Hello and welcome back to one of my columns. After my Whining Wednesday has unfortunately fallen victim to censorship this week (just because I wanted to throw a flash mob party for my boss!), I decided to touch on another topic as well.
I want to introduce games here that, in my opinion, fundamentally differ from others and provide a unique experience, or are true exemplars of their genre. You probably haven’t heard of most of these games here – but that’s precisely the point, I want to draw your attention to real gems that have definitely received far too little recognition so far.
I’ll start with a game that was recommended to me by a friend, namely “Juniper’s Knot”. Talking about it as a game might underestimate it, as it is technically a “Visual Novel”, a story primarily told through text and images.
You read that right, there are no choices and the gameplay consists of nerve-wrackingly clicking “Continue” to view the next line of text – so if you’re only after hardcore, skill-based action, you can confidently leave this one behind.
What makes this game so great that I absolutely praise it to the sky?
In short: the story. I want to briefly explain the basic setting here without giving away too much of the plot, as that of course adds the most appeal.
“Juniper’s Knot” is told alternately from the perspective of two characters. One is a demoness who has been trapped for a while in the ruins of a decaying city by a protective circle.
The second character is a young man who has lost his way and accidentally stumbles into this demoness’s prison. From then on, you experience the dialogues between the two characters while also gaining insights into their thoughts. The texts are brilliantly written, the characters feel incredibly alive, relatable, and without making a secret of it, I shed quite a few tears during the story because it is incredibly well staged – the graphics and sound effects are a true enrichment.
With its relatively short “playtime” of two hours, “Juniper’s Knot” is perfect for server maintenance. However, I would recommend experiencing this story at night or in dim light – not because it is extremely scary, but because it simply fits wonderfully with the atmosphere. This “game” made me sad and at the same time happy and reminded me why I love video games in general so much – it is a time in which I am simply thoroughly happy and content, even when a game brings me to tears.
If you want to take a short (read: 2-hour) look at the Visual Novel, you can download it completely for free here.
I recommend the English version; I found the German one rather mediocre, but before completely missing out on it, it should be good enough as well.
Do you know of any games that you think receive far too little attention? And what do you think of Juniper’s Knot? Let me know in the comments!
