Vulpes Valentine's Video Game Valley

Category: News

  • Can I Platinum 2026?

    Can I Platinum 2026?

    I have, let’s call it, a sickness.

    That sickness is that I will play most games until I hit end credits, regardless of when in the process of playing that the experience has become an insufferable nightmare. Worse still, is the hunger deep within me that yearns for the dopamine rush of a platinum trophy. I need them, I dream of them, I make obsessively detailed plans for how to acquire them. I stopped enjoying Ghost of Tsushima about four hours in, but when I peeked at the trophies (a blunder I repeat with every game I buy) I realized just how attainable that platinum trophy was.

    So I got it. Every step of the way I was battling with reason, with decency, with my knowledge that my time on Earth grows shorter with each enemy encampment cleared, with every haiku composed. Was it worth it? Probably not.

    Does my heart gleam with joy when I see that (at time of writing) I have 61 platinum trophies to my name? YES.

    Outside of gaming, I have become a goals oriented person in the last few years. I write to-do lists every day (a useful method of coping with my severe and unmedicated ADHD), that will remind me to do basic things like shower or write an email I’ve been meaning to send, or to spend a few minutes reading or outlining my next post. It’s remarkably effective, and is a practice which I’ve been thinking may lead to some big growth and possible successes in 2026.

    I turned 30 at the tail end of 2025 and with it came a lot of angst but also a sudden drive to get more of my big picture goals out of the way by the time I turn 31. I decided that the best way to achieve these goals would probably be to make a long-term to-do list and check them off one-by-one, breaking them down into a lot of attainable milestones rather than vague, nebulous idealized dreams of success.

    Like… a trophy list.

    <sicko mode engaged>

    So here we are. It’s 2026 and I have only one thing on my mind. Can I platinum the year?

    Below I have organized my goals for the year into the typical trophy categories. Bronze trophies are things that are most likely to just happen with little input or extra effort on my part. Silver trophies take a little more time and energy, and have the potential to be missable by certain deadlines if not adequately planned and prepared for. Gold trophies are the real difficult tasks, things that might not even be up to me and my efforts entirely and may rely partly on a bit of universe-scale RNG.

    Some of these are silly. Some of them are deeply personal. All of them will benefit me in some way.

    Here is how we get there.

    Bronze Trophies

    Wolfing it Down – Read Gene Wolfe’s “The Book of the Long Sun” and “The Book of the Short Sun”

    Simba, Remember – Finish all Elden Ring Nightreign Remembrance Quests

    Not A Waste of Money – Finish my backlog of unwatched DVDs

    Cyber New Type – Watch Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ and the film Char’s Counterattack

    Explorer – Visit 10 previously unvisited local bookstores

    Mysterious Benefactor – Back 5 TTRPG crowdfunding campaigns

    FINAL-LY – Finish and write about all remaining mainline Final Fantasy games

    Cleaning House – Clean out my closet and dressers of old clothes and donate them

    Silver Trophies

    Ooh Shiny – Acquire 15 more Platinum Trophies (how meta!)

    Bookbound – Finish 50 books

    Consistency – Publish a new episode of “Table for Two” every single week

    Number Go Up – Reach 1,000 downloads for “Table for Two”

    Do it For Them – Finish and publish my next game, “For the Flock”

    A Real Game Dev – Reach 50 downloads on itch.io

    Cooking Papa – Cook 20 new recipes from the various cookbooks I received for Christmas

    It’s An Investment – Purchase a Steam Deck

    Gold Trophies

    It’s For Your Own Good – Exercise Daily (at least 10 minutes, work counts)

    People Are Talking About This – Reach 20 patrons on the “Table for Two” Patreon (that’s patreon.com/tablefortwopod)

    Whisper – Publish a short story

    Speak – Publish a novella

    Shout – Complete a first draft of a novel

    Tables Squared – Launch a secondary series on the “Table for Two” feed

    Platinum Trophy

    2026 – The Year of the Celestial Fox – Acquire all other trophies

    So there it is: my trophy list for the year 2026, due no later than 11:59pm on December 31st.

    Wish me luck.

  • Game of the Year List – 2025

    Game of the Year List – 2025

    It is something of a triumph that in a world as absolutely miserable and cruel as the one we inhabit still there can be found art that touches the soul and tickles the brain and tugs at the heart in no less profound a way than in years before: games that speak to our desires, our ambitions, our fears, our sense of wonder, our childish glee at solving a puzzle or discovering something new.

    This year, as with every year since the medium’s inception, there were a ton of great games to play and I was fortunate enough to play a lot of them. So many that it was a bit of a struggle to decide not only on the order this Top Ten list would be arranged in but which games would and would not make the cut. After waffling back and forth here and there, I’ve reached my conclusive Game of the Year list. Here it is.

    I’ve spoken about many of these at length already (I will link those posts where applicable), so each entry on the list will only have a short blurb describing why it’s there. As an important note, I recommend all of these games to whoever is even the least bit interested in them, as I had an excellent time with each one. Starting with…

    10. Labyrinth of the Demon King

    If you are a fan of the early King’s Field games or the visual and audio aesthetics of PS1 horror titles, then this is the game for you. It is fun, challenging, tense, atmospheric, and delivers a hack-and-slash dungeon crawling survival horror adventure that doesn’t overstay its welcome and has loads of fun puzzles and unique enemies to overcome.

    9. Absolum

    https://vulpesvalentine.blog/2025/11/18/absolum-review/

    In addition to looking and sounding absolutely gorgeous, this game is simply so damn fun to play. Combat is fast-paced and hard-hitting, with delightfully spectacular abilities to unleash on the many foes that stand between you and the Sun King. The progression, the secrets, the random events encountered on the path to each boss, and the uniqueness of each character make for an exciting time that is even better with a friend thanks to a well designed co-op feature that even allows you to balance the game differently for each respective player.

    8. Wanderstop

    https://vulpesvalentine.blog/2025/11/11/wanderstop-and-the-necessity-of-play/

    In a perfect example of ludo-narrative harmony, Wanderstop asks the player to un-learn the ways that many modern games have taught us to enjoy our time gaming, and to instead put that energy into self-reflection and meditating on the simple mundane tasks set before you. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It left me in a contemplative space for days upon completion. What more can you ask from a game?

    7. Monster Hunter Wilds

    Dragons. You can ask for dragons. And big pink gorillas. And also a rooster (psst, it’s also a dragon). This game became a staple of my afternoons for a few months and I had a wonderful time mastering my weapon (dual blades babyyyyy) and learning how to face down each new monster that came my way. The focused attacks add a level of strategy that I greatly enjoyed, despite playing most of this game like a kid at an arcade cabinet of a Street Fighter game. Them buttons be mashed.

    6. Despelote

    https://vulpesvalentine.blog/2025/07/22/despelote-review/

    There is a sequence in the game where you play an in-universe soccer video game which slowly bleeds into a dreamlike stroll through your hometown from a bird’s eye view, accompanied by a simple yet devastatingly beautiful score. You are merely a dot in a world so big and and at times empty feeling, but still you walk these streets. You follow them home.

    I think about this every day since I played it.

    5. Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta

    It’s a risky position to put oneself in: remastering a game that a good number of people consider to be one of (if not the) greatest game of all time. Do you make changes that you truly believe will improve upon what some call perfection? Do you leave it alone and have people call the remaster lazy and uninspired? MGS3D finds the perfect balance. It leaves a lot of stuff untouched and gives you a great deal of customization options for your preferred play style. Do you miss the fixed camera angles of the original release? Toggle them on! Do you prefer a more traditional behind the back camera? Then go with Konami’s blessing. New secrets abound, old secrets are still there, and all the wacky mini-games and meta mechanics work just as fantastically as ever. It’s a perfect remake for a nearly perfect game.

    4. Elden Ring Nightreign

    https://vulpesvalentine.blog/2025/08/12/elden-ring-nightreign-review/

    One of my favorite games of all time had a baby with Apex Legends and it came out beautiful if not a little sickly. I love so much about this game, from the way it reshapes Elden Ring’s already flashy and engaging combat by giving each character unique passives, skills, and ultimate abilities, to the steady increase to stratospheric levels of difficulty. The writing is also, in a word, phenomenal. Some of the best fantasy writing I’ve seen in years is tucked into the journal entries of the game’s Nightfarers, providing side-objectives that help you gain mastery over the characters, their stories, and which unlock tangible rewards that will help you struggle through the Night. I can’t stop playing it even though I have the most catastrophically terrible luck when it comes to item drops and matchmaking.

    You know who you are.

    3. Citizen Sleeper 2

    There is an ending to the original Citizen Sleeper that makes my chest tighten and my eyes water just thinking about it. When I finished the first game, I slumped over on my couch and cried for a good ten minutes, mostly because the content of what I’d experienced was so moving, but also because it had been a while since a game had effected me on such a deep level.

    In the sequel, unfortunately, none of the emotional peaks ever reached so high, but the mechanical tightness and expansiveness of the game coupled with its new features made for an experience that was impactful, memorable, teeth-clenchingly tense, and darkly beautiful. I have loved everything I’ve played from Gareth Damian Martin and I look forward to whatever they make next.

    2. Blue Prince

    (https://vulpesvalentine.blog/2025/07/08/blue-prince-review/)

    In a year that featured some of the best writing in games I’ve ever encountered, Blue Prince hit the ball all the way out of the park and coupled the brilliance of its language with one of the most engaging and deep puzzle games I’ve ever played. It was spooky, suspenseful, and had me frequently screenshotting and jotting things down in a notebook I kept at my side, the puzzles ranging from simple mathematics and logic games to translating languages and remembering complex political histories of made up countries. There is so much depth to this game that it at times feels like an endless spiral into madness, the desire to learn more, to uncover that next big mystery, pulling you down with its infinitely alluring siren’s song.

    And if you get stuck, just use a guide. If anyone judges you, send them my way.

    1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

    https://vulpesvalentine.blog/2025/07/15/clair-obscur-expedition-33-review/

    What else can be said of a game that has captivated the minds and hearts, the attention, of seemingly everyone involved in games culture this year? How many more times can we praise its voice work, its mechanical tightness that bleeds into damage number absurdity the likes of which you’ve never seen before, its Sekiro style perfect dodges and parries that will reward your bravery and punish your failures in equal measure? How much can we continue describing how amazing it is that games like this can even exist? Should we talk about the spell-binding music? The comedic beats that make us laugh so hard we cry and the emotional moments that just leave us sobbing and breathless?

    Clair Obscur is at times a flawed and janky game. Its animations are occasionally stiff, its levels can be difficult to navigate as it is often unclear where you can even go and where you cannot. The optional bosses in the endgame are so blisteringly hard to beat that they practically beg you to employ tactics from a guide on how to create the perfect build for your party, one tailor made for this specific fight. The entire third act of the game suffers from a lack of specificity and direction that takes the pacing of the narrative out to the woodshed with a gun in hand.

    And yet, I love this game. I love what it says, I love the way it makes me feel, I love how much goddamn fun it is to play and how every fight rewards the player with new abilities, new weapons, or bonus experience for doing everything with precision.

    I love Clair Obscur. Odds are, you love it too.

  • Update – GOTY List and Short Break

    Update – GOTY List and Short Break

    Happy December y’all!

    It’s a big and busy time for the Valentine household, and I wanted to inform all two of you that continue to read my ramblings that I will be taking a break from my weekly posts for a few weeks to spend more time with my family and less time alone at my keyboard. I have already written my GOTY (game of the year) list and will be posting that next week, but my next post will likely be sometime in January.

    I hope to have more to say about my current project “For the Flock” and my podcast “Table for Two” (which you should totally check out by the way) and will be getting some much-needed rest in the meantime.

    Additionally, it is very likely that the next installment of First Time Final Fantasy will NOT be next month, but will actually be in February. The reason for this is quite simple.

    Final Fantasy VII is long as hell.

    To all of you with holidays to celebrate: may they be merry and relaxing. To those who are lonely: I see you. I have been you. It’ll be alright.

    Much love. Thanks for all the support you’ve given me.

    Peace and love.

  • Update – New Podcast: Table for Two!

    Update – New Podcast: Table for Two!

    Greetings everyone!

    If you have enjoyed my posts and are similarly inclined to play video games and tabletop games, then I cordially invite you to join me and my good buddy Kadmor on our quest to play a new TTRPG every single month!

    We’ll do an episode on setup and introducing the game to each other and our audience, an episode or two on actual play, and then a discussion episode.

    In the future, we will also have a Patreon wherein you can back us to receive monthly bonus episodes featuring dozens and dozens of micro-RPGs made by tons of talented and thoughtful creators.

    We hope to see you there!

    Use this RSS feed link or find us wherever you get podcasts!

    https://media.rss.com/table-for-two-pod1/feed.xml

  • Update – For the Flock is in early playtesting!

    Update – For the Flock is in early playtesting!

    Happy Tuesday, folks!

    This week I figured I’d talk a little bit more about my upcoming game, currently titled “For the Flock”, a solo or group journaling/survival game about a nomadic people traveling a dangerous wasteland. I’ve been hard at work on the project after a few weeks of inactivity, and have even gotten the chance to playtest a few hours of the game with a friend of mine. We’re both having a really great time, which I take to mean that the game is at least fun at this stage, and I consider that a pretty big win.

    It’s my impression that this can be one of the more difficult parts of game design to get through: the seemingly endless slog of testing, tweaking, testing, tweaking, over and over until you start to forget how the game looked when it was unrestrained by logic, accessibility, readability, etc. That said, I’ve found that I actually quite enjoy this part of the process, especially when you have cool people to engage in it alongside you, providing real-time feedback and impressions.

    My hope is to have the game ready for testing on a wider scale by next week, so keep an eye out for that!

    To give you some idea of how the game plays, you draw cards from a standard deck which give you a prompt to help you imagine what kind of struggles or encounters your Flock is having while on their yearly pilgrimage to the safety and tranquility of a place known to them as the Summer Lands. After describing the situation, the player chooses one of six available Paths which represent the style of resolution (ie, the Path of Violence means the Flock will be fighting or mistreating someone or some place, but the Path of Trade could mean they’re bargaining or maintaining a balance with the environment around them). The other players (or if you’re playing by yourself, you) roll a number of dice equal to the current Flock score, and the result determines which Path gets chosen. As the player who’s turn it is, you have some options to sway the outcome of the roll, and all of these systems are meant to parallel the real workings of a democratic system filled with diverse peoples with unique perspectives. It’s not always easy.

    There’s obviously more to the game then just that, but I’ll save that for when it’s closer to being ready. I’m also going to try and actually get some art in this game, give you something to look at that can get the gears of imagination turning in your head as all good tabletop game art does. My first game, “our hope is You” was released in its current edition without art, as I wanted something pared down to start with. I’m also reworking some things in that game and will likely release a widely modified and updated edition.

    I have no idea how to create nice looking layouts, and I have no skill for the visual arts in general, so if you happen to be an artist reading this or know someone who might be able to help out, get in touch on Bluesky @vulpesvalentine! I DO NOT ALLOW ARTISTS TO WORK FOR FREE, YOU WILL BE COMPENSATED.

    And I think that’ll wrap it up for now. Next week’s post will be another edition of Recency Bias, but look out for an additional post on a new release I hope to have dug into in the next few days.

    Ciao!

  • Update: I make games too!

    Update: I make games too!

    Some of you reading this may be aware already but in addition to writing for this blog I write and design tabletop games! I’ve been doing this for a few years now, off and on in my spare time, not as any real career path or focus, but it’s work I (mostly) love doing and sharing with the world.

    After my first committed group of Dungeons and Dragons players dissolved, I settled in with another couple of groups in a role that was new to me: that of the GM. As many of you may know, being a GM is like being a large beetle that has gotten rolled on to its back: people are interested, they want to watch you struggle a bit, they might even feel bad for you, but they’re not going to flip you back over and help you out of this predicament, because then the fun would be over. So I spent many years s designated GM for the various groups I became a part of, and – to be honest – this suited me well.

    But the one thing I always craved and had trouble finding was the GM-less experience, being able to play the game as a participant alongside my friends without the need for a moderator, just us and the game interfacing at the same level. And there are tons of great games that offer this! But I wanted more, wanted them so bad that I decided to start making them myself. My core design principles were that the games would be simple enough for players new to tabletop gaming to understand with relative ease, to make games that were thoughtful about the way they depicted the world and its inhabitants, and that these games reflect my own minimalist tastes. Oh, and they’re always free.

    My first truly completed game was actually released recently. our hope is You is a game greatly inspired by Avery Alder’s incredible The Quiet Year, and is a science-fiction, apocalyptic storytelling game wherein players explore the path of a starship escaping a doomed planet from the perspective of those left behind. Looking back, I have my criticisms with my own design, but feedback from people I know personally who played it was positive and that’s good enough for me. If you’re curious, you can find that game here: our hope is You by Vulpes Valentine

    The main reason I decided to make this post was actually to announce my current project, another GM-less storytelling game for 1-5 players which I have tentatively titled, For the Good of the Flock. It combines my love of tragedy-laden stories of doomed peoples with the chaotic elements of group decision-making, and my strange, obsessive love for the word “flock”.

    In this game, you and your fellow players tell the story of a now lost culture of nomadic people, telling their history and charting their rises, their falls, and their steady decline into entropy. There are survival game-esque mechanics as well as a sort of Mad Libs approach to narration, both of which I think add additional layers to the game that my previous works have lacked. Essentially, you draw a random event each turn and have to decide how to approach the situation at hand in the manner that will yield the best results for your people.

    However, you are not the sole voice in this decision, and the rest of your companions have a nearly equal degree of sway in the matter, making each decision a constant struggle to maintain order and harmony among your people to avoid rash actions that will leave them hurting for supplies, or even get people killed.

    It’s chaotic and yet oddly meditative, with a rhythmic flow to the gameplay that I think folks will enjoy. I’m having a ton of fun designing it.

    I will hopefully have more to share on this soon, so stay tuned for updates!

  • Introduction

    Introduction

    Hello and welcome to this… this thing!

    Online I go by Vulpes Valentine, and I am a writer and tabletop game designer with a deep and lifelong passion for games of all kinds. So much of my life has been spent desperate to talk about games in a thoughtful or critical manner, but I’ve never really taken the opportunity to do so all that casually or pursued it as a career. But these thoughts, these feelings, boiled under my skin until I realized I could no longer hold it back anymore.

    So here I am: with a tiny little blog that I intend to fill with my writings on games (and probably other things) for people to enjoy or perhaps just to have gotten it out of my system, or to improve my writing skills.

    Now, the question you must be asking yourself is: why should I care? And that’s a pretty good question. Maybe you won’t, and that’s no problem for me.

    But for those of you who are interested, let me tell you about a few little specific things I’m going to do here.

    For one, I’ll be regularly reviewing/writing essays about different games I’ve been playing and/or thinking about. I’ll also be doing a monthly series of essays called, “First Time Final Fantasy” in which I play the mainline Final Fantasy games in order for the very first time, because somehow I have never played them before and as someone who would consider himself a gamer this seriously throws my credentials into question. I also intend to write a semi-weekly update essay under the series title “Recency Bias”, talking in brief about things I’ve been playing lately, though it may include other media I’ve been enjoying as well, namely books and movies. These will be shorter, blurb-esque opinions and reflections on things as opposed to the normal, long-form essays.

    Also, I write fiction and design games in my spare time, so I will be talking about that here as well and discussing the processes for both and providing updates on my current project.

    If you like what you see here (neato!) you can check me out on Bluesky @vulpesvalentine or you can head over to my itch.io page for all the games I’ve developed.

    Thanks for stopping by!