Welcome to Digitally Downloaded’s weekly catch-up news feature, the catch-up coffee. With each issue I will bring you the best news that you may have missed. Grab the biggest mug you’ve got, fill it with your favourite brew, and catch up with us (and our favourite news anchor, Dee Dee)!
Raise a magical girl in Lair Land Story
Lair Land Story is like a really complex Tamagotchi about raising a young girl rather than a blob. When Herol finds Chilia, a magical girl who saved his city from destruction, she has lost all her memory. She doesn’t know of her life, or even her powers. Herol takes the girl in, and raises her over the course of four years by planning her day-to-day life and developing her skills.
Spend the years with Chilia, supporting her as she grows into a young woman. Schedule her day with work, rebuilding, studying, or resting; each activity affects her popularity, exhaustion, and motivation. Her skills, including charisma and kindness, change depending on how the day is planned out. Letting her work instead of study will impact her development. Take a break to explore the kingdom, visit friends, or take Chilia to the salon for a new style. In their off time, Herol will help the girl chose from numerous suitors.
Developed by Circle Entertainment, Arc System Works, and Initory Studio (and published in the west by PQube), Lair Land Story will be released for PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch on August 19. It first launched in Japan during April 2020 (PC) and November 2020 (Nintendo Switch).
DANGEN Entertainment to published Recall: Empty Wishes
Story-driven psychological thriller Recall: Empty Wishes will now be published by DANGEN Entertainment when it is released. The game is set in Taiwan in the 2010s and centres around Tommy, a boy who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and his sister Yonny who is trying to find him. After Tommy’s disappearance, Yonny discovers a toy phone receiver that her and her brother used as kids. The phone connects to the Gallery of Empty Wishes, and Yonny and her friend Phoebe are able to enter the memory echoes of people connected to Tommy.
There are five key players surrounding Tommy’s disappearance: Yonny and Phobe, Tommy’s friend Mocky, Tommy, and Tommy and Yonny’s mother Eartha. Yonny and Phoebe will relive the memory of each key player. Each chapter delves into a different person’s memories, revealing their deepest wishes and secrets. Interact with characters, collect items, make choices, and investigate to piece together the truth. Choices effect other characters and endings.
Developed by Hook Puff Studio and published by DANGEN Entertainment, Recall: Empty Wishes will be released for PC via Steam in Q2 2023. It will support several languages: English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese.
We Are OFK launches this month
I’m quite excited for We Are OFK, a game following a band as they try to make it in the biz. It’s by an indie development team, and seems very personal and emotional. I’m in love with the graphics, probably because there’s a lot of purple and who doesn’t love that?! Oh, and the developers are the band! The game will be released within the next couple of weeks.
We are OFK follows the lives of four friends in their 20s as they attempt to break into the music business, fall in and out of love, and figure out how to pay rent and make art in Los Angeles. The game features five episodes of the interactive animated series, five interactive music videos with debut tracks by OFK. There are contemporary elements, like emotional texting, thirst texting, meme texting, and emoji spamming. Oh, and the developer promises that we’ll love the boba shop!
Developed by Team OFK, We Are OFK will be released for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch on August 18.
Scar of the Doll remake launches in Japan very soon
The remake of suspenseful visual novel Scar of the Doll is already available for PC and has been for years now, but it is now ready to also launch for Nintendo Switch in Japan. Originally developed in RPG Maker 95 and released in 1998, the game is considered a pioneer in indie visual novels. The remake includes remastered versions of the original background music, major additions to the latter half of the story, updated graphics, and the option to turn horror elements on and off.
The protagonist is Asumi Kamijou, who has come to Tokyo on her own during the last few days of the year. The story happens over a week, from December 18 to 24. Asumi has lost all contact with her sister, who attends school in Tokyo, so Asumi is there to check that her sister is safe. However, there’s no trace of her at the lab or at her apartment. Asumi is dead set on tracking down her sister, not knowing the horror she is about to face.
Scar of the Doll will be released for Nintendo Switch on August 18, as announced by Mista Stories and Mamekujira. It only supports Japanese. The original game is available via Steam, and it supports English and Japanese.
