Author: Christian Donlan

[ad_1] A brilliant musical puzzler that sends you out into the world enriched and filled with curiosity. The middle eight, a component of songwriting I really love, is sometimes referred to as being a “meanwhile, back at the ranch” moment for a piece of music. The song has established a structure by this point,…

[ad_1] Clive ‘N’ Wrench is a throwback 3D platformer created by one developer, Rob Wass, working for over a decade. As you might imagine from that, the end result is both heartfelt and fiddly. It’s a fascinating trip back to the glory days of the PS1 and N64 collectathon platformers that the developer clearly…

[ad_1] I was drawn to Caelyn’s review of Phantom Brigade by a lovely bit of video game maths in the header: this is Into the Breach meets Frozen Synapse, apparently. What an intoxicating thought. The chess-puzzle precision of Into the Breach with the stark, time-bending shenanigans of Frozen Synapse. Surely this is a game…

[ad_1] Hello! There are so many good games out this week, it’s almost dizzying. Top of any list is a new game from Llamasoft – Akka Arrh is absolutely astonishing, a bright splinter of arcade genius that ranks with the studio’s very best work. Elsewhere, Taps had a lovely war with Company of…

[ad_1] Give yourself to this elegant and empathetic study of solitude. In Madison Karrh’s new point-and-click game, birth follows death. You are lonely in the city, so you wander about, finding bones and organs and then using them to construct a makeshift friend. It would be a Frankenstein story, if it ever felt even…

[ad_1] Chaos is actually choreography, as an unreleased Atari arcade game gets the full Minter treatment. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked with oil paints, but the point of them is simple: you can move them around pretty much forever. Oils take an eternity to dry, which can be really annoying if…

[ad_1] The Tower is exactly my kind of thing. It’s a Pico-8 game created by the luminously talented designer Tallywinkle, and I’ve been playing it on-and-off since last week. I think on-and-off is actually the best, and perhaps the only true, way to enjoy this. And the idea is simple. You’re climbing a tower…

[ad_1] The demo for Radio the Universe in Steam Next Fest is a genuinely transporting piece of work. I played it, and while I played it, I was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere glitchy and twitchy, inspired by Giger’s wet metal insectoid surfaces, sure, but also VHS tapes, dial-up modems, Zelda, and the New York…

[ad_1] Oh, this is new. It feels new anyway. In Super Raft Boat Together, which you can try out as part of the Steam Next Fest, you’re in classic twin-stick territory. But your arena is a raft, out at sea, and the beasts you’re up against can take chunks out of it. But! You…

[ad_1] Hello! I’ve been playing Roller Drama over the last week or so. It’s not a long game, I gather, but I’m taking it slow, because it feels, in its own way, like it’s a whole world I am being dunked in, and I want to make the most of it, and to live…