Desta: The Memories Between (2022)

Desta is a short, dodge-ball, turn based game and basically that description is fully reflects all gameplay of this game. But lets go in order:

The plot of the game is simple - Desta, the main hero of the game, comes back to her they childhood town, where she they was born and grew up, but her they feelings are not good, because Desta is a different person from what she they used to be and some of her them decisions hurt people that she they really cared about. With those thoughts, Desta goes to sleep in her them house and she they dives into her them dreams, which become a second reality, where she they meets her them old friends and her them bad thoughts are mirrored in them. So she they needs to try to fix her them relationships in the dream, after which it would be much easier to do in real life.

As you might have noticed, I put double pronouns, since Desta by the plot is a non-binary person and that is a great part of the plot.

And this situation is a bit confusing for me, because I don't "follow this trend" and actually don't know much about it. I felt like Lee in this game (one of the friends of Desta), who also did not know that Desta is a non-binary person and frequently named Desta a tomboy, which was also a word that is closer to my perception.

By the end of the game I was very curious who was writing this plot, and I was not surprised to see a non-binary person as one of the two plot writers.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say the plot is bad. While I might not fully understand the main idea that the game is trying to tell, I liked the atmosphere of friendship that the plot conveys to the player. Desta's friends accept her them as a person, even though she they want to be non-binary - they are still their friend with whom they share a lot of good memories, which the player can witness through each level of the game.

Speaking of level-ups, let's dive into the gameplay. Each chapter is aimed at one of Desta's friends, and after completing that chapter, you recruit that friend and can use them in future battles. Each friend has a unique skill that suits different playstyles. Desta also has their own abilities, which you get randomly when playing the game. If you want to have a specific skill available across all your playthroughs, you need to "experience" it.

Speaking of playthroughs, the game has a bit of a roguelike element, since when you lose, you have the option to start from the beginning. The main twist is that you SHOULD start from the beginning, but not MUST to. You can continue your playthrough from the place where you failed, but if you do start from the beginning, the game will grant you a bonus that will help you on the full playthrough.

Game AI is pretty.. good? My most used tactic is to take control over the map in order to control all balls and don't allow enemy team to capture\defend balls by themself. Against this tactic bots usually cant do anything, but still they are trying their best to steal balls from your team. But, as i mentioned before, i completed game with a second try and on a first try, when i lost control over the map, bots started mercilessly cut all ways to recover from failure, for example, picture below shows how bot decided to cut my way to a ball, leaving me in a corner.

But if this game seems too hard for you, which i don't think is, you can adjust some game setting in order to make game easier.

In conclusion i want to say, that that was an interesting experience. Even though i finished the game, i still have challenges and nightmare mode to finish. So you definitely can try this game if you like easy, warm plot games.

Play good games and thanks for reading!.

I was talking with my kids the other day about playable video game characters and gender. I said that most games have you play as a man, some have you play as a woman, and some let you create your own character who can be a man or a woman. I tagged my comment by saying that "basically no games have you as non-binary." My 9 year old chimed in "that one dodgeball dream game has you play as a non-binary person".

I had completely forgotten about Desta. I forgot that I had discussed it with them when playing Desta. But my kid didn't forget. They understand gender better because a game let them play as a non-binary person. And I think that's pretty cool.

This game felt really strong on all fronts — graphics, storytelling, mechanics, being fun. The hybrid gameplay of turn-based strategy and physics-based dodgeball throwing was really interesting and engaging to me, and it felt well-executed on the iOS version I played.

I managed to beat the main campaign and the harder "Nightmare" version on my first try each (albeit with multiple careful hours invested); it's an approachable game but is no breeze by the end. The post-game challenges are even harder and took some investment to figure all of them out, but they were also fun overall.

Especially since this game is free to Netflix users on mobile, I think this game is amazing value and definitely worth a try.

IDK what it is about Monument Valley that I love, but the moment I saw that the devs were USTWO, the devs behind MV, I became pretty interested. Especially considering how different this game seemed from their seminal work. I was just captured by it.

Then I forgot the game existed until I saw a launch trailer today.

But I love it so far. It's introspective, and mechanically/thematically interesting (they do a really great job tying those two together), and just gorgeous.