Red Bow - Scary Spooky Indie Crap (Patreon)

Ratalaika Games is an interesting little indie developer i've had my eye on for a bit. Not on purpose, mind you. More like by necessity, because they're the only developer i know that regularly releases games at a Ramen Noodle price, and most of their games are weird and janky enough to make for good Blue Glows. 

I have a bunch of their cheap-ass games. They mostly all follow a pattern of being interesting and odd enough to warrant interest before revealing their crappiness once  you're in their grasp. Like a praying mantis but instead of eating your head, it sucks butt. 

So far the best game of theirs i played was a survival horror throwback called Back In 1995, which was slow moving and had combat so crappy it made Tormented Souls look like Devil May Cry, but also had a pretty unique little spooky atmosphere that used the 90s CRT aesthetic to great effect, and some charmingly crap voice acting to complete the illusion of it being a game from that era. So that one actually gets a thumbs up, but i didn't record myself playing it so instead you get Red Bow which is... something else. 

This one is more in the vein of a Yume Nikki, with an RPG maker aesthetic, confusingly vague item puzzles, and some of the most mind-rottingly repetitive music i've ever been tortured by. I played as much of it as I can take, but i wouldn't call it bad necessarily, just... kind of a piece of shit. 

But there's some decent stuff here. You just have to be a more patient man than I, and really enjoy hearing the same bing-bong ass background music for God knows how long, to see if it unfolds into something worthwhile. 

Obviously it was worthwhile to me, because i got a video out of it, and it was very, very cheap. As much as their games annoy me, it's hard not to recommend this developer to anyone who streams on a budget. They're not in the business of making masterpieces but at the very least you'll have an interesting time.