I’ve certainly had worse jobs than the one given to you in Dead Letter Dept. I’ve worked in retail. I’ve worked in I.T. I know a thing or two about cursed computers.

Right there, I connected with Dead Letter Dept, especially since I like typing. I probably would have been happy if I was just playing Data Entry: The Game. But, as it turns out, there’s more to it than the simple satisfaction of a job well done. There’s also some effective but unconventional horror.

Dead Letter Dept. (PC)
Developer: Mike Monroe, Belief Engine
Publisher: Belief Engine
Release: January 30th, 2025
MSRP: $14.99

Cursed computers aren’t necessarily a new thing. Pony Island, Home Safety Hotline, and I know that there’s an obvious one I’m forgetting. Don’t let that dissuade you. While the concept might not be the most unique, Dead Letter Dept still has a lot to offer.

You’re cast as a young person who is moving to the city by themself for the first time. You’ve not only got some new digs, you’ve got a new job. And that job is to examine undeliverable letters and transcribe the correct address if you can read it. These letters are stained and ripped, and some of them are just written by people with horrible penmanship.

But the transcription is what it literally is: busywork. It’s not really a challenge. The letters aren’t small puzzles that you need to decipher. They’re mostly a storytelling tool. Proofreading addresses start giving way to stranger things, like bitter or tragic postcards and odd, alarming messages hidden betwixt. I mean, obviously something is going on underneath. Obviously. This is a horror game.

Before each work day, you start off in your horrible apartment. Your bed sucks, you haven’t finished unpacking, and there’s a locked exterior door that the landlord says leads to the fire exit, but that seems suspect. There isn’t much to do in the apartment, so you leave and take a walk to work. It’s truncated a bit, but the walk still does a good job of building the hopeless atmosphere.

As you go through your workdays, things just get stranger and stranger. At two or three hours for a playthrough, things escalate rather quickly, but the pace feels just right. It doesn’t play coy for very long. A couple days in, and the jumpscares start happening. And when I say “jumpscares,” I don’t mean that monsters start grabbing your ass at the water cooler, I just mean that sudden noises will start occurring offscreen or the computer will glitch out suddenly. It is what it is, but Dead Letter Dept capitalizes on it quite well by gluing you to the computer screen. If a sound seems to be coming from behind you, you can’t just turn your head to look at it, you just have to go on working, and working while spooky stuff goes on around you is one of my favorite styles of gameplay.

And while jumpscares may be cheap, that’s not all Dead Letter Dept has. It also has immaculate environmental storytelling. Its atmosphere is heightened by a disturbing lo-fi fuzz filter, careful use of lighting, and a very selective and surreal color palette. It leans heavily into cool colors that you wouldn’t normally associate with specific environments. Interior hallways, for example, are almost entirely a sickly green color.

It’s hard to fully communicate it in writing, but the visual and audio aesthetic of Dead Letter Dept allows it to drive above the legal limit. At its core, its gameplay is simple; limited, even. It’s clearly the work of mostly one person. However, it nails its atmosphere so perfectly that you can’t see the seams. It’s better executed than most big-budget productions without losing the fingerprints of its creator.

And while a single run is only 2-3 hours, that’s not the whole story. It’s made for multiple playthroughs, thankfully not using a roguelite format. Instead, there are just multiple endings. It’s not simply based on decisions made throughout the game, either. Instead, it’s just up to you to figure out how to derail things in different ways, and that’s a rather interesting wrinkle. There are hints on what you need to do, but nothing overt, leaving you fighting for your life in different ways… But, you know, within the confines of data entry.

The downside is that, while there are some random elements, there perhaps aren’t quite enough letters to keep things fresh on each playthrough. I guess there are only so many ways you can obfuscate an address, but – and I can’t believe I’m complaining about this – this job could use a smidge more variety.

Mike Monroe and Belief Engine really know how to get a lot of mileage out of a simple idea. It would, perhaps, be accurate to say that Dead Letter Dept is better than the sum of its parts, but, truly, I think that fails to illustrate just how great its parts are. The simple joy of data entry is wrapped in a soft tortilla of a well-communicated atmosphere and a well-executed aesthetic. Through its medium, it finds the horror in mundanity and uncertainty. It’s a message worth receiving.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Project Zomboid rules in its Build 42, and you should play it, but there's a reason why this massive update is still in its "Unstable" version. Much of it is broken still, and bugs rear up where you least expect them. Trees, for example, could straight-up slit your throat.

Please note that I am being very literal here: there was a non-zero chance for you to get sliced up into ribbons while exploring forests in Project Zomboid. It was every bit as hilarious as it was disturbing and painful to see, and it may or may not have happened to me while testing out Zomboid's new intercity wilderness systems. This problem has thankfully now been fixed as part of Build 42.1.0, which you can (and should) download at your earliest convenience.

Project Zomboid Build 42.1.0 fixes the infamous killer trees, adds awesome new features

Specifically, Project Zomboid's killer trees came about due to the possibility for your avatar to get scratched up while pushing through dense forest canopies. And hey, if a tree can scratch you, why not make it possible for it to straight-up slit your throat while you're mucking about? That's precisely what would occasionally happen, and the odds naturally grew the more time you spent prowling about Project Zomboid's many, many cool forests.

Build 42.1.0 resolves this bug by "[removing] death-by-tree," as per the official patch notes. "Scratches no longer bleed. Erroneous lacerations taken out," it continues. Excellent news, of course, but there's lots more where that came from. The full patch notes are downright massive, but here are some of the most important and notable highlights I've spotted so far:

• Firearm damage reworked: Chance-to-Damage system introduced, making it so that each successfully aimed shot hits.
• Purify Water recipe added, allowing you to purify up to one liter of tainted water using Water Purification Tablets.
• Various new Blacksmithing recipes added, including Iron Bands, Mace and Spear Heads, Spiked Clubs, etc.
• New "Report Bug" button added to the main menu screen.
• Planks can now be carved from Large Branches.
• "Discomfort Modifier" option added to Sandbox Mode.
• Maintenance XP gain doubled.
• Zombies climbing through windows become visible as soon as their heads are visible.
• Boiling water now takes ten times as long.
• Safe House loot has been adjusted, allowing skill books, recipes, and firearms to spawn late-game.
• Lowered the default number of zombies prowling through the forest biome.
• Hot water can once again be used to disinfect bandages.

This is just a very truncated list of all the improvements, tweaks, and fixes delivered as part of update 42.1.0, but it should illustrate my point that it is an excellent release across the board.

If you've been playing Project Zomboid with mods even after it's been updated to B42, it may take a while before they're all brought fully up-to-speed with the new release. It shouldn't be too big of a deal, however, given how quick the modding community has been as of late.

On that note, if you'd like to experience Project Zomboid from an entirely different point of view, boy do I have a recommendation for you. The ridiculously ambitious (and astonishingly janky) Week One mod begins the game a full seven days before the outbreak, allowing you to experience actual human beings doing their own things in Knox Country. Give it a shot, and you can thank me later.

The post You can no longer die to a tree in Project Zomboid appeared first on Destructoid.

Basketball has never been better in video games than it was in NBA Jam. Unless you count Acclaim’s run in the game around the millennium, which unfortunately makes up most of it, but when NBA Jam is NBA Jam, it’s the best. It’s just unfortunate we haven’t seen it since (holy crap) 2011.

It’s expensive (I assume) to license the names and likenesses of NBA players, so while RoboDunk lacks flesh, it has it where it counts: dunks. 

RoboDunk (PC, Switch, PS4, PS5 [reviewed], Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Jollypunch Games
Publisher: Jollypunch Games
Release: September 25th, 2023 (PC, Switch), January 21st, 2025 (PS4, PS5 Xbox Series X|S)
MSRP: $14.99

RoboDunk lifts the brutality of NBA Jam’s 2v2 gameplay (technically built off of Arch Rivals) but puts its own twist on it. Most prominently, there is no shooting. I mean, some of the robots have firepower, but they won’t throw the ball unless it’s to pass. The only way to score is to dunk. To make up for the lack of three-pointers, you can charge your jump, and the higher the charge, the higher the jump, and the more points you gain. 

Like NBA Jam, violence has no repercussions, so you’re encouraged to throw elbows and shoulders to dislodge the ball from your opponent’s grasp. Alternatively, when you have the ball, you can also throw up a temporary shield around your robot that shocks anyone who tries to touch your ball. Each bot has its own special weapon that works on an ammo system. Some will drop turrets, others shoot lasers, and some just have a different type of tackle. You get money for doling out punishment, so there’s no reason to not make the competitors go home in tears.

RoboDunk’s central mode bills itself as a roguelite, which essentially means that you take on runs, progressing through harder and harder matches until you eventually fail and have to start over (though you can pay to start from a more advanced stage. With the money you earn from matches, you can buy more bots, upgrade them, or unlock new perks that appear randomly before matches.

The core gameplay is solid. It’s as brisk as its main influence, never really stopping gameplay as you push toward the enemy net and get pushed back in return. The charge-dunk system provides some good risk and reward, as charging up your jump leaves you exposed but allows you to pile on the points faster.

Each match in the roguelite mode has different modifiers, including what hazards hit the court, such as rolling spike logs and random meteors. They also run at different lengths and for a varying number of rounds, making it important to actually look at the setup before diving in and adapting to what’s in front of you. Taken entirely based on the core gameplay, RoboDunk is simple but entertaining.

The actual roguelite framework, however, I’m not all that hot on. It’s presented as a progression where you’re given a choice of three matches, each of which offers two semi-permanent perks and features different rulesets. While this works from the perspective of being a roguelite, it takes away from its feel as a sport. It feels like progression only in the literal sense, but it doesn’t feel like you’re accomplishing anything meaningful.

More importantly, however, the perks are over-crowded, and money comes so damned slowly. You get a payout depending on how high you score, how hard you hit, successful shielding, and your use of weapons, and then this is subtracted or increased by the difficulty of the match. On a good match, I’d see around 50 of the in-game currency. This can be boosted by choosing bots that you don’t use frequently. As the robots sit on the bench, they’ll gain a percentage boost, so you’ll get a higher payout. This is actually an interesting wrinkle since it means you won’t just stick to one robot and pour all your upgrades into it.

However, since you’re spending money on new perks, new robots, and upgrades for those robots, actually making meaningful progress feels extremely slow. What’s worse is that the difficulty modifier is extremely small, so it never feels like you’re getting adequately rewarded for winning harder matches. It really deadens the drive. There’s less compulsion to push harder and further since it feels like everything is at a constant rather than a curve.

There’s one complaint that I feel weird about, but I think I can explain it: robots have no place in basketballs. Hear me out. Part of what made NBA Jam’s more outlandish elements more effective is the fact that you were watching real NBA players dunk from great heights and hit the floor. It’s less effective with robots. I completely believe they’re capable of superhuman dunks because they’re not human. I have no idea whether or not getting shoved into the concrete would hurt these particular machines. Visual feedback was used to communicate impact, but because there’s no skin in the game, I always felt a disconnect in watching things unfold.

The robots themselves, and even the arenas, are supported by a surprising amount of background lore, which does a lot to flesh things out. There's a lot to do and discover, but it struggles to feel worthwhile. It never really feels grounded. Being able to connect is a key part to enjoying sports, not just in video games, but in reality.

Having another player join you really helps things since, rather than being a random assortment of machines, it’s you and your chum playing basketball. As multiplayer often does, it lessens the complications caused by the slow progression and adds more meaning to the matches. You can also strategize better with one player handing defense and the other going in for the dunk. Co-op also demonstrates how well all the mechanics work together.

And that’s kind of the bottom line: RoboDunk works quite well on a functional level. Its dunk-centric basketball is a quick, enjoyable snack. Its toy-like aesthetic and minimalistic stop-motion animation is effective. However, the framework just doesn’t support it quite right. Barring my (possible superficial) thoughts about robo-dunkers, the roguelite setup doesn’t provide a compelling experience. It’s a decent game to pick up and play, but it’s not the slam dunk it should be.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Judero developers Talha and Jack Co have announced that the Kickstarter (not live yet) for Mashina will start tomorrow, January 22, 2025. Along with the announcement is a new trailer, as well as the estimated release date of June, 2025.

The Kickstarter is intended to raise funds to finish the last stretch of development, as it seems Mashina is well on the way, judging by the trailer. The campaign is aiming to raise £12000. The game was announced with a teaser this past December, but the Kickstarter and gameplay trailer paint a much clearer picture.

You play as the titular character who has a penchant for digging. They’re stranded on an island with a handful of locals that you’ll get intimately familiar with. Digging allows you to gather resources, as well as things to decorate the island and gift to the other characters. Beyond just directly getting your hands dirty, you can also construct machines to help with your work. Looks cozy.

Like Judero, all of the assets in Machina are hand-sculpted. Apparently, if you pledge £500, you’ll get one of the handmade robots. I had the chance to interview one of the developers, Jack King-Spooner, for the Destructoid Changelog Newsletter’s monthly special this month. He tells me that clay getting stuck under fingernails. As to what his strategy is. “To prevent under-nail clay I use a collection of ornate porcelain thimbles.” Incredible. I only ask the tough questions.

I also reviewed Judero back in September. It’s fantastic. I don’t exactly get it, but I can dig those vibes. There’s nothing out there quite like it, and it’s something you have to experience. I think I can grok Mashina a little better, barring any massive curveballs that might be thrown.

The Kickstarter for Mashina starts tomorrow, January 22, 2025. It’s release is planned for PC sometimes in June 2025.

The post Judero developer’s handcrafted follow-up, Mashina, digs into Kickstarter tomorrow appeared first on Destructoid.

Load up on energy drinks, because Keep Driving, the road trip sim from the devs behind Post Void, is launching on PC on February 6th.

I played the demo of Keep Driving back in October, and the biggest complaint I came away with was that its difficulty leaned on the easy side, which I largely attributed to its unbalanced economy. I was able to get quite a bit of padding in my pocket, which made it really easy to deal with any trouble that came my way.

The best description I can give of Keep Driving is that it’s a lot like Oregon Trail. It’s set during the early 2000s, with you setting out in your very first car to enjoy the last days of your youth. You don’t exactly drive, but instead, set your car on its journey, then make decisions as various events turn up to complicate your relaxing drive. They range from simple potholes to livestock. Each time one pops up, you use a variety of ability cards to try and mitigate the effects it can have. You can sometimes pick up hitchhikers who can either help or hinder your trip. The goal is to keep yourself and your car together long enough to reach it to your friend’s house to play video games.

I’m pretty excited to see how Keep Driving was improved on over the past few months. It was already in decent shape in October and just needed a bit more meat and a bit of polish. Should be a good time.

Keep Driving releases on February 6, 2025 for PC.

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Hyper Light Breaker is a pretty darn neat game, even if it does have all the usual roughness of an Early Access release, but its Steam Deck performance was practically inexcusable on launch day. Somewhat unexpectedly, the developer Heart Machine has already managed to turn that around, however!

Heart Machine made a name for itself with the original Hyper Light Drifter, a practically legendary top-down hack 'n' slash indie adventure that sets the stage for Breaker. Seeing Hyper Light Drifter release in Early Access the way it did made me slightly worried about what the future might hold, but Hotfix v0.5.1.107947 has thankfully dispelled many of my concerns. Specifically, shoddy performance remains one of Breaker's biggest problems, but I am thrilled to report that the game is no longer unplayable on the Steam Deck. The flip side of the coin is that there's some serious weirdness with how Heart Machine handles the Deck in general.

You can now enjoy Hyper Light Breaker on the Steam Deck, but there's still some strangeness about

I am thrilled that Hyper Light Breaker runs reasonably well on the Deck. The gameplay loop is a perfect match for the console, and the new hotfix's performance improvements have already made for a genuinely enjoyable experience. Heart Machine has already promised more optimization to come, and soon: "The strongest feedback we’ve received this week focuses on performance, particularly on lower-end machines and the Steam Deck. Today’s Hotfix includes a large number of performance improvements and improved Graphics Settings. Expect even more improvements in future planned updates as well."

I didn't anticipate the difference between the graphics settings a Steam Deck has access to and those you have on a regular PC setup. In my previous article, I mentioned that Hyper Light Breaker only lets you tweak three different settings:

• Shadow quality
• Foliage distance
• Prop detail

The new hotfix changed that on the Steam Deck, but not necessarily for the better. On the Deck, you now only have access to:

• Ambient occlusion
• Film effects
• Film grain
• Chromatic aberration

That's right: the three original settings have been taken out of the graphics sub-menu and replaced with a handful of entirely different ones instead. Why is that the case? I do not know, but it gets weirder still. You see, the regular PC build of Hyper Light Breaker has what I would call a proper graphics tweak menu:

It's still far from perfect, but it's genuinely helpful and allows you to tweak the visual experience however you see fit. There's no real way to do so on the Steam Deck at this time, and I cannot fathom why this would be the case unless there's something very painfully obvious that I keep missing.

My gut feeling is that Heart Machine is trying to deliver a curated, optimized experience on the Steam Deck. This is fair, and an approach that's more than valid for what is at its core a very low-spec gaming laptop. Yet, I do not see the value in only giving Steam Deck users a gutted version of the PC build's graphics settings, no matter how I flip it.

Another possibility is that the Steam Deck's options UI is somehow squeezed together and only displays a small portion of the full settings list. Since only the four bottom options show up on the Deck, that's a distinctively realistic option but a problem nonetheless.

This whole realization has sort of overshadowed Heart Machine's hotfixing efforts for me personally, though I'm sure the team will eventually get around to resolving this apparent problem in due time. Otherwise, Hyper Light Breaker is proving to be rather good overall, and I can finally recommend it. Even on the Steam Deck, as long as you're okay with not being able to tweak settings however you want!

The post New Hyper Light Breaker update makes the game playable on the Steam Deck appeared first on Destructoid.

Whether you want to start life over on a run-down farm or you want a new challenge to absorb all of your spare time, there’s never a shortage of cozy games ready and waiting to distract you from reality. 2025 is set to be a big year for the genre, with a myriad of announced titles set to release. 

Although games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing served to propel the cozy gaming genre to a huge number of new players, the genre has been around for far longer. Some would pinpoint the birth of cozy games with Little Computer People, released for multiple platforms in 1985. We’ve come a long way since then, but cozy games are still a firm favorite for many. 

Many cozy titles are set to release this year, make their way to new platforms, or leave early access behind. As something of a cozy gamer myself, here are 15 that I’m looking forward to getting into. 

Kitori Academy

Although there is no set release date for Kitori Academy yet, and the Kickstarter page still suggests that the game should have been fully released in 2023, all signs point to this magical cozy game being released at some point in 2025. Of course, that’s not set in stone, but the gorgeous art style and promising concept of the game are hard not to be hopeful about. 

In Kitori Academy, you take on the role of a wizard apprentice who attends the academy alongside their pet cat. If you’ve ever wanted to head off to Hogwarts, this will definitely appeal to you. Not only can you train in the arts of potion brewing and spellcasting with an aim to tackle the curse that threatens the land, but you can also grow vegetables and build relationships with those around you. 

Discounty

Discounty is what would happen if Jojamart were in charge of Stardew Valley. Rather than trying to save the town from a money-hungry conglomerate, Discounty will give you control over the local town store and hand you the power to pour contamination into the water stream. Or, you could take the other, more honorable route, but that’s been done before, right?

There are plenty of townsfolk to make friends with in Blomkest – or turn into enemies if you disturb the peace of the quiet town by growing your business too rapidly. You get to pick your stock, set the prices, and make trade deals to thrive one way or another. Essentially, you get to become Pierre, and that’s weirdly appealing. 

We Harvest Shadows

Admittedly, We Harvest Shadows can only be described as ‘cozy’ if you ignore the large number of horror elements at play, but there are some who find relaxation in creepy surroundings. The game takes inspiration from the terrifying folklore surrounding the Appalachian mountains. You know the ones — “if you hear someone calling your name, no, you didn’t”. 

But that’s just one side of We Harvest Shadows. The cozy elements come in the form of farming, fixing up your house, looking after your animals, and getting to know those who live in the area surrounding the farm. There’s a huge focus on slow-burn storytelling, rather than throwing you in at the deep end with pure horror and jump scares, so you can take your time enjoying the cozy before giving yourself nightmares. 

Fields of Mistria

Fields of Mistria is technically already available to play and has been since it entered Early Access in August 2024. There’s already so much to do, including over 40 hours of gameplay and endless customization, never mind all of the friends you can make along the way. However, it is set to leave early access behind at some point during 2025, fully packed with features that currently aren’t implemented. 

According to the roadmap, more levels are set to be added to the Mines, new NPCs are due to arrive, and many new items are likely to arrive, too. I’m very much a fan of Fields of Mistria, and those who have played it already have fallen in love with the world and the people in it. It’s easy to lose hours while playing, and it’s worth diving in whenever you’re ready. 

Solarpunk

If you’re looking for a cozy game with space to drag your friends along for the ride, Solarpunk might be it, although it’s perfect if you want to do some solo gaming as well. It is a survival game with an emphasis on rebuilding and thriving on futuristic floating islands, although there’s a huge amount of cottagecore goodness to be found even in the technologically advanced setting. 

While the game will center around building up a farmstead using farming, crafting, and gathering skills and harnessing natural energy to power it all, there’s also an exploration element to Solarpunk. Eventually, you’ll be able to build a private airship, facilitating travel to islands further afield so that you can gather resources and materials or make new friends along the way. 

Witchbrook 

2025 might be the year of magic-based cozy games, with Witchbrook being the second on this list based in the more fantastical realm. With instantly familiar graphics and an emphasis on friendship building, Witchbrook has all of the elements that point to success and is definitely worth keeping an eye on as we get closer to release day. 

Once again, you enroll at a College of Witchcraft to learn everything there is to know about magic, but that’s not all there is to Witchbrook. You’ll be able to cook, grow plants, forage, and even soar through the skies on a broom. Eventually, you move on to postgraduate studies and take on deliveries for the locals, allowing you to build friendships or romantic relationships with those both inside and outside of the college walls. 

While Waiting

Sometimes, it can be hard to sit back and watch the world around you without any input, but While Waiting is a cozy game that aims to challenge the control freak in all of us, no matter how big or small that part of us may be. The game even comes with a warning that it might get boring at times, but that’s not necessarily the case.

While the aim of Just Waiting is overwhelmingly simple – just wait – there is no shortage of things to do or experience while you do. I mean, yes, you might technically be waiting for a bus or for the rain to stop, and nothing you do will make that waiting time go any quicker, but there’s still a lot to interact with in each scene and many puzzles to figure out to complete objectives. 

Hello Kitty Island Adventure

I know that Hello Kitty Island Adventure was first released in 2023, but thanks to the exclusive availability on only the Apple Arcade, many people have never had the chance to play. Now, it’s coming to both Nintendo Switch and PC through Steam, opening up the Sanrio world to a whole new influx of players. 

With all of the most well-loved Sanrio characters (including Gudetama, a fact that makes my heart sing), Hello Kitty Island Adventure has won a long list of rewards for gameplay and design. There are 80 quests to complete, many friends to make, crafting and gathering to be done, and all of it in Sanrio’s telltale kawaii style. 

Ritual of Raven

Ritual of Raven isn’t the first cozy game from Spellgarden Games, but it is their first foray into the world of farming sims. You might be familiar with its previous cozy gem, Sticky Business, and the now familiar art style has been transformed into a lively, story-based life sim that revolves around growing herbs in a magical world while accompanied by your trusty raven. 

Not only can you cultivate your herb garden with the power of magic, but you can also truly personalize your space with decorations. A few friendly neighbors are waiting to form friendships with you, and you can even learn how to control the phases of the moon in your own self-interest. Ritual of Raven has been on my radar since it was announced in August 2024, and I can’t wait to dive in and play. 

Outbound

In Outbound, you’re in control of a camper van with a huge map to explore, materials to be scavenged, and endless customization options as you turn the camper van into your own ideal home on wheels. You can play both solo or with up to four friends, and there’s no right or wrong, making Outbound truly cozy in every sense of the word. 

You’ll need to adapt your play style depending on how far you venture, with everything from expansive fields to treacherous mountains to explore, but your trusty camper van can go everywhere with you. You can also establish a base camp by building around the camper van, growing plants, and learning to cook the ingredients you cultivate. 

Crimson Hollow

And just like that, another magic-based cozy game is waiting to be tried. Crimson Hollow will allow you to try your hand at skills like mining, blacksmithing, herbalism, alchemy, and fishing because what would a cozy game be if there was no fishing? It’s almost a basic requirement at this point. Almost. 

Outside of your own farming and gathering tasks, there are also quests to complete and townsfolk to meet, befriend, or become romantically entangled with. Building relationships will uncover new secrets or perks, and you’ll also be able to customize not only your character but also your home. With a cute cartoon art style and an intriguing story waiting to be told, Crimson Hollow is worth keeping on your radar.

Date Everything

Date Everything is proof that there’s a fine line between just-plain-weird and weirdly-cozy. Dating sims aren’t exactly a new thing, but Date Everything takes, well, everything, to the extreme. Rather than meeting and picking up regular people, Date Everything puts you in a house and offers you the chance to date everything from the lamps to the dishwasher. How many times can I say “date everything” in one paragraph?

The concept is bizarre, but there’s a lot of appeal there. While I can’t say I’ve ever thought about the potential personified appearance of my TV cabinet, I’m intrigued to see what it could look like if given the chance to become something more than it currently is. There are 100 characters waiting to be pulled from the furniture and appliances; the whole pun-filled experience is fully voice-acted by a large number of recognizable voices, featuring three endings per character. That’s a lot to get absorbed in.

Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game

There’s something infinitely appealing about life in Hobbiton, The Shire, Middle Earth. It’s picturesque, quiet, laid back, and outside of the appearance of Gandalf and Pippin and Merry’s insistence on causing chaos, there’s very little drama. That sounds relaxing, peaceful, and, dare I say it, ultimately cozy. 

In Tales of the Shire, you can immerse yourself in Hobbit life. Farming, fishing, foraging, and, of course, the most important task for any Hobbit, cooking. No Hobbit hole is complete without a well-stocked pantry, and second breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Stock up on potatoes, and explore the village of Bywater to create connections with your fellow Hobbits, which is greatly helped by sharing meals.

Loftia

Loftia is a cross between a life sim and a small-scale MMO. You have your own floating island that can be customized and used to farm, forage, and craft your way to a brighter future. You can then join players nearby to form neighborhoods, using ethical energy to power your creations in this sustainable new world. 

Through the use of hydroponics, trellis farming, repurposing trash into usable furniture, and scavenging from abandoned factories, you can create a utopia while uncovering hidden stories to play through and locations to explore. There’s also the ability to adopt companions, including capybaras, turtles, and even some as-yet unrevealed endangered creatures. As if that’s not enough, you can dress them in adorable outfits, instantly making Loftia worth your time. 

inZOI

It’s been hard to avoid hearing about inZOI over the last few months, especially for those heavily into The Sims and other similar titles. inZOI takes the proven life sim concept and throws it into the 21st century with almost photo-realistic graphics and endless customization possibilities powered by what KRAFTON has promised to be ethical generative AI. 

There have been countless videos of early gameplay released through YouTubers such as MadMorph, and KRAFTON also released the character studio demo for a few weeks toward the end of 2024, allowing players a glimpse of what’s to come. And what’s to come looks incredibly impressive. With ultimate control over everything from the weather to the type of wild creatures you can encounter and the possibility to upload photos of your own items to import and use in the game, there’s no end of new things to try when inZOI eventually gets a full release on March 28.

The post Best cozy games coming out in 2025 appeared first on Destructoid.

Fortune's Run is a pretty rad Early Access retro FPS / Immersive Sim hybrid that's been rummaging about its niche for a little while now, but its development is about to cease for a long while. Specifically, the main developer is going to prison, and the QA lead is out.

"First of all, I have some stuff going on I need to make public as it's going to interrupt development," said the lead developer of Fortune's Run, Dizzy. "I've been sentenced to prison for the next 3 years." That's more-or-less the opening statement of the latest development blog posted on Steam. Though Dizzy has chosen not to reveal what's gone down, they've been adamant that he deserves the punishment even though that part of their life is in the past: "I do not have a sex crime. I'm not going to go into specific charges and such or tell you the story. What I did was wrong and that's all you need to know," he concluded. There's more, though.

Fortune's Run will stay in its current state for the foreseeable future

"My case is about 5 years old now, I have been going through the legal process the whole time I've been working on [Fortune's Run]," said Dizzy. "I have finally been found guilty and sentenced, and I'm going away next month. It's a shame, but it's the consequences of my actions. I was a very violent person and I hurt a lot of people in my life."

Dizzy hasn't been a one-person dev team all along, note. They've been working on Fortune's Run alongside their wife, Arachne, who is also off the project following some traumatic happenings from July 2024: "About three weeks ago, Arachne had a major surgery. Everything should have went well and we were planning on resuming production at a slower pace about a week and a half later, with me taking over some of the more demanding responsibilities as she recovers for the rest of the year," Dizzie then posted about the matter, adding that "[Arachne] has had multiple complications from the surgery and had to be hospitalized in the ICU two days after being released from the surgery center. We've been bouncing around between different departments and hospitals for about a week now. Long story short, she was very ill and almost died but is now stable and has been released home into my care."

The silver lining to this situation is that Arachne has recovered since, but things got complicated further still: "Once [Arachne] recovered, she decided that she was no longer interested in game development. She was in charge of QA and a few level segments, all of which has been abandoned and I've been forced to get by on my own for the past while. It's been very difficult to do alone but I actually managed, by basically not sleeping, to complete all of the work in time so that it could be released before I'm sent away."

Dizzie has also added that they "decided to part ways," which has led to the current situation. Fortune's Run's development is now "completely interrupted," though Dizzie wants to continue working on it as soon as he is able to. "I want to underline that I'm no longer in financial dire straits since our game actually sold OK, so I should be able to afford rent once I get out, so there's a chance that if you wait a few years I'll be able to cap off the release. In fact, there's not very much content left to work on, I've been making stubs and prototypes of the missing levels in my spare time," he explained.

It's not all grim, then, though it's not great, either. Dizzie is clearly intent on continuing the development of Fortune's Run if at all possible, which is admirable. Also worth keeping in mind is that Fortune's Run just received a massive new content update that should add a bunch of fresh gameplay to the mix. In conclusion, then, if you've been waiting for Fortune's Run to release from Early Access, I suggest either taking it off your wishlist for the foreseeable future or playing it for what it is. The bits that are there are good, I can tell you that much!

The post Indie ImSim Fortune’s Run effectively ceases development amidst health problems and prison time appeared first on Destructoid.

Even though Lovecraft might've been an indubitably racist author, others have built upon his legacy to create a genuinely compelling library of cosmic horror media. Very few games truly drive home how horrific it is to live alongside Lovecraft's monstrosities, however, and Cyclopean: The Great Abyss may correct that.

Frankly, I can't help but be surprised that we haven't yet had an honest-to-goodness cosmic horror dungeon crawler. That's what Cyclopean: The Great Abyss is, of course, but just look at it! How has nobody else come up with this particular concept before? Thankfully, small-scale developer Schmidt Workshops is here to correct that wrong, and I think there's some real merit in this project beyond its impeccable vibes.

Cyclopean: The Great Abyss releases in Early Access on January 17, check out the demo now

A free demo is available via Steam, and it's a tiny download, so you'll be in-game before you know it. The crux of the experience is Cyclopean's obvious Ultima gameplay loop. This is a full-fledged old-school CRPG that plainly states it's been heavily inspired by the likes of Ultima and Questron, just to list a few. You've got the one-two combo of a bird's eye exploration component with first-person dungeon crawling. The deliciously grainy graphics tie it all together with a gross, slimy bow on top.

Schmidt Workshops points out that, even though Cyclopean is releasing via Early Access on January 17, the game is more-or-less functionally complete already: "Cyclopean is a complete game, but it is still in need of more thorough play-testing. Early Access will help me enhance and expand the game while getting important feedback from players," says the developer's statement on Steam.

"As mentioned there is a complete game already playable, with three different potential endings. The quests are not too long or involved, but they have a beginning, middle and end. The player has many options in how to engage with the game world, including combat, stealth and dialogue," they continue.

Good showing, then, but I'd like to add more context to why I think this may be Schmidt Workshops' most promising game yet. This one-man game-dev studio effectively specializes in producing small-scale Lovecraftian adventure games, and I'm genuinely surprised they're not more popular in the cosmic horror gaming niche.

For example, Schmidt Workshops' Aberration Analyst is more-or-less a Delta Green operation handler simulator. Paradox Vector, on the other hand, is described as an "homage and sequel" to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness with a wild graphics style to keep things spicy. As you can probably tell, I've been on a bit of a Schmidt Workshops bender as of late, but it's really good stuff.

Once again, these are all relatively small-scale titles that come in at just under $5. At that price point, though, I'm happy to recommend them and will be looking forward to whatever else Schmidt Workshops pushes out in the future.

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Warm up your tapping toes, Foreign Gnomes has announced that the sequel to Chris Nordgren and Jordi Roca’s 2021 musical RPG, Everhood will be releasing soon on PC and Switch. Everhood 2 is set to launch on March 4, 2025.

Everhood was one of the first games I reviewed as a full-ish staff member at Destructoid. I didn’t love it! While a lot of what I cited as a problem in my review was technical related, the truth is that there was a story thematic later in the game that I found to be, um, problematic. But it’s buried so deep in there that I would have had to spoil quite a lot to have really gone into it in depth.

However, I did mention other problems like weak characters and the fact that it tries to pull the subversive fake ending nonsense way too many times. I don’t think about Everhood very often these days, and I’ve lost quite a few specifics in my memory, but I still remember the general issues I have with it.

On the other hand, I don’t think it was a bad game. It showed promise, and I think that could be delivered on in a sequel. Storytelling is a skill that can be built, after all, and the gameplay was pretty rad. A lot of it was like Guitar Hero, but instead of strumming the notes, you avoid them. Twists would constantly get thrown in along the way, and it could get pretty intense.

The details on the narrative are a bit hard to follow. It seems that you’ll be playing an avatar of yourself, and you’re “on a quest to slay the mysterious Mind Dragon before the world decays.” All right. It promises over 100 songs and will last 8-10 hours. That’s, like, 2 ½ minutes per song. I have a calculator here. Except there’s likely walking and talking to people in between, so that’s not going to be accurate. Or even useful. You’re welcome.

Everhood will release on PC and Switch on March 4, 2025.

The post Weird rhythm-RPG follow-up Everhood 2 launches in March appeared first on Destructoid.

In Dreaming Isles, you're a hapless sailor who's washed ashore on a desolate island, and it's up to you to turn it into a respectable farm. The good news is there's a farmhouse nearby. The bad news is that it's locked. Here's how to open the farmhouse in Dreaming Isles.

How to rebuild the bridge in Dreaming Isles

One of the first things you'll notice after you've picked yourself up out of the sand and explored a bit is the splintered bridge to the left of the farmhouse. For now, this is your only way off the island, so you'll want to get that fixed as soon as possible. Interacting with the bridge reveals you need ten pieces of wood to fix it.

Luckily, plenty of trees are growing on the island, and its previous owner was kind enough to leave you a tool to get them down for lumber. Head up north until you find the chest sitting under the gigantic tree. Hover your cursor over the chest and click the right mouse button to open it. You'll find an axe inside. Click on it to move it into your inventory.

Once you've got the axe, equip it by clicking on the axe icon in your hot bar or clicking the 1-0 key on your keyboard, whichever works for you. Head to the nearest tree and click on it with the right mouse key to hack away. It should fall after a few swings, dropping 3-5 pieces of lumber. Once you've got 1o pieces, head back to the bridge and click the gap to repair it.

How to find the farmhouse key in Dreaming Isles

Now that you've fixed the bridge, head to the island to your left. This is the lucky little patch of land that will become your farm. Walk to the upper-left-most area of the island. You'll find an ominous-looking angel statue with a less-ominous silver key at its feet. Guess what it unlocks!

Once you're back on the main island with the key, click on the farmhouse door to unlock it. Now, you've got a roof over your head, a bed to lie down in, and access to a crafting table, kitchen, and an underground tunnel you can use to explore the rest of the island and start building the pirate life you've always dreamed of.

The post How to open the farmhouse in Dreaming Isles appeared first on Destructoid.

I hope you aren’t afraid of heights, because The Wandering Band’s skybound city-builder, Airborne Empire launched into Early Access today. It’s now available on Steam.

Airborne Empire is the sequel to the well-received 2020 city-builder, Airborne Kingdom. It continues the concept of building flying (Airborne, if you will) civilizations. Having never played the original, it’s hard for me to tell you exactly what’s different, but I can tell you that this one has you constructing the ultimate flying fortress. You travel the world, helping people and fending off sky pirates, while developing technologies that will help your sky neighborhood soar.

According to the Early Access blurb, “When we launch into Early Access, the most important features of the game will already be there: building, researching, balance, lift, movement, dialogue, and more.” However, it gets very honest directly after that, saying, “The launch version has an enjoyable gameplay loop, but is still a bit bare-bones, lacking content and polish.” I personally appreciate the up-front warning. 

Furthermore, the Early Access run is planned for one year, during which time they “plan to add new building types, new biomes, new events/missions and expand the background story of the game.” Listen, the most important thing I can think of here: “Weather system.” I know that sounds like sarcasm, but I honestly love a good weather system in games.

Airborne Empire is now available in Early Access on PC via Steam.

The post Airborne Empire takes flight into Early Access appeared first on Destructoid.

Oh, I’ve been waiting for this. My Summer Car has been in Early Access since 2016, and I’ve eagerly awaited the chance to review it for real. It’s finally here, which means there’s no escape. It’s time to pull this bad boy apart.

But I want to be upfront: My Summer Car is wildly unconventional. It has an almost incomparable design philosophy, completely shirking the evolution of games that came before it. As a result, it’s clearly for a specific type of person, but I can’t tell you what that type of person is, nor can I tell with any certainty if you would fit in that category. At best, I hope I can get you curious enough to try it. At worst, you won’t get what I’m talking about.

My Summer Car (PC)
Developer: Amistech
Publisher: Amistech
Released: January 8, 2025
MSRP: $14.99

My Summer Car transports you to rural Finland circa 1995. You’re dropped into the shoes of a young adult left unsupervised for the summer. You’ve got a moped, a front-end loader, and a car that has been busted down to its individual components. The obvious focus is getting that car put together, but the end goal? Ehhh.

There is technically a way to roll the credits without dying, but doing so relies on arcane knowledge. Personally, I’d say the end goal of My Summer Car is whatever you make of it. There are a lot of things that you can do, and some of them result in rewards. There are also a lot of ways you can fuck up, and many of them result in death.

Yeah, death. Rural Finland is a dangerous place and My Summer Car loves to see you suffer. It prominently features a permadeath. This can be turned off, but that comes with its own inconveniences. Alternatively, if you’re savvy, you can create backups of your saves so you can resume later in case of catastrophe.

It’s down to preference as to whether you’ll accept permanent death. I always leave it on because it adds much weight to how you interact with the world. You will buckle your seatbelt and drive more safely if you know that slipping off the narrow roads can undo your progress. However, it’s a cruel game. If any of your mortal stats completely deplete (hunger and thirst, for instance), you can drop dead. There’s a chance you’ll be killed if you pick up the telephone during a thunderstorm (I looked it up, and apparently, that can happen in reality). I once died because I didn’t flip the master breaker before changing a fuse.

Oh, apparently, you can die if you piss on the TV. I don’t know why you’d try that. I guess if you felt the need to just hose down the living room so your parents know you now own the place. I’m not sure why someone would go to the effort of designing and programming that particular way to die, but that demonstrates the developer’s bizarre priorities. One of the new threats is that if you leave the door to your house open, a wasp can get inside. The player character is allergic to wasp stings.

Even if you have death turned off, My Summer Car has many ways to punish you. If you leave the stove on when you leave the house, there is a chance your house will burn down. That's it. No more house. Technically, you can still survive homeless, but I’m sure you can understand why this would be inconvenient. You can also be thrown in jail if you try to evade police or murder someone (either accidentally or intentionally). Otherwise, there’s always the risk of getting in an accident and totaling your car. The worst part of that scenario is the long, long, very long walk of shame you have to perform back to your home.

Wrecking your car isn’t necessarily the end of your Finland adventure. You can drag it to the local mechanic, Fleetari, to repair. As far as I know, you can’t permanently destroy anything, but it’s hard to tell with this game. Fixes require money, however, and economics are difficult. There are a lot of odd jobs you can do, including chopping and delivering firewood, picking strawberries, sucking septic tanks, and selling homemade alcohol. However, they aren’t always available and some of them have roadblocks of their own, such as having to pay for the septic truck’s gas.

If My Summer Car has anything like what you’d describe as a gameplay loop, it would be work, get money, spend money on car maintenance. But that kind of breaks down when you realize that building the car is mainly for its own sake.

Johannes Rojola has the design sensibilities of a seagull full of cocaine. Efficiency is a foreign concept, and almost nothing added since the start of Early Access has been to the benefit of the player. My Summer Car is a nest of side activities, sub-plots (as if there’s a main plot), and cruelty. He goes into minute detail about some of the strangest things. This might be the most complicated simulation of a sauna that humanity will ever create. I’m not sure who else would think to allow you to piss on the stones.

The whole car construction thing is a real work of effort, though. Each piece is affected by physics, so you’re literally picking things up, moving them to where they need to go, snapping them together, then bolting them on. Like almost everything in this game, it’s temperamental. It’s not the most efficient or intuitive way to do this, either. It works, the depth of it is incredibly satisfying, and you would probably never see this in a big-budget production.

One of the strangest quirks of its design is how much it allows you to clip through objects, and it’s stranger still that you’re practically required to do it to find all the bolts on the car. Many games go to great lengths to keep things corporeal and avoid letting the player phase through the geometry. My Summer Car just says, “fuck it,” and makes it a feature. If something important falls through the floor, you can find it at the landfill.

But, as weird as the design can get, it’s all in the service of some steadfast commitment to realism. While a lot of death in the game can seem unfair, everything fatal is rooted in reality. Yeah, maybe you don’t expect to die just because you’re chopping wood while filled with more alcohol than a brewery, but common sense would tell you it’s a bad idea.

It’s also realistic in the sense that rural life is boring. There’s nowhere to go, there’s nothing on TV, there’s nothing to do. Work is sometimes slow to come in, and much of it requires you to plan your day around it. It isn’t efficient to go and suck out one person’s septic tank; it’s better to wait until all your customers require the service and then do a circuit. You can fill the trailer full of firewood all you want, but the guy who buys it will only request it once a week. The dance pavilion is only active on one day of the week, repairs and orders take time to finish, and the drunk who needs a ride home only calls sporadically.

Also, make sure you pay your phone bill. I was wondering why no one was calling with jobs, then realized that the phone company had cut me off.

If anything, the real challenge of My Summer Car is finding ways to fill your time. Frankly, part of my over 200 hours of playtime was spent idling in the game world while reading something at my desk. If you ask me, it’s boredom by design. It really lets you feel the ennui and makes the simple feeling of getting in the car with somewhere to go feel impactful. Every accomplishment is magnified. Weird, weird stuff.

If there’s one place I’m less enthusiastic about, it’s that absolutely nothing in My Summer Car is explained. In 2016, I figured out how to put a car together by rubbing stuff together and finding out how it fit. But that only gets you so far. It won’t help you tune the engine or tell you what to do when you blow a cylinder. There’s also nothing in the game that tells you that you shouldn’t piss on the TV or that you can cook sausages on the stove by placing them directly on the burner.

This means you must rely on outside information, such as the My Summer Car Wiki. In a way, this makes up for the fact that you can’t just converse with the folks around you to learn things. In reality, you might be able to bring up in conversation that you can only stay awake if you drink a cup of coffee every five minutes and be told that you have caffeine addiction. You might mention to the store clerk that you want to piss on the television, and they’ll say, “I wouldn’t do that, friend. That’s how my uncle died.” That’s kind of outside the boundaries of what’s feasible in game design.

Especially since everyone speaks Finnish in Finland. As you’d expect, a lot of this is subtitled, but not all of it. The stuff that is subtitled might be subtitled poorly. There are talk radio programs, and I can’t help but wish I knew what they were saying. It does lend to feeling like you’re living in a country that doesn’t speak your native language. Although, since your character is canonically Finnish, the exchange student excuse doesn’t make much sense. On the plus side, I now know how to swear in Finnish.

Though, really, if there’s one thing I absolutely hate, it’s the constant degradation of your Satsuma’s individual engine parts. I’m not just talking about the oil and brake fluid, but the alternator and pistons. You can’t just buy new replacement parts, only Fleetari, the mechanic in the area, can fix them. It’s expensive. You have to pull the entire engine out of your car and hand it to the mechanic; he won’t just do it himself at his, y’know, garage. It also takes a little while for him to finish. That would be bad enough, but they degrade so quickly.

It can feel like you’re driving a machine made of gossamer. Even if you don’t bump it around or drive it hard, it’s going to need to see the car doctor way sooner than you’d want. You can drive the van instead, which doesn’t degrade or break down, but it feels weird playing a car-building game and having to take it to a different person to repair behind the scenes every couple of weeks.

There’s a popular supplement for the game, MSCedit, which lets you open your save file and modify it. Cheating, essentially. Well, cheating overtly. However, there’s a point at which the game’s obstacles start to get in the way of your enjoyment, and for me, it’s having to worry about whether or not a piston is on the verge of blowing because I drove Grandma to church one too many times. It’s a step too far and probably should have stopped with replacing fan belts, spark plugs, and gaskets. I get that it's part of the game's intentional design – the Satsuma is supposed to be a piece of crap – but I hate it.

As I said, the endpoint of My Summer Car is extremely nebulous. I’m not sure how you’d really reach it without knowing the criteria in advance because it gets pretty specific. Yet, despite this, there are pretty lofty goals to achieve along the way. Getting your Satsuma certified as road-worthy is one. Winning the rally or drag races would be another. Helping the drunk guy move into a new home is a big event. You only get there by simply existing and surviving in the harsh environments of Finland.

There are plenty of lackadaisical simulators out there that revel in their own awkwardness. I’ve stared into the dead eyes of enough Unreal Engine assets to last a lifetime. But My Summer Car is not that. For all its ugliness, its rough edges, and the way it shirks conventional design, it’s a completely earnest product.

Rojola has said that he is “developing dream games for [his] own enjoyment.” Whether or not it’s your dream game is another matter. For me, it very much is. It’s one that I’ve returned to frequently since its Early Access life for another taste of its brutal depiction of Finnish rural life. The friction it creates with its harsh punishment provides meaning to those peaceful moments as you drive along its winding dirt roads. It might strike some as boring, too cryptic, or too unwelcoming, but regardless of whether or not it’s your kind of ride, it's exactly what it intends to be. There is no experience quite like My Summer Car.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer.]}

The post Review: My Summer Car appeared first on Destructoid.

It was a year of tough competition in the Indie Games market. With toolsets that make solo-developing a much more realistic prospect than it has been for the past couple of decades, more creative folks are jumping into the deep end to deliver their vision. Billy Basso did just that with Animal Well, this year’s winner of Destructoid’s Best Indie Game of 2024 award.

It could have really gone to any of the nominees. Some of them are wholly unique experiences, others are the tightest representations of their genre I’ve seen in some time, and one could say that Balatro was the one that reached indie game escape velocity, reaching into the mainstream. But the award can only go to one, and it’s Billy Basso’s subdued metroidvania.

A lot of modern games have become what many refer to as very hand-holdy. Everything is tutorialized or carefully set up to always keep you going in the correct direction, both subtly and overtly. Developers don’t want you getting frustrated enough to drop their game and often have to accommodate the lowest common denominator. So, it’s heartening that games like Animal Well exist and can still find an audience.

Animal Well can be described as a game that is all about secrets in a way that reminds me of Tunic. It’s up to you to observe the environment and how it reacts to your presence. You need to get curious and be willing to experiment. If you’re able to massage your grey matter in a way that allows you to figure out its puzzles, it’s among the most rewarding experiences you can find.

If you’re willing to go off the beaten path, Indie games are better than ever. If you flip back to Destructoid’s 2023 awards, it went to Lethal Company, which was up against favorites like El Paso, Elsewhere and Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer. Pack. Just packed.

And next year looks like it will be more of that. Even with the industry squeeze where small studios and indie devs are finding it harder than ever to secure funding, passion for games wins out, ensuring we always have something to play. Personally, I’m pumped for Hollywood Animal, Car Park Capital, Psycho Patrol R, and Elation for the Wonderbox 6000. Damn! Damn!

Nominees for Best Indie Game of 2024

• Animal Well [WINNER]
• Mullet MadJack
• Anthology of the Killer
• Balatro
• Crow Country
• Buckshot Roulette
• 1000xRESIST

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Slay the Spire succeeded despite its visuals. A triumph of its niche and an infinitely replayable Roguelike, the original will be difficult to top, but as it turns out, Slay the Spire 2 has already done so in the graphics department.

While you'd always expect a sequel to look better than its predecessor, Slay the Spire established its presence in part due to its goofy art style, playing into its innate weirdness. That said, Slay the Spire 2's brand-new gameplay trailer sure does look awesome. Check it out below, and you'll see what I mean.

Slay the Spire 2 looks miles better than the original

Honestly, it's quite striking to see just how good Slay the Spire 2 looks in motion. Not only has all the artwork been redone in a new, more finely tuned style, but the animations also look remarkable. Those who haven't yet played the original Slay the Spire (first of all, why?) might not be able to appreciate the featured gameplay video, but veterans will know just how stocky and static everything seems in the first title.

However, That will no longer be the case in Slay the Spire 2. The trailer plainly shows plenty of bespoke animations for the player character and the enemies alike. Better yet, the redefined art style somehow manages to retain that emblematic weirdness and vibe of the original while still looking far superior to it.

I'm so impressed with what the developer Mega Crit has done with Slay the Spire 2 because it can't have been easy to accomplish this. Relatively simple upsampling or a recreation of core assets targeting a higher quality level wouldn't have done anything for a game such as this. Instead, this shows a clear understanding of what Slay the Spire was and why it looked the way it did. All in all, I'm stoked.

And hey, I'm definitely not the only one. The community is already hard at work figuring out all the new cards and status effects, and there's a smorgasbord of them even in such a short trailer.

Sadly, there's no release window available for Slay the Spire 2 just yet. Mega Crit has used this trailer to double down on its plans to push the game into Early Access sometime in 2025, but that's just about all we know.

Frankly, I'm okay with that. Mega Crit knows what it's about, and if Slay the Spire 2 manages to improve upon its predecessor's gameplay same as it already has in the visuals department, we're getting a very special game indeed. In the interim, if you need something good to play, give Downfall - A Slay the Spire Fan Expansion a shot.

This comprehensive standalone mod for Slay the Spire more-or-less doubles the amount of available content with a few fancy twists and turns therein. It doesn't look half as good as what's in the STS2 trailer, of course, but it sure does play incredibly well.

The post New Slay the Spire 2 gameplay drives home just how much better the game looks appeared first on Destructoid.

Look, just because we're approaching Christmas (scarily fast, I say) doesn't mean we have to give up the ghost. Literally. The people behind Phasmophobia know this as much as anyone, as, champing at the bit of the Halloween event, Kinetic Games is already doling out the festive scares.

When you next log into your platform of choice, you'll notice that Phasmophobia has begun updating. This is the Christmas patch – referred to as "Winter's Jest" – which, as with all of these types of updates, comes with some themed content, as well as a promise that "Karmpus waits."

In this case, the developer is taking cues from the Blood Moon event we had just a few weeks ago to challenge players. This event will continue until December 31, 2024, and is available on the PC and console ports of Phasmo.

What do we get then?

For a general overview of what the "Winter's Jest" patch comes with, you can check out the changelog here. In a nutshell, along with the Christmas event, there are a few bug fixes, including a few that were causing crashes.

Of course, this isn't about fixing issues. This is about tiding us over until the new year, with scares aplenty. An announcement on the Kinetic Games website goes into more detail about what we can expect. Here, this should explain things:

Continuing on from our Blood Moon event last month, we’ll be tasking Ghost Hunters with working together to achieve a set of shared goals in order to receive rewards. We’ve taken on feedback from the Halloween event and implemented that in to the scoring system, lowering the required scores while increasing the amount earned from completing tasks - and rewarding bonuses for those playing on higher difficulties. This’ll mean progress will feel quicker and more satisfying throughout this event.

The Tanglewood Drive, Bleasdale, Maple Lodge Campsite, and Point Hope lighthouse are now covered in snow, replete with festive decorations. There are also community goals, which include hunting down jack-in-the-boxes that will grant points when opened, so that's something to look forward to.

We're also being told these maps are also "host to something incredibly sinister." Given what this recent post on X says, it seems likely that we're in for a frightful ride. Merry Christmas, y'all!

The post Phasmophobia ‘Winter’s Jest’ Christmas event begins rolling out appeared first on Destructoid.

It’s that time of year when we collectively look back at the flaming wreckage that we somehow managed to live through. It’s been a tough one, but at least the indie market has continued to flourish with the release of all kinds of experimental and artistic titles.

As with every year, the window for eligibility in our awards are December to December, so games released in December 2023 are valid, but not games in December 2024 (Sorry, The Thing: Remastered). We also have a rule that each game can only be nominated for one category, so if you don’t see something here, we may have stuck it in with a console-specific one if it feels like a better fit.

If you felt like you had nothing to play this year, you need to think smaller budget, my friend. Indie games kept me busy this year. Very busy. Too busy. Portions of my year are just blurs of unique art styles, narrative depths, and casual experiments. But there are some amazing standouts, and myself and the Destructoid team have been able to narrow them down to just a handful.

Here are the runners for Destructoid’s Best Indie Game of 2024.

Mullet Mad Jack

With only 10 seconds to live, you have to kill robot billionaires (robillionaires) on livestream to get the sweet, sweet endorphins that come with amassing likes on social media in order to add precious seconds onto the clock. After all, internet adulation is the only reason to keep living. Mullet Mad Jack is a never-stop-moving murder-sprint of a roguelite laced with a ridiculous but strangely believable depiction of the future as interpreted by the 1990s. Fast and furious in the back, thought-provoking in front.

Anthology of the Killer

Technically a compilation of short-form indie titles going back to 2020, Anthology of the Killer rolls up several tales, presents them in one complete package, and puts on a bow. Following the exploits of BB, a young woman trapped in a surreal city so packed with serial killers that they’ve just become a fact of life. Its dreamlike horror is so effective because it’s impossible to really get hold of anything resembling reality, with only its effective sense of humor keeping panic at bay.

Crow Country

It’s not uncommon for horror games in the indie sphere to invoke a PS1 aesthetic to take us back to the youthful days of survival horror. But despite the well-trodden territory, Crow Country presents something fresh. Featuring an effective art style that allows its environments to look pre-rendered while actually being real-time and a surprisingly unconventional and haunting narrative, Crow Country is among the best games the genre has seen in years.

1000xRESIST

Clearly, we here at Destructoid have an inappropriate level of affection for unconventional narratives, because that’s exactly what Steven “Cinderblock” Mills feverishly rants about in his review for 1000xRESIST, going as far as calling it a “narrative masterpiece.” Beyond that, it finds gameplay hooks beyond its adventure roots to keep you engaged, as if you needed more reason to lock in.

Animal Well

While Animal Well can be pinned as a metroidvania title, at every turn, it seems to try and subvert and surprise in a way that is rarely seen in the genre. Both minimalistic and detailed, Animal Well uses its focus on secrets and exploration to drive hooks into your innate curiosity to keep you fixated.

Balatro

Perhaps the only game on this list to reach indie-game escape velocity and find a mainstream audience. It’s easy to see why. Balatro boils down the deckbuilding roguelite genre into its base elements to provide an absorbing perversion of Poker. It could easily be a perfect snack game, but good luck just playing a few short rounds.

Buckshot Roulette

All the fun of the classic party game with less chance of removing your frontal lobe with a slug. Buckshot Roulette is a deceptively simple game of shooting yourself in the face with a shotgun. You face off with a creepy stranger, using whatever tricks you can to keep yourself from eating lead breakfast. Short, but disturbingly engrossing.

The post Nominees for Destructoid’s Best Indie Game of 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

One of the worst things about the industry today is that there are just so damned many games coming out at any one time. One of the best things about it is that there’s no end to the variety between them. A game can be about basically anything, and developers are constantly exploring how far they can push “anything.”

I’m not sure Jake Clover's Cape Hideous is about anything. I’m not even sure it’s about something. It could be! Maybe I’m just too daft to see it. However, from what I can tell, it’s just one really strange slice of life told with an extremely ugly but captivating art style.

You’re dropped with little explanation on a ragged but massive ship on the ocean. You play as a woman who smokes three pipes simultaneously; an impressive feat, to be sure, but you’ll soon meet those who can juggle more. The ship is headed toward a nasty-looking storm, but whether they’re going toward it intentionally or not isn’t really revealed, even by the end. However, the ship is in extremely rough shape, so there’s work to be done if it’s going to weather it.

You aren’t told what you should be doing, but you can only move on a 2D axis. Pick a direction and see where it goes. You’ll eventually find a knife, and then you’ll find that you can climb the mast. Along the way, you’re treated to the sights and sounds of the other inhabitants of the ship as they work away. There’s not really any indication that you’re the ship’s captain or anyone important, or even if there is a captain at all. You’re just left to explore.

The most striking thing about Cape Hideous is that it’s, well, hideous. The whole production looks like it was created in MS Paint with a trackball mouse. The fill bucket has been worked hard. However, it doesn’t demonstrate a lack of artistic ability. On the contrary, the ship is alive with fine, elaborate detail. There are a lot of moments where it makes great use of perspective to give everything a surreal quality. Its lo-fi, almost childlike art style is no doubt deliberate.

The goal of the game, if you can call it that, is to simply explore. As you do, the protagonist will start pulling down flags from the mast. She’ll also meet characters, and while many of them are ignored, there are some exchanges, as well. There is no dialogue, however, and the surreality is often at its peak during character interactions.

You’re never directed where to go, at least not explicitly. There are only so many places you can go (you’re on a boat, after all), so if it’s not obvious what you’re supposed to do at that point, you’re never far from figuring it out. The fact that you’re never told what to do but never left wandering gives Cape Hideous a much more organic feeling than you’d probably expect from any 2D walking sim.

Which is perfect since Cape Hideous is entirely vibes. The quiet ambient sounds of work, wind, and the sea can be heard beneath an acoustic guitar-heavy soundtrack by magicdweedoo (of Dryft City Kyngs fame). The store page also suggests in all-caps, “BEST EXPERIENCED WITHOUT DISTRACTIONS, WITH NOISE-CANCELLING HEADPHONES.” I didn’t do that, but I can see where that would be beneficial.

But when I say that Cape Hideous is entirely vibes, I mean that it’s entirely vibes. If you haven’t picked up by now, it’s not a game aiming to provide a challenge or some unique gameplay hook. It’s a 2D walking sim without any sort of puzzle element. I hate that, and that’s something I need to warn about, but I understand that even among people who enjoy these sorts of games, there’s generally a mood for it.

It’s also a very weird and art-forward game. As much as it looks thrown together, there’s a substantial amount of depth to its aesthetic. Repeated playthroughs allow you to glean more information from the environments, and the sound design meshes with what’s going on so well that it might as well be a scripted cartoon.

Because it so deftly handles its presentation, it works as more than just an art project. You don’t have to fully grok any sort of message from it or even understand the story that is being told. You can simply immerse yourself in the gelatinous vibes of maybe pirates. There might be substance abuse involved. I’m not sure. I’m not entirely confident that I understand what the hell is going on in Cape Hideous.

Which is fine. It took me just North of a half-hour to get through it, and I have no regrets. It does what it needs to do, provides a unique and memorable experience, and then sets sail again. The best part about the state of game development right now is that games can be about anything. And Cape Hideous is certainly anything.

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If you decide to head to Enigma of Fear’s Crystal Cave from the Perimeter, you’ll soon encounter a new enemy: a sprightly critter with glowing green crystals sprouting from its body. Chances are you’ve died to it a couple of times and are now seeking some assistance. How exactly do you kill the glowy foe in the Crystal Cave?

A crystal monster in Crystal Cave

Unlike the Blood Zombies, which can't see at all, this new enemy in Enigma of Fear seems to have great eyesight. It's also fast and will pursue you out of the room while generating waves of fear that eventually knock you out and spell game over.

To take out the radiant fiend, you need to perform one extra step than when fighting Blood Zombies. Rather than pressing the Flashlight button to toggle between regular and blue light, hold the button to open a wheel menu. At the top is an option to turn off the flashlight entirely, which you may have overlooked.

Flashlight extinguished, crouch, sneak up behind the monster, and whack it from behind. Be wary, though. Turning off the flashlight makes you less detectable, but you're not invisible. Like with the Blood Zombies, you still need to use some strategy when creeping up.

Whatever happened to Oswald?

When close enough, you’ll get an Interact prompt to knock the glowing guy out. He’ll drop an item, which reveals that this poor thing is what remains of the researcher Oswald Magani, whose name you may have already encountered once or twice.

There are a few other interesting tidbits in the room Oswald was guarding: a couple of lore building items, a letter that provides clues about how to take out Goliath, and a medkit, which you'll probably need by now. Then it’s time to delve further into the Crystal Cave, where you might run into more of Enigma of Fear's corrupted researchers.

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How good are you at following instructions? How about while you’re under a timer? What about when your life depends on it? Me? Maybe not so great. Maybe.

Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop is probably the last game I’ve been anticipating for the year. Well, that’s assuming a couple of them that have been quiet for a while aren’t going to drop. Anyway, playing the demo, it’s hard not to fall in love with its tricky diagnose-replace-repair gameplay laced with dark humor and a severe potty mouth.

So, I voraciously ate into it when I finally had it in my hands for this review, but after all the time I put into it, I still haven’t hit the credits. After, urgh, 25 hours, I still haven’t found the bottom of Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop, but I’ve seen enough to tell you that you should definitely play this game if you think you can withstand the punishment.

Uncle Chop's Rocket Shop (PC)
Developer: Beard Envy
Publisher: Kasedo Games
Released: December 5, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop is, on the surface, a game about repair. Folks drop in with their ailing spacecraft, and it’s up to you to diagnose problems and make repairs. Each ship is separated into modules, and each craft has a random variety and number of them. The modules range from fuel, oil, and oxygen to AI, reactors, and just one big lever. You’re told what needs fixing, so you don’t need to figure out which of them is broken, but each of them breaks in different ways, so it’s up to you to figure out what needs to be repaired and what it looks like when everything is working.

This is all handled through a tactile interface where you pull levers and push buttons. Once you find something broken, you have to head to the store (right next to the repair bay) to buy a replacement and slot it in. You can get a welder that will restore shattered parts, but I found it somewhat unnecessary, as parts are relatively cheap. It’s a game that feels similar to Papers, Please, but with less paperwork and more refilling blinker fluid.

To help, you’re provided an all-inclusive instruction manual that goes over everything you need to know… mostly. You usually don’t have context for what is going on until you’ve seen the module itself and have gotten to know the various parts. Even when you do, it’s not difficult to make a mistake. You might get a pancake wrong or forget to close a hatch when you’re finished. Personally, I’ve never gotten to the point where I’m completely confident in front of a reactor. But then, if you get a step wrong, they blow up in your face and take, at the very least, you along with them. Possibly the neighborhood, as well.

You play as Wilbur, a hapless guy with a four-eyed fox head. He’s just the latest in a line of mechanics employed at Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop. Hints are dropped at what happened to the previous ones, but you can probably guess. You’re given free rein of the shop. Most of the profit you make is yours, but every three days, you need to pay Uncle Chop R.E.N.T. to maintain your employment.

However, before you even really get grease on your hands, some dude shows up and blows your (fox) head off. It’s a good indication of how things will go from here.

You’re saved by a coworker who also happens to be the living personification of death. You’ve made an impression, so he will “zoop” you back to the start of your employment every time you screw up bad enough to die. The purpose of this isn’t completely clear at the start, but it’s nice to have job security. Also, yes, this is technically a roguelite.

There are two modes of play in Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop. The first has the day passing by in real time, leaving you to try and fit in as many jobs as possible before bedtime. This means there’s a lot of pressure, and you’ll have to flip through that manual of yours pretty quickly whenever you’re faced with something you’re not completely familiar with. It also leaves more room for mistakes.

The second way of playing removes the time limit. You’re given room to complete three jobs and can take as long as you want on them. Making a mistake (or “fucking up,” as the game puts it) results in heftier penalties. However, in my experience, it’s a far easier way to play. When you’re given as much time as you need, it’s easier to complete a job without any mistakes whatsoever.

It doesn't necessarily feel like the intended way to play. However, it also feels like a necessary compromise. Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop is brutal. It throws new stuff at you all the time, practically smashing you directly into a wall. It can be cruel about it. Just wait until the first time you see a reactor. Yeah, you read that manual in advance. Go ahead. It won’t help. You’re one forgotten switch away from nuking your face off.

Sometimes, after the first R.E.N.T. is taken care of, a dude will land with pipe bombs strapped to his ship. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got the day timer going, you’ll have one-and-a-half minutes to deduce what wires you should snip using the Venn diagram from hell. I got really good at bomb defusal. I’m a wiz at reading Venn diagrams.

Even when you’ve got all the time in the world, one fuckup can be all it takes to gutter a run. Some customers have the “Perfectionist” trait, which means that if you make a single mistake, it will completely negate everything you got correct and leave you out of pocket. It’s a gamble since you only need to leave one too few shots left in their identification module to lose all your hard work. If you miss R.E.N.T., your job being terminated is the least of your concerns.

There’s also the chance that a customer will show up requiring a fix you can’t provide. This sometimes happens before you have the “Pancake” machine required for building specialized parts, but I also had one that needed a fuse that wasn’t available for me to purchase yet. I’m not sure this is intentional design. The game will sometimes let you know when you don’t have the machines needed to fix a ship before you take a job, but it doesn’t work every time. I’ve learned to just buy the Pancake and Encoder machines immediately at the start of the first run and avoid rebreathers on the first day.

But even still, my last run was ended because I took a job from an armed customer. He tried to rob me, but when I refused to empty my pockets, he shot my brain off. This is Fuck Around and Find Out: The Game.

It’s okay, though. Every time I got my run nuked, I’d just slump my shoulders and decide if I had time for another run. The only aggravating part about it was that my deadline was coming up and I like to have a game beaten before writing the review since you never know when something will shake apart at the last minute. However, I think I’ve gotten to what is essentially an end (there appears to be multiple). I just know that there’s a tonne left hidden because the places you can stick your fingers to find secrets are on display at all times.

What made it so hard to stay mad at it was that, even after restarting dozens of times, I was still being presented with new stuff. Not necessarily modules; I know how to fix a rebreather in my sleep. It’s the interactions with customers and coworkers. Every time one gets out of their ship, you never know if they’re going to give you a hug or complain about how you smell like wet dog. Visiting the speakeasy before or after work also gives you the opportunity to see more of the station’s denizens and pick up side quests.

But it’s maybe the fact that Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop doesn’t lean entirely on cruelty to Wilbur that makes it more tolerable. As much fun as it is to see a hapless protagonist suffer, and it feels appropriate in a workplace environment, it can get tiresome. Instead, most of the characters have a softer side. Droose, especially, outwardly seems to care about Wilbur, and some moments with him are endearing. He and some of the customers will offer frequent words of encouragement, even if others are deliberately trying to blow you up.

Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop is a lot. It’s a lot more than it has to be. While its design is tight and well-executed, it offers an obscene amount of variety and seemingly endless things to see. Which is good, especially if you’re like me and you find yourself in a hellcircle of 11th-hour fuckups that prevent you from witnessing the final clock out. And I think it says a lot when, despite how badly I’ve been savaged by its unforgiving nature, I’m happy to start up a new run and try again.

It’s pretty clear that not everyone will think that way. A game about throwing levers and getting blown up repeatedly isn’t going to gel with some. And while there is some permanent progression, the only thing you carry over between runs that will help you is what you were able to learn. A fondness for troubleshooting will get you far.

But regardless of whether or not this is the type of game you think you’d enjoy, it’s clear that Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop is exactly what it wants to be. It’s an expert mix of cruel work-a-day tinkering and dark, vulgar humor. A bottomless well of savagely comedic moments, beckoning secrets, and puzzles that require Ikea furniture-level manual comprehension skills. If you’ve got room in your skull for some truly useless knowledge and can tolerate having your face stomped on a few times, you’ve got a friend in Uncle Chop.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Calisto Besatt is a boss in Enigma of Fear, and he might take a few attempts to beat. Once he’s taken down, however, the challenge won’t necessarily end. You may wind up stuck in a loop, fighting him over and over until you give up in frustration. That’s where this guide comes in. Just what are you supposed to do after defeating Calisto?

Caught in a loop after beating Calisto Besatt?

After bringing Calisto Besatt to his knees in Enigma of Fear, a short cutscene plays that provides the clue about what you need to do next. A mysterious figure opens a hidden door in a nearby wall and presumably makes off with Verity’s unconscious body.

When he awakens, you’ll realize that he’s been chained to some kind of altar. You can interact with each chain, but there’s not much else to do. Interact with his torso to return to what looks like the main menu. Don’t worry; it's not a glitch. Enter the blue three-symbol code that you used at the very beginning of the game, and you’ll wind up back in Mia’s story.

Don’t interact with the paper

Here’s where you might mess up. The note that started all of this is still lying tantalizingly on the floor in the center of the room, but interacting with it again will just take you back to Verity’s timeline. You’ll have to fight Calisto again, wake up on the altar, enter the code... This can happen endlessly in a loop.

Instead, turn around, equip the crowbar, and whack at the wall directly behind Mia. She’ll bust through the stone and uncover the hidden door from the cutscene. This will take you to an intermediate zone dubbed simply the Underground/Underworld. You’ll wind up in the Perimeter, the hub area of Enigma of Fear, fighting more Blood Zombies.

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There’s always been some debate around whether or not games are art, but in the late aughts and early ‘10s, some decided to really push for it. Sometimes, this resulted in kind of mostly successful experiments like Citizen Abel: Gravity Bone or Limbo, while other times we got more unfortunate, pretentious attempts like The Path.

It was a really insecure time for video games. We seemed to want some sort of permission to take this hobby seriously, so it’s like, collectively, as players and developers, we tried to prove video games were something they weren’t. Oh, they’re totally art. You can see that in games about flipping eggs and trimming hedges. But it’s more about harnessing the interactive element to get that piece of yourself across. A developer might try to capture how they think or see the world by asking you to live it. I’m not sure what The Path was supposed to say. Don’t do what you’re told?

We’ve largely moved past that, or at the very least, games that are 100% message have more of a purpose. A self-assuredness. It often feels more earnest and less pretentious. Which makes Miniatures something of a blast from the past.

Miniatures (PC [Reviewed], Switch, Mobile)
Developer: Other Tales Interactive
Publisher: Other Tales Interactive
Released: November 14th, 2024
MSRP: $5.99

Now, I’m not actually saying Miniatures is pretentious. No, I'm the pretentious one today. But, it’s at least making no mystery of the fact that it’s a digital art exhibit. What I mean is that it is only interactive-adjacent, and it is very art. I wouldn’t even call it narratively focused because the stories are pretty abstract. You’ll either connect with them, maybe just find them amusing, or maybe you won’t.

For me, it reminds me of extremely late nights of being bored in front of Teletoon. Nights when my parents were out, so I had free reign of the TV and could watch whatever bizarre concoction was on the station in the later hours.

Teletoon would often air things from The National Film Board of Canada, which was actually the butt of a Simpsons joke back in the day (not while they were still good). Very cultural stuff, but a lot of it was extremely strange. Sometimes, it would be something relaxingly amusing. Other times, it would be a piece of Canadiana, with the deepest of it being something from our aboriginal cultures. When you’re a pre-teen at 11 pm, it doesn’t matter what it was. Any attempt by an animation student to stretch their legs would hit like some sort of forbidden fever dream.

That’s what Miniatures took me back to; a decaffeinated Saturday night in my father’s La-Z-Boy. It’s four short chapters that sometimes make you poke the screen. On Switch and mobile, you can literally poke the screen, but here I was just poking it with my mouse pointer. Clicking, if you will.

I’m not trying to be dismissive, but the interactivity is very basic in Miniatures. One of the chapters has you trying to arrange a band of small sand-critters in a little sand-critter town in an extremely roundabout way. This was by far the most amusing one for me, as you largely press on places you think something should happen and then watch while that something happens. It’s well-animated and amusing, so that’s something.

There’s one where you pan the screen around to follow a story, and every so often, you need to click on something in the environment to uncover a trigger that allows you to move on. This one was my least favorite, not because of the lack of interactivity but because I didn’t connect with it. As far as I could see, it was a directionless story that wanted to look like it had something to say but didn’t say anything at all. Or maybe I just didn’t see the message.

As for the other two, I can at least understand what they’re trying to communicate, but I think a lot of Miniatures fails because it will elicit a feeling and then not do anything with it. They don't use that feeling to deliver any sort of message. These are short, short little chapters – miniature, if you will – so if they want you to just soak in the feeling, then there isn’t much time to do so. One strength in the artistic side of video games is that by having the player take part in something, you can hold their head beneath whatever you’re trying to convey, and when they're good and soaked, hit them with what you want to say. Miniatures neither has a point nor does it drown you for very long.

But, with those last two, I at least got the vibe they were putting down. One seemed to focus on childhood loneliness and discovery, while another gave a sense of tension and dread. I’ve found I’m typically able to pick up on subtext, even in games that aren’t taking an art-first approach, so I’m not deaf to what’s going on in Miniatures. I mostly have two problems. Number one: I don’t think it leverages the advantages of an interactive medium for conveying ideas. Number two: I don’t connect with the ideas that are here.

This makes it kind of hard to review a game like this because its effectiveness will vary from person to person, and I can’t speak to what you’ll feel. Maybe you’ll see yourself reflected in one or all of the games here. What I can say is that from an interactive standpoint, as well as a narrative one, I find Miniatures lacking. In comparison to other games that I would applaud for their contributions and approach to the art form, this wouldn’t be high on the list, but I wouldn’t throw it away wholesale, either.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Words have weight, which is why I swing them around with reckless abandon. I’m not sure that’s what Great God Grove is about unless you only take it literally. It’s more about identity, authority, communication, and misunderstanding.

It’s the follow-up to Smile For Me by Limbolane. But while the two games have similarities, you might miss the relation just by looking at it. One game has you interred in an asylum, while the other has you fixing the relationships of the gods. However, what they have in common is head nods and fixing people.

Great God Grove (Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Limbolane
Publisher: LimboLane, Fellow Traveller
Released: November 15th, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Great God Grove puts you in the boots of a Godpoke, which is, as far as I can tell, a sort of courier. To be honest, I’m not clear on a few concepts here. For all I know, a Godpoke might just be someone who wears a poncho. You arrive at the eponymous grove just in time to see the gods close a giant rift in the sky that threatens to end the world. The problem is that the gods aren’t entirely interested in saving the world. They’re far too wrapped up in their own problems.

Previous to your arrival, the last messenger of the gods, the mysterious King, sent letters out to all the gods. The letters are obvious attempts to drive wedges between them, but as King had always been a trusted friend and reliable enough to be elected to become the next god, they took those words at face value. Now, nothing is right in the grove despite being a crucial time for the whole world.

Before you even get to the grove, King’s trusty mail cannon, the Megapon, lands directly in your lap. With this device, you can suck the words out of one person’s mouth and slap them in the face of another. Or just right back at them. That happens sometimes.

Being the wise person you are (or maybe just because it’s a linear narrative), you set to work righting King’s wrong. Immediately, you’re deputized by Inspekta, the God of Leadership, to help their lackeys, the Bizzyboys, figure out what happened to King and why they decided to hurt everyone’s feelings. However, the leader of the Bizzyboys, Capochin, is only out to please his boss, while the rest of the members are completely incompetent and hapless. So, it all comes down to you.

Largely, Great God Grove resembles a point-and-click adventure game. You can’t suck up any sentence or grouping of words you want; only specific, highlighted things that characters say can go in your Megapon. In this way, they work like any item in something like Secret of Monkey Island. You find hints in the words of the people you’re talking to and deliver something that will get them to perform some task for you, even if that’s just moving out of the way.

There’s a bit of a learning curve. For the first area, I wasn’t picking up on the cues, but after the second, I was able to proceed with some expedience. I didn’t get hung up very often, but I have to wonder if that’s going to be everyone’s experience. Great God Grove has an unusual design language built around its central hook, and I’m not sure if gaming literacy will be as important here as actual literacy. I’m not sure if every player can adjust, or maybe I’m the odd one because I had some issues in the first area. I can only speak to my own experience, though, and in my experience, I didn’t have much of a problem for most of the game.

Each area of the grove is home to one or two gods. In each one, King has spread some sort of misinformation to throw things into chaos, and your overall goal is to sort things out to restore the status quo. Sounds easy, but being an adventure game, it takes more than an apology to work things out.

What really elevates Great God Grove above a typical adventure game is an abundance of style. It mixes 2D characters and objects with a 3D world Paper Mario-style. It’s based around Day Lane’s distinctive, sketchy, expressive style. While animation is sparse, each character has a massive range of poses and emotions that they transition to each new window of dialogue. It can be quite captivating.

Many of the gods are rendered in full 3D, but they’re styled in such a way that it can be hard to tell. Like the 2D folks, the gods spring from pose to pose, with more traditional animation thrown in occasionally to spice things up.

There are also live-action puppet vignettes that you can watch for not much reason aside from enrichment. They generally just involve the Bizzyboys giving advice and some background information about what’s going on in the world. As it turns out, I’m really into puppets eating sandwiches. 

There isn’t much out that that looks quite like Great God Grove. The style is executed so consistently and with so much blunt-force pizzazz that it’s incredible that just a handful of people put the whole thing together. There are so many facets of its visual style that look as though they would be very difficult to execute, so the fact that they didn’t choose an easier, more conventional route is impressive. It pays off because, if absolutely nothing else, the way this game looks will be seared into your eyeholes.

Great God Grove has a lot to say about identity and the way people will stomp on others just for recognition. The gods themselves aren’t much different than ordinary people. They just exist on a less accessible plane of existence. As such, even though you can walk up and talk to them, their followers seem to just believe what they hear and speculate on what they might be thinking, which often is what leads to miscommunication. Misinformation is rife, and people take advantage of that.

Humans seem hardwired to climb. There’s a fear that our lives will be meaningless or forgotten, so we strive for recognition. And to secure our recognition, we’ll often stomp down the people beneath us. We yearn to wear the stomping boots, and a decent person can turn awful the moment they put them on. You face a lot of that in Great God Grove.

At the same time, it’s a very optimistic game. With your intervention, the troublemakers you meet see the error in their ways and express a desire to atone for their actions. Call me cynical, but I find most people are more likely to become defensive when faced with the consequences of their actions. People dig their stomping boots in and seek justification for what they’ve done. Maybe I just need a stronger word cannon.

In terms of gameplay, I could honestly take or leave Great God Grove. It has great pacing and a unique approach to the adventure genre, but I find the situations in which it’s applied generally unexciting. Not overly mundane, but I think with urgent focus on the threat and more dangerous situations, the dialogue would have more of a chance to shine. But it already shines pretty brightly.

Great God Grove is an immensely polished and precisely executed game, and that’s the most impressive part about it. Its pacing and aesthetic are finely honed and there’s nary a loose thread to be found. A bit more punch and the narrative would be perfect, but it presents a good amount of depth to sink into. It also features puppets gnawing on a gigantic hoagie, and really, what more can you ask for?

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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On-rails missions have been a staple of Call of Duty basically from COD2 onwards, but few of them felt quite so unexpected and impressive as COD4: Modern Warfare's awesome AC-130 sequence. What if you took that and made it into a standalone game, though? That's exactly what Metal Thunder does.

Metal Thunder is an indie project kickstarted by Dumbbell Games, a fresh indie developer with no prior projects under its belt. A potential cause for concern, to be sure, but the good news is that Metal Thunder is already out and about. Sure, it's an Early Access title, but it's priced at a fairly humble 10,79 EUR (with 15% off to celebrate the release), and it's already got an assortment of positive reviews to prop it up. So, is it any good, or is it just trying to nostalgia-bait those of us who remember how mind-blowing Modern Warfare was back in the day?

Metal Thunder takes an iconic Call of Duty mission and runs with the concept

Metal Thunder is admittedly not the first game to have attempted to expound upon this concept, but it sure as heck seems to be the best one yet. Even in Early Access, Metal Thunder runs great and feels great. Heck, it's a perfect fit for the Steam Deck, as some reviewers have been happy to point out.

As Metal Thunder only just released in Early Access, there's not a huge amount of content. More than enough to keep you busy for a few hours' worth of time, but still. The good news is that Dumbbell Games has a pretty extensive roadmap in place that's going to begin rolling out in very short order. Players can expect:

• New Campaign missions every two weeks.
• Time Trial, Stealth Ops, and various other game modes that build upon Campaign missions.
• Survival Mode.
• Ground unit control, adding real-time strategy elements to the game.
• Endless Mode and Leaderboards.

And, after the 1.0 version of Metal Thunder releases, there's going to be a dedicated Zombies Mode to fiddle about with. Metal Thunder was released on November 1, and the plan is for the game to launch its 1.0 build in the next 6-12 months. Pretty darn quick, all things considered. We do all know how Early Access tends to drag on, however, so I wouldn't put too much stock in this.

Yet, Metal Thunder is already quite fun and quite cheap, so why not give it a shot, if you're into the concept?

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One of Steam's best, and most impenetrable, indie roguelikes (read: "like," not "lite") is slated for a 1.0 release on December 5, with a tutorial aimed at onboarding beginners originally planned to release at the same time. Luckily for those of us who want to jump in a bit early, that tutorial was recently added in a regular patch, well ahead of its scheduled release.

Caves of Qud is a fantastic, weird, extremely breakable game that sports worldbuilding to rival Dune and player freedom to rival Dwarf Fortress. Unlike Dwarf Fortress, though, you play as a single adventurer, customized to your liking with a smattering of mutations or cybernetics (depending on your faction) before being sent to die horribly at the whims of the world. A recent 4-hour-long run of mind ended because my head was exploded by a psychic enemy lurking outside a civilization of tech-savvy bear people.

The only problem with actually enjoying Caves of Qud is learning to play Caves of Qud. This was once relegated to forums, YouTube videos, or one of several excellent fan-made resources. Beyond the graphics, which are only about half a notch away from being pure ASCII, you'll need to learn to grapple with a myriad of keybinds, economics, turn rules, and enemy abilities. You'll only be trading, for instance, in drams of precious water. But, thanks to the beginner tutorial, a high barrier to entry just got a lot more surmountable.

Of course, a brief tutorial to learn the basics is only going to get your foot in the door. It's up to you to learn, for instance, that you can spray brain-juice on inanimate objects and dominate their feeble minds to turn them into allies.

I think Caves of Qud has the potential to make a bit of a splash when it launches, and I would've had a hard time believing that if there weren't something like the tutorial present in game. It's sure to remain niche, but I'm glad more adventurers may be beckoned by the siren song of its enthralling world and systems. Live and drink, water sibs.

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Breakout indie hit Webfishing - the game that simultaneously simulates Animal Crossing and an AOL chatroom from 2006 - received a major patch on November 6 that aimed to smooth out performance, add content, and address a burning community concern: the lack of a "Straight" player title.

I'm being facetious, of course. Although it's a given that some folks complained about the lack of a "Straight" player title, the game's community is, in my experience, a positive and inclusive one. The title itself is also obviously a gag, costing a whopping $9999 (a princely sum even for the most veteran of fishermen).

Also, if you think I'm putting parenthesis around the title as some kind of editorial bit, you're wrong. The title is, in game, flanked by parenthesis, which is the funniest possible bit besides it costing a houseboat mortgage.

The patch also brings tons of additions and quality of life, including new bobbers, clothing, rods, and music tracks. I'm personally most excited about the new bobber that occasionally spawns a raincloud above players while they fish. A new way to catch fish in the rain without being beholden to the weather is going to be huge for completing quests and filling out the fishing journal.

The game's biggest patch yet, it also focuses partly on some performance and bug concerns. Not having predicted their own breakout success, the developer bemoaned their lack of satisfaction with the game's release state, stating "Hopefully this patch addresses most of the major issues with the game (and I can finally sleep a bit :) )."

Of course, no one can predict the whims of the indie audience, least of all the people making the games. Webfishing comes with my full-throated recommendation to anyone who enjoys Animal Crossing's progression, fishing games, or chat rooms full of nice folks trying and failing to play virtual acoustic guitar.

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It's no trick! After more than four years as a PC exclusive, Kinetic Games' Phasmophobia is haunting consoles for the first time.

Released on October 29, the cooperative horror title is now available for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. Kinetic Games also released a launch trailer showcasing the games intense ghost-hunting gameplay.

Phasmophobia allows one to four players to kit up and tackle the paranormal with specialized gear akin to reality shows such as Ghost Hunters. It sports more than 10 unique locations to explore and over 20 different ghosts with individual characteristics to encounter and survive. The game also features the ability to create custom games, giving hunters the choice to make their own entirely original experience.

Phasmophobia's unique gameplay catapulted it to immense popularity on Steam, where it reached a peak of 112,241 players and still boasts an audience of over 40,000 concurrent players daily. It also holds a spot within the top 20 best-selling titles on Steam.

Phasmophobia's cooperative element, open-ended gameplay, and white-knuckle scares make it quite popular with the streaming community on Twitch as well. Many streamers with large viewership numbers featured the title on stream, including Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, and RDCWorld. Overall, the game ranks in the top 150 Twitch all-time peak viewership and has nearly 223 million total hours watched.

It's a treat for console gamers to finally getting their chance to get in on the fun, and just before the spookiest day of the year too. Phasmophobia is available for purchase in the Microsoft and PlayStation Stores for $19.99.

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Shared fear is one heck of a drug. There's something comfortable about being part of a group of scared people, especially when everyone knows they aren't in genuine danger. Every October, I feed my addiction to collective dread by playing my favorite spooky video games with my nearest and dearest.

We're examining spine-chilling games that reach their peak performance when played by a group of players. Some games we'll discuss are multiplayer, while others are single-player games that benefit from the audience experience. Despite their differences, every game on this list will love you with Halloween memories that'll stay with you for years.

10. DOORS

Inspired by Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion, DOORS is one of the most impressive Roblox games ever crafted. The goal is simple on paper: you and up to three other players must make your way to the one-hundredth room of a sprawling, eerie hotel. Unfortunately, each room between you and your destination is the hunting grounds of a horrifying host of "Entities," each more terrifying and competent than the last.

DOORS' strength lies in its deceptive complexity. Initially, the game may seem straightforward, but as more Entities and items are randomly dropped into the mix, things escalate quickly. Luckily, while the exact location of the game's enemies and artifacts change, their behavior and function never do. This consistency allows players to learn from mistakes and improve their subsequent runs, creating an addictive gameplay loop that doesn't dampen the game's scares.

9. Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil has never settled into a constant formula, and Resident Evil 4 proves why that's a good thing. Leon Kennedy's second run-in with runaway bio-weaponry exchanges a significant chunk of the raw survival horror that defined previous installments for a more action-oriented gameplay structure. Ironically, this restraint allows RE4 to instill a different terror in you.

There are more toys to play with here than in most Resident Evil games, but it also throws more enemies at you. Environments are brightly lit and open-ended, which gives monsters more opportunities to ambush you from corners you can't see. Resource management, situational awareness, and improvisation are the name of the game here, and RE4 will quickly become a terrifying game if you don't learn to balance these skills.

Whether you're playing the 2005 original or the 2023 remake, RE4 is excellent fun, especially with friends. The game's linear, chapter-based progression gives you plenty of opportunities to pass the controller to another player, who's probably learned a few tricks from watching you play.

8. Luigi's Mansion

Mario’s green-capped younger brother was barely a character until Luigi’s Mansion turned him into the goofy coward Nintendo fans know and love. In the GameCube’s launch title, Luigi discovers the mansion he supposedly won in a contest is full of ghosts. Armed with a special vacuum, the younger Mario brother sets off to capture every ghost in the mansion and rescue his kidnapped older brother.

Luigi’s Mansion operates like a score-based arcade game, challenging you to rack up the highest point total possible as you navigate the titular abode. Competing with your friends to see who can catch the most ghosts never gets old, and it’s a fantastic way to spend a Halloween night if you have a GameCube.

7. Five Nights at Freddy's

There are a lot of Five Nights at Freddy's games these days, and all of them are fantastic picks for this list. With that said, there's something about the simplicity of the franchise's first game that keeps players like me coming back whenever October rolls around. If you can talk some of your friends into revisiting it with you, that's all the better.

The original Five Nights at Freddy's didn't become the viral phenomenon it did by accident. The light-flickering, door-slamming gameplay loop has just enough moving pieces to keep things exciting but uncomplicated, and the grungy art design gives its four murderous mascots an air of menace their later incarnations lack. I was in high school when the first FNaF dropped, and I still remember the times my friends and I jumped whenever one of us closed a door a bit too late or too soon.

6. Until Dawn

Interactive graphic horror titles have been bringing players together for a good, scary time since the heydays of Telltale's The Walking Dead, but Until Dawn firmly cemented these games as prime Halloween party material. One year after the deaths of their friends, sisters Beth and Hannah, eight college-age young adults face their demons, and something much worse, on the snowy slopes of a creepy mountain.

Until Dawn is, at its core, an interactive horror movie. You decide how this teen horror story ends through timed button inputs, exploration, and choices that determine who lives, who dies, and how everyone feels about each other. So imagine how exciting things get when you arrive at a significant story branch and hand your controller over to a friend you know will make very different choices than you would.

5. Lethal Company

Lethal Company's only been out for about a year in early access, but it's become one of the most popular co-op horror games out there right now. You and your friends are workers employed by “The Company,” tasked with retrieving valuable scrap from abandoned space colonies. Alien threats and dangerous environments jampack these colonies, but the real enemy is the ever-increasing scrap quota your employers expect you to fill, no matter the cost.

Besides your in-game salary, there’s a lot to love about Lethal Company. Despite the simplistic graphics (or maybe because of them), the monsters are surprisingly terrifying, and no one will hear you scream if you wander too far from your teammates. However, if you want to amp up your Lethal Company experience, I’d recommend looking into the game’s mod scene. Seriously, the Rolling Giant has never been more terrifying.

4. Buckshot Roulette

Russian Roulette is a dangerous game of chance smeared in glossy paint that gets people killed. Buckshot Roulette is one of the most addictive and creepy games I've played. The rules are simple: you and a grotesque grinning ghoul known as “The Dealer” take turns shooting at yourselves or each other, praying to whoever or whatever you believe in that the round in the chamber’s a bullet or a blank, depending on who the gun is pointing at.

Buckshot Roulette combines the dirty, industrial aesthetic of its developer’s other projects with the pixelated tabletop charm of Inscryption. An in-depth item system turns a glorified lottery into a complex game of strategy that will make you sweat. Right now, the only way to play the game with friends is to pass the keyboard around, but that will change once the game’s multiplayer update drops this Halloween.

3. Left 4 Dead 2

Valve can’t count to three, but their sequel game is second to none. Left 4 Dead 2 is every bit the strategic four-player zombie shooting experience the original game was and more. This game is still getting updates, and it’s still fun to play a decade after its original release.

Left 4 Dead 2 thoroughly sells the message behind almost every scrap of zombie media: cooperation is the key to survival. The levels encourage multitasking; a lone player can’t kill most enemies, and you can’t move on until every living player makes it to the end. The only thing holding L4D2 back is that every player needs a copy of the game and a working computer, so it’s not ideal for gamers working on a budget.

2. Dead by Daylight

Dead by Daylight is what you get when you take a game of hide-and-seek and give it the most horrifying digital glow-up imaginable. Four players step into the shoes of survivors trying to escape a bleak hellscape before a killer, controlled by a fifth player, sacrifices them to an evil god. Both character groups have tools the other doesn’t, and it’s a race to see who can complete their goal first.

The massive cast of survivors and killers and an ever-expanding list of perks means you’re never short on ways to customize your play style. On top of that, Dead by Daylight nails the horror aesthetic. Everything in the game thrums with Halloween vibes, even the HUD. Whether you’re the hunted or the hunter, DbD is a fun time.

1. Phasmophobia

What’s more Halloween than a good old-fashioned ghost hunt? Phasmophobia has reigned as the unchallenged sovereign of horror multiplier for the past four years, and I don't see that changing soon. You step into the shoes of a ghost hunter, and it’s up to you and up to three other players to find out what species of haunt is menacing a specific residence, then make it out alive before the ghost ensures you take its secrets to your grave.

Phasmophobia makes you feel like a genuine paranormal investigator. The tools at your disposal are straight out of an episode of Ghost Hunters, and you’ll need to learn how to use them to identify each of the game’s twenty-four ghost types. If you’re ready for the ultimate Halloween gaming experience, suit up with three of your friends and get hunting.

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As part of the Dread XP stream, Disordered Media has announced that their demo for the upcoming OS Sim horror game, Oneway.exe is releasing today. It’s available for PC.

I got early access to the demo, and I’m going to be honest: it’s not for me. That’s not a gentle way of saying it sucks; it’s just not my kind of game. It doesn’t gel with me. It’s not the sort of thing I find appealing. That’s it. I’m not referring to its quality.

On the surface, it kind of looks like my thing. It’s an OS Sim, sort of like Hypnospace Outlaw or The Operator. It revolves around this unfinished piece of software known only as untitled.exe. When you start this program up, you find yourself in a hallway with various doors marked by characters. 7 in all, apparently. You click on one of them, and it takes you to a room themed around the character, and you gather hints of their past and why they’re in this haunted program.

I checked out two before I decided I wasn’t going to proceed. The first was Anita, who is presented as this cutesy cartoon cheerleading. Through the process of solving a few simple puzzles (some of which required jumping into the source files), she screamed in my face. I think that kind of jumpscare is more for the streaming crowd.

I then went to another character and fed cake to a pig. I didn’t finish that one, because it was at that point that I realized that this was an ARG sort of game for fans of Creepypasta stories. Which, again, it may sound like I’m being dismissive, but I don’t have anything against it. Telling you why I don’t enjoy it would sound disparaging; there’s no way around it. I think the root of it is that I can’t assimilate into that community. I don’t like the speculation. But I understand why people do, and that’s fine.

In terms of the demo itself, it’s the sort of narrative that tells you the bare minimum upfront and leaves you to dig for the rest. I mentioned an ARG, and there is a related ARG that you can also check out. I found myself kind of getting stuck occasionally and had to wander around until something happened. I’m just… It’s not my thing, chum.

It does have some great things going for it. This is from the press release in regards to the first chapter that’s launching in 2025: “featuring fully voiced dialogue, frame-by-frame animated cutscenes, and original music by Marcy Nabors (DELTARUNE).” So, that’s cool, if this is the sort of experience you’re into.

If you dig stuff like Oneway.exe, then you can try out the demo for free today. The plan is for the first chapter to launch sometime in 2025.

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The Game Boy Color wasn’t exactly the best platform for horror unless you count, like, Resident Evil Gaiden and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. Anyway, now’s a good time to get into some indie Game Boy Color horror, like what’s packed into the Metamorphosis Collection. You can even get a physical cartridge if you’re into that sort of thing (I am).

The three games included are Opossum Country, Decline, and Specimen 134, all by Ben Jelter. Two of these games, Opossum Country and Decline are available already on itch.io, so you can play them right now for free. They were created for game jams. Specimen 134, on the other hand, is a completely new game. It’s also supposedly a lot longer than the other two. However, there is a demo of it that you can try.

I’ve played Decline and Opossum Country. They’re creepy short-form adventure titles. Decline is about a police detective on the verge of retirement solving a supernatural mystery. Opossum Country, on the other hand, is about a gig food delivery person riding up to a creepy trailer park full of evasive people.

A lot of development for Nintendo’s old handheld platform has been spurred by GB Studio, a development suite that makes creating games on the platform a lot more accessible. It’s pretty neat. I’ve only done a bit of dabbling in it, but it seems pretty intuitive and simple to use. It’s resulted in some interestingly designed games that wouldn’t have been marketable during the handheld’s life, giving the platform new life.

For Metamorphosis Collection. You can get the digital version for $13.99. But the real fun is with the physical cartridge, which comes with a box, instructions, and a sticker sheet for $59.99. If you order before Hallowe’en, you’ll get a translucent blood-red cartridge instead of the usual smokey black. Either way, it’s pretty neat. I’m on the verge of pulling the trigger on a purchase.

Preorders for Metamorphosis Collection are open now, and physical editions will ship later in November.

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