Dialed Indie

Dialed Indie Newsletter: April 6th, 2026

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Hooray, it’s April! We’ve finally gotten some much-needed rain here and now that I’ve said that it’s gonna start storming crazy style. But I like that, too! If it could hold off just enough to not muck up my personal plans for this month, we’re gucci. A lot of stuff falls in April for me, and this year’s even busier than usual: there’s a few birthdays, including mine, bird season, and the start of baseball as always, plus a handful of new or new-to-me events that I’d like to make. This is why I’ll unfortunately be gone for the next two episodes of VGBees! I did consider recording on the road because it’d be kinda funny, but my mic can barely handle my unique vocal tone as it is, and I shan’t subject y’all nor my cohosts to hotel wi-fi. So I’ll be around, and we may even get April’s K-YOS out pretty soon here, but you won’t be seeing much of me for the next couple weeks!

New From Me
I’ve only got one piece of writing for y’all this week, and it’s not video game-related in the slightest. As you may already know (especially ‘cause I mentioned it in the opening graph there), I’m a big baseball fan! My passive viewing of baseball’s preseason spring training was interrupted by the World Baseball Classic, an international tournament severely hamstrung by American business interests, and which the USA manages to embarrass itself in every year with the players’ and fans’ persistent corny ass chickenhawk austerity. It was hard to watch for a number of reasons, only some of which I get into. Even if you’re not into baseball, I hope you give it a read!

Another thing I mentioned briefly in the intro is K-YOS, which is officially back as of March! You can find all our podcast links here and watch/subscribe on YouTube. I’ve said this a few times but ooonce more, as an intro: K-YOS was originally a k-pop music review podcast I started with my friends Dani and Azalea, joining them in what was supposed to be a one-off episode. But, we liked doing it a lot, and y’all were tuning in, so Dani and I just kept it going (with Azalea joining us on occasion). K-pop has gotten less and less robust with each passing year, though, and 2025 was particularly weak — so much so that we didn’t do our normal year-end favorites podcast, and trimmed our lists from 25 down to 10. So! Especially considering the positive feedback to an episode we did in the summer of 2024, K-YOS is now an all music podcast with some k-pop sprinkled in as we see fit. We both listen to quite a bit of music and are always interested in broadening our horizons, but as far as our “home genres” go: Dani has just about anything in the “man yells over guitar in garage” family covered, be that emo, screamo, rock, or pop punk, while my natural purview is EDM, house, pop divas, and indietronica et al.

And now for what will just about always be the beefiest section of the newsletter: VGBees!
At Long Last, Nintendo Gets Litigous: Finally, a Nintendo lawsuit we can really get behind: against the U.S. government, over the tariffs. We briefly touch on the ways that the Japanese game industry exploits and, yes, fires its workers; contrary to popular maxims about how great Japanese labor laws are and how much the Japanese industry respects its employees. Unity has bungled things again, this time due to regional differences with the Chinese branch of Unity. And, speaking of China, sinophobia rears its ugly head again as the U.S. government eyes Tencent and its American investments, as it did ByteDance and TikTok. Also, Sony has realized it doesn’t wanna port games to PC anymore. Alright. John and Niki have gotten super into Pokopia and the goodness of a Pokémon world, while I’ve gotten back into Terraria in a big way, playing (and occasionally streaming) it with two of my good friends. There’s also a bit of discussion on Resident Evil 9 and Marathon before we get into the Hive questions!
The Battle of Yerba Buena: Sony secretly started a dynamic pricing test! Niki’s on-the-ground impressions of GDC, which is voluntarily returning to San Francisco for some reason! PEGI is revising its ratings system to include guidance for lootboxes and dark patterns, and we learned some of the reasoning behind Jeff Kaplan’s sudden departure from Blizzard and Overwatch back in 2021. Niki and John have gotten into Slay the Spire 2 and are having a blast learning its intricacies and getting into some different characters/builds, and (you’ll keep hearing this) are really liking Pokopia! I played and finished one of the games I was really looking forward to this year, Lost and Found Co., and am pleased to report that I loved it! It has some little quibbles here and there but is ultimately an excellent hidden object game with a super cute style and a great sense of visual storytelling.
Deep Learning Super Sampling Five: Wow, this already feels like an eternity ago. DLSS5 AI-filtered Resident Evil 9 nastiness. We all hate it. We all hated on Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. That was a fun moment of camaraderie on the internet. Industry icons Red Storm Entertainment, a subsidiary of Ubisoft and shepherd of the Tom Clancy series (and cofounded by Clancy himself), will no longer be developing games and are facing large layoffs as they shrink to a support studio. We got into some good games this week at least, with John dipping his toes into the wonderfully weird and Newgrounds-y Rubato. Both John and Niki continue to update us on their Pokopia exploits — and Niki on Slay the Spire 2 — while I bring to you Funi Raccoon Game, a very goofy, mile-a-minute comedy platformer that’s more than worth the price of entry.
Nintendo’s Slice of Life Spring: John and Niki took a look at the latest Tomodachi Life demo, and contemplate its release coming so close with Pokopia’s as well as Animal Crossing’s big update. Epic laid off 1,000 people and claimed it was because Fortnite was underperforming. Yeah, like, Fortnite? That’s crazy. Anyways, Alex Street Fighter married his sister-cousin, OpenAI and Disney had an awkward breakup as the former shitcanned Sora (yippee!), and, hoo boy, pricing is gonna keep getting worse and weirder. Nintendo will be pricing physical and digital games differently, while PlayStation will be pricing all their hardware… more. Nintendo is also allegedly planning another Ocarina of Time remake as well as a new Star Fox game; this same story broke the sad news to John that there’s forreal forreal not a 3D Mario game coming this year. I finished Funi Raccoon Game and came to find out it’s more Irish than I initially realized! Neat!
Garry’s Mod II: Electric Boogaloo: With Niki on the International Space Station coaching the Artemis II astronauts through their Outlook issues, John and I hold down the fort for a lighter episode, and one in which we answer every single Hive question we got! Eidos-Montreal gets hit with another large round of layoffs, Shift Up (Stellar Blade) acquired Shinji Mikami’s new studio Unbound, Stormgate’s gotta get an offline mode going ‘cause their server provider got bought out by some AI schmucks, Nintendo got one of their American patents revoked, s&box, the follow-up to Garry’s Mod, is out soon, and the Gaming Historian is retiring from his YouTube channel! Also don’t buy those classic Capcom games on Steam they’re literally just the GOG versions but with DRM. John gives a quick and spoiler-free review of Project Hail Mary and his reality TV minute on Bravo’s Summer House, while I’ve gotten DEEP into incremental game The Perfect Tower II and am still sussing out my mixed feelings on Lucid Blocks.

Song of the Newsletter
There’s been a lot of good music lately, but that’s for K-YOS to discuss. I’m here to tell you about The Pussycat Dolls’ underrated hit, “Hush Hush; Hush Hush,” a house remix of the breakup ballad “Hush Hush” from their 2008 album Doll Domination. While Nicole Scherzinger doesn’t have the diva-level vocals associated with house, her performance and the natural 90s body of her voice made “Hush Hush” ripe for this kind of remix. And, sure, throw in a mini cover of “I Will Survive” at the end there. Why not? I’d love a longer mix to really let it build to the chorus, but damn if that piano doesn’t hit you like a truck when it first comes in.

News & Recommendations
Go look at a bird and report back to me!

The World Baseball Classic and American Imperialism

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Baseball is a game of failure and randomness, and the numbers that coincide from those factors colliding. Baseball players and fans are notoriously superstitious. If one team is down by a notable margin in the sixth inning or later, their fans take their hats off, turn them inside out, and wear them backwards or sideways to try and collectively manifest a comeback. Ichiro Suzuki, one of the greatest hitters of all time, attributes one of his rare slumps to a single point in a single game, when he threw his bat on the ground instead of laying it down gently as he normally does; that being ungrateful towards his bat gave him some kind of bad juju he needed to work off. In 2024, the Minnesota Twins' hitting coach, David Popkins, began one random game in April by taking a plastic-wrapped, gift salami and asking each of his players to tap their bats on it before their at-bats. They hit back-to-back home runs in the sixth inning and another in the eighth. They proceeded to further seal the salami in plastic bags and pack it into a shoe for safekeeping, so they could take it with them on their road games. They won six in a row — a first for the franchise — and then extended that perfect road trip to an 11-game win streak. Baseball is a game of coincidence, which is why it can be difficult not to be conspiratorial, too.

The Dominican Republic was eliminated from the 2026 World Baseball Classic not quite directly by the United States, but certainly in a game against them. In the bottom of the ninth, the U.S. was up 2-1, with one Dominican player on third base. Geraldo Perdomo stepped up to the plate, his team down to their last man, and fought. He worked pitch after pitch from Mason Miller in an at-bat that was nowhere near as long as it actually felt. Perdomo had worked through the fouls and eyed in to catch and then maintain a 3-2 count for himself. One more off pitch from Miller, and Perdomo would both walk to first without needing to hit the ball and earn another chance for the DR. Anything could've happened from there, because anything could've happened to get there.

Baseball is a game of failure and randomness and coincidence, and a lot of dominoes need to fall at just the right time for you and not your opponent. This is a game where the difference between an average batter and a great batter is hitting the ball correctly 5% more of the time — an increase from 25% to 30%. And when the bat meets the ball, it's millimeters that separate an out from a hit or home run. Miller threw a slider at 89 miles per hour, and Perdomo saw it. The bottom dropped out of the ball well before it should've met him in the strike zone, to the point the catcher needed to reach down and snatch it from the air maybe a foot off the ground. The Dominican dugout cheered. Perdomo had earned his walk, and they were alive. He gripped the barrel of his bat hard with one hand, preparing to throw it across the field in celebration. But, after a loud pause from the pitch being caught, the (American) umpire called it a strike. In an instant, Perdomo was out, the game was over, and the Dominican Republic was eliminated from the tournament despite entering this single game 5-0 to the United States' 4-1. This is where conspiracy is born.

It's impossible to follow the World Baseball Classic and not feel that the United States gets some preferential treatment. It is, after all, organized in part by the U.S.'s own Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball Players Association, with at best tangential input from the likes of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball, La Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, La Liga de Beisbol Profesional de la Republica Dominicana, El Federacion Cubana de Beisbol, Puerto Rico's La Liga de Beisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente, South Korea's KBO League, and on and on. In other words: the World Baseball Classic is an American tournament in which American baseball is played.

Tumba Eso

On Wednesday, March 11th, Cuban left-handed pitcher Liván Moinelo received two pitch clock violations in a row against Canada’s Josh Naylor, walking him on two pitches. So far as we can tell, Moinelo has never played with any pitch clock system before. He was born and raised in Cuba, which does not use it, and for nearly 10 years has been playing in the NPB, which also does not use it. Puerto Rico, where Pool A was hosted, also does not use a pitch clock. One had to be installed into Hiram Bithorn Stadium for the tournament. In the moment, play-by-play announcer Tyler Maun said, “I did ask [Cuban manager] Germán Mesa about that earlier today. We’ve seen some pitch clock issues, we’ve seen some pitchcom issues with Cuba, and he said, ‘I mean, yeah, they’re complicating factors. Our guys haven’t really dealt with this before.’”

Moinelo has probably never used a pitchcom, either; and this is all true for his catcher, fellow Cuban Andrys Perez, as well. A pitchcom is an in- or over-ear device worn by the pitcher and catcher which allows the pair to wirelessly and wordlessly call and confirm which type of pitch will be thrown. Without this system, the typical way a catcher recommends each pitch is by throwing an often complicated series of signals with their body (you’ve probably seen a joke or commercial about this at one point or another). This presents a “problem” — although the batter can’t, the rest of the opposing team can see the catcher and their signals. Through careful observation, that team could figure out which signals mean what, and then use their own signals from the dugout to help their batter. This is called “sign stealing” and it is not actually a problem. Every team signals, and every team knows they’re signaling, because they’re signaling, too. Baseball is a game of smaller games; one of which is an ever-escalating arms race of making, learning, changing, relearning, and elaborating signs.

Signs and sign stealing are part of baseball, but they are problematic to American baseball. Like a pitcher without a pitch clock, they can take a long time, and American baseball no longer likes to take a long time. American baseball, being a business, has a schedule to adhere to, because its broadcast partners have other games to play, and their advertisers expect to get what they pay for, and they do not want to give them extra spots for no additional cost. American baseball also dislikes sign stealing because it infringes on its rigid and sometimes nonsensical ideas of fairness.

American baseball is a game about rules. Business-minded American rules, even sports rules, are inflexible to the point of being contractual. But in reality, sports have rules — and baseball has so many rules — only to help guide fair play. If a batter hits a foul ball, that is a strike. The batter is not doing their job of hitting the ball well. However, a batter cannot strike out on a regular foul ball. While the batter is not technically doing their job, the difference between a foul ball and a hit is measured in millimeters, and requires a degree of precision that isn’t always humanly possible (especially against a good pitcher). The batter is partly doing their job. They’re putting the bat to the ball, so they shouldn’t be punished with an out. This is a unilaterally accepted rule. That’s baseball.

Baseball becomes business baseball if, say, a baserunner steals second by sliding in headfirst, and after a challenge by the opposing team, multiple replays from five different camera angles, and 10 minutes of careful consternation by an external review team, they are able to determine that the baserunner’s palm appeared, from some angles, to come off the base by a quarter of an inch, and the baseman appeared to be touching him with a gloved ball at that exact time. The umpires were wrong to call the runner safe, and the runner did a bad job by allowing his hand to come off the bag in a manner undetectable to the naked eye. The runner is punished with an out; the contract said so. And thanks to millions of dollars of usually unused technology, we are able to enforce our contracts with lethal, inhuman precision. The United States loves lethal, inhuman precision.

Less than a week after Cuba was eliminated from the World Baseball Classic, the island was plunged into darkness. Once again, in the mindless pursuit of oil, the United States has only caused further shortages as it begins its slaughter in the Middle East; this time in Iran. It continues to support Israel's genocide and colonization of the region, now reaching Lebanon, displacing and killing its people, too. And once again, the United States is intensifying its blockade of Cuba, cutting off the oil supply to a small island which already struggles with power generation, and which lacks renewable energy sources thanks to persistent American enfeeblement. Even if the technology were to be allowed through the blockade, would pitchcoms be worth the electricity they consume?

Plátano Power

How hard can it be to win a dick-measuring contest when you've spent the last 250+ years cutting off most of your competitors' dicks? When you've invented the sport, and both codify and maintain the ruleset? It's easy to cheer for the underdog when the disparity is so vast — the Olympics have the Jamaican bobsled team, for example, or freestyle swimmer Eric Moussambani, an Equatoguinean who had never seen an Olympic-size pool and struggled to swim its full length.

We know, as we watch, that "third world" nations like Cuba, Jamaica, Equatorial Guinea, or the Dominican Republic shouldn't be able to win anything. They are poor. They have no infrastructure. There's no shortage of clips from the DR of little kids playing with shitty toy bats in alleyways or teenage hopefuls busting their asses throwing tires and practicing with makeshift training gear for pitching practice. We love Dominican baseball especially because, despite it all, they are the best.

Shohei Ohtani set a record in the world of sports with his $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers; and like any MLB record, a Dominican promptly set a new one. A year later, Juan Soto landed himself a $765 million contract with the New York Mets, with none of his salary deferred and additional possible value equaling over $800 million. The story from there is consistent, whether you ask a speculative media or Soto himself: the Mets offered more money — and showed more respect for his family — than the Yankees did. Soto grew up in a Santo Dominguen neighborhood dangerous enough that his mother wouldn't always let him play outside, so he played baseball indoors, alone, with paper balls. His father threw his early batting practices with an improvised form of conditioning: bottle caps instead of balls; smaller targets that are harder to make fly. Soto, Sr. also encouraged his son to throw with his left hand despite being right-handed, because that would give him an advantage (and, therefore, make him massively more appealing as a prospect) should he become a pitcher. His father must've known, even then, that his son could give his family a real chance. And now, as an adult, Soto himself must know that, too. Who cares if the Mets are a losing team? Juan Soto is playing business baseball now.

Like many Dominican-born baseball players, Soto's real shot at generating wealth for his family was in making it to the MLB. And to get into the MLB, he had to get through the farm system. While the farm system is so named to liken its young players to crops, tended to and protected by skilled trainers, the euphemism's double meaning is clear when it comes to the DR. The United States created its banana republics throughout Latin America and the Caribbean because black and brown bodies were cheaper, and their land more readily commandeered for foreign forces. Now, it has its baseball republics: Spanish-speaking colonies repeatedly destabilized by the United States, from which poor bodies, made skilled by hardship, can be harvested. Like sugarcane or textiles, these bodies are less expensive here; more efficient resources ripe for import and refinement to be sold to the people of the United States of America. Juan Soto, like many Dominican baseball players before him, "made it."

Emphasis on "many." The Dominican Republic has the deepest baseball talent pool in the world, producing more professional baseball players per capita in San Pedro alone than entire regions of the United States or Japan. The MLB as it is today could not exist — and certainly not at its present skill level — without the skill of Dominican players, nor their capacity to accept low wages and abuse their bodies for them. Yet it's the Dominican Republic, a country with all the talent but none of the political cache or wealth, which must limit itself to a single team on the world stage, while the United States grants itself three.

The Rules

Of the 30 players Israel fielded for the World Baseball Classic, one was born (and raised) in Israel. The rest are Jewish Americans (or in at least two cases, simply married to Jewish women) born and raised in the United States, whose baseball talents were developed in American schools and academies, who live in the United States, and who play for MLB organizations. Israel is not a baseball country. And, like so many proposed Israeli cultural touchpoints, baseball is not Israeli in origin; its presence in the area predates any recognition of Israel as a state; and it was brought to Israel through Jerusalem, a territory which it militantly occupies but does not own.

When attempting to create an international and nation-based baseball tournament like the World Baseball Classic, there's an immediate and obvious problem: there are not that many countries which play baseball that well. If this tournament needs to be nation-based (and, apparently, it does), then this doesn't fly. Even just to have a basic playoffs format, with both semifinal and quarterfinal rounds, there need to be at least eight participating teams. But that's not really a tournament, is it? A real tournament would have a pool stage, with multiple independent groups of countries playing single games against each other. In the double round robin and Swiss formats, this gives you a clear ranking in each pool, which can determine both which countries move on and at what level they're seeded in the following round, incentivizing competitiveness in pool play. (The WBC, of course, uses the single round robin format for pools, which leads to the atrocious tiebreaker rules they currently utilize). But in order to have pool play, we'd need not just eight participants, but at least 12; and, preferably, 16. There are not 16 competitive baseball countries, with 30 players each, in this world. So, naturally, the WBC actually has 20 participants split into four groups of five, with the fifth nation in each pool joining via a separate qualification tournament for the countries who don't play baseball like that.

To have the truly greatest athletes in the world compete against one another at the highest possible level, some of them would have to compete against their own countrymen as well as the other international representatives. This creates a number of new problems in trying to create a fair competition, which is why the World Baseball Classic simply does not care about any of this. As I've implied, the World Baseball Classic is not about fair competition. Even less than something like the Olympics, it is not about finding the best individuals, nations, or regions at any given sport. It is purely about proliferating American baseball so American businesses can become wealthier. If it was about fair and international competition, it would not be single round robin, the playoff rounds would be determined by best-of series instead of single games, the rules would not be mapped directly to American baseball, pools would be randomized with preferential seeding based on recent performance, and Israel and Italy would not be able to recruit nearly their entire teams from another country.

29 of Team Israel’s 30 fielded players are American; for Italy, that’s 23 of 33. Because of the aforementioned issues with appropriately populating the World Baseball Classic, it has an expansive set of eligibility requirements for any given player to represent any given nation.

A player is eligible to participate on a WBC team if any one of the following criteria is met:
The player is a citizen of the nation the team represents.
The player is qualified for citizenship or to hold a passport under the laws of a nation represented by a team, but has not been granted citizenship or been issued a passport; in this case, the player may be made eligible by World Baseball Classic Inc. upon petition by the player or team.
The player is a permanent legal resident of the nation or territory the team represents.
The player was born in the nation or territory the team represents.
The player has one parent who is or, if deceased, was a citizen of the nation the team represents.
The player has one parent who was born in the nation or territory the team represents.

This is why Israel and Italy's teams are almost exclusively American. These nations do not have enough world-class baseball players to make up a team, so they're encouraged to recruit them from the United States in order to compete. Italy, as a jus sanguinis nation, has access to any player with a direct, Italian-born or citizen ancestor, with no generational limit. If an Italian man immigrated to America and married an American woman before 1983, that woman would become an Italian citizen, even if her husband later became a citizen of the U.S. Her grandchildren (as well as great-, great-great-, etc.) would be eligible for Italian citizenship, and so would be eligible to represent Italy in the WBC.

I'm not here to comment on the Italian-ness of Italian-Americans. As an American of Irish, Mexican, and Guatemalan descent, I'm certain I've heard all the same bullshit they have. What I will say is that our individual cultures are unique, and much of that culture has been retained even through generations of immigration. But it has also been changed by time and distance, and the influence of both broad American culture and the many other immigrant cultures which now neighbor our own. Being Anything-American isn't about being less Anything, but about being a new thing that happens to be uniquely American. Why another nation should be allowed to claim that specifically in a competition of nations is difficult to explain.

Things are a bit different for Israel, since it's a genocidal ethnostate. Morally speaking, either one of these facts should see them excluded from all international competition, but clearly that isn't going to happen any time soon. What is so disturbing about their inclusion in the World Baseball Classic in particular is that, per the WBC's strained eligibility rules, it explicitly affirms and condones Israel's position as an ethnostate. The World Baseball Softball Confederation sees that Israeli citizenship is directly dependent on ethnicity and doesn't blink. The WBSC sees that Israeli citizenship deliberately excludes Arabs from its annexed lands and marks them as citizens of no nation to be disposed of and says "We can't wait to have you."

This is why it is so disgusting when Israel and Italy are sold by the announcers and the press as "underdogs." They, as Americans playing for wealthy, colonial nations, have every advantage in the world; while the United States has intervened in, occupied, overthrown, invaded, bombed, and otherwise controlled every single Caribbean and Latin American representative in the World Baseball Classic. And now that the United States hosts its own international tournament with its own rules for its own sport on its own broadcasts, it can field itself thrice, and cast its own as the perennial favorites as well as the romanticized longshots. The press and announcers make clear, over and over, how earth-shattering it would be if Israel or Italy were to beat the likes of Cuba, Puerto Rico, or Venezuela; yet paradoxically, any of the latter three beating the United States would be an upset. This is why it is always so, so gratifying to watch the Americans lose — whichever jerseys they’re wearing.

Dialed Indie Newsletter: March 6th, 2026

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 17:00:00 +0000

A merry spring to you all! It’s kinda been spring down here on the Gulf Coast (more on that later) but with birds chirping, flowers blooming, and clocks flipping, this weekend makes it official. I haven’t turned any new leaves lately, so the change in season and return of glorious, constant sunlight must be what’s gotten me writing so much lately. I’ve only ever been sporadically prolific, but I get better every year at taking advantage of these sudden onset writing spells. So, I’ve been tickity-tacking away the second the mood strikes me, and a good amount of stuff for the site’s come out as a result!

New From Me
Chief among them are my reviews of MOONROT and Horripilant, two games I hadn’t planned to review or write about at all, and two games I ended up writing about for very different reasons (well, the desire to write about them struck me very suddenly as I mentioned previously, so they do have that in common). MOONROT, despite its short length and straightforwardness, stuck in my brain in a very, very good way. It’s the kind of thing with such a clear, consistent vision that you could fool yourself into thinking the developer didn’t make any decisions at all, so I got really caught up exploring that decisionmaking and the subtle little things that make it so great. Horripilant, on the other hand, is a game so convoluted I was most interested in untangling it and trying to figure out why, precisely, it just didn’t work for me.

Last but not least for writing, you may know I’m a biiig YouTube watcher, and I can be perhaps concerningly not picky at times. I always have my watch history disabled, so my recommended videos are only based on whatever video I’m currently watching — they don’t even give me a home page of recommendations anymore! Not that I mind, really. That abstraction of recommendations makes for much more varied options than I might get if the system was able to create a profile of me; and as tempted as I am to finish that sentence with an “as bad as they can be,” they can be pretty freakin’ bad no matter what. This is all to say: I get exposed to a lot of different videos that I (and other people, both like and unlike me) wouldn’t normally see due to the unknowable intricacies of the algorithm, and I’m always down to give them a shot if they manage to catch my attention. That openness has led me to some awesome creators, games, ideas, and individual videos I don’t know how I would’ve found otherwise. I guess I’m my own algorithm… Keeping it just to gaming(ish) this time, I wrote a listicle of a bunch of video essays I like!

Now: VGBees!
Tycho and The Heavy Fold is a leaner and vibier episode, and it’s a good thing we took that chance while we still had it… little did we know what this month would have in store for us… A little bit of scattered news — including the return of Poker Night at the Inventory and the pause of Borderlands 4’s Nintendo Switch 2 version — and the games we played: John on Ball x Pit, Niki on Tears of the Kingdom, and me on Titanium Court (demo) and Hermit and Pig!
Are You Strong Enough To Be My Cat w/ Charles Harte: A great eppy where the wonderful Charles Harte, a fellow ex-Fanbyte and now-Game Informer, joined us to talk about Mewgenics, which he’d already gotten to put around 90 hours into before its release. We spent a good amount of time ragging on it and its many weird idiosyncrasies and ideals of “apoliticalness,” especially to give Charles a break from his buttoned-up position as a reviewer. We briefly touched on the State of Play before heading into a murderer’s row of news: Discord’s age verification and teen council, layoffs at the studios behind the just-launched 2XKO and Highguard, and Ubisoft employees’ mass strike against the company’s latest phase of “restructuring.” John started Relooted, Niki ranked up on the Peloton and we got to see an insane motivational video about it, and I saw Markiplier’s Iron Lung. It wasn’t good! But I’m glad they tried!
Xbox Deserves This might be the best episode I’ve been on thus far, and it’s over three hours to boot! Xbox’s highest level of leadership has been obliterated, including Sarah Bond — whom the episode title comes from — in a very icky departure. Niki went long eviscerating Sony and their disastrous complacency, showcased this week with their closure of Bluepoint Games. We got some juicy tidbits, mostly from John, about the inner workings of Tencent given the news that ~allegedly~ Tencent was behind Highguard (and therefore its mondo failure). Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 got into hot water in the UK for a “haha isn’t sexual assault so funny!” ad which was subsequently banned. Oh, and the Saudi Arabian crown now outright owns the largest fighting game tournaments in the world in Evo. We also said goodbye to two industry legends: Shutaro “Curry the Kid” Ida, known for his work as a programmer at Konami and later for directing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and Hideki Sato, “The Father of Sega Hardware.” John played Overwatch and was reminded it kinda sucks; I played MOONROT and it was great!
Voluntarily Surrendering Your License To Print Money w/ Michael Higham: Another Fanbyte alum, Michael Higham, now at IGN, joined us to share his (no spoilers) thoughts on Resident Evil Requiem, which he had completed for review. We quickly went over an update of the ongoing worldwide shortage of RAM and storage as it pertains to our industry, an entirely John-validating report on Highguard, and there’s a smattering of chatter on the Pokémon Direct. The state of New York is suing Valve over their lootboxes violating state gambling laws, which feels intensely performative but would be nice to see them care about and win. Microsoft Japan is under investigation for monopolistic practices we already know they deploy in the United States, which feels intensely performative but… you get it, lol. Lastly for news, a continuation of the dumbest shit ever: Sony hates money. (Looks like this is gonna come up again on the next episode, huh? Geez…) Also, Niki and Michael both tried out Marathon during the server slam and gave us their early thoughts.

Song of the Newsletter
“Sorry For Your Loss” by The Beaches has been my tuuune for the past couple weeks. I vaguely knew about this group through their social media hit “Lesbian of the Year,” a song I think is just okay, particularly when compared to the rest of this album. No Hard Feelings is a pop rock lesbian breakup/angst album, and folks, you just love to see it. “Sorry For Your Loss” is my favorite song on there, owing to its mix of melancholy, spite, and energy, and its crazy catchy pre-chorus: “Please get well soon / If I left me I’d be lovesick too / Please, it’s the truth / Only want the best for you.” If you really wanna get angsty with it (as you do), then “I Wore You Better” is a solid second — a more lyrically dense and higher-paced track about being used by other women for your sexuality, often as they try to define their own; a lesbian tragedy common enough to become parody.

News & Recommendations
Finally… the sun is out and winter’s harsh prunings have led to vigorous growth. Everything’s greening up, growers are sharing their new availabilities, and plant sales and festivals are on the horizon. Nowadays I fall pretty firmly into the native/pollinator category of gardener, something that I’m always heartened to see is becoming more and more popular; and it’s always been a little more popular in Texas, I think, between our many different ecoregions — some more challenging than others — and famously hot, sunny, and seasonally dry climate. “Traditional” gardening here is an uphill battle you just lose. Native plants are easier and less resource intensive, and an outright necessity if you want year-round greenery (even under watering restrictions), blooms past spring, and, of course, the three B’s: bees, birds, and butterflies. My interest was inevitable — I’ve always been a treehugger, and my dad’s got one of the greenest thumbs in my entire hometown. So, I’ve been flipping through butterfly and moth books, browsing nursery plant lists, scoping out those festivals, cleaning up the balcony, and plotting for the future. It might be the most rewarding and consistently enjoyable hobby I have, especially when all that labor bears fruit (be that literal fruit, flowers, visiting caterpillars and butterflies, or the occasional bird that bothers to come all the way up here despite the lack of tree cover). You should have access to a lot of great, free resources on where to get started via your local botanical garden, independent nursery, parks, or Native Plant Society chapter (or similar, like WildOnes). Give it a go! Plant some Asteraceae!

A Bunch of Gaming(ish) Video Essays I Like

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:01:54 +0000

Some time ago now I was asked for any works on games I recommended that fall into the realm of art criticism or media studies, and really enjoyed putting a list together! So, here that is: my favorite video essays on games, in no particular order. These are not “““analysis””” videos that recount the plot in excruciating detail accompanied by a smattering of development facts. These are videos which treat games as an art form worthy of criticism, sincerely examine narratives, and acknowledge the real world politics which influence everything from individual lines of dialogue to overarching development decisions.

“Yellow Paint” and “Remaking Silent Hill 2 is a Complete Waste of Time Sorry” by Caleb Gamman. Gamman is a really talented creator whose disaffected delivery, marked by his quiet sarcasm, both speaks to me deeply as a terminal hater of games; gamers; games media; the games industry; YouTube; all media, actually; and perhaps all creators, and contrasts well with his obvious and latent passion for games as an artistic medium. I guess that’s relatable to me, too. I love both of these videos, with the one on SH2R landing more on the contained criticism end of the spectrum, while “Yellow Paint” necessarily (for us and Gamman) blows up into something much greater than itself. The ending third of the video in particular is permanently tattooed on my brain as a beautifully written soliloquy to the entire ecosystem of video games which I understand and internalize more deeply with every listen.

"Zombies are political?! A VERY Deep Dive into Telltale's The Walking Dead ” and ““Everything is Political”: Institutional Racism in Life is Strange 2 ” by Game Assist. Game Assist is one of few to delve so unflinchingly into deep political readings of games, as these titles more than imply. From essays on ableism and misogyny in Life is Strange to de/colonization in Assassin's Creed III, they meet games where they are and examine their narratives earnestly while still acknowledging their shortcomings. I recommend virtually everything they make, and I only add that “virtually” caveat because I don’t think I’ve actually watched everything just yet.

“Phyrexia is Hell | A 30-Year History of Magic's Most Sinister Villains ” by Rhystic Studies covers the design and evolution in design of the cultish and body horrific Phyrexians, some of Magic: The Gathering’s most important villains. Rhystic Studies makes some excellent videos on Magic, largely focused on or at least concerning themselves conceptually with visual art and its creation. This is my favorite, but his entire body of work is worth a watch — particularly “The Zugzwang Machine | A History of Lantern Control” for something more mechanically- and competitively-minded.

“In Search of Undersea Wildness in My Octopus Teacher, Abzu, and In Other Waters ” and “What Is the Games Industry Missing?” by Pixel A Day. Kat at Pixel A Day is one of the sharpest in this field and these two videos show exactly why, in two very different ways. The former obsesses over both the beauty of oceans and humanity's tendency towards anthropomorphism, while the latter digs personally into the ugliness of both the games and games media industries.

“Shinobi & The Art of Vengeance” by SpidersSTG. Spiders’ shotgun blast approach to making videos immediately drew me in, although this one in particular is probably best known (and, sometimes, mistakenly maligned) for jokingly introducing the term “consentroidvania” to deride Shinobi: Art of Vengeance’s slow, shallow enemy design. A ceaselessly thorough arcade pervert, Spiders does his due diligence tracing the entire lineage of the Shinobi franchise, to and far through 1986’s Rolling Thunder, and uses this framework to go much deeper than a simple game review would’ve. Further than that, though, the breadth of ideas Spiders works through, and the pace at which he works through them, does good to transmit his reverence for arcade era design philosophy and his bitterness at its unforced decline directly into the viewer.

“Prey - A Critique of the Mind Game ” by Joseph Anderson. Joseph Anderson is one of the better known independent game critics, mostly owing to his extraordinarily popular series of videos on From Software's games and his propensity to have opinions. I don't always agree with him, but I find his critiques to be interesting, close-up examinations of games which are well-written and with good intent (although I do think they can get overlong, to the point of bloat). He often has the effect of making me want to play a game (again) after watching his critiques — even the overwhelmingly negative ones.

“The Most Abused Term in Videogame Criticism ” by SolePorpoise. An interesting exploration of the original “ludonarrative dissonance” essay.

“Animal Crossing and the Ideology of Chill ” by Yaz Minsky. An examination of “cozy games” and what our view of relaxation reveals about our cultures via Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

“Why I haven't played Hades ⚱” by LambHoot. Probably the most personal essay on here, this one is about the complicated feelings a game like Hades stirs in its Greek-Canadian host. This goes largely into contemporary Greek — and especially diaspora — culture and identity and some of Hades’ shortcomings regarding it.

“The Problem with Greek Myth Retellings ” and “The Endless Reinvention of Greek Mythology ” by Kate Alexandra. While not technically about video games, Greek myth's constant presence in games (as seen above) makes them pertinent. A fascinating look at Greek myth retellings/inspiration from someone with clearly deep knowledge and passion for the subject.

Horripilant Review

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 19:45:04 +0000

I have played over 80 hours of Horripilant. At the risk of sounding like one of those Steam reviews: I'm not sure if I like it! I don't think I do.

Horripilant self-describes as an idle/incremental dungeon crawler, inspired in part by Plastiboo's Vermis I, a grimy art book for a nonexistent video game. There are puzzle elements, too, but like each of Horripilant's many different moving parts, I personally found them to be oversold.

I think where Horripilant struggles most is also where it would be the most apparent, because it's the core concept — it just can't marry the idle gameplay with the RPG and dungeon crawling elements. Generally, dungeon crawler gameplay involves preparing to and then advancing through each floor of a semi-randomized dungeon. Usually, this preparation involves considerations of character build, equipment, and spells; purchasing of consumable items; and, in party-based dungeon crawlers, planning of party composition. But, because Horripilant is a single character incremental game, it has very little of this. You play as one knight-style guy with no classes, spells, or interchangeable or new equipment to speak of.

The incremental elements also, by design, create an arms race against exponentially spongier damage sponges. These ideas together mean that the majority of stats in the game feel pretty meaningless, as do their corresponding upgrades for the player character. Because both enemies and your character attack and defend automatically, and especially because enemies cannot heal themselves, there's no meaning to their having any different mixture of health, defense, or evasion. They all amount to increasingly beefy punching bags with different sprites. This does mean you can get a bit unlucky, like if a brand new (and therefore bigger-numbered) enemy shows up more often than you expected once introduced. However, because health and damage pools rapidly balloon into the thousands and then millions, and, again, because everyone automatically and mandatorily performs identical attacks, neither encounters nor dungeon runs are won with meticulous, per-attack planning. The enemy composition on any given floor is almost inconsequential past your first couple of runs. And because your own numbers get so big and so unwieldy so quickly, which causes the game to move at a rapid clip, there's no meaningful distinction between your own stats, either. Other than the two kings in attack and attack speed, every stat is an opaque resource bucket which amounts to slightly improved chances of survival. Add in the unlockable resource storage limits and you're left with a lot of stats that you're upgrading just because you can and it'd be a waste for the resources to sit around, and any semblance of decisionmaking or character building is reduced to nothing.

This all really stuck in my craw because I like incremental games, which are, (in)famously, about the completely meaningless amassing of resources. But I like how honest they are. You're gathering all these resources and building these buildings and researching these technologies and caring an awful lot about being efficient at times because that's all there is, and it's fun! Horripilant's hybridization introduces a lot of friction, which may be the worst thing an incremental game can do. After all, they're commonly referred to as "idle" games — games that play themselves while you're away to decent effect until you return to get things back on track. Crucially, because Horripilant is a hybrid of specifically an incremental game and dungeon crawler, its two halves have to sleep in different beds. You can't cookie-click or purchase upgrades of any kind while dungeon diving. Ostensibly, this means that the gameplay loop must be to cookie-click and/or idle, purchase a bunch of upgrades, dungeon dive, idle the dungeon dive, and repeat, but that isn't quite right. Whether or not you should idle the dungeon crawling half of the equation or not still escapes me; not because I haven't done the math, but because both methods feel quite bad. (This also explains my unreasonably high 80-hour playtime; I spent a lot of time experimenting before dropping it).

As mentioned before, there are a lot of RPG stats that don't feel well-coordinated. For both our hero and enemies, there's attack, attack speed, health, defense, and evasion. But we can also unlock for ourselves: health regeneration, double hit chance, critical hit chance, reflect chance, and two resource gain modifiers for meat and experience. (There are actually a lot of other stats but they're confined to the "prestige"-style progression system, so I won't mention them just yet.) Health is only improved by leveling up, which you can do by gaining experience, by killing monsters. The other 10 are available as incremental upgrades. After each floor’s boss, you receive a new-roguelike-style three-item "boon" menu, with 1-3 small percentile upgrades of these 10 stats, occasionally accompanied by a couple instant heal options, and, always, the option to return to camp immediately without incurring the normal meat loss for leaving in the middle of a floor. Attack, attack speed, defense, evasion, and health regeneration (primary stats) can be improved by upgrading the different pieces of your equipment with your primary clicky resource, wood. After a bit of time alternating between wood farming and dungeon diving, you'll unlock the secondary resource, rock, and discover you can increase your crit chance, boon effectiveness multiplier, reflect chance, opportunity attack chance, and vampiric hit chance. Although these do briefly have some novelty (three of them aren't even mentioned prior to unlocking them, so they're totally new), you'll quickly realize they're total ass. Critical hits and attacks of opportunity do almost no damage, and vampiric hit rate is both expensive to invest in and heals for very little. You'll eventually unlock the third and final resource, iron, which lets you upgrade your critical hit damage modifier, item slot number, reflect damage modifier, opportunity attack damage modifier, and vampiric hit heal modifier, which finally creates an avenue for the rock upgrades to be worthwhile.

This is already hell to a lot of people, but this is more or less incremental gaming. It's the extremely necessary and harsh split between the three different resource upgrade paths that sticks out. It's a good thing that all those latter upgrades are separated into rock and iron, because there's no reason to buy them for a long, long time, and certainly not above the wood upgrades. There's just no beating raw numbers. Why buy a slightly increased chance of regaining some health on hit when you could just buy more DPS or straight up health regeneration? For most of the game's runtime, the only reason to buy the rock and iron upgrades at all — maybe with the exception of the boon effectiveness multiplier — is because idle farming is free, so it feels like an inefficient use of time to not passively farm rock and iron and spend those resources on upgrades. As is often the case, this reminds me of a tumblr post:

Dear reader, incremental games are all about making ice cubes, but Horripilant often made me feel like I was just making ice cubes. Despite its little roguelike patterns, its persistent engagement of me with clickable damage orbs, the oh-so-satisfying constant thocking, or your entertainingly ridiculous attack speed, I was frequently made aware of the fact that I was making ice cubes. I was also frequently aware of the fact that this is nowhere near the most fun I have had making ice cubes, and sometimes I thought the game would be a lot better if it stopped forcing me to make ice cubes so I could go back to making the other ice cubes.

As I was saying, what hurt the dungeon crawling sections most is the particular way in which they create friction for the incremental game. With incremental games, being present (i.e. clicking) is always going to be the most efficient way to play the game. But you get tired, or busy, or you need to do some math for your progression path, so you need to stop clicking, and the game will keep clicking a bit for you. Horripilant will keep clicking the wood and rock and iron forever, but it will not keep clicking the dungeon crawler forever. Even by idle standards, the dungeon crawler is seriously inefficient without intervention. The 10 stats which you can upgrade each floor are of wildly differing importance, with attack and attack speed way, way, way up at the top, the other primary stats in the middle, and the "rock stats" at the bottom alongside meat gain improvement. So, leaving the game to select each level's boon at random means you're wasting a lot of important stats (not to mention that it can choose to heal you or your familiar at nearly-full health instead of selecting a stat increase). Additionally, the dungeon crawler introduces the random element of these little orbs which, when clicked on, do an entire attack of damage (or more) to your opponent. Prestige upgrades can increase the total number, frequency, damage, and more of these orbs — as if getting regular extra attacks wasn't powerful enough. But these are still random, and boons still only appear after each floor's boss is killed; meaning that playing through the dungeon crawling half "actively" still means a lot of doing nothing, since rapid clicking has no extra effect, and you cannot farm your material resources from the dungeon. Just as well, you will eventually die, and although there's no truly serious penalty for doing so, you do not automatically re-enter the dungeon. Further, you cannot idle this part of the game while it's closed, as opposed to the resources, which stock up passively. The dungeon crawler can be idled in a way, but it screams for your attention every second, whether it's up or down.

So, this specific relationship is where Horripilant threatened to completely fall apart for me. It's never quite an idle game or a dungeon-crawling RPG, yet these are the game's two pillars, but they don't play nicely enough together to make a new thing, either. When I first demo'd the game and talked about it on VGBees back in October, I said that what it most reminded me of was actually Loop Hero, one of few roguelikes I really enjoy. Of course, this is mostly because these are both, thematically, hellishly endless games where your protagonist and the enemies they encounter all attack and defend automatically; but this initially shallow comparison helped me to understand what wasn't working about Horripilant for me. Loop Hero doesn't style itself as an idler, but idle farming is an important aspect of the game, especially in the later stages. You create a plan for whichever resources you need to farm, build a card deck to help execute that plan, and then play through the act's boss to a point of stability. Then, you just leave the game on until you've accrued what you need. What's different with Horripilant is how little planning there is; really, you just have to ask yourself if you're willing to enter the dungeon with your current upgrades or if you'd like to spend some time clicking up to the next ones before you go. (There are some consumables too, to be fair; but at the same time, those aren't used automatically either, so they're another point against idle farming in Horripilant). Importantly, there are also many, many more resources in Loop Hero, and many more to be gained by farming in the "dungeons," as opposed to Horripilant, whose dungeon only contains meat (a resource which quickly becomes worthless), experience, and, technically, Hemalith.

Hemalith is the prestiging or resetting resource. In modern and longer incremental games, you can choose to completely reset your progress for some kind of exclusive resource and/or other bonuses. Hemalith is gained by clearing new floors (a non-prestiged save which has gotten through the boss on Floor 21 will have 21 Hemalith) and is spent on reset in an RPG-style upgrade tree. Similar to the game's RPG stats, there are a tremendous amount of upgrades which are not very good. There's just no beating raw numbers. Why would you ever spend precious, limited resources on the tacked-on familiar system or minor cookie-per-click improvements when you could get a multiplier on all resource gain forever? Why spend a boatload of Hemalith on resurrecting once per dungeon run when you could just get enough primary stats to do it right the first time?

(The Hemalith upgrade tree also has some verbiage issues that needed a second pass. Upgrades like "Get an amount of boons for each 10 floor under which your[sic] start your run from" or "Adds another count of each upgrade's base production value on level up." Even disregarding the typos, these are poorly written which makes them difficult to understand.)

The answer would usually be that these are optional stop-gap upgrades if you're struggling to farm up to the big, useful, expensive ones. In other words: ice cube checkpoints. But importantly, all Hemalith upgrades are persistent, and the Hemalith floor counter resets when you do — you don't need to clear a higher floor each time you reset to get any Hemalith at all. For each reset, Floor 21 is Floor 21, and comes with 21 Hemalith (or more, because there are also prestige upgrades to improve Hemalith gain). So the path to getting the big, expensive upgrades is not littered with smaller, less efficient, quasi-mandatory ones; it's just a matter of ice cube-making. But this ice cube maker is so powerful that it trivializes the meat of the game, and, to make matters worse, is introduced extremely early.

All of this is the friction at the core of Horripilant which I had such a hard time with. Whenever it tries to be an incremental game, there's an RPG in the way trying to give meaning to your farming, resources, and statistics, but fails such that it mostly just makes you wonder why you're doing any of this at all. At my least charitable, I'd call it an idle game that demands your attention; an RPG with a lot of indistinguishable stats; a dungeon crawler without planning; and a puzzle game with puzzles so simple I barely even mentioned them, and won't now.

There is a big "and yet" here, but not for me. I think for roguelike and/or RPG lovers who enjoy the feeling of intense scaling and fall a little bit more on the number-crunching side of things, Horripilant could be a really good time. But as someone who was looking for another idle game to enjoy, I found it quite disappointing, if not intensely compulsive.

MOONROT Review

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 22:04:45 +0000

It's hard not to think of Iron Lung when first introduced to MOONROT. Each of them puts the player in the position of controlling an imprecisely built machine sent to an alien moon in a desperate search for something to bail out the last remnants of the human race. Each game's primary goal is to travel to a series of coordinates on that moon and document what you find; each game constantly displays the player's coordinates and the angle they're facing; and each moon is haunted. The major difference between the two — Iron Lung's underwater submarine versus MOONROT's on-the-ground rover — may feel entirely aesthetic at first, but comes to guide the gameplay and define the atmosphere in a major way.

Iron Lung's rusty sub descends into an ocean of blood with zero persistent visibility. The only manner by which the player can see is by taking photos through the onboard camera and waiting for them to develop. A photo of a massive skeleton shows that there were, at one point, living leviathans here. The occasional deep, resonant tones and warbling calls that reach you in the sub indicate that these leviathans do indeed still live, but real life knowledge of how well sound travels in large bodies of water can kill this horror very quickly. We can hear whales calling underwater from 1,000 miles away. And whales don't attack submarines — they actually seem to really like hanging out with them, funnily enough! But even without this knowledge, Iron Lung does struggle to scare the player, and deploys maximum smoke-and-mirrors tactics to do so. A proximity alert buzzes intermittently when the sub drifts too close to cave walls, or to imply that something is giving chase. Extra heavy on the "imply" here — it’s not like it’ll catch you. Something bangs on the back interior of the sub partway through the game. Why? Well, to scare you. So you won't get bored. What was it? I dunno. A ghost or whatever. There is something in here and there is something out there, and we’re to be afraid of their aggression, but this is only implied aggression which is never actually threatening.

I don't say all this to dog on Iron Lung. It's a short horror game with a lot of good ideas. But MOONROT is a short horror game with a lot of better and subtler ones. Not all of them shake out perfectly, and there are certainly some pacing things I'd like to see enhanced (spoiler warning when I get to those), but it's one of the most enjoyable horror experiences I've had in a while.

MOONROT's little rover is stellar. I do think it's a little too chipper for the setting (although I guess it is named HOPE, after all), but its slippery bounciness provides a lot of character, welcome jank, and a little bit of friction. Being able to see in every direction may feel like freedom at first, but the steep limitations placed on your vision create a much thicker atmosphere of dread than not being able to see at all. This game is visibly quite dark, and the monochromatic purple-black topography frequently creates paths and pitfalls that don't exist, as well as shadows that come from nothing in particular. The isometric-ish view from which the player sits creates more pointed claustrophobia than the closed-off submarine does. The rover and field-of-view are perfectly proportioned to make you slam the brakes as what turns out to be a small hill and not a bottomless pit comes into view; to feel like something could approach you from the south at any moment and you wouldn't see it until it was too late; to make everything that you see feel like something you aren’t supposed to. Where Iron Lung writes checks it can’t cash, MOONROT is content to sell good old suspense straight to the consumer.

There are three important components of the rover: the solar panels, the camera, and the antenna. The solar panels comprise the only real survival element of the game, which is needing to stay powered by finding the rare shafts of light filtering down to the moon's surface and recharge there. I had a bell-curve relationship with this mechanic: I thought it was kinda pointless, and then cool and stressful, and then kinda pointless again. A bit more on that later, but I felt that this was a pressure point that could've been expanded upon and manipulated to greater effect. The game's opening crawl — another commonality with Iron Lung, I suppose — warns that sunlight is scarce and every opportunity to recharge must be taken. This isn't true, and that's obvious pretty much immediately. The sunny areas are persistent and carefully breadcrumbed between every couple of target coordinates. What if the clouds covered these spots sometimes, and you had to sit and wait in the dark for the sun to return? How long would it take for you to lose confidence in your memory of the coordinates? What if I couldn't rely on my "gamer sense" to know exactly when and where each new sunny spot was going to be?

With that all said, the aforementioned jank of the rover and difficulty navigating the dark moon may be why this didn't go harder. I did die a couple times and found the autosave to be (perhaps overly) generous, presumably for this same reason. It's easy to see how these things could become a pain point without the developer easing up like this. And, as I mentioned with my bell-curve experience, there was a short stretch in the middle where I felt that this was appropriately stressful.

Moving on to the rest of the rover, the camera and radio antenna are how you collect data from the moon and progress. I adore the camera. The crispy-crunchy "PONPH!" sound of the flash bulb is perfect, as is the flash itself: bright enough to be helpful, but fading quickly enough to leave you feeling vulnerable. The camera combined with the field-of-view is where the game can really shine, leaving things just dark enough to need to be illuminated by the camera, or just out of the player's view to require the camera to see them at all. If anything, I wish this was done a little more. That much is a sentiment I can extend to the antenna, which feels a little underbaked. There are some really fun ideas for it; namely, that the antenna is attached to the back of the rover, compared to the camera on the front, which requires you to carefully reverse into position to capture signals. Likewise, you have to remain still to do so. While this all creates some good tension here and there, it never went quite far enough to justify its inclusion to me. Maybe it's because the signals themselves aren't particularly compelling or scary to listen to. I wish there was more in the way of half-unintelligible sounds and speech, or more three-dimensional, building action, but it mostly sounded like a lot of staticy whatever. There were also some random points of interest which were not themselves target sites which I had hoped to hear signals from or get some other "reward" for finding, like a scary little Easter egg photo.

Overall, my negatives for MOONROT are all "there should have been more of this" — a great problem to have. I loved my time with the game and hope that developer Bee Braun, not at all known for horror, does more in the future. You can get it on itch or Steam.

I have some more to say about some pacing things to do with the ending. For both MOONROT and Iron Lung, this is your

SPOILER WARNING

The ending stretch of the game is the synthesis of my little complaints. This is absolutely the most visually interesting area, where the game fulfills the latent promise of spectactle that dropping onto an alien moon gives. But I found the leadup to it to be a bit awkward from a pacing standpoint. The name of the final target site (The Anomaly) sends a very clear message that this is the finale, and you are not coming back. However, following the coordinates directly from the previous target site is futile, which is really, really unfortunate. Heading due east towards The Anomaly, the player finds themselves in the lowest visibility zone yet. Although the terrain is mostly flat, there's a thick, purple fog blanketing the area, and zero ambient light whatsoever. Although it's not always necessary, this darkness encourages the player to use the camera flash to safely traverse the dark, even though it can only illuminate a few meters in front of the rover (and only for a split second) at a time. The prior site is also close and on a direct enough path from the most recent sunbeam that, all charged up, I felt encouraged to go on a full descent into madness run and operate with total disregard for anything but the end goal. There was never a return trip planned, anyways. But it's not up there! You have to go back to the sunbeam and take a totally different, much safer, and more clearly lit route. Given the nature of the ending, which includes the removal of a couple HUD elements, I'd be all for a total failure of the HUD conveniently allowing the player to continue on as if the battery is full to ensure that this final stretch really feels like a final stretch — uncomfortably and improbably long. As it is, it sets itself up as another standard trip to a coordinate, while the name of the target site and descent itself make it obvious that this is it. I wanted that tension drawn out even more.

MOONROT also makes the mistake of totally releasing that tension at the very end when it isn't that kind of game, nor that kind of story. Because Iron Lung struggles to create real horror, its ending is punctuated by a jumpscare of a giant, silly-looking fish busting into the back of the submarine. MOONROT does something somewhat similar right as it cuts to the end crawl, which I was disappointed to see. I enjoyed the brief, intense flash of fear as a Thing dropped down from the ceiling and lunged at the rover, but was then met with a real sense of dissatisfaction. I was afraid of these entities when I had seen them earlier, but I wasn't exactly under the impression that they were hunting me. I don't even know what they are. I was afraid of The Anomaly, but I don't know what that is, either. That uncertainty is more powerful than them acting as regular ole evil aliens. If this is a story of futile desperation, where HOPE is killed, then I would want its death to be as slow, excruciating, and unknowable as the proposed extinction of humanity which bookends the game's simple narrative. Does it spin its wheels until it runs out of battery, grasping for purchase in the mysteriously slick and fleshy caverns of The Anomaly? Does a sinkhole open up beneath it on its way to the surface in what may or may not be a freak accident? Do these Things uncaringly pick it apart or keep it captive for eternity? I don't know, but the period at the end of this game's sentence was a bit of a disappointing one, especially for how well it seemed to understand itself for the rest of its runtime.

(Archive) Dialed Indie Newsletter: January 1st, 2026

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

WOW it’s been a long time since I sent one of these out. Over a year, in fact! Really screws up the whole “just subscribe to my newsletter if you don’t wanna follow me on social media” dealio, but at least we can say I’m not spamming y’all. Due to that long time and it being the end of the year, this is gonna be a long one, folks!

Much is the same for me going into this year from the last, but there are two major changes with some knock-on effects that will all be relevant here. Firstly, I left my old job, which compensated me very well but took up an inordinate amount of energy. Not the best news of course, but I think my life is better for it and I’m happy to have more time for myself and my personal projects (at least in the short term). Secondly, I’ve joined the VGBees podcast as a full-time cohost!

New From Me
The primary new-from-me business item here is of course my joining VGBees, but I’ll expound on that in a bit, at the appropriate time as we get into a chronological recap of this past year. I’ll keep it as trim as I can, but some pretty good stuff happened, despite it all!

K-YOS, slowly but surely, kept on truckin’! We had some serious soundproofing issues on first moving into our new space, but we got it done! We introduced some light format changes in the January episode, mostly concerning the fact that we began discussing more non-k-pop music on the show, especially in months we felt were light on k-pop we wanted to talk about. I’m glad we had the foresight to do this, but, wow, it was not a good year for k-pop. That light change was just not enough to keep the pod going on even a monthly cadence in a year this rough. We haven’t released an episode since July, and even that episode combined April, May, and June into one, for a lack of releases to talk about… Should we adapt even further and become a more general music podcast that also appreciates k-pop, unlike many others? If we do, how does that affect our “Best of the Year” programming? These are the questions I’ve been asking myself lately!…

In streaming news, there hasn’t been much streaming news. I did say that that job was sapping all my energy, after all! The biggest thing we did was a late pride charity stream back in July for Organizacion Latina Trans en Texas. Owing to my busyness, it was put together quite quickly, with a very loose schedule and the only incentive being a de facto double donation match; I was donation matching up to 1,000 USD, and I verified ahead of time that my at-the-time job could donation match my own contribution. In the end, y’all donated a whopping 725 USD, which I then donation matched, and then my job did afterwards! That’s $2,175!

I also wrote a couple things this year over on the Patreon, both very much informed by video games discourse (womp womp). The first concerns a sort of proposed genre term I and many others have quickly come to loathe, “metroidbrainia,” and its inherent lack of merit as a critical, commercial, and even basic informational tool. To me, it’s a signifier of the long, downward trend of video game design and experience where we just don’t remember how to think while we play games anymore, so ubiquitous is over-tutorialization and handholding. The second thing I wrote of substance this year is, of course, also about a (much less serious) genre term: “friendslop.” Specifically, friendslop is an extremely online, Gen Z, consumer-driven idea, and I was frustrated to see so many people speaking derisively of it while clearly not understanding it on even a basic level.

Now: VGBees! In case you’re unfamiliar, VGBees is a games site, podcast, and community run by my friend and former boss over at Fanbyte, John Warren. He and Niki (another friend and ex-coworker from Fanbyte!) have been hosting VGBees together for the past 18 months or so, joined by loads of cool guests like Jeff Gerstmann, Dan Ryckert, Jenna Stoeber, and many more! I was also on a few times before (drumroll) being invited to come on as a permanent cohost in October, and I’ve been on every regular episode since. I was very much honored as someone who already listened to the pod and, plain and simple, really values the coverage and knowledge that John and Niki bring to the scene. They’ve both been in the industry for a hot minute, and their sharpness for industry business is matched only by their humor. As much as I know and love them for acting the fool and having a grand ole time of hateration, they’re unafraid to get a little more serious and tackle things critically — be that games as art or financial decisions or hype trains — in a way that I’ve always found very refreshing. I think other folks like myself who’ve become disillusioned with the influencer and media side of games for that signature one-note obeyance of popular opinion will also enjoy VGBees, John, and Niki as I have. I’m happy for the opportunity to talk about games in a somewhat professional capacity with people I respect so much while we all have our own personalities, idiosyncracies, likes, and dislikes. It’s a breath of fresh air and I hope you’ll give us a listen! A wall of links ain’t gonna look too pretty in this format, but what can you do? Here’s every episode I’ve been on thus far, in order:

Inquiries on Animes, Gamifying HIPAA Violations, 1-900-GAMBLER, Stuck in a House, No Outside, Assassin’s Creed: Roku City, Body Works, Body Worlds, Body Bath & Beyond, Phil & Todd Flood the Zone, Competing with Steam as a Goof, Matt Booty’s 10,000 Testers, Even You Could Be Samus Aran’s Sidekick, The Joe Pesci of Podcasts, Hold Your Horses, Everything is Safe in Netflix’s Capable Hands!, Protecting Muppet Kayfabe, Gibbed in the MRI Machine, and VGBees Games of the Year 2025

Man, that sure looks like a lot when they’re all written out like that. I should also mention that VGBees has their own Discord server (where I and many other cool folks are quite active!) as well as their own subscription and related perks, like a special section on the Discord and the ability to send in listener questions every week. That supports everyone involved with the show and site, myself included!

Moving on to the last couple things here: I started a couple little joke accounts on Bluesky and Instagram! Basically, I had written up some submissions for a games media satire site, but unfortunately was not accepted. But, I had a lot of fun writing my proposed headlines and got into quite the groove, with a good 20 or so I was happy with. So I just said screw it and made my own accounts to post them, alongside anything new I think of that’s funny enough, and maybe even some submissions from friends! I named the fake site Geimu Chronicle, in an effort to have something immediately recognizable as both a gaming outlet and something that no one in their right mind should take seriously. I love and hate it. I’ll be posting there about once a month with each account being identical, so drop me a follow wherever you prefer! Once I get a proper website I can give it some space over there, but til then, it’s just socials for me.

Also, the new year cometh, and that means I’m working on this year’s installment of the “XX (Indie) PC Games Coming In 20XX” video. I decided last year that 2025 would probably be the last year the number of games and year would match, as much as I loathe to leave behind my nice little naming convention. But with every increase, it gets harder and harder to make a good list that I’m really proud of. 25 is already about as far as I can push it while still honoring the spirit behind the “indie” label and trimming games that seem unlikely to come out in the given year. Games get delayed all the time, but given the concept of the video, I do think it’s important to be selective and choose those with more concrete or realistic release windows when possible. Also, hey. 25 is just a good number for a list, and I don’t wanna get stuck on an uglier one! So look forward to “25 (Indie) PC Games Coming In 2026” hitting your screens in the near future.

Music of the Newsletter
I haven’t quite decided on my favorites of 2025 yet as far as music goes, but it’s the beginning of the year so I may as well drop my frontrunners!

SOTY: Despite my late in the year obsession with “Lola’s Theme” by The Shapeshifters (a really great ‘04 dance track you should give a listen when you have a spare seven minutes), there’s no song I listened to more than “KNOW ABOUT ME” by NMIXX. Pop music doesn’t get much better than this, especially when specifically Pop Grading, which necessarily includes an appraisal of the music video, choreography, and overall styling. Who else had a 720 degree ponytail flip? No one. Was any dance break as exciting as this one, with the center and youngest member pulling out high harmonies while performing live? Not that I know of! Did anyone look more beautiful than Bae in her frosty bob, especially at 2:25 and 2:31 in the MV? Debatable, but it’s not looking good. There was no pre-chorus/chorus combo more addicting than that in “KNOW ABOUT ME,” made all the sweeter by NMIXX’s live performance and vocal chops.

AOTY: I Love My Computer by Ninajirachi totally came out of nowhere for me. I was enchanted by one single in particular, “iPod Touch,” with no knowledge of a forthcoming album. It’s a bright electropop track that is nevertheless an easy listen, with its softly sung melody and choppy vocal accompaniment. It’s got a nostalgic streak without sounding unoriginal or overly referential, which makes it a good representation of I Love My Computer as a whole; although there are certainly some sonically harder-hitting songs throughout the album, like “CSIRAC” and “All At Once,” that are great fun of a different kind.

News & Recommendations
I think the most important thing to mention here is the creation of No Games for Genocide, a website dedicated to the BDS movement and the boycott of Microsoft as it pertains to the games industry. I’d recommend watching People Make Games’s related video for a more robust explanation, but TLDR: Microsoft has very direct ties to the Israeli military and, therefore, the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Boycotting all of Microsoft is nigh impossible, but BDS organizers have given us a clear and straightforward target to help increase pressure on Microsoft: Xbox. There’s a lot that anyone can do, and the site has these all laid out in plain language. And, remember: You can always commit to something small and then ramp things up later. Everything counts. The more average, everyday people learn of Microsoft’s complicity, the more the pressure increases, and every day is another step towards real change. So be like me and share the PMG video with the gamers in your life! As grim as things feel sometimes (often), we know this shit works, and we know a lot of people care. Just scrolling the pledge list and seeing all those names (I’m on there, and so are a lot of other people you know; maybe even friends!) can be incredibly heartening.

That’s it for now! Thanks for reading this extra long update and continuing to follow my work. It’s been a tough year and I’m just glad we’re still here, lol. Cheers to all of us for surviving the nonsense and finding the many things worth living for each and every day. It’s not always easy, but they are always there. Seeya soon!

(Archive) Dialed Indie Newsletter: August 3rd, 2024

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 05:00:00 +0000

How long has it been since one of these? What do you mean I never finished the April one? Oh Lord. My bad.

New From Me
K-YOS episodes for (checks notes) February and March and April and May and June...

After learning of the bizarrely branded "Triple-I Initiative," an independent video game showcase for so-called "triple-i" games, I decided to write up my thoughts.

Against all odds, Pressed Petals' first ever book review is by me! I finished Robin Wall Kimmerer's highly acclaimed Braiding Sweetgrass, a non-fiction social media hit about the relationship between traditional Indigenous knowledge and Western science as viewed through the life of a Potawatomi ecological scientist.

Just a couple weeks ago at EVO 2024, it was announced that Heihachi Mishima would be returning to Tekken as Tekken 8's third DLC character. This sucks. On the bright side, this was also my debut on VGBees — my old Fanbyte boss' new games media website.

Song of the Newsletter
There's no real Song of the Newsletter this time around, but I wanna let you know to keep an eye out for the next episode of K-YOS! There have been quite a few times in K-YOS' history where we just didn't have much to talk about and the episodes ended up shorter than usual. But spoiler alert: there's never been a month where we had so little to say as July 2024. As such, we're organizing a special non-k-pop episode. You can look forward to a full episode of song recommendations and discussion from myself, Dani, and Azalea soon!

News & Recommendations
Any horror game fan should be sure to check out eurothug4000's Forbidden Siren 2 video, providing a full breakdown of the game as well as its themes, concepts, and development process. While I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of her work, both of her Forbidden Siren videos are excellently done. Just superbly well-researched and beautifully told presentations.

understitch, is arguably the best fashion creator on YouTube; if nothing else, she is far and away the best researcher. She's provided us with a real treat in “The Life and Death of Elsa Schiaparelli,” a notoriously complex and difficult to research figure in fashion, as eminent as she was. If you'd like to learn about some of fashion's most famous figures and brands, look no further.

Regardless of how disconnected you may be from the hip hop sphere, you've no doubt heard about the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. A lot of the discourse — and the few attempts at legitimate analysis — fall horribly flat, especially as they fail to provide any greater context with regards to music history. Video essayist F.D. Signifier knocked it out of the park with “I’m What the Culture Feeling,” his 3 1/2 hour critical analysis. In general, I highly recommend F.D. Signifier's work.

(Archive) Dialed Indie Newsletter: February 2nd, 2024

Fri, 02 Feb 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Happy New Year everyone, hope it's treating you well so far! Why yes it is February, but I don't put these out very often by design, now don't I?

New From Me
K-YOS completed its first year of regular episodes strong with the November 2023 re-cap, followed shortly thereafter by our end-of-year finale, where Azalea joined Dani and I to discuss our top 25 k-pop songs of the year. A few rules apply to make sure that our lists are varied and interesting, so I hope you'll check out that monster of an episode, and let me know some of your own faves! In other K-YOS news, the pod is now available to stream on all major podcasting services, including Apple, Pocket Casts, Spotify, YouTube, and via RSS.

And, as we announced at the end of that episode and all across our socials, Pressed Petals Creative Collective is finally here! Pressed Petals is one unified place for the creative efforts of Dani, Azalea, and I, across the many topics we enjoy. If you're already a Patron of mine, you'll notice that this is actually the same Patreon page; you don't need to sign up for another one or do anything new. In fact, my work will remain largely unchanged. You'll still get early access to my games videos, writing, special episodes of K-YOS, and more. Only now, you'll also get exclusive and early access to Dani's work, Azalea's work, and anything new that we choose to do, both together and apart. We all have big plans for 2024, and are super excited to "officially" be working together now.

Speaking of 2024, here are 24 (Indie) PC Games Coming in 2024! The latest video in my annual "20-something games for 2020-something" series is finally out, and I'm pretty happy with this one! I'm always a little worried when December rolls around that I won't have enough games to talk about, but this year, it hardly crossed my mind. The release schedule for 2024 is so stacked that I actually had to be pretty strict, resulting in maaaybe my favorite list thus far. It's only the games I, personally, am really, really excited for (as opposed to a bunch of games that I think look pretty cool, for a general audience), and that have an official release window of 2024. That doesn't happen often, y'know!

Song of the Newsletter
Picking a song of the newsletter was tough this time around, as the free time afforded to me by the Christmas-New Year's deadzone (including the 8-hour roundtrip I drove to see my dad) as well as end-of-year music list bingeing meant I was listening to even more music than usual. But at the end of the day, I had to pick my consistent fave of the past few months, “Bouncin” by Tinashe. It's the rare ass-shaking song you can shake your ass to at the precise pace you desire: slow n’ sensual, casual, earthquaking, the world is your oyster. It's an unbelievably catchy tune with its synthy, blippy, and utterly addictive instrumental. And the choreo is great too! They just don't make pop stars like Tinashe anymore.

News & Recommendations
Pixel A Day is back with an extra-long (and a tinch more personal) video essay; this one chiefly about the very narrow view and lacking imagination of the wider video games industry, including developers, critics, and gamers alike. Ms. Kat is, as always, a measured and hopeful critic, providing a list of overlooked video essays in part to illustrate some of her overall points and to contribute to the future of video games and games media she wants to see.

As your local social media professional with an expertise in indie games, I am once again asking you to get the fuck off of Twitter. This absolutely applies to the lurkers (those of us who use social media primarily to follow the creators we enjoy, and to talk to friends/family casually) in the interest of moving everyone off the site, but I say all this primarily to the developers and artists who use social media as a form of marketing and engagement. A lot of people apparently didn't know this, but Twitter, as far as advertising/marketing/discoverability is concerned, is dead and in my professional opinion has been dead for several years. Its engagement and conversion rates (particularly concerning links) have always been terrible. Advertising was more likely to get you blocked by your core audience than to reach a new one. Going viral on Twitter was great if you were trying to get your game or shop out there, but you know what'd be even better? Going half as viral on literally any other website.

In my personal opinion, Instagram is most worthy of your time in this regard; it's the only social media app I feel comfortable recommending to any type of creator with any amount of time to put into socials. Following IG, in order: TikTok (if you have a lot of time), tumblr (if your creations relate to some "niche" cultures of particular interest on tumblr, namely being queer and/or a furry; having a strong artistic element is also preferable, but not mandatory), and then YouTube (primarily YouTube Shorts, which you should use similarly to TikTok, but requires significantly less time). I love Cohost, but it's not very good for this sort of thing; it's just a nice place to be where you're likely to have/read some good discussions among smaller game developers and games media personalities. In other words, it can be very helpful for individual professional and personal development, but it's not really the place to "reach new fans."

As Jeff Gerstmann said in his reply to the post(s) that spurred this section of the newsletter: "You might have a lot of followers [on Twitter], but they ain't clicking on your links. Go somewhere else!... Spread yourself out. It's a hassle, but what else are you going to do? Keep hanging out with the porn and crypto bots that spam replies on Twitter?"

(Archive) Dialed Indie Newsletter: November 19th, 2023

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 06:00:00 +0000

I foolishly delayed this newsletter once because it was a bit too short for my liking, and then I had to keep waiting for some news... now that it's late it's quite a bit larger than average, like a baby. Anyways,

New From Me
I have two different trailer roundups ready for y'all, available free to view over on Patreon: one for a combination of the Gamescom Future of Play, Mini Indie, & MIX Next Showcases, and one for EEK3 2023. You can read them here and here, respectively.

I got a job! This was the big holdup, as I was waiting until everything was officially squared away to announce it. I'm going to be System Era Softworks's new Senior Social Media Manager (you may recognize them from their hit game, ASTRONEER). I don't yet know how much this will affect the stream or my schedule overall, but like I said, I expect to be a bit scarce on Twitch and will thus rely more on pre-recorded and written work; after all, my job at Fanbyte cut my streaming hours in half, and that was just a junior position. As a precaution, I'll be pausing billing on Patreon until the beginning of next year when I expect to have more to share. These scheduling changes will not, however, affect K-YOS.

Speaking of K-YOS, I'm so late that I have two monthly episodes to share with y'all again. The episodes for September and October releases are now available on Spotify. Just one more regular episode and then we're on to our annual Top 25 K-Pop Songs of the Year, when Azalea joins us for the pod! That episode is usually monstrously long, too, so please look forward to it.

Song of the Newsletter
SOTN was a little harder to decide this time around. Like I said, this newsletter is a bit delayed, and we're right in the middle of that hot autumn album release season. And yet, I find myself going back to an old favorite. C418 is best known for his contributions to the Minecraft soundtrack with Volume Alpha and Volume Beta, but I've grown fond of a more recent release of his: 2018's Excursions. The first and title track in particular has been on repeat lately as I've been waking up earlier and reading a bit while I try and manifest birds to appear at our meager balcony feeder setup. The nearly six minute song has been beautiful and calming company on these quiet mornings, with heavily layered, glistening strings interspersed with nature sounds like birdsong, crickets, and wind.

News & Recommendations
A bit late to the party, but I promised on stream I would provide y'all with some of the best Halloween costumes I saw on Instagram this year. Click each word to view them!

At TwitchCon, Twitch announced that all streamers without specific exclusivity agreements in place may now simulcast across multiple platforms — including YouTube. I may experiment with this to take some of the headache out of reuploading VODs and just branch out a bit; see what streaming on YouTube is like and whether or not it's a viable platform for my/our needs.

I really liked this piece, “Cyberpunk’s Critical Reevaluation Feels Rushed,” from NoEscape. We've all noticed how weird it is that the mainstream consensus is overwhelmingly complimentary of Cyberpunk 2077, lauding it as a labor of love, giving it multiple out-of-place Game Awards noms, likening it to No Man's Sky for its meteoric rise out of the legitimately harmful dumpster fire it launched as... right?

On a serious note, I would like to encourage everyone reading this to follow the official BDS boycott list. BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) is a Palestinian movement which promotes the aforementioned political actions against Israel. On the most basic level, they compile lists of companies and brands which act in direct support of and/or are owned by Israel and Israeli businesses. What's difficult about this on first glance — and something you might've come across, if you're still active on sites like Xitter — is that many large monopolies such as Nestle and Coca-Cola support Israel. I can't speak for other countries, but in America, it is virtually impossible to buy groceries, or even just to eat and drink, without purchasing something from these brands or one of their subsidiaries. This is why BDS calls for a focused effort in the form of targeted boycotts of specific companies for maximum impact. You might've seen a few different infographics and calls to action going around, but here's one of a few official BDS shortlists. Please download and share this around, though note that there are two notable omissions which are very easy to avoid: Starbucks and Sabra. For the Starbies lovers, there are many past instances of Starbucks employees posting official recipes so you can make them at home. If this Twitter thread of recipes ever goes down, know that that information is just a search away.

"In Guatemala, there was never a civil war. It was always an agreement between the United States and Israel. It never was a civil war in Guatemala. That is why we love, encourage, and care deeply for the people of Palestine. Life and freedom, freedom and life, long live Palestine! We love you sister, we love you! We are one people, people of the world!"

(Archive) Dialed Indie Newsletter: September 8th, 2023

Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Hello again everyone! Autumn is approaching, temperatures are finally, finally starting to dip here in the subtropics, and I've got some great news and new stuff to show you!

New From Me
After playing through the highly-anticipated Bomb Rush Cyberfunk a few weeks ago, I left the game with a lot of mixed feelings. Enough feelings to write a proper review, though, which is always a fun time! It's available for free. Patrons got it a week early!

Our k-pop podcast K-YOS is back as it is every month, but twofold for this newsletter! The July recap was pretty late as I was travelling, and then sick, but it as well as the August episode are available now. I've also had some people ask me about the podcast's platform availability; I'm afraid it's only available on Spotify right now. We're doing a lot of planning behind the scenes, though, and hope to share some exciting news soon.

Song of the Newsletter
Late one night after we got our approval back, I was planning the layout of my future bedroom on Milanote. I told myself I would just make sure the scale was correct for the base layout and then go to bed. And then “Psychedelic Switch” by Carly Rae Jepsen came on, and then it was 2:00AM. It's such an energetic contemporary disco/boogie track, and one of CRJ's best — and she's got a lot of great tracks! It's from The Loveliest Time, the B-side album of her big 2022 release The Loneliest Time, both of which I would recommend giving a listen if you like pop, disco, house, and everything in between.

News & Recommendations
Starting on October 16th, the Epic Games Store will offer developers 100% of net revenue on new releases in exchange for six months of PC storefront exclusivity. Not only does this deliberately mention PC storefronts, meaning that a developer could simultaneously release on all consoles and the Epic Games Store, but also that a game's Early Access release is considered its official launch date. Theoretically, a game could release in Early Access on the Epic Games Store for 100% net revenue share and then make its 1.0 release on Steam with no adverse effects; even avoiding the often unpleasant situation of having Early Access reviews and opinions follow them into 1.0 on Steam. Here's the official statement if you'd like to read the specifics. As per usual, I'm interested to see what effect this will have on the indie gaming sphere, and if this can make a dent in Valve's monopoly on PC game distribution. While Steam won't be seriously challenged for the foreseeable future, it's nice to see someone attempting to court their dev-side userbase, as indie game developers are pretty poorly served by Steam. Ah, the stiff competition bred by the free market.

It's really difficult to talk about the nuanced feelings we, as queer people, have about queer media without feeling we're undermining the rare piece that's allowed to exist (let alone become popular, or even celebrated). Eli Cugini threads the needle quite honestly for Dazed, discussing the politics and messy feelings of what gay shit gets to succeed and why.

Lastly, I'll leave you with one of my favorite fashion YouTubers, ThisIsAntwon. While he started off as a relatively straightforward techwear creator, he's further evolved into an extremely compelling fashion video essayist. He's created, in my opinion, some of the best — and certainly most approachable — writing on personal style out there with his video “Why Personal Style Is (Mostly) A Lie.” It's a dissection of the alleged differences between fashion and style, a dichotomy that's endlessly propped up by both well-meaning fashion enthusiasts and the absolute grifters we've come to call "influencers." He has an extremely pragmatic perspective on the process of finding your own style, one that I think especially applies to those just starting on their fashion journey, who've found themselves drowning in a sea of ultimately unhelpful and confusing advice that they don't quite realize is so.

Thanks for reading! I'll be seeing y'all in this newsletter again in a month or so, hopefully writing from a new space after a smooth move.

(Archive) Dialed Indie Newsletter: July 22nd, 2023

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Hey y'all! Hope you're all well and ready for your first round of newsletter updates :)

New From Me
My latest games writing is out for everyone! Indie Games Are More Than Their (Supposed) Influences is an essay about the way we, collectively, talk about indie games; how they are almost always reduced to a sum of the influences we impose upon them, instead of works discussed on their own merit. Let's talk about why we do this, and why it hurts.

The latest episode of our k-pop podcast, K-YOS, is out as well, recapping all the June releases we care to talk about. Artists discussed: Stray Kids, fromis_9, The New Six, &Team, Ateez, SHINee, Treasure, and UKISS

Patrons, y'all also have early access to a new short video review, this time for The Spirit and the Mouse. You may recall the game winning third place in the Third itch Trailer Gauntlet earlier this year, and I played the majority of it on stream afterwards. The video will be publicly available in a week!

Song of the Newsletter
A song recommendation? Hey, why not. I've been listening to “One That Got Away” by MUNA on repeat lately. They're already my favorite band, owing to their alt-pop beats, incredible lead vocalist, and being very gay, dishing out sad, dramatic ballads and synthy bops in equal measure. One That Got Away splits the difference; it's a catchy post-breakup revenge tune that sings of heartbreak from the high horse of not being the one who fucked everything up. It came out a month and a half after a really rough breakup on my end, a week after my birthday, and all three members of MUNA look super hot in the music video. So clearly they made it just for me, but y'all can listen to it too if you want.

News & Recommendations
Humble Games worked with an independent analyst group to investigate the general habits of gamers with regards to indie games, and presented the findings of this investigation at GDC. These findings are, of course, aggregated survey responses that can't serve as a perfect representation of consumer data, and shouldn't be taken as concrete fact. That being said, a ~5,000 person sample size is nothing to sneeze at, and there's a lot of interesting data to sift through. GI.biz put together a great article collating the facts, sharing interesting tidbits about preferences of gameplay, story, playtime, pricing, and more. One of the most interesting data points is that a whopping 60% of gamers surveyed said they hadn't bought an indie game in the last year at all. The "casual" gamer is often left out of the conversation entirely among enthusiasts and armchair analysts, so the answers they gave are perhaps the most interesting of all.

As an environmentalist, I often find friction between myself and games, particular those of the wholesome/comfy/cozy variety. When we anthropomorphize nature, we risk sanding away reality, and depicting a world that exists both as a result of and in service to humans. “In Search of Undersea Wildness in My Octopus Teacher, Abzu, and In Other Waters” is an excellent video essay that explores this topic using a very popular Netflix film and two oceanic adventure games.

Do you remember being in school and learning the whole "men hunt while women gather and take care of the home" thing, and being told that that's been true since the beginning of civilization? Well, turns out it probably isn't.

Also, well-known LGBTQIA+ nonprofit organization The Trevor Project is most definitely unionbusting. The tired old tale of a charity unsustainably, ignorantly expanding and then cutting off the lowest rungs of the ladder plays out yet again. You can learn more and follow the situation as it develops by following the union, Friends of Trevor United, or their larger labor affiliate, the Communication Workers of America.

That's all for now! Thanks for reading, and I'll be seeing you again soon!

Dialed Indie Newsletter: February 6th, 2026

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 17:00:53 +0000

Hello! This looks a lil different, eh? That’s because this newsletter is now being delivered to you through beehiiv, instead of Buttondown. Buttondown was and is great! Very simple, straightforward, and easy to use. But, over time, I outgrew the pure newsletter software and wanted more of a one-stop shop for all the things I like and want to do. First and foremost, I needed somewhere to host all of my writing. Patreon has worked fine, but the reading experience there is sub-optimal to say the least and absolutely does not work better as more works are added (I also hate their app wtf is a home page!!). So, if I’m gonna move off of Patreon, then having optional paid subscriptions in this new thing would be nice, too. I was really starting to want a “brand name” as well. LotusLovesLotus is just my username, and it’s my username on, uh, everything, so it’s always been a bit awkward for it to serve my more professional life. Despite these ostensibly being my personal accounts, I couldn’t really use them all that personally or privately without feeling like I was crossing the streams in a way that distinctly did not work for either. And what good is having public-facing social media accounts anyways? The whole reason I started this newsletter was so that perennial social media refugees and/or haters would have somewhere to follow my work without needing any socials — let alone hopping back and forth between a few ships sinking at slightly variable rates.

Basically, I needed a website.

New From Me
https://dialedindie.net
Wow, there it is! My website! It looks totally okay! It has an archive and an RSS feed and everything! It went live only a few days ago but I think I’ve ironed out all of the big issues. Just about all of my independent writing is there in the archive, if you’re lookin for a trip down memory lane. I’m excited to fill the site out with more random writings as I’m wont to do, as well as reviews and roundups that’ll all build to a nice little oeuvre. Very excited to free myself of the completely self-imposed pressure of making everything I make A Big Thing instead of just whatever it needs to be!

I also mentioned optional paid subs… those aren’t a thing yet! I’m not sure if they ever will be, but it’s nice that that functionality is there. Even with my Patreon and Twitch subscriptions, I’ve never made anything really exclusive; just early. Monetizing stuff is no fun for anybody. With that said, I am gonna go ahead and quietly suspend monetization of the Patreon. Nothing’s been uploaded in ages, and I can’t imagine it’ll see much traffic on either end now that the site’s up. Beehiiv also has ad revenue options, but I don’t have any plans to use them (although admittedly I don’t know much about them). I play ads on Twitch despite not having control over what plays because they’re going to play anyways, so I may as well keep them to the schedule I prefer and get my $0.005 per viewer or whatever. Beehiiv, on the other hand, is totally optional and you select which advertisers to work with. Never say never, secure the bag, etc, but… eh.

Let’s talk about the other things — plural! — released alongside the website’s soft open. Firstly, the 2026 edition of my annual indie games video, 26 PC Games Coming in 2026, is out now! This is where I dropped the name of the website and got the first smattering of visitors from while I worked away at prettying it up. The video is basically 26 game trailers lightly edited together with a brief intro and outro by me. For more information about each game, I put together a companion piece to the video: the website’s first article! Later that day, I posted my, Dani’s, and Azalea’s top 10 k-pop songs of 2025. Normally, Azalea would join Dani and I to record an extra long podcast for the K-YOS feed, but… we haven’t recorded K-YOS in months now, and that’s because k-pop has sucked this year! We had to bring our usual top 25s alllll the way down to 10, and seriously reconsider how the podcast would work going forwards. I touch on that a bit in the article, but, suffice it to say, we will restrict ourselves to k-pop even less than before. Look forward to hearing from us again in a month or so!

I have also been on four (4) more episodes of VGBees since the previous newsletter was sent out last month! That’s because there’s one VGBees episode a week, and there are four full weeks in a month. Just some fun math trivia for you. The episodes are: Running Out of Stuff to Safely Say About Gen AI in Public, PEGI 16: Bad Language, Drugs, Discourse, Two Bucks is Free (Except When It’s Not), and Ubisoft Creative House Six: Earmarked for the Public Investment Fund.

Song of the Newsletter
Now here’s a treat! I’ve been following Jam2go, the developer of Kitten Burst and the upcoming GANGSTALK, for a minute now, and had somehow not realized that they get down like this! “Honeycrisp” is an electropop track with a decent helping of indie rock mixed in there, along with vocals provided by voicebank Kasane Teto. I’m really fond of Teto’s sound, and I adore the Crash Test Teto that Jam2go created for this music video. Her chopped-up vocals really complement the guitars on the bridge and gel this happy/sad track together perfectly before that final verse caps it all off.

News & Recommendations
Make a website! It’s fun! Paying for the domain was not that fun. But you don’t have to do that since sitebuilders like Neocities and WordPress are free!

Games Are Too Long

Sun, 30 May 2021 05:00:00 +0000

There’s a tendency to equate game length with quality, or to measure a game’s worth by its hours of game time. While I can see why someone would do this — especially if you don’t have much money and want the best bang for your buck — I completely disagree. Obviously, a 60 hour game isn’t inherently better than a 10 hour game, but you still find many gamers awarding extra points for hitting the 20 hour mark, and knocking points for being sub-six.

The amount of people I’ve seen claim games like Mass Effect or Xenoblade Chronicles as their favorite games of all time, then follow up that they didn’t even finish them, is baffling. I think it’s fair to judge a game negatively if you spend a good amount of time in it and don’t want to continue. They say you only get one first impression; if your first four hours of impressions don’t leave the player wanting more gameplay or story, then it’s fair to say they won’t be interested in where the game goes, and that it was relatively unsuccessful in some ways. Even if the endgame of Fallout 76 was the finest ARPG ever created, I would agree with someone playing the first 10 hours and writing it off as trash. Alternatively, judging a game favorably and even endorsing it with the same amount of game time makes little sense to me. If long-form storytelling and gameplay progression are major selling points of a long game, then I don’t think it’s fair to call it a masterpiece when those two things haven’t been completely investigated. You can’t judge a book by its cover, nor can you put it on the Best Sellers list if you haven’t finished it.

You may think it’s unfair to judge a three hour game by the same metrics as a 30 hour one, but the fact of the matter is that both are finished products and should be evaluated as such. There’s an expectation for RPGs to be long, but they don’t have to be, and they certainly don’t have to eclipse 50 or even 100 hours. That was a conscious decision made by the design team, and that decision should be criticized as much as any other in the game.

I’m not at all saying that long games are inherently bad, nor that RPGs are. What I am saying is that the longer a game is, the more difficult it is to maintain a high level of quality throughout. A longer game means more content — more characters, animations, music, mechanics, spells, monsters, bosses, areas, everything. And if it doesn’t mean more of all those things, then it likely becomes stagnant, and bores the player through overexposure. If you know you’re going to make a long game before development even starts, then keeping players engaged for its entire runtime should be a high priority from day one.

This focus on keeping the player engaged for dozens of hours usually results not in creating a fulfilling overarching experience or story, but in creating an addictive, consistent gameplay loop. It’s best exemplified by MMORPGs — we can talk all we want about FFXIV or whichever WoW expansion winning award upon award for their narratives, but it’s clearly not the main story that’s keeping millions of players playing and paying every month.

And I know what you’re thinking - not creating a fulfilling overarching story? But I love [blank]’s character arc! The storyline in [blank] is one of the best stories in gaming, bar none! There are some good ones out there to be sure, but it’s nowhere near a 1:1 ratio. The level of storytelling in games, even at their height, is still miles behind other mediums. So: was it that well-written, or did you just spend a lot of time with it?

As subjective as the quality of a story can be, it’s more often than not personal investment that creates those long-lasting, positive memories. We’ve all seen big TV shows receive an outpouring of love from innumerable fans when it’s finally announced they’re on their last season and think, God, they were still going? People still care about Grey’s Anatomy? You put 50 hours into Persona 5, haven’t finished it, and bought Persona 5 Royal?

There does need to be a reason to keep coming back, to keep players soaking up this world and its characters for hours on end. Funnily enough, it works quite the same as television; those gameplay loops last roughly the same time as a primetime TV show. These 30-60 minute loops in TV are simply a story within a story; the narrative of the day, within the narrative of the month, within the narrative of the year. Games somewhat mimic this narrative-wise, where each story quest is an episode. But, they have to work a little harder than that due to their interactive nature.

The more recent, concerning trend of loot boxes have a direct ancestry within RPGs. Play game. Get loot. Fanfare, sparklies, items. Things that just feel good to the human brain, direct positive feedback as a result of your actions. Not that RPGs themselves are as manipulative as loot boxes, but they tap into the same part of the brain to keep you playing, even when things aren’t particularly interesting. The wheel of explore-fight-loot has to keep turning, and is much more important than any amount of storytelling. Even games focused entirely on story like Dragon Age end up this way, where the central “fight” of the equation is replaced with “talk”. It’s not the quality of the writing nor the combat that matters — what matters is that you feel rewarded for taking part in it. From there, you’ll ascribe quality to the cycle (and therefore the game overall) based on your enjoyment of the reward process.

The gameplay cycle is king in games, as the schedule is king in television. Consistency is what drives loyalty and obsession, and a certain level of obsession is outright required to spend 100 hours on anything. Making games this long successfully is about the art of creating an obsession. But… why? If games this long are so difficult to keep interesting, so expensive, and require so much development, then why even bother? Why not focus on making a handful of medium-sized games a year instead of pouring years of work into just one?

Because they’re the only ones that can. Recently, indie and “AA” developers have garnered more and more attention and accolades in the gaming industry, bringing us a host of talented, small developers, the likes of which we’ve never seen. They’ve proven time and time again that a clear vision is more important than resource access. Even if concepts didn’t become diluted and dissonant with hundreds of people working on them (and they do), AAA is AAA for a reason. These are multi-million dollar companies where the bottom line rules all. To paraphrase one of my favorite video reviewers, Joseph Anderson: it used to be “Wow, we made such a good game, and we’re making so much money!” but it’s become, “Wow, we’re gonna make so much money if we can just make a good game.” He was specifically referring to Activision-Blizzard when he said this, but it applies to every AAA studio. They have access to money and resources that are mathematically impossible for the human brain to comprehend. It’s the singular advantage they have over smaller developers, and therefore, the one they must leverage to maximize profits. The reason there are so few MMORPGs compared to other genres, the reason that indie games are short, and the reason densely interactive open-worlds are a relative rarity is because of the sheer amount of money and time they take to make. Money to pay managers, artists, writers, voice actors, animators, programmers, pay for the tools to build the games, run them, test them, pay the testers, pay for food and rent while the game is being developed and therefore making no profit, and the list goes on. It is the one type of game that is completely infeasible for smaller studios to make, meaning it’s the only space where AAA can still thrive. So it goes, every AAA studio is only concerned with one of two games, say them with me now: excessively long open-world RPG OR party-centric multiplayer game with limitless content.

We’ve seen within the past ten years or so how AAA has made this pseudo-genre a mainstay, often by inserting it haphazardly into existing franchises. The open-world-RPG-ification of Assassin’s Creed is probably the most well-known, not because of its stark departure from the gameplay of previous entries, but because Ubisoft’s much-maligned flagship franchise finally took a break. But it wouldn’t be a trend if it was just Ubisoft doing it, as much as they’d like to think it is — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did the same thing, as did Jedi: Fallen Order, and even Square Enix with Final Fantasy XV (not to mention the artificial lengthening of Final Fantasy VII Remake). If you can’t beat em… don’t join them, just beat them with your wallet.

I’m positive that every individual employee of these monolithic companies is just as passionate as any solo developer, maybe even moreso, honored to be working on such large, iconic projects. But you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel the influence of the person who programmed the grass to flutter in the wind, or created the rigging for a spider. They did a great job! But, these games are not ones where individual contributors are considered impactful, or even human. Not by me, mind you, but by the big decision makers. These games are built to make money first, and everything else later.

It ties back into the conversation of crunch and exploitation that runs rampant within the gaming industry, one we’ve been having more and more lately. If AAA games could be made by robots, they would be. If they didn’t have to be (at least somewhat) fun to make money, they wouldn’t be. On an executive level, there is no concern for the humanity of the project, whether it be the players or the developers. It’s the very same passion instilled in fans that comes to drive developers; many of whom are fans themselves, people who dreamed about being in the gaming industry, who hustled their entire lives just for the chance to work on their favorite franchise. With extremely limited exception, they’re underpaid, overworked, and burnt out. There’s a reason the average age of game developers is so low compared to adjacent industries. The AAA machine is designed wholesale to chew them up, spit them out, and ask them to say thank you afterwards.

These games are not sustainable. Our invisible backbone of developers take the worst of it by a country mile, but that’s not to say that doesn’t also apply to players. How many of these games can you juggle at the same time? How many of them have you finished? How many breaks did you have to take? From start to finish, was it months, or years?

It’s commonly accepted that any long game (particularly RPGs) will have a section in the middle, sometimes as long as 20 or 30 hours, that has to be “powered through”. The explore-fight-loot cycle extends on a meta level, past the player character to the player themself. The honeymoon phase is over, and now you have to battle your brain and your screen-bleached retinas to finally receive your reward: the final boss and resulting grand finale. You have to eat your vegetables before you can have dessert. Unfortunately, the side you've been served is a Blue Ribbon carrot the size of a fucking skateboard.

While I think most people would balk at the thought of eating a carrot cake for dessert right after that, just as many would take it home and put it in the fridge. Personally, I don’t think I could even think about carrots for months after such an endeavour. In fact, I know that, because the last game with a 50+ hour main story I actually finished was Bravely Default, which I played almost 10 years ago, when I was 13. You likely have different tastes than I do. Recency bias is a hell of a drug, just not one that I find myself particularly fond of. If the last thing you experienced was this gourmet carrot cake, this wonderfully thought-out final boss with an equally genius design, followed by a 20-minute cutscene that gloriously depicts the culmination of all yours and the characters’ efforts… I could understand how you may forget or brush off that you didn’t really enjoy nearly a quarter of the game. The reward was excellent and the investment great, so the process must have been, too. I wonder how fondly Rockstar Games employees remember their overtime after Red Dead Redemption 2’s incredible sales allowed them not only extra pay, but also legendary accolades within the industry. Sometimes the results were worth the journey not because the journey was truly good, but because, on some level, it had to be.

There’s a lot about this topic that frustrates me, perhaps the most that creators should be allowed to make games as long or short as they see fit, with no corporate oversight. And, they should be fairly critiqued by fans and professionals alike for these decisions; evaluated on a whole instead of hour-of-content per dollar. It’s frustrating, too, that the experiences provided by the largest, richest, most resourceful companies on Earth are converging not only into the very same thing in general, but that that very same thing is so vapid and manipulative. I want shorter games that are less bloated and more measured; I want tight experiences that don’t kill the people who made them.

All things considered, I do believe in that eventual outcome. As the accessibility of game development and the industry itself grows, the AAA sphere, in a way, shrinks. The areas in which they can succeed only decrease as everyone else becomes more capable; and in those areas, even more casual players are getting burnt out — especially as the games grow more and more alike in an attempt to save time and follow trends. Conversely, the aforementioned indie renaissance is in full swing. More visible for players, more accessible for developers, and only improving as the medium advances. Even as the industry slowly and deliberately lies on its own sword, the people its structures excluded still exist. They’ll keep making games. I hope to play them someday.

EEK3 2023 Trailer Roundup

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 05:00:00 +0000

At this point you've likely heard of Haunted PS1, a broad community of creators making indie horror games — usually low-poly or PSX-style, as the name suggests. If not, you've probably seen one of the many, many, games made by community members played by your favorite horror creator; there's 10 Dead Doves, The Heilwald Loophole, and Mummy Sandbox, to name a few. As the community expanded, they began taking on increasingly complex projects, including the parodical EEK3. Geoff Keighley is replaced by Skully the Skeleton, a perpetually dapper purple skellybones with heterochromia and a campy, charismatic attitude. Likewise, the samey fare of AAA sci-fi first-person shooters and cinematically epic open-world fantasy action RPGs with crafting elements are supplanted by a deluge of creative indie titles, often by single-digit teams, all falling into a broadly horrific theme. I’ve carefully plucked my top 20 most anticipated games out of the two-plus hour, 80-plus game showcase.

At the time of writing, many of these trailers are exclusive to EEK3; so, in lieu of my normal YouTube playlist, I’ve provided clickable links below. As may already be clear to you, the show covers a wide range of horror, so trailers may include such disturbing content as blood, gore, frightening sounds, body horror, bugs, and more. To the best of my knowledge, there are no references to abuse or sexual assault in any of the trailers linked below. Please proceed with your health in mind.

1 Bit Survivor (Trailer, itch, Steam)

Originally developed for mobile, the aptly named 1-Bit Survivor has just made its way to PC. This dungeon crawling, turn-based roguelike motivates the player to struggle against the hell of an undead apocalypse with a cute tuxedo cat named Leo. After all, there’s no greater motivation to stave off The Horrors than a furry friend. And those superimposed battle animations are nothing to sneeze at, either.

500 Caliber Contractz (Trailer, Steam)

With the visuals of a Windows XP theme and the boundless enthusiasm of a 2000s Naruto AMV, 500 Caliber Contractz, in its own words, dares to ask the question: what if Super Mario 64, but with a gun?

BÅÅBÖSÅÅNGJÅÅR (Trailer, itch)

Surreal, absurd, and interactive. Those are the only three words that can consistently describe BÅÅBÖSÅÅNGJÅÅR (Korean for “idiot box”). Originally from the Haunted PS1 Madvent Calendar 2021, it boasts a collage-like mix of visuals. There’s highly-detailed and expressive pixel art, low-poly 3D environments with heavy filters, and flat, simple, geometric characters, sometimes all in the same scene. It’s a self-described “love letter to théâtre de l'absurde,” so I suppose I should expect to not know what to expect.

Become Dirt (Trailer, itch)

The latest in a line of magic users find that neither themselves nor their living family members have much talent for magic anymore, with only three spells left to cast: Become Mechanical, Become Fear, and Become Dirt, the most useless spell of all (or so I’m told). After her younger brother disappears, seemingly after arriving home from school, our protagonist must navigate her house and her family to bring him to safety.

Bone’s Cafe (Trailer, itch, Steam)

Cooking, killing, and necromancy? Bone’s Cafe is that special hybrid of hectic, arcade-style gameplay and automation. You’ll be designing your own restaurant, its menu, training your undead staff, and sourcing some… ingredients… There’s a lot to do, so it may behoove you to invite some local friends to help manage it all.

Death in Abyss (Trailer, Steam)

The Death in Abyss trailer is straight to the point: pilot a multi-winged fighter ship through a pitch black sea. Slay leviathans. Repeat. Tension is king here as the massive sea creature twists and coils out of sight around the ship, which swims with an abnormal level of character for a machine, flapping its “fins” as it frantically jets away from gnashing teeth and readies volley after volley of missiles.

[ECHOSTASIS] (Trailer, itch, Steam)

Bloom-heavy, dreamlike, and with a digital veneer, [ECHOSTASIS] presents itself like nothing else. In a world where our realities are each individually controlled by an algorithm (but like, for real), a glitch in the system means the death of the self.

Greyhill Incident (Trailer, Steam)

Ah, aliens. The oft-forgotten “cryptid” that haunted me for years living in the exurbs, among miles and miles of corn and cotton fields. I was positively scarred by the infamous party scene in Signs after watching it at a friend's house, I used to worry about the Fresno Nightcrawlers hanging out in my backyard, and I love to indulge in a little bit of conspiracy, as a treat. Thanks, Greyhill Incident.

Hamelin’s Journey (Trailer, itch)

Hamelin’s Journey takes the creature collector genre in a new direction by going back to its roots in the 90s, citing Monster Rancher (among the obvious) as inspiration. Dark, open areas are chock full of strange beings ripe for the capturing on your quest to take a chunk off of an ancient beast that resides deep underground.

HEAVENSCAPE (Trailer, itch)

You can tell from the quickest of glances that HEAVENSCAPE is set in the early 2000s; the fonts, the flip phone, the computers, and its vibes overall are assembled perfectly. While many elements are clear right away, I wouldn’t have guessed this is a roguelike. Take control of an angel on their way home after a party; experience the nightlife, meet some friends, try not to die?

The Hungry Fly (Trailer, Steam)

What’s a fly to eat in a world where nothing dies? Zip around as the titular hungry fly through a grotesque swamp, meeting all manner of surreal, icky friends in your struggle against starvation. Although the strangeness of the story may initially lead you to believe otherwise, The Hungry Fly may reflect you, too.

If you let me in (Trailer)

While information on it is hard to come by at the moment, If you let me in arrests with its (first-ever?) trailer. Aggy is trapped in a horrific and unreal world, stalked by bizarre creatures and living furniture as she struggles against the being in her head, begging for permission. The off-color, cartoonish art style really serves the atmosphere, bringing the more mundane elements of the world in line with the horrific, while still maintaining their normalcy.

The Last Orpheus (Trailer, itch)

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the most enduring of the Greek myths; the tale of a man descending into the Underworld to retrieve his lost wife and sedating all manner of danger — including Hades himself — with his bardic skill. Hades allows him to take Eurydice back to the surface, back to life, on the condition that he not look back at her following him for the entire journey. Things… don’t work out. The Last Orpheus imagines a bard who can try again, and again, and again, instead of one cursed to live with his failure, barred from reentering the Underworld until his death. It’s different from the many retellings of the tale that exist, but Hades is Hades all the same.

Lorraine (Trailer, itch)

Introducing the woman who takes the “if” out of “if looks could kill,” our (presumably self-made) widow stalks dark gothic environments as she considers her next move. Owing to its bite-sized nature, more information on Lorraine is kept carefully out of reach to preserve the experience for those yet to play.

One-Eyed Likho (Trailer, Steam)

“Why did you wake it up? Why did you wake it up? Why did you wake it up?” repeats all throughout the trailer for One-Eyed Likho, an upcoming first-person folk horror, rendered in grimy, dark monochrome. The game is apparently inspired by “The One-eyed Likho,” a Slavic fairytale depicting this embodiment of evil. Fire seems to serve as a central element of gameplay, be it giving light, destroying obstacles, or hopefully providing a cleansing flame.

R00000 (Trailer, itch, Steam)

There’s a monster in the basement. Instead of putting as much distance between it and him as possible, R00000’s protagonist opts to film a horror flick. His mental state increasingly deteriorates as his obsession deepens; he reshoots scenes over and over again as his intrusive thoughts introduce flaws with his work, ever chasing perfection.

Sender (Trailer, itch, Steam)

Set in the arctic, Sender sees you operating a big, trundling tundra cruiser through the frozen wastes to find your missing predecessor. On the way, among powerlines and waymarkers, are strange, misshapen figures in the snow. Don't stray from the path.

sin(e)s (Trailer, itch)

Billing itself as earthquake readiness training software, sin(e)s is a mix of machine interaction and archival footage. The trailer repeatedly refers to a “they,” perhaps something other than human, that looks and smells and acts human, though the human element — the horror of having a human body in a disaster event — is not forgotten.

The Tower of Tears (Trailer, Steam)

If you haven’t been following The Tower of Tears, you’re missing out. I initially thought it was a fake game; a pretty popular method for artists to market their style and skills, especially as a portfolio for game art direction. Delightfully, The Tower of Tears is a real, upcoming survival horror game that explores the creepy-cute aesthetic we’ve come to know and love from every angle.

The White Owl (Trailer, itch)

Aliens and lechuzas, they go together like wine and cheese. Across the globe, and across time, humans have looked at barn owls and thought they know more than they’re letting on. This stunningly shaded black-and-white psychological horror game puts you in the shoes of one being watched — and maybe more — by “something extraterrestrial.” Some phenomena shown off in the short trailer could be recognized by any alien abduction aficionado, but it’s the “Based on personal experience” in the description that piques my interest the most.

2023 Summer Showcases Trailer Roundup

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Throughout July and August we were treated to three separate gaming events/showcases with a healthy presence of indie games. The Mini Indie Showcase, MIX Next 2023, and week of Gamescom each brought us some great new games to look forward to, as well as updates and closer looks at indies that had already caught our collective eye. Here are 15 of my favorites. And, just like last time, I’ve collated these trailers into a playlist for your viewing convenience.

Cross Blitz (Steam)

Cross Blitz already presents itself with a serious amount of polish, evident in the first moments of its trailer as its card battling grid springs to life, complete with attack animations, status effect signifiers, and anime-esque intercuts that ratchet up the action. Traditional deckbuilding has fallen out of favor with deckbuilders as the genre has grown more and more popular, so it’s oddly refreshing to see a return to form being explored so fervently, unskilled at it as I personally am. The “isle of pirates” setting is also a tried and true classic, this time with a furry (and whatever else they feel like including) sort of twist; poster child Redcroft is a charming, boisterous lion with a toothy grin, clearly beloved by the developers and fans alike. Cross Blitz will be boasting both a singleplayer campaign and challenge roguelite mode when it launches in Early Access. Judging by the quality on display, that’s quite the offer already.

Crypt Custodian (Steam)

I haven’t played the well-liked Islets — I’m burnt out on 2D platformer-style metroidvanias, and wasn’t that into them to begin with — but Kyle Thompson is clearly an extremely talented developer, and I’m happy to see so much of that game’s DNA carrying over into a style I gel with a little more. Crypt Custodian is a top-down metroidvania, replete with abilities and upgrades, all of it in Kyle Thompson’s signature, cute-with-a-twinge-of-creepy art style. There’s whimsy and humor, too, inherent even in the concept of a glorified graveyard keeper fighting with a magical(?) broom. Even from what little we know of it so far through press releases and trailers, Crypt Custodian is shaping up to be another slam dunk with its unique and beautifully rendered point of view.

Crystals of Irm (Steam)

The Crystals of Irm trailer immediately enthralls with its chunky, jewel-toned, fantastical dungeon crawling setting, and it’s sure not to lose your interest after that, either. It displays a hectic-looking battle; a grid that moves not in tactical turns but in real-time, with a white dot (presumably the player) frantically scuttling around the board to dodge fireballs and pick up items. From there, it treats you to glimpses of a classic, 8-bit overworld, as well as a 3D town chock full of NPCs and quests. A lot of information is presented in only a minute and three seconds, but it’s all looking good so far — dungeon crawling, a great art style, a cool, unique combat system, and a very energetic soundtrack.

Doggy Don’t Care (Steam)

We’ve had goats, geese, and every other manner of critter attempted in the loose genre of “animals getting silly with it.” Although some seemed like shallow follow-ups to the immensely viral Goat Simulator, there’s a deep-seated joy we humans have in both causing mischief ourselves and watching funny animals do the same. Doggy Don’t Care is about a vacant-looking pug left home alone with full run of the house. I adore having a small but tightly packed space to explore in games, as with Chibi-Robo or Katamari Damacy, and Doggy Don’t Care looks to deliver. Despite the relatively small size of the home and attached yard shown in the trailer, our doggy runs amok in all manner of creative ways.

Dome-King Cabbage (Steam)

From this relatively surface level glimpse, Dome-King Cabbage appears as a psychedelic mishmash of ideas, simultaneously an artist’s entire media tab, a Blender showcase, and collections of images that go hard, the likes of which you only see in commercials of days past. Oh, and there’s also a video game in there, somewhere. It’s unclear to me how exactly this visual novel will operate, but its setting — that is, within a creature-collecting RPG — is clear from the outset. Each entity in the trailer could spawn their own collectible toy line or blind bag series, ranging from sweet, clay-like animals and pretty mage girls to musculoskeletal effigies and blocky flying ships.

Geo Mythica (Steam)

Although it’d make a retro purist recoil in fear, Geo Mythica is scratching all the right itches of a 90s JRPG-loving brain. All the elements are there — none the least of which the 90s fantasy game’s love of just odd shit. The fantasy genre is, frankly, extremely boring nowadays, with the same Tolkien-inspired copy/paste present in damn near everything. Geo Mythica, in its throwback nature, has tapped into a type of fantasy I sorely miss. Our main character is a football player with a sword accompanied by a dragon in a Hawaiian shirt, riding a triceratops and fighting jesters spitting spiders in New Orleans. In other words, it looks like a game with a vision, and that’s something I’ll always be drawn to.

Helltrench (Steam)

Helltrench is emblematic of the “retro style with modern polish” trend in everything from sound to visuals to gameplay (at least in concept; these are trailers after all). Maneuver a seriously combat-outfitted submarine into and through the depths, shooting to shoot, shooting to move, and moving to survive. I love a sea creature as you may know, and I can’t be mad at anything about this game’s style. Its color palettes, UI, and tilesets are of particular note in their beauty. I can only hope this roguelike plays as good as it looks when it comes out.

Liminal Phase (Steam)

VR games are nothing new, and I can’t say I’m all that entrenched in the culture considering its extremely high barrier to entry, but I swear the limits of mindfuck that VR allows have hardly been pushed. Although Liminal Phase may appear at first glance to be a simple action horror FPS, its unique qualities are quick to shine through. Both the game and our main character have a reverence for the 90s video game scene, one that’ll clearly come back to bite the latter. The world transforms from mundane real world settings infested with monsters to cartoonish, old school gaming visuals, and everything in between. It’s unclear what precisely awaits us, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Planetiles (Steam)

I love, love, love a puzzle citybuilder. Serene grooves and a cool 60s style smarten up Planetiles, while motley Tetrominos, evolving biomes, and natural disasters further complicate the spherical sim. As involved as the game may seem, its overall chill vibes — and the presence of the undo button I spied — have me hopeful for a nice challenge I can still zone out to.

Project Anomaly: Urban Supernatural Investigator (Steam)

Whether it’s ghosts appearing in photos, cameras capturing the soul, or the elusive Bigfoot videos of yore, humans have long viewed cameras as a lens into the spirit world. Project Anomaly: Urban Supernatural Investigator naturally expands upon this concept, imagining a world where cryptids, urban legends, mythological creatures, and other spirits are 100% real, and often causing trouble. As an investigator, you’ll use a supernaturally-equipped camera to find, speak with, befriend, and assist a variety of paranormal entities. Luckily, it looks like most of them are friendly...

Quadroids (Steam)

I’ve played my share of puzzle platformers, even those which make use of multiple runs or two-player like The Swapper or Fireboy and Watergirl, but I’ve never played one where a singular player is meant to control four screens at the same time. That’s the premise of Quadroids: a challenge of multitasking and dexterity. It promises over 100 mind-bending levels, each with their own hazards, twists, turns, and solutions.

Thank Goodness You’re Here (Steam)

There have been few games to British as hard as Thank Goodness You’re Here does, if the trailer is anything to go by. Northern England serves as the setting for this comedic side scrolling adventure — or “slapformer,” as it calls itself — and the devs are laser-focused on pushing the mundane absurdity of such a place to its maximum. Take the fish market, for example. Alongside the usual fare, they sell both cigarettes and cigarette-stuffed fish, and if you look closely, you can spy three labeled storage boxes in the background: tab ends, fish ends, and of course, bell ends. Sneaking a cock joke into a Nintendo of America trailer? Brilliant.

This Bed We Made (Steam)

The fast-approaching and punderfully named This Bed We Made seems to focus on the adventure gamer’s most prominent trait: nosiness. Hotel maid Sophie, allowed unfettered access to guests’ personal belongings as is the norm, is quick to stumble into a mystery. Strange photos and fake names point to something greater afoot in the hotel, and it’s up to Sophie — along with her choice of partner — to solve it. Well, I say choice of partner, but the multiple nods to queer women’s relationships, me being who I am, and the blandness of the male option make that decision a total nonstarter. No shade.

Universe For Sale (Steam)

Universe For Sale is set beneath the swirling clouds of Jupiter, predominantly, it seems, in a “bizarre bazaar”; a warm, if not ramshackle, community of humanoids, robots, and everything in between trying to make ends meet under a sheet of acid rain. The hand-drawn visuals only add further to the incredible imagination of the sci-fi setting — cloud cover and fabric in particular look absolutely stunning in these artists’ rusty, lived-in style. As far as gameplay goes, the game’s trailer and associated store pages indicate a much more narrative-focused adventure, although not one devoid of player input. Either way, the focus is clearly on telling a story about people.

Vivaland (Steam)

Even before considering the several hundred dollars of DLC, I could never really get into The Sims. I couldn’t help but feel a bit left out as my friends happily spent hours upon hours in the game, regaling me with tales of grim reapers and cheating husbands and drowning in pools without ladders. While The Sims never grabbed me, perhaps the ability to design homes with my friends and terrorize their little dolls with some of my own could bring it home. Vivaland is a life simulation game, yes, but it’s made the bold decision to make multiplayer a core component of its gameplay. That’s the big selling point, of course, but it’s clear that the development team is very familiar with their competition, and some quality-of-life changes are to be expected. An eagle-eyed Sims player could tell me otherwise, but I think the home customization options showcased in Vivaland’s trailer are looking pretty robust, even compared to the current build of The Sims 4. It’s an ambitious project, no doubt.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Review

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, the highly-anticipated spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio, is finally out and in players’ hands. I know I often bang on about not comparing indie games to other games, but Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a special case. It’s been over 20 years since we had a Jet Set Radio game, with fans frequently clamoring for it, and Sega remaining tight-lipped. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk really exists to fill that niche; it goes far past being inspired by Jet Set Radio and instead looks, feels, and was marketed as the sequel we never got. That is, by far, its greatest strength — but one that highlights its weaknesses, too. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is “Super Jet Set Radio,” but it’s also just “Super Jet Set Radio.”

Let’s talk about the music first. It’s one of the most enduring elements of the Jet Set series, and one of a few things that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk had to get right to earn its desired position as a spiritual successor. Hideki Naganuma is one of the most well-known video game composers of all time, largely due to his work on the Jet Set games. I mean, “Concept of Love” still stands strong as one of the most famous, recognizable video game tracks to ever exist. Although Team Reptile would bring Naganuma on as a guest composer, I think they were smart not to follow Jet Set’s formula here too closely. As opposed to having a single/primary composer, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk opts for a more eclectic style. It doesn’t have its own soundtrack the way that other games do; it has its own mixtape.

There are over 25 different artists listed on the game’s official OST, with a few tracks — such as BX’TREME’s “AGUA” — being created by independent musicians for their own projects, and later selected to be featured in the game. Alongside them you have commissioned works, like the nine minute “Hideout Mixtape” (really “Light Switch” by SkyBlew x Navo The Maestro) and the aforementioned Naganuma guest tracks “GET ENUF” and “DA PEOPLE”. Not only does this mixtape theme tie in directly with the world, story, and overall punk concept of the game itself, it also serves to further distinguish Bomb Rush Cyberfunk as its own work, instead of a wholesale Jet Set Radio clone. As much as I enjoy Naganuma’s work, and although I’m sure droves of Jet Set fans were clamoring for another 45 minutes of electronic breakbeat since music only exists in video games to them, I don’t think Team Reptile could’ve done a better job with the OST. It’s an expertly created and curated mix of different styles within the electronic-hip hop family, from rap and funk to trap and dubstep. It’s nice to hear/see more Black folks on the soundtrack, too, since virtually every aspect of culture — and especially music — within both the Jet Set series and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is owed to Black communities.

I don’t think anyone in their right mind could knock the art style, either, even taking into consideration the legacy of Jet Set Radio. It takes the original games’ style and naturally builds upon it, just as young fashionistas reimagine the styles of the 90s-00s today. It's a wonderful blend of the Y2K and hip hop elements we most quickly recognize with an even more sleek and contemporary vision, incorporating not only those current style reimaginings, but new fashion subcultures, too.

Even without knowing a thing about the game’s setting, development studio Team Reptile, or game director Dion Koster, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk’s fashion is clearly European, informed by real subcultures from the region. (Side note: As much as the internet has brought us all closer together, there’s still a world of distance and history between me and Europe. I’m not as educated on European fashion subcultures as I am on American ones. Just sayin’.)

It’s great to see so many practical and athletic (“gorpcore,” if you wanna be trendy about it) elements in Tryce’s design; it blends in well with his status as a self-made street punk who started his own gang. It’s even possible he was inspired by his graffiti idol’s style, as Felix himself wears very outdoorsy garments: a cropped gilet, 3/4 zip athletic jacket, and high tops. There’s also DOT EXE representing the breakdancers, wearing the classic EU b-boy uniform of head-to-toe tracksuits (clearly Adidas here, good lads). ECLIPSE immediately reminded me of Mugler’s Amazons, with their hyper-lengthened legs and massive shoulder pads. And if we’re talking about European fashion subcultures, I’d be remiss not to mention the unlockable character Rave (you knew raving originated in Europe, right?). She’s wearing bright orange overalls as pants, allowing the suspenders to hang freely about her waist. Based on the big bands around the pant legs as well as the shade of orange, you could assume at least some of it’s 3M — construction-safe, highly reflective material, perfect for a rave. On top is a skimpy little thing, a black bathing suit of sorts with plenty of straps to wear in creative ways around the chest and arms. It’s an absolute banger of a rave fit, and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk in a nutshell: equal parts modern and vintage.

BRC’s environments aren’t quite as strong as its fashion, though, and that’s when it starts to feel less “vintage” and more “dated.” While they’re well-designed in the sense that they’re beautiful, bright, and creative, they aren’t designed for the humans of this world, or for pedestrians — they’re designed for the player, the skater. That may sound like a silly gripe since this is, after all, a skating game, but this approach leads to a world that feels much less real, alive, or lived in... and some obnoxious level design to boot.

There's one true method of fast travel in the taxi. Unlike the platonic ideal of a taxi which can be called from anywhere, though, he can only be summoned at a taxi sign, and there’s only one per level. There’s also no “abandon mission” prompt; that is, there’s no way to return to the Hideout (the “lobby”) without a taxi sign or riding there manually.

These taxi locations have to be interacted with to be unlocked, and they are an absolute bitch to find. Grind rails come in two colors (yellow and red), though they’re almost always yellow. Untagged graffiti also glows yellow, occasionally flashing. To unlock a fast travel location (or even just use it), simply find a small, yellow sign on a yellow stick in a sea of yellow sticks and glowing yellow walls. While searching for one, you may want to go into a port-a-potty to change clothes to get the cops off your back. These are also yellow, and placed in a manner so completely nonsensical I struggle to understand the decisionmaking behind it.

The thing about Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is that its environments are inspired by extremely common real world ones — city streets, transit stations, malls. Regardless of our countries of origin, we all have vaguely the same understanding of the layouts of public spaces, and would innately understand where to find a public toilet. Instead of placing them somewhere that makes sense, such as next to the food court or in plain view of entrances/exits, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk opts to place them on top of buildings, nestled in corners on the edge of the map, blocking doors, or on inaccessible platform ledges. They’re not placed on skating thoroughfares or near heavily graffitied areas, either. There are no rules to their placement from either a real or game world perspective, and therefore no way for a player to anticipate where they may be. Maybe it's supposed to be part of the challenge: keep your eye out for randomly-placed, human-sized objects that don't stand out in a large level while moving at speed so you can avoid the annoyance of a primary gameplay element later on.

That “gameplay element” is the police presence, or Heat level. More tagging means a higher Heat level; the higher the Heat level, the more threatening types of police will enter the area, and spawn endlessly. Foot soldiers deploy at Heat One, handcuff turrets at Heat Two, riot officers at Heat Three, snipers at Heat Four, gunner ships at Heat Five, and a large mech at Heat Six. Keep in mind, though, that the maximum Heat level begins at one and is only increased as the player progresses through the campaign.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk’s design necessitates that these enemies shouldn’t really be deadly, but rather inconvenient. The two pillars of gameplay here are in achieving the highest score by pulling off long, uninterrupted combo chains and exploring open areas to graffiti bomb them. Other skaters exist to beat your score, and the police exist to stop you in the overworld (they’re conveniently cleared out during crew battles, combo missions, and races). While those skaters provide a challenge, a goal, rivalry, the police just… annoy you, during the campaign and postgame. As a gameplay system it feels imported; included without context or consideration from Jet Set Radio, and not something thoughtfully included as an advancement on its predecessor.

The foot soldiers, riot officers, and snipers may as well not exist. They’re rendered ineffective simply by moving (which, of course, you’ll be doing anyways). The gunner ships and mech can be avoided by moving, too, only faster — the speed with which their guns can track you actually puts you at risk of dying. That makes sense since they’re recycled minibosses, initially encountered in large, empty, closed-off arenas. Only the handcuff turrets feel really designed, as they actually require you to interact with the game’s systems. Building speed on rails, boosting, and tricking will break a chain, preventing the speed and aerial maneuvering penalty that comes with being cuffed. Or, instead of bothering with all that, you can just run up to the turret, kick it, tag it, and be done with it.

Yeah, there's combat. Although I appreciate the ability to beat up cops instead of the samey and low-octane chases of Jet Set, it's by far the worst part of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Combat is basic, floaty, unresponsive, and unrefined. Cops swing lamely in your general direction, and then you press the left face button until they fall over. Jet Set veterans will instinctively try to tag the regular officers, but would be surprised to find that nothing happens. On first spray, they stumble back a bit; maybe that’s just to push through a crowd without having to get off your skates? Those same veterans, perhaps having completed Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, may be surprised to learn that pressing the jump button without skates on will cause surrounding officers to be launched into the air, regardless of their remaining health. Now, in just about any hack-and-slash combat system, this means that they’re open for an aerial combo. Not so in Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. The game never, ever explains it to you, but tagging an enemy while they’re knocked into the air will instantly execute them.

That’s right: there’s a facet of the combat system in Bomb Rush Cyberfunk that ties in better to the game’s themes and primary gameplay elements, completely circumvents the existing combat system, was already in the Jet Set series, and the game never teaches you that you can do it. Although the game has actual tutorials, short strings of dialogue and text messages between BRC, and instructive missions, it neglects to teach the player basic things like this. How is someone who hasn’t played Jet Set meant to figure this out? There are three verbs to interact with the world: move, tag, and fight. The player is put into situations where there’s no point of egress from the cops except to fight them. Tagging them on the ground does nothing, but players are to intuit that they should enter a combat stance, jump, and tag when they’d normally kick? Sure, tagging can destroy the machines, but that makes sense from a game world standpoint — these random street punks can’t kick through metal, and we need some way of dealing with them.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk’s combat system is mediocre at best, and I can say without hyperbole that its two major, story-critical, unique bossfights rank as some of the worst I have ever played. Every combat encounter, though, is hindered by poor tutorialization. However, that's far from the only time weak communication hinders the experience. Random gameplay elements will remain — practically or actually — unknown to the player without an outside source, while others are taught early and with complete clarity.

There’s the aforementioned “carpets” that allow you to slide endlessly, a factoid the game never makes a point to mention. You can figure this out during DOT EXE’s mission: one of the pre-crew battle challenges is to slide down a long hallway lined with this carpet and gather up every boostpack in your path. Again, the carpets are never directly mentioned, but you could surmise that their presence here is necessary, instead of just decorative.

There’s the fact that you can perform a super jump by getting off your skates, doing a melee attack, and pressing jump with specific timing. There’s exactly one location in the entire game where it’s necessary to reach something, meaning that this hidden and near-useless tech is vital to a 100% run.

Left: Two regular jumps followed by an in-air boost. Right: Melee attack into jump, causing a super jump.

Also, each piece of movement equipment — rollerblades, skateboards, and bikes — has its own unique “ability,” as opposed to solely being an aesthetic or character choice. Horizontal glass can only be broken by sliding while wearing skates, bicycle garages can only be entered while riding a bicycle, and fire hydrants can be extended by awkwardly latching onto them and repeatedly mashing the trick buttons while on a skateboard. With the exception of the bicycle garages, which are quite obvious, I don’t know how you’re supposed to figure these out. When I first encountered horizontal glass in the first zone, Versum Hill, I was still using a skateboard, as that’s Red’s signature style. I attempted to slide and boost on it as anyone would; when nothing happened, I was left to assume this was an ability I would unlock later. But, no, I just needed to be wearing skates instead. Confusion aside, I just don’t see the point of these.

I’m being pretty negative here, but gameplay overall isn’t bad — core gameplay is, in fact, very enjoyable! Skating feels smooth, fluid, and you can achieve an absolute breakneck pace compared to the Jet Set games. I can’t help but feel that it’s a bit simple for a skating game released in 2023, but, at the same time, I enjoy that simplicity. I’m curious what others will think of the tagging minigame, too. In Jet Set Radio, players had to perform a QTE-esque sequence, where they were taken out of regular gameplay to follow on-screen prompts. Jet Set Radio Future instead went with a more buttonmash-y approach, where graffiti spots have a number of sections to be filled in with a button press, proportional to their size.

BRC splits the uprights, and I love the system they’ve come up with. Instead of stopping gameplay for traditional QTEs like Jet Set Radio, it zooms into a slow motion sequence, preserving the player’s speed both in actuality and visually. A directional pad appears, with more directions for larger pieces, and the player has to create a unique pattern between each point to tag. It’s kinda like an Android lock screen pattern, where each pattern paints a different piece of graffiti art. I appreciate the casual level of self-expression this allows for. There’s no need to spend hours carefully preparing bespoke work, lest you have to pick from the tiny little library of available art. Instead, players will continuously unlock new graffiti from real world artists, and develop a muscle memory for their favorites. Although I found myself wishing for an autocomplete mode during my 100% run, the pace is right for the campaign — the fact that you no longer need to collect spray paint cans as you did in Jet Set is extremely welcome. It’d be nice if that pace didn’t get obliterated every time you ratcheted up a Heat level, causing a bland, invariant cutscene to play, but, regardless…

Where Bomb Rush Cyberfunk most deviates from the norm set by the Jet Set series is in the story; y’know, by actually having one. And a protagonist, too! The original series had a narrative to string along the levels, but it was pretty scant: the Rudies form gangs and wanna expand their turf as far and wide as possible by being the best skaters and taggers. The cops don’t like that, and don’t like them, and will happily exert lethal force on them. Those cops are owned by a company, the Rokkaku Group, the CEO of which wants to take over the world by doing evil supernatural shit. The player gang, the GGs, stop him. There are some minor twists and turns, especially in Jet Set Radio Future with its whole double agent subplot, but everything about the narrative is kept so simple that that’s not enough to complicate nor elevate it. One benefit to the simple plot and lack of a true, singular protagonist in Jet Set is how much it encourages and pseudo-canonizes your personal choice of unlockable character. By contrast, BRC often delegitimizes your preference by switching you to the main character, Red, during important sequences like boss fights. Unlockable characters feel like strictly postgame entities, although they aren't, and unlocking them in the postgame is usually a worse experience.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk puts a lot more emphasis on its story, and attempts a significantly more complex narrative with a core theme of identity: where you come from, what you do now, and how that makes you who you are.

At least… that’s the core theme on paper. I’ll spare you a full synopsis — that’s for another time — but Bomb Rush Cyberfunk’s story is clunky and unsubtle, taking what could be a simple, introspective character story and mixing in other disparate parts until its only recognizable ones emerge in hamfisted highlighted text. It has a peculiar emphasis on the police side of the plot, where our villains and antagonists most clearly reside, while simultaneously attempting to retain the drama of plot twists — seemingly forgetting that the player already knew what was happening, and what was going to happen. The story is an absolute chore to get through, shining the most, as you might expect, in its moments of visual storytelling. The opening sequence is an excellent setup; it’s striking, unexpected, and leaves you wondering where it’ll go next. If the answer was, “Nowhere, really, but it’ll look cool,” I’d be happy. Instead, it walks a meandering and obscured path only to shout its thesis in a visually exciting, but overall impactless end sequence. It’s a real shame.

There’s an elephant in the room I've been avoiding speaking on directly, and that’s the status of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk as a spiritual sequel to Jet Set Radio. But, well… Jet Set Radio already has a sequel, a flesh-and-blood one, Jet Set Radio Future. It’s not as well-known nor well-loved compared to its predecessor despite offering up a lot of refinements on the formula (this is in no small part due to the fact that it hasn’t been remastered or ported and is a pain to emulate, mostly confining it to the original Xbox and Xbox 360). At the same time, I myself prefer the first game because the art style is Jet Set’s defining characteristic to me, and I vastly prefer the original’s vibrancy to the sequel’s comparative realism and emphasis on sci-fi elements.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk feels quite advanced over the first game, and just so over the second; though, certainly not advanced enough for a period of over 20 years of game design. It’s a case of divergent evolution, where Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is in the strange position of being the late-blooming “Jet Set Radio B” to Jet Set Radio Future’s “Jet Set Radio 2.”

Its greatest points of growth are in its art and music, and I don’t wanna gloss over that. It does, legitimately, have a new and interesting artistic point of view — one that has to look back, reference, and build upon the past, simply for its place in time. It has a point of view for its story, too, but one that it isn’t at all capable of executing on. Core gameplay is great, but drags on not infrequently, with lots of vestigial organs from Jet Set Radio that should’ve been lopped off a decade ago instead of encouraged to grow and weigh the whole project down. Overall, its greatest downfall, which comes to color every aspect of the game but pure aesthetics, is its poor communication skills.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is decent. For the diehard Jet Set fan, it’ll either soar above that or deliver a disappointing, but stylish, dud; it all depends on what mattered most about Jet Set to you.

The 20 Best Games from Not-E3

Sun, 18 Jun 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: At the time of writing, I work for the video game PR, marketing, and publishing company Future Friends Games. As such, I will not be covering the following games, which FFG is working on or with in some capacity: Europa, Exo Rally Championship, Gourdlets, Kibu, and Summerhill.

Let’s talk about Not-E3! Starting Wednesday, June 7th through Tuesday, June 13th, we saw over 10 different game showcases, from Access-Ability to Summer Game Fest and everything in between. Geoff’s Big Show was quite the dud for me, but, as per usual, the indies pulled through. Double Fine & iam8bit’s Day of the Devs further cemented itself as a creative powerhouse with its thoughtful blend of developer interviews and gameplay, while Future of Play and Xbox held their positions as must-watch showcases. Guerrilla Collective, the PC Gaming Show, and Wholesome Games continue to suffer from pacing problems as a result of having way too many games to show, but I suppose there are worse problems to have.

I haven’t gone out of my way to demo any of these just yet, so we’re strictly talking about my impressions of them from the showcases, alongside any prior knowledge I may have. That being said, I do intend to try as many of them as possible. If I like them, they’ll make it into my upcoming Demo Roundup, where I’ll be writing about every demo from the first half of 2023 that’s caught my eye.

Oh, and because Patreon doesn't like to embed videos, here's the full playlist of game trailers mentioned below for your convenience.

Angeline Era (Steam)

Anodyne and Sephonie developers Analgesic Productions return for another unique evolution of the PSX era — something they’re proving extremely prolific at. While the trailer for Angeline Era begins as a bit of a riff on the somewhat silly JRPG trailers of yore with PowerPoint-esque overlay text that reads “Revolutionary Bumpslash Combat… …In a world where past and future collide!,” it’s quick to show more of its many-fingered hand. We see short glimpses of the overworld, dungeons with varying environments, a range of athletic bossfights, and of course, some Analgesic Productions brand body horror at the end. I really enjoyed the vibes of Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, but couldn’t quite get into the gameplay myself. Now, if you were to give me a big sword and a more limited exploration experience…

Beastieball (Steam)

It’s no secret that I’ve fallen out of love with Pokémon in the past few years. What disappoints me more, though, than the predictable story of a AAA studio resting on its laurels, is that the many creature collectors we see nowadays do little to innovate on the now-basic and aged formula of the mainline Pokémon games. Beastieball, from the developers of Wandersong and Chicory: A Colorful Tale, feels like a breath of fresh air. Whether or not you knew you knew it, you know that Pokémon is a sports anime. It’s all about getting stronger in the endless pursuit of improvement and recognition, the bonds you forge with your teammates, the rivals and allies you pick up along the way, the road to victory (or Victory Road, as some might say…). Your beasties will become best friends, partners, and rivals as the story goes along, unlocking special moves that only that specific pair can do along the way. Is it time for an indie creature collector that grows with you?

Bloomtown: A Different Story (Steam)

Bloomtown had a really well-done trailer, drawing the viewer in with a deliberately Stardew Valley-esque cadence, albeit with its own fresh art style. There’s an odd blip or two just before it takes a hard turn — introducing not only horror elements, but also JRPG and creature collecting ones. Everything Bloomtown showed looks great, but it’s that heavy dose of small town horror that has me most excited, especially when bolstered by the long-form, coming-of-age mechanics from its JRPG side.

Bossgame: The Final Boss is My Heart (itch, Steam)

Bossgame finally dropped a much-anticipated announcement at the Access-Ability Summer Showcase — a PC version! Previously mobile-exclusive, Bossgame: The Final Boss is My Heart is a rhythm-infused boss rush starring two devil-hunting girlfriends, who are gay and in love. That was enough to sell me on it, naturally, but its minimalistic style and myriad accessibility options could’ve gotten the job done, too. I’ll definitely be giving this one a go when it hits itch and Steam in July.

COCOON (Steam)

It should be no surprise that the lead gameplay designer of LIMBO and INSIDE has been working on a puzzle-exploration game featuring a little guy in a desolate-looking world, but COCOON seems significantly higher on the sci-fi scale than those prior works. Worlds nest within worlds, lying amidst arthropodic technology in glassy orbs that further expand your puzzle-solving capabilities. Although the bossfight showcased during Day of the Devs was pretty lackluster, the unique world, puzzle, and sound design are nothing to sneeze at, with more than enough storied experience to back them up.

CorpoNation: The Sorting Process (Steam)

I love doing menial, mundane tasks in video games as well as anti-capitalism, so I've had my eye firmly on CorpoNation: The Sorting Process for a while now. Its hellishly dystopic vision of a nationwide company town is brought to life with simulation gameplay, allowing you to work, work, play, work, relax, and work as an employee of the Ringo CorpoNation. Your career is in efficiently and unquestioningly sorting genetic samples, all the while ignoring the words of those who would have you betray your employer. I was always going to be drawn in by a game like this — it's just extremely my thing — but I wanna give a quick shoutout to anyone and everyone at Playtonic/Canteen involved with CorpoNation's trailers, because they're just excellent.

despelote (Steam)

It's nice to see slice-of-life games are seeing a bit of a resurgence after their untimely demise at the hands of the AAA action-adventure and gamers' endless lust for violence. despelote tells the tale of a young Ecuadorian boy in 2001, as the nation made its first-ever qualifying run for the FIFA World Cup. I can't even imagine what the energy was like there at the time, especially from the perspective of a football-loving eight-year-old, but despelote thankfully seeks to tell us. I love the dreamlike quality of the black-and-white paper dolls living in a 1-bit monochrome world, like a dollhouse made of grainy GameBoy Camera photos.

Everdeep Aurora (Steam)

Could I ever grow tired of pixelated indies with stunning, limited color palettes and evocative piano melodies? Not likely. Everdeep Aurora's pathmaking focus on 2D exploration is an intriguing one, especially considering the need to platform back out after you've descended, and the pathways you could potentially be cutting off if you're not considerate. It bears repeating that this game is beautiful in both sight and sound, with cute and creepy character designs alike. It looks like there'll be a good amount of interaction with those characters outside of standard quests and dialogue, if the handful of minigames shown throughout the trailer are anything to go by.

Henry Halfhead (Steam)

I'm a huge fan of the surreal 2017 puzzle-adventure game Everything where you can become, well, everything, so suffice it to say Henry Halfhead's shapeshifting escapades had my firm interest back in the March 2023 MIX Showcase. What they showed this weekend only further impressed me; this isn't just about possessing an object or two and completing a simple task, but there are complex chains of interaction to discover. Become an apple and put yourself on a table. Become a knife to cut the apple, then the seed that came out of the apple slice, and bury yourself in the ground. Become the spout that fills the watering can, and become the watering can to water the apple seed and grow an apple tree. It's unclear this early on if Henry Halfhead will have a more cohesive overarching narrative or if its focus is more on providing an emergent and creative gameplay experience, but I want it regardless.

Hermit and Pig (Steam)

There's another guy with a funny hat who loves mushrooms storming onto the video game scene, but this one's got a truffle-hunting sidekick, social anxiety out the wazoo, and is actually starring in an RPG in 2023. The nearby villagers are all in a tizzy, as it seems some corporate nonsense has totally disrupted their lives. Hermit and Pig has a unique and ridiculous pixel art style that I can't help but fall in love with, especially for the matching beanie and glasses of our dynamic duo. The trailer also showcased a plethora of enemy designs, including a very goofy-looking bear that I'm obsessed with. Hopefully Hermit can defend himself (and Pig) from the rogue critters and corpos alike, and maybe learn to love a little bit of social interaction along the way. The mushroom economy will never be the same.

I Am A Caterpillar (Steam)

Being a caterpillar must be tough, considering their place in the food chain and the impending self-liquefaction they face as young butterflies. I Am A Caterpillar begs the question: what if you didn’t want to digest yourself, actually, and just stay a caterpillar? It’s nice to see a platformer interested in clinging to surfaces from all sorts of angles, while still preserving the ability to jump and dash around. I can’t help but think of Super Mario Galaxy — specifically its Honeyhive levels — when that’s on offer. The glimpses of story present in the trailer and their transformative leanings are pretty intriguing too, so color me interested.

Jusant (Steam)

Is it any surprise that I, Sable GOTY-haver, am interested in the sci-fi climbing game where you scale cliffsides to visit the villages carved therein? As immediately as it drew me in based on those surface-level similarities, Jusant quickly set itself apart with its focus on climbing mechanics. Not only are there anchor points, safety lines, and pitons to worry about, but it looks like you’ve also got to control your arms independently of one another, instead of just holding “forward,” like most games. There’s also an ugly little alien sidekick who I find myself alternatingly loving (because ugly) and hating (because mascot-ready sidekick à la Disney) every moment.

Let’s! Revolution! (Steam)

Usually when I see an animated trailer for an upcoming game, I’m immediately disappointed. I’d much rather the game’s actual visuals be showcased. The nice thing about Let’s! Revolution! is that it actually looks like that. Gorgeous art aside, it appears to be a sort of roguelite-puzzle hybrid; simultaneously a roguelite, a board game, and Minesweeper. I’ve long sung the praises of roguelite-shmup-Minesweeper hybrid Metavaxx, so this is a pretty easy day one for me.

Magical Delicacy (Steam)

Cooking minigames are fun and all, but they can become stale quickly if there isn't more to the story than "read recipe, get ingredients, combine ingredients." Magical Delicacy comes out the gate with flavor profiles and mechanics for my most envied of chef skills — the ability to change a recipe on the fly, using different ingredients to rebalance flavors. There are 2D platforming elements, too, which is a fun twist I haven't really seen before, and a great way to explore more fantastical spaces like the gravity-defying harbor town the game seems to take place in.

Psychroma (Steam)

Across a sea of video games and many hours of showcases, Psychroma caught my eye — or rather, my ear — with its spirit box-esque use of SAM, the creepy 1982 speech synthesizer you may recognize from Airdorf’s FAITH series. I was further drawn in by its willingness to actually include the -punk part of cyberpunk; to be weird and fucked up and diverse, to mire itself in ugly things like housing crises and trauma and genuine horror. Great look, great premise, and at least one lesbian. Three checks from me.

Saltsea Chronicles (Steam)

Die Gute Fabrik returns with the excellently named Saltsea Chronicles, once again flexing their beautiful soft, lineless art style and singular use of color. In addition to the overall style, there are some recurring themes from Mutazione as well: the exploration of islands in a world after disaster and the complex relationships (and of course, drama) resulting from an ensemble cast all living in close proximity to one another. Saltsea Chronicles seems to have much more variance in its narrative than its predecessors, with a larger cast, wider world, and many more decisions to make. Meet new friends and enemies across the Saltsea as you track down your missing captain and discover some of the secrets of this world (or maybe the one that preceded it).

Sulfur (Steam)

While Sulfur may appear at first glance to be a straightforward boomer shooter/ultraviolent FPS, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Although it walks the well-trod ground of Satanic drama and sensual shotgun reload animations, the trailers show clear RPG elements, and more than a suggestion that this is a roguelike. Its unique, cartoonish visuals have really gripped me, particularly in its bright and expressive enemy design. The Steam page hints at a lot of mystery and lore to uncover, too, complete with a whole poem at the end.

Tiny Bookshop (Steam)

Video games are often cited as an important method of escapism and wish fulfillment, and whomst amongst us hasn't wanted to run a cute little hobby store in a nice community where everyone knows your name? Tiny Bookshop promises that wonderful kind of mundane fantasy, where you meticulously decorate your pop-up trailer shop and hope for the best as you buy boxes of books secondhand for your growing customer base. Among the other information in the trailer, there's snippets of a storyline where you play host to a local band, so I'm hopeful that there'll be an emphasis on community building in the final release.

Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip (Steam)

The undeniable winner of my Not-E3 2023 Silly Goofy Award, Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip is a delightfully bright, summery, open world adventure. The announcement trailer shows off the extremely charming and densely-packed resort town alongside some very hectic driving and paragliding. Looks like there’s plenty to do, from collecting insects and hats to upgrading your car and meeting the many odd denizens of Sprankelwater.

Viewfinder (Steam)

I try to avoid really simple descriptors when talking about games, but what would one call Viewfinder except a mindfuck? This is a perspective puzzler that makes The Witness and even Superliminal look grounded in reality, at least from what we’ve seen so far. Images become 3D, tactile pieces of the environment when viewed from the right angle, allowing entire structures to materialize out of thin air instantly after being placed. How did they do it? Magic?

Familiar Faces

Not one, not two, but three games featured in my 23 (Indie) PC Games Coming in 2023 video dropped some pretty big news at Not-E3, which I'm very happy to share with y'all. Their presence on that list should make it clear how excited you should be! Just as well, there's some update news from another great game I've featured a couple times before.

Frogsong (Steam)

And just like that, Frogsong is out! It was surprise released at the top of the Wholesome Games Direct, finally bringing that sweet, accessible, froggy adventure goodness to a PC near you.

My Friendly Neighborhood (Steam)

Puppet-evading survival horror game My Friendly Neighborhood now has a release date: July 18th, 2023! I played the original demo quite some time ago now, but it’s stayed in my thoughts all this time. Its paradoxical (and parodic) mix of The Muppets/Sesame Street and Resident Evil is both fun and funny, and I really enjoy how much it leans into its humor.

Smushi Come Home (Steam)

Frogsong was in good company during the Wholesome Games Direct with the simultaneous shadowdrop of Smushi Come Home! Previously known as Shumi Come Home, but changed due to copyright reasons, this game follows the borrowers-sized tale of a young shroom lost in the woods. As a play cousin to Mail Time, cottagecore fans and little guy enthusiasts should be getting their hands on this one immediately.

The Wandering Village (Steam)

Citybuilding world turtle simulator The Wandering Village is about traversing strange environments in an apocalyptic world, all while maintaining a symbiotic-enough relationship with the giant creature you live on, Onbu. It released in Early Access late last year, and is bringing us a huge slew of changes as part of the Oceans Update. An oceanic biome alongside associated resources, buildings, events, locations, and of course, a heaping helping of bug fixes, balance changes, and other improvements. If you haven't already heard it from me, The Wandering Village is a really lovely game that deserves your attention. A big update is always a good time to jump in, so why not give it a try? The Oceans Update is already live on the testing branch, which means it'll be available in the full build before long.

Steam Next Fest Demo Selects October 2021

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Steam Next Fest came back better than ever this October, once again showcasing hundreds of games. Once again, I’ve demo’d a few dozen of them to bring you my favorites (including some technically not part of the event). It should be said that, due to a combination of my own limited time, Steam’s completely atrocious sitemap for festivals, and their terrible algorithm, there must be many, many amazing games I didn’t get to see, let alone try out. While this particular festival may be over, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for future events and demos, and never hesitate to let me know about games you’re interested in! Just as well, if any of the following games interest you, be sure to wishlist them on Steam and consider following their creators.

AdventNEON (itch, Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

AdventNEON proudly wears its inspirations on its sleeve. From Dragon Ball Z and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to Sonic the Hedgehog and Megaman, it feels equally like a passionate developer’s personal project, and the kind of thing gamers have been begging for for ages. It’s a stylish, energetic 2D platformer with a need for speed and color palette to match. Combat is ultra satisfying; there’s a serious weight behind every punch and kick, even for less skilled players. If you wanna run real fast and pull some anime bullshit on future cops, AdventNEON is just… it!

Follow AdventNEON on its social channels or Kickstarter to know more about its release.

Kick Bot (itch, Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

Many games test you by slowly increasing the moves and options available to their player. It’s the M.O. of 2D platformers to keep the moveset small and simple while the expectations of the player and level complexity is what grows over time. Kick Bot takes this concept to the extreme, being played with only two buttons: jump left and jump right. The titular Kick Bot will run and slide of his own accord in some levels, but for the most part, the absolute only way to move is with these two buttons. It allows the designers to center challenges around extremely tight movement timings without it feeling awkward or unfair - it’s exactly what you signed up for. Rich, highly visible pixel art only adds to the experience, and I never found myself questioning where to go, what Kick Bot was doing, or which items in the level were hazards. The quick-to-learn, difficult-to-master two button system is precisely what a precision platformer fan - or even someone looking to dip their toes into the genre - is looking for.

Kick Bot should release next year.

Castle on the Coast (itch, Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

Flips! Spins! Jumps! Castle on the Coast is an all-ages collectathon, deliberately reminiscent in structure of the likes of Banjo Kazooie, and in movement of the 3D Super Mario games. While his moveset is familiar to any Super Mario Galaxy fan, George the Giraffe feels unique in his floaty movement and air control, as well as his dimensions, of course. He fits right in in the creative, colorful world of magic and ruins and alternate dimensions, which is delightful to take in and explore. I was surprised to see voice acting present and, more importantly, was charmed by its simplicity; just people talking normally, as if they were really in that situation. It’s nice to see a game so clearly made with kids in mind, including a co-op character that can assist George in his platforming escapades. I use the term “all-ages” though because, like any good animated movie or nostalgic favorite, it’s something truly anyone can enjoy.

Wishlist Castle on the Coast on Steam to be notified about its release.

Sail Forth (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

When sailing is bad in games, it’s just kinda boring. But when it’s good, it’s the most rhythmic, serene experience you can get. Sail Forth is all about bottling that energy, those good vibes, and spreading them throughout a conceptually simple, procedurally generated simulation. Command a ship (and later, a fleet of ships) from map to map, searching for treasure and fighting dastardly pirates along the way. Outside of those more traditionally swashbuckling options, though, are the lovely sea life photo bounties and fishing compendium, rewarding more ship customization options and gold for completed missions. That’s just a gameplay description though, and says nothing of the excellent atmosphere Sail Forth builds. Beyond its beauty is an incredible soundscape of ocean waves and wind, occasionally punctuated by soft swells of music and the creaks of your ships and their sails. It’s the kind of game you play to completely zone out for an evening, in a good way. The Curse of Uno Mas is strong with this one, as it’s ever-tempting to sail every corner of a given area before immediately doing the same in the next. I’ve had the pleasure of playing most of Sail Forth’s demos over the past couple of years, and been increasingly impressed each time - and I loved the earliest build I played, to boot. For a relaxing, oceanic time, Sail Forth is a top contender.

Follow Sail Forth on its Steam page for more release info and sneak peeks at gameplay.

TopplePOP: Bungee Blockbusters (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

The fun in competitive party games lies in the nonsense. The enduring memories of Mario Party and Jackbox are made not in even matches with clearly-defined rules and a lack of random elements, but in chaos. TopplePOP: Bungee Blockbusters is a physics-based puzzle party game. Four players face off as bungee-jumping animals in their own Tetris-esque arenas, stretching down to flip, drop, and slide pieces into place in a chaotic match-four competition. There’s a surprisingly high level of available moves for what appears on paper to be quite a simple game, and the tutorial does well to escalate the player from basic movement to advanced techniques, like throwing and sliding the same block for massive clears. So, while it’s clearly designed with all ages, all skill levels multiplayer fun in mind, I found myself going back to TopplePOP’s daily and weekly challenge ladders more than once. The bespoke levels are quick enough to be addicting but well-made enough to be challenging, keeping you chasing a 5-star clear like any good puzzler. Also, you can be a monkey, so, game of the year material.

TopplePOP: Bungee Blockbusters is looking towards a 2021 release.

The Forest Cathedral (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

The Forest Cathedral was shown during the ID@Xbox TwitchGaming showcase a few months ago, and it’s been stuck in my head since. The trailer promises a bizarre, environmentally-based thriller, with the protagonist lamenting the infection among local mosquitoes and the effect it’s having up the food chain. What viewers like myself may not have realized is that it’s telling the story of real-life scientist Rachel Carson, whose fight led to the ban on harmful pesticides in the United States. The game is a hybrid, half walking simulator and half retro platformer; repairing and using tech in the real world involves finishing blood-red pixel platformer levels. The blend between the beautiful, realistically rendered forest creek and the chunky old monitors with their occasional scanlines is fabulously done. Each movement in the minigame is punctuated by a tactile click of machinery, only occasionally broken up by the protagonist’s awkwardly charming voiceover. Unfortunately, it could be quite difficult to tell what to do and where to go thanks to its faithfully minimal graphics. I’m most interested in the political intrigue of the story - the chemical industry did their best to stop the pesticide ban, after all - and I think I’m okay struggling to run and jump as a break from it. Here’s hoping accessibility options are added for other players, though.

The Forest Cathedral is slated for a 2022 release.

Aztech Forgotten Gods (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

It’s not every day you get to see the culture you’ve been long distanced from (at least somewhat) faithfully represented on screen, particularly for Indigenous cultures, but this isn’t Lienzo’s first rodeo. Their previous game, Mulaka, was also an adventure rooted in the studio’s Mexican heritage, though it was decidedly more traditional fantasy, and based on the northern Mexican Tarahumara. Aztech Forgotten Gods, as the name suggests, is a sci-fi action-adventure based in Aztec legend. It’s a breathtaking game, with character designs taking cues from Aztec art and a unique “cyber-stone” future of a Mesoamerica untouched by colonization. What follows is a truly wild fight style, as main character Achtli flies haphazardly around massive old stone Gods, propelled by her gauntlet. Action is punchy and exciting, and although jetting about is difficult to get used to, it feels incredible once you hit your stride. I’m not entirely sure yet why the Gods (especially these particular Gods, like Coatlicue and Tlaloc) have turned so unorderly against mankind, but I will be finding out.

Aztech Forgotten Gods will release in Q1 2022.

Life of Delta (Steam)

Gamepad support: No

As will quickly become clear, I have a soft spot for point and click adventures and down-to-earth sci-fi alike. Life of Delta has it all and then some, with great design and the curious modulated sound work that accompanies only the best robot characters.

Protagonist Delta is saved from the scrapyard in this post-apocalyptic roboworld, but by the time he wakes, his savior has already been taken away by city soldiers. Now, it’s all about finding a path through the dangerous wastes to Megacity to get him back. Everything - including backgrounds and interactable objects - are skillfully painted, and make the world feel properly real and lived in. While normally I have issues with important objects blending into the backgrounds of games, it doesn’t apply in this case; because it’s not that they’re invisible, but realistically sit in the background. Of course, the game is rendered in one style, so it’d be odd if interactable objects stuck out like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Players will have to flex a muscle mostly trained out of them in AAA: observance. That’s a quality of any good point and click.

Follow the developers for more release information.

Terror of Hemasaurus (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

Terror of Hemasaurus is a sort of unholy matrimony between The Cabin in the Woods and Rampage - a funny, bloody game that satirizes the kaiju genre and its sometimes-awkward environmental messages. You play as the titular Hemasaurus (or a couple other giant monsters via cosmetics), tasked with destroying cities and murdering thousands to make humans care about climate change. As the Shepherd of the Church of the Holy Lizard explains, the human brain is wired to care only about immediate threats, and has a hard time conceptualizing future disaster. So, the Church simply builds a time machine and sends Hemasaurus back to the last moment that human intervention can prevent climate change. To wreck shit is to save, and the human race depends on your ability to Atomic Butt Slam onto the rowdy forces that may try to stop you. Alongside the Atomic Butt Slam are more standard giant monster mechanics like stomping and climbing, but also the endlessly entertaining kicking and throwing. They pair perfectly with the game’s world destruction, allowing you to eat a human with one hand to recover health as you send a police car careening into a skyscraper with your foot, toppling it from the ground floor into a domino effect against neighboring buildings. Follow the objectives the Church of the Holy Lizard lays out for you, engage in timed destruction minigames, and most importantly: stop climate change! Godspeed, lizard.

Wishlist Terror of Hemasaurus on Steam and follow the developer for more information on its release.

Undercat (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

We all knew this day was coming: cats have taken over the world. The other animal citizens go underground to stage a rebellion, stealing valuable materials to drill into the city and take back their home, for freedom! You play as the valiant Chips, a doggie of the rebellion who embarks on this non-linear platforming adventure. Mixing the classic platforming moveset with a slew of new dog-inspired moves is brilliant and makes for a lot of fun. Having to stop to dig up collectibles, sniff the air to search for mission objectives and paths, shake down cats for their valuables, and more help add both to the gameplay variety as well as the personality of Undercat.

Undercat looks to release before the end of the year.

Grapple Dog (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

There are very few games that couldn’t be improved by a grappling hook. It exponentially increases your movement options, has fun momentum mechanics, and perhaps most importantly, is just very cool. Grapple Dog clearly feels the same way! You’ll be piloting the intensely adorable Pablo as he runs, jumps, swings, and headstomps his way through heavily-saturated levels, complete with shortcuts and speedrunning options. The chunky outlines on every character only enhance their cuteness and the visual flair of the game overall, further punctuated by a bumpin’ 90s soundtrack.

Follow developer Joseph Gribbin for more information on Grapple Dog’s release.

Lil Gator Game (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

Social media favorite Lil Gator Game is exactly what it said it was - a wholesome adventure about a lil gator! The titular Lil Gator tries valiantly to get some quality time with their older sister, though she’s neck deep in her college workload. Lil Gator and, begrudgingly, their friends, set up a sort of LARP-obstacle course to entice her, modeled after the game the pair would play endlessly as kids, which is definitely not The Legend of Zelda. In other words, Lil Gator Game is a game about a Lil Gator making a game. Gameplay is mainly exploring, smacking the occasional cardboard monster, climbing, and gliding. Nothing in the game, much like its name, is overly complex. Sheer charm is its driving force, and Lil Gator Game nails it.

Lil Gator Game should release in 2022.

Inscryption (Steam)

Gamepad support: No

Deckbuilders and roguelikes have a lot in common. With the heavy presence of RNG - whether it’s the joy of manipulating it well to feeling like the odds have hopelessly conspired against you - each genre can struggle to find a foothold and maintain its level of engagement without growing too abrasive. I was more than a little worried when I heard that Inscryption combined elements of both, despite the developer’s experience. Although a demo is only a snippet of a final game and it could very well grow frustrating as the game goes on, it didn’t at all feel that way. Perhaps, even if it did, you wouldn’t feel so bad amidst the atmosphere; the clink of tokens on the wooden table or the satisfying thwips and thunks as cards fly and damage you and your opponent alike. It does alleviate tedium in other ways, though, with guaranteed basic card draws (think Energy in Pokémon or Lands in Magic: The Gathering) and a game within a game. While Inscryption is first and foremost a roguelike deckbuilder, it also contains a first-person point and click adventure, with objects and artifacts scattered around your game master’s eerie cabin. As long as the player isn’t actively in an encounter, they can roam the cabin as they wish, as a clever in-game decompression system. This downtime was so enjoyable, trying to solve bizarre puzzle boxes at the behest of the cards in your deck who suddenly speak and decry their cruel GM, and impart their knowledge so you can all escape. Meanwhile, the roguelike element comes in most strongly via semi-random encounters used to customize your cards, from simple stat increases to sacrificing cards so that others can gain their special abilities. While it may be a hard sell for those annoyed with the repetition of roguelike adventures, those that even mildly find themselves drawn to the genre will find Inscryption a must-play.

Inscryption has just released.

A Space for the Unbound (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

A Space for the Unbound is a slice-of-life adventure set in rural 90s Indonesia, featuring traditional point-and-click puzzles as well as timed minigames to offer more “active” gameplay. Deuteragonist Atma is a creative young woman from a troubled home, often writing about fantastical settings, magical books, and space princesses with her best friend and sweetheart, Raya, as her sounding board. As the story begins, though, Raya finds that the supernatural elements of Atma’s stories may not be entirely fictional. The story will no doubt deal with more serious topics, as elements of anxiety, depression, and even domestic issues are already present. Most importantly though, that all feels real; it doesn’t feel like it’s just tacked-on “drama,” but something true to life. Despite the mystical gameplay of diving into people’s subconscious minds, or the overlap between the world of fiction and the real one, it feels firmly grounded in the developers’ reality. Little details littered throughout every screen, from the architecture of the buildings to the dozens of street cats (all of which you can pet, by the way), deliver A Space for the Unbound’s promise of a slice-of-life, coming-of-age adventure perfectly.

A Space for the Unbound will release in 2022, and the prologue/demo is available now for free.

Haiku, the Robot (itch, Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

If you’ve been following me for a while, you probably know that I don’t really like metroidvanias. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t tell when one is of high quality, and Haiku, the Robot is. The main difficulty I have with the genre is one of visibility; what may be beautiful art in stills is often a mess in motion and high combat, particularly for hidden paths or the nigh-impercetible shadows of projectiles. Haiku’s limited color palette and pixel work is refined and clear in its visibility, both still and in motion - on top of being that much sought-after mix of cute and creepy. Movement is quick and fluid, enemies were diverse and fun to fight, and bosses felt competitive, without being insurmountable. Everything you’d want out of a metroidvania. (Note: There is no map in the demo but the developer has confirmed there will be one in the final release.)

Follow Haiku, the Robot on Steam for more information.

ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH (Steam)

Gamepad support: No

I’ll be honest and say I was not expecting to like ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH anywhere near as much as I did. What seemed like a simple little RTS/roguelite crossover was a wonderfully nonsensical and quite feature-rich game, although it’s still in early alpha. You control a mob of Finnish fighters, defending their home country against an alien invasion. You'll stock up on items and upgrades from local pubs, as well as chests scattered throughout the short levels. Alongside these are your basic abilities - a shield, a dash, and an attack speed buff - which all have notably long cooldowns. Without upgrades, your units can’t attack while moving, leading to tense fights against the alien crafts that pop up every level. What ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH nails most about the rogue genres though is its capacity to devolve into complete and total bullshit, with my horde of amped Finns firing dozens of missiles at the first whiff of an enemy, calling in telephone pole airstrikes as 100-foot alien tanks stomp around in a futile attempt to stop my nonsense.

Follow the development of ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH on Steam for more release information.

The Ballad of Bonky (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

I’m a simple woman. I see claymation, I hear Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights sound effects, I’m sold. The Ballad of Bonky is the kind of game that makes me so glad indie developers are becoming more widely recognized, because I just don’t think anything this unabashedly fun and goofy could come from a bigger studio. The story follows Bonky, a little purple fella who saw an alien! He and his best friend Puncho infiltrate Bonkers Burgers Headquarters, which of course would be the home of this government-operated, lizard overlord funded cover-up! What follows is an energetic, pinball-based brawler, where Bonky battles through Hotline Miami-esque gauntlets, bouncing baddies off walls (and each other) to his eventual victory. The whole game oozes charm and joy, and its unique pinballmania fighting style is pretty fun too! Although it can be difficult, the swift respawns - as well as the promise of co-op mode in the final release - put The Ballad of Bonky at the top of my list for upcoming indie games.

The Ballad of Bonky will release sometime in 2022.

Planet Cube: Edge (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

Precision platformers are a favorite genre of mine, but at the same time, one I find very hit-or-miss. Even the most skilled or experienced player will find themselves dying repeatedly as they learn the route of a level (or even a single screen) - it’s hard to strike the balance between making things gruelingly challenging without making a player quit from the perceived impossibility and frustration of the situation. Planet Cube Edge, so far, does it right, with good checkpoint spacing, extremely quick respawns, and clear safe spots to rest and think within difficult areas. Tight controls and a wide but uncomplicated moveset combine with charmingly retro visuals for a classic, ultra-hard platformer. What stood out most about Planet Cube Edge versus others of its genre was its level design. It keeps its promise of precision platforming with its specific enemy and hazard placement, alongside short corridors and falling ceilings. Just in the demo, the player’s route will wrap around itself in interesting ways, reminiscent of the best levels in Super Meat Boy. It also nails the chase sequences, testing the player’s mastery of their skillset in longer platforming gauntlets, keeping the action at a 10 while still providing clear pathing and goals, alongside the brief moments of respite that make chases effective.

Planet Cube Edge is aiming for a 2022 release.

Spacelines From The Far Out (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

Let’s go party gamers! Spacelines from the Far Out is an arcade management sim in the same vein as Overcooked!, where a group of players (or solo) must survive the fast-paced onslaught that is service work. Your retrofuturistic spaceliner is customizable from its randomly generated name to the color of your uniforms, alongside upgrades purchased with ticket sales. Upgrades like a first aid kit, a mop & bucket, or, y’know, chairs so your customers can sit down. Stuff like that. You’ll be feeding guests, dancing to keep them entertained, steering away from asteroids, picking up hitchhikers, and of course, making sure your ship doesn’t run out of fuel in this hectic service simulator.

Spacelines from the Far Out will release on February 1st, 2022.

The Bookwalker (Steam)

Gamepad support: No

Genre mixtures are becoming increasingly common nowadays, and for good reason. Before, it was near-impossible to render more than one style of game in the same engine, or use multiple engines to run a singular game. But, developers’ understanding of code and design ever expands, and makes the impossible possible. The Bookwalker is a blend of point-and-click adventure, first-person exploration, and a traditional RPG. You play as a special kind of thief, a bookwalker, with the ability to jump into stories and manipulate them from within to take what exists only in their pages out into the real world. After the death of his brother and connected banishment from writing, the Bookwalker takes up a contract to retrieve seven special artifacts from various novels and have his banishment illegally removed. He’ll be crafting items in the real world where he resides in a mostly-repossessed apartment to use later on in the isometric, point-and-click world, or while fending off the strange creatures formed from the books' magic. The layers of gameplay and story intertwine well and offer a unique experience I can’t say I’ve seen anywhere else. While I initially scoffed at the story hook of being forbidden to write, the writing in the game overall is appealing and full of personality, despite the language barrier. Its occasional cheeky references or jabs at other games in its genres didn’t come too quickly together, nor did they grate on me, and felt properly tongue-in-cheek amidst the banter of the main character and his brother. The Bookwalker showed itself to be a creative and visionary experience, with a generously long demo for the unconvinced.

Follow The Bookwalker on Steam for more information on its release.

Logic Light (Steam)

Gamepad support: No

It’s always a little odd to me that being “like a mobile game” has become an insult. Minimal UI and quick pick-up/put-down play are assets, not liabilities, and qualities I wish more PC games shared. So, in that sense, Logic Light is a lot like a mobile game. It’s a straightforward puzzle game where the player is tasked with restoring power to homes affected by blackouts, using various power sources and other tools. Early levels are designed to teach the player each tool’s mechanics by doing, as opposed to hard tutorialization. They’re simple enough that, even when introducing new mechanics or interactions between tools, you’ll be led to the answer naturally, and arm yourself with that knowledge for future levels. It’s a tight, easy to learn puzzler with quick levels and extremely streamlined UI.

Logic Light comes out in November.

FILMECHANISM (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

There have been dozens - if not hundreds - of attempts to iterate on the puzzle-platformer since its inception. The ones that stick out the most, the instant classics, are those that expand only simply on the standard kit of running and jumping, but commit to their gimmick and explore it every which way - FEZ or The Swapper, for example. FILMECHANISM’s gimmick, too, is remarkably straightforward on paper. Use film to take a “screenshot” of the level, with everything but the player recorded. Use the film again to return the level to the state it was in the screenshot. Get to the flag. The elegance of this as a puzzle mechanism pairs endlessly with other platforming frequents, like falling platforms or locked doors, to excite any puzzle fan. Add in extra film each level and you’ve got one hell of a game.

Follow FILMECHANISM on Steam for more info on its release.

Cleo - a pirate’s tale (itch, Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

I don’t think I’ve ever played a point and click adventure game with full gamepad support. That’s it, that’s the review.

Cleo is set to release in late 2021.

Nah, just kidding, Cleo - a pirate’s tale deserves more than that. It’s one developer’s attempt to bring the golden age of adventure games into the modern era, with all their “charm, innocence, humor and weirdness.” Thus far, he’s got it on lock. Gorgeously detailed pixel art environments are dotted with expressive, kooky characters and clever puzzles, while excellently done voicework (in English and German, no less) brings each character to life even more than their colorful dialogue. Puzzles struck the right balance between being obscure and sensible, keeping the sense of reward from figuring them out without delving into moon logic. And, once again, making a point and click completely gamepad supported is a feat in and of itself. This one is gonna be a must-play for adventure game fans, I’d bet money on it.

Chasing Static (Steam)

Gamepad support: Yes

Chasing Static is dripping in the kind of nostalgic horror atmosphere most larger titles dream of creating. It’s designed to look “retro” in a specific way, but doesn’t miss out on little modernizations, like high quality sound and voice acting, as well as sensical menus and text accessibility. The Welsh drama features audio exploration, centered around paranormal entities and the scientific instruments used to detect them. Alongside this is plenty of lore and story work via character dialogue and scattered notes or scientific journals, leaving the player to piece together the mystery of the isolated region and its many strange occurrences. Short-form horror is something oft missing in games, leaving many projects to pad themselves out or add unnecessary scares. Chasing Static promises a two hour psychological horror, and that’s exactly what I want.

Chasing Static is available now.

Who’s Lila? (itch, Steam)

Gamepad support: No

Camp can be hard to define - it isn’t an ironic enjoyment necessarily, but what may be considered low quality (or to use a gaming term, janky) is what defines the charm. “Awkward” dialogue, a strange plot, and being generally over the top are all common elements of camp. Who’s Lila? has it all, reminiscent in its own way of Sierra’s horror adventure games, but with an interesting twist: your face. Protagonist Will is some kind of something, perhaps a murderer or practitioner of the dark arts or who knows what else, and can’t quite figure out how to emote like the average person. His mouth and eyes pull in odd directions as characters speak to him and he attempts to avoid conflict or suspicion, while the player uses their mouse to frantically reassemble into an acceptable look. The heavily dithered, FMV-esque style matches well with the gameplay as it lands the game squarely in the uncanny valley, halfway charming and halfway horrific. From what happened to Tanya, who's Lila, and what the hell is going on in the boiler room, you’ll be asking yourself a lot of bizarre questions which Will seems to know much more about than he lets on.

Expect Who’s Lila? in February 2022.

Many demos still sit, installed but unplayed, on my PC. They and the many more demos that'll come in Steam's following festivals will be featured in my next demo selects, but that's all for now! Again, be sure to wishlist any demos you find interesting on Steam, as wishlists are one of the most important metrics for an indie game's success. Feel free to let me know which ones caught your eye in the comments, and if you'd like to see me stream any one in particular. Thanks for reading!

Steam Next Fest Demo Selects June 2021

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 05:00:00 +0000

In case you missed it, Steam Next Fest was a weeklong event highlighting upcoming games of all shapes and sizes. There were over 700 demos available to play, and I managed maybe 25 of them. Some are games I’d been following for a couple years, while others I found scrolling through the seemingly endless store portal. There’s a couple more in here that weren’t part of Steam Next Fest, but I liked them enough that I think they’re worth including. As I’ve said many times before, if you’re at all interested in a game, please wishlist it on Steam to help boost its discoverability. That being said, purchasing it on itch is almost always the best way to financially support the developer (when available, of course). Without further ado, lemme tell you about these vidya games.

Beacon Pines (itch, Steam)
Small town horror, science-fiction, and corporate conspiracy? Yes, all for Lotus. For those aspects alone (and its young cast) I’m sure Beacon Pines will be compared to Stranger Things and Stephen King’s It. Not only is that diminutive, it’s also a bit rude - so far at least, Beacon Pines hasn’t been extremely weird towards little girls or the concept of domestic abuse, so it’s already leagues ahead of them. This “Winnie the Pooh meets Twin Peaks” story boasts a unique branching narrative mechanic where, instead of traditional dialogue options, you drop one of the words you’ve collected into blanks left at major story moments. The twist is, you can return to these moments at any time you like, with the new words you’ve collected in tow, allowing for a huge amount of freedom and many different endings. This storybook theme extends to the entire game - its perspective, colorful world, and animal characters all work together to build a sort of modern fable. There’s something in the water in Beacon Pines, you see… something green and slimy and glowy and weird. Young protagonist Luka is living with his grandmother, bored to tears over summer break, so there’s only one thing to be done: investigate.

Beacon Pines doesn’t have a release date, so be sure to wishlist it on Steam and play the demo for more information.

TOEM (Steam)
Unfortunately for all other demos present here, TOEM has a monkey in it (one that does backflips, no less) and, for that, is automatically best in show. There’s plenty to love aside from Tim (the monkey), though. TOEM is a delightful little romp through the Swedish countryside, with naught but your camera and friendship-making capabilities by your side. From wilderness scouts and fellow photographers to cryptids and ghosts, you’ll be meeting and taking pics for a wide cast of characters. I took a lot of extra pictures too, though, because the whole game just looks great. It captures the spirit of photography and childlike exploration perfectly. Definitely a day one buy (some day in 2021) for those who like a heartwarming adventure.

Scarlet Hollow (itch, Steam)
Technically speaking this one isn’t a demo - it’s the first chapter of folk horror visual novel Scarlet Hollow, which also happens to be free. Close enough for me, especially because I liked it so much! The story follows Your Name Here, a disenchanted young adult visiting your cousin for the funeral of your aunt (her mother). She owns the mine in a dilapidated North Carolina town surrounded by forests, with very spooky things in said forest. I wasn’t surprised to find that the lead illustrator and writer, Abby Howard, is from North Carolina, because the characters in Scarlet Hollow all feel like fleshed-out archetypes any Southerner will be familiar with, without falling into harmful stereotypes. We’re not buying into the media smear campaign intended to paint all Southerners as ignorant and inbred in order to allow the conservative vice grip that exploited their labor while denying their voting rights to tighten any further today, no sir.

Anyways, about the “illustrator” part: the muted, natural color palette suits the game’s downhome, yet sinister, vibes extremely well. The art overall is plumb beautiful and expressive, with the larger “cutscenes” being a particular treat. Like most visual novels, you never see your character, but there’s still customization here. You choose two traits - things like Book Smart or Keen Eye - that modify how you interact with the environment and other characters. I chose Hot and Talk To Animals, naturally. One for its accuracy, the other because my chat really likes animals. I haven’t played through with the other traits, but I do feel that Talk To Animals is a prime pick for the ways it interacts with the main story. On top of being surrounded by nature, those spooky things in the forest are, in some ways, animals - or at the very least, taking over the animal population. I’m very intrigued to see how the story grows throughout its episodic, early access model, meet the other lead characters, and of course, get to know my #1 a little better (that’s Gretchen the Pug, if you’re wondering).

Radio Viscera (Steam)
It’s a bit difficult to write about Radio Viscera, not because it’s all that complex, but because my thoughts can be summed up by me making action noises while bass-boosted techno blasts in the background. It’s a top-down environmental kill simulator, where your primary weapon is a pressurized air gun. Use it to blast through walls and launch enemies around the OSHA-noncompliant industrial machinery, where they gloriously explode into low-poly giblets. Radio Viscera has an old-school streak about it I enjoy, from its general demeanor to unlockable costumes for your supreme displays of talent. It also has a neat feature akin to Overwatch’s highlight/play of the game saver; at the end of a level, it chooses three highlight moments which you can save as a .GIF and share around. It makes sense this one feels pretty ready to go as far as demos go, because it releases on July 13th!

Death Trash (Steam)
Cyber-crust-punks and post-apocalypse fans, rejoice! Death Trash is a grotesque roleplaying game set in a strange, cosmic future. Your fully-customizable protagonist wakes up in a strange facility run by androids, and is informed that their citizenship has been revoked. Out to the wastes you go, good luck! Oh, and don’t try to return - if you do, you’ll explode. Have fun!
There’s a variety of creatures out in the wastes, from other raiders like you, to eldritch fleshbeings, and everything in between. Some friendly, some not. Social and Animal Handling skills will keep those friends friendly, while Weapon skills and Cybertech abilities will take care of your new enemies. From the narrative hooks to the crunchy combat and sheer style, Death Trash is shaping up to be a must-play for any old-school RPG fan.

Death Trash releases in Early Access on August 5th.

Terra Nil (Steam)
I wrote a bit about this when introducing Among Ripples: Shallow Waters in my “21 Games Coming In 2021” video, but I’m actually a big fan of city builders/simulators - I just don’t like tearing up the natural world. Terra Nil tasks you with transforming a barren wasteland into lush greenery, then transforming that lush greenery into livable biomes for wild flora and fauna, and then packing up all your buildings and tech afterwards. Admittedly, this last part was the only thing that soured my experience of the demo - not as a concept or necessarily mechanically, but I didn’t know that that’s what you did, nor the sort of layout I’d need to do that efficiently. That and the lack of save points meant I lost a good hour of progress because of something I simply wasn’t prepared for. While I imagine you will be prepared for that after the tutorial level, I think a checkpoint system would still be much appreciated; they could be worked in quite naturally, since you progress through a level in the stages listed above, with new tech becoming available to you at each breakpoint. Anyways, that’s enough criticism, because the game is genuinely really good. Its clean graphics and music let you zen out as you find the most efficient (and/or most satisfying) way to restore the landscape. There’s a certain level of customization involved since you largely morph the terrain as you see fit, and I can picture the resulting fanscapes of perfectly symmetrical rivers now. Despite a couple trifles, Terra Nil already looks quite complete and will definitely be a solid addition to our ever-growing roster of eco-friendly builders.

NORCO (Steam)
NORCO is a total stunner in every way. Its beautiful pixel landscapes, its thoughtful prose, and its often-unheard perspective of Louisiana all combine to make something truly special. I think it’s part of a new(ish) genre I’ve found a favorite of mine, New Weird; an eclectic mix of sci-fi, the paranormal, horror, and dystopia/conspiracy. Think The X-Files or Remedy’s Control. There’s more than a little bit of Southern Gothic DNA in there, too, which I’m always more than happy to see. It feels modern and fresh in the specifics of its commentary on corporations and bureaucracy, while still grounding itself in a mix of history and seemingly-autobiographical nostalgia. There’s a very curious “hint” system in the game - a literal mind palace that allows you to recap all the information you know as well as your current objectives. That’s really important in a point-and-click adventure game, due to how rich with text and story they tend to be, so it’s good to see this system implemented for those who may struggle to keep all that information together. This wins the My Shit Award for being the most my shit of anything I played.

LOVE 3 (Steam)
This demo completely and totally kicked my ass and I was not able to finish it in time. But, that need not be a bad thing. It’s clear that LOVE 3 was designed for the pixel-perfect platformer fan, the VVVVVV speedrunners and the Celeste mapmakers. Its visual communication and signposting is on point, a cornerstone of any good platformer. Along with its different difficulties (and speedrunning mode!), it has a simple checkpoint/reset/die system available for all players to make their own checkpoints without getting them stuck, erasing the need to redo frustrating parts over and over once completed. There’s a slow-motion mode too, to assist in those particularly tricky areas. I’m not sure if I’m the type of person who can dedicate the time to learning and finishing it any time soon, but it’s clear it was made with - no pun intended - a lot of love. Oh, and I’d definitely buy the soundtrack, it fucking whips.

LOVE 3 will release towards the end of the year.

Mechajammer (Steam)
Do you ever really want to play a TTRPG, but then you remember you have to get a bunch of people together on a schedule, and then you also have to do all the character building and math and stuff, and you’re like, ah, fuck it? Mechajammer is the perfect, cyberpunk-y game for that.

You may be thinking: “Lotus, you’re just describing an original CRPG, which were based off of TTRPGs,” and like, yeah, technically I am! But it’s been quite a long time since I played one of those games that wasn’t a Dungeons & Dragons affair, or allowed me to play as a nonwhite person and/or a woman (Death Trash earlier let me do this too!). The game’s stat systems are even dice-based, which I appreciate both in terms of sheer vibes and helping me to understand. No more number crunching or hardcore min/maxing; more dice means a better chance at getting anything done. There’s also a plethora of backstory options, from your family’s material conditions, to every job you’ve held during your life, and the side effects you gained from them. Those side effects are mostly negative, by the way, which is something I always appreciate in RPGs. It’s like the dev is placing a fatherly hand on my shoulder to say, “Don’t worry, this is all about roleplaying. Build whatever character you feel like and do your best.” Visuals and audio are also 100. Despite being a grungy, fucked-up future, Mechajammer still manages a lot of style, and without washing everything out in a single color. It has that cool, mixed 2D/3D style that allows for expressive 2D sprites to move about a more complex 3D environment. Audio is a little more understated, but I’ve been sorely missing ambient music in games, so it’s more than perfect. I’m not sure exactly what the story is or where it’s going, but I sure am gonna find out!

The Legend of Tianding (Steam)
Through a combination of the wonders of technology and increasing diversity in the games industry, we’re getting more developers from all over the world telling their stories. I don’t know much of anything about Taiwan, so I’m sure there are a lot of cultural and historical references I missed in The Legend of Tianding, but I still loved it, and it taught me quite a bit! Liao Tianding was a sort of Robin Hood figure during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, who ascended to folk hero status by resisting the Japanese rulers. This has been translated by Taiwanese developers CGCG as a brawler-platformer metroidvania, in a similar vein to Guacamelee!. Its extremely fluid motion and combat are complemented by the gorgeous comic book style illustrations that tell the game’s story, which are fully voiced in Taiwanese and Japanese. It’s hard to articulate just how well done the visuals are - both in their concept and execution - so here's a pretty picture for you.

I wasn’t too great at combat, but I am interested in getting in the practice to become a combo god. Also, there’s a casual difficulty, which you can change at any time! I’d be remiss not to mention the “fat evil” villain archetype present here for the first boss, with an unhealthy dose of ableism, too. I’m sure that’s how the story is originally told, but that’s true of many folktales east and west, and I’m just down for fat and disabled people to be left alone. In any case, it doesn’t appear so far that those stereotypes will continue past him, and he will not be returning. There’s no hard release date on The Legend of Tianding yet, but it should be coming this fall to Steam and the Nintendo Switch.

No Longer Home (itch, Steam)
Arguably the most powerful aspect of gaming is the way it allows us to experience other people’s stories not as listeners, but as those people. It’s one thing for someone to tell you their exact story, or write about themselves, but games allow for a level of dramatization and identity that just isn’t possible in other mediums.
No Longer Home is a semi-autobiographical narrative adventure about saying goodbye, growing up before you’re ready, and a good sprinkle of gender feelings. It follows Ao and Bo, two non-binary university graduates on their way out and abroad - whether they really want that, or not. As their anxieties grow, bizarre objects, events, and even creatures creep into their flat. Fans of Kentucky Route Zero will find a lot to like here; magical realism is often used there to emphasize interpersonal drama and character growth, and it appears that’s true here as well.

No Longer Home comes out later this year.

Out of Line (Steam)
Did you get into indie games during the Xbox Live Arcade era? Out of Line carries a lot of that spirit with it. It’s an action puzzle/platformer with smooth, painted backgrounds and a charming, dialogue-less story. The Line in the title is referencing the main mechanic, which is spear-throwing! You have a bright yellow spear, thrown to make platforms, conduct electricity, or operate machines as a lever. Other spears are often provided as part of more complex puzzles involving time limits and resource management, and both helpful and harmful critters come along later, as well. Spear throwing felt good, it’s cute, and puzzles were that sweet spot between difficult and satisfying.

Out of Line released on June 23rd.

春と修羅｜Haru to Shura (Steam)
From the legend that brought you Cave Story and Kero Blaster, two lovingly handcrafted metroidvania platformers, comes… (checks notes)... a dark fable set in an odd, alternate world? I was surprised to see Studio Pixel going in this direction, but Haru to Shura got its hooks in me pretty quickly. Gameplay is very simple; mostly walking around, pressing Z to look at things, save, talk to people, and select the odd dialogue choice here and there. The story, however, promises to carry the whole thing. You are Chihiro, a high school student who has mysteriously crossed over from our world into a strange reality where there is no pain or suffering. The other people there have no concept of these ideas, nor their associated topics; frustration, anger, and death are not words they understand. Chihiro and the other newest resident are the only ones who remember - for now. When death strikes for the first time in the village’s memory, suspicion immediately falls on newcomer Chihiro, and it seems that the villagers’ long dormant memories will begin to awaken.

春と修羅｜Haru to Shura released on June 24th.

Kabaret (itch, Steam)
I don’t think too many people are aware of this, but almost every mainstream game you’ve played has been built in part by Southeast Asian artists. There’s a great video by People Make Games on the subject, but the SparkNotes version is that most gaming media haven't displayed any interest in Southeast Asian gaming, unless it’s to exploit their labor. Especially as someone who doesn’t know anything, really, about the region or its many cultures, I’m always excited to see new games and developers emerge from it. Kabaret is just one of them.

When Jebat awakes, he’s been transformed into a sort of sea monster; noseless, mouthless, and scaled. The mysterious Caretaker is ferrying him to the Kabaret, a palace that caters to the whims of the monsters of the realm - including their taste for humans. Humans which Jebat still reeks of, because, perhaps he’s not supposed to be a monster after all? It’s something he’ll have to figure out for himself, both physically and spiritually, as he learns about the monster world through encounters with the other dwellers of Kabaret. You’ll conduct tea rituals, play traditional games, and try not to get murdered by the fickle patrons. There’s a lot to learn here, and Kabaret is kind enough to hold your hand through it. Non-English words and cultural concepts are highlighted in yellow with translations available, all the games have multiple tutorials, and things are explained pretty clearly to the very confused Jebat, as well. Even though he’s kind of a horny nerd, I had fun playing as Jebat; he didn’t grate on me, which is always a concern with visual novels. He’s relatable without being overly vulgar or creepy. He’s a lost and remorseful young man, and his current state is only compounding those unsavory parts of him, as he finds himself more like the monsters around him. Not all of them though, certainly not the Minister of the region, a Jinn in disguise dedicated to rounding up insurrectionist humans en masse to use as bribes for the monsters. I see you, Persona Theory Games, and I’m in.

Kabaret will release this summer.

The Gardener and the Wild Vines (itch, Steam)
What a delight The Gardener and the Wild Vines is! I don’t even remember how I found this game, but I’m happy I did. Momentum and combos are a big thing in this 2D platformer, although taking it slow is fine too - there’s no time limits, just high scores. While you’re 2D, the platforms and background aren’t, exactly. It’s like if you took a screenshot of a traditional sidescroller and then rolled it up into a tube, which makes for a super neat visual effect and an interesting way of conveying information with regards to pathfinding. It’s wonderfully fluid and snappy motion; chaining movements together and mindlessly grinding out a combo feels excellent, with punchy, pixelated sound effects to really drive it home. You’ll help buds bloom into platforms, bounce off of fresh leaves, and solve simple puzzles to ascend the tower to find your Prince - eventually. It’s gonna be a long journey. But no journey is too long… if it’s for love (Looks off into the distance).
There are short cutscenes in between towers, where our jovial, anti-capitalist icon The Gardener makes the occasional jab at the monarchy while fussing over what he’ll say when he finally sees The Prince again. These are pretty short (at least in the demo), and that’s not a bad thing. The writing was snappy and showcased both the story and its sense of humor in a quick, entertaining manner. Dialogue is my favorite, too, and it brought a lot of personality to an already amazing game.

The Gardener and the Wild Vines will release sometime this year.