Tiny deck builder Combo Critters exhibits the winning combination common to both small games and radical breakfast cereals – it’s very crunchy, but also bright, sugary and moreish. If Thaddius Cornflakes had recommended struggling families play Combo Critters instead of eating Cookie Crisp for dinner, I imagine the backlash would have far more reserved. Cookie Crisp tastes like like someone poured Splenda on a packing peanut fished out from a puddle. Combo Critters, though? Pretty tasty, and also free from Itch here.
Found a dead rat in my inbox this morning. When I examined the entrails it spelled out the following: PaThoLoGiC 3 aNnOuNcEd ToDaY. Ah, I see. Developers Ice Pick Lodge are working on a sequel to their infamously oppressive plague town simulator, only this time the follow-up will feature “a time-travel mechanic, allowing players to go back and see how their decisions change the lives of the townspeople.” It will also put you in the fancy-schmancy shoes of the Bachelor, a doctor fond of quoting Latin phrases, who will have the ability to order quarantines and request patrols of entire areas of town. There’s no firm release date yet, but we’re told it’ll be ready some time next year.
Halo creators 343 Industries are having a bit of a glow-up. They’re now calling themselves Halo Studios, a piece of rhetorical doubling-down that reminds me of those dril tweets about “James Bond, author of James Bond”. They’ve also abandoned the proprietary Slipspace game engine used by Halo Infinite in favour of Epic’s Unreal Engine 5, which will be the basis for “multiple new games”. To celebrate the occasion, Halo Studios have released some footage of Project Foundry, an expansive Unreal Engine 5 prototype and spawning vat for actual Halo games, which is billed by the Xbox Newswire as a kind of ur-Halo – “a true reflection of what would be required for a new Halo game using Unreal, and a training tool for how to get there”.
Graham asked me if I’d discovered what the metaphor in Metaphor: ReFantazio might be, and I replied, “I don’t know haha”, or something along those lines. Having given it more thought, I think there are two metaphors: 1) It plays quite like Persona. 2) Its story is like a commentary on our society… or something to that effect.
Metaphors aside, though, the game is a gigantic fantasy RPG that’s technically better than Persona 5 in a lot of ways. Structurally, it feels less repetitive. It has more animated cutscenes that elevate those key story moments. You can brush aside weaker enemies in real-time combat, rather than face them in tiresome turn-based tangoes. And overall, I think it’s the best game Persona or Persona-like Atlus have put out – it really is brilliant. But there’s a part of me that feels like it’s missing something that’ll leave it less ingrained in the memory than Persona 5 once its final chapter has closed.
My default movement mode in horror games that actually scare me is: meandering. I seek to approach without approaching, scooting back and forth across the path like a stray hamster, worrying at the corners and avoiding clear perspectives of the route ahead, while keeping the route behind me in my peripheral vision. I have been trained to do this especially by Amnesia, where tilting your gaze too decisively at anything nasty drives your character nuts.
Lurks Within Walls has no time for my hamstery antics. Developed by Here Be Monsters, it’s a grid- and turn-based first-person dungeon crawler – a long-lost cousin of Etrian Odyssey that has wound up in an asylum jammed with internet cryptids, reminiscent in cinematic texture of F.E.A.R. In keeping with other grid-based dungeon crawlers, it only lets you turn the view by 90 degree angles and travel in straight lines. Going by the demo, it’s a promising restraint for a horror game, though they really do need to expand on the combat, which is currently a slight waste of some terrific creature art.
Epic Games laid off over 800 people a year ago, following what CEO Tim Sweeney confessed was an “unrealistic” period of investment designed to “grow Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators”. Now, it’s time to start talking about brighter, metaversal tomorrows and hopefully, not do the whole thing all over again. Epic have detailed early plans for Unreal Engine 6, which Sweeney says will combine Unreal Engine with Fortnite’s easy-to-use Unreal Editor to create a gigantic, “interoperable” metaverse platform that lets developers sell stuff that can seamlessly be transferred to other games, whether they run on Unreal Engine or not. Stealth blockchain post? Genuinely, I can neither confirm nor deny.
Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week – our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! It’s a double feature this week – Zach Barths and Matthew Burns of former Zachtronics fame! (Do read Edwin’s interview with Zach on their unrealised 40K factory game). Cheers Zach and Matthew! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelves?
Windblown is an action roguelite much like Dead Cells, the previous game from developer Motion Twin, but it trades sidescrolling ‘vania vibes for a 3D and more colourful world, and adds co-op for up to three pals. That sounds plenty appealing, and it now has a release date: October 24th.
Better still, on October 14th, it’s getting a singleplayer demo as part of the Steam Next Fest.
I’m on a one-man mission to destroy your productivity. Yesterday I offered you Scrambled Maps, which is good for fifteen minutes of not working.
Today I offer Alphaguess, a once-a-day browser puzzle game in which you must guess a word. With every incorrect guess you make, the game tells you whether the correct answer comes before or after it alphabetically.
Avatar: The Last Airbender hasn’t had much luck when it comes to adaptations, whether to film or to video games. Now Paramount Game Studios and Saber Interactive are going to take a new swing at it. The pair have announced an action RPG set in the “Avatar Legends universe”, the broader world and timeline that The Last Airbender and Legend Of Korra take place within.
