Fans of tactical RPGs, lo-fi horror aesthetics, or even just neat-looking indies have likely been following Necrosoft's Demonschool with some interest. Though it was due out next month, the studio announced today that it's pushing the launch of Demonschool all the way into 2025.

Necrosoft Games and publisher Ysbryd Games have officially delayed Demonschool into Q1 2025, and it's not the first time the team's pushed the game back. When it comes to the "why" of the matter, the studio says as it got closer to deadline, a September 13 launch would have meant less content th?an originally envisioned.

"After discussing with Ysbry??d, we realized we have a couple of paths forward. We cou?ld:

1. Ship the game in the state it’ll be in on Sept. 13. We’re proud of the game as it stands, but we want to make this world feel even livelier.
2. Ship the game in early 2025, which would allow us to manifest our bigger dreams into reality."

- Necrosoft Games

With the second option as the route taken, Necrosoft hopes to make sure Demonschool is "chock full of Things To Do" as it had hoped. "Realistically, the player would neve??r have known. It still would've been a finished product. But we would have known that the game could have been more, and that's the game we want to share."

In the mean time, the studio is publishing a series of dev diaries detailing Demonschool's development, as a bit of behind-the-scenes look at how the game is coming together and what the extra time is allowing for. The first, covering the topic of the "Burn" status, is already live. It's neat, if you like reading through the thought processes of someone developing a game like Demonschool.

For myself, as someone eagerly anticipating Necrosoft's tactical RPG after a few hands-on sessions with it, a wait is totally valid. This fall is already stacking up fast, and I'd love to see Necrosof??t put the game out that they believe in, rather than one that feels compromised.

Expect Demonschool to get in session sometime in Q1 2025.

The post Demonschool gets delayed to Q1 2025 to add some extra ??content appeared first on Destructoid.

Gaming’s indie horror scene has hit it off strong in 2024 with the likes of Crow Country and Withering Rooms making a great impression among?? critics and players alike. But the second half of the year is stacked with even more excellent looking horror games on the horizon from smaller publishers a?nd independent development teams.

The following games have been lurking in the shadows for long enough. Here's a spotlight on what's to come for indie horror fans d??uring the rest of 2024.

CONSCRIPT

Unlike any of the other games listed here today, CONSCRIPT does not feature supernatural entities? or undead ghouls. Instead, it focuses on the atrocities of war, and the toll it takes on the soldiers ordered to conduct it. The game is played from the perspective of a French soldier during World War I atte?mpting to survive in the trenches over the course of the years-long conflict.

Inspired by the likes of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, CONSCRIPT adapts the combat and puzzle mechanics from classic survival-horror games in its portrayal of the historical horrors. After seven years in the making, CONSCRIPT is finally available now as o??f July 23, 202?4, as well as a demo currently available on Steam.

Zoochosis

Anybody yet unfamiliar with Zoochosis would have thus been unable to draw obvious comparisons, so now is as good a time as any to head that off at the pass: if John Carpenter’s The Thing was set in a zoo, you would have Zoochosis.

With that established, this first-person simulation game casts players as a night-shift zookeeper while an infectious disease spreads among the animal residents, causing them to undergo a macabre metamorphosis into hostile, disfigured abominations. Job responsibilities involve socializing with the animals, feeding them, cleaning up their spaces, and monitoring them to ensure? they don’t grow an excess of limbs and scale the walls of their enclosure. Standard procedure.

In order to prevent further loss of life - be it the animals or their own - the protagonist must develop vaccines to spare the animals from transformi??ng. The player’s decisions will ??affect whether or not they can be saved in time, as well as which ending they receive.

Prepare to capture all the grisly body horror through the body camera lens when Zoochosis is freed from its cage on September 23, 2024.

Post Trauma

With its unsettling designs and focus on psychological horror, Post Trauma is shaping up to be a very promising debut ??title from Red Soul Games.

Our protagonist, Roman, is a heavy-set train conductor in his late 50s, who finds himself ??trapped in a warped subway system inhab?ited by disturbed creatures and infested with malignant tendrils, lining the dismal tunnels the deeper he explores.

The cryptic puzzles and fixed-camera angles are inspired by classic horror franchises, with the setting in particular evoking the opening hours of Silent Hill 4: The Room. Post Trauma is on schedule for a fall 2024 arrival, but for those eager to get on board, a demo for the game is available on itch.io.

Clock Tower: Rewind

The Clock Tower series has a storied history as one of the original gaming horror franchises that ended up fading into obscurity. The premier game in the series, Clock Tower, was released for the Super Famicom in 1995 by Human Entertainment, but now WayForward is debuting it outside of Japan for the first time with Clock Tower: Rewind, an enhanced port for modern platforms.

This point-and-click adventure horror title puts players in the role of a young girl named Jennifer, who is among a group of orphans that have recently been adopted? and sent away to an old N??orwegian mansion. However, shortly after their arrival, the children find themselves pursued by a half-pint killer wielding a set of scissors twice his stature. With the aptly named Scissorman stalking the manor halls, Jennifer must locate the rest of her adoptive siblings while evading the murderous prowler.

Get your oversized scissors ready, the ribbon cutting for the game’s release is set for October 31 in Japan, with other regions listing a October 11 - November 11 shipping window.

Bye Sweet Carole

Developer: Little Sewing Machine - Meangrip Studios
Publisher: Maximum Entertainment
Platforms: PS5, PS4, XSX|S, XBO, Switch, PC (Steam)
Release: 2024

On the subject of Clock Tower, this twisted take on a classic Disney animation blends the run-and-hide gameplay and side-scrolling perspective of the former with the aesthetic of Snow White or Alice in Wonderland. From the creator of the Remothered series, Bye Sweet Carole’s authentic hand-draw??n pr?esentation appears pleasant and inviting, starkly juxtaposing its dark themes and violent imagery.

When a young ??girl named Carole goes missing from an orphanage, her fellow resident and friend Lana goes searching for her, and in the process finds another world unlike her own full of strange creatures and homicidal hares that will hunt Lana throughout the game.

Be prepared to get lost going down this rabbit hole wh?en the game releases later in 2024.

Hollowbody

At first glance, Hollowbody presents itself as a sci-fi noir story, starring an illegal smuggler named Mica in search of their partner Sasha, who went missing on a dangerous job in a restricted area alone. Mica attempts to follow af?ter her, but upon entering the restricted airspace, her flying vehicle malfunctions and crash lands amid a dilapidated suburb hidden beneath the clouds. With the ?futuristic-cyberscape veneer stripped away, Mica is left stranded in a morose town full of plague-ridden monsters.

Emulating the aesthetic of a PS2-era horror title, Hollowbody features a mix of d?ynamic- and f??ixed-camera angles along with traditional survival-horror combat and puzzle solving.

Hollowbody will only be roughly three hours lo?ng, aiming to be a short-story, but players that are on the fence can try out a newly updated demo on Steam before the game releases later this year.

Sorry We’re Closed

A vibrant standout from the pack, Sorry We’re Closed is no less ????rife with macabre creatures, rustic environments and unholy imagery.

A curse has been placed on our protagonist, Michelle, that threatens to cut her life short in a manner of days; however, the demon that inflicted the curse barters an opportunity to lift it if Michelle ventures into the dangers of the demon world to fulfill their bidding. Sorry We're Closed is played from a fixed-camera perspective and, with the use of a Third Eye granted to ?her, Michelle can peer into the parallel reality of the demon worl?d. This vision can also expose weak points on enemies, allowing her to dispose of enemies in first-person combat.

With numerous diverse characters to engage with and influence, player’s choices will lead to multiple outcomes in determining the fate of Michelle’s stor?y.

A demo is available?? o??n Steam now, with the full release expected for some time in 2024.

Echoes of the Living

Perfectly encapsulating the visuals and atmosphere of the Resident Evil (2002) remake, Echoes of the Living is a love letter to the classic fran?chise, with two playable characters, zombie filled streets, fixed camera angles, and elaborate puzzle?s.

The plot is a direct homage to Resident Evil 2, right down to the dual protagonists of a young lady looking for her brother father and a new guy in town looking for a fresh start right before a zombie outbreak sweeps through?? a small town, all set in the late '90s.

W?hile it may not be an original idea, it is certainly a welcome on?e if it can pull off the same level of tension and design as its inspirations. A playable demo was previously available during the October 2023 Steam Next Fest, so hopefully the game will receive another demo prior to launch, which is listed for release in 2024.

Tormented Souls 2

Keeping in theme with Resident-Evil-like games, the original Tormented Souls f??rom 2021 garnered attention for its traditional approach to survival horror, including restrictive fixed-camera exploration and combat paired with perplexing puzzles, all set in a detailed and claustrophobic hospital.

Tormented Souls 2 retains these core elements as it furthers the story of protagonist Caroline Walker, who now must seek out a cure for a supernatural illness that plagues her younger sister, Anna. Her search brings her to the South American town of Puerto Miller that harbors a deranged cult with a dark and storied history.
Although details are still scarce, this up-and-coming horror franchise is set to arrive later this year.

Fear the Spotlight

As part of the Blumhouse Games publishing initiative for smaller horror projects, Fear the Spotlight leads the pack with an impressive start. This polygonal adv??enture garbs itself with a retro aesthetic, but features a modern third-person perspective with a fully voice-acted narrative.

The story follows a young girl named Vivian, who has been convinced by her friend Amy to?? break into their school after dark in order to perform a hokey séance for fun; that is, until actual spirits are summoned forth, and Amy’s demeanor changes from thrill-seeking teen to an indoctrinated acolyte of dark forces. Now pursued by a spotlight-head monster, Vivian must hide from its gaze to survive, all the while solving puzzles, uncovering mysteries, and trying to find Amy to escape the school with their lives??.

Although Fear the Spotlight was originally released in 2023, the developers removed this version in order to undergo a major overhaul of featu?res and content before re-releasing in 2024.

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Battle Chef Brigade remains one of my highlights of 2017, an absolutely stacked year for games. Developer Trinket Studios has been quiet in the years since, putting out a Deluxe edition but otherwise keeping cards close to the chest until this last weekend, when it revealed the team's next project: Battle Suit Aces.

Shown off during a few of the weekend's summer showcases, Battle Suit Aces is a card-battling RPG where you recruit Battle Suit pilots and square off in mecha combat. Along the way, you develop relationships and build up your team, flying your way through space adventures along?? the way.

Out of the frying pan, into the stars

In a press statement, Trinket elaborated on what the studio has been up to in the years since Battle Chef Brigade. A card battle??r was the original idea, and the game went through several iterations, but then the pandemic hit.

"We spent the stay-at-home years embedded remotely in a larger indie team and left in 2022 itching to get back to what would become Battle Suit Aces," said Trinket. "This time, however, we knew we had to build on the recipe that led us to create BCB. We lead with vibrant and charming characters and pair?? with a mélange of approachable gameplay systems from multiple genres."

From what we've seen so far, the art and style from Battle Chef Brigade certainly carried over well, and I'm really into mecha card battling. Trinket is also working with Outersloth, Among Us studio Innersloth's?? publishing fund, to let the project see the light of day.

No date's been set yet, though you can find the Steam page for Battle Suit Aces here. But suffice to say, I'm interested in anything Trinket does next. Hopefully we'll see some more of Battle Suit Aces soon.

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It's summertime, and the game showcases are out in full force. Geoff Keighley's SGF kick-off show?? aired earlier, but following it, we also got another look at some exciting indies thanks to the 2024 Day of the Devs SGF Edition.

Put on by several companies in games to spotlight up-and-coming independent developers, Day of the D??evs has tradition??ally been a showcase full of fresh and vibrant ideas in the space. This year's SGF Day of the Devs was no different; in fact, I'd venture to say this is one of the better ones in recent memory.

From competitive match-3 puzzling to horror, mountains, and more, there is a lot here. Here's all you need to know from today's ??showcas?e.

First up is Battle Vision Network from Capybara Games a1v1 puzzle battler that might look familiar to Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes fans. Capybara made that game, and now they're doing their own ori??ginal take on the formula, with an evolving narrative to spur on the scrapping. It's aiming for PC and console in 2025, and is made in partnership with N?etflix.

The Game Bakers, makers of Furi and Haven, are here with another entry in their "freedom trilogy." Revealed during Keighley's showcase, Cairn is a game about climbing a mountain no one's summited. It's got some Jusant vibes, but given their past work, I expect Game Bakers' Cairn to be emotional, beautiful, and one to watch.

Petal Runner from Nano Park Studios and iam8bitpresents is a retro-flavored slice-of-life RPG where you play a motorbike courier delivering flower-powered digital pets. Complete minigames, venture around, and uncover the mystery behind these cute lil' pets. It's got Pokémon vibes for sure.

Karma: The Dark World from Pollard Studio, based in Shanghai, China, looks super scary. Dive into people’s minds to uncover the truth behind events, while keeping “the company is above all else.â€?Or at le?ast, until you learn a little more about what the company has in store for you.

Ever feel nostalgia for something that doesn't exist? UFO 50 fro??m Mossmouth is that: 50 games in a collection, from a non-existent retro system spanning the '80s and into the '90s. A loose framework connects them all, but Mossmouth and its collaborators are advertising quite the variety of experiences, including some local multiplayer in both co-op and versus. Look for it September 18 on Steam.

The grove gets a little ghost-y with Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit from Spry Fox. It's a chill camping life game, where you craft, gather, build hearts, upgrade, etc., for phones through Netflix. And that does mean no extra fees, no ads or in-app purchases. ?Just chill vibes and spirits.

Koira from Studio Tolima, published by Dontnod, is a stylistic isometric adventure game. You have a dog p?al who helps you out, and you can play music as well. I love the hand-drawn art and frame-by-frame animation, plus a sweet?? soundtrack. Seems neat! A demo is on the way.

Ever move things around in your mind? Move a little different? Arranger from Furniture and Mattress has a hero who does just that, navigating the world by shifting rows and columns. The team has the Braid artist and Carto writer on board, so the presentation is bound to be top-notch too. Arranger arrives on July 25 for?? PS5, Switch, Netflix, and PC.

Following the big Blumhouse Games lineup reveal at the Summer Game Fest stream, Cozy Game Pals is showing off Fear the Spotlight, which gives me some Life is Strange meets lo-fi horror vibes. Solve puzzles, avoid scary monsters, and maybe figur??e out why your friend is acting so strange.

You might recognize Crescent Moon Games and Those Dang Games' Screenbound: A Game by its main concept alone: you walk around in 3D while holding a Game Boy game, which also displays enemies and object??s in 2D. This looks so cool! The way the 2D and 3D environments link up is fascinating. I'm very excited to see more of this??.

Zoochosis from Clapperheads gives?? me new scares I didn't know I could have. A giraffe just turns into a spider monster. Kangaroos with giant mouth-bellies. And you're their zookeeper, learning the ropes from ??a strange senior. Seems frightening!

While Waiting from Optillusion Games is about what happens while y?ou're waiting. That's it. Everything in life has some waiting, and you're about to experience all the ways in which waiting happens. It's a really unique concept that seems simple but expands fast.

Tom the Postgirl from Oopsie Daisies Studio is a different kind of creepy. Play as a postgirl delivering mail who can’t resist peeking on people during her route. Then, discover things about the locals who all seem creepy as heck. ??There are some wild sights, but also a cowboy worm!

Rocket Adrift's Psychorama is a cyberpunk horror point-and-click adventure. You've got amnesia and have to deal with a loose sense of self, while also handling the tech around you. The devs plan on exploring ideas of identity through a character that is both biracial and non-binary??, a really interesting viewpoint for this tale.

Not to hand out awards, but Building Relationships from Tan Ant Games is a fantastic trailer. You play as a house, meeting other houses. You can dash, fish, and hang out with other buildings. You can even fish for cars. And there are some light dating elements. It's like A Short Hike, but for houses.

A Little to the Left is getting some DLC in Seeing Stars. 33 new levels and five additional bonus levels, with 100 stars to di??scover. There are interactive items that can unfold or unravel. Also, more cats! It arrives June 25.

Soup Island is making the world’s coziest time loop in Hello Again. A postal worker, you, is designa??ted to deliver a package to a remote island. Only, you get caught in a time loop. What do you do next? Explore, discover, and try to figure out what's going on.

After Love EP from Pikselnesia is a really neat game with a sad story behind it. The game's story follows a musician who hears the voice of his girlfriend after she's passed. And the studio, Pikselnesia, is developing the game after the death of its creator, Coffe Talk's Mohammad Fahmi. It seems like heavy stuff, but it's really something beautiful to see this vision realized, and coming together so well too. After Love EP is aiming for a Q3 window, and there?'s a dem?o out now.

For another game that won me over in a single trailer, here's Phoenix Springs from Calligram Studio. You're a reporter searching for her brother, eventually leading to Phoenix Springs. It's a "modern�point-and-??click game with a striking art style, and no objects in your inventory. Instead, you have thoughts, concepts, and ideas, and you use them to progress. It's been in development for seven years, and now it's aiming for September 16 on Steam.

Road 96 studio Digix Art is here with Tides of Tomorrow. The super trippy art style and direction leads into what looks like a ti??me loop, where you can set things up for others. Potentially you, or maybe for others? Is this a strand game? I'm ?not sure, but I'm definitely curious.

That's all for today's showcase, but as always, follow and w??ishlist the games you dig from this stream! Even just a little support can go a long way, and this showcase was stuffed with neat indie projects that deserve your attention.

The post Everything shown at Day of the Devs SGF Edition?? 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

A few years back, someone spread the word that FromSoftware was making a Kart game set in the world of Bloodborne. It?? was but an April Fools�joke, bu?t it soon blossomed into much more.

Over two years of development and a few months of legal tinkering later, developer Lilith Walther has finally released Nightmare Kart.

You might know Lilith from Bloodborne PSX, a remake of the first sections of the PS4 classic that played and looked just like a PS1 game. It was great, but Nightmare Kart is on a whole different level. You can pick between 21 racers, 13 karts, 15 tracks, and none of it is a mere transplant from Bloodborne. While each character is heavily inspired by a Bloodborne counterpart, these are all complemented b??y original additions coming straight out of Lilith’s mind.

Most vehicles are original and unique, some of them to the point of absurdity. For example, Herman doesn’t even need a Kart or a Bike. The old man remains so strong that he needs nothing more than his his ultra-powerful arms to move his wheelchair as quickly as everyone else moves their motorized vehicle. Nicolas is mad, but no one even dares coming close enough to te?ll him about the rules, so he ditches any sort of vehicle and just runs alongside the others. Those are just a few of the quirks I've been able to notice in the short period of time I've had to try the game so far, so I'm sure there are so many more for you to find.

On top of allowing you to challenge your friends to races in split-screen mode, there's also a battle mode where you can just duke it out against a bunch of friends or AI opponents in a bunch of very familiar arenas. Nightmare Kart not only looks like a game of old, it also features many of the multiplayer options that we miss in the games of today.

There are also a bunch of very welcome customization options, such as the CRT FX, which does a great job of filtering the pixelation like the TVs of old did. Also, this might be the closest non-modders will ever get to playing something Bloodborne-ish at 60 FPS:

The most positively surprising e??lement for me, however, was the presence of an actual campaign, one with cutscenes and ??even unique boss fights.

In a world where games can't seem to stop becoming more expensive, getting such a package completely free of charge feels almost like a miracle. Yes, you can get Nightmare Kart right now for free on Steam or pay-what-you-want on itch.io. You can also get Nightmare Kart’s fantastic original soundtrack from Bandcamp right here.

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I've been struggling to determine how, exactly, I want to talk about Centum. Not in terms of basic stuff, like genre or developer or "it plays like X meets Y." Those are fairly easy to tack down. No, it's the next layer down that has had me thinking a lot about Centum sin?ce I hit the end ?of its preview build: the how and why.

So let's start with the easy parts. Centum is a narrative adventure, largely falling within the point-and-click genre, from developer Hack The Publisher and publisher Serenity Forge. Most of its gameplay consists of interacting with objects, selecting dialogue choices, and unlocking new interactions through flowchart-like experimentation. Move an object, find a new thing to put in your inventory, test it out on all the other interactable spots on-screen. If you've e?ver journeyed with Guybrush Threepwood or Putt-Putt, these parts will feel familiar.

Where it starts to feel less familiar is all the mini-games. Or the sudden art style switches. Or maybe even with the creepy ghost kid who seems helpful, for now. This is where Centum starts to make it clear that it's?? not just another adventure game.

Even before you're in the swing of pointing and clicking, Centum starts you out in a computer interface. It's an old-school, chunky interface that reminded me of the colorful iMacs we used to use in school. I will never be able to resist a good fake desktop; poring over files and folders is a guilty pleasure, and much like Telling Lies or Cibele, Centum leans into that. Although rather than deriving some gratification from di??gging through personal details, it builds a lot of terror over discovering what exactly a file or folder might contain.

Let me put it a different way: Centum imagines that you are interacting with this computer. But what does it mean that you, the?? player, are interacting with it? What is this computer, exactly? Where, when, and w??hy does it exist? And what happened to the people that used this interface before?

As you read over notepad clues and hints towards your situation, it becomes a little creepier. Names start to drop, and you only have vague understandings of their importance. Also, can a machine be haunted? This one sure feels haunted. If ghosts could plague the living, what spirits can manifest in the binary ones-and-zeroes of Centum's PC?

These are the thoughts I had running through my mind as I clicked and prodded my way through Centum's first two chapters. Both are closed-room puzzles, where the player needs to discern a way out, while also running up aga??inst several different roadblocks. In the first chapter, for instance, you're trapped in a cell. A Judge berates you, asking why you're here, what you did, and who you are. It reprimands you when you answer incorrectly, and I was always wrong.

Again, these moments feel a bit familiar: a locked room, filled with philosophical and psychological quandaries surrounding how you'll get out. Hack The Publisher even has a little minigame that's similar to the Giant's Game from Ender's Game, eye-gouging and all, that feels like a little nod towards ??players tha??t notice the similarities.

The ways to get out are similarly gnarly and surreal. I talked to a wall, grew a tree, and observed the city. A small box played music. And at one point, I trapped a demon with mirrors. I don't want to get too deep into the "how" of it all, as that's a big appeal of Centum's in-the-moment puzzle-solving, though I also think it's where Centum struggled a bit for me. Some solutions, like the aforementioned m??irrors, felt a bit unclear at times. And you'll need a good tolerance for picking up objects and testing them on various other items; some were a bit straightforward to figure out, while others were head-scratchers.

The mini-games are also a little hit-or-miss. I enjoyed them in a few cases, and there's an element of simplicity and tedium that feels textually important. It did mean, though, that when I accidentally restarted one o??f th?e games, being locked back into beating it was a bit frustrating. Not a major gripe, just a small wrinkle.

What really, really works for Centum is its art style. Really, it's a multitude of art styles. At some points, it looks like a point-an?d-click classic. Then, it will introduce a creepy apparition. Then, it might peel off into a seemingly hand-drawn, winding line art of white-on-black. These segues can feel sudden and jarring in a really good way. And man, the cat-phone. I am haunted by the cat-phone.

By the end of the preview, I felt I was starting to grasp what Centum is about, and the story it's trying to tell. It's an incredibly fascinating one. I think if you like the general gist of exploring artificial intelligence, man-made horrors, and maybe a heaping helping of both guilt and family drama, you'll dig what Centum is concocting.

Really, Centum feels like a reminder of what this year is turning out to be. The usual wave of AAA releases has slowed to a trickle, and indie studios are find?ing a lot of room to appeal to niche interests, to esche?w broad appeals in favor of making something a bit more unique.

That is Centum, to me. It might not be for everyone. But the fact that it isn't makes it all the more appealing to me. I dig its thoughts about ghosts in the machine. I vibe with its art style. Maybe I do like cat-phone, after all. But I do think, if any of this made you sit up a bit in your seat and go "hm," then Centum is worth keeping an eye on.

Centum is ?currently planned for Xbox Series X|S a??nd PC sometime this summer.

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I have a soft spot for perspective-switching games, and AVA and the Half-World already looks like one to keep an eye on. While there's no release date in place, developer Bread Panda revealed the roguelite action game for PC in a trailer that shows off its shooting in side- and forwar?d-scrolling flavors.

T??he trailer also gives us a peek at the beautiful art that fuels i??t all, both in its characters and creatures and the colorful world they inhabit.  

In what sounds like a futile affair, AVA's destiny involves fading away with the rest of the world. With the end all but inevitable, AVA soars through the islands of the Sidereal Riptide, bl?asting away at enemies, collecting artifacts, and hopefully solving the mysteries that await.&n??bsp;

As the trailer shows, one of the key hooks of that journey is the way AVA can transition from firing away on a 2D plane to blasting forth through visuals akin to classic rail shooters like Space Harrier??. From what I can gather, at least, it looks like more of a visual trick that retains the side-scrolling combat on a different plane. However it may work, it's ?still a very cool idea that looks great in motion. 

Bread Panda took inspiration from roguelites and adventure games, with the former lending itself to repeat expeditions that play out in unique ways. There's also the mechanic of collecting artifacts and choosing which to keep and which to return to the Riptide, giving you the opportunity to customize AVA's fighting style with various weapons and relics. AVA and the Half-World will eventually be entering an increasingly busy space, but I'm?? keen on seeing how its key gimmick and idiosyncratic design sense play ou?t in practice. 

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Future Cat Games, the developer behind 2016 puzzle-adventure OneShot, has officially revealed its new project. Next up is Margin of the Strange, which is set to make its full trailer debut along with a Kickstarter ?campaign on May 21.

Ahead of that full trailer reveal,? Future Cat Games shared a fittingly enigmatic teaser: 

Steam wishlisting has yet to go live at the time of this writing, but we at least know a little about the story and style thanks to the official website. Margin of the Strange follows a young man named Ling who is, for all intents?? and purposes, a first-time dreamer. As he ventures into this dreamworld, he discovers a unique alien ecosystem with its own physical l?aws. It's here that he must explore the mysteries within and, over the next six weeks, learn more about his life and death. 

Future Cat bills Margin of the Strange as a "gardening-themed mystery exploration game," which sounds about right given that brief story description. Ling is a moth-like character, and as such one of the things you can do in the game is "stare at lamps and drink sugar wate?r (moth things)." You can also make friends to gather further information and grow plants to "reverse local entropy."

Developed in GameMaker, Margin of the Strange currently has no release date in place. According to the site's history section, it all started as NightMargin's personal project that was first conceived over 10 years ago. This version of the game has been in the works since 2021, and will be able to enter full-time development if the crowdfunding is successful. We should learn more once the Kickstarter goes live, so keep an eye ??on the page if you want to further explore this particular moth garden ??mystery. 

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Many games these days tend to have a predictable and run-of-the-mill plot. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find a unique and well-told narrative, but Sunset Visitor has taken that challenge and fired on all cylinders with its debut title1000xRESIST.

On the surface, 1000xRESIST is a story about surviving an apocalyptic alien incursion. But in unraveling its approximately 1,000-year timeline, 1000xRESIST delves into numerous meaningful t?hemes including family, humanistic nature, and the adaptivity of the mind. I even learned a thing or two about myself along the way. It's still a sci-fi tale,? but it's not afraid to get a bit deep as the story unfolds.

Those expecting intense or difficult gameplay in any form won't find it here. In fact, for the most part, 1000xRESIST is mostly an adventure game with some light gameplay elements sprinkled throughout. But those elements serve the exact purpose you'd hope for in an experience like 1000xRESIST: to enhance the narrative. After experiencing this roughly 15-hour journey, I don't think I'd? want it any other way.

1000xRESIST (PC [reviewed], Switch)
Developer: Sunset Visitor
Publisher: Fellow Traveller
Released: May 9, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Game of Clones

The story of 1000xRESIST starts over 1,000 years after an alien species known as The Occupants visits Earth, bring??ing with it a weapon; a disease that leads to the near-extinction of the human race. The disease is brutal. People start to cry, before all their bodily fluids are eventually forcefully expunged from their bodies. Certainly not a pleasant end for humankind.

A group of six sister clones, all named after their purpose—Principal, Knower, Fixer, Healer, Bang Bang Fire, and Watcher—reside in an underground bunker serving their creator, the ALLMOTHER. We play as the Watcher, who has the especially unique role of being able to observe the memories of the ALLMOTHER through a process called Communion. We can observe the memories and learn more about life before the Occupants arrived, as well as th??e last 1,000 years since they got to Earth.

At the time of the Occupant invasion, ALLMOTHER—whose name was Iris—was in high school. In your first communion as Watcher, you experience the trials and tribulations of Iris, going about her high school life. The Occupants appear and the disease starts infecting everyone at her school, except her. But before you can finish your first Communion, Fixer finds a way to interfere wi??th the memory; to alert you that things in the bunker, and more specifically with ALLMOTHER, may not be as they seem.

For a narrative-driven experience like 1000xRESIST, the story is the most important part. And thankfully the story here does not disappoint. 1000xRESIST utilizes a variety of forms throughout the telling of its story, mixing laughs, cries, scares, and confusion. The early chapters drip-feed you e??nough to satiate your appetite for answers, while also prompting more questions about what's going on in this world??. In the end, you get the answers to most of the questions, and the unanswered parts feel intended for the player to fill in the cracks with their own theories.

Clonesome Dove

I usually struggle a bit getting through dialogue-heavy games. It's not that I don't like them. Who doesn't love a good story? But whether I want to or not, I eventually find my mind wandering a bit. 1000xRESIST finds multiple ways to preve??nt that from happening.

From a story perspective, there are tons of comical laughs and subtle third-wall-breaking segments that keep it feeling fresh. Sunset Visitor's wr?iting had me genuinely looking forward to each and every line. To make it even better, each line of dialogue from every character is fully vo?iced with a superb cast of voice acting whose stellar performances only make the narrative even more surreal.

Then there's the gameplay. For most of the game, each chapter goes through a simil?ar cadence. You'll start in the underground bunker in the present day. You'll walk around and talk with the other sisters, then perform a Communion where you experience a memory of Iris. During the Communion, you'll walk around solving very light p??uzzles with a handy technological device that allows you to jump forward and backward through various times on demand. For example, you may want to enter a room that's blocked off in your current time. You can simply jump to another time where the entrance is open, walk in, and then jump back to your current time.

None of the puzzles are difficult in any regard, and mostly just serve as a fun little gameplay element between the storytelling. There are also several Gravity Rush??-style segments where you must look around you and right-click on specific highlighted points of the area you are in, jumping from one to another to quickly climb to high areas or cover larger distances quickly.

Gameplay is supplemental to the actual driv??e here, to progress the story and explore the narrative in detail. You can't fail or get a game over screen, and you probably won't find yourself searching for a difficult puzzle solution on your phone or anything like that. But it does offer a nice change of pace between the sometimes hard-hitting narrative at play.

The Rolling Clones

At the end of each chapter, you'll end up back at the unde?rground bunker where you can run around and explore the bunker, called the "Guarden," and interact with your other sisters to gain even more insight into what's going on, as well as get their input on your observations. The character design of all of the sisters is really well done. Each sister's namesake describes their purpose in the Guarden, which also molds their personality based on what they are tasked with doing in the bunker.

You'll only scratch the surface at the start. Each sister will start to open up and show you more and more of their personality as you progress through 1000xRESIST. Even though the sisters are clones, they all have their own personalities. It's a lineup of? characters I didn't expect to care much for when I first met them, but by the end, I appreciated each of them for different reasons.

The Sword in the Clone

Update: I've been in contact with dev?eloper Sunset Visitor in regards to the save issues I encountered below. The current save system has certain spots in which you are locked out from saving, such as at the top of a chapter, which appears to be what happened in my case. Most of the game you can still save and load properly, but there are parts in which saving will cause your save to simply reload the beginning of that chapter.

Though small in the grand scheme of things, there are some minor issues I had with 1000xRESIST. First is how the save system works. At the end of each chapter, you're presented with the option to save. However, you can also save during the game as well—right in the middle of the chapter, for example—as long as you aren't currently in a dialogue segment. Simply open the menu and click Save Game. But that save doesn't seem to save the actual point you're at. Instead??, it just creates a save point at the beginning of that chapter.

The first time I experienced this, I had no clue. I w??as a couple of hours into a chapter, nearing the end, when suddenly I had something come up and had to step away for a while. I went into the menu and saved my game, only to come back later, and upon loading the save had to start over at the beginning of the chapter. I tried this several more times just to see if it was a fluke, but every save just loaded at the beginning of its respective chapter. It's an unclear option that could lead to some annoyances for players taking a break.

I also had a bit of frustration trying to navigate the Guarden, which you spend a lot of time in. It's pretty massive in size, which is important, seeing as it's the last bastion of the apocalypse. But you only get a simple compass-style indicator at the top of your map to find certain characters to interact with. Even after exploring the corr?idors and multiple levels of the Guarden throughout my 15-ish hour playthrough, I still found myself running around lost, trying to figure out how to get somewhere due to the somewhat maze-like flow of it. It's a cool setting and I can certainly appreciate the detail that went into it, but traversing it (which you will do often) can be quite a pain at times.

The Twilight Clone

1000xRESIST is a narrative masterpiece. It's a testament that games can be light on the gameplay, but still tell a story that rivals all other types of media if done properly. It's clear that Sunset Visitor drew inspiration from other sci-fi story-heavy titles like NieR: Automata. Narratively, 1000xRESIST holds its own and tells a captivating, intriguing, and thought-provoking story, paying ho??mage to the titles that inspired it as opposed to r??elying on them.

If you enjoy a good story that can make you laugh one minute, hold back tears the next, then audibly mumble "WTF?" right after that, do yourself a favor, and check out1000xRESIST. I'm incredibly impressed with Sunset Visitor's ability to tell a story with its debut title. It's one that will stick with me for a while, and I've already caught myself still thinking about it, despite having finished it a few days ago. I can't wait to see what Sunset Visitor does?? next. Hekki ALLMO.

The post Review: 1000xRESIST appeared first on Destructoid.

When a game's visual style becomes such a distinct aspect of its personality, it can go one of two ways. You could net a stylish gem like MadWorld, or you could end up with another Drawn to Death. Thankfully, Death of a Wish �the hypnotic follow-up to melessthanthree's Lucah: Born of a Dream �falls firmly into the former category.

Death of a Wish (Switch, PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Melessthanthree
Publisher: Syndicate Atomic LLC
Released: March 11, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Create and destroy 

Death of a Wish is a top-down action game with an idiosyncratic aesthetic that perfectly complements its dark and brooding story. Right from the start, our hero Christian is raging against his past, familial ties, and the? current state of his dystopian world. This ruined landscape comes to life through scribbles and sketches, cobbled together to create a cohesive vision that meshes perfectly with its similarly rough characters.

As Christian, you'll dash from screen to screen, facing the threat of? menacing enemies called Nightmares in an attempt to piece together what happened prior to this and prevent something even more cataclysmic from occurring. It's a layered story, full of angst and earnest to a fault. It'??s unflinching in its depiction of sensitive subject matter, particularly as it builds up to its climactic moments.

Those who have played Lucah will be familiar with the style on display in Death of a Wish. Otherwise, there really isn't much out there that looks like this. It's like someone took their old original anime character sketches, scanned them in directly from their Mead notebook, and didn't?? do a single thing to touch them up. And yet somehow it all works.

From the environments to the characters and enemies, there's a nightmarish quality to everything on screen. The off-kilter designs merge nicely with all of the combat effects, which exaggerate sword slashes and projectile blasts to absurd levels. When Christian successfully clears a room of enemies, dynamic character splash art appears on screen. Again, it looks like a teenager's ap?proximation of what they might consider to be a "badass" pose. In the heat of the moment, it gets the job done and serves up a satisfying bookend to combat. 

Parry and punish

Death of a Wish would die on the vine if that combat wasn't engaging. With a handful of intertwining systems to learn and take advantage of, it ends up being just as thrilling and heart-pounding as any big budget character action game. To master the skills needed to survive you'll need to allocate and equip Arias, which serve as your primary means of attack. From ??there, you ca??n further customize these attacks with modifiers. You can also enhance your capabilities through the use of Virtues, a limited number of which can be equipped at any given time. 

As Christian levels up, there are five main attributes he can funnel points toward. There's the standard max HP boost, as well as one that raises your overall damage output. You can also put in points to increase your max charge and strengthen Hold A?ctions â€?powerful moves you pull off when holding down an attack button â€?raise your mind for more effective Arias or invest in your Familiars that can be used to fire at foes. The more you pay attention to all of the sub-systems and the better you manage your point allocation, the less you'll be sweating some of the tougher Nightmare battles.  

All of this action bobs along swiftly with the backing of a pitch-perfect soundscape. Beyond the ominous, driving music, the sound design is integral to everything that's happening on screen. While I wouldn't go so far as to say Death of a Wish is unplayable with the sound off, it comes pretty close. Ther?e are so many crucial cues to listen for in tandem with the typical animation tells fo?r enemy attacks. Even the sound of a parry is a distinct comma before the following volley and eventual exclamation point of a successful stun-lock. 

Sin and repent

When you die, you usually respawn at the last gravesite, but there is a novel means of punishment for failure. At the top of the screen, a Sin percentage gradually rises from zero to 100 as you move through the world. It's a very subtle increase, but whenever you die in battle, those numbers add up significantly. If you're not careful, you'll soon find yourself in the 20s, 30s, and so o?n.

Thankfully, there is a means of bringing your Sin percentage back down. Earning an S-rank in any given encounter will lop three percent off the total. An A-rank takes it down a percentage and some change, and there are ever-diminishing returns under that. Letting it max out doesn't result in the Mob Psycho 100 explosion of power I was hoping for. After the first time, Christian unlocks a skill that gives him a major power boost while rapidly in?creasing his Sin. You can only realistically keep this on for a few seconds a??t a time, but it's not a bad way to clear a combat arena in a pinch.

After that first taste of pure Sin, any other time you max out will result in a potentially huge setback. Upon hitting 100 percent, Christian?? will have to choose a previous chapter to revert to, with each option noting the Sin percentage he had at that time. Even if you choose the most recent option, you're likely to lose a bunch of progress, which can be a bit deflating. At best it fits in nicely with the established world and its themes, and at worst, it's a total momentum killer.

Redeem and repeat

I really enjoyed most of my time with Death of a Wish, particularly the early hours. Shortly a??fter hitting Track 5, however, fatigue started to set in. At this point, the game opens up more, tasking Christian with reconnecting any fast travel/save spots he may want to use, while providing minimal direction beyond the general gist of what needs to happen next. There's nothing wrong with this inherently, but this world just isn't one that's wholly fit for exploration. The same enemies populate the same areas, so you'll end up squaring off against repeat mobs until you finally pinpoint the means of progression. Using this as a grind to lower you??r Sin level can be beneficial, but if you're not careful you'll eventually get worn down and find yourself dangerously close to 100% Sin.

Going into the endgame chapters with anything above 70% is just asking for trouble. Since the progress you lose can be substant?ial, the punishment for your sins stings all the worse when you're so close to the final battle. You can mitigate this slightly by tweaking the difficulty in both the Sin and Punishment categories, but I just found this final leg to be a bit tedious for my tastes. 

Despite a few snags along the way, there's a lot to love about Death of a Wish. Its combat is extremely tight, its story and presentation are uniquely ambitious and heartfelt, and the mood it creates is wholly its own. Melessthanthree made a bunch of improvements to Lucah here, inc??luding the wise decision to nix the stamina meter ent??irely.

I have no doubt that this is going to be �and in many cases likely already is �a runaway 2024 favorite for many. It didn't quite land there for me, personally, but I won't soon forget the satisfaction of a deft parry and the shrieks of those who sacrificed themselves throughout Christian's harrowing journey. Hell, I may even dive back in and see how it holds up to a ret??urn trip, just not anytime too soon; the wounds are still fresh. 

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

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Concerned Ape is pumping out the PC patches for Stardew Valley and while we should be used to expansive updates by this point, it never fails to delight when new content heads to the farm. Patch 1.6.4 is no different, with lots of additions, tweaks, and even lots of improvements specifically for the modding community. 

Sadly, we’re still not sure when these updates will arrive for players on console or mobile, but it shouldn’t be too long before all Stardew Valley players can enjoy the long list of new features added post 1.6. Either way, perhaps you just look at this as a list of things to dive ?into now, or something you'll at least jump into later when it arrives on other platforms.

Stardew adds cutscenes and rewards to the raccoon household

Have you ever wanted to see Raccoon children performing a musical number while their parents partake in a little bit of synchronised dancing? Well, now’s your chance. The newly added cutscene, which plays once you’ve completed all of Mr. Raccoon’s requests, is utterly adorable. Thankfully, it plays even if you’ve completed the quests before th?is patch, and all you need to do to see it is head down to Cindersap Forest. 

Mine Layouts, Fish Frenzies, and more in Patch 1.6.4

• 20 new ‘alternateâ€?mine layouts, which have a chance to appear during visits after you’ve reached the bottom of the mines
• 20 new volcano mine layouts, which can appear after you’ve unlocked the shortcut between the caldera and the volcano entrance
• Fish frenzies
• Four new fairy styles
• Eight additional non-fish items can now be added to fish tanks
• Mrs. Raccoon's shop now includes new items to be purchased:

  • Golden Mystery Box in exchange for three regular Mystery Boxes
  • Magic Rock Candy in exchange for 20 Golden Mystery Boxes

• Vinegar can now be poured onto trees to prevent them from ever-growing moss
• Shaving enhancement now causes tree-specific drops

  • Ferns drop Fiddlehead Fern
  • Mushrooms drop Red Mushrooms
  • Mahogany drops Hardwood

Balance changes headed to Stardew Valley

• Loading a game through Steam will now reward achievements that have been earned while playing offline
• Mini-shipping bin as expensive Qi Gem shop purchase
• Life Elixir now only restores health, while Energy Tonic only restores energy
• Wild seed spots are rarer, but will produce more seeds when dug
• Iridium is now twice as likely to be dropped by Iridium Golems
• Monsters in volcano entry level are randomized daily
• Treasure totems can no longer be used indoors
• Descending a level in the Mines now makes you invulnerable for one second
• Farming experience now contributes to mastery experience at 50%
• Sardines have been removed from the Summer quest pool, and Red Snappers have been removed from the Winter quest pool
• Golden Mystery Boxes can now possibly drop an Auto Petter
• Slightly reduced chance to find Mystery Boxes

Quality of life tweaks and gameplay fixes

• After dropping an item, there will now be a 1.2 second delay before it’s picked up by the player who dropped it
• Napalm Ring are now non-destructive while on the farm, but will damage monsters 
• Ctrl + Right Click will now drop the selected item on the toolbar
• Special notifications such as first catch will no longer cancel actions such as eating or warping
• Prize Ticket Machine will now use up Prize Ticket when an item is in your inventory, rather than when you press the button
• Monster Compendium will now actually double loot dropped from monsters
• Weapons forged before 1.6 no longer have reduced stats
• End tables can now be rotated

Improvements for the Stardew modding community

There are several tweaks to modding in Stardew Valley in 1.6.4, including improved debug commands. The full patch notes, including all of the modding updates, can be found on the Stardew Valley changelog, but here are the fixes:

• Fixed some wallpapers and flooring not appearing in mod item lists
• Fixed pre-1.6 farm maps having broken warps to the bus stop
• Fixed errors and crashes due to mods adding items without a name
• Fixed softlock when a warp leads to an invalid location
• Fixed crash when playing events that use the ‘replaceWithClonesâ€?command
• Fixed crash if an NPC has invalid temporary dialogue
• Fixed world map showing a glitched texture for custom farm types which don’t override it
• Fixed another case of NPC duplication involving the movie theater
• Fixed crash when loading a save if a farm Junimo wasn’t properly removed before saving
• Fixed crash if the lost and found contains null items.
• Fixed disconnect for Steam players when using mods that send messages before a farmhand has been approved.
• Fixed crash on save if shipping bin has empty slots.
• Fixed riding the bus to the desert instantly warping you back if mods added warps on the desert road.
• Fixed multiplayer crash if some players don’t have the same NPC textures

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Look, let's just get ahead of it: no, Hollow Knight: Silksong did not shadow-drop. There was neither hide nor hair of the long-awaited Hollow Knight follow?-up at today's April 2024 Nintendo Indie World Showcase, and no amount of "SKONG"s in the chat could have summoned it.

And honestly, side-bar, I don't think that Silksong is going to resurface at an event like this. Despite the ratings boards and store listings pointing towards an imminent release, that's the sort of thing that shows up at a big showcase. Your hopes should reside in June, Silksong faithful.

What we did get today was a whole slew of new indies and familiar faces, with dates, demos, shadow-drops, and more. I've said before that the indie showcases always manage to surprise me, ??and today was no different. Here's the rundown of intriguing games we got a glimpse of today.

Little Kitty Big City is first up on the docket. The adorable cat-sim sees you playing as, guess, a little kitty in a big city. It does look fantastic, adorable, and like a good time for cat lovers. It's arriving on May 9, 2024.

For our first big reveal, there's Yars Rising, a team-up from WayForward and Atari that sees the Yars series return. Yet, as our own Zoey Handley puts it, this doesn't seem very Yar. Looks like a neon-infused Metroid-y game, and I guess we'll see how it continues the Yar legacy sometime this year.

Our internal chat was certainly impressed with Refind Self, a personality test game with striking graphics and an interesting premise. It's a choice-driven game that tracks your actions and uses that to map ou?t your personality, which can be shared with other players. It seems novel, at the very least. It hits Switch this summer.

For sticker fans, Sticky Business lets you stick to your heart's content without ruining your good stickers. It's?? frustrating, personally, when I mess up stickering. You get to run a sticker shop and interface with customers, too. Live out your sticker shop fantasy today, as both the game and its DLC drop onto Switch today.

Do you love this new wave of Wario Land-alikes? Antonblast is here to add more fuel to the fire and lord, does it look fantastic. It's easy to say that, whether you're a Wario fan or joined with more recent successors like Pizza Tower, this is worth ??looking out for on November 12. A demo hits Swi?tch later today.

Valley Peaks is an interesting exp????????????????????????????loration game, where you do some first-person platforming and take on sidequests, minigames, and more as you climb mountains. It's got an interesting contrast between serene views and tense platforming, so I'm curious about it as it climbs towards a launch this year.

I will have more to say about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes in a separate piece, but suffice to say, if you were expecting another Sayonara Wild Hearts from this team, this isn't quite that. Simogo's latest is a deep, engrossing puzzler that demands you get out a pad and pencil, and if that ap??peals to you at all, it's wort?h keeping an eye on. Look for it on Switch on May 16.

Europa is a proj?ect from Helder Pinto and friends, with a watercolor art style and lots of exploration to uncover. I really dig the look of it, even if these sorts of platformer-explorers aren't always my vibe. This could ??be a bit of a surprise when it arrives this year. If you really want to check it out, a demo is out later today.

Another Apple Arcade game has escaped and made it onto other platforms. TMNT Splintered Fate?? b?rings its co-op, rogue-y take on the turtles to Switch as a timed console exclusive in July 2024.

We just saw it at the Triple-I Initiative, but for those seeking adventure and cats in equal measure, there is Cat Quest 3. The series has eluded me over the years, but if you're looking to h??op on, i?t arrives on August 8.

Stitch is another shadowdrop with an interesting premise. You basically stitch hoop patterns that are like puzzles, as you have to determine the placing of different rows and blocks. It's got quite the look, a?nd a ton of puzzles, with even daily puzzle opti??ons. It's out today on Switch, and might be good if you're looking for something to cool down with at the end of a long day.

It's montage time! That classic portion of every Dir??ect and showcase where we blast through a bunch of games and d??ates. Here's the lowdown:

• Bzzzt - Summer 2024
• SCHiM - July 18, 2024
• Animal Well - May 9, 2024
• Duck Detective: The Secret Salami - May 23, 2024
• Another Crab's Treasure - April 25, 2024

And our "one more thing" of the showcase is SteamWorld Heist II, a very well-deserved follow-up that sends the Heists out of space, and into the high seas of naval combat and raids. Everything here looks like a fantastic expansion on the original's formula, and I'm?? very, very kee?n to see more of it as we head towards an August 8 release date.

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It feels like it's been a long time coming, but Metamorphosis Games and publisher Fireshine Games are officially locking a date for the action-platformer Gestalt: Steam & Cinder. Both b??ullets and blades will fly on May 21, 2024.

This is one that I've been following for years at this point, and I'm not the only one at this site who's been impressed by it in the past. Gestalt does look like a pixel-art action-platformer, which can seem a little routine these days. But the actual play is anything but; it's got a great mix of RPG concepts, i??nteresting narrative hooks and art direction, and some pitch-perfect platforming to tie it all together.

Basically, there's a lot more going on under the hood than a first glance might make you think. The story follows Aletheia, an elite mercenary in a fantasy steampunk world. Picking up quests and taking on the occassional odd-job is all part of her quest to discover what li?es beneath all the steam and steel of this world.

The slicing-and-shooting combination feels fantastic though, reminding me of the Mega Man ZX series and other games that combine blaster with blade. I could go on further, but you could also just check it out for yourself. There's a demo available on Steam right now, if you want to check out Gestalt ahead of its launch date.

After several years, I hope all of Gestalt comes?? together for a solid side-scrolling experience. Among the many games at the Triple-I Initiative show?case today, it's definitely one I was happy to see reappear. We'll see how the full game lands on May 21.

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3DRealms is known for its many, many retro first-person shooters, and though Wrath: Aeon of Ruin doesn’t necessarily stand out in this respect, it’s a marquee example of the ??niche regardless. It’s p??retty exciting, then, that its 1.0 version has now launched from Early Access.

Described as a “great mixture of old and new�back in 2019, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin is a strange and enticing combination of the first Quake and Turok, of all things. It’s a rapid-fire boomer-shooter, not unlike DUSK, but with a b??it of additional piza??zz added on top. Now, with the 1.0 build available and about, players can enjoy the game’s full story, a revised encounter design and improved AI, and a wealth of other previously unavailable goodies.

Wrath: Aeon of Ruin releases from Early Access at long last

Wrath: Aeon of Ruin began its Early Access stint in late 2019, and though it was relatively slim in content at the time, it didn’t take long to see that the game had oodles of potential. Now, with four extra years�worth of production under its belt, the developer KillPixel Games has announced that the 1.0 version of Aeon of Ruin is ready to go.

The full release of Wrath: Aeon of Ruin includes all of the following content:

• Full, completed campaign mode featuring 3 major hub areas and 15 unique levels, with three end-boss encounters
• 3 all-new weapons (9 in total)
• 4 all-new enemies (15 in total)
• 2 new Sigils (3 in total)
• 5 new Artifacts (10 in total)

KillPixel Games also claims it has deliv??ered big improvements to a variety of the game’s existing systems and features, including (but not limited to) general AI performance and encounter behavior, optimized map layouts, better performance, and superior item a??nd weapon balancing. The game should generally be more pleasing and satisfying to play, in other words.

Players eager to jump into Wrath: Aeon of Ruin can ??do so at 15% off for the first week following its release, and those who’d like to potentially score an even bigger discount may wish to check out one of the three Steam retro FPS bundles that the game is a part of.

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Danish studio Die Gute Fabrik, responsible for indie titles such as the excellently unique indie Mutazione, has announced that the company is halting production of current projects. The studio points to the current "challenging f??unding and investment scene" in games as the big reason behind the decisi?on.

The studio's statement goes on to say that the company stopped production on February 19, and used its remaining money to help the tea?m with a month of paid time.

The most important part, however, is that the studio isn't giving up on trying to find ?funding to resume production. They're only issuing this public statement to give a proper signal boost to the team members who are now looking for new jobs. Below the announcement, the studio also shared its hiring sheet.

Die Gute Fabrik says it wishes to? resume production if it manages to acquire? new funding, though that might not end up coming to fruition.

Die Gute Fabrik has made great games

Die Gute Fabrik actually stands for "The Good Factory", and it sure was �and hopefully will continue to be �a factory of great games. As mentioned above, Mutazione is a special indie title that ma??ny lo?ve and that also racked in various awards.

The first thing you'll notice about Mutazione will likely be its uniquely gorgeous art style, but there's a lot more to unpack here as you fill the shoes of a teenager navigating a peculiar land inhabited by cute monsters. I'm aware that I made it sound a lot like Undertale,?? but this is a) very much its own beautiful ??thing and b) maybe just me trying some subliminal tricks to get you to play this awesome title.

The studio concluded with a tweet saying that both Mutazione and its more recent game, Saltsea Chronicles, will r?emain on sale and that buying their games is still the best way to support the team.

You have no excuse not to try it out, as you can play Mutazione on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and MacOS. Saltsea Chronicles is available for the?? PlayStation 5, ??Nintendo Switch, and PC.

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I realized a long time ago I was probably never going to be good at poker. It's not that I'm bad at assessing risk; worse, I just don't care. When I used to play casual games in-between classes in school, I'd go all-in on bad hands. I'd swap cards for a flush that probably wouldn't show up. So imagine my surprise when Balatro, a d?eckbuilding poker roguelite, asked me to lean into those bad hab??its.

Developed by LocalThunk and published by Playstack, Balatro made a bit of a splash during the recent Steam Next Fest. So when people started talking it up in the full release on February 20, I had a feeling I should put this on what I call my "temperature check" radar: dip a toe in, play a few rounds, and see?? if the hype is real. So I booted it up, expecting a bit of card-counting fun.

Hours passed. I was still sitting there. I'd just lost a run to a bad discard, but I was so close; I'd made it to a high ante! Next one's a winner, for sure. To be clear, this is not a gambling game; no real money is being exchanged. Balatro's poker is all about s??coring, where you play poker hands from a deck. It has as much in common with the likes of euchre or cribbage, in my eyes, as it does the game it draw??s its scoring rubric from.

Each round, you can take on a blind and try to beat a score. Draw cards, then play the best poker hand you can. Score is determined by the numeri?cal value of cards (chips) and the multiplier a combination offers. To make this simple for now, a pair won't get you many points, but a flush or a straight will see your score climb high.

What gets interesting is that the deck is highly modifiable. You start with a basic deck of 52, with a normal allocation. Shops let you start to modify this, though. Some of these are ?simple: add a card, like a 5 of Clubs, to the deck, or make a card accrue more chips. But they can get weirder, oh so much weirder.

On an early run, I thought I was brilliant: what's better than four-of-a-kind? With four discards to play with, and enough hands, I could mill through cards until I got a four-of-a-kind and handily clear whatever number they put in front of me. It worked really well at first, and I climbed up through the Antes—tiers of progression, in Balatro terms—just milling through and drop?ping four-of-a-kind.

But soon, the boss blinds started to throw wrenches at me. Some made all cards of a single suit not count, and another demanded I play five cards every time I tried to score a hand. The rule that did me in? One fewer card in-hand. That's i??t. A meager restriction, but when my entire plan was built around milling a deck, that probability meant a lot.

And that's why I brought up my penchant for bad risk assessment, because Balatro encourages the player to really try and optimize a deck for the most cheater-riffic poker hands you can make. I've tried to convert an entire fistful of cards into one suit; I've grabbed cards that can delete other ones, narrowing the possibility of what I can draw to only what I want to draw.

The allure of Balatro means I could always have a better d??eck, though. Keep a card marked with a blue seal in my hand at the end of the round, and it'll spawn a Planet, which will randomly upgrade the multipliers of the kinds of poker hands I can score. I've barely touched on the Joker?s, which are wild cards with even wilder effects. My favorite would boost my multiplier every time I discarded cards of a certain suit; as someone who loves to mill through his deck looking for one card, it enabled those bad habits quite well.

All of this is presented in a throwback, almost pseudo-video poker presentation. I say this genuinely: I would play a Balatro machine. Granted, I know most games of chance are meant to part me from my hard-earned cash, and even in Balatro, the house wins more often than not.

Similar to how Dicey Dungeons expands the idea of dice-rolling games out into an entire roguelite, Balatro simply and effectively turns poker into an absolutely splendid deckbuilder. I might not be clever enough to take on poker pros at a table in Vegas, but I'd much rather lose hours of my impending weekend to Balatro.

You can find Balatro on Steam here.

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Deep space exploration, spaceship customization, and good ‘ol dude-bashing card games don’t seem like they go together, but after playing the demo for Breachway, I can ?confidently say this actua?lly makes a perfect trio. 

Breachway combines roguelike elements with deckbuilding to create a run-based space exploration game presenting new challenges in every star system. The basic hook has you exploring a large region of space while searching for new ship components and thus adding cards to the deck you’ll use in combat. Additionally, you'll pick up new crew members along the way, each with unique abilities. Multiple factions exist in the game, and they all control their own pockets of space. There’s a surprising amount of encounters to be had in Breachway, but as you might expect, most of the time you’re going to stumb??le into combat. 

That’s where the card game comes into play. Ship systems, like lasers and shields, supply cards to your deck, and require Ordinance, Energy, and Mass to be played. You’ve got to balance the resources y??our ship has coming in each turn to defend yourself from incoming attacks and deal damage to your opponent. 

As the fight plays out, you’ll be able to track how close an enem??y is to firing on you or how soon you’re going to be hit by incoming missiles. The secret to success is matching your shield charges to any incoming attacks and dishing out maximum damage whenever your opponent has their shields down. Naturally, different cards combo with each other, and some even let you directly target components on your enemy’s ship, potentially allowing you to block some of their cards from being played for a few turns. 

A real space adventure

In the heat of battle, the card game at the heart of Breachway is compelli??ng enough, but what really sold me on the game was how runs play out on a larger scale. Almost every mechanic in the game forces you to consider the future and plan for the longevity of your crew. Within battles, you set the rate at which your various resources replenish, which makes for some really t??ough decisions. More than once, I boosted my Ordinance to prep a heavy attack, only to run out of Energy, leaving my shields down and my hull damaged. 

There’s plenty to think about between battles, too. You get to plan your path through the stars, and sometimes, the only thing between you and the space station that can repair a damaged hull is risky enemy territory. You’ve got to susta??in your ship’s integrity through multiple battles, which makes even easy fights feel impactful.

It's not just the ship itself that you need to manage, either. Crew members h?ave some extremely powerful abilities that boost damage or replenish resources, but this turns out to be another mechanic that asks? you to think about the bigger picture. Crew abilities require Command Points that slowly add up after every battle. Sometimes using an ability to finish off one powerful ship would throw off my balance of Command Points and put me in a worse position for the next fight. 

All in all, Breachway really hit a sweet spot for me. As a card game, it’s the only thing that managed to (momentarily) pull my attention away from Android: Netrunner in a long time. As a space game, I found myself genuinely enjoying the exploration and really digging the art and aesthetic. Thanks to this Steam Next Fest demo, I’ll be looking forward to Breachway’s full release on March 22. 

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It's always the ones you don't expect, right? In a year full of AAA powerhouses competing for the top spot, I'm actually not too surprised that Lethal Company managed to sneak in an??d steal hearts. Thousands of them, even.

It was actually a narrow competition this year for our newly founded indie game category. Intended as a way to get more independent games involved in the conversations we have at the end of every year, we wound up with an intriguing mix of?? games.

Chained Echoes was a holdover from last December, but still retained more staying power than most early-year launches. And World of Horror's full launch finally arrived, leaving a mark on us. But Lethal Company's recent surge seem?s to be the note ?we're ending 2023 on.

The co-op horror might, at first, seem familiar. It reminded me of Phasmophobia, another indie breakout that's retained its following over the years. But Lethal Company has exploded in a way others haven't.

Maybe it's the theming, pitting players against an ever-present race against the clock to serve the Company as best they can. Or maybe it's the monsters, scarily effective and varied enough to keep you guessing with their SCP-esque designs. It could even be the mods that pushes Lethal Company over for some.

For me, what's made Lethal Company memorable has been the laughs. It is a genuinely funny, engaging game. The voice communicati??ons use distance and area so well, so you can hear someone's yells get louder and softer as they run by y??ou. Even the noise a ladder makes, when it accidentally bonks a player on the head, is hilarious.

Still, it's hard to undersell how competitive this field was. While your Baldur's Gate 3s and Tears of the Kingdoms loomed large over the crowd, many indies were favorites this year, garnering nominations here and elsewhere.?? While one wins the vote, all of these nominees are worth your time and attention:

• Lethal Company
• Chained Echoes
• Goodbye Volcano High
• El Paso, Elsewhere
• Slayers X: Ter?minal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer
• Void Stranger
• World of Horror

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"Morbidcore" isn't an established subgenre, but it's not hard to imagine what falls into this category. These are games exploring life's darker mom?ents. Not for the sake of simply disturbing an audience, but instead, they’re stories communicating the more unsettling aspects of humanity �the parts we shy away from or refuse to acknowledge.

Grief, depression, trauma, and pain are all prevailing themes in these narratives, and while they don't aim to shock, they inevitably do. Indies aren't the only titles that attempt this, either, though they often do it best. Multimillion-dollar productions from megacorporations should have the budget to explore here, but it's often a one-person team or a small group weaving th??e tales that are most impactful.

Trigger warning: don't proceed if you're not in a safe state of mind to read about suicide, self-harm, and rape.

On Trauma

Trauma is no stranger to many of us, and we see that reflected in indie games. Portraying that hurt is a difficult task, as trauma in its many shapes remains an incredibly personal exper??ience. How it’s triggered, the intensity, and ways it manifests in someone's life are unique to each individual, but we often share its weight and familiar ache.

When it comes to trauma-themed games, nothing affected me quite like He Fucked the Girl Out of Me. I discovered it after reading a Zoey Handley article on the game, and with a provocative title like that, I couldn't resist. What was I expecting? A cheeky game with some tra??nsgender themes potentially thrown in. What I got was a dar??k, depressing tale that’s haunted me ever since. 

Without spoiling too much, the game follows the life of a trans woman beari?ng one-too-many heavy crosses. Drawn in by a swirl of peer pressure and desperation, she finds herself relying upon work in the sex industry. It promises her financial freedom and affection, but sh??e is instead subjected to both subtle and exploitative behavior from predatory men. These experiences chip away at her psyche until it finally shatters, permanently changing how she relates to others.

With He Fucked the Girl Out of Me, we uncover precisely why such indies pack a more powerful punch than AAA games. When a multimillion-dollar corporation attempts to craft a game, there are economic factors to consider in addition to the complexities of blending the ideas and creative visions of an entire team. As though the situation wasn’t complex enough, there’s also the audience to consider. If you’re spending milli??ons on an entertainment product, there’s an incentive to ensure it appeals to and parallels the sensibilities of the masses. It leaves the personal behind in favor of vague, broad strokes.

Indies often aren’t as bureaucratically fettered, allowing these games to laser focus on a singular idea from a creator, sometimes in profoundly personal ways. He Fucked the Girl Out of Me isn’t just a game, it’s an uncomfortably invasive look into the personal life story of a creator brave enough to display their shame and trauma in ways that would b??e entirely too visceral for most. The title makes it clear that this is a game that has no interest in mainstream acceptance. This isn’t entertainment; it’s a flash of a human soul masquerading as a Game Boy title. 

With none of the limitations of the AAA industry to weigh it down, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me has the freedom to breach topics and express viewpoints seldom interrogated by the mainstream, including the thorny moral matrix of sex work. While the destigmatization of sex work is a step forward for society, it’s only half the story. With HFtGOoM, we’re reminded that in a sex industry n??ot ruled by its workers, the prevailing norm for them globally involves desperation, trauma, and exploitation, especially for trans people.

The instinctive reaction to the indie’s harrowing portrayal of the sex industry is “shut it down.�However, spend time with it, and you’ll find it makes one of th??e strongest arguments for the decriminalization of the industry to not only protect sex workers but to prevent trans people from exploitation in these ci??rcumstances. 

It’s a window into?? why indie games trigger my unease and discomfort; a level of unbridled honesty absent in the mainstream. The protagonist makes it clear that the tale is a semi-autobiographical one, expressing the pain of lived experiences. Consequently, I couldn't shake the thought that this person's trauma wasn't much more than a brief afternoon gameplay session fo??r me. I’d never wrestled with that feeling watching Aloy or Peter Parker losing loved ones. 

Themes of suicide and ideation

The prior game presents scenarios that are entirely alien to my life, which gave me a bit of an emotional buffer. Actual Sunlight on the other hand... it hit a little too close to home. It centers on Evan Winter, an overweight man ??in his thirties who is deeply unsatisfied with his life.

You take Evan through the depressing monoto??ny of life �doing a job he hates, returning to an empty home, rinse and repeat. He doesn't have anything to live for, and the painful apathy slowly eats away until nihilism drives him to the roof of his apartment building. While you maintain some freedom for the majority of the game, at the end all your options are gone, and there's only one morbid path to take.

When I first played, I was nowhere near my thirties (still not there yet) and I didn't have a job either. Despite this, Evan’s inescapable and oppressive sense of “mehâ€?resonated. Nothing excites him, he has no motivation to change his life, an?d the negative voice in his head has become a familiar soundtrack in the background.

I think it's one of the most accurate depictions of an all-too-common pathway to suicide. The desire to stop existing doesn't always come from a singular traumatic event. Sometimes, it’s a slow slip into a meaningless, anhedonic life. It's a reminder that finding fulfillment requires active participation in life - it doesn't h??appen automatically.

Sure, a AAA studio could create something similar, but I have a feeling that it would lack a lot of the heart that Actual Sunlight contains. The game shines through its minor and painfully personal observations. Evan’s self-loathing monologue in front of his mirror is a little too on the nose, and his disdain for the corporate world is depicted in a way that exudes authenticity. It’s not just endless kvetching about the soullessness of desk jobs - it’s a genuine cry of pain from yet a??nother soul stuck in the 9 to 5 trap. 

What are indie games doing that AAA games aren't?

There are plenty of big-budget games that deliver a heavy, emotional punch. Who among us wasn't moved by Red Dead Redemption 2's ending, or wasn't left feeling hollow at the end of The Last of Us Part 2? Despite this, I can't think of an AAA title that has affected me as much as He Fucked the Girl out of Me or Actual Sunlight.

In an interview with Indie Game Reviewer, Actual Sunlight's creator, Will O'Neill, revealed that the game was made in almost complete isolation, and inspired by his own life. The result is a deeply intimate experience that might only resonate with a few, but when it does, its impact cuts deep. Or, as he ex?plains, "I could just literally feel it emerge from that really, really personal part of myself."

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me's creator, Taylor McCue, also drew from intensely personal events in her life. She created the game to escape the shame haunting her. As she explains in an interview with Game Developer, "Shame was eating into me over the course of a decade. That?? was making me crazy and increasingly suicidal."

Cre??ating the game was no easy process, and throughout its development, McCue found she was "more ashamed, more suicidal, and actually worse."

This personal element of indie games feels like peering into someone's diary, which can be both an enlightening and unsettling experience. The effect of this is evident in the responses McCue has gotten to her game, as she reveals she has received messages from several people sharing "explicit trauma that they shared in common" with her. Reception to O'Neill's game has be?en similar, and he has received "more than one letter that starts with ‘I never write to game developers�and which then proceeds on for hundreds or even thousands of words."

There is something to be said about their art with a personal touch. It's hard to make, eschewing massive teams and scope for something more intimate, vulnerable, and perhaps cathartic for too many of us. I’m often eager to sit down with my shiny, new AAA toys; flashy visuals and high production values easily capture my attention. However, when I’m searching for something that cap?ture??s both the absurdity and agony of humanhood, there is no place better to turn than “morbidcoreâ€?indies. 

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There's been a lot of big, blockbuster games hitting over the last few weeks, and that can get a bit tiring. So this weekend, as I was perusing the Steam new releases, I spotted a curious-looking game called Void Stranger. I didn't know what to expect, but it ??had some eager positive reviews and a novel idea.

What I got was one of the more pleasant surprises of the year. Void Stranger is a puzzling gem that I haven't bee??n able to get out of my head.

Made by ZeroRanger studio Systems Erasure, Void Stranger is a puzzle game in the Sokoban genre; essentially, pushing and manipulating blocks. Even if you don't know the origin, you probably recognize the style from games like Baba Is You, Chip's Challenge, or (arguably) Catherine. The vast majority of your time playing is spent in a Game Boy-styl??ized world, manipulating the small amount of real estate you have, thinking about how every step, direction, and manipulation can get you toward the next set ??of stairs.

It goes on and on like this, down flight after flight. Your protagonist is tumbling down a labyrinth, reminding me of games like Dungeon Encounters or another recent indie surprise, Demon Lord Reincarnation. But it has some surprises of its own, too.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSkOdL2zJM4

Made in abyss

As you can tell from the trailer, Void Stranger doesn't just do one look. It's got a whole wealth of gorgeous pixel art it uses to tell its story, in very vague and interpretative ways. It pulls some really clever tricks that will make fans of Inscryption or Doki Doki Literature Club sit up a bit in their seats. I'm hesitant to share any of them because at ?least the first one—involving a brief respite??—got several genuine laughs of appreciation out of me.

[caption id="attachment_401909" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Systems Erasure[/caption]

Even just briefly eyeing the discussions happening on the Steam forums, it's easy to tell there's a lot going on in this seemingly straightforward game. What's impressed me about Void Stranger, though, is it's fairly committed to using its medium to convey the mysteries. Within all these deeper explorations and ideas, manipulations of things that seem both mind-shattering and game-breaking, it's all still the same sokoban puzzler. Systems Erasure has found some really clever ways of building a de?ep enigma within the mechanics of its puzzles, and I really dig that.

I don't know if I'll manage to see the bottom of this labyrinth. But if you've grown weary of the AAA bombardment we've had for the last few weeks and want something decidedly offbeat and different, Void Strangers is that. You can pick it up here on Steam or through the Itch.io storefront.

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Developer Pat Naoum has just launched The Master's Pupil, a game that's the culmination of seven y??ears? of hand-painted work.

If there's any doubt, Pat explains that he didn't merely use his hands to pick up an electronic stylus to draw the game on some fancy art tablet. Naoum made every single aspect of The Master's Pupil old-school style before using a high-resolution film negative scanner to bring his beautiful artwork into?? the game's world.

//www.tikto??k.com/@patnaoumgames/video/72576543??17488819458

But what's the game even like?

The Master's Pupil is a 12-level 2D sidescr??oller. It invites players to go on a puzzle-solving adventure that accompanies some of the most important moments in the life of Claude Monet, the ?19th-century French impressionist painter whose works informed the game.

Don't let yourself get fooled by all the beauty, though. Great sadness lives underneath. To avoid spoilers, let's just say that players will have to suffer through the loss of someone very dear to Monet. They will a??lso experience his fight against sight ailments that nearly took away his ability to create art in the way that he loved.

[caption id="attachment_394527" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image by Pat Naoum[/caption]

At certain points in the game, the entire level will transform to reveal a Monet painting. The way that the various layers come together to form paintings feels reminiscent of Braid, but the art on display here is on a whole other level. Even if it doesn't seem like your kind of game, you should consider giving it a try. The Master's Pupil feels like one of those one-of-a-kind experiences ?that you soon won't forget.

The Master's Pupil is available on PC and Mac via Steam. It's also on the Nintendo Switch.

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Cram it in your fruit hole

Krillbite Studio, the people behind Among the Sleep and Mosaic, have announced their next game. It’s Fruitbus, and it’s here to fill the? massive, t??ruck-sized hole in my heart.

I really need this after the colossal disappointment that was Food Truck Simulator. I’m still not over that. Fruitbus is generally a similar concept, except all your food is vegan, and you serve it to animals. You get to explore an open world in the ep?onymous food service vehicle and gather ingredients to feed to all the folks.

//youtu.be/YOK-vXFoDOs

The trailer shows off a wide variety of activities, customization, and faces to stuff with food. Listen, this is going to sound really weird, but seeing that you have to pull the parking brake is really exciting to me. It’s the small touches that connect you to a game’s world, and you should never count out the mundane tactile tasks as an ef?fective way to draw you in.

That’s about all the information we have here. I mean, really, they had me at parking brake. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much about Fruitbus. However, it looks like it ticks a lot of my extremely specific boxes. I was really excited for Food Truck Simulator, but it fail??ed to ?deliver. Hopefully, what it really needed was some smoothies and the hungry faces of crowds of furries.

Unfortunately, I’ll be waiting until 2024 to play Fruitbus. It’s coming to PC and “consoles.�/p>

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Is it secure enough?

Last night, I clicked on a link I saw floating around social media for something called The Password Game. It seemed a little neat; make ?a secure password against an ever-increasing set of rules. What I thought would be a momentary distraction ended up with me, and my Discord call, furiously searching Google and calculating math to try and outsmart an expanding, seemingly malicious ruleset. Our password, ultimately, failed.

The Password Game is a new overnight web game sensation from developer Neal Agarwal. They've made a number of fun, unique games with quirky problems to solve, like Absurd Trolley Problems. With The Password Game, it starts simple: make a password.

Of course, good web games are never so simple. Gradually, Agarwal introduces rules. Rules that, as they describe it, "ensure [they] will never see the pea?rly gates."

//twitter.com/nealagarwal/??status/1673703594778927105

Rules, rules, rules

I don't really want to spoil any of the big rule surprises for you, as that's a big part of the fun: discovering what The Password Game will throw at you. It was actually a joy to do this in a Discord call, and I highly, highly recommend doing the same if you can. Making The Password Game a social situation is great, not just because you can all collaborate, but you can share in the confusion. (My?? one hint? Maybe grab a Periodic Table of Elements.)

Either way, go in sight unseen and just see how far you go. Maybe even share your first-time experiences here? I'm fascina??ted to see how far people get. Apparently, some folks are even beating i??t. I don't know if I can fully figure that out, but part of me—a deep-seated, unwell aspect of myself—does want to try. At the very least, I can end up with a very, very secure password.

Try your hand at The Password Game here.

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Wanna be a hero

As part of the IGN Summer of Gaming, Foreign Gnomes has announced the follow-up to their 2021 critically acclaimed rhythm RPG, Everhood 2.

In Everhood 2, you ??will play as a lost soul. You’re recruited by a Raven, who I guess has yo??ur voice. You travel between worlds, meet people, and fight others.

Everhood was unique for having a Guitar Hero-inspired battle system, which is actually better than that salad of a sentence makes it sound. Each of the characters you fought had their own unique music that made each battle feel distinct. It helped that the music wa??s pretty solid. That will be returning and expanded.

//youtu.be/MBuAt3HTfR4

Broken phosphor layer

Also returning is the off-kilter neon art style that looks like Earthbound played on a CRT with a broken phosphor layer. I?t still looks pretty good, but I�I’m distracted by the protagonist’s angular butt. They t?urn slightly, and there it is: a geometrically angular butt, complete with crack right down the middle. Do you see it?

“Releasing Everhood in 2021 changed our lives, and we’re preparing to share a bigger and stranger world with everyone,�said Chris Nordgren, co-founder of Foreign Gnomes. “We’re aiming to make a super-polished experience for newcomers, but for fans of the original…we’ve got plenty of mysteries for you to uncover.�/p>

Everhood was well-reviewed back in 2021 by everyone but me, Destructoid’s favorite curmudgeon. It was mostly due to technical issues (that may have been fixed by now), text errors, and what I perceived as a major narrative issue. What issue? Telling you wo??uld give away most of the plot, and I’m a coward, so I won’t.

However, I didn’t dislike Everhood. I wou?ldn’t say my review was negative, just that I wasn’t as ecstatic about is as some other critics. I can easily believe that the problems I found could be entirely addressed in a sequel. I’m very interested in trying it out.

Everhood 2 is coming to???? PC and Switch inâ€?2025. Wow, that’s a completely reasonable timeframe, but it feels so far out. I can’t think that far ahead.

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A whole lotta wholesomeness

It's summertime, and that means a whole lot of video game ne?ws. But amid the big showcases and publisher spotlights, there are also streams like the Wholesome Direct 2023, which try to shed some light on other types of games.

As the name would imply, this Direct focuses on "wholesome" games. You won't find any carnage, or really much combat here. Puzzles, adventure games, life sims, and lots of gardening lay in store ahead. For those who like their virtual botany and digital romantic entanglements, though, there a?re at least a few things to keep an eye on.

Whethe?r you caught the show live and need a refresher, or you're just looking for the highlights, here's everything we saw at today's Wholesome Direct 2023.

Everything shown at the Wholesome Direct 2023

• Chill life sim Mineko's Night Market is set for its Sept. 26 release date for PC and Switch, followed by Xbox One, PS4, and PS5 on October 26.
• Pekoe is a cat-populated tea shop game, arriving at the end of June.
• Spirit Swap: Lo-Fi Beats to Match-3 To has both lo-fi beats, and puzzles where one can match-3 alongside a vibrant cast of characters sometime in 2023.
• The characters of Button City return in Button City Soccer Days, a soccer game for all the animal pals.

[caption id="attachment_384649" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Subliminal Gaming[/caption]

• Frogsong is a froggy adventure game from Frogteam Games, and it's out today for Switch and PC.
• Explore a world of talking insects and contend with butterfly-based destiny in I Am A Caterpillar, headed to PC via Steam.
• Bubblegum Galaxy is a hexagonal tile-based building game, with a bit of corporate life drama mixed in. A demo for that is out on Steam now.
• Sticky Business also has a demo out on Steam, and sees you opening your own small sticker business, making and shipping out stickers.
• Collect creatures, brew potions, and make friends in this life-sim adventure Moonstone Island, set for sometime in 2023 and also coming to Steam Next Fest.
• Station to Station sees you connecting the world through the power of locomotives. It's got a demo out now on Steam.
• With a story of struggle, art, and romance, The Palace on the Hill looks like a compelling narrative. It's currently aiming for Q3 2023.

[caption id="attachment_384646" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Niku Games[/caption]

• Collect bunnies and arrange them for photos in Usagi Shima on September 1.
• KarmaZoo sees players work together with a myriad of animal abilities to reach the goal, eventually achieving victory through jolly animal cooperation.
• Flutter Away brings photography and chill nature vibes on August 3, for Switch and PC.
• Use even more of those photo skills, plus management and more, in Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge, a frog raising sim headed to PC.
• If you ever wanted a cross between Mario Party and Dungeons & Dragons, then Baladins is up your alley. Gather your party, pass stat checks, and complete quests in early 2024.

[caption id="attachment_384644" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Seed by Seed[/caption]

• A Little to the Left is getting some DLC in Cupboards and Drawers on June 27, with even more things to organize and arrange.
• Henry Halfhead is a clever puzzle game featuring a half-head that can possess real objects. It's currently aiming for a Steam launch.
• Build a little town of friendly villagers in Gourdlets from Aunty Games, which has some great pixel art.
• Lakeburg Legacies is a matchmaking management game with a demo that I enjoyed earlier this year. If you want to manage a world and legacy without the cutthroat nature of a CK3, Lakeburg Legacies should be one to watch for on July 20.
• Loftia is a community-building sim about working together and sustainable living. It's a cool direction for a community life sim.
• Wishes Unlimited, developers of Chicory and Wandersong, are showing their new game Beastieball, a creature-collecting sports RPG. It's a really rad idea that I'm very interested in.

[caption id="attachment_384464" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Wishes Unlimited[/caption]

• Smushi Come Home is a cute adventure game starring a little mushroom man. It has some Mail Time vibes, and it's out now on PC and Switch.
• Cooking story Venba has been one we've been waiting for, and it looks like it's almost ready to serve. Visai Games' food-driven narrative arrives on July 31
• Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland sees the pajama-laden protagonist go on a new adventure, and looks like a cozy platforming adventure.
• Garden Witch Life is hosting a closed beta for its magical farming life.
• Or if you prefer farming without the magic, and a little more pixel art, Orange Season has some Stardew-like vibes currently in development.
• Surmount looks like a goofy, fun climbing co-op adventure set to hit Steam and consoles in 2023.

[caption id="attachment_384647" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Indi??a??na-Jonas and Jasper Oprel[/caption]

• Grimoire Groves brings a little more magic, and colorful creatures, to the farming life arena.
• Arriving soon on Switch and Steam is Garden Buddies, where you can build a garden with your little buddies.
• A Tiny Sticker Tale lets you use things in the world around you as stickers, which you can then place in the world to solve puzzles. A neat concept that looks like it could have some fun applications!
• Everdeep Aurora is a showcase stand-out for me. A cat is on the search for her missing mom, and you'll go on a 2D exploration adventure to find her. Everything, from the UI to the art itself and the gameplay, looks great here. It's set to arrive on Steam and Switch in 2024.
• Kibu sees you play as a little red panda and carve out your own living in a mysterious, magical land.
• Gather ingredients and cook dishes to fulfill customers' requests in Magical Delicacy, a charming pixelated cooking and delivery game.
• Do you often hope for the return of Nintendogs? Well, Little Friends: Puppy Island might be what you're looking for, as this island full of puppies look to have plenty of secrets and canine pals to find on June 27. (A demo is also out now.)
• The Guardian of Nature has Henry, a botanist and last guardian of nature, venturing to put nature back into order. He can also shrink and interact with some cool nature-electronics, which suit the unique art style.
• Fans of mercantilism might like Townseek, where you seem to fly around and do business with your airship. That's heading to PC in 2024.
• Feed All Monsters looks like the kind of game I'd put too many hours into on mobile. The line-drawing puzzle game is actually coming to PC, and pretty soon too, with a release date of June 22.
• Can dinosaurs cook? Well, they can try in Manitas Kitchen, which sees a T-Rex attempt to own and operate a Jurassic pizza shop. That's out on October 23, 2023.
• Emotional moving sim Unpacking is heading to mobile! Not much more to say, other than that it's very worth your time.

[caption id="attachment_271795" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

• Botany Manor looks like a mysterious adventure centered around a mansion and its various flora. Discover what these mysterious plants could hold later this year.
• Solarpunk is a gardening sim set on technologically advanced floating islands, set apart by automation and machines. It's arriving sometime next year.
• Learn to forge and make legendary equipment While the Iron's Hot, is a cleverly named smithing adventure arriving sometime in Q4 of 2023.
• Wylde Flowers is already out, but the team is showing off some updates to its romance, farming, and character customization options today.
• Inkle always manages to surprise with its games, and A Highland Song looks like another great entry in the studio's resume. A Scottish highland adventure with gorgeous art sounds great. That arrives sometime this year.

[caption id="attachment_384645" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Inkle[/caption]

• Sushi Ben appeals to the anime nerd in me. It's a VR game with manga panel cut-ins and big expressions, and it's planned to hit headsets sometime in Q3 2023.
• Snufkin: Melody of Moomin Valley brings the popular character and world to life in virtual form.
• Photography fans might be intrigued by The Star Named EOS, set to arrive in 2024 from Silver Lining Studio.
• Meanwhile, Night in the Woods fans may definitely have a lot to like in Fall of Porcupine, a fellow 2D adventure game starring animals that is coming out very, very soon on June 15.
• We get a glimpse of the remastered Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, which has some cool modern updates like pronoun options and quality-of-life updates. That's out June 27.
• Tiny Book Shop is a store management sim about a great idea: a mobile bookstore. I really dig this concept!

[caption id="attachment_384648" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via neoludic games[/caption]

• Wood & Weather is a god-game set in a wooden toy city. Control the weather and make little friends along the way. There's a demo out now.
• For even more cat content, there's Campfire Cat Cafe, a mobile idle game that's out now about a little restaurant for cats in the forest.
• Sopa sees Miho pulled into a different world while making some soup with his grandmother. It's a dreamlike adventure with a really interesting premise. Developer Studio Bando is targeting Q2 2024.
• A little bit of card battles, and a little bit of social interaction, Tracks of Thought is a train-bound mystery with a unique style. It is targeting Q1 2024.
• Go-Go Town! sees you building and managing a town as the mayor of a rundown town. A sign-up for playtesting is live now here.
• It's montage time! Here are a few quick hits: CATO, Let's! Reovlution!, Diluvian Winds, Ducky's Delivery Service, Tall Trails, Petit Island, Quilts & Cats of Calico, Pizza Possum, The Last Alchemist, Mars First Logistics, Fishbowl, Mirth Island, Garden Life, Sanya, March of Shrooms, Toasterball, Townframe, Window Garden, Word Factori, Life After Magic, Athenian Rhapsody
• And one last game, Fields of Mistria, from NPC Studio and with guest music from Toby Fox. This is a farming, dating, and life sim, but the X-factor for me is the art. It reminds me a ton of the 80s and 90s era of anime, and with an added dash of magic, this does seem like a really promising framing for farming. It's set for sometime in 2024.

That's all fo??r this year's Wholesome Direct 2023. Let us know what you thought of it and any standouts in the comments below!

The post Everything shown at today’s Wholesome Direct 2023 appeared first on Destructoid.

A whole slew of indies to watch

Today, Double Fine and iam8bit aired another installment of Day of the ??Devs. It's a regular celebration of indie games, shining a spotlight on upcoming games and their creators.

The Day of the Devs selections usually don't disappoint, and this year's?? Day of the Devs held after the Summer Game Fest 2023 kick-off stream was solid. Alongside some games we knew of beforehand, there were some exciting new announcements, both from known creators and newer teams in the scene.

From the Chicory team's latest endeavor to a mind-bending world-moving puzzle game, there's a little something of everything. If you missed the stream, or are just l???ooking to find that one game you have a foggy recollection of, here's a recap of everything shown.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDXcGEo1TfU

Everything shown at today's Day of the Devs SGF 2023 showcase

• We start the show off with Beastieball, a new turn-based sports RPG from Wishes Unlimited, the team behind Wandersong and Destructoid's 2021 GOTY Chicory: A Colorful Tale. Rather than music or art, this time Wishes is tackling sports, with a monster trainer twist. Coach a team of Beasties and enhance their teamwork, helping them bond over the course of volleyball-style battles. It looks directly up my alley, and I can't wait to learn more.

[caption id="attachment_384464" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Wishes Unlimited[/caption]

• Heart Machine keeps things going with another look at Hyper Light Breaker, the 3D third-person roguish adventure set in the Hyper Light universe. It's set "decades" prior to Drifter, and will see the Breaker (you) tackling an open world and tough bosses. The co-op and roguelite elements do seem like they'll add quite a bit to do for Breakers around the world.
• Life's tough? Well, let's head to Simpler Times, a world-premiere reveal from Stoneskip. This story follows Taina, who's preparing to move out of her childhood home and start a new chapter. Much like Unpacking, it seems to be about the vibes and sentimentality of a home left behind and the changing of seasons in life.
• Viewfinder is one that's been on my radar for a while now, and Sad Owl Studios is showing some more footage of it here. For those unfamiliar, it's a puzzle game where pictures can become objects in the world by simply placing and changing your view. It's a little magical to watch it in motion. For fans of Portal or Superliminal, this one should be on your radar too.

[caption id="attachment_384466" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Sad Owl Studios[/caption]

• For a bit of a surprise, here's Hauntii, a gorgeous top-down action-adventure from Moon Loop Games where players haunt objects and people to solve puzzles. It's a novel concept, made all the better by a wonderful art style.
• You might remember Cart Life from years ago. It was an indie darling and made quite a splash before disappearing from storefronts. Well, it's coming back. AdHoc is partnering with original creator Richard Hofmeier to make a new version of Cart Life for modern systems. It's nice to see a piece of history preserved like this.
• Helskate is a mixture of Tony Hawk skateboarding and action-RPG brawling. Toss in a dash of demonic influence, and that's pretty much what Phantom Coast is building. It looks like a lot to take in, but for those who want to fight and shred at the same time, it could be a potent combination.
• Ever wondered what you'd do if you were only half a head? Well, that's Henry Halfhead every day. This puzzle game from Lululu Entertainment sees you hopping into and moving things, like a self-driven Cappy from Super Mario Odyssey. It's got a fun look and some inventive puzzles, just from what we've seen today.

[caption id="attachment_384480" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Lululu Entertainment[/caption]

• I'll fully admit, it took me a second to vibe with COCOON. At first blush, it seems like a top-down action-adventure game. And while its base mechanics facilitate that particular style, it was the world manipulation that really drew me in. Each area is a world, contained within an orb, that can be manipulated and moved between other areas. It's a Matryoshka doll of worlds. It's really clever. And Geometric Interactive's COCOON is now something I'm really looking forward to later this year.
• Été, which is French for summer, is a relaxing game from Impossible about a painter traveling abroad for a summer. Paint the world around you, do commissions, and befriend the locals as you master your painterly ways. This seems like a really good way to chill out with some artsy vibes, and the way you can remember and recreate things around you is a really clever touch.
• We take a brief pause in the games news for some event news: Indie Megabooth is back! I'm very happy to see this after the COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on the events scene.
• Now we return to the showcase with Summerhill, from Land & Sea, which looks like a serene story-driven puzzle game about a shepherd, a dog, and a flock. This is from the team behind the Alto's Adventure series, and it's got a great look and neat idea driving it.

[caption id="attachment_384465" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Land & Sea[/caption]

• I am up-front about my personal biases, and yes, one of them is social links in games. So Eternights, an action-RPG with heavy dating sim elements from Sutdio Sai, is laser-targeted at my interests. It feels like between this and Loop8, we're getting a new wave of games exploring relationship mechanics in RPGs. And I just think that's swell.
• Retro Gadgets is an inventive-looking gadget creation station from Licorice EHF that's already in Steam Early Access. You can build, solder, and customize little trinkets to do all kinds of things, from the look of it. This seems ideal for people enamored with the idea of retro engineering, but don't feel ready to start soldering just yet.
• Have you played a ton of Tears of the Kingdom, but still need more physics-driven building in your life? Well, Mars First Logistics looks like it could deliver just that. Build rovers and transports to deal with all the issues of getting things across the planet Mars, and even engage in some co-op action. Shape Shop's Mars builder will hit Steam Early Access on June 22.

[caption id="attachment_384463" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Shape Shop[/caption]

• Die Gute Fabrik, the makers of games like Mutazione and Sportsfriends, bring a big end-of-show reveal for their new game, Saltsea Chronicles. You play as the crew of a ship in search of their captain, managing their needs and expeditions as they search the world over. The art's great, and I love the card game that has different regional rules. It looks like a story with a big focus on the world and its denizens and should be one to keep an eye on.
• Finally, we close out with a reminder that Double Fine and 2 Player Productions' PsychOdyssey, a docu-series following the making of Psychonauts 2, is out now. I'm still watching my way through it, but I'll say right now that it's an incredible, very real look at the development process of video games. Highly recommended.

That's all for this Day of the? Devs SGF showcase. Let us know what you dug in the comments?? below!

The post Everything shown at the Day of the De?vs SGF 2023 showcase appeared first on Destructoid.

Octopi and secrets and drag, oh my!

The era that arguably made me the gamer I am today was the three-and-a-half-year span the Game Boy Advance ruled my life. I was 16 when it was released, and it was the first video game device I purchased with my own money. I didn’t have to wait for a birthday or holiday. The September after it first dropped, I took the bus over to the next town and dropped around $150 on the indigo purple version along with copies of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Super Mario Advance. Five days later, I would return to the store to get a light for the screen because it ?was dark as hell.

That was a difficult year for me. Hav??ing a GBA got me through some very tough times. The toughest of which was my move from Washingt?on to California. A new city. A new school. Having to start from scratch to make friends. It wasn’t easy, and I spent more time than I’d like to admit with my nose inches away from my Game Boy Advance screen rather than being around other people. Because it was there for me at such a pivotal point in my life, there isn't another gaming device, handheld or otherwise, that brings me as much nostalgic joy.

I’m always looking out for games that can transport me back to that time in my life—even though I’m well aware that recapturing your youth is impossible. I just like the look and feel of games from that generation, which is why for the past week, I’ve been infatuated with Tako no Himitsu.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OSjg_zyKb8

Tako no Himitsu is the second game from Christophe Galati. About five years ago, I corresponded with him about his first game, Save me Mr. Tako!, in the weeks leading up to its release. I was hopeful for the game, but the release version of the game wasn’t up to snuff. Some behind-the-scenes drama between publisher Nicalis and Galati ensued, and a few years later, Galati re-released Save me Mr. Tako: Definitive Edition with the assistance of Limited Run Games.

"I had to pause everything in order to re-release Tako as a Definitive Edition," Galati explained, "even though I was told to give up and move on. I’m proud I did it even though it was like starting over. Thanks to the Limited Run Physical version, the game is finally earning me money, four years after its ?original release."

I can’t imagine the difficulty of making one indie game, let alone having to make it again. But that’s what Galati did. It was a massive undertaking. But he wanted to save his original vision for Tako, w?hich was to pay homage to the various gaming generations that helped him growing up. As he told me in our first interview, Galati got his Game Boy Color right around the time I got my Game Boy Advance.

"I ended up getting the Game Boy Advance not too long afte??r, when I was nine I think. It became a really important part of my teenage years," Galati said.

[caption id="attachment_379880" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Deneos Games[/caption]

As it did with many, the GBA had a profound effect on Galati growing up. He said he got it when he started developing his own tastes and didn’t have to rely on his older brother’s game collection for something to play. He could actually ask for games he wanted to play or buy them with his allowance. It was during these years he discovered his love of the RPG, and if there is one thing the Game Boy Advance had no shortage of, it was qua??lity RPGs.

"The GBA is the platform where I experienced Final Fantasy for the first time, starting with Dawn of Souls (I & II), then IV, V, and VI, which stayed my favorite of the series," Galati said. "I spent a lot of time playing Golden Sun, which also became one of my favorite games. A friend lent me a small guide at school to find all the Djinns, and I remember the hype when I discovered Golden Sun II (The Lost Age)."

He cites many other classics of the era, including Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Those titles and more are helping shape Galati’s ambition with Tako no Himitsu. But it’s two specific games that are at the? root of his inspiration.

A clear inspiration

"Illusion of Gaia had a huge impact on me growing up. Quintet Studio’s games had this kind of melancholy around them, a very unique aura," Galati says. "I took inspiration from that and wanted to create a simple action RPG with kind of a lite aspect in terms of mechanics and items, like Terranigma, but with many playable characters and a unique mood. Golden Sun also inspires me a lot due to his awesome gameplay. Its psynergy feature directly inspired the Tako no Himitsu magic system, as you can pair characters with an octopus that can use magic spells both in battle and for exploration puzzles. I hope I can do really cool dungeon puzzle design, as well as hidin?g a lot of secrets in the world."

[caption id="attachment_379883" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Deneos Games[/caption]

So what exactly is Tako no Himitsu? On his pitch deck, Galati describes the game as an action RPG whose gameplay and aesthetics are inspired by the Game Boy Advance. In the game, players will take up a party of characters with unique movesets who can be paired with octopi that grant magic skills for combat and exploration. Galati’s description notes Tako no Himitsu will have simple gameplay and combat against a legion of shadow monsters, a rich world filled wit?h?? secrets to explore, and a story that explores how secrets impact us and those around us.

"The code name of the game was Himitsu Project right from the start," Galati explains. "Himitsu means secrets in Japanese, which was handy because I kept the heart of the project secret for a long time, but also because 'secret' is the main topic the game is dealing with (for both the characters and the world). The goal of the game is to explore how secrets become shadows in people's lives, and how people in power use them to rule the world. Tako no Himitsu can be translated as Secret of the Octopus. It was hard picking a name, because as a sequel it needed to have Tako in it, and the team got attached to Himitsu, so why not keep both? As the game develop??ment started in Japan, having a Japa??nese name was also a cool nod to its roots."

Five months at the Villa Kujoyama

The origins of Tako no Himitsu can be found far away from Galati's native France. Following Galati’s fallout with Nicalis, he applied and was accepted into a French Artist Residency program that sent him to Kyoto, Japan. It was here, at Villa Kujoyama, that Galati would heal from the less-than-stellar launch of Save me Mr. Tako!, commit himself to revising the game for the Definitive Edition, and set about on the sequel.

"I ended up pretty burned out and a bit disgusted by the game industry I would say," Galati says. "Spending time at the Villa Kujoyama in Japan really helped me to heal, it gave me the determination to save Save me Mr. Tako! and continue making games. I had to fight abuse my whole life so giving up was not an option for me. It’s very hard for marginalized people and I want to prove t?o myself that I can exist in this industry."

Galati documented his life at Villa Kujoyama in a Medium post that detailed his five-month stay. It’s an interesting summary of food, the Japanese indie scene, and the first stages of development for what would eventually become Tako no Himitsu. Galati says this spiritual sequel to Save me Mr. Tako! will be a lot more personal and take inspiration?? from events in his life.

It will also take inspiration from the people in his life. One of the playable characters in Tako no Himitsu is Karan, a drag artist. I was curious about the inclusion of Karan in the game and if Galati was aware of the incredibly stupid and ?dangerous push in the United States to rebrand and ban drag performance?s as some sort of sexual act.

[caption id="attachment_379879" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Deneos Games[/caption]

"I’m pretty much aware of what is happening in the US regarding Drag Ban laws, and sadly the same thing is starting to happen in France too," Galati says. "I was introduced to this art form in 2016 by my friend Mirage who was starting drag at the time. It was before RuPaul's Drag Race became available on Netflix, it was less mainstream so I had to follow her to small dark bars in the middle of the night in Paris, I’ll never forget this magic. I stayed close to this world and wanted to portray it in my game. I already put some queer representation in Save me Mr. Tako!, but I want to go a step further this time with a queer main character as I think it’s important to do my part in representation, especially with everything that is happening right now. I stayed in touch with many drag artists from all over the world in order to portray the drag scene properly in Tako no Himitsu. Ka??ran was also inspired by people I dated in my life, he will be very? important in the story."

Karan will be just one of several characters players will take control of throughout the adventure. Galati says he is taking a Final Fantasy VI approach to the narrative where there isn’t one main character but a large cast who have their own struggles. I’m curious about all the?? characters revealed so far, but I’m also interested in how the game will incorporate the octopi.

Imagine a world with no takoyaki

Tako no Himitsu takes place roughly 800 years after the events of Save me Mr. Tako! While that game ended on a positive note, the years between the two titles reveal whatever peace was achieved at the end of the first game didn’t last long, and octopi were soon wiped from the world. In Tako no Himitsu, the characters you take control of will discover there are octopus heroes who survived extermination and are ready to assist them in their world-saving adventure. Taking inspiration from Golden Sun, players can expect to use their octopus pals in combat and environmental puzzle solving. The octopi you collect can be raised and powered up by spending time with them in the Octopus Garden Tako Fountain.

"I played Sonic Adventure 2 on the Gamecube a lot, the Chao Garden definitely inspired the Tako Fountain feature in Tako no Himitsu," said Galati. "In order to use magic spells, you have to pair characters with octopuses. The goal of the garden is to increase your bond with octopuses and make them stronger. By fighting shadow monsters, you’ll get shadow gems that you can throw in the fountain to make fruits grow and feed your octopuses. There are also a few other items you can use there to boost magic and stuff like that, the mood of your octopuses as an impact on the spell power. I can confirm already that you can pet octopuses in Tako no Himitsu!"

[caption id="attachment_379884" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Deneos Games[/caption]

All of this sounds right up my alley, and seeing the game in motion is like gazing into a past I’d much rather be in than our current present. Galati is aiming for a 2025 launch for Tako no Himitsu on PC and consoles, including whatever Nintendo device is out in the world at that time. He’s also not doing it alone this time around. Galati has teamed up with a small group of artists, including Valentine Seiche, Pixel Boy, and Challenger.AAA to develo??p the art for the game. Having a staff means having to cut checks. Galati has secured some funding already, but more is needed to fully fund the project.

Later this year, a Kickstarter campaign for Tako no Himitsu will launch with a 50,000â‚?goal. His ultimate goal is to move away from being a one-man-band indie developer and actually having a team work with him at his studio Deneos Games. A team would give Galati the ability to make bigger, bolder, and hopefully queerer games. It would also help him take the logical next step for his Tako franchise. If this series is to pay homage to the handheld eras of the past, then a sequel to Tako no Himitsu would jump us to the Nintendo DS, right?

"Who knows what the future holds! I have a pretty good idea of what my next game will be, but first, we need to finish the development of Tako no Himitsu," said Galati. "What I can say is that I’d love to make a game with a 2D/3D mix like it was done in Grandia and Xenogears."

The Kickstarter page for Tako no Himitsu is now available, and the game is available on Steam to wishlist. Galati hopes to launch the game on PC and consolesâ€??”though he is ju??st focusing on PC right now—in Q2 of 2025, with a demo in Q3 of this year.

The post Save me Mr. Tako’s sequel looks like a long-lost GBA RPG appeared first on Destructoid.

It's about to get garlicky

Video game adaptations are all the rage, and Vampire Survivors is now joining the trend. Developer poncle's ev??er-evolving auto-fighting? survival game has an animated series in the works.

Via Deadline, poncle's founder Luca Galante is partnering with Story Kitchen, the company working on other game adaptations like Sifu, Streets of Rage, and more. Founded by John Wick writer and creator Derek Kolstad, Sonic the Hedgehog film and TV producer Dmitri M. Johnson, and former APA agent and partner Mike Goldberg, Story Kitchen is certainly tackling a decent amount of video game adaptations. Games consulting agency Robot Te??ddy will also be supporting the show.

As for what the show will be a??bout? Well, that's still a bit unc?lear.

"The most important thing in Vampire Survivors is the story, so it's a dream come true to see what started as a little indie game I made on my weekends come to life as an animated TV show!" Gallante said in a press release. "It’s also great to be partnering up with such experienced and talented people to make the show. I do wonder if they've realised that there isn't a single vampire in Vampire Survivors, though."

The release confirms that, just like the game, the actual existence o??f vampires has? not been confirmed.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvMkS6GcxFU

Adapting the Survivors

Normally I'd be wary, but it seems like poncle and Gallante are keeping a bit of fun mixed in with the whole project. Seeing as Vampire Survivors draws heavily on past works like Castlevania, it's hard not to see the potential; but I'm also curious to see how those ideas play out, and look any different, in a Survivors series.

As long as there's some solid garlic jokes, though, I'll probably be along for the ride. Vampire Survivors was a surprise hit that's kept growing with time, and I can't say I'm n??ot curious to see what this team does with their very own series adaptation.

The post A V??amp??ire Survivors animated series is in the works appeared first on Destructoid.

A little look at what's new for indies this year

Nintendo aired a new Indie Worl?d Showcase today, spotlighting what's to come for independent games on the Switch. Clocking in at roughly 20 minutes, it's a nea?t little look at what indies have in store amid the coming months.

Really, it was a strange show. The games shown were neat, but this showcase felt a little slim when?? it came to firm updates. Several projects popped up that we've known about, and a lot of windows were confirmed, but there was less in the way of hard dates.

Still, there were some surprises, as always. And even a few "out later today" appearances, which are always a highlight. I'll also just pre-emptively say this now: sorry Silksong sickos, but no news.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=brNLmMMB-J4

Without further ado, let's get into the recap.

Everything shown at the Nintendo Indie World Showcase for April 2023

• The show kicks off with Mineko's Night Market, a charming shop sim with absolutely gorgeous graphics. I love the vibes here, and the minigames combined with running the stall make it seem like this could be a pleasant little slice-of-life game with some rural, spiritual vibes. That's out on September 26, 2023.

[caption id="attachment_374418" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Nintendo / Meowza Games[/caption]

• Farming and mining game My Time at Sandrock, the follow-up from the My Time at Portia team, is slated for a Switch port in summer 2023.
• Chaotic co-op restaurant game Plate Up! is already a blast on PC, but Switch players will get to hop into the ever-evolving sim later this year. It's aiming to hit Nintendo Switch sometime in October 2023.
• Quilts and Cats of Calico is adapted from real-life tabletop game Calico. It also simulates a very real reality of cats walking all over your tabletop games. Still, fans of feline friends and Clubhouse Games may find something to enjoy here. That arrives sometime in fall 2023.
• Rift of the Necrodancer was a not-so-surprising hit from my time at PAX East 2023, and we got some looks at the different musical bouts and mechanics coming to the rhythm game sometime this year.

[caption id="attachment_341528" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Brace Yourself Games[/caption]

• We're kicking off a DLC addition-specific section with A Little to the Left DLC coming in June. The premium DLC will add 25 new messes to the game, and it looks to be a little more tactile.
• Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon gets the Puzzler's Pack DLC for free this spring, with some new characters and hats.
• Cult of the Lamb ushers in the Relics of the Old Faith DLC on April 24. I played a little of this at PAX East, and it certainly offers more of what Cult of the Lamb does: creepy-cute animals and intense combat, with a hearty side of base-building.
• YouTube's Dunkey arrives to introduce Animal Well, an indie project under his Bigmode publishing label that's aiming for early 2024. Even before the pickup, this curious puzzler was on my radar, so I'm looking forward to seeing what mysteries the final version holds.

[caption id="attachment_374416" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Nintendo / Shared Memory[/caption]

• The surprise hit of the showcase for me is Crime O'Clock, a game that's a little hard to discern from gameplay alone. It seems like you travel through different areas and times, attempting to solve mysteries. Both the art style and general concept intrigue me, and I'm curious to see how it all comes together on June 30.
• Both Teslagrad 2 and a remastered version of Teslagrad are out today, for those who want some immediate exploration in their lives.
• Shadows Over Loathing has a digital version out today, with a physical version planned for the fall.
• The dark and grim sequel Blasphemous 2 is looking to hack, slash, rip and tear this summer.

[caption id="attachment_374417" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Nintendo / The Game Kitchen[/caption]

• Oxenfree II: Lost Signals resurfaces with a firm release date of July 12, 2023. Easily one of my most anticipated indie launches this year.
• And now we're into the montage. The pretty game Paper Trail leads off with an August 2023 window.
• The adorably named Little Kitty, Big City continues the virtual cat trend sometime in 2024.
• I couldn't glean much from the trailer for Chants of Sennaar, but I was pretty intrigued by it. That's arriving on September 5.
• The action-heavy Brotato will hit Switch sometime in 2023.
• Escape Academy: The Complete Edition brings virtual escape rooms to the handheld system in fall 2023.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is available later today, for those who want their animatronic scares on the go.
• Lastly, a surprise date for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk closes out the montage portion. Maybe I'm biased, as someone very much looking forward to Team Reptile's title, but this August 18 release date felt like it deserved more fanfare.

The post Everything shown at the April 2023 N??intendo Indie World Showcase appeared first on Destructoid.

The first indie block of 2023

Nintendo is gearing up for a third-party spotlight on upcoming independent games. A new Indie World Showcase wil?l air tomorrow, April 19.

Airing at 9 a.m. PT / noon E.T., the new Nintendo Indie World Showcase is expected to run for roughly 20 minutes. You can follow the stream here on YouTube or in the embed below:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=brNLmMMB-J4

A friendly reminder that this is an Indie World Showcase, meaning it will highlight specifically independent games for the Nintendo Switch. So don't roll in expecting some new Tears of the Kingdom details or anything.

The indie world of Switch

Still, what can we expect? Well, Nintendo often uses these streams to highlight the interesting projects coming to its hybrid console from indie developers, which can really run the gamut. Previous showcases have featured A Space for the Unbound, Inscryption, and Rogue Legacy 2, for example.

I know there's one giant hope that many Hollow Knight fans have for this showcase. Silksong will likely be spammed in the stream chat throughout the event. And I'd be lying if I said?? I wasn't interested in seeing that pop up, too.

Still, there are plenty of indie games slotted for 2023 that we're waiting to hear some information on. The infectiously stylish Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is slated for a sum??mer 2023 window right now, and would be a welcome surprise.

It's always the ones that catch me by surprise that stick, though. Fingers crossed for some out-now reveals, surprising new titles, and some charming s??tuff to boot up on my Switch this weekend. The first Indie World Showcase of 2023 airs tomorrow, April 19, at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET.

The post A new Nintendo Indie World Showcase airs tomorrow appeared first on Destructoid.