I do love me a good farming sim, and I also love a good detective game, so imagine my brain exploding when I saw Grave Seasons for the first time, a farming murder mystery hybrid in the works by developer Son M and their studio Perfect Garbage. It’s still very early in development (like there isn’t even a Steam page for it yet), but it’s still an incredible-sounding concept, as every time you start a new game, a random NPC will be selected to become a serial killer. You can grow crops, fish, raise cattle, and also help save your fellow townsfolk from a rampaging murderer. Cute!
As our shuttle hits the ground, the world erupts into smoke, chaos, and confusion. Samantha, one among my ragged band of survivors, breaks down sobbing on the ground and I direct Maki, a veterinarian, to do something about it. She punches Samantha full-on in the face, knocking her unconscious (“Oh, I guess that’s what ‘knock out’ means,” I realize a moment too late). Well, at least I don’t have to worry about her running off into the woods or something. It’s a rough start, but they have no choice but to work together from here on out.
For fans of the survival simulation genre, crashlanding on an alien planet is a familiar premise, but it’s one Stranded: Alien Dawn absolutely smashes. This game has been at the top of my to-be-played list for a while and now that it’s exiting early access for a full release, it’s safe to say that Stranded is the closest thing to my dream human vs nature survival game I’ve seen yet.
Dota 2‘s New Frontiers update has been released and it’s a big one. As well as tweaking UI and balance and reworking heroes, it also makes sweeping changes to Dota’s single, three-lane battlefield. Specifically: it makes it 40% larger than it was before.
It’s always interesting when we get to see video games in their embryonic state. Stardew Valley‘s lone developer, Eric Barone, worked on his farming sim smash hit for years before it was released in 2016, and yesterday he found his old notebook and started sharing some sketches and doodles he made while planning its features.
Sons Of The Forest just received its fourth major patch and it adds some new features to the cannibal survival sim. The more exciting changes might lie in the “improvements”, however, which include things like your sidekick Kelvin being able to carry two logs at the same time and brighter night vision goggles.
Hello! Come on in. Please, take a seat. Welcome to the inaugural episode of our brand new (and currently untitled) supporter-first indie video show! Every month*, I’m going to be spending some time highlighting a cool indie game that deserves your attention. Think of this series as a supplement to Sin’s Scout Report or our Indiescovery podcast. A brand new method for delivering piping hot recs from my desktop to yours.
My aim is to use this series as a springboard to dive deep into specific elements of a game I find particularly fascinating, sharing my discoveries with you lot behind the paywall first (and don’t worry, regular readers, I’ll also be making each of these videos public for all to see after a month, which should roughly coincide with the the next one going live for supporters). In it, I’ll be discussing some common themes between multiple games, digging into underappreciated gems from years gone by… The remit is broad and nebulous, to the point where it’s clearly obvious why I haven’t been able to come up with a name for it yet.
(If you end up thinking of something, please do let me know in the comments. More than anything it’ll stop me messaging Katharine a list of awful possibilites every other week, which I can only imagine is negatively effecting her feelings about me, the site and the endeavour of games journalism in general. They really have been that bad, folks. Proper rancid stuff).
In the summer of 1983, publisher-that-was Enix released a murder mystery visual novel called The Portopia Serial Murder Case. Designed by Dragon Quest’s creator Yuji Horii, it never saw a release outside of Japan – until now. Square Enix are re-releasing the classic on Steam in two days, calling it an “AI tech preview,” and tacking on “natural language processing” technology, in perhaps the oddest port I’ve seen so far.
Paradox’s grand strategy Victoria 3 is getting its first DLC next month, bringing along some of history’s great political agitators who worked to change social and economic systems with their new ideas. The pack’s called Voice of The People and it’s coming on May 22nd.
Ubisoft held a livestream last night to lay out the future of their MMO shooter franchise. The stream covered a roadmap for The Division 2’s fifth year of support and a deep dive into the upcoming The Division Heartland, a free-to-play spin-off that’s more focused on the series’ survival aspects.
Can you imagine if Dead Island 2didn’t arrive with actually-quite-good PC performance? All those years, all those developers, and it turned out rubbish? Perish the thought. But nah, Dambuster Studios have ensured it finally hits shelves in a solid technical state; a welcome return to standards for the big-name gamesmaking biz, which has largely spent 2023 chucking out sub-par PC ports.
