Source: It free!
Price: It free!
Where To Get It: Steam!

It’s the end. You’re the last one. And you’re thirsty. But that, honestly, means you can enjoy the last great fruits of humanity’s labour, for good or ill. One. Last. Lap. That’s what Cloud Climber is, a short narrative game about walking through the last remnants of a once… Of a people who worked really hard when their backs were against the wall, one last time.

See, the world is all desert and sandstorms below. Water stopped coming up the buckets years ago. And that first utterance of the game, that first “Well, I’d better see if anyone else has water”, already has a sense of defeat. But not despair… The calm acceptance of someone who knows it’s over, and there’s nothing they can do about it. One. Last. Lap.

It’s short, so I really can’t say more without spoiling things, but it’s a beautiful set of towers, a beautiful, desolate, and ruined landscape, wood and stone that’s somehow stood the test of time, stood despite building code, and even common sense, has been forgotten. And all for one last push at survival. One. Last. Lap.

The music, like the narrator, is calm, appreciating the beauty, gentle strings melding effortlessly in counterpoint to the winds below, the creaking of wood, the rattles and squeals of doors that have warped over the time they’ve been left alone. All presaging One. Last. Lap.

And finally, the acceptance is complete. It’s over. You are the last one, you’ve worked hard. Time to take a well deserved break. And your last lap, your journey to find what you’ve finally given up on finding…

Haha, all I can say is that I’m not sure if it’s a reward… Or a mocking coda on humanity’s…

One.

Last.

Lap.

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Source: Supporter Gift
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Phasmophobia is a multiplayer experience that’s like those ghost shows that were all the rage back when (and indeed, follow some of the standard ghost investigation methodology), except the ghosts are nearly always angry, and can and will kill you.

Although, if you have a decent team, or a decent investigation method, or don’t, like me, overextend yourself by strolling through the Prison with just two people, you won’t die.

Honestly, though, the most fun I’ve had was tackling the prison with a single friend. First we both went in, then one of us alone… We were getting nowhere. EMF wasn’t picking anything up, temperature was normal, no orbs to be found, no fingerprints we could find under UV… But we did manage to get some spirit writing which narrowed it down to, uhhh… About two thirds of the beasties.

Then we pissed it off. The game gives you a five minute grace period during which it won’t get angry, but when it does… The front door locks, the walkie talkie stops working for you, and if you can’t hide, hide from something you can only see in glimpses at best? Well… You find yourself in a small room of corpses, before you become just a ghost.

It was tense as hell, right up to the end, with it almost getting my partner, and it definitely got me, and my heart was pumping. And yet, I died with only one regret:

I’d seen the thing on camera, and didn’t hit the screenshot button.

And the best thing of all? Sometimes, you can tell what a ghost is by its behaviour, as well as the signs. My partner in crime made the educated guess of Oni (because it was territorial as hell, and as time went on, its sphere of aggro got bigger), and whaddya know, he was right!

But I was actually tense (I rarely get frightened), not jumpscared. Even in the truck, watching that activity meter go all the way up to 10 and stay there, while my friend slowly tries to make their way out (running? Haha, you have a light jog at best), and the walkie talkie’s static as I try to warn them. Watching doors swing on their own, hearing footsteps, jinglings… And even though the ghosts can see you much more clearly in the dark, you have to keep things dark, because otherwise it becomes difficult to get evidence about them.

Aesthetically, it has no music. It’s all atmospheric sound, it’s normal buildings (even, sad to say, the prison), and that works.

If you want a multiplayer co-op game of investigation with the possibility of dying, and high tension, this one’s a good one.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £7.19
Where To Get It: Steam

A pinball game in which you are a JRPG hero (and occasionally their party), going through the game world and levelling up? Ohhh, that sounds so good, doesn’t it? And, if you were just going by the screenshots, it looks good too. Solid aesthetic, music fits…

But for me, it fails on one, absolutely basic element: Table design. And that’s an absolute killer, right there.

So yes, the game is a pinball game, and the story is more implicit than anything else: You are hero. Demon Lord up there somewhere. Go kick his ass, because you are hero.

…And nearly everything is bumpers and roundabouts. And the first area is where I’ve lost the most lives, even though it does at least a little to try and combat that. Because everything is bumpers. Enemies? Bumpers that move a little in preset patterns. Blocks? Bumpers. Bushes? Bumpers. They go away, but they always come back, and it’s quite easy to be launched after you’ve fallen into either the gutters after you’d blown up those bumpers, or the middle… And then get bounced right into the middle or the gutter all over again.

Now, I could nudg- Oh, wait. No nudge. No way to push the table to one side or the other to maybe guide the ball to, I dunno… Not a direct path to the gap between the paddles where the paddles can’t reach?

I could talk about the good spriting. I could talk about the clear demarcation for the most part of elements. I could talk about the music, a little stereotypical, but not bad music, and not a bad thing.I could talk about the simple and clear control scheme. But the table design is, in terms of points of interest, sparse. Everything being bumpers easily leads to unfair situations. And when your second tables are actually easier to climb than your first…

…It is unsurprising that, after I’d gotten enough to screenshot this, I just… Put it down. I have better tables. I have better multi-area tables. And I have tables that don’t commit the gravest sin I have ever seen in a pinball game.

This. If it isn’t clear, these two hexagonal wheels? Are also bumpers. Bumpers with physics, so when you bump off them, they rotate. I have never seen a table feature quite that sadistic. And I have no desire to deal with its bullshit.

No, really. Don’t design a table with all bumpers. Learn from this, kids. Please.

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Source: Supporter Gift
Price: £19.49 (£7.19 soundtrack)
Where To Get It: Steam

Supergiant do it again. They keep doing it. I’m enjoying a game about a rebellious young adult, Zagreus, son of Hades, snarking and battling his way from his home at the lowest depths of Hades, trying to escape, in essence, a shitty family situation.

Its aesthetics are gorgeous (God, so many fucking hunks!) Its progression feels natural, to the point where I knew where I was going, knew what I was doing, and was fine with dying over and over again, because I knew my grind would be rewarded. Its characters, even the grumpy and overbearing dad Hades, charmed me.

And thus, one of those times I hate is upon me, because I can’t say anything bad, so I’m struggling with what the hell else to say.

Okay, so, Hades is an action roguelike, in which, as noted, Zagreus, son of Hades, is attempting to escape, with the aid of his step-mother Nyx, the Olympian Gods, and a few other notable figures, including the most relaxed and friendly incarnation of Sisyphus I’ve ever seen. You start with one weapon, a sword, make your way as far as you can, get your ass beaten down, and come back for more, wading out of the pool of blood that forms the entryway to Zagreus’ home as he bitterly snarks or swears payback.

He will escape. Because he cannot die, so he keeps trying, because he knows he can do it. And, as he does, he gets more powerful. He befriends various people, like Dusa, the disembodied medusa head maid of Hades’ abode (She’s so cute!), or Dionysus, who reminds me so damn much of Zaphod Beeblebrox that I find myself smiling. A chill dude, I like him.

Anyway, yes, the progression is natural, the sound design great, the VA good…

Look, I can’t keep saying nice things, so I will end with this: If you like action roguelikes, then yes, this is a good one to pick. It’s easy on beginners, it’s accessible (alas, never perfectly, for it is twitchy, but still), and, as mentioned, the grind feels less like a grind, and more like a natural state of affairs.

It’s good stuff.

Call me, Dionysus, we had a fun time! xoxo

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.29
Where To Get It: Steam

Aesthetic can only take you so far. And when that “so far” involves forgetting to tutorialise at all… Ah, that’s not so good, is it? So, suffice to say, Warp Drive on gamepad (generally a good way of playing Future Racers like this) has gotten off to a rocky start. On keyboard, it’s more sensible. But still…

R2 (Lower right bumper) is what you use to accelerate, just an FYI. So you don’t have the frustration of trying to find that most important of controls, because W on keyboard would make you think forward on the d-pad or stick.

So yes, Warp Drive, a future racing game in which you drive drone like hovercars around a track, fulfilling the race objectives in a tournament, and… Wait a second…

Bad impression number 2: No solo tracks, no individual time trials, no challenges. Just a tournament.

Beyond these two crits, and that your earliest time trial requires a faster boost and solid racing (I get so sick of seeing that in future racers), it’s… Actually alright. But it’s mostly aesthetics. The gameplay’s relatively simple, there is only a benefit to taking on the higher classes of cars, and, if you’ve got your boosts and warps down, your handling up, and any decentish skill, you’ll, uhhh…

Bad impression number 3: We know there’s a hard corner that would need drift… But I’m in a high handling enough car that it’s not actually a hard corner, ta.

Sigh… Anyway, yes, it’s alright, it handles alright, the tracks are good, with interesting shortcuts, and, as mentioned, most of it’s in the colourful aesthetics, the worlds that are detailed and cartoonish, but not distracting from the track itself, and a soundtrack by the great funkster, Hideki Naganuma. Don’t worry if you don’t know the name, looking up his music is a very pleasant exercise if you’re into funky beats.

Oh, wait, bad impression 4: No option to turn off the flashy pink warp animations. Y’know, the epilepsy risk ones the game doesn’t warn you about.

But beyond that, with the good and the bad impressions mixing, it comes out… Well, okay. Its visuals grabbed me, its music got the blood pumping, but the game… Well, I felt lukewarm about the actual game part.

It’s some good popcorn if you’re into racing games. But I really get the impression it could have ended up with a lot more character than it did. And there’s stuff it really could have fixed.

I’m kinda sad that the game ain’t nothin’ like a funky beat.

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