Pastville. The name alone should tip you off. This place is like a screensaver from 1998, and you're Alex, stuck in this beige hellhole dreaming of Woodward and Bernstein shit while your actual life is just... stale coffee. The whole investigative journalist angle, right, that's the carrot. You're poking around, trying to dig up a story that isn't about Mrs. Gable's prize winning petunias.

The art, god, the character sprites look like they were sketched on a bar napkin and then someone spilled a drink on it. But the CG scenes. The CG scenes are where the budget went, and I am not complaining. It's that specific kind of hentai where everything gets a little too glossy, proportions go haywire in the best way. There's this one scene early on with your neighbor, total himbo energy, where he's "fixing your sink" and you choose to hand him a wrench with, let's say, unintentional implications. The mystery isn't exactly Agatha Christie, more like "where did I leave my cynicism," but then the story takes a weirdly dark turn I did not see coming, something about a missing person that's actually... wait, no, I'm thinking of a different game. In this one, the big mystery is whether you can afford rent. The choice system feels like it was programmed by someone who just discovered variables, but damn if it doesn't make the build up to those hentai scenes feel earned.

I just wish there was a gallery. A game with scenes this freakishly well drawn and no way to replay them without saving is a crime against, uh, science. Pure disrespect for the user's time.

You'll meet Mila, this obnoxious barista who is literally a single giant eye and a bad attitude, and her scenes are the game's masterpiece, pure surreal, sticky nonsense. Don't think, just click. Save often, right before you think anything remotely interesting might happen, like accepting a drink from the sketchy dude in the alley. His route is a trip. Just embrace the jank, it's part of the flavor. The newspaper minigame is broken though, don't even try.