Hot prices for the coldest time of the year

Now that the holidays are upon us, you might be looking for some new games to check out while you have that precious time off. If that sounds like you, make sure to check out Humble Bundle's insane end of year sale, because they have some seriously awesome stuff on there. They have hundreds of games and DLC marked down, including fan favorites like God of War, Hollow Knight, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, Dying Light 2, Signalis, Deathloop, and Psychonauts 2, just to name a few.

The discounts range anywhere from 10% to 75% off, and I can say as a fan that I was very pleasantly surprised to see some of these games at such low prices. For example, they have Slime Rancher for $5 right now! One of my all-time favorite and most played games Slay the Spire is under $10. You could buy like four games for $20 and be goo??d for the next month or two -- that's pretty good if you ask me.

Honestly Humble Bundle has been one of my favorite ways to buy new titles as a baby gamer -- considering I don't usually need to play the newest titles as they d??rop because I'm still trying to catch up on the best games from like four or five years ago, I find that they always have a great sale going on for something in my backlog.

Not only do they have cool sales and pre-packaged bundles of games you can get, but Humble Bundle is also known for using their sales to support all kinds of amazing charities like Charity: Water, Girls Who Code, and One Tree Planted, among others. Since the site's founding back in 2010, they've managed to raise over $200,000,000 for charity through their sales and monthly subscription. They also further spread the ??love by featuring a d?ifferent charity on their site each month.

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Now's your chance to snap Deathloop for cheap

If you ask me, Humble Bundle is one of the best ways to get your games. If you need recommendations, they never steer you wrong with their pre-made bundles, they prop up small indie creators who likely wouldn't get a platform otherwise, and a lot of times they raise a ton of money for worthy causes with their charity bundles. This October, they're shining a light on one of the best games of last year: Deathloop, Arkane's ti?me-looping first-person shooter mystery roguelite.

That's some serious video game word salad, but trust me when I say it delivers on all of those fronts. Deathloop is a slick, stylish game ??with a unique premise and some of the best game voice acting performances of late, and personally I feel like it deserved even more hype than it already got.

A lot of people may not know that you can even become a monthly subscriber to Humble Bundle Choice for $12 a month, which gives you a whole slew of free games every month that you get to keep after you've cancelled your subscription. Members also have access to a rotating library of games you can play, as well as discount codes. It's another gaming subscription service, but overall it's a good deal if you like the kinds of games? that they have.

Enter Deathloop, one of the f?ree games on offer this month, along with seven other titles:

• The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
• Disciples: Liberation
• Epic Chef
• Golf Gang
• Maid of Sker
• Monster Train First Class (Collector's Edition)
• Railroad Corporation

If you've yet to play Deathloop, this is a great opportunity to g??ive it a try. Even if you're only subscribed for a month, you'll get all of the games on offer for $12, plus all the other benefits listed above, so it seems pretty worth it to me.

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And it's for a good cause, too!

Humble Bundle always has some great deals on games, but one of its newest bundles, Resident Evil Decades of Horror, has got to be just about the best value of any game sales right now. Not only can you get eleven different Resident Evil games for $30 (plus a half off coupon for Village), but some of the proceeds from the bundle's sales go to the charity organization Direct Relief's crisis relief in Ukraine. ?So far, it's raised over $20,000 for the cause, and the bundle will be on sale for another two weeks!

The games included for the $30 price point are:

• Resident Evil 0
• Resident Evil
• Resident Evil 2
• Resident Evil 3
• Resident Evil 4
• Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition
• Resident Evil 6
• Resident Evil 7 Biohazard
• Resident Evil Revelations
• Resident Evil Revelations 2 Episode 1
• Resident Evil: Revelations 2 Deluxe Edition
• Resident Evil Village 50% Off Coupon

There's also a $10 and $1 tier

If you're not interested in all of the games on that list, you can choose some of the other tiers, like the $10 price point that gets you a seven-item bundle, or the $1 price point that gets you three games: Resident Evil, Revelations, and Revelations 2 Episode 1.

You? can also choose to pay more than $30 if you want ??to further support Humble Bundle, game publishers, and of course Direct Relief. All of the items are redeemed through Steam and playable on Windows.

The full 12-item bundle is worth $275, so it's a steal even if you pay half of that. If you were looking for a way to try out the iconic survival horror series on a budget, now's your chance �and just in time for the Resident Evil show.

Since its founding in 2010, Humble Bundle has raised over $200,000,000 for charity and counting, and has supported non-profit organizations like charity: water, Girls Who Code, and the ACLU. The featured charity this month is the National Network of Abortion Funds, so you can sup??port them with a purchase of any of the other available bundles.

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$1 million committed to upcoming projects

Publisher Humble Bundle announced that it has committed a further $1 million USD to its Black Game Developer Fund (B??GDF), an ongoing initiative to provide funding and o??ther financial support for projects homegrown projects conceived by Black game developers and Black-led studios.

Since its initial inception back in 2020, The Black Game Developer Fund has helped to finance over 30 independent developers with the conception, production, and publishing stages of their respective relea?ses. This year's investment will be directed toward the f??ollowing five in-development projects:

Code Blue Games �em> 6Degrees: A cybe?rpunkian action-adventure set within a dystopian universe.

GXGrainSon �Arcus Chroma: Dimensional Shift: A revamped edition of the colorful 2D f??ighti??ng game.

Weathered Sweater �Unannounced: A new titl?e helmed by Trinidadian-??American dev Ryan Huggins.

Ritual Games �Unannounced: A new title from the young, ret?ro-gaming-inspired studi??o.

Joseph Hooker �Unannounced: ??A new title promising "retro aesthetics, modern rendering," and a "compelling gameplay loop."

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4V3R0QBCzI&list=TLGGA52aLKD??x43MwOTA2MjAyMg

In addition, Humble Bundle has signed a new deal with one of the initiative's original seven beneficiaries, Adam Kareem, to publish their action platformer Protodroid DeLTA. The hi-tech, sci-fi, "solarpunk" adventure, is expected to launch on PC in early 2023 and is available for wishlisting over on the Humble Store right now.

For more details on the BGDF, or to check out some of the games, developers, and studios that have benefitted from the initiative �as well as information regarding project application �be sure to check out the official Black Games Developers Fund website.

//twitter.com/humble/status/15345?50962504859648?s=20&??t=xNY_eN1yE8emzBk393qCmQ

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Get ready for the deckbuilding roguelike of your dreams

One of my favorite parts of my job is when I get to gush about the games I love, and no one can do anything to stop me. Slay the Spire is one of those cases.

Throughout the two-plus years we've been in quarantine, I've gone through phases where games absolutely consume my life. First it was Hades, and after clocking nearly 400 hours in that game, I finally decided to retire it. I have brief stints with both Stardew Valley and Breath of the Wild, which were both replays of comfort games, so they don't fully count. The next game that consumed my every waking hour, though, was Slay the Spire, which just so happens to be one of April's free PlayStation Plus games, and I need ever?yone to know how freaking amazing it is.

Here's a crash course: Slay the Spire is a deckbuilding roguelike, which is such a fun combin?ation of genres it makes me wish there were more of them out there. The main premise is that there's this giant vertical spire you have to climb to the top of, floor by floor, encountering enemies, frie??nds, and other surprises along the way.

It's kind of similar to FTL: Faster than Light in that you can see a map of the entire area between encounters, so you can plan your route accordingly. It's also like FTL because there are tons of rand?om encounters that can really hurt you or help you depending on what you get. You slowly a?ccumulate cards as you climb higher, and with any luck, build your deck full of super-powerful combos.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SZUtyYSOjQ

Gameplay specifics

You can play one of three classes: the Ironclad, a tanky fighter-type that uses blood magic in a high-risk, high-reward type of build, the Silent, which plays like a traditional rogue character with shivs and poison damage, and the Defect, which is a robot character that summons orbs with different abilities in combat (that last one is hard to explain succinctly, but it's one of the most creative combat mechanics I've seen in a game like this, and makes him my favorite class to play by far). There is also a fourth class that unlocks after you've played for a while, the Watcher, a monk-style character who enters stances of Calm and Wrath in extra high-risk, high-reward gameplay. She c??an be fun, but it's harder to get further with her due ??to how difficult she can be to play.

What really makes Slay the Spire stand out for me, though, are the relics. They're random objects that you can acquire that have powerful abilities, and they're far and away my favorite part of the game. Their powers range from giving extra gold or healing to making you deal more damage to helping you draw more cards per turn. The more you collect in a run, the more likely you are to get crazy overpowered, and t??hose runs make for an insanely fun time.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="3333"] _{[Image Source: MegaCrit]}[/caption]

You get out what you put in

It's one of those games that gets more fun the more you play it. Getting to know the decks super well is a huge advantage, because you're able to craft the perfect build from the get-go. You also ??unlock new cards, relics, and potions as you go, most of which are specific to the class you're playing, which means if you plan around them, they can break your build in the best way.

If you get tired of grinding in the main campaign, there's also a daily challenge mode where you take a run with special modifiers and compete online against other pl?ayers for the highest score. I found this to be a really fun challenge, and a great way to switch it up after normal runs started to a get a bit stale. While I also like to play in hours-long marathon sessions, you start fresh with each run, meaning it's perfect to play in little chunks too, if you prefer that.

While Slay the Spire was originally released on the PC, I will say that it makes for an excellent Switch game. Sometimes control schemes don't translate well when a game is ported, but I personally like the Switch controls better. Plus, it even plays well on the touchscreen if you're playing handheld. It's also a great option to play if, like me, you like listening to podcasts when you game every so often.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1920"] _{[Image Source: MegaCrit]}[/caption]

What are you waiting for? Just go play it

For having a pretty straightforward premise, I think Slay the Spire does an amazing job of balancing each ?element just so to make it a finely-tuned, incredibl??y well designed game.

Of all the games I've obsessed over, it probably has the least amount of content overall, and yet I've still managed to sink 250 hours in and I'm still not tired of it. The game has a cult following, but Slay the Spire deserves to be up there with some of the best indies just based on the quality of its gameplay design alone. I'm al?so hoping that we can persuade the devs to make a sequel, or at least some DLC, and the more people join the bandwagon, the better the chance is of that happening.

If you're looking for a new title to sink your teeth into this month, you've gotta grab Slay the Spire if you have a PlayStation Plus subscription. If you don't, you should ??totally just buy this game anyway, becaus??e if you ask me, it's totally worth the hype.

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Another bundle to bolster humanitarian aid for Ukraine

A new bundle is live to aid efforts in Ukraine, with this one crafted by the bundle makers at Humble. The Humble Stand With Ukraine bundle has over 120 pieces of content, from games to books and more. 100% of? proceeds are going towards humanitarian relief effor??ts.

"The violent and unlawful invasion in Ukraine is taking a tragic toll—displacing people, devastating families, and creating ??an urgent need for food, water, supplies, shelter, and safety," said Humble on the landing page.

Included in this bundle are some pretty notable games, from indies to major publishers. It's not just video games, though. Fantasy roleplaying books for Pathfinder and Warhammer are in, as well?? as game dev assets, comics, and a one-year subscription to GameMaker Studio 2 Creator. The over 120 pieces of content are worth over $2500. The full bundle is obtainable at the $40 mark.

//twitter.com/humble/status/1504880353529544706

Proceeds will go towards Razom for Ukraine, the International Rescue Committee, International Medical Corps, and Direct Relief. These organizations are helping with relief efforts for the people of Ukraine, amid the invasion of Russian forces.

Notable games in the bundle include:

• Metro Exodus
• Back 4 Blood
• Satisfactory
• This War of Mine
• Kerbal Space Program
• Skullgirls 2nd Encore
• The Amnesia trilogy
• SUPERHOT
• Drawful 2
• Going Under

And many, many more. It's a seriously stacked lineup, and those are only ??the games. As of this writing, the Humble bundle has already raised over $100,000 for Ukraine.

Other industry efforts have sprung up to bolster humanitarian aid in Ukraine as well. Several developers have contributed sales and proceeds to charity, and a bundle went live on Itch last week with a veritable flood of indie games.

If you'd like to contribute, you can find the Humble Stand With Ukraine bundle here.

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