I’m about to really age myself, but when I was young, the idea of (legitimately) free video games was very different to what it is today. There were no microtransactions, and no Fortnites, Genshin Impacts, or MMOs. If you were playing free, you were either playing shareware demos or very…
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One of the things that I find continually surprising about video games is the idea that, on the one hand, we consider them to be inherently an art form, but on the other, we just never talk about games in the same frameworks that we talk about every other art…
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I guess was inevitable that at some point someone would look at bringing the Slay The Spire-style roguelike formula to Puzzle Quest. In fact, I’m surprised that it hasn’t happened yet (or, at least, I haven’t heard of one before now). But that’s okay. Good Shepherd’s Demon’s Mirror has come…
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They don’t really make that many games like Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs The Thrilling Steamy Maze Kiwami any more. Anime fan service games complete with bath scenes, destructible clothing and school uniform costumes are few and far between (in part because of the spectre of consoles and/or Steam…
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Hellboy has almost always been a property that has deserved better than it has been given. Ron Perlman starred in a spectacular film, but outside of that the property has had all the potential going for it, but only ever middling execution. It’s almost as though the people who work…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Conan Chop Chop wants to sit somewhere between Gauntlet and Hades. It wants to be an action roguelike with a moreish loot system, but also being orientated heavily towards bringing four friends together for some button-mashing chaos. Unfortunately, it’s much too inconsistent to reach the heights…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The Hyakki Yagyō – Night Parade Of 100 Demons – might be my favourite piece of Japanese folkloric storytelling. A “monster manual” of sorts, featuring some of the most bemusing, weird, wild, and entertaining spirit monsters, Hyakki Yagyō speaks deeply about the Shinto view of the…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. In 2022, I do hope developers learn to properly pair narrative genres with gameplay mechanics. Horror is a difficult genre to get right; it’s not just about having ugly monsters and creepy houses. It requires a carefully creative hand to guide players on a journey. It…
Read MoreInterview by Matt S. We haven’t had the time or bandwidth to review roguelike deckbuilding experience, Inscryption, but this game has all the hallmarks of becoming a cult classic. Harvard absolutely loved his time with it in preview stage and, once we start to clear out the backlog, we do…
Read MoreReview by Lindsay M.I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I picked up a controller to play The Eternal Cylinder for the first time. The trailers show a weird and wonderful world that is also quite scary because, well, a giant rolling cylinder is about to crush you unless…
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