Today I played the free demo for BOXES: LOST FRAGMENTS, which included “The Cryptic Chest” and “Wolf and Thunder” puzzles. This game is developed by Big Loop Studios and coming soon on Steam.
I loved the art style of the boxes and enjoyed the puzzling aspects. If you’ve played an escape room in real life or any point-and-click escape games, such as The Room series, you’ll get the idea.
~ J.L. Hilton
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I made a Halloween lasagna last night. The ghosts are slices of provolone with black olive eyes & mouths. The spiders are also made from black olives. I didn’t think of it at the time but I could have made orange cheddar pumpkins too!
~ J.L. Hilton
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PENTIMENT is an unusual 2-D singleplayer narrative adventure game, rich in medieval history, conceived by Josh Sawyer (Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity), and published by Obsidian in 2022.
Players take on the role of Andreas Maler, an artist working in the Kiersau Abbey scriptorium in Upper Bavaria during the 16th century, who becomes entangled in a series of murders that take place over 25 years. Peasants, thieves, craftsmen, monks, nuns, nobles, and saints must be investigated, interrogated and accused to dire effect in a complex story where every choice matters.
The art style of PENTIMENT is inspired by medieval manuscripts, particularly the marginalia or little doodles drawn by the monks who spent painstaking hours copying books by hand before the invention of the printing press in Europe. The story seems to be inspired in part by Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and the Cadfael mystery series.
There’s some beautiful and authentic medieval music in the game, including the Petruslied or “Song of Peter,” the earliest known hymn in Old High German that is about a thousand years old, and there’s a mini-game based on Lansquenet, an actual card game from the 1500s.
PENTIMENT is available on PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/X/S and Nintendo Switch, and is rated “M” for Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence.
~ J.L. Hilton
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CATS IN TIME is a 2021 relaxing puzzle game from Pine Studio that I bought on Steam for only $4.99. It’s kind of a combination hidden object puzzle and escape room, though you’re not really stuck in any particular place and it’s possible to leave a level and go back to it later. But some of the puzzle mechanics are a lot like common escape room puzzles.
Players are not only looking for cats, they must find keys, levers, codes, puzzles and other objects, in order to locate all of the cats hidden throughout history. In one level, for example, I had to find a crowbar and pry open a crate to release the cat inside.
Areas include ancient Egypt, medieval Germany, the Wild West, 1990s New York and future Tokyo. There are seven different areas, with four levels in each area, plus some bonus seasonal levels.
Unlike most hidden object games, CATS IN TIME doesn’t have 2D scenes or side-scrolling images. Each level is based around a 3D tower that can be rotated and zoomed in or out.
There are little secrets, too, like pieces of postcards hidden in every level, and random crazy things to uncover for special trophies.
I can’t find the ESRB rating for this game but it seems like an “E” for everyone, to me! Great game for all ages.
~ J.L. Hilton
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Over the years, I’ve made a lot of jewelry for cosplayers and the most-requested item was Kaylee’s pink bead necklace, even though she never actually wore it in any episode of Firefly or the movie Serenity. But it appears in this popular promotional photo of actress Jewel Staite, so a lot of people want to wear it with their Kaylee costumes.
With careful examination and extensive online searching, I found the closest possible pink bead to be a Venetian or Murano glass millefiori tube bead, which was previously sold under SKU EM-9299-71 Millefiori Tubes 26mm EM-9299 71 Pink/Blue Center at VenetianBeadShop.com.
Unfortunately, it’s no longer carried on that website and I haven’t been able to find it anywhere else. Similar beads might be found on Etsy or other crafting sites when searching with various combinations of keywords such as pink, floral, flower, millefiori, tube, lampwork, venetian, murano, glass and bead.
See the Kaylee parasol I painted for Can’t Stop the Serenity…
In episode 2, “The Train Job,” Kaylee wears a diamond-shaped pendant. The image on the pendant looks different in two different scenes, so it’s probably double-sided and got flipped over during filming.
The beige or off-white color might be bone or horn, possibly wood or ceramic, but it looks a bit like a scrimshaw sort of butterfly carving to me, hanging on a cord of dark brown or black leather. The closest thing I ever found was an owl (shown inset).
We see Kaylee wearing a necklace in episode 8, “Out of Gas,” during Mal’s flashback to when they met. This one appears to be another carved pendant, possibly bone, stone or wood, but round this time, with a flower or sunburst in the center, hanging from a cord of light tan or beige colored leather.
I’ve used a variety of round, carved pendants to make similar necklaces, but have never found one exactly like hers.
It appears to have a blue or green bail (the little loop at the top where it hangs on the leather cord). This might be made of thread, beads or wire, I can’t tell, but I used to add a blue-green bead to my pieces as a nod to this little element of the design.
There’s a necklace Kaylee wears in episode 9, “Ariel,” that spells out her name in tile letters. These might be glass, fimo or ceramic, I can’t tell from the screenshots. I’ve never made a replica of this one because I’ve never found any letter beads close to that size (1/2 inch x 1/2 inch?) and color (light blue or gray? white and red striped borders?).
Kaylee wears a necklace in episode 12, “The Message,” which appears to be a rectangular, domino-sized, carved pendant, with possibly a dragon design. These sorts of large focal beads and pendants are usually made in China, which would be in keeping with the show’s aesthetic. This one looks like bone to me, but could be animal horn, soapstone, wood, plastic, resin or shell.
I assume the pendant is actually a large bead, drilled through the center, because we can see that there’s a small red bead at the top and bottom of the dangling pendant. They probably used a headpin to make the pendant, and then added it to a string of beads.
It’s hard to tell, but it looks like the necklace is made with alternating round and/or cylinder beige beads (possibly wood or bone) and then occasionally more red beads like the pendant.
These are some versions of the Kaylee “Message” pendant I’ve made. Apologies for the photos, they were taken several years ago and aren’t great quality, but you can see how I used various pendants and combinations of beads.
At the end of the movie Serenity, Kaylee wears a large “double happiness” 囍 pendant, which is associated with marriage, possibly indicating her new relationship with Simon. I’ve never made a replica of this one, but I’ve used charms and pendants with this symbol in some of my jewelry for Browncoats.
As far as I know, from watching the movie and TV show about 100 times, this is all of Kaylee’s jewelry. Hope this is helpful to cosplayers and crafters! If you have a moment, please check out my crafting and gaming channels on YouTube, and my shop JunkWitch.com. Thanks!
~ J.L. Hilton
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I played a free demo of ABYSS: THE WRAITHS OF EDEN on PS4 back in 2018 but never got around to finishing the game, until now, and I’m glad I did. I think it’s one of Artifex Mundi’s best hidden object puzzle adventures.
I recently discovered that, for some reason, my oldest daughter had ABYSS in her Steam library. She doesn’t usually play HOPA games and when I asked her about it, she had no idea how it got there. But, lucky for me, we do family game sharing.
ABYSS seems to be inspired by BioShock. There’s no lighthouse, but there’s an underwater Art Deco city called “Eden” instead of “Rapture,” and your fiancé is the man who goes missing there. Through a series of puzzles, and manipulating items in the environment, you save your lost love and unravel the mystery.
Artifex Mundi puts out a lot of point-and-click games. Some of my favorites are Dark Arcana: The Carnival and Eventide: Slavic Fable. But sometimes, their games can be a bit cheesy and slapdash, with artwork that gets sloppy as the game goes on, stories that don’t make any sense, and boring puzzles. But I found ABYSS to be consistent throughout and especially lovely if you enjoy oceanic scenes.
It took me less than five hours to complete on casual difficulty. “Advanced” and “Expert” modes are also available. Players can skip puzzles but there’s an achievement for completing everything without skipping.
Rated “T” for teens, due to blood and violence. There are several dead bodies, spooky red-eyed wraiths, scary tentacle monsters and occult rituals, which could give little children nightmares so parental discretion is advised.
~ J.L. Hilton
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