you and I can hang out. It's up to you."
Zelda rubbed her chin. "It would be untoward for you to dismiss them after they provided you with a gift. We shall assemble the furniture together, and we will copulate later, after they are gone."
Kathy laughed and clapped her hands once. "It's a plan, then!" she turned, found Nick's fridge and opened it to reveal an unopened twelve pack of Natty Ice. She grabbed bottles out and removed the caps, passing them around.
"Not the way I thought this would go, but nice," she said, offering her bottle up in a toast.
"I am supposed to touch my glass to hers, right?" Zelda asked. Nick nodded and demonstrated. Zelda followed his lead, and then Lya. That done, they all took drinks.
"This is good," Zelda proclaimed after drinking from her beer.
"It's shitty beer," Nick said, "But I developed a taste for it years ago."
"So Zelda," Kathy said. "How've you been? I haven't seen you much the past few years. I know you and Sookie kept in touch, though."
"I am well. The last time I saw Nick, he got me with sixteen spawn, and so far, only one has died."
Nick choked, not having expected her to say it in front of others. Kathy spit her drink out as Lya shouted "SEIZE PUTAIN DE BÉBÉS?!"
"No," Zelda said with a look of confusion. "Fifteen. One died."
Lya dropped her butt onto the bed, almost spilling her beer. "Ne m'appelez pas pour les vacances, je ne m'en occuperais pas," she muttered under her breath.

Looks like you can get the entire "Worlds of Star Trek" and "Star Trek: Destiny" series this month along with some exceptionally good reading in the other 6 books!
Books in bold have not been on sale in a long time:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Revenant by Alex R. White on 2021-12-21
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An all-new novel based on the landmark TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from the acclaimed author of A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe! Jadzia Dax has been a friend to Etom Prit, the Trill Trade Commissioner, over two lifetimes. When Etom visits Deep Space Nine with the request to rein in his wayward granddaughter Nemi, Dax can hardly say no. It seems like an easy assignment: visit a resort casino while on shore leave, and then bring her old friend Nemi home. But upon arrival, Dax finds Nemi has changed over the years in terrifying ways…and the pursuit of the truth will plunge Dax headlong into a century’s worth of secrets and lies! Read reviews and buying options here

Star Trek: Destiny Book 1: Gods Of Night by David Mack on 2008-09-30
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Half a decade after the Dominion War and more than a year after the rise and fall of Praetor Shinzon, the galaxy's greatest scourge returns to wreak havoc upon the Federation -- and this time its goal is nothing less than total annihilation. Elsewhere, deep in the Gamma Quadrant, an ancient mystery is solved. One of Earth's first generation of starships, lost for centuries, has been found dead and empty on a desolate planet. But its discovery so far from home has raised disturbing questions, and the answers harken back to a struggle for survival that once tested a captain and her crew to the limits of their humanity. From that terrifying flashpoint begins an apocalyptic odyssey that will reach across time and space to reveal the past, define the future, and show three captains -- Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise, TM William Riker of the U.S.S. Titan, and Ezri Dax of the U.S.S Aventine -- that some destinies are inescapable. Read reviews and buying options here

Star Trek: Destiny Book 2: Mere Mortals by David Mack on 2008-10-28
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On Earth, Federation President Nanietta Bacco gathers allies and adversaries to form a desperate last line of defense against an impending Borg invasion. In deep space, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Captain Ezri Dax join together to cut off the Collective's route to the Alpha Quadrant. Half a galaxy away, Captain William Riker and the crew of the Starship Titan have made contact with the reclusive Caeliar -- survivors of a stellar cataclysm that, two hundred years ago, drove fissures through the structure of space and time, creating a loop of inevitability and consigning another captain and crew to a purgatory from which they could never escape. Now the supremely advanced Caeliar will brook no further intrusion upon their isolation, or against the sanctity of their Great Work....For the small, finite lives of mere mortals carry little weight in the calculations of gods. But even gods may come to understand that they underestimate humans at their peril. Read reviews and buying options here

Star Trek: Destiny Book 3: Lost Souls by David Mack on 2008-11-25
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The soldiers of Armageddon are on the march, laying waste to worlds in their passage. An audacious plan could stop them forever, but it carries risks that one starship captain is unwilling to take. For Captain Jean-Luc Picard, defending the future has never been so important, or so personal -- and the wrong choice will cost him everything for which he has struggled and suffered. For Captain William Riker, that choice has already been made. Haunted by the memories of those he was forced to leave behind, he must jeopardize all that he has left in a desperate bid to save the Federation. For Captain Ezri Dax, whose impetuous youth is balanced by the wisdom of many lifetimes, the choice is a simple one: there is no going back -- only forward to whatever future awaits them. But for those who, millennia ago, had no choice...this is the hour of their final, inescapable destiny. Read reviews and buying options here

Star Trek: Discovery: Dead Endless by Dave Galanter on 2019-12-17
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The U.S.S. Discovery’s specialty is using its spore-based hub drive to jump great distances faster than any warp-faring vessel in Starfleet. To do this, Lieutenant Paul Stamets navigates the ship through the recently revealed mycelial network, a subspace domain Discovery can briefly transit but in which it cannot remain. After responding to a startling distress call originating from within the network, the Discovery crew find themselves trapped in an inescapable realm where they will surely perish unless their missing mycelial fuel is found or restored. Is the seemingly human man found alone and alive inside the network the Starfleet officer he claims to be, or an impostor created by alien intruders who hope to extract themselves from the mycelial plane at the expense of all lives aboard Discovery? Read reviews and buying options here

Star Trek: Enterprise: The Expanse by Brannon Braga J.M. Dillard Rick Berman on 2003-10-01
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High above the planet Earth, an alien probe appears -- and in an unspeakably horrific instant, releases a deadly blast that strafes the planet's surface, leaving a miles-wide, smoldering crater of destruction in its wake. Millions die in Florida, Cuba, and Venezuela, their lives blotted out in a blazing millisecond. Just as swiftly, the probe implodes and crashes on the planet surface, but the remnants provide no clue as to its origin. Who are the attackers, and what provoked them? Aboard the Starship Enterprise, Captain Jonathan Archer learns of the destruction. His ship is called home; it is uncertain whether its mission of space exploration will continue. But before Enterprise reaches Earth, Archer is abruptly kidnapped from the bridge by the time-traveling enemies he has encountered before. He finds himself aboard a Suliban vessel, face-to-face with his old nemesis, Silik, a high-ranking indiviual in a battle known only as the Temporal Cold War. Silik leads him to his master, a mysterious humanoid from the far future. The humanoid claims that the attack on Earth was just a test; and the next attack will destroy Archer's home planet...unless he and the Enterprise crew stop it. To do so, they must enter a region of space called The Expanse - an area so dangerous that no ship has ever emerged from it unscathed. Vulcan crews were driven to bloodthirsty madness, Klingon crews were anatomically inverted, their internal organs exposed outside their bodies...while they still lived. Many vessels were lost, never to be heard from again. Archer faces the greatest crisis of his career: Should he believe Silik's time-traveling master, and expose his ship and crew to the perils of The Expanse, in hopes of saving Earth from destruction? And can he convince Starfleet Command and the Vulcan High Council to let Enterprise go to face her biggest challenge? Read reviews and buying options here

Star Trek: Stargazer: Oblivion by Michael Jan Friedman on 2003-08-26
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Stargazer accepts a dangerous mission only to learn that he has been lured into a deadly trap. A young Captain Picard is secretly dispatched to an orbital city in a disputed part of space. His mission: to recover an alien turncoat who could potentially upset the balance of power in an entire sector. When an explosion wrecks Picard's plan to beam the alien aboard the Stargazer, the captain finds himself pitted against both cold-blooded Cardassians and city authorities. Embroiled in a life-or-death struggle to find his alien ward, Picard's only ally is a mysterious woman named Guinan. Read reviews and buying options here

Star Trek: The Original Series: No Time Like the Past by Greg Cox on 2014-02-25
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STARDATE 6122.5. A diplomatic mission to the planet Yusub erupts in violence when ruthless Orion raiders attempt to disrupt the crucial negotiations by force. Caught in the midst of a tense and dangerous situation, Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise finds an unexpected ally in the form of an enigmatic stranger who calls herself “Annika Seven.” STARDATE 53786.1. Seven of Nine is taking part in an archae­ological expedition on an obscure planetoid in the Delta Quadrant when a disastrous turn of events puts Voyager’s away team in jeopardy—and transports Seven across time and space to Yusub, where she comes face-to-face with one of Starfleet’s greatest legends. STARDATE 6122.5. Kirk knows better than most the danger that even a single castaway from the future can pose to the time line, so he and Seven embark on a hazardous quest to return her to her own era. But there are others who crave the knowledge Seven possesses, and they will stop at noth­ing to obtain it—even if this means seizing control of the Enterprise! Read reviews and buying options here

Star Trek: The Original Series: The Higher Frontier by Christopher L. Bennett on 2020-03-10
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Investigating the massacre of a telepathic minority, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise confront a terrifying new threat: faceless, armored hunters whose extradimensional technology makes them seemingly unstoppable. Kirk must team with the powerful telepath Miranda Jones and the enigmatic Medusans to take on these merciless killers in an epic battle that will reveal the true faces of both enemy and ally! Read reviews and buying options here

Worlds Of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Volume 1: Cardassia And Andor by Heather Jarman Una McCormack on 2004-07-01
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Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, andA Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before...in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien. CARDASSIA: The last world ravaged by the Dominion War is also the last on which Miles O'Brien ever imagined building a life. As he joins in the reconstruction of Cardassia's infrastructure, his wife Keiko spearheads the planet's difficult agricultural renewal. But Cardassia's struggle to remake itself -- from the fledgling democracy backed by Elim Garak to the people's rediscovery of their own spiritual past -- is not without opposition, as the outside efforts to help rebuild its civilization come under attack by those who reject any alien influence. ANDOR: On the eve of a great celebration of their ancient past, the unusual and mysterious Andorians, a species with four sexes, must decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice in order to ensure their survival. Biological necessity clashes with personal ethics; cultural obligation vies with love -- and Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane returns home to the planet he forswore, to face not only the consequences of his choices, but a clandestine plan to alter the very nature of his kind. Read reviews and buying options here

Worlds Of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Volume 2: Trill and Bajor by Andy Mangels J. Noah Kym Michael A. Martin on 2005-02-15
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Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, and A Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before...in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien. TRILL: They are a people with secrets. For centuries they kept their true nature hidden, even taking disturbing steps to protect the small population of near-immortal symbionts with whom a privileged few Trill are joined, body, mind, and soul. They are a people who hold memory to be sacred, yet deny their own past. Now amid a whirlwind of scandal, accusations, and growing civil unrest, Ezri Dax must penetrate millennia of lies and deceptions, and rediscover what should never have been forgotten, before her civilization rips itself apart. BAJOR: The honeymoon is over. Following the euphoria of Bajor's marriage to the Federation, the real business of making that unionwork has begun. But even on a world where politics and religion are intertwined, conflicting visions of Bajor's role in the interstellar arena divide the planet's leadership. As newly minted Captain Kira Nerys sets the tone for the kind of Starfleet officer she will be, First Minister Asarem makes a bold move to define Bajor's voice in the Federation, while the returned Benjamin Sisko prepares for a futurethat only he, as yet, can see. Read reviews and buying options here

Worlds Of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Volume 3: The Dominion and Ferenginar by David R. George III Keith R.A. DeCandido on 2005-01-25
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Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, and A Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before...in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien. FERENGINAR: Quark's profit-driven homeworld is rocked with scandal as shocking allegations involving his brother's first wife, the mother of Nog, threaten to overthrow Rom as Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance. Making matters worse, Quark has been recruited by Rom's political adversaries to join their coup d'tat, with guarantees of all Quark ever dreamed if they succeed in taking his brother down. While Ferenginar's future teeters on the edge, the pregnancy of Rom's current wife, Leeta, takes a difficult turn for both mother and child. THE DOMINION: Since its defeat in the war for the Alpha Quadrant, the Great Link -- the living totality of the shape-shifting Founders -- has struggled with questions. At its moment of greatest doubt, its fate, and that of the Dominion itself, is tied to Odo's investigation of his kind's true motives for sending a hundred infant changelings out into the galaxy. As Odo searches for answers and takes a hard look at his past choices, Taran'atar reaches a turning point in his own quest for clarity...one from which there may be no going back. Read reviews and buying options here

My husband is working on a crossword. We had to scratch our heads over "second notes" as the clue. What the heck are "second notes?" And why specifically plural? I did some googles searches and got various results for music notes, scales, and legal documents. But nothing that actually seemed to fit. And neither of us have any idea what RES means. Googling it in regards to "second notes" just gives results to it as a crossword answer.
So what the heck is it? I assume they mean something, but hubby and I can't make heads or tails of this one.

I'm keeping track of all the VR games I’ve played this year to catalogue them in hopes that they may give fellow VR gamers some fresh games to try out, or reasons to revisit older games that have had big updates. I'm currently up to 52 different VR games played this year. The first 22 that I played from January to March can be found here. The latest 30 games are mostly on the Quest, but many are available on PCVR.
Some of the games listed below, I can see playing all year long, others are not my cup of tea, but they may interest you enough to try them out. In either case, here are my quick thoughts on the 30 games I’ve played during April and May of 2023.
TLDR: My top 5 games to check out are at the bottom and so is some info for a game giveaway.
​

1. ARK and ADE $9.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: A fun shooter with Pistol Whip vibes that is absolutely worth the price of admission. From the store page: “ARK and ADE is an action-jammed FPS shooter in which you get to experience the glory of the 80’s arcade era in a neon fused setting. Shoot your way through retro-futuristic levels filled with enemies, iconic over the top bosses and never ending bullets!” I played this game back when it was in App Lab before it graduated to the full store. It was such a fun shooter back then, and I’d look forward to new levels coming out every few months. Now that it made it out of app lab, has a bunch of levels and had the gameplay polished, it’s absolutely worth a pickup, especially for that price.
   
2. Project Third Eye $9.99 Quest My quick take: A game where you make your own fun. From the store page: “Project Third Eye is an action physics sandbox with a built-in visual scripting panel to apply logic to spawnable items. This allows you to build your own modifications to the game and customize behaviors as you like.” Just like the description says, this is more of a proof of concept and sandbox game more so than a full fledged game with objectives. There are certainly neat ideas here and there, and the dev is really active with updates on Reddit. If you like to experiment and see how concepts develop in a game, you may enjoy this, but there’s no real direction beyond experimenting, so I dropped off fairly quickly.
   
3. Jousting VR Demo $9.99 Quest / Steam Quest Demo My quick take: A bit light on gameplay, but there is some charm here. From the store page: “XIII century, Europe, royal market courtyard. You are a knight who joined the medieval tournament. Your task is 'simple.' Jump on your trusty steed, grab your lance & defeat the enemy. Take into consideration speed, accuracy, strength. Equipment is also important. The better gear the easier the task. Oh, and other knights - they want to win as much as you do.” As advertised, it's a jousting game in VR. I enjoyed the demo, but honestly it was a bit too finicky at times and just not worth a full buy to me. The atmosphere was fun though and there was a progression loop for those who get into it.
   
4. Demeo $39.99 Quest and Steam (flatscreen as well) My quick take: This is a great game that I revisited from start to finish with four players. A must own. From the store page: “Adventurers, it’s time to unite! Gather your friends and fight monsters in Demeo, the turn-based tabletop strategy game of battle and glory. Roll dice, pick up miniatures, and free the world of Gilmerra in round after round of tabletop board game fun. With a huge assortment of monsters, playable classes, and environments to explore, it’s never the same game twice." I finally got a chance to play through the entirety of the game in VR with four friends, through each world, while trying a variety of characters. We even made a video ranking the best players and levels. It really is a solid dungeon crawling adventure. With 2 or more friends, this game really shines and is such a fun ride, despite how punishing the bosses can be. This is the closest you can get to D&D in VR without having a dungeon master. Well worth the asking price.
   
5. Build and Drive Racing Demo Free Quest / Steam My quick take: Early days in development, maybe something to keep an eye on to see how it improves. From the store page: "Get ready for a new experience on Windows desktop and VR, where you get to build your ultimate racing machine, tailored to your driving style and optimized for performance, or race to the finish line with a monster what makes you smile. With stylised graphics and arcade-like physics, every turn, straightway and ramp will put your skills to the test. Feel the thrill of the race like never before in VR, as you immerse yourself counting the seconds on the home stretch." An early demo that has seen some updates. Maybe worth looking at in a few months after a bit more development. I did like what I saw, but honestly, if you’re looking for a finished racing game, try Mini Motor Racing X instead or some of the other heavier PCVR games available.
   
6. Les Mills Body Combat $29.99 Quest My quick take: No subscriptions, great coaches and fun workouts that will make you sweat. From the store page: “Work out at home with a premium fitness app. LES MILLS, the world's leading fitness company, brings the BODYCOMBAT experience to your VR headset with an extensive workout portfolio, top-quality coaching, innovative mechanics, and different intensities.” With no subscriptions or hidden fees, lots of workouts, motivating coaches and the ability to compete with friends on leaderboards, this really is a dynamite workout app. I was working up a good sweat during my workouts, so be sure you have good facial insert and a fan ready. Highly recommended if you want a workout in VR for just the price of entry.
   
7. Interkosmos 2000 $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: A difficult puzzle game, but rewarding if you have the patience. From the store page: “Go to space. Save the Future. Try not to Die. Welcome (back) to the world of Interkosmos for an even wilder, weirder and more wondrous adventure. Experience the intense exhilaration of spaceflight. Explore the awe-inspiring interiors of a realistic space capsule. Master the crucial systems that will keep you in orbit (and breathing). And while you’re at it, try your best not to die. Should you complete your mission, you just might save the future – and yourself. Should you fail? Let’s not think about that.” An intense puzzle game where you’re piloting a space ship with some very finicky controls. I found the experience way too difficult and exacting. Along with a bit of bugginess, that didn’t help in me determining if the error was my fault or the game's. If you have the patience, there certainly is some rewarding gameplay here, and an interesting story, but I found it all a bit too much to see to the end.
   
8. The Light Brigade $24.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: In a world of rougelikes, this is one that stands out. From the store page: “As a member of The Light Brigade, humanity’s last line of defense, brave ruins bathed in darkness and free the trapped souls who need the salvation only your gun can provide. Shoot, master spells, and upgrade your capabilities to herald the Sun’s return in this roguelike VR shooter.” There’s quite a lot of rouge shooters on Quest and despite the plethora of choices, this one stands out. Be warned, it starts out slowly, but gets quite fun after you get to know the systems after about an hour in. While I did make it to the last boss, I died and never went back to finished it. The gameplay loop and dynamic levels were solid though. The slight upgrades and different classes during each run were interesting and kept me going for a while. The most frustrating time I had was learning the little tips, tricks and finer gameplay points, but it was worth the push through that initial rough patch.
   
9. Resident Evil 4 $39.99 Quest My quick take: One of the best games in VR. A must own. From the store page: “Explore the world of Resident Evil 4, entirely remastered for VR. Step into the shoes of special agent Leon S. Kennedy on his mission to rescue the U.S. President’s daughter who was kidnapped by a mysterious cult. Come face to face with enemies, and uncover secrets with gameplay that revolutionized the survival horror genre. Battle horrific creatures and face-off against mind-controlled villagers while discovering their connection to the cult behind the abduction.” I forgot so much about this game from when I first played it 18 years ago on the GameCube. The long length, fun characters and how exciting the gun play is, all just came together perfectly. The development team spent a ton of time getting the VR feeling just right, and it’s absolutely one of the best on the Quest and well worth the price of entry. Additionally, once you play through the game the first time it really changes from survival horror to a whole new type of game action game. Simply outstanding.
   
10. Mini Golf Hustler Free Quest My quick take: Early days in development. Some good ideas, but a bit too rough around the edges. From the store page: “Challenge Slick Willie Puttman in this FREE nine hole demo of Mini Golf Hustler. Hazards include armed torpedoes, tentacled arms, ornery tikis and more! Multiple betting games, including skins, match play and the fearsome traveling snake. All played at the same time.” I thought I’d check out another mini golf game to see what other ideas there might be outside of the king - Walkabout Mini Golf. While there were some solid ideas for holes, the betting felt uneven, and everything else felt in their very early stages. To be fair, no other mini golf game feels even close to the accuracy of Walkabout, so I think it’s a tough go for any other games to match. It's probably best to stick with the champ for now, but I applaud the dev for trying something different.
    
11. Pin City Free Quest (open beta on Discord) / Steam My quick take: Early days, but wow, worth a download and one to watch in the future. From the store page: "Pin City is a bowling game unlike any other bowling game you’ve played before. We strove to bring the spirit of mini-golf into the world of bowling. We’ve taken the standard bowling setup (straight lane, 10 pins, 1 ball) and expanded, transformed, and evolved it. We wanted to give people a chance to bowl in ways that would be impossible, illegal, or extremely impractical.” An early alpha game, but boy, what a great start, I’m really looking forward to the team getting the physics feeling right with weight and feel of the bowling balls and seeing how much more gameplay they can add. Really worth the download or heading over to their Discord to get a Quest key for free to try it out. The quirky bowling, physics and gameplay they're experimenting with really got me excited to see how this one comes together in the next several months.
    
12. Mash Me Up Free Quest My quick take: Please devs, add more multiplayer support! From the store page: “Do you want to play party games with your friends or meet someone new? All is just one button press away with Mash Me Up. One button, multiple games. Will it be Air Hockey, Pier Pong, Flingball, or… Get ready for a surprise! Press, Play, Enjoy and Go Again!” If this game got a bit more development love it would be incredible. As it stands now, there are several mini games you can play against one person. Most are just okay, but a handful are real gems, and one particularly is incredible - Geo Guesser. Hands down the best mini game in the pack. With four, or six players and some new content, they could easily charge for just this one game. As it stands now, it’s a great two player game, but you’ll need to bring your own friend as the servers are pretty barren. Worth a download though for sure as you’ll get a night of fun out of it.
    
13. THZZLS - Treasures Lost In Time $4.99 Quest My quick take: A unique puzzler that can be pretty relaxing, but repetitive. From the store page: “Our first THZZLE is called "Der Bazar", the world's first VR toy theatre puzzle game. The Bazar is a VR puzzle game where you have to place furniture and props in the right places in old-fashioned rooms according to an old picture you see. The game is set in 19th century Germany and each room has objects taken from the German lifestyle magazine "Der Bazar", published in Berlin.” This one used to be free, with paid content, but it has since changed as they added more content. You recreate a scene with cutouts of people and furniture in a 3D space. It seemed to have endless puzzles with randomization of scenes. I could see someone going to this for a relaxing 10-15 minutes, but it is a lot of the same each time and didn’t grab me fully. If you’re looking for a puzzle game that’s outside of the usual ones you find in the store, it’s not a bad choice for the price. Keep in mind though its hand tracking only, so for some that may be a non starter, even though it felt just fine.
    
14. Barbaria $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: What I imagine Gorn is like with a solid game loop of RTS. From the store page: “Do you have what it takes to be the Mightiest in Barbaria? Welcome to a brutal world where visceral motion-controlled combat blends seamlessly with god-scale base-building and asynchronous multiplayer raids. Use fists, axes, swords, bows, rocks, or anything you can grab to dominate your foes in intense 1st-person combat. Then jump out to your immortal form and watch your minions carry on the battle while you rain down meteors from above. Systemic combat, versatile enemy AI, and player-created defenses make every battle unique.” I recognize there is a lot here to do in this game - if you like the game loop. Unfortunately, it really didn’t do much for me. I was expecting more RTS than Gorn style gameplay and was not pulled in by the fighting or quests offered. I have to say that the humor was spot on, and it certainly had good visuals, the game was just not for me. All that being said, there is a lot of content here and you could be playing this for quite some time if you think this could be your jam.
    
15. Toy Monsters Free Quest Demo / $4.99 Quest My quick take: Plants vs Zombies in AR with hand tracking that does enough unique stuff to be worth it. From the store page: “Toy Monsters VR is a mixed-reality tabletop tower defense inspired by classic Plants vs Zombies. Built from the ground up with hand tracking and passthrough in mind. As you progress through the 20 levels, you'll unlock new toys with unique special powers. You can enhance your toys with magical potions and use crystal power to unleash magic beams from your hands, transform your fingers into flamethrowers, and more.” This game has come a long way since its initial release. It’s a solid hand tracking Plants vs. Zombies game with its own twist on powers and uses passthrough quite nicely. My biggest complaint is that you really need to complete the game all in one go (about an hour or so) as it doesn’t keep track of your upgrades if you quit. Essentially, trying to pass a later level without prior upgrades or powerups is near impossible. Despite that one issue, give at least the demo a try and if you like it, the price is pretty fair for what you get.
    
16. Exit Condition One Free Quest Demo / $4.99 Quest My quick take: A bit rough around the edges, but escape room fans will find fun with it. From the store page: “You awake from cryo in a mysterious museum. A robot refers to you as a curator and the security system is malfunctioning. Can you get things back to normal and escape? There are no jump scares. The game is designed ground-up for roomscale VR on the Quest, but supports all locomotion modes. Most objects can be interacted with, it fully uses physics, and the hands don't ‘ghost out.’” According to the description, this is still a work in progress. That being said, it was a neat escape game that I felt I got my money’s worth from. It certainly was a bit rough around the edges with its gameplay and had some obscure puzzles to work through, but I did finish it and had a good time with it. Try the demo for sure, and perhaps when it’s finally finished, some of those rough edges will be polished up, but as it stands now, it was pretty solid.
    
17. Hyperdash Free Quest / Steam My quick take: A solid online shooter, but you'll have to put in the time to get good to find the fun. From the store page: “Hyper Dash is a free VR multiplayer team based shooter. Payload, Domination, Control Point, (Team) Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Elimination, Ball and remix them with Mutators! Dash, sprint, and rail grind your way across the arenas to engage the enemy in fast-paced combat and secure the objective for your team. Offline mode/Bots, Dedicated servers, Private servers, Rebind-able controls, Left hand support, Voice chat.” For a free to play shooter, this one had great controls, nice graphics, a good gameplay loop, plenty of comfort options and a solid player base. All that being said, every player I faced off against were top tier, so I spent my time just dying round after round. This is a good game with a solid player base and there's fun here - if you’re willing to learn the ropes. It's bad for newbies like me just looking to have a good time and get a few kills.
    
18. Please, Don’t Touch Anything $9.99 Quest / $4.99 Steam My quick take: A game for escape room devotees only. From the store page: "Please, Don’t Touch Anything is a cryptic, brain-racking button-pushing puzzle game. Covering for a colleague taking a bathroom break, you find yourself in front of a mysterious console with a green screen monitor showing a pixelated live image of an unknown city. Also present is an ominous red button with the simple instruction to not touch anything! Push the red button once or press it many times. Your choices and actions will lead to outrageous and frightening consequences and over 30 unique puzzle endings.” This is a weird one. A really obscure puzzle game that rewards experimentation, but is absolutely punishing with difficulty. If you’re really good at escape games and don’t get frustrated easily, you may enjoy the tedium. If not, you’ll end up like me, watching a tutorial to find out how to get different endings. But if you find yourself doing that, why not just watch a playthrough.
    
19. Eleven Table Tennis $29.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Still one of the best, but there’s so much untapped potential. From the store page: “The ultimate Table Tennis simulator. Play opponents in online multiplayer or practice against the advanced AI. With physics designed to be as real as ever achieved in a Table Tennis simulator, you will forget you are in VR." I finally got back to this game after the new UI was implemented. It looks much more user friendly, but much to my disappointment, there were no new arenas, music, or official doubles options. There is so much potential for expanding this game, and I feel like the devs are just content to have it remain in the state it currently is. Which, to be fair, is a perfect implementation of table tennis in VR. It’s still one of the best VR games out there and absolutely a must own. I just really wish they would add an officially supported doubles mode and expand out the game a bit more because the unofficial doubles mode is a real pain to get set up and only barely worth the struggle. If you'd like to see how to set that doubles up currently, here is a video I was a part of.
    
20. Breachers $29.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Come one, come all, this is 5 v 5 at its finest. From the store page: “In Breachers, you plan your assault or orchestrate your defense as a team through intense close-quarters combat. Whether you play as an enforcer or a revolter, master your nifty gadgetry, customize your powerful weaponry and beat your opponents in stunning environments. Intuitive to grasp. Endlessly playable.” Wow, wow, wow. This officially launched and is such a polished game. With multiple maps, intuitive movement and full lobbies, this game is simply spectacular. Despite the difficulty curve in being good at the game, it’s still a fun time even if you’re not the best, which is something special that few games manage to pull off. Where this game especially shines is with friends. If you can muster up a team of five to take on other random players, you’ll be playing this game for months. Give this a go, and if you're not any good, that's okay, because you'll still be better than the bots and a welcome addition to someone's team.
    
21. Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Outcast (Sidequest mod) Free Demo on Quest / $9.99 (Full Game on Steam) My quick take: Come for the lightsaber play, stay if you can tolerate the puzzles. From the store page: “JK XR is a standalone VR port of the popular Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast game by Lucasarts and Raven Software. Brought to VR by Team Beef & Friends. There are lots of mods and access to the free demo level available through the JK XR Companion App, which is automatically also installed alongside JK XR on your headset.” I never played this game when it first came out on flatscreen in 2002, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The first part of the game you’re playing essentially as a Han Solo type - a smart talkin’ gun slinger. The next part, you’re a cool Jedi chopping off limbs. Absolutely great execution as always by Team Beef, and you can’t beat the price. There is even a free demo to try out to see if you like it. All that being said, the game’s old puzzles, navigation and gameplay felt every bit of 20 years old. After dying multiple times because of missing an exact jump, getting lost and backtracking because I didn't see an obscure elevator and wasting time trying to navigate odd puzzles, I just found it to be too much to overcome to continue to the end. This is no slight on Team Beef and the great work they did with this port, the game just hasn’t aged the best.
    
22. CoasterMania $9.99 Quest My quick take: Early days, but still some fun to be had. There could be something special here after a few updates. From the store page: “CoasterMania is a physics-based VR rollercoaster game where you create the ride of your life! Use wacky contraptions and elements to fly through the sky, then experience your creation by jumping in the front seat. Sandbox mode: Build your dream rollercoaster without any rules but the rules of physics. When you're done, share your coaster or experience the engineering marvels of others. Design your own rides and upload them online.” You know, this game is just silly fun. It's early days for sure, and the tracks don't twist and come together as easily together as I’d hoped, which makes for a difficult time creating exactly what you want. It is satisfying though to have a roller coaster leap from one track to another over a gap. At this point the game is more of a sandbox than a full game with objectives (which is coming). The coasters other people have created are fun, so if you’re not into creating, there is that option to play with other people's designs, plus you can ride them in first person. I look forward to more updates and think it's worth looking at for sure, but if you’re looking for something a bit more fleshed out currently you can try Stunt Track Builder.
    
23. David Slade Mysteries: Case Files $9.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: You’re a forensic cop, here are your tools. Good luck dummy. From the store page: “Take to the dark and violent streets of downtown Riverside, where you investigate gruesome and violent homicides using a range of Forensic tools and your wits! Inspired by the classic Police Quest adventure series, reborn & reimagined for VR. Includes two epic episodes!” Slade is a murder mystery game that is ruthless in it’s difficulty. Honestly, there are several play throughs of this game on YouTube and none have beaten the first case because it was too hard, they all gave up. This game offers no hints, is super abstract and insanely difficult. Why did I keep playing? Well, the game’s tools were implemented quite well, the story was compelling, and I just felt I had to see this through to the end for my own sanity. Despite being as hard as nails, I somehow managed to finish the first case, then moved on to the second. No real spoilers, but the second case does a complete 180 and essentially becomes a horror game where you’re only weapon is your wits. A real departure from the first case. Again, I found myself frustrated, confused and turned around, but again, I had to power through it because something kept pulling me in. If you’re a masochist for puzzle games, I’d recommend this game.
    
24. Home Detective Free w/IAP - Quest My quick take: Fun use of AR, but pretty basic. From the store page: “Use your own living room to solve the crime! Using passthrough, the crime scene is overlaid onto your play area, leaving you free to explore and find clues. Use the patent-pending Residual Heat Scanner to detect the criminals' recent movements, and then dust for fingerprints or try to find evidence left behind. With your wits, and your trusty sidekick Steve Dobbins' snarky comments, you're sure to get to the bottom of these confusing crimes.” I appreciate the interesting use of passthrough and AR in this game. The first case is free to try, so if you’re into AR and passthrough, it’s worth a try. It's $3.99 for another case if you’re into it, but right now, it’s a pretty basic, but solid idea. My biggest complaint is that all my tools were on a shelf that was inaccessible because they were in my wall. I guess AR is still not quite there yet.
    
25. Vertigo Remastered $24.99 Steam My quick take: A fun and wacky ride from start to finish. From the store page: “It's a classic premise - a massive subterranean scientific facility full of mysteries, with aliens bursting in from alternate universes to wreak havoc. The twist? You're one of those aliens. But you're not here to wreak havoc (collateral damage disregarded), you're just trying to get home. A difficult endeavor, as it turns out this facility is more than prepared to deal with extraterrestrial threats.” Because I heard such great things about Vertigo 2, I thought I’d try out this game before I played the sequel. I was really blown away by how fun the game was and pleasantly surprised that it holds up so well. Considering its a 2016 remake, and VR was still figuring out a lot of things like movement, this still felt fresh. With lots of unique ideas, upgrades and areas to play in, I heartily recommend this one and am looking forward to playing the sequel.
    
26. Playin’ Pickleball $19.99 Quest My quick take: Solid physics, but really only for pickleball fans, or a group of four friends. From the store page: “Playin’ Pickleball is an authentic reproduction of Pickleball in Virtual Reality! Physics, sounds and mechanics have been carefully mapped from actual Pickleball game play. Even the scoring and rules are based on the USA Pickleball Association’s Official Rulebook.” Pickleball is sweeping the nation and if I recall correctly, even ForeVR is getting in on the game with an upcoming title. I’m much more of a tennis than pickleball guy, but I have to say, this game has pretty solid physics. Like most games, this is exponentially better with one or better yet, three other people you know. The AI players can be pretty uninteresting hitting it back and forth without much variance. Also the environments are a bit basic. I have to applaud the movement, physics and customizable items though as they all felt very well implemented. If you want something a bit less daunting than tennis, this might be what you're looking for.
    
27. Pong $6.99 Quest My quick take: A neat take on Pong, but you’ll have more fun with Cybrix. From the store page: “Classic paddle game reimagined for VR. Destroy all the bricks. Use your paddles to swing at the balls and the balls have built-in assistance to return back toward you. Take advantage of the pistol and magneto power-ups to cause major damage. Or just swing hard at the balls to create large blast radius. Oh and watch out for those mines going for your head. Lean left/right or crouch to avoid.” I appreciated the ideas the developers had in this modern take on Pong, but it was ultimately quite short and not nearly as fun as Cybrix. That being said for the price, I got my money’s worth and would love to see it get a bit more polish and levels in an update.
    
28. Extreme Escape $4.99 Quest / Steam (Early Access) My quick take: One of those special games where you really feel like you're in the environment. From the store page: “Have you ever wondered how it would feel to travel in a hot air balloon and fly above clouds? Have you ever wanted to face your fear of heights and enclosed spaces? Perhaps you wanted to become a pilot and test your critical thinking skills. Looking for a breathtaking experience? Try Extreme Escape.” The game says “early access,” but honestly I believe this has been abandoned. For the price, you get an extremely short, but fun and unique escape room experience. You’re not going to find this game too hard, but I was brought into its world and completely immersed - I had a true sense of dread and panic. The even shorter “demo” inside the game puts you on a sinking submarine and was extremely memorable. Seldom have I felt so immersed in a game. I’d recommend it for this price, just because of how it made me feel, but it’s a real shame about the very short length and that it’s abandoned.
    
29. The Last Worker $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Gaming with a heavy message, but mediocre gameplay. From the store page: “The Last Worker is an immersive narrative adventure centered around a lone worker’s last stand in an increasingly automated world, The Last Worker is a unique blend of work simulation and stealth strategic gameplay. The game is set in a lonely, oppressive but strangely beautiful environment, with characters designed by comics legend Mick McMahon. Kurt works for the world’s largest retailer and is forced to choose between capitalism or activism. Having dedicated his life to work, Kurt’s loyalty is put to the test when a group of activists ask him to dismantle Jüngle from the inside.” I really wanted to like this game. It had an interesting concept, but navigating, fail states and some very annoying bugs frustrated me to the point where I just said it wasn’t worth my time. That and the story wasn’t speaking to me. It’s well rated, so I’m probably on the opposite side of this one from most people. It's unique in many ways, so check out the teaser and see if it might be for you.
    
30. Shadow Point $19.99 Quest My quick take: Fisherman’s Tale vibes with an excellent story and puzzles that makes you feel smart. From the store page: “Built for VR, Shadow Point is a story-driven puzzle game set between a mountaintop observatory and an ever-changing fantasy world. Explore a vibrant kingdom, cast shadows and solve mind-bending puzzles as you uncover the mystery of missing schoolgirl, Lorna McCabe who vanished from Shadow Point Observatory twelve years ago. As your adventure unfolds, you will manipulate gravity, play with your own reflection, walk on walls, peer through a magical lens to reveal an alternate reality and much more.” I had this game on my wishlist forever and finally pulled the trigger, and boy am I glad I did. I really enjoyed the story, gameplay and ended up marathoning it in one session (which I don't recommend doing). It is a few hours long, and there are extra puzzles to go back to if you’d like. It had some serious Fisherman’s Tale vibes, so if you like those type of puzzle games, this is for you. The puzzles make you stop and think, and more importantly, progress nicely. I was never stuck, but certainly had to really contemplate how to solve some of them. It is slightly finicky with having to line up the shadows exactly to progress, but that is a minor complaint. Give this one a go for sure.
    

I hope you find a few games on this list that you might not have heard of, or that you might find worth revisiting. Let me know here or on the Ruff Talk Discord channel if you have a game you enjoy that I should try, I'm always open to recommendations. Until then, I hope your next VR experience is a memorable one.
Also, the week this is posted, I'm hosting a contest where one winner gets a $29.99 or less, Quest game of their choice. You can enter on the discord channel above, but will need to have five posts on the discord channel within a week to enter, so if that interests you, feel free to join. The Ruff Talk guys usually have giveaways every week and it's some solid VR chat if you're looking for like-minded individuals in a non-toxic space.
TLDR: Top five games to check out - Ark and Ade, Pin City, Breachers, Shadow Point, Vertigo Remastered

I'm keeping track of all the VR games I’ve played this year to catalogue them in hopes that they may give fellow VR gamers some fresh games to try out, or reasons to revisit older games that have had big updates. I'm currently up to 52 different VR games played this year. The first 22 that I played from January to March can be found here. The latest 30 games are mostly on the Quest, but many are available on PCVR.
Some of the games listed below, I can see playing all year long, others are not my cup of tea, but they may interest you enough to try them out. In either case, here are my quick thoughts on the 30 games I’ve played during April and May of 2023.
TLDR: My top 5 games to check out are at the bottom and so is some info for a game giveaway.
​

1. ARK and ADE $9.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: A fun shooter with Pistol Whip vibes that is absolutely worth the price of admission. From the store page: “ARK and ADE is an action-jammed FPS shooter in which you get to experience the glory of the 80’s arcade era in a neon fused setting. Shoot your way through retro-futuristic levels filled with enemies, iconic over the top bosses and never ending bullets!” I played this game back when it was in App Lab before it graduated to the full store. It was such a fun shooter back then, and I’d look forward to new levels coming out every few months. Now that it made it out of app lab, has a bunch of levels and had the gameplay polished, it’s absolutely worth a pickup, especially for that price.
   
2. Project Third Eye $9.99 Quest My quick take: A game where you make your own fun. From the store page: “Project Third Eye is an action physics sandbox with a built-in visual scripting panel to apply logic to spawnable items. This allows you to build your own modifications to the game and customize behaviors as you like.” Just like the description says, this is more of a proof of concept and sandbox game more so than a full fledged game with objectives. There are certainly neat ideas here and there, and the dev is really active with updates on Reddit. If you like to experiment and see how concepts develop in a game, you may enjoy this, but there’s no real direction beyond experimenting, so I dropped off fairly quickly.
   
3. Jousting VR Demo $9.99 Quest / Steam Quest Demo My quick take: A bit light on gameplay, but there is some charm here. From the store page: “XIII century, Europe, royal market courtyard. You are a knight who joined the medieval tournament. Your task is 'simple.' Jump on your trusty steed, grab your lance & defeat the enemy. Take into consideration speed, accuracy, strength. Equipment is also important. The better gear the easier the task. Oh, and other knights - they want to win as much as you do.” As advertised, it's a jousting game in VR. I enjoyed the demo, but honestly it was a bit too finicky at times and just not worth a full buy to me. The atmosphere was fun though and there was a progression loop for those who get into it.
   
4. Demeo $39.99 Quest and Steam (flatscreen as well) My quick take: This is a great game that I revisited from start to finish with four players. A must own. From the store page: “Adventurers, it’s time to unite! Gather your friends and fight monsters in Demeo, the turn-based tabletop strategy game of battle and glory. Roll dice, pick up miniatures, and free the world of Gilmerra in round after round of tabletop board game fun. With a huge assortment of monsters, playable classes, and environments to explore, it’s never the same game twice." I finally got a chance to play through the entirety of the game in VR with four friends, through each world, while trying a variety of characters. We even made a video ranking the best players and levels. It really is a solid dungeon crawling adventure. With 2 or more friends, this game really shines and is such a fun ride, despite how punishing the bosses can be. This is the closest you can get to D&D in VR without having a dungeon master. Well worth the asking price.
   
5. Build and Drive Racing Demo Free Quest / Steam My quick take: Early days in development, maybe something to keep an eye on to see how it improves. From the store page: "Get ready for a new experience on Windows desktop and VR, where you get to build your ultimate racing machine, tailored to your driving style and optimized for performance, or race to the finish line with a monster what makes you smile. With stylised graphics and arcade-like physics, every turn, straightway and ramp will put your skills to the test. Feel the thrill of the race like never before in VR, as you immerse yourself counting the seconds on the home stretch." An early demo that has seen some updates. Maybe worth looking at in a few months after a bit more development. I did like what I saw, but honestly, if you’re looking for a finished racing game, try Mini Motor Racing X instead or some of the other heavier PCVR games available.
   
6. Les Mills Body Combat $29.99 Quest My quick take: No subscriptions, great coaches and fun workouts that will make you sweat. From the store page: “Work out at home with a premium fitness app. LES MILLS, the world's leading fitness company, brings the BODYCOMBAT experience to your VR headset with an extensive workout portfolio, top-quality coaching, innovative mechanics, and different intensities.” With no subscriptions or hidden fees, lots of workouts, motivating coaches and the ability to compete with friends on leaderboards, this really is a dynamite workout app. I was working up a good sweat during my workouts, so be sure you have good facial insert and a fan ready. Highly recommended if you want a workout in VR for just the price of entry.
   
7. Interkosmos 2000 $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: A difficult puzzle game, but rewarding if you have the patience. From the store page: “Go to space. Save the Future. Try not to Die. Welcome (back) to the world of Interkosmos for an even wilder, weirder and more wondrous adventure. Experience the intense exhilaration of spaceflight. Explore the awe-inspiring interiors of a realistic space capsule. Master the crucial systems that will keep you in orbit (and breathing). And while you’re at it, try your best not to die. Should you complete your mission, you just might save the future – and yourself. Should you fail? Let’s not think about that.” An intense puzzle game where you’re piloting a space ship with some very finicky controls. I found the experience way too difficult and exacting. Along with a bit of bugginess, that didn’t help in me determining if the error was my fault or the game's. If you have the patience, there certainly is some rewarding gameplay here, and an interesting story, but I found it all a bit too much to see to the end.
   
8. The Light Brigade $24.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: In a world of rougelikes, this is one that stands out. From the store page: “As a member of The Light Brigade, humanity’s last line of defense, brave ruins bathed in darkness and free the trapped souls who need the salvation only your gun can provide. Shoot, master spells, and upgrade your capabilities to herald the Sun’s return in this roguelike VR shooter.” There’s quite a lot of rouge shooters on Quest and despite the plethora of choices, this one stands out. Be warned, it starts out slowly, but gets quite fun after you get to know the systems after about an hour in. While I did make it to the last boss, I died and never went back to finished it. The gameplay loop and dynamic levels were solid though. The slight upgrades and different classes during each run were interesting and kept me going for a while. The most frustrating time I had was learning the little tips, tricks and finer gameplay points, but it was worth the push through that initial rough patch.
   
9. Resident Evil 4 $39.99 Quest My quick take: One of the best games in VR. A must own. From the store page: “Explore the world of Resident Evil 4, entirely remastered for VR. Step into the shoes of special agent Leon S. Kennedy on his mission to rescue the U.S. President’s daughter who was kidnapped by a mysterious cult. Come face to face with enemies, and uncover secrets with gameplay that revolutionized the survival horror genre. Battle horrific creatures and face-off against mind-controlled villagers while discovering their connection to the cult behind the abduction.” I forgot so much about this game from when I first played it 18 years ago on the GameCube. The long length, fun characters and how exciting the gun play is, all just came together perfectly. The development team spent a ton of time getting the VR feeling just right, and it’s absolutely one of the best on the Quest and well worth the price of entry. Additionally, once you play through the game the first time it really changes from survival horror to a whole new type of game action game. Simply outstanding.
   
10. Mini Golf Hustler Free Quest My quick take: Early days in development. Some good ideas, but a bit too rough around the edges. From the store page: “Challenge Slick Willie Puttman in this FREE nine hole demo of Mini Golf Hustler. Hazards include armed torpedoes, tentacled arms, ornery tikis and more! Multiple betting games, including skins, match play and the fearsome traveling snake. All played at the same time.” I thought I’d check out another mini golf game to see what other ideas there might be outside of the king - Walkabout Mini Golf. While there were some solid ideas for holes, the betting felt uneven, and everything else felt in their very early stages. To be fair, no other mini golf game feels even close to the accuracy of Walkabout, so I think it’s a tough go for any other games to match. It's probably best to stick with the champ for now, but I applaud the dev for trying something different.
    
11. Pin City Free Quest (open beta on Discord) / Steam My quick take: Early days, but wow, worth a download and one to watch in the future. From the store page: "Pin City is a bowling game unlike any other bowling game you’ve played before. We strove to bring the spirit of mini-golf into the world of bowling. We’ve taken the standard bowling setup (straight lane, 10 pins, 1 ball) and expanded, transformed, and evolved it. We wanted to give people a chance to bowl in ways that would be impossible, illegal, or extremely impractical.” An early alpha game, but boy, what a great start, I’m really looking forward to the team getting the physics feeling right with weight and feel of the bowling balls and seeing how much more gameplay they can add. Really worth the download or heading over to their Discord to get a Quest key for free to try it out. The quirky bowling, physics and gameplay they're experimenting with really got me excited to see how this one comes together in the next several months.
    
12. Mash Me Up Free Quest My quick take: Please devs, add more multiplayer support! From the store page: “Do you want to play party games with your friends or meet someone new? All is just one button press away with Mash Me Up. One button, multiple games. Will it be Air Hockey, Pier Pong, Flingball, or… Get ready for a surprise! Press, Play, Enjoy and Go Again!” If this game got a bit more development love it would be incredible. As it stands now, there are several mini games you can play against one person. Most are just okay, but a handful are real gems, and one particularly is incredible - Geo Guesser. Hands down the best mini game in the pack. With four, or six players and some new content, they could easily charge for just this one game. As it stands now, it’s a great two player game, but you’ll need to bring your own friend as the servers are pretty barren. Worth a download though for sure as you’ll get a night of fun out of it.
    
13. THZZLS - Treasures Lost In Time $4.99 Quest My quick take: A unique puzzler that can be pretty relaxing, but repetitive. From the store page: “Our first THZZLE is called "Der Bazar", the world's first VR toy theatre puzzle game. The Bazar is a VR puzzle game where you have to place furniture and props in the right places in old-fashioned rooms according to an old picture you see. The game is set in 19th century Germany and each room has objects taken from the German lifestyle magazine "Der Bazar", published in Berlin.” This one used to be free, with paid content, but it has since changed as they added more content. You recreate a scene with cutouts of people and furniture in a 3D space. It seemed to have endless puzzles with randomization of scenes. I could see someone going to this for a relaxing 10-15 minutes, but it is a lot of the same each time and didn’t grab me fully. If you’re looking for a puzzle game that’s outside of the usual ones you find in the store, it’s not a bad choice for the price. Keep in mind though its hand tracking only, so for some that may be a non starter, even though it felt just fine.
    
14. Barbaria $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: What I imagine Gorn is like with a solid game loop of RTS. From the store page: “Do you have what it takes to be the Mightiest in Barbaria? Welcome to a brutal world where visceral motion-controlled combat blends seamlessly with god-scale base-building and asynchronous multiplayer raids. Use fists, axes, swords, bows, rocks, or anything you can grab to dominate your foes in intense 1st-person combat. Then jump out to your immortal form and watch your minions carry on the battle while you rain down meteors from above. Systemic combat, versatile enemy AI, and player-created defenses make every battle unique.” I recognize there is a lot here to do in this game - if you like the game loop. Unfortunately, it really didn’t do much for me. I was expecting more RTS than Gorn style gameplay and was not pulled in by the fighting or quests offered. I have to say that the humor was spot on, and it certainly had good visuals, the game was just not for me. All that being said, there is a lot of content here and you could be playing this for quite some time if you think this could be your jam.
    
15. Toy Monsters Free Quest Demo / $4.99 Quest My quick take: Plants vs Zombies in AR with hand tracking that does enough unique stuff to be worth it. From the store page: “Toy Monsters VR is a mixed-reality tabletop tower defense inspired by classic Plants vs Zombies. Built from the ground up with hand tracking and passthrough in mind. As you progress through the 20 levels, you'll unlock new toys with unique special powers. You can enhance your toys with magical potions and use crystal power to unleash magic beams from your hands, transform your fingers into flamethrowers, and more.” This game has come a long way since its initial release. It’s a solid hand tracking Plants vs. Zombies game with its own twist on powers and uses passthrough quite nicely. My biggest complaint is that you really need to complete the game all in one go (about an hour or so) as it doesn’t keep track of your upgrades if you quit. Essentially, trying to pass a later level without prior upgrades or powerups is near impossible. Despite that one issue, give at least the demo a try and if you like it, the price is pretty fair for what you get.
    
16. Exit Condition One Free Quest Demo / $4.99 Quest My quick take: A bit rough around the edges, but escape room fans will find fun with it. From the store page: “You awake from cryo in a mysterious museum. A robot refers to you as a curator and the security system is malfunctioning. Can you get things back to normal and escape? There are no jump scares. The game is designed ground-up for roomscale VR on the Quest, but supports all locomotion modes. Most objects can be interacted with, it fully uses physics, and the hands don't ‘ghost out.’” According to the description, this is still a work in progress. That being said, it was a neat escape game that I felt I got my money’s worth from. It certainly was a bit rough around the edges with its gameplay and had some obscure puzzles to work through, but I did finish it and had a good time with it. Try the demo for sure, and perhaps when it’s finally finished, some of those rough edges will be polished up, but as it stands now, it was pretty solid.
    
17. Hyperdash Free Quest / Steam My quick take: A solid online shooter, but you'll have to put in the time to get good to find the fun. From the store page: “Hyper Dash is a free VR multiplayer team based shooter. Payload, Domination, Control Point, (Team) Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Elimination, Ball and remix them with Mutators! Dash, sprint, and rail grind your way across the arenas to engage the enemy in fast-paced combat and secure the objective for your team. Offline mode/Bots, Dedicated servers, Private servers, Rebind-able controls, Left hand support, Voice chat.” For a free to play shooter, this one had great controls, nice graphics, a good gameplay loop, plenty of comfort options and a solid player base. All that being said, every player I faced off against were top tier, so I spent my time just dying round after round. This is a good game with a solid player base and there's fun here - if you’re willing to learn the ropes. It's bad for newbies like me just looking to have a good time and get a few kills.
    
18. Please, Don’t Touch Anything $9.99 Quest / $4.99 Steam My quick take: A game for escape room devotees only. From the store page: "Please, Don’t Touch Anything is a cryptic, brain-racking button-pushing puzzle game. Covering for a colleague taking a bathroom break, you find yourself in front of a mysterious console with a green screen monitor showing a pixelated live image of an unknown city. Also present is an ominous red button with the simple instruction to not touch anything! Push the red button once or press it many times. Your choices and actions will lead to outrageous and frightening consequences and over 30 unique puzzle endings.” This is a weird one. A really obscure puzzle game that rewards experimentation, but is absolutely punishing with difficulty. If you’re really good at escape games and don’t get frustrated easily, you may enjoy the tedium. If not, you’ll end up like me, watching a tutorial to find out how to get different endings. But if you find yourself doing that, why not just watch a playthrough.
    
19. Eleven Table Tennis $29.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Still one of the best, but there’s so much untapped potential. From the store page: “The ultimate Table Tennis simulator. Play opponents in online multiplayer or practice against the advanced AI. With physics designed to be as real as ever achieved in a Table Tennis simulator, you will forget you are in VR." I finally got back to this game after the new UI was implemented. It looks much more user friendly, but much to my disappointment, there were no new arenas, music, or official doubles options. There is so much potential for expanding this game, and I feel like the devs are just content to have it remain in the state it currently is. Which, to be fair, is a perfect implementation of table tennis in VR. It’s still one of the best VR games out there and absolutely a must own. I just really wish they would add an officially supported doubles mode and expand out the game a bit more because the unofficial doubles mode is a real pain to get set up and only barely worth the struggle. If you'd like to see how to set that doubles up currently, here is a video I was a part of.
    
20. Breachers $29.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Come one, come all, this is 5 v 5 at its finest. From the store page: “In Breachers, you plan your assault or orchestrate your defense as a team through intense close-quarters combat. Whether you play as an enforcer or a revolter, master your nifty gadgetry, customize your powerful weaponry and beat your opponents in stunning environments. Intuitive to grasp. Endlessly playable.” Wow, wow, wow. This officially launched and is such a polished game. With multiple maps, intuitive movement and full lobbies, this game is simply spectacular. Despite the difficulty curve in being good at the game, it’s still a fun time even if you’re not the best, which is something special that few games manage to pull off. Where this game especially shines is with friends. If you can muster up a team of five to take on other random players, you’ll be playing this game for months. Give this a go, and if you're not any good, that's okay, because you'll still be better than the bots and a welcome addition to someone's team.
    
21. Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Outcast (Sidequest mod) Free Demo on Quest / $9.99 (Full Game on Steam) My quick take: Come for the lightsaber play, stay if you can tolerate the puzzles. From the store page: “JK XR is a standalone VR port of the popular Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast game by Lucasarts and Raven Software. Brought to VR by Team Beef & Friends. There are lots of mods and access to the free demo level available through the JK XR Companion App, which is automatically also installed alongside JK XR on your headset.” I never played this game when it first came out on flatscreen in 2002, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The first part of the game you’re playing essentially as a Han Solo type - a smart talkin’ gun slinger. The next part, you’re a cool Jedi chopping off limbs. Absolutely great execution as always by Team Beef, and you can’t beat the price. There is even a free demo to try out to see if you like it. All that being said, the game’s old puzzles, navigation and gameplay felt every bit of 20 years old. After dying multiple times because of missing an exact jump, getting lost and backtracking because I didn't see an obscure elevator and wasting time trying to navigate odd puzzles, I just found it to be too much to overcome to continue to the end. This is no slight on Team Beef and the great work they did with this port, the game just hasn’t aged the best.
    
22. CoasterMania $9.99 Quest My quick take: Early days, but still some fun to be had. There could be something special here after a few updates. From the store page: “CoasterMania is a physics-based VR rollercoaster game where you create the ride of your life! Use wacky contraptions and elements to fly through the sky, then experience your creation by jumping in the front seat. Sandbox mode: Build your dream rollercoaster without any rules but the rules of physics. When you're done, share your coaster or experience the engineering marvels of others. Design your own rides and upload them online.” You know, this game is just silly fun. It's early days for sure, and the tracks don't twist and come together as easily together as I’d hoped, which makes for a difficult time creating exactly what you want. It is satisfying though to have a roller coaster leap from one track to another over a gap. At this point the game is more of a sandbox than a full game with objectives (which is coming). The coasters other people have created are fun, so if you’re not into creating, there is that option to play with other people's designs, plus you can ride them in first person. I look forward to more updates and think it's worth looking at for sure, but if you’re looking for something a bit more fleshed out currently you can try Stunt Track Builder.
    
23. David Slade Mysteries: Case Files $9.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: You’re a forensic cop, here are your tools. Good luck dummy. From the store page: “Take to the dark and violent streets of downtown Riverside, where you investigate gruesome and violent homicides using a range of Forensic tools and your wits! Inspired by the classic Police Quest adventure series, reborn & reimagined for VR. Includes two epic episodes!” Slade is a murder mystery game that is ruthless in it’s difficulty. Honestly, there are several play throughs of this game on YouTube and none have beaten the first case because it was too hard, they all gave up. This game offers no hints, is super abstract and insanely difficult. Why did I keep playing? Well, the game’s tools were implemented quite well, the story was compelling, and I just felt I had to see this through to the end for my own sanity. Despite being as hard as nails, I somehow managed to finish the first case, then moved on to the second. No real spoilers, but the second case does a complete 180 and essentially becomes a horror game where you’re only weapon is your wits. A real departure from the first case. Again, I found myself frustrated, confused and turned around, but again, I had to power through it because something kept pulling me in. If you’re a masochist for puzzle games, I’d recommend this game.
    
24. Home Detective Free w/IAP - Quest My quick take: Fun use of AR, but pretty basic. From the store page: “Use your own living room to solve the crime! Using passthrough, the crime scene is overlaid onto your play area, leaving you free to explore and find clues. Use the patent-pending Residual Heat Scanner to detect the criminals' recent movements, and then dust for fingerprints or try to find evidence left behind. With your wits, and your trusty sidekick Steve Dobbins' snarky comments, you're sure to get to the bottom of these confusing crimes.” I appreciate the interesting use of passthrough and AR in this game. The first case is free to try, so if you’re into AR and passthrough, it’s worth a try. It's $3.99 for another case if you’re into it, but right now, it’s a pretty basic, but solid idea. My biggest complaint is that all my tools were on a shelf that was inaccessible because they were in my wall. I guess AR is still not quite there yet.
    
25. Vertigo Remastered $24.99 Steam My quick take: A fun and wacky ride from start to finish. From the store page: “It's a classic premise - a massive subterranean scientific facility full of mysteries, with aliens bursting in from alternate universes to wreak havoc. The twist? You're one of those aliens. But you're not here to wreak havoc (collateral damage disregarded), you're just trying to get home. A difficult endeavor, as it turns out this facility is more than prepared to deal with extraterrestrial threats.” Because I heard such great things about Vertigo 2, I thought I’d try out this game before I played the sequel. I was really blown away by how fun the game was and pleasantly surprised that it holds up so well. Considering its a 2016 remake, and VR was still figuring out a lot of things like movement, this still felt fresh. With lots of unique ideas, upgrades and areas to play in, I heartily recommend this one and am looking forward to playing the sequel.
    
26. Playin’ Pickleball $19.99 Quest My quick take: Solid physics, but really only for pickleball fans, or a group of four friends. From the store page: “Playin’ Pickleball is an authentic reproduction of Pickleball in Virtual Reality! Physics, sounds and mechanics have been carefully mapped from actual Pickleball game play. Even the scoring and rules are based on the USA Pickleball Association’s Official Rulebook.” Pickleball is sweeping the nation and if I recall correctly, even ForeVR is getting in on the game with an upcoming title. I’m much more of a tennis than pickleball guy, but I have to say, this game has pretty solid physics. Like most games, this is exponentially better with one or better yet, three other people you know. The AI players can be pretty uninteresting hitting it back and forth without much variance. Also the environments are a bit basic. I have to applaud the movement, physics and customizable items though as they all felt very well implemented. If you want something a bit less daunting than tennis, this might be what you're looking for.
    
27. Pong $6.99 Quest My quick take: A neat take on Pong, but you’ll have more fun with Cybrix. From the store page: “Classic paddle game reimagined for VR. Destroy all the bricks. Use your paddles to swing at the balls and the balls have built-in assistance to return back toward you. Take advantage of the pistol and magneto power-ups to cause major damage. Or just swing hard at the balls to create large blast radius. Oh and watch out for those mines going for your head. Lean left/right or crouch to avoid.” I appreciated the ideas the developers had in this modern take on Pong, but it was ultimately quite short and not nearly as fun as Cybrix. That being said for the price, I got my money’s worth and would love to see it get a bit more polish and levels in an update.
    
28. Extreme Escape $4.99 Quest / Steam (Early Access) My quick take: One of those special games where you really feel like you're in the environment. From the store page: “Have you ever wondered how it would feel to travel in a hot air balloon and fly above clouds? Have you ever wanted to face your fear of heights and enclosed spaces? Perhaps you wanted to become a pilot and test your critical thinking skills. Looking for a breathtaking experience? Try Extreme Escape.” The game says “early access,” but honestly I believe this has been abandoned. For the price, you get an extremely short, but fun and unique escape room experience. You’re not going to find this game too hard, but I was brought into its world and completely immersed - I had a true sense of dread and panic. The even shorter “demo” inside the game puts you on a sinking submarine and was extremely memorable. Seldom have I felt so immersed in a game. I’d recommend it for this price, just because of how it made me feel, but it’s a real shame about the very short length and that it’s abandoned.
    
29. The Last Worker $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Gaming with a heavy message, but mediocre gameplay. From the store page: “The Last Worker is an immersive narrative adventure centered around a lone worker’s last stand in an increasingly automated world, The Last Worker is a unique blend of work simulation and stealth strategic gameplay. The game is set in a lonely, oppressive but strangely beautiful environment, with characters designed by comics legend Mick McMahon. Kurt works for the world’s largest retailer and is forced to choose between capitalism or activism. Having dedicated his life to work, Kurt’s loyalty is put to the test when a group of activists ask him to dismantle Jüngle from the inside.” I really wanted to like this game. It had an interesting concept, but navigating, fail states and some very annoying bugs frustrated me to the point where I just said it wasn’t worth my time. That and the story wasn’t speaking to me. It’s well rated, so I’m probably on the opposite side of this one from most people. It's unique in many ways, so check out the teaser and see if it might be for you.
    
30. Shadow Point $19.99 Quest My quick take: Fisherman’s Tale vibes with an excellent story and puzzles that makes you feel smart. From the store page: “Built for VR, Shadow Point is a story-driven puzzle game set between a mountaintop observatory and an ever-changing fantasy world. Explore a vibrant kingdom, cast shadows and solve mind-bending puzzles as you uncover the mystery of missing schoolgirl, Lorna McCabe who vanished from Shadow Point Observatory twelve years ago. As your adventure unfolds, you will manipulate gravity, play with your own reflection, walk on walls, peer through a magical lens to reveal an alternate reality and much more.” I had this game on my wishlist forever and finally pulled the trigger, and boy am I glad I did. I really enjoyed the story, gameplay and ended up marathoning it in one session (which I don't recommend doing). It is a few hours long, and there are extra puzzles to go back to if you’d like. It had some serious Fisherman’s Tale vibes, so if you like those type of puzzle games, this is for you. The puzzles make you stop and think, and more importantly, progress nicely. I was never stuck, but certainly had to really contemplate how to solve some of them. It is slightly finicky with having to line up the shadows exactly to progress, but that is a minor complaint. Give this one a go for sure.
    

I hope you find a few games on this list that you might not have heard of, or that you might find worth revisiting. Let me know here or on the Ruff Talk Discord channel if you have a game you enjoy that I should try, I'm always open to recommendations. Until then, I hope your next VR experience is a memorable one.
Also, the week this is posted, I'm hosting a contest where one winner gets a $29.99 or less, Quest game of their choice. You can enter on the discord channel above, but will need to have five posts on the discord channel within a week to enter, so if that interests you, feel free to join. The Ruff Talk guys usually have giveaways every week and it's some solid VR chat if you're looking for like-minded individuals in a non-toxic space.
TLDR: Top five games to check out - Ark and Ade, Pin City, Breachers, Shadow Point, Vertigo Remastered

I'm keeping track of all the VR games I’ve played this year to catalogue them in hopes that they may give fellow VR gamers some fresh games to try out, or reasons to revisit older games that have had big updates. I'm currently up to 52 different VR games played this year. The first 22 that I played from January to March can be found here. The latest 30 games are mostly on the Quest, but many are available on PCVR.
Some of the games listed below, I can see playing all year long, others are not my cup of tea, but they may interest you enough to try them out. In either case, here are my quick thoughts on the 30 games I’ve played during April and May of 2023.
TLDR: My top 5 games to check out are at the bottom and so is some info for a game giveaway.
​

1. ARK and ADE $9.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: A fun shooter with Pistol Whip vibes that is absolutely worth the price of admission. From the store page: “ARK and ADE is an action-jammed FPS shooter in which you get to experience the glory of the 80’s arcade era in a neon fused setting. Shoot your way through retro-futuristic levels filled with enemies, iconic over the top bosses and never ending bullets!” I played this game back when it was in App Lab before it graduated to the full store. It was such a fun shooter back then, and I’d look forward to new levels coming out every few months. Now that it made it out of app lab, has a bunch of levels and had the gameplay polished, it’s absolutely worth a pickup, especially for that price.
   
2. Project Third Eye $9.99 Quest My quick take: A game where you make your own fun. From the store page: “Project Third Eye is an action physics sandbox with a built-in visual scripting panel to apply logic to spawnable items. This allows you to build your own modifications to the game and customize behaviors as you like.” Just like the description says, this is more of a proof of concept and sandbox game more so than a full fledged game with objectives. There are certainly neat ideas here and there, and the dev is really active with updates on Reddit. If you like to experiment and see how concepts develop in a game, you may enjoy this, but there’s no real direction beyond experimenting, so I dropped off fairly quickly.
   
3. Jousting VR Demo $9.99 Quest / Steam Quest Demo My quick take: A bit light on gameplay, but there is some charm here. From the store page: “XIII century, Europe, royal market courtyard. You are a knight who joined the medieval tournament. Your task is 'simple.' Jump on your trusty steed, grab your lance & defeat the enemy. Take into consideration speed, accuracy, strength. Equipment is also important. The better gear the easier the task. Oh, and other knights - they want to win as much as you do.” As advertised, it's a jousting game in VR. I enjoyed the demo, but honestly it was a bit too finicky at times and just not worth a full buy to me. The atmosphere was fun though and there was a progression loop for those who get into it.
   
4. Demeo $39.99 Quest and Steam (flatscreen as well) My quick take: This is a great game that I revisited from start to finish with four players. A must own. From the store page: “Adventurers, it’s time to unite! Gather your friends and fight monsters in Demeo, the turn-based tabletop strategy game of battle and glory. Roll dice, pick up miniatures, and free the world of Gilmerra in round after round of tabletop board game fun. With a huge assortment of monsters, playable classes, and environments to explore, it’s never the same game twice." I finally got a chance to play through the entirety of the game in VR with four friends, through each world, while trying a variety of characters. We even made a video ranking the best players and levels. It really is a solid dungeon crawling adventure. With 2 or more friends, this game really shines and is such a fun ride, despite how punishing the bosses can be. This is the closest you can get to D&D in VR without having a dungeon master. Well worth the asking price.
   
5. Build and Drive Racing Demo Free Quest / Steam My quick take: Early days in development, maybe something to keep an eye on to see how it improves. From the store page: "Get ready for a new experience on Windows desktop and VR, where you get to build your ultimate racing machine, tailored to your driving style and optimized for performance, or race to the finish line with a monster what makes you smile. With stylised graphics and arcade-like physics, every turn, straightway and ramp will put your skills to the test. Feel the thrill of the race like never before in VR, as you immerse yourself counting the seconds on the home stretch." An early demo that has seen some updates. Maybe worth looking at in a few months after a bit more development. I did like what I saw, but honestly, if you’re looking for a finished racing game, try Mini Motor Racing X instead or some of the other heavier PCVR games available.
   
6. Les Mills Body Combat $29.99 Quest My quick take: No subscriptions, great coaches and fun workouts that will make you sweat. From the store page: “Work out at home with a premium fitness app. LES MILLS, the world's leading fitness company, brings the BODYCOMBAT experience to your VR headset with an extensive workout portfolio, top-quality coaching, innovative mechanics, and different intensities.” With no subscriptions or hidden fees, lots of workouts, motivating coaches and the ability to compete with friends on leaderboards, this really is a dynamite workout app. I was working up a good sweat during my workouts, so be sure you have good facial insert and a fan ready. Highly recommended if you want a workout in VR for just the price of entry.
   
7. Interkosmos 2000 $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: A difficult puzzle game, but rewarding if you have the patience. From the store page: “Go to space. Save the Future. Try not to Die. Welcome (back) to the world of Interkosmos for an even wilder, weirder and more wondrous adventure. Experience the intense exhilaration of spaceflight. Explore the awe-inspiring interiors of a realistic space capsule. Master the crucial systems that will keep you in orbit (and breathing). And while you’re at it, try your best not to die. Should you complete your mission, you just might save the future – and yourself. Should you fail? Let’s not think about that.” An intense puzzle game where you’re piloting a space ship with some very finicky controls. I found the experience way too difficult and exacting. Along with a bit of bugginess, that didn’t help in me determining if the error was my fault or the game's. If you have the patience, there certainly is some rewarding gameplay here, and an interesting story, but I found it all a bit too much to see to the end.
   
8. The Light Brigade $24.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: In a world of rougelikes, this is one that stands out. From the store page: “As a member of The Light Brigade, humanity’s last line of defense, brave ruins bathed in darkness and free the trapped souls who need the salvation only your gun can provide. Shoot, master spells, and upgrade your capabilities to herald the Sun’s return in this roguelike VR shooter.” There’s quite a lot of rouge shooters on Quest and despite the plethora of choices, this one stands out. Be warned, it starts out slowly, but gets quite fun after you get to know the systems after about an hour in. While I did make it to the last boss, I died and never went back to finished it. The gameplay loop and dynamic levels were solid though. The slight upgrades and different classes during each run were interesting and kept me going for a while. The most frustrating time I had was learning the little tips, tricks and finer gameplay points, but it was worth the push through that initial rough patch.
   
9. Resident Evil 4 $39.99 Quest My quick take: One of the best games in VR. A must own. From the store page: “Explore the world of Resident Evil 4, entirely remastered for VR. Step into the shoes of special agent Leon S. Kennedy on his mission to rescue the U.S. President’s daughter who was kidnapped by a mysterious cult. Come face to face with enemies, and uncover secrets with gameplay that revolutionized the survival horror genre. Battle horrific creatures and face-off against mind-controlled villagers while discovering their connection to the cult behind the abduction.” I forgot so much about this game from when I first played it 18 years ago on the GameCube. The long length, fun characters and how exciting the gun play is, all just came together perfectly. The development team spent a ton of time getting the VR feeling just right, and it’s absolutely one of the best on the Quest and well worth the price of entry. Additionally, once you play through the game the first time it really changes from survival horror to a whole new type of game action game. Simply outstanding.
   
10. Mini Golf Hustler Free Quest My quick take: Early days in development. Some good ideas, but a bit too rough around the edges. From the store page: “Challenge Slick Willie Puttman in this FREE nine hole demo of Mini Golf Hustler. Hazards include armed torpedoes, tentacled arms, ornery tikis and more! Multiple betting games, including skins, match play and the fearsome traveling snake. All played at the same time.” I thought I’d check out another mini golf game to see what other ideas there might be outside of the king - Walkabout Mini Golf. While there were some solid ideas for holes, the betting felt uneven, and everything else felt in their very early stages. To be fair, no other mini golf game feels even close to the accuracy of Walkabout, so I think it’s a tough go for any other games to match. It's probably best to stick with the champ for now, but I applaud the dev for trying something different.
    
11. Pin City Free Quest (open beta on Discord) / Steam My quick take: Early days, but wow, worth a download and one to watch in the future. From the store page: "Pin City is a bowling game unlike any other bowling game you’ve played before. We strove to bring the spirit of mini-golf into the world of bowling. We’ve taken the standard bowling setup (straight lane, 10 pins, 1 ball) and expanded, transformed, and evolved it. We wanted to give people a chance to bowl in ways that would be impossible, illegal, or extremely impractical.” An early alpha game, but boy, what a great start, I’m really looking forward to the team getting the physics feeling right with weight and feel of the bowling balls and seeing how much more gameplay they can add. Really worth the download or heading over to their Discord to get a Quest key for free to try it out. The quirky bowling, physics and gameplay they're experimenting with really got me excited to see how this one comes together in the next several months.
    
12. Mash Me Up Free Quest My quick take: Please devs, add more multiplayer support! From the store page: “Do you want to play party games with your friends or meet someone new? All is just one button press away with Mash Me Up. One button, multiple games. Will it be Air Hockey, Pier Pong, Flingball, or… Get ready for a surprise! Press, Play, Enjoy and Go Again!” If this game got a bit more development love it would be incredible. As it stands now, there are several mini games you can play against one person. Most are just okay, but a handful are real gems, and one particularly is incredible - Geo Guesser. Hands down the best mini game in the pack. With four, or six players and some new content, they could easily charge for just this one game. As it stands now, it’s a great two player game, but you’ll need to bring your own friend as the servers are pretty barren. Worth a download though for sure as you’ll get a night of fun out of it.
    
13. THZZLS - Treasures Lost In Time $4.99 Quest My quick take: A unique puzzler that can be pretty relaxing, but repetitive. From the store page: “Our first THZZLE is called "Der Bazar", the world's first VR toy theatre puzzle game. The Bazar is a VR puzzle game where you have to place furniture and props in the right places in old-fashioned rooms according to an old picture you see. The game is set in 19th century Germany and each room has objects taken from the German lifestyle magazine "Der Bazar", published in Berlin.” This one used to be free, with paid content, but it has since changed as they added more content. You recreate a scene with cutouts of people and furniture in a 3D space. It seemed to have endless puzzles with randomization of scenes. I could see someone going to this for a relaxing 10-15 minutes, but it is a lot of the same each time and didn’t grab me fully. If you’re looking for a puzzle game that’s outside of the usual ones you find in the store, it’s not a bad choice for the price. Keep in mind though its hand tracking only, so for some that may be a non starter, even though it felt just fine.
    
14. Barbaria $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: What I imagine Gorn is like with a solid game loop of RTS. From the store page: “Do you have what it takes to be the Mightiest in Barbaria? Welcome to a brutal world where visceral motion-controlled combat blends seamlessly with god-scale base-building and asynchronous multiplayer raids. Use fists, axes, swords, bows, rocks, or anything you can grab to dominate your foes in intense 1st-person combat. Then jump out to your immortal form and watch your minions carry on the battle while you rain down meteors from above. Systemic combat, versatile enemy AI, and player-created defenses make every battle unique.” I recognize there is a lot here to do in this game - if you like the game loop. Unfortunately, it really didn’t do much for me. I was expecting more RTS than Gorn style gameplay and was not pulled in by the fighting or quests offered. I have to say that the humor was spot on, and it certainly had good visuals, the game was just not for me. All that being said, there is a lot of content here and you could be playing this for quite some time if you think this could be your jam.
    
15. Toy Monsters Free Quest Demo / $4.99 Quest My quick take: Plants vs Zombies in AR with hand tracking that does enough unique stuff to be worth it. From the store page: “Toy Monsters VR is a mixed-reality tabletop tower defense inspired by classic Plants vs Zombies. Built from the ground up with hand tracking and passthrough in mind. As you progress through the 20 levels, you'll unlock new toys with unique special powers. You can enhance your toys with magical potions and use crystal power to unleash magic beams from your hands, transform your fingers into flamethrowers, and more.” This game has come a long way since its initial release. It’s a solid hand tracking Plants vs. Zombies game with its own twist on powers and uses passthrough quite nicely. My biggest complaint is that you really need to complete the game all in one go (about an hour or so) as it doesn’t keep track of your upgrades if you quit. Essentially, trying to pass a later level without prior upgrades or powerups is near impossible. Despite that one issue, give at least the demo a try and if you like it, the price is pretty fair for what you get.
    
16. Exit Condition One Free Quest Demo / $4.99 Quest My quick take: A bit rough around the edges, but escape room fans will find fun with it. From the store page: “You awake from cryo in a mysterious museum. A robot refers to you as a curator and the security system is malfunctioning. Can you get things back to normal and escape? There are no jump scares. The game is designed ground-up for roomscale VR on the Quest, but supports all locomotion modes. Most objects can be interacted with, it fully uses physics, and the hands don't ‘ghost out.’” According to the description, this is still a work in progress. That being said, it was a neat escape game that I felt I got my money’s worth from. It certainly was a bit rough around the edges with its gameplay and had some obscure puzzles to work through, but I did finish it and had a good time with it. Try the demo for sure, and perhaps when it’s finally finished, some of those rough edges will be polished up, but as it stands now, it was pretty solid.
    
17. Hyperdash Free Quest / Steam My quick take: A solid online shooter, but you'll have to put in the time to get good to find the fun. From the store page: “Hyper Dash is a free VR multiplayer team based shooter. Payload, Domination, Control Point, (Team) Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Elimination, Ball and remix them with Mutators! Dash, sprint, and rail grind your way across the arenas to engage the enemy in fast-paced combat and secure the objective for your team. Offline mode/Bots, Dedicated servers, Private servers, Rebind-able controls, Left hand support, Voice chat.” For a free to play shooter, this one had great controls, nice graphics, a good gameplay loop, plenty of comfort options and a solid player base. All that being said, every player I faced off against were top tier, so I spent my time just dying round after round. This is a good game with a solid player base and there's fun here - if you’re willing to learn the ropes. It's bad for newbies like me just looking to have a good time and get a few kills.
    
18. Please, Don’t Touch Anything $9.99 Quest / $4.99 Steam My quick take: A game for escape room devotees only. From the store page: "Please, Don’t Touch Anything is a cryptic, brain-racking button-pushing puzzle game. Covering for a colleague taking a bathroom break, you find yourself in front of a mysterious console with a green screen monitor showing a pixelated live image of an unknown city. Also present is an ominous red button with the simple instruction to not touch anything! Push the red button once or press it many times. Your choices and actions will lead to outrageous and frightening consequences and over 30 unique puzzle endings.” This is a weird one. A really obscure puzzle game that rewards experimentation, but is absolutely punishing with difficulty. If you’re really good at escape games and don’t get frustrated easily, you may enjoy the tedium. If not, you’ll end up like me, watching a tutorial to find out how to get different endings. But if you find yourself doing that, why not just watch a playthrough.
    
19. Eleven Table Tennis $29.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Still one of the best, but there’s so much untapped potential. From the store page: “The ultimate Table Tennis simulator. Play opponents in online multiplayer or practice against the advanced AI. With physics designed to be as real as ever achieved in a Table Tennis simulator, you will forget you are in VR." I finally got back to this game after the new UI was implemented. It looks much more user friendly, but much to my disappointment, there were no new arenas, music, or official doubles options. There is so much potential for expanding this game, and I feel like the devs are just content to have it remain in the state it currently is. Which, to be fair, is a perfect implementation of table tennis in VR. It’s still one of the best VR games out there and absolutely a must own. I just really wish they would add an officially supported doubles mode and expand out the game a bit more because the unofficial doubles mode is a real pain to get set up and only barely worth the struggle. If you'd like to see how to set that doubles up currently, here is a video I was a part of.
    
20. Breachers $29.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Come one, come all, this is 5 v 5 at its finest. From the store page: “In Breachers, you plan your assault or orchestrate your defense as a team through intense close-quarters combat. Whether you play as an enforcer or a revolter, master your nifty gadgetry, customize your powerful weaponry and beat your opponents in stunning environments. Intuitive to grasp. Endlessly playable.” Wow, wow, wow. This officially launched and is such a polished game. With multiple maps, intuitive movement and full lobbies, this game is simply spectacular. Despite the difficulty curve in being good at the game, it’s still a fun time even if you’re not the best, which is something special that few games manage to pull off. Where this game especially shines is with friends. If you can muster up a team of five to take on other random players, you’ll be playing this game for months. Give this a go, and if you're not any good, that's okay, because you'll still be better than the bots and a welcome addition to someone's team.
    
21. Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Outcast (Sidequest mod) Free Demo on Quest / $9.99 (Full Game on Steam) My quick take: Come for the lightsaber play, stay if you can tolerate the puzzles. From the store page: “JK XR is a standalone VR port of the popular Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast game by Lucasarts and Raven Software. Brought to VR by Team Beef & Friends. There are lots of mods and access to the free demo level available through the JK XR Companion App, which is automatically also installed alongside JK XR on your headset.” I never played this game when it first came out on flatscreen in 2002, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The first part of the game you’re playing essentially as a Han Solo type - a smart talkin’ gun slinger. The next part, you’re a cool Jedi chopping off limbs. Absolutely great execution as always by Team Beef, and you can’t beat the price. There is even a free demo to try out to see if you like it. All that being said, the game’s old puzzles, navigation and gameplay felt every bit of 20 years old. After dying multiple times because of missing an exact jump, getting lost and backtracking because I didn't see an obscure elevator and wasting time trying to navigate odd puzzles, I just found it to be too much to overcome to continue to the end. This is no slight on Team Beef and the great work they did with this port, the game just hasn’t aged the best.
    
22. CoasterMania $9.99 Quest My quick take: Early days, but still some fun to be had. There could be something special here after a few updates. From the store page: “CoasterMania is a physics-based VR rollercoaster game where you create the ride of your life! Use wacky contraptions and elements to fly through the sky, then experience your creation by jumping in the front seat. Sandbox mode: Build your dream rollercoaster without any rules but the rules of physics. When you're done, share your coaster or experience the engineering marvels of others. Design your own rides and upload them online.” You know, this game is just silly fun. It's early days for sure, and the tracks don't twist and come together as easily together as I’d hoped, which makes for a difficult time creating exactly what you want. It is satisfying though to have a roller coaster leap from one track to another over a gap. At this point the game is more of a sandbox than a full game with objectives (which is coming). The coasters other people have created are fun, so if you’re not into creating, there is that option to play with other people's designs, plus you can ride them in first person. I look forward to more updates and think it's worth looking at for sure, but if you’re looking for something a bit more fleshed out currently you can try Stunt Track Builder.
    
23. David Slade Mysteries: Case Files $9.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: You’re a forensic cop, here are your tools. Good luck dummy. From the store page: “Take to the dark and violent streets of downtown Riverside, where you investigate gruesome and violent homicides using a range of Forensic tools and your wits! Inspired by the classic Police Quest adventure series, reborn & reimagined for VR. Includes two epic episodes!” Slade is a murder mystery game that is ruthless in it’s difficulty. Honestly, there are several play throughs of this game on YouTube and none have beaten the first case because it was too hard, they all gave up. This game offers no hints, is super abstract and insanely difficult. Why did I keep playing? Well, the game’s tools were implemented quite well, the story was compelling, and I just felt I had to see this through to the end for my own sanity. Despite being as hard as nails, I somehow managed to finish the first case, then moved on to the second. No real spoilers, but the second case does a complete 180 and essentially becomes a horror game where you’re only weapon is your wits. A real departure from the first case. Again, I found myself frustrated, confused and turned around, but again, I had to power through it because something kept pulling me in. If you’re a masochist for puzzle games, I’d recommend this game.
    
24. Home Detective Free w/IAP - Quest My quick take: Fun use of AR, but pretty basic. From the store page: “Use your own living room to solve the crime! Using passthrough, the crime scene is overlaid onto your play area, leaving you free to explore and find clues. Use the patent-pending Residual Heat Scanner to detect the criminals' recent movements, and then dust for fingerprints or try to find evidence left behind. With your wits, and your trusty sidekick Steve Dobbins' snarky comments, you're sure to get to the bottom of these confusing crimes.” I appreciate the interesting use of passthrough and AR in this game. The first case is free to try, so if you’re into AR and passthrough, it’s worth a try. It's $3.99 for another case if you’re into it, but right now, it’s a pretty basic, but solid idea. My biggest complaint is that all my tools were on a shelf that was inaccessible because they were in my wall. I guess AR is still not quite there yet.
    
25. Vertigo Remastered $24.99 Steam My quick take: A fun and wacky ride from start to finish. From the store page: “It's a classic premise - a massive subterranean scientific facility full of mysteries, with aliens bursting in from alternate universes to wreak havoc. The twist? You're one of those aliens. But you're not here to wreak havoc (collateral damage disregarded), you're just trying to get home. A difficult endeavor, as it turns out this facility is more than prepared to deal with extraterrestrial threats.” Because I heard such great things about Vertigo 2, I thought I’d try out this game before I played the sequel. I was really blown away by how fun the game was and pleasantly surprised that it holds up so well. Considering its a 2016 remake, and VR was still figuring out a lot of things like movement, this still felt fresh. With lots of unique ideas, upgrades and areas to play in, I heartily recommend this one and am looking forward to playing the sequel.
    
26. Playin’ Pickleball $19.99 Quest My quick take: Solid physics, but really only for pickleball fans, or a group of four friends. From the store page: “Playin’ Pickleball is an authentic reproduction of Pickleball in Virtual Reality! Physics, sounds and mechanics have been carefully mapped from actual Pickleball game play. Even the scoring and rules are based on the USA Pickleball Association’s Official Rulebook.” Pickleball is sweeping the nation and if I recall correctly, even ForeVR is getting in on the game with an upcoming title. I’m much more of a tennis than pickleball guy, but I have to say, this game has pretty solid physics. Like most games, this is exponentially better with one or better yet, three other people you know. The AI players can be pretty uninteresting hitting it back and forth without much variance. Also the environments are a bit basic. I have to applaud the movement, physics and customizable items though as they all felt very well implemented. If you want something a bit less daunting than tennis, this might be what you're looking for.
    
27. Pong $6.99 Quest My quick take: A neat take on Pong, but you’ll have more fun with Cybrix. From the store page: “Classic paddle game reimagined for VR. Destroy all the bricks. Use your paddles to swing at the balls and the balls have built-in assistance to return back toward you. Take advantage of the pistol and magneto power-ups to cause major damage. Or just swing hard at the balls to create large blast radius. Oh and watch out for those mines going for your head. Lean left/right or crouch to avoid.” I appreciated the ideas the developers had in this modern take on Pong, but it was ultimately quite short and not nearly as fun as Cybrix. That being said for the price, I got my money’s worth and would love to see it get a bit more polish and levels in an update.
    
28. Extreme Escape $4.99 Quest / Steam (Early Access) My quick take: One of those special games where you really feel like you're in the environment. From the store page: “Have you ever wondered how it would feel to travel in a hot air balloon and fly above clouds? Have you ever wanted to face your fear of heights and enclosed spaces? Perhaps you wanted to become a pilot and test your critical thinking skills. Looking for a breathtaking experience? Try Extreme Escape.” The game says “early access,” but honestly I believe this has been abandoned. For the price, you get an extremely short, but fun and unique escape room experience. You’re not going to find this game too hard, but I was brought into its world and completely immersed - I had a true sense of dread and panic. The even shorter “demo” inside the game puts you on a sinking submarine and was extremely memorable. Seldom have I felt so immersed in a game. I’d recommend it for this price, just because of how it made me feel, but it’s a real shame about the very short length and that it’s abandoned.
    
29. The Last Worker $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: Gaming with a heavy message, but mediocre gameplay. From the store page: “The Last Worker is an immersive narrative adventure centered around a lone worker’s last stand in an increasingly automated world, The Last Worker is a unique blend of work simulation and stealth strategic gameplay. The game is set in a lonely, oppressive but strangely beautiful environment, with characters designed by comics legend Mick McMahon. Kurt works for the world’s largest retailer and is forced to choose between capitalism or activism. Having dedicated his life to work, Kurt’s loyalty is put to the test when a group of activists ask him to dismantle Jüngle from the inside.” I really wanted to like this game. It had an interesting concept, but navigating, fail states and some very annoying bugs frustrated me to the point where I just said it wasn’t worth my time. That and the story wasn’t speaking to me. It’s well rated, so I’m probably on the opposite side of this one from most people. It's unique in many ways, so check out the teaser and see if it might be for you.
    
30. Shadow Point $19.99 Quest My quick take: Fisherman’s Tale vibes with an excellent story and puzzles that makes you feel smart. From the store page: “Built for VR, Shadow Point is a story-driven puzzle game set between a mountaintop observatory and an ever-changing fantasy world. Explore a vibrant kingdom, cast shadows and solve mind-bending puzzles as you uncover the mystery of missing schoolgirl, Lorna McCabe who vanished from Shadow Point Observatory twelve years ago. As your adventure unfolds, you will manipulate gravity, play with your own reflection, walk on walls, peer through a magical lens to reveal an alternate reality and much more.” I had this game on my wishlist forever and finally pulled the trigger, and boy am I glad I did. I really enjoyed the story, gameplay and ended up marathoning it in one session (which I don't recommend doing). It is a few hours long, and there are extra puzzles to go back to if you’d like. It had some serious Fisherman’s Tale vibes, so if you like those type of puzzle games, this is for you. The puzzles make you stop and think, and more importantly, progress nicely. I was never stuck, but certainly had to really contemplate how to solve some of them. It is slightly finicky with having to line up the shadows exactly to progress, but that is a minor complaint. Give this one a go for sure.
    

I hope you find a few games on this list that you might not have heard of, or that you might find worth revisiting. Let me know here or on the Ruff Talk Discord channel if you have a game you enjoy that I should try, I'm always open to recommendations. Until then, I hope your next VR experience is a memorable one.
Also, the week this is posted, I'm hosting a contest where one winner gets a $29.99 or less, Quest game of their choice. You can enter on the discord channel above, but will need to have five posts on the discord channel within a week to enter, so if that interests you, feel free to join. The Ruff Talk guys usually have giveaways every week and it's some solid VR chat if you're looking for like-minded individuals in a non-toxic space.
TLDR: Top five games to check out - Ark and Ade, Pin City, Breachers, Shadow Point, Vertigo Remastered

I'm keeping track of all the VR games I’ve played this year to catalogue them in hopes that they may give fellow VR gamers some fresh games to try out, or reasons to revisit older games that have had big updates. I'm currently up to 52 different VR games played this year. The first 22 that I played from January to March can be found here. The latest 30 games are mostly on the Quest, but many are available on PCVR.
Some of the games listed below, I can see playing all year long, others are not my cup of tea, but they may interest you enough to try them out. In either case, here are my quick thoughts on the 30 games I’ve played during April and May of 2023.
TLDR: My top 5 games to check out are at the bottom and so is some info for a game giveaway.

1. ARK and ADE $9.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: A fun shooter with Pistol Whip vibes that is absolutely worth the price of admission. From the store page: “ARK and ADE is an action-jammed FPS shooter in which you get to experience the glory of the 80’s arcade era in a neon fused setting. Shoot your way through retro-futuristic levels filled with enemies, iconic over the top bosses and never ending bullets!” I played this game back when it was in App Lab before it graduated to the full store. It was such a fun shooter back then, and I’d look forward to new levels coming out every few months. Now that it made it out of app lab, has a bunch of levels and had the gameplay polished, it’s absolutely worth a pickup, especially for that price.
   
2. Project Third Eye $9.99 Quest My quick take:A game where you make your own fun. From the store page: “Project Third Eye is an action physics sandbox with a built-in visual scripting panel to apply logic to spawnable items. This allows you to build your own modifications to the game and customize behaviors as you like.” Just like the description says, this is more of a proof of concept and sandbox game more so than a full fledged game with objectives. There are certainly neat ideas here and there, and the dev is really active with updates on Reddit. If you like to experiment and see how concepts develop in a game, you may enjoy this, but there’s no real direction beyond experimenting, so I dropped off fairly quickly.
   
3. Jousting VR Demo $9.99 Quest / Steam Quest Demo My quick take:A bit light on gameplay, but there is some charm here. From the store page:“XIII century, Europe, royal market courtyard. You are a knight who joined the medieval tournament. Your task is 'simple.' Jump on your trusty steed, grab your lance & defeat the enemy. Take into consideration speed, accuracy, strength. Equipment is also important. The better gear the easier the task. Oh, and other knights - they want to win as much as you do.” As advertised, it's a jousting game in VR. I enjoyed the demo, but honestly it was a bit too finicky at times and just not worth a full buy to me. The atmosphere was fun though and there was a progression loop for those who get into it.
   
4. Demeo $39.99 Quest and Steam (flatscreen as well) My quick take:This is a great game that I revisited from start to finish with four players. A must own. From the store page: “Adventurers, it’s time to unite! Gather your friends and fight monsters in Demeo, the turn-based tabletop strategy game of battle and glory. Roll dice, pick up miniatures, and free the world of Gilmerra in round after round of tabletop board game fun. With a huge assortment of monsters, playable classes, and environments to explore, it’s never the same game twice." I finally got a chance to play through the entirety of the game in VR with four friends, through each world, while trying a variety of characters. We even made a video ranking the best players and levels. It really is a solid dungeon crawling adventure. With 2 or more friends, this game really shines and is such a fun ride, despite how punishing the bosses can be. This is the closest you can get to D&D in VR without having a dungeon master. Well worth the asking price.
   
5. Build and Drive Racing Demo Free Quest / Steam My quick take: Early days in development, maybe something to keep an eye on to see how it improves. From the store page: "Get ready for a new experience on Windows desktop and VR, where you get to build your ultimate racing machine, tailored to your driving style and optimized for performance, or race to the finish line with a monster what makes you smile. With stylised graphics and arcade-like physics, every turn, straightway and ramp will put your skills to the test. Feel the thrill of the race like never before in VR, as you immerse yourself counting the seconds on the home stretch." An early demo that has seen some updates. Maybe worth looking at in a few months after a bit more development. I did like what I saw, but honestly, if you’re looking for a finished racing game, try Mini Motor Racing X instead or some of the other heavier PCVR games available.
   
6. Les Mills Body Combat $29.99 Quest My quick take: No subscriptions, great coaches and fun workouts that will make you sweat. From the store page: “Work out at home with a premium fitness app. LES MILLS, the world's leading fitness company, brings the BODYCOMBAT experience to your VR headset with an extensive workout portfolio, top-quality coaching, innovative mechanics, and different intensities.” With no subscriptions or hidden fees, lots of workouts, motivating coaches and the ability to compete with friends on leaderboards, this really is a dynamite workout app. I was working up a good sweat during my workouts, so be sure you have good facial insert and a fan ready. Highly recommended if you want a workout in VR for just the price of entry.
   
7. Interkosmos 2000 $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take:A difficult puzzle game, but rewarding if you have the patience. From the store page: “Go to space. Save the Future. Try not to Die. Welcome (back) to the world of Interkosmos for an even wilder, weirder and more wondrous adventure. Experience the intense exhilaration of spaceflight. Explore the awe-inspiring interiors of a realistic space capsule. Master the crucial systems that will keep you in orbit (and breathing). And while you’re at it, try your best not to die. Should you complete your mission, you just might save the future – and yourself. Should you fail? Let’s not think about that.” An intense puzzle game where you’re piloting a space ship with some very finicky controls. I found the experience way too difficult and exacting. Along with a bit of bugginess, that didn’t help in me determining if the error was my fault or the game's. If you have the patience, there certainly is some rewarding gameplay here, and an interesting story, but I found it all a bit too much to see to the end.
   
8. The Light Brigade $24.99 Quest / Steam My quick take: In a world of rougelikes, this is one that stands out. From the store page: “As a member of The Light Brigade, humanity’s last line of defense, brave ruins bathed in darkness and free the trapped souls who need the salvation only your gun can provide. Shoot, master spells, and upgrade your capabilities to herald the Sun’s return in this roguelike VR shooter.” There’s quite a lot of rouge shooters on Quest and despite the plethora of choices, this one stands out. Be warned, it starts out slowly, but gets quite fun after you get to know the systems after about an hour in. While I did make it to the last boss, I died and never went back to finished it. The gameplay loop and dynamic levels were solid though. The slight upgrades and different classes during each run were interesting and kept me going for a while. The most frustrating time I had was learning the little tips, tricks and finer gameplay points, but it was worth the push through that initial rough patch.
   
9. Resident Evil 4 $39.99 Quest My quick take: One of the best games in VR. A must own. From the store page: “Explore the world of Resident Evil 4, entirely remastered for VR. Step into the shoes of special agent Leon S. Kennedy on his mission to rescue the U.S. President’s daughter who was kidnapped by a mysterious cult. Come face to face with enemies, and uncover secrets with gameplay that revolutionized the survival horror genre. Battle horrific creatures and face-off against mind-controlled villagers while discovering their connection to the cult behind the abduction.” I forgot so much about this game from when I first played it 18 years ago on the GameCube. The long length, fun characters and how exciting the gun play is, all just came together perfectly. The development team spent a ton of time getting the VR feeling just right, and it’s absolutely one of the best on the Quest and well worth the price of entry. Additionally, once you play through the game the first time it really changes from survival horror to a whole new type of game action game. Simply outstanding.
   
10. Mini Golf Hustler Free Quest My quick take: Early days in development. Some good ideas, but a bit too rough around the edges. From the store page: “Challenge Slick Willie Puttman in this FREE nine hole demo of Mini Golf Hustler. Hazards include armed torpedoes, tentacled arms, ornery tikis and more! Multiple betting games, including skins, match play and the fearsome traveling snake. All played at the same time.” I thought I’d check out another mini golf game to see what other ideas there might be outside of the king - Walkabout Mini Golf. While there were some solid ideas for holes, the betting felt uneven, and everything else felt in their very early stages. To be fair, no other mini golf game feels even close to the accuracy of Walkabout, so I think it’s a tough go for any other games to match. It's probably best to stick with the champ for now, but I applaud the dev for trying something different.
    
11. Pin City Free Quest (open beta on Discord) / Steam My quick take: Early days, but wow, worth a download and one to watch in the future. From the store page: "Pin City is a bowling game unlike any other bowling game you’ve played before. We strove to bring the spirit of mini-golf into the world of bowling. We’ve taken the standard bowling setup (straight lane, 10 pins, 1 ball) and expanded, transformed, and evolved it. We wanted to give people a chance to bowl in ways that would be impossible, illegal, or extremely impractical.” An early alpha game, but boy, what a great start, I’m really looking forward to the team getting the physics feeling right with weight and feel of the bowling balls and seeing how much more gameplay they can add. Really worth the download or heading over to their Discord to get a Quest key for free to try it out. The quirky bowling, physics and gameplay they're experimenting with really got me excited to see how this one comes together in the next several months.
    
12. Mash Me Up Free Quest My quick take: Please devs, add more multiplayer support! From the store page: “Do you want to play party games with your friends or meet someone new? All is just one button press away with Mash Me Up. One button, multiple games. Will it be Air Hockey, Pier Pong, Flingball, or… Get ready for a surprise! Press, Play, Enjoy and Go Again!” If this game got a bit more development love it would be incredible. As it stands now, there are several mini games you can play against one person. Most are just okay, but a handful are real gems, and one particularly is incredible - Geo Guesser. Hands down the best mini game in the pack. With four, or six players and some new content, they could easily charge for just this one game. As it stands now, it’s a great two player game, but you’ll need to bring your own friend as the servers are pretty barren. Worth a download though for sure as you’ll get a night of fun out of it.
    
13. THZZLS - Treasures Lost In Time $4.99 Quest My quick take: A unique puzzler that can be pretty relaxing, but repetitive. From the store page: “Our first THZZLE is called "Der Bazar", the world's first VR toy theatre puzzle game. The Bazar is a VR puzzle game where you have to place furniture and props in the right places in old-fashioned rooms according to an old picture you see. The game is set in 19th century Germany and each room has objects taken from the German lifestyle magazine "Der Bazar", published in Berlin.” This one used to be free, with paid content, but it has since changed as they added more content. You recreate a scene with cutouts of people and furniture in a 3D space. It seemed to have endless puzzles with randomization of scenes. I could see someone going to this for a relaxing 10-15 minutes, but it is a lot of the same each time and didn’t grab me fully. If you’re looking for a puzzle game that’s outside of the usual ones you find in the store, it’s not a bad choice for the price. Keep in mind though its hand tracking only, so for some that may be a non starter, even though it felt just fine.
    
14. Barbaria $19.99 Quest / Steam My quick take:What I imagine Gorn is like with a solid game loop of RTS. From the store page: “Do you have what it takes to be the Mightiest in Barbaria? Welcome to a brutal world where visceral motion-controlled combat blends seamlessly with god-scale base-building and asynchronous multiplayer raids. Use fists, axes, swords, bows, rocks, or anything you can grab to dominate your foes in intense 1st-person combat. Then jump out to your immortal form and watch your minions carry on the battle while you rain down meteors from above. Systemic combat, versatile enemy AI, and player-created defenses make every battle unique.” I recognize there is a lot here to do in this game - if you like the game loop. Unfortunately, it really didn’t do much for me. I was expecting more RTS than Gorn style gameplay and was not pulled in by the fighting or quests offered. I have to say that the humor was spot on, and it certainly had good visuals, the game was just not for me. All that being said, there is a lot of content here and you could be playing this for quite some time if you think this could be your jam.
    
15. Toy Monsters Free Quest Demo / $4.99 Quest My quick take:Plants vs Zombies in AR with hand tracking that does enough unique stuff to be worth it. From the store page: “Toy Monsters VR is a mixed-reality tabletop tower defense inspired by classic Plants vs Zombies. Built from the ground up with hand tracking and passthrough in mind. As you progress through the 20 levels, you'll unlock new toys with unique special powers. You can enhance your toys with magical potions and use crystal power to unleash magic beams from your hands, transform your fingers into flamethrowers, and more.” This game has come a long way since its initial release. It’s a solid hand tracking Plants vs. Zombies game with its own twist on powers and uses passthrough quite nicely. My biggest complaint is that you really need to complete the game all in one go (about an hour or so) as it doesn’t keep track of your upgrades if you quit. Essentially, trying to pass a later level without prior upgrades or powerups is near impossible. Despite that one issue, give at least the demo a try and if you like it, the price is pretty fair for what you get.
    
16. Exit Condition One Free Quest Demo / $4.99 Quest My quick take: A bit rough around the edges, but escape room fans will find fun with it. From the store page: “You awake from cryo in a mysterious museum. A robot refers to you as a curator and the security system is malfunctioning. Can you get things back to normal and escape? There are no jump scares. The game is designed ground-up for roomscale VR on the Quest, but supports all locomotion modes. Most objects can be interacted with, it fully uses physics, and the hands don't ‘ghost out.’” According to the description, this is still a work in progress. That being said, it was a neat escape game that I felt I got my money’s worth from. It certainly was a bit rough around the edges with its gameplay and had some obscure puzzles to work through, but I did finish it and had a good time with it. Try the demo for sure, and perhaps when it’s finally finished, some of those rough edges will be polished up, but as it stands now, it was pretty solid.
    
17. Hyperdash Free Quest/Steam My quick take: A solid online shooter, but you'll have to put in the time to get good to find the fun. From the store page: “Hyper Dash is a free VR multiplayer team based shooter. Payload, Domination, Control Point, (Team) Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Elimination, Ball and remix them with Mutators! Dash, sprint, and rail grind your way across the arenas to engage the enemy in fast-paced combat and secure the objective for your team. Offline mode/Bots, Dedicated servers, Private servers, Rebind-able controls, Left hand support, Voice chat.” For a free to play shooter, this one had great controls, nice graphics, a good gameplay loop, plenty of comfort options and a solid player base. All that being said, every player I faced off against were top tier, so I spent my time just dying round after round. This is a good game with a solid player base and there's fun here - if you’re willing to learn the ropes. It's bad for newbies like me just looking to have a good time and get a few kills.
    
18. Please, Don’t Touch Anything $9.99 Quest / $4.99 Steam My quick take: A game for escape room devotees only. From the store page: "Please, Don’t Touch Anything is a cryptic, brain-racking button-pushing puzzle game. Covering for a colleague taking a bathroom break, you find yourself in front of a mysterious console with a green screen monitor showing a pixelated live image of an unknown city. Also present is an ominous red button with the simple instruction to not touch anything! Push the red button once or press it many times. Your choices and actions will lead to outrageous and frightening consequences and over 30 unique puzzle endings.” This is a weird one. A really obscure puzzle game that rewards experimentation, but is absolutely punishing with difficulty. If you’re really good at escape games and don’t get frustrated easily, you may enjoy the tedium. If not, you’ll end up like me, watching a tutorial to find out how to get different endings. But if you find yourself doing that, why not just watch a playthrough.
    
19. Eleven Table Tennis $29.99 Quest/Steam My quick take: Still one of the best, but there’s so much untapped potential. From the store page: “The ultimate Table Tennis simulator. Play opponents in online multiplayer or practice against the advanced AI. With physics designed to be as real as ever achieved in a Table Tennis simulator, you will forget you are in VR." I finally got back to this game after the new UI was implemented. It looks much more user friendly, but much to my disappointment, there were no new arenas, music, or official doubles options. There is so much potential for expanding this game, and I feel like the devs are just content to have it remain in the state it currently is. Which, to be fair, is a perfect implementation of table tennis in VR. It’s still one of the best VR games out there and absolutely a must own. I just really wish they would add an officially supported doubles mode and expand out the game a bit more because the unofficial doubles mode is a real pain to get set up and only barely worth the struggle. If you'd like to see how to set that doubles up currently, here is a video I was a part of.
    
20. Breachers $29.99 Quest/Steam My quick take: Come one, come all, this is 5 v 5 at its finest. From the store page: “In Breachers, you plan your assault or orchestrate your defense as a team through intense close-quarters combat. Whether you play as an enforcer or a revolter, master your nifty gadgetry, customize your powerful weaponry and beat your opponents in stunning environments. Intuitive to grasp. Endlessly playable.” Wow, wow, wow. This officially launched and is such a polished game. With multiple maps, intuitive movement and full lobbies, this game is simply spectacular. Despite the difficulty curve in being good at the game, it’s still a fun time even if you’re not the best, which is something special that few games manage to pull off. Where this game especially shines is with friends. If you can muster up a team of five to take on other random players, you’ll be playing this game for months. Give this a go, and if you're not any good, that's okay, because you'll still be better than the bots and a welcome addition to someone's team.
    
21. Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Outcast (Sidequest mod) Free Demo on Quest / $9.99 (Full Game on Steam) My quick take: Come for the lightsaber play, stay if you can tolerate the puzzles. From the store page: “JK XR is a standalone VR port of the popular Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast game by Lucasarts and Raven Software. Brought to VR by Team Beef & Friends. There are lots of mods and access to the free demo level available through the JK XR Companion App, which is automatically also installed alongside JK XR on your headset.” I never played this game when it first came out on flatscreen in 2002, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The first part of the game you’re playing essentially as a Han Solo type - a smart talkin’ gun slinger. The next part, you’re a cool Jedi chopping off limbs. Absolutely great execution as always by Team Beef, and you can’t beat the price. There is even a free demo to try out to see if you like it. All that being said, the game’s old puzzles, navigation and gameplay felt every bit of 20 years old. After dying multiple times because of missing an exact jump, getting lost and backtracking because I didn't see an obscure elevator and wasting time trying to navigate odd puzzles, I just found it to be too much to overcome to continue to the end. This is no slight on Team Beef and the great work they did with this port, the game just hasn’t aged the best.
    
22. CoasterMania $9.99 Quest My quick take:Early days, but still some fun to be had. There could be something special here after a few updates. From the store page: “CoasterMania is a physics-based VR rollercoaster game where you create the ride of your life! Use wacky contraptions and elements to fly through the sky, then experience your creation by jumping in the front seat. Sandbox mode: Build your dream rollercoaster without any rules but the rules of physics. When you're done, share your coaster or experience the engineering marvels of others. Design your own rides and upload them online.” You know, this game is just silly fun. It's early days for sure, and the tracks don't twist and come together as easily together as I’d hoped, which makes for a difficult time creating exactly what you want. It is satisfying though to have a roller coaster leap from one track to another over a gap. At this point the game is more of a sandbox than a full game with objectives (which is coming). The coasters other people have created are fun, so if you’re not into creating, there is that option to play with other people's designs, plus you can ride them in first person. I look forward to more updates and think it's worth looking at for sure, but if you’re looking for something a bit more fleshed out currently you can try Stunt Track Builder.
    
23. David Slade Mysteries: Case Files $9.99 Quest/Steam My quick take: You’re a forensic cop, here are your tools. Good luck dummy. From the store page: “Take to the dark and violent streets of downtown Riverside, where you investigate gruesome and violent homicides using a range of Forensic tools and your wits! Inspired by the classic Police Quest adventure series, reborn & reimagined for VR. Includes two epic episodes!” Slade is a murder mystery game that is ruthless in it’s difficulty. Honestly, there are several play throughs of this game on YouTube and none have beaten the first case because it was too hard, they all gave up. This game offers no hints, is super abstract and insanely difficult. Why did I keep playing? Well, the game’s tools were implemented quite well, the story was compelling, and I just felt I had to see this through to the end for my own sanity. Despite being as hard as nails, I somehow managed to finish the first case, then moved on to the second. No real spoilers, but the second case does a complete 180 and essentially becomes a horror game where you’re only weapon is your wits. A real departure from the first case. Again, I found myself frustrated, confused and turned around, but again, I had to power through it because something kept pulling me in. If you’re a masochist for puzzle games, I’d recommend this game.
    
24. Home Detective Free w/IAP - Quest My quick take:Fun use of AR, but pretty basic. From the store page: “Use your own living room to solve the crime! Using passthrough, the crime scene is overlaid onto your play area, leaving you free to explore and find clues. Use the patent-pending Residual Heat Scanner to detect the criminals' recent movements, and then dust for fingerprints or try to find evidence left behind. With your wits, and your trusty sidekick Steve Dobbins' snarky comments, you're sure to get to the bottom of these confusing crimes.” I appreciate the interesting use of passthrough and AR in this game. The first case is free to try, so if you’re into AR and passthrough, it’s worth a try. It's $3.99 for another case if you’re into it, but right now, it’s a pretty basic, but solid idea. My biggest complaint is that all my tools were on a shelf that was inaccessible because they were in my wall. I guess AR is still not quite there yet.
    
25. Vertigo Remastered $24.99 Steam My quick take: A fun and wacky ride from start to finish. From the store page: “It's a classic premise - a massive subterranean scientific facility full of mysteries, with aliens bursting in from alternate universes to wreak havoc. The twist? You're one of those aliens. But you're not here to wreak havoc (collateral damage disregarded), you're just trying to get home. A difficult endeavor, as it turns out this facility is more than prepared to deal with extraterrestrial threats.” Because I heard such great things about Vertigo 2, I thought I’d try out this game before I played the sequel. I was really blown away by how fun the game was and pleasantly surprised that it holds up so well. Considering its a 2016 remake, and VR was still figuring out a lot of things like movement, this still felt fresh. With lots of unique ideas, upgrades and areas to play in, I heartily recommend this one and am looking forward to playing the sequel.
    
26. Playin’ Pickleball $19.99 Quest My quick take:Solid physics, but really only for pickleball fans, or a group of four friends. From the store page: “Playin’ Pickleball is an authentic reproduction of Pickleball in Virtual Reality! Physics, sounds and mechanics have been carefully mapped from actual Pickleball game play. Even the scoring and rules are based on the USA Pickleball Association’s Official Rulebook.” Pickleball is sweeping the nation and if I recall correctly, even ForeVR is getting in on the game with an upcoming title. I’m much more of a tennis than pickleball guy, but I have to say, this game has pretty solid physics. Like most games, this is exponentially better with one or better yet, three other people you know. The AI players can be pretty uninteresting hitting it back and forth without much variance. Also the environments are a bit basic. I have to applaud the movement, physics and customizable items though as they all felt very well implemented. If you want something a bit less daunting than tennis, this might be what you're looking for.
    
27. Pong $6.99 Quest My quick take:A neat take on Pong, but you’ll have more fun with Cybrix. From the store page: “Classic paddle game reimagined for VR. Destroy all the bricks. Use your paddles to swing at the balls and the balls have built-in assistance to return back toward you. Take advantage of the pistol and magneto power-ups to cause major damage. Or just swing hard at the balls to create large blast radius. Oh and watch out for those mines going for your head. Lean left/right or crouch to avoid.” I appreciated the ideas the developers had in this modern take on Pong, but it was ultimately quite short and not nearly as fun as Cybrix. That being said for the price, I got my money’s worth and would love to see it get a bit more polish and levels in an update.
    
28. Extreme Escape $4.99 Quest / Steam (Early Access) My quick take:One of those special games where you really feel like you're in the environment. From the store page: “Have you ever wondered how it would feel to travel in a hot air balloon and fly above clouds? Have you ever wanted to face your fear of heights and enclosed spaces? Perhaps you wanted to become a pilot and test your critical thinking skills. Looking for a breathtaking experience? Try Extreme Escape.” The game says “early access,” but honestly I believe this has been abandoned. For the price, you get an extremely short, but fun and unique escape room experience. You’re not going to find this game too hard, but I was brought into its world and completely immersed - I had a true sense of dread and panic. The even shorter “demo” inside the game puts you on a sinking submarine and was extremely memorable. Seldom have I felt so immersed in a game. I’d recommend it for this price, just because of how it made me feel, but it’s a real shame about the very short length and that it’s abandoned.
    
29. The Last Worker $19.99 Quest / SteamMy quick take:Gaming with a heavy message, but mediocre gameplay. From the store page:“The Last Worker is an immersive narrative adventure centered around a lone worker’s last stand in an increasingly automated world, The Last Worker is a unique blend of work simulation and stealth strategic gameplay. The game is set in a lonely, oppressive but strangely beautiful environment, with characters designed by comics legend Mick McMahon. Kurt works for the world’s largest retailer and is forced to choose between capitalism or activism. Having dedicated his life to work, Kurt’s loyalty is put to the test when a group of activists ask him to dismantle Jüngle from the inside.” I really wanted to like this game. It had an interesting concept, but navigating, fail states and some very annoying bugs frustrated me to the point where I just said it wasn’t worth my time. That and the story wasn’t speaking to me. It’s well rated, so I’m probably on the opposite side of this one from most people. It's unique in many ways, so check out the teaser and see if it might be for you.
    
30. Shadow Point $19.99 Quest My quick take:Fisherman’s Tale vibes with an excellent story and puzzles that makes you feel smart. From the store page: “Built for VR, Shadow Point is a story-driven puzzle game set between a mountaintop observatory and an ever-changing fantasy world. Explore a vibrant kingdom, cast shadows and solve mind-bending puzzles as you uncover the mystery of missing schoolgirl, Lorna McCabe who vanished from Shadow Point Observatory twelve years ago. As your adventure unfolds, you will manipulate gravity, play with your own reflection, walk on walls, peer through a magical lens to reveal an alternate reality and much more.” I had this game on my wishlist forever and finally pulled the trigger, and boy am I glad I did. I really enjoyed the story, gameplay and ended up marathoning it in one session (which I don't recommend doing). It is a few hours long, and there are extra puzzles to go back to if you’d like. It had some serious Fisherman’s Tale vibes, so if you like those type of puzzle games, this is for you. The puzzles make you stop and think, and more importantly, progress nicely. I was never stuck, but certainly had to really contemplate how to solve some of them. It is slightly finicky with having to line up the shadows exactly to progress, but that is a minor complaint. Give this one a go for sure.
    

I hope you find a few games on this list that you might not have heard of, or that you might find worth revisiting. Let me know here or on the Ruff Talk Discord channel if you have a game you enjoy that I should try, I'm always open to recommendations. Until then, I hope your next VR experience is a memorable one.
Also, the week this is posted, I'm hosting a contest where one winner gets a $29.99 or less, Quest game of their choice. You can enter on the discord channel above, but will need to have five posts on the discord channel within a week to enter, so if that interests you, feel free to join. The Ruff Talk guys usually have giveaways every week and it's some solid VR chat if you're looking for like-minded individuals in a non-toxic space.
TLDR: Top five games to check out - Ark and Ade, Pin City, Breachers, Shadow Point, Vertigo Remastered

Due to some reactions to my previous post, had to put it in all caps in the title that I'm a first time viewer, to make it clear I'm not someone trying to dig the sequel trilogy out of its grave to spit on it some more, I'm experiencing them for the first time and just want to share my opinion.
Once again, it's a mess. Sorry. We've come full circle, because just like the Force Awakens, the start of the crawl is already controversial. Somehow Palpatine returned. Completely out of nowhere, no foreshadowing, no build up. And it's right in your face, like, movie starts, 2 minutes later he's there. It feels like a desperate attempt to get attention, to save the trilogy, but it doesn't.
So this time we have a Macguffin hunt, something something, Sith path finder. They kinda ignore the fact the resistance/rebellion is reduced to a few people, I didn't get the sense of urgency and hopelessness I got from The Last Jedi. Rey is still insufferable. Finn is still boring, should have sacrificed himself at the end of previous movie, the friend he made becomes a side character. The fleet of mini-death stars is dumb.
This movie has some fakeouts which I hate. OH NO CHEWIE IS DEAD! No he isn't. OH NO C3PO IS GONNA SACRIFICE HIS MEMORIES TO SAVE THE GALAXY. No he won't. OH REY IS A PALPATINE , no she can just decide to be a Skywalker. OH KYLO BROKE THE MACGUFFIN. Never mind there's two of them. Then there's the plot conveniences. Oh look, we just happen to fall in the cave where the next glue is! Oh look this random cute droid Disney made to sell toys had a clue for the Macguffin all along! Oh look, Force Healing is a thing! Every time stuff like this happened I was taken out of the movie.
One thing is fore sure though, Ian McDiarmid still got it as Palpatine. He opens his mouth and creates new iconic/memeable lines. "AS ONCE I FELL SO FALLS THE LAST SSSSSKY WALKAH!"
Adam Driver's acting is cool too, I grew to like his tamper tantrums. And yeah I couldn't help but noticed them copying Endgame. Took me out of the movie and I was like "Man I should be watching Endgame instead, would be more fun."
I don't have much to say, this trilogy did the opposite the other ones did, just kept getting worse. I'll give this one a 4/10.
You know, people say that after this trilogy they started appreciating the Prequels more. I'm one of those people who actually really liked the prequels when I first watched them, and now after watching this "Anti-Trilogy" , I just feel more validated for liking the prequels. Anyway, time to move on.
Not sure if I'm gonna watch the Han Solo movie, is it worth it? Fun at least? If not I'll go watch the tv shows, starting with the Clone Wars in chronological order.

I was stuck on one remaining clue from this Cryptic Crossword.
1.) Called livestock inventories "facilitators" (9)
C __ T __ L __ S __ S