Hello all you wonderful Heroes and Travelers, it’s Thrifty Thursday and that means another Thrifty Gaming, the weekly post series where I spotlight three otome games/visual novels for gamers on a budget. Whatever your financial situation, I’m here to bring you affordable games that won’t break the bank!! All of the games on this list are $10 or less (does not include limited time offers and sale items), so no more weepy wallets!
This week’s post will include links to the games and a brief synopsis, but let me stress that these are not reviews, but recommendations… so your mileage may vary! Now that that’s out of the way lets get on to this week’s list!!!
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The Blind Griffin
- Publisher: Asphodel Quartet
- Genre: Drama | Fantasy | Romance
- Cost: Name Your own Price
- Where to Play: Windows, Mac, Linux
It’s the roaring 20’s. Alcohol-loving Americans are chafing underneath the restrictions of Prohibition, but speakeasies have thankfully risen to fill the void with ill-begotten booze. The Blind Griffin is one such speakeasy in San Francisco, California, but it’s about to go out of business…because its employees are a den of magicians who are more concerned with their magical studies and experiments than moonshine! Desperate not to lose the building that has become their haven, they hire the first streetsmart guttersnipe they find with some experience to help turn things around, but could she perhaps turn out to be the strongest magician of them all?
-Synopsis
The Blind Griffin is a GxB PC Original English Language Visual Novel (OELVN), created for the 2015 Visual Novel Game Jam, NaNoReNo. The game features three potential love interests and a total of ten unique endings. Each obtainable love interests has three distinct endings (Bad Ending, Love Endings, and a Friendship Ending) and there is an additional non romantic ending.
Pyrite Heart
- Publisher: Winged Cloud
- Genre: Comedy | Fantasy | Romance
- Cost: $4.99
- Where to Play: Steam
“When a feud with her brother gets too hot, Princess Ahri Remono, a young woman with a heart of fire, accepts a challenge that she cannot thrive in the world outside the Imperial Palace.
In her first day in class, the boisterous princess finds a potential rival in the student body president, Asaio Hayashi. Moving to assert her dominance, Ahri challenges the young man to a series of contests.
When each of them end inconclusively, she challenges him to the one thing she hopes he can’t be good at; a cook-off. When her rival cheerfully accepts, the young princess realizes that she may have gotten in way over her head.”
Official Synopsis
Pyrite Heart is a commercial GxB PC Original English Language Visual Novel (OELVN). The game features two potential love interests, each with their own distinct ending. Fair warning, this game is very short, but it has a lot of heart!
Guard Me Sherlock
You visit the office of the world’s greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes, wanting to request him something unique. There, you meet charming men with quite a colorful personality, together with whom you will get involved in various incidents. Solve the mystery of the case and love all in one story!
Official Synopsis
Guard Me Sherlock is a ticket based free to play GxB mobile otome game. There are a total of three love interests each with their own unique storylines. Each route is 10 chapters long with two endings (Happy and Blissful Endings). Like most mobile apps, players are limited in how far they can progress in the game due to the daily ticket limit.
Do you like Guard Me Sherlock? I downloaded it for a promo gift in Blood in Roses and the 1 billion notifications just to start the game turned me off.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you! Yeah I played a bit of it and what I played I really liked, the only reason I’m not still playing it is because free mobile games like that take forever to get through and I’m horrible at keeping up with them. What other SD games have you played?
No problem. I tried Niflheim which had an interesting story but it was really tedious to earn storage space for the avatar items. I tried Wizardess and Destiny Ninja (also for Blood Roses promo) but didn’t stick with them.
OH MY GOD YES!! I had the hardest time keeping up, I had to drop it for my sanity! I was the same with all of those!! I manage to finish a two routes in Wizardess and the checkpoints in DN were where I drew the line…
I guess free mobile games just aren’t for me LOL
Haha, I guess being annoying to play if you’re not coughing up some cash is kind of the point.
I paid for a free game once and once only and it was a wasted investment! The game had one update and all my progress was gone along with my money… So I vowed never again!
These games all sound great. The Blind Griffin’s caught for sure. She sounds so cool.
Thanks for continuing this wonderful series!
I’m glad you liked them!! Oh I absolutely loved The Blind Griffin, definitely a great game for folks who don’t typically play otoges. The romance takes a back seat to the story development and it works really well!
Mmm! Your presentation sells these three games pretty well!
Oh, that’s what I like to hear!
Thanks again for busting your butt for this series! I know you’re busy but gamers on a budget (and gamers in general) definitely enjoy this series!