Ah Caleb, welcome. You’re here to go back to the past and find those memories of pure joy, love and happiness. We’ve found here that focusing on these memories helps with our process immensely, helping us to form a core of wonderful experiences that we can then use to build on further. Now, of course, everything you see here isn’t real and has been designed with your utmost safety in mind. So just relax and listen to my voice, we’ll be getting to work shortly, and remember to stay on the path that I set for you. We don’t want you straying too far from your happy core now do we?

The work put into the assets of Subliminal can’t be understated as they are right up there with numerous other games that have gone for that pure, photorealistic aesthetic. There’s no doubt in my mind that a lot of time was spent wrangling photogrammetric assets, refining the lighting to get that harsh fluorescent glow and so many other processes and details that I’m blissfully unaware of. The result speaks for itself although I will admit the screenshots don’t really do it justice as it really something else to see it in motion.

Subliminal isn’t a walking simulator per-se, although it’s really not far from it. The core game loop is exploration based, having you explore through the environment you’re in to find things, discover puzzles and generally get familiar with the environment before you tick off that one thing it wants you to do to progress. There’s a number of what are effectively quick time events without the on-screen prompts for the…higher-tension sections of the game but apart from that there’s really not much that changes from level to level. That being said though the problem that I had, and many others did it seems, was just how weird and intractable most of the puzzles are, something which the narrative unfortunately can’t make up for.

The opening sections of the game weren’t too bad for this as the mechanical complexity was low and the narrative pace felt right. However that all slows down significantly in the following levels, especially when it’s not exactly clear just how you’re supposed to progress a particular section. Suddenly you’re running around in circles, wondering if there was some switch or pattern you simply didn’t recognise all the while the narrator is completely silent and the environment gives you no further clues as to what the narrative might reveal.

Which had me asking the question of whether or not I’d seen everything I needed to in order to make an assessment of it after only an hour and a half. The honest answer was yes and it was mostly because whilst the game was making an attempt to draw me in with the bit of worldbuilding it did at the start it failed to capitalise on that in any way. I know, doing full voice overs for games like this is an expensive endeavour in all respects, but the many games that Subliminal takes inspiration from were good because they made that investment to make sure that the player was still engaged even when the puzzles were failing them.

To their credit though the devs have heard this feedback and are taking steps to make it more approachable to a wider audience. Despite what a few vocal detractors have to say on the Community Hub that’s a good thing and something I hope we see more of. You really have to look no further than how Supergiant games changed up the narrative of Hades II based on the critical reception it garnered to see how these things can be for the better. Art can be art for its own sake but there’s much to be said about making it fit an audience. We may not be asking Banksy to change the colours of Girl with Balloon, but you sure as shit can find enough examples of people doing exactly that because that’s how they’ll enjoy it.

Anyway, getting off my philosophical high horse here, this puts Subliminal firmly in the category of wait for now. Whilst it gets so many things right the puzzle pacing and overall narrative means there’s just not enough there for me to recommend it right now. I’m glad the devs are listening and maybe there’s hope that future episodes will pull me back but even should that happen I think I’ll be watching a Let’s Play before I dive back in myself.

Rating: 6.5/10

Subliminal is available on PC right now for $14.50. Total playtime was 1.5 hours with 4% of the achievements unlocked.

Raccoin, which its full name Coin Pusher Roguelike describes aptly, puts you in charge of extracting a set amount of value out of one of those tried and treasured coin pushers. The base mechanics are easy enough to understand: put coins in, they fall in and push others out, simple. The challenge comes from the ever-increasing score you need to achieve which is only possible through the strategic use of special coins, items and the various interactions that all of these have with each other. It’s very much in the vein of Balatro where the initial mechanics seem straightforward enough but the real depth comes from the complexity around the interactions of all the different mechanics.

The visual style of Raccoin has its feet in two camps: on the one side it would seem like your typical low poly/low texture indie but, with the addition of some rather clever filtering it becomes a kind of retro-future pixel art interpretation of said style. The most fun part about this is when you’re given the option to choose your pixel size as one of the starting options which, should you choose to max it out, does help to sell the premise that this was some kind of found-game from a bygone era of CRTs and limited graphics budgets.

The game’s tutorial does a good job of getting you familiar with the core mechanics in a limited setting before unleashing you on the game proper. There is still a lot, and I really mean a lot, that’s not said as part of that tutorial though as it basically boils down to strategy. Pushing coins, choosing things that look cool and just generally fumbling your way through will probably get you half way through a run (which goes for 15 rounds) but it will become obvious rather quickly just how much steam your current build has. This is, of course, by design: you don’t start off with all the coins unlocked, there are numerous ones that don’t synergize with your chosen character class and simple luck of the roll will determine what tools you have access to.

For instance the game lets you play past winning the current round which, if you’re feeling like you’re onto something good, can be a good way to bolster your ticket reserves which are the main currency for upgrades. Doing that though could land you in a lot of hot water for the next round though, as a bunch of coins dropping after the fact do not count towards the next rounds score at all. So even though your total score might be well beyond what the current round requires you still need to earn whatever that round demands.

That’s only example as well and keeping track of all these different mechanics and how they interact is going to be the difference between consistently winning rounds and being taken by the will of RNGesus at every turn. For Balatro veterans this is really nothing new; learning which mechanics you’ve got and how they can scale is part of the core game loop. For newcomers to this kind of genre though it’s likely going to be daunting and a little bit frustrating given just how many different ways there are for things to interact with each other. Thankfully though the devs are frequent posters in their own subreddit providing some great clarity on how things work.

Some keen readers may have noted in my opening paragraph that I mentioned I’d been on an incremental binge and that Raccoin, despite one of its core features being big-number-go-up, isn’t one of those; it’s a Roguelike deckbuilder. Therein lies the rub as to why I didn’t gel with it as much I think as whilst I certainly had fun in certain runs (all of which the screenshots in this review are taken from) I didn’t get that same hook into me like I usually do with incrementals. Funnily enough this kind of echoes my experience with Balatro as my initial review capped out somewhere at 5 hours or so. Today though? I’ve got over 30 hours played in it, far less than some but still a pretty good innings for a game that I’d basically thought I was done with at the time. Does that mean Raccoin is due for a second wind post-review? Maybe, although I’ll be honest and say I haven’t really felt the desire to go back…yet.

Raccoin does exactly what it says on the tin: it’s a roguelike deckbuilder that uses the genre as firm basis whilst showcasing it’s own unique take on the idea. The base mechanics are solid, making it easy enough to get into but incredibly challenging to master. Of course there’s numerous posts, videos and guides out there showcasing absolutely ridiculous numbers that can be generated and I’m sure many Balatro faithfuls will find a good home here. For me, whilst I enjoyed the time I spent with it, that same big number hook I’d been craving just didn’t seem to catch. Maybe it will someday but for now I think I’ll be giving this genre, and all those like it, a rest for a while.

Rating: 8.0/10

Raccoin is available on PC right now for $17.75. Total playtime was 3.2 hours with 13% of the achievements unlocked.

Just another supply trip, that’s all it was meant to be. Flying over the Alaskan wilderness I was met with much of the same snow covered landscape that I’d seen time and time before, the endless white stretching out past the horizon. That’s when it hit and suddenly the plane is in more than one piece and my companion, Donovan, is making a break for it with his parachute haphazardly strapped to his back. I try to wrest control of the plane as best I could but to no avail so I hoofed it out the back in the same way as my partner did. Now here I am, in the endless white itself, wondering how I’m going to make sure both Donovan and I make it back home.

The obvious comparison to make here is Firewatch as it most certainly takes inspiration from in terms of narrative, mechanics and of course visuals. That same kind of stylised realistic aesthetic is ever-present with everything feeling grounded in reality but having that kind of animated, dream-like quality attached to them. The visuals are absolutely at their strongest when you’re taking in the wider set pieces and wide vistas with the lack of detail becoming more apparent when you’re up and close in the more tight environments. The music and voice acting are standouts as well helping to humanise this strange world that you’ll find yourself in.

From a gameplay perspective Arctic Awakening is your standard one-step-up from walking simulator adventure game, giving you a number of straightforward puzzles and narrative choices to keep you engaged throughout the game’s playtime. Most of the time it’s just the simple “Collect X number of Y” kinds of things or perhaps looking for a set of different switches to throw but for the most part they’re all things that you’ll be able to solve without too much difficulty. Along with your helpful robot companion (who will give you relentless hints if it sees you’re taking too long to solve something) there’s relatively few blockers to progressing the main narrative forward at any point, which is refreshing to see.

The game mentions early on that your choices will have impact and whilst it’s possible that they do my impression was that it didn’t have as much of an impact as you might first have guessed. For many of my choices I took the level headed, sensible option and whilst that seemed to craft the main character (Kai) in the way that I wanted him there were times further on in the story where he’d start to act completely incongruent to the way I’d been crafting him. Now, I get it, actually giving players meaningful impacts over the story is a challenging thing to do at any scale but the fact that it was so noticeable that my choices weren’t having that much of an impact says a bit about how you should set expectations with players.

There are other signs too that the game possibly had grander ambitions that needed to be cut in favour of actually releasing it. The survival mechanics for instance, something that actually had me wondering whether or not I actually wanted to play this in the first place, whilst there and definitely work in the way that’s intended are basically completely optional. The only downside to not eating or drinking is that your vision will get blurry but that can be cleared by meditating at a cairn which, funnily enough, can be done quicker if your starved/thirsty than it can if you’re fully fed. To be sure it’s easier to do if your meters are full but it is noticeably slower.

The narrative is solid overall, steering clear of the usual traps of extended exposition and setting itself up well with ample opportunities to build the world out through natural conversations between all the characters. The aforementioned disjointedness in some sections aside you do get to see real growth in all of the characters through the game’s playthrough and, whilst you’re ultimately left with an endotron 3000 style ending that choice at least has some weight to it.

Arctic Awakening might not be revolutionary in any one respect but what it does do, it does well. Calling it Firewatch in the snow is selling it short as it dives deeper and longer into its characters, giving them far more time to build than Firewatch ever did. But the inspiration lines are clear and, in many ways, it does a lot of things better. However the advertised weight of choices was oversold, leading to some incongruencies in the narrative, plus the completely optional (but not advertised as such) survival mechanics do give the devs some room for improvement when it comes to their next title. That being said whatever GoldFire Studios gets up to next, I’m here for it.

Rating: 8.25/10

Arctic Awakening is available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S right now for $37.99. Game was played on the PC with a total of 7.6 hours playtime and 65% of the achievements unlocked.

The premise is easy enough to understand: you can start off with washing dishes to make a few bucks before you’ll be given access to a catalogue of scratchers to try and gamble your way out whatever poverty you seem to find yourself in. The secret advantage you have over everyone else trying these scratchers is that you can, through means that are probably nefarious in nature, increase your luck with them. The usual house advantage will no longer applies and you are now free to scratch as many as you want in order to make your coin. But how fast can you do it and, when the time comes, will you be the good company man that your benefactors want you to be?

Incrementals, roguelikes and deck builders alike have all seemed to settle on the pixel art aesthetic for one reason or another. Maybe it’s the disarming sense of nostalgia, perhaps is the ease at which those assets can be created or possibly it’s because simple graphics such as those mean there’s a whole bunch more headroom for performance when you start stressing your poor computer with floating point calculations that are far beyond anything it’s ever seen before. Whatever the reason Scritchy Scratchy pulls it off well, riffing on the Balatro-esque aesthetics with its own unique take.

Scritchy Scratchy is an incremental and we all know what that means: your primary directive is to make that number go up. It’s a simple game of calculating the payback percentage on any particular ticket and then rinsing the one with the highest payout until you unlock the next one that you can start working on. Your main barriers to progression will come in the form of the upgrades available to you, initially starting with more direct things like luck, coin size and coin strength. The last two matter in the game’s early stages as you will be scratching a lot of tickets early on before you start to unlock other items that will allow you to be more hands off. After each round you’ll accumulate a number of points that you can then spend on permanent upgrades which you’ll need if you want to hit those higher numbers in any reasonable amount of time.

The game does a good job of subtly signalling to you when it’s time to end the current run by slowing progress down to a crawl. It’s at this point you can either pivot to maximising the amount of upgrade points you’ll be taking away, usually by going back and winning jackpots you might’ve missed, or simply restart the run and then hope the upgrades you choose make a material difference. If I’m honest most of them don’t feel particularly game changing on their own however there are a lot of them that open up potential additional strategies for progression that help to cover over some of the more boring sections of a particular run.

It took me a few hours to get the hang of everything as I found myself getting through the first couple stages relatively quickly but then started to stall out with Catalogue #2 due to the rather high cost associated with “bad” tickets. Now there are ways to avoid that and indeed one upgrade erases that problem entirely but there was definitely a couple hours there where I felt like there was a gate on my progress that required a lot more manual work than I was expecting. Once you realise that it’s just a matter of the right upgrades and figuring out the timing of when to switch up to the next scratcher things start to feel a lot more even from a pacing perspective.

Then what’s left after you’ve seemingly beaten the game? Well there’s a number of achievements that push you down the non-traditional route and they are quite fun to accomplish. I’ve stopped myself short of trying to 100% the game though as the gap between where I am and that goal is enough to make me question how much fun I’d actually have doing it. I am most certainly the kind of person who could accidentally ruin their impression of game should I keep playing beyond where I felt satisfied with it.

I had only a couple minor issues when playing it, seemingly arising from alt-tabbing at certain sections. There was a part when I was about to end a run (you’ll know it when you get there) where a button simply didn’t register a click for me. Now I’m not complaining too much about that as it did net me an achievement but there were some other times when the hit detection went out the window for a bit. Thankfully the game’s checkpointing is amazing and essentially zero progress was lost when I had to recover from one of those events.

Scritchy Scratchy is everything I need from an incremental game: a good mix of mechanics, the ongoing dopamine hits of bigger numbers and just enough challenge to make it engaging throughout any one run. I honestly did not expect to get as hooked (or nerd snipe my friend so hard) with it but in all honesty that’s the kind of surprise I don’t mind having sprung on me. If this genre is your jam then you can’t go past Scritchy Scratchy, it’s well worth the time.

Rating: 8.75/10

Scritchy Scratchy is available on PC and Android right now for $9.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 8.7 hours total playtime and 85% of the achievements unlocked.

SPOILERS FOR Planet of Lana BELOW

The robots that sought to enslave humanity have instead now become its saviors, bringing with them the kinds of progress that only technology can. Humans are still slaves to the nature however and with the opportunity to drive great progress comes with it the desire to be the one who controls it. Whilst there are many who welcome technological progress at seemingly any cost there are still many of those who wish to continue their lives as they once were, forcing the change to adapt to them rather than the other way around. This tension has begun to boil over and there’s now war brewing, threatening the peace that Lana brought to this world.

Planet of Lana II’s visuals is exactly what you’d expect from a sequel: more and better. The amount of detail in the environment has been increased, lighting effects are better and more liberally used, the colours more vibrant and just generally better overall. The sense of scale is still there too with the camera expertly pulling back and pushing in at the right times to cement that feeling of you just being a small part of a much larger world. Again the music is a highlight which you’d expect coming from the BAFTA-nominated composer Takeshi Furukawa who was also responsible for the amazing sound track of The Last Guardian.

The core game play of Planet of Lana II is largely unchanged, keeping to it’s simple puzzle platformer roots. Most of your time will be spent moving across the screen from left to right, admiring the scenery as it goes by before you’re dumped into a platforming/puzzle section that you have to make your way through. There’s some additional meta-game elements included in the form of the journal and the collectibles but for the most part they aren’t really aren’t a part of the core game loop. There are some additional puzzle elements that are thrown in here and there but they’re just usually for that section. It might not be the most innovative sequel but it at least recognises the core of what made the original great.

Just like the original there’s nothing in any of the puzzles or platforming sections that will challenge most players. Whilst there are a few sections that will require a bit of trial and error you’re not going to be spending 10+ minutes on a single puzzle just trying to figure out what the solution needs to be. The additional section specific mechanics are introduced well, making sure you understand what it does before introducing you to a novel application of the concept. Probably the biggest new mechanic, and calling it new is somewhat generous, is the addition of another controllable NPC character in some sections with new abilities. Not particularly novel, but it does make for some additional puzzle variety that the original didn’t have.

There’s a few rough edges on some of the game’s main mechanics which usually shows up in some of the edge case interactions. It’s not game breaking, but there were a few untimely deaths or fails on a puzzle because something glitched out. At the same time I spent far longer on some puzzles because I thought I had a solution but couldn’t make it work because Mui or another interaction wouldn’t trigger until I reloaded. Annoying, and definitely frustrating when you’re not sure if you’re barking up the right tree, but once you know that can happen you can at least compensate for it.

PLOT SPOILERS BELOW

The real fault I’m finding with Planet of Lana II though is the narrative itself. Whilst I always applaud those who choose to tell a narrative in a non-traditional sense that doesn’t give you a pass for a badly constructed story. The game’s opening moments setup for a conflict that Lana is then immediately side-lined from, sending you on a long set of fetch quests that doesn’t really help to build out the core narrative at all. To be sure, some of the other sections do build the narrative out, but Lana’s journey for the most part is entirely secondary to what feels like the main storyline that’s going on outside of where you are.

Then there’s the ending which, if I’m honest, was a complete slap in the face when the previous game managed to wrap everything up so well. I get it, you had success with the original and now feel emboldened to chase a much grander vision but to spend an entire game on simply setting up for the next one feels indulgent at best and disrespectful to the player at worst. Will I play the inevitable Planet of Lana III, sure, but narratively this game feels like a complete, unforced misstep from a developer who showed they could craft a solid, well contained narrative.

PLOT SPOILERS OVER

More of the same isn’t necessarily a bad thing and, for Planet of Lana II, it gets almost everything right. The visuals have been uplifted, the music is still great and the casual puzzle-platforming is just as accessible as ever. Where it falls short is in the execution of its narrative, making the mistake of sacrificing this game for the potential of a sequel. I’m hopeful that we’ll see it and get the payoff that a good trilogy deliver but after seeing Wishfully deliver a great, self contained game leaving everything on a cliffhanger just feels like a giant mistake.

Rating: 7.0/10

Planet of Lana II is available on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X, Nintendo Switch 1/2 and PC right now for $29.50. Game was played on the PC with a total of 5.5 hours total playtime and 80% of the achievements unlocked. Game is also available on Xbox Gamepass.

The ambition of humanity knows no limits. Driven by the desire to spread their reach further beyond the clutches of the solar system that birthed them humanity engaged in an engineering project beyond any they had attempted before. This is what birthed the Marathon, a colony ship that was built from the hollowed out core of one of Mars’s moons, Deimos. The destination was set for the faraway planet of Tau Ceti VI where it was tasked with setting up a new kind of colony, one free of the bounds of its homeworld. The ship went dark some time ago, leaving humanity wondering what had happened to the settlers aboard the Marathon. This is where you come in, having traded your humanity for immortality, you shall die endlessly in order to find out what happened and maybe even earn yourself a tidy profit along the way.

The aesthetic of Marathon brings back memories of the clean future art style that Mirror’s Edge popularised all those years ago. The oversaturated colour palette is something that really needs a HDR monitor to be seen as I honestly couldn’t think of another game that made me just appreciate just how vivid colours in a game could actually be. The rest of the game’s visuals are clean and pristine with environments overflowing with detail that takes some time getting used to. Some of this did come at the cost of asset reuse however, with a lot of areas using the same building blocks just repeated in slightly different ways. Despite all this visual fidelity though performance remains rock solid, even through the most intense gun fights. It certainly shows that Bungie has been no slouch when it comes to creating slick, gunplay focused games.

Marathon is a class-based extraction shooter, pitting you against NPCs and players alike in a battle to scrounge up loot and get it safely back to your stash. Whilst I wouldn’t exactly call myself a veteran of the genre many of the familiar extraction shooter tropes apply: different areas with varying levels of loot, exposed extraction points, the pervasive tension that makes you question every move and a variety of quests to push you to do things beyond just looting and extracting. The class system is an interesting twist on the formula, giving you some options in building out your kit to maximise your innate abilities. Couple that with the faction system which stands in for the usual talent tree and you’ve got an experience that’s instantly familiar but very much it’s own thing when compared to other games in the genre.

If there’s one thing Bungie knows well it’s FPS combat and Marathon is simply the next game in the long list showing this off. Each of the different weapons has its own personality and you’ll quickly find yourself gravitating to one particular style more than others. If I’m honest the TTK for an extraction shooter felt a lot shorter than I thought it would be with some engagements ending about as quickly as a 1v1 match in Destiny used to. That is, of course, a big function of gear and I will say that as I progressed somewhat I did find it easier to survive longer the more kit I was rocking. Still though with the game’s out and out focus on PVP and rapid redeployment maybe the lower TTK is what keeps people locked in the loop longer.

Which brings me to the main point about my own experience with the game. I played solo for my entire playthrough and, whilst I don’t wholly regret that, it definitely felt like I was getting maybe 20% of the game and doing it the hard way. Partly this was because of my naive thinking that it was more like Arc Raiders, where being friendly and casual is a given if that’s what you want, but Marathon does not encourage cooperative play between squads at all. So once you’re OK with murder first, ask questions later mentality things start to get a whole lot better but the grind starts to sting a whole lot more.

I had a maybe 30% success rate on extracting which meant that I was pretty low on resources consistently. This also meant that in an hour long session I might be lucky to successfully extract once and that’s not nearly materials to afford any meaningful upgrades which would’ve kept me coming back. To be sure part of this is a skill issue, something which further play might have improved, but without something driving me forward I found it hard to continue on. With a crew that shared sense of loss and going on again was enough to keep me coming back but alone? It’s hard to push past multiple defeats when it feels like every one of them doesn’t really get you anywhere.

Which is a shame as it seems like Marathon could be the kind of game I could really sink my teeth into had I been able to convince my crew to come along with me. Reading up on some of the experiences that squads are having in the Cryo Archive raid had me recounting my time when the Vault of Glass opened up in the original Destiny, something which I thoroughly enjoyed playing not just for the challenge and the loot, but the lore that came along with it. By all accounts Bungie has managed to craft yet another one of those moments which, I’m infinitely happy for, even if I only get to experience it second hand.

Marathon felt like a last chance for Bungie; one last attempt at making something great before the big axe of capitalism came to claim another game developer. Whilst my experience of the game might not be what they intended I can still see it for what it is and truly I tip my hat to them. Whilst this likely means that Marathon is the last thing we’ll see from Bungie for a while I’m glad that they’ll likely be around for a good while yet and, maybe, their next IP will manage to strike home for me. For now though Marathon will be one of those lost loves for me and all I can hope for is that they’re happy with someone else.

Rating: 8.0/10

Marathon is available on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 right now for $59.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 5.1 hours playtime and 21% of the achievements unlocked.

Lyca’s premise is simple: you’re a magical wolf who has the power to restore a barren wasteland into a vibrant field of verdant green. You do this by running around, breaking up the ground and spawning wild grasses. The next part is something that’s easily missed but if you run back over the grass you’ll bring it even further into life and generate yourself some currency that you can use on building out the skill tree. That skill tree then unlocks more abilities for you to do your job of bringing life back to the barren biome much easier and so the cycle continues as you pursue the incremental dream of making the numbers go higher.

I’ll admit to the first half hour or so being a bit confusing as I either missed a pop up or maybe clicked too fast on something which meant I didn’t really get the core mechanic. Really it’s simple: you need to “break” the earth to generate grass, then by running back over said grass you get the main currency. Your energy is depleted by both running around and by breaking ground, so the game’s opening moments are a balance between getting enough tiles green and having enough time to activate them. Once you’ve got that settled then it’s a pretty straightforward experience as you start chasing the various upgrades.

From there it’s actually a pretty linear experience as the upgrades are self explanatory. To be sure there’s likely a best path that you can directly optimise for but like most incrementals there comes a point where you’ve ticked off all the upgrades that seem important and the others feel more like nice to haves more than anything else. Lyca’s real trick though is having you build a talent tree all the way to the top only to then reveal that, no no no you’re not done yet, with the second progression path unlocking below. Usually I’d chide a game for a fake out like that but Lyca does it at just the right time in a playthrough; where you feel like you have command of everything and the challenge is starting to drain away.

There are a few technical issues that block one path of progression which was a little irritating. For some reason the game didn’t seem to recognise when the screen was fully filled with grass because of some of the gaps that appear which you can’t seem to fill no matter what you do. This meant that the challenges section of the game simply didn’t progress for me at all, no matter what I did. The Steam community forums had a few others experiencing the same issue so hopefully it’ll get fixed in a future revision.

Lyca is exactly what I’ve come to expect from this genre. It’s simple, has a good depth of mechanics and strikes the right balance between idler and clicker. I needed something like this to get me over the hump I was experiencing and Lyca hit the spot perfectly. There’s really not much more to say about it because if you’re into incrementals then you’ll already know what you’re signing up for.

Rating: 8.0/10

Lyca is available on PC and Nintendo Switch right now for $7.50. Game was played on the PC with a total of 3 hours playtime and 83% of the achievements unlocked.

The premise is simple: an archer wants to master the bow by shooting at targets. In the beginning you’ll be setting out targets for them to shoot at, clicking at regular intervals to ensure that they don’t waste a second before notching the next arrow. As time goes on you’ll unlock new stats to upgrade, quests to pursue and a kind of talent tree that gives you access to the kinds of arrows that can really wreck some havoc. All that is backdropped by a simple pixel art background and the soft thud and tinkling noises of arrows hitting targets.

Like all incrementals the game starts out pretty slow at first with most of your interactions spent with just keeping the thing going via repetitive clicking more than anything else. The game really starts to get going once you’ve unlocked quests and the wider array of stats that you can build as then you’ll be focusing more on what’s the next objective is that you want to achieve. At the start it does kind of matter which ones you choose (I.E. focusing on the experience once seems to help more) but after a while you can pretty much just set and forget it.

The real challenge in Magic Archery, I feel, is likely for those who want to do repeat playthroughs to beat their time. Whilst I managed a respectable 56 minutes and 14 seconds (with a few of those final minutes spent wanting to unlock everything in the magic tree just for fun) there’s a number examples of people getting 40 minute runs without resorting to any kind of insane tactics or exploits. Whilst I haven’t bothered to do that myself the runs that people are describing there seem pretty self evident once you know what the various options are and their impact on your progression.

That’s really all there is to say about it. It’s a well built incremental that, unlike many other similar games I’ve played before, doesn’t want for more of your time than it needs. It follows all the standard tropes but it does them well making it the perfect distraction if you find yourself with a night free and are in need of some entertainment.

Rating: 8.0/10

Magic Archery is available on PC right now for free. Total play time was approximately 1 hour with 100% of the achievements unlocked.

Romeo was just your average rural beat cop, living out a life that wasn’t so different from everyone elses. That was until one day he came across a woman unconscious lying in the middle of the road. When she woke though she had no memory of who she was and over the coming weeks her and Romeo developed a blossoming romance as they tried to find out her past. That all came to an abrupt end when it became clear that she was just one face of a time-travelling evil as rotters from other dimensions descended on Romeo’s hometown. Luckily his grandfather was a master of time travel and was able to save Romeo from certain death, converting him into something not living but also not quite dead. So was born Deadman, the latest addition to the FBI’s time travelling crime fighting specialist squadron.

If that hodge podge of an introduction has got you reeling then the visuals of Romeo is a Deadman aren’t going to help any. Whilst the main game has you in a third person world that, for whatever reason, reminded me distinctly of the visual style Dead Rising the game’s overworld is done in a pixel art style. All of these elements cross-pollinate between each other in various elements, like the overlays retaining the pixel-art style in the 3D world and some of the artwork using the 3D renders showing up in the overworld. Couple that with the comic book cinematic sections, various surreal 3D renderings and a smattering of other wacky visual elements and there’s a real lack of visual cohesiveness throughout the entire game.

But that’s not the only part which doesn’t really fit.

Romeo is a Deadman is effectively a loose grab bag of a bunch of different mechanics slapped together into a muddled experience. To be sure there’s a solid core of a hack and slash game in here, one that pits you against hordes of “rotters” that you’ll have to massacre your way through to complete your objectives. Surrounding that though is a bunch of ancillary things which are ostensibly for progression and giving you more tools but they all feel tacked on and out of place with the rest of the game. For instance there’s a whole game about farming bastards which are rotters that you control, a katsu curry cooking minigame, a kind of space mining/level selection sim, a maze that you navigate using one of the main currencies to get small upgrades and so on. There’s a lot of these kinds of things and, thematically, they kind of fit but in practice it just feels like you’re playing a bunch of different games that share the same launcher.

The combat is OK in a sense that yeah, it’s your standard hack and slash affair which seems to do its job well enough. However everything feels a bit floaty, imprecise and generally just a bit B grade for want of a better term. This is no better highlighted than in the boss fights where most of them are simply relegated to you beating away at the feet of some giant monstrosity who, for whatever reason, only has a single move to try and stop you from doing that. The levels are all linear with most of the exploration simply having you explore different iterations of the same room over and over again. I really didn’t come in with any kinds of expectations for this game but even that couldn’t stop me from seeing just how unpolished it all was.

This extends to the grab bag of other mechanics that feel like they were just thrown in because they felt like a good idea at the time. Like yeah, I can understand wanting to make the upgrade and progression mechanics different and interesting but they’re all so poorly realised that it makes engaging with them annoying rather than rewarding. Like the bastard farming system which requires you to sit through a cutscene every time you farm one or the maze upgrades which have an obtuse movement scheme that just makes it feel wonky. With so many different things, all with their own way of implementing them coupled with the lack of visual cohesion you are just left with a confused mess of different things that simply don’t work together at all.

Which is then capped off by the narrative which, I get it, is supposed to be surreal but the way it’s told is just simply bad. Like you have multiple rehashes of the initial plot, all of which only seem to add either the smallest detail or simply confuse the events of the initial story just because. Then you’ve characters and dialogue that feel like it was written by a high school student which, I’ll admit, could be due to something being lost in translation but honestly when all of the characters say multiple times things like “Romeo, I mean Deadman” or “Maybe we should call you Deadman” or “It’s Deadman now right?” it’s like, we get it, he’s got a new identity. Or how Romeo’s motivation for finding Juliet seems razor thin and only seems to come up after each boss battle. It’s just…bad.

Romeo is a Deadman is a confused mess, the sum of its parts adding up to much less than its whole. Whilst individual elements are competent enough nothing really feels like it’s been made to fit together properly. I can see the argument that this is the point of the whole thing but really, there’s ways to make a surreal/unhinged/disjointed game that still manages to make everything work together. Given I know little of Suda51 and his work this might just be par for the course but suffice to say, even going with no expectations, I still feel like I didn’t get much out of my time with Romeo is a Deadman.

Rating: 6.0/10

Romeo is a Deadman is available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S right now for $73.50. Game was played on the PC with a total of 5.5 hours and 25% of the achievements unlocked.

The peak of Kami stands unconquered, it’s slopes before the summit littered with the gear, memories and corpses of all of those who have dared tried it. Aava though is unperturbed as she has conquered every other mountain in this world and so there is only this left for her. This is no simple lonely mountain however as for many years it was home to a number of Troglodyte villages which have all long since been abandoned. So whilst Aava intends her journey up the mountain will be a solitary one Aava will be accompanied by the ghosts of the past and the handful of those who have decided to remain. All the while the outside world continues to intrude: her sponsors asking for updates, her partner with updates on life outside the mountain and the memories of those left behind who tried the same climb as her. None of this seems to phase Aava though as all that exists for her now is the mountain.

Cairn’s cel shaded aesthetic is as crisp as any implementation I’ve seen before with incredible levels of details in the models, texturing and lighting. As you’d expect the game is at its strongest when you’re out on the side of the mountain, taking in the wide ranging vistas that stretch on well into the horizon. This isn’t to say that the interior sections aren’t well done as well though, more that the lack of details in some areas are more apparent when you’re forced up close. The environments also feel alive thanks to the dynamic weather and day/night cycles which form a key part of the game’s core climbing mechanics. Whilst I’m starting to get the feeling that cel-shading is the next low-poly/low-texture aesthetic trend for indies I can’t say I’m completely upset with that when it’s done this well.

If it wasn’t obvious from the game’s screenshots Cairn is a climbing simulator, one that pits you against a single mountain. You’ll be scouting out for holds, cracks and crevices everywhere in order to make your way up whilst also balancing the numerous survival mechanics to ensure you don’t black out halfway through a climb. You have a few modern conveniences to assist you on your journey: self drilling pitons that serve as rest stops during a climb, a climbing robot that will act as your belay and communications with the outside world and your hiking pole/light. Whilst there’s no in-built progression system you can find certain items along the way that will make certain things easier although they’re by no means required. After each section you’ll likely find a place to bivvy up for a short rest to cook food, bandage your fingers and repair broken pitons. All in all it seems like a very well realised climbing simulator.

The climbing can feel a little GIRP-ish at times as Aava seems to be able to contort herself into all manner of weird and wonderful shapes in order to get herself a good hold. I’ll lay the blame partly for this on the game’s automatic next move system which, depending on how Aava is situated, will select the “best” limb to move with next for you. Now this works most of the time, I’d say maybe 60% or so, but it fails often enough that you can find yourself moving something that doesn’t quite make sense. This can quickly end you up in a tangle as you try to reposition your limbs which, even when selecting them directly, can feel a little bit more like an art rather than a science.

However it seems that being contorted in all sorts of unnatural ways isn’t usually something that’ll send you off the mountain. Most of the time it’ll be a bad grip on something, like if you’re just jamming your foot against the rock face or gently caressing a rock rather than gripping it. That seemed to be what would trigger Aava’s shakes and wobbles the most as no matter how strange of a position I was in as long as I had a firm grip or hold on all my limbs I could stay there basically indefinitely.

After awhile you start to get a good feel for how the automatic system works and how to best position yourself for it to make the right moves far more often. I still found myself reaching for the manual limb selection pretty often to make certain moves but once you’re in a flow with it you can breeze through lengthy climbing sections with ease. What usually becomes the issue at that point though is the fuzziness in gripping your preferred holds as it can be hard to get your hands or feet in the right position so they grip rather than just simply hold. There was many a panicked piton slammed into the mountain because I didn’t manage to grab the hold I was aiming for and the shakes set in with deadly speed.

The increase in challenge is done pretty linearly, giving you plenty of time to get familiar with your limits before the game starts to send some real pearlers your way. I can distinctly remember the first climb where I found myself on my last piton, staring up at the finish line which was still some ways away. Thankfully with careful planning, chalk and smashing some of the carefully hoarded supplies I had in my backpack I made it up there on the second attempt, the first failing because I found myself stuck under a bridge and not being able to climb up on it.

Which is probably the only kind of technical issue I came across throughout most of the game. The detection of walkable areas is pretty on point for most places but there was a non-zero number of places where I found myself flopped over the edge, scrambling to try and somehow get upright before my grip gave out. I did have 1 or 2 deaths because of this as well which was annoying but nothing game breaking.

Cairn’s narrative takes the hard road with such a deeply unlikable character in Aava. To be sure I can understand and share her motivations, putting everything to one side to achieve something that no one else has before, but the vast majority of her interactions with others speaks to that behaviour not being constrained to just when she’s on the mountain. Of course part of this is to highlight the cost that comes with the pursuit of goals such as these which isn’t just limited to the toll it takes on a climber’s body. To be fair to the game though I have it on good authority that you have some level of influence on how that all plays out in the end. I won’t spoil much but for those who’ve seen the below scene in the game will know which path I took.

Cairn was something I waxed and waned on multiple times throughout my playthrough. It was something that’d been on my radar for a while and I was excited for it, but the game’s slower opening hours coupled with the frustration with the movement system made it slow going initially. But after a while of getting into the flow of it suddenly the game became more about conquering the challenge more than anything else and that’s when it’s mechanics really began to shine. I wish I could say the narrative was more of a highlight but, in the end, it just felt like the selfish tale of a climber who put everything else aside in pursuit of one thing. All this being said though there’s precious few games that manage to build an experience like this so just on that point alone I think it’s worth a look in.

Rating: 8.75/10

Cairn is available on PC and PlayStation 5 right now for $43.95. Game was played on the PC with 11.1 hours of total playtime and 51% of the achievements unlocked.

*This is embodied ratherwell in Taylor Tomlinson’s recent special riffing on the concept of Christianity being “Won’t it be great when we can all be dead with Daddy?” and, well, all the dead mum jokes that followed.