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 amateur projects. There was one big difference: Nethack. Nethack was…
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…
Welcome to Digitally Downloaded’s weekly catch-up news feature, the catch-up coffee. With…
The first game from Studio Daimon – a JRPG called Path of…
I’m the first to admit that I’m drawn to witchy titles, and that does include wizardry. When the game doesn’t deposit cash directly into the pockets of a mega-TERF, even better. So I’ve had my eye on Spells & Secrets for a while now, and I’m thrilled to write that…
Read More
Die. Gather. Craft. Survive. Die again. Unlock new stuff. And try it all over again. That’s the basic premise of An Ankou, where players will explore haunted lands and become a servant of death. The whole ushering people to the end thing was done really well with Spiritfarer (seriously, play…
Read More
Ed-0: Zombie Uprising is simultaneously excellent B-grade action fun, and an utter waste of an enormously talented developer’s finest qualities. Lancarse, the developer behind El Shaddai, Lost Dimension, Monark and The DioField Chronicle, knows how to tell a story. Ed-0 has an excellent concept. Related reading: For another roguelike with…
Read More
Loop8: Summer Of Gods is too easy to overlook. I know, I put it to a side myself while I was playing much larger and high-profile games (such as Final Fantasy XVI). I do feel like I did this game a disservice, however, as it is different and has the…
Read More
It’s going to take some work to top Steelrising, which was one of the big surprises of 2022 with the way it handled an alternative universe French Revolution-with-automatons, but Polish developer, Superstatic is going to give it a red-hot go with Liberté, which is leaving Early Access for full release…
Read More
Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook could have been something special. The premise is really quite clever, but unfortunately, it ends up relying too heavily on the roguelike foundations for that premise to really take flight. Survival is meant to be the core of the thing, and in theory, it reaches…
Read More
At first glance, I’m drawn to the visual artwork in Tamarak Trail. The developers were inspired by many artists, including the Group of Seven. The Group of Seven are infamous in Canada as the landscape artists of the early to mid 20th century, so that’s a big name to throw…
Read More
Brave’s Rage is fine. It’s a new entry in a very over-saturated genre, and doesn’t do nearly enough to stand out, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with the game itself. It’s just disappointing that there seems to be a shrinking pool of gameplay structures that indies work with, at a…
Read More
If Lone Ruin had been released three years ago, it would have been noteworthy. If it had been released a decade ago, it would have been celebrated. The game itself is an excellent example of taut, intense mechanics, a well-designed (and challenging) difficulty curve, and moody aesthetics. Unfortunately, it’s a…
Read More
Super Bullet Break is a new roguelike that has been published by PQube, and it has so much going for it – great turn-based combat, gorgeous characters, excellent, pristine fan service. Unfortunately it misfired in one critical area, and got the difficulty mixed up a bit. That wasn’t enough to…
Read More