Comedy is a matter of taste, and it changes from generation to generation and comedian to comedian. Some people like raunchy comedians who make frat boy-level jokes about taboo topics. The worst comedians just use words to get a laugh. It’s like the comedian who inserts fuck into everything because lots of things sound funnier with it, but it’s cheap. It must be used tactfully. Mexican Ninja is like the comedian who overuses fuck. The mere insertion of sex, drugs, and mention of the illicit underground life seems like it’s enough to make this developer as they write out the empty sentences. It could actually be funny, but humor is commentary, and Mexican Ninja isn’t saying anything. It comes off as amateurish, provocative slapstick humor that only hits a fraction of the time.

The Mexican Ninja we control seems like a hardened vet, one who used to be on the streets. His sombrero and long mustache give our hero a wise look, and the way he carries his sword is one who looks like he’s been forged in a dojo. The developers nailed his look. It’s simple, but strong. It’s unfortunate that his in-game look makes him appear older, and his fighting stance looks a little crazed.

He fights off enemies in the streets referred to as Narkuzas, a clever (and one of the funny elements) combination of Narcos and Yakuza. Because somehow the Mexican gang and the Japanese gang formed an alliance and became the rulers of the Mexican streets. So we are exposed to a ridiculous exaggeration of the streets. Lots of drug references, sex workers, and fights in strip clubs. Dare I say, it hits hard and fast for a 30-minute demo. It’s so in your face that it feels forced, as if embracing some restraint would make it feel serious. Nothing is dealt in doses. It drenches the game and becomes distasteful by the end of the demo. I can only imagine what the rest of the game feels like.

It’s possible the developers went overboard in the beginning, and it finds a better balance in later levels, but the action will be an adequate distraction if it’s too much. Fighting feels like a classic arcade beat ‘em up, complete with a “Go” icon when you’ve finished all the enemies. Enemies shoot pellets from the big bellies, throw bombs, and try to kamikaze, flaming bikes roll by, bombs drop from the sky; everything is what you’d expect, just with a Narkuza flavor.

Combat is fast, but it’s not fluid. I’ll hit enemies in the air, but it’s hard to continue my combo after jumping. I can somehow hit them while on the ground, and my sword isn’t touching them. While dodging belly pellets, I got stuck on geometry I couldn’t see. I’ve been hit in ways I can’t tell because the effects cover crucial details and action. The animations feel like they could be smoother and given more care. The slightest strike erupts blood out the body like a giant water balloon exploded with blood in it that doesn’t seem to quite match with what’s happening with the body.

A nice homage to Mexican and Japanese culture is that your special moves are fashioned after Japanese and Mexican spirits. The idea adds a peaceful element amidst the chaos, even if it is used to unleash pain. I found it to be a good reminder of what’s beneath the blooshed and sex: two cultures that share core values, and it’s a blend I think would actually work in the real world if given the chance.

Try Mexican Ninja.

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I didn’t play Moss on VR, but had I not known it was ever on VR platforms, I would’ve been able to tell. You are the reader, controlling the cute rodent hero, and sometimes she breaks the fourth wall and looks at you. Because that’s what happens in virtual reality experiences. For some reason, putting on a headset suddenly meant you existed in the world, and the entities within it needed to interact with you. You couldn’t just be a fly on the wall who enjoyed the immersion; you had to participate. That was useful for non-interactive experiences. That carries over into the non-VR version of Moss, and it’s outdated.

Sections of a level are broken into very small chunks. You enter a room, solve a quick puzzle, and you’re off to the next one. I imagine these were broken into small chunks so the VR hardware performed well. Maybe not, but it’s strange to go into a room, fight an enemy, and move on to another room. It’s even stranger when there are no puzzles or enemies—nothing. That happened two times. I’m not sure why the developers did that.

Moss is a story told through a storyteller who sounds like they’re reading to a child. They change their voice for each character. It’s a charming and affordable way of allowing us into the tale. I only wish the storyteller didn’t speak while I concentrate on platforming.

Puzzles are thoughtful and resemble a mix of specific room puzzles and larger Zelda/Metroid-type puzzles where you must have an item to move forward. You control a blue sphere that can pull things around or turn into objects you need. Again, it’s another VR holdover. It’s easy to wand the orb around with motion controls, but since I’m using a gamepad, the right trigger does that work now. The puzzles become more clever over time in the demo, so I imagine they will get pretty involved in the later parts of the game, but you do have to contend with deciphering the environment.

Try Moss: The Forgotten Relic

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Cygames released a demo for Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok, which is, unfortunately, just the original demo for the base game featuring the upgrades for the new expansion. Endless Ragnarok gives more for players to do who have exhausted all the content, and it’s a bonus for those who have never played it. I won’t go into the details of what this is because it’s an expansion, but if you like anime and action RPGs, Relink has been a great staple in my gaming library.

For returning players, like myself, crossplay is great. We wished it were available when they first announced it. But the summoning system isn’t as appealing

Summons are available in certain content, presumably because they’re too powerful for early game content, for logistical development reasons, or the developers don’t want the appearance of pay-to-win content. No matter the reason, it feels underwhelming. There are dozens of missions, and this cool feature is limited to specific fights. That’s not grand.

It’s also very costly. Based on the demo, we summoned the most expensive summon one time. We could have summoned lower-cost enemies more often, but most of the ones in the demo aren’t as cool. The appeal of summons isn’t just applying damage, buffs, or debuffs; it’s how it looks, too. Seeing Proto Bahamut shoot his beam down on your opponent looks awesome. Watching Furycane whip her tornadoes around the battlefield in your favor is motivating. Seeing that, maybe one time per match, isn’t enough.

It’s possible in the full game we can use more powerful summons more often because our power levels aren’t restricted like in the demo, but if not, that’s going to be underwhelming.

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Black and white photos are like a photographer’s purity test. If it looks good in black and white, it’s going to look good in color. Toem 2 lacks the shades of gray that make black and white photography beautiful, but it keeps the art design simple and inviting. I’m glad they didn’t change it. In today’s era, where graphics are usually the first thing people notice in sequels, Toem 2’s familiar return allows us to jump into the game and enjoy everything else that’s new.

We embark on another adventure of solving problems and creating an organic life collection through photography. A robot comedian, who cracks jokes that are worse than dad jokes, forgets his punchline and needs you to take a picture to jog his memory. A citizen is obsessed with raunchy smells, so he wants you to take pictures of things that smell bad so he can smell them. Toem 2 leans into the absurdity of what it is—a photography game. I love taking pictures of landscapes, animals, and people. But that’s hardly entertaining. Getting commissioned to go around the city and take pictures of bags of trash? Now that’s an adventure. Anything people need you to do isn’t something they can’t do; it’s just goofy to have you do it.

Your camera also acts as a magical screwdriver. There’s a plumber who gives you a screwdriver that only works with the camera. The camera becomes the gateway to life. In a way, I find that’s what photography truly is. After taking boatloads of pictures in Alaska, I could appreciate the beautiful blue water and the lush green forests, but capturing them with the camera helped stamp the details in my brain. Toem 2 isn’t that deep, but the basic idea is there. As a way to support that idea, you help the plumber unclog pipes around the city. They’re not puzzles—I don’t know what to call them. They’re not difficult. They’re more like process-of-elimination tasks. The actions themselves don’t carry enough substance to justify their existence, but they do give an excuse to interact with the silly plumber—I love hearing the phone voice.

That’s another thing photographers notice: people are funny. And Toem 2’s people are just as interesting. One lady wants you to help her put up a sign for her business, but she has nowhere to put it, so she just wants you to figure out where to slap it on the building, but the building has a lot of windows; views be damned. While moving the scissor lift, she wobbles erratically. She wants you to take a picture and show her where it should go, and I should have done something way sillier.

You can jump now, which makes this game more vertical. Now you have to watch how far you fall because you might drop coffee. One odd use of the jump is needing to jump up ladders. Pressing Up is not an option. And it’s not obvious how to get down without employing some platforming acrobatics. I like that Toem 2 goes higher now, but I’m not sold on the jumping implementation.

In an era where sequels rule the day, Toem 2 is one I’m glad exists. I was happy with the first, but I’ll be happy to snap more photos.

And I almost forgot to mention the Dance Bug. I hope you find the Dance Bug.

Try Toem 2.

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Steam Next Fest is live! If there’s a demo you’d like me to check out to exchange thoughts or because you don’t have time to play it, let me know!

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Just Shoot asks two questions: What separates one Survivor-type from another? And why should I buy this one over the best Survivor-types out there now? Just Shoot isn’t as difficult, it’s not as balanced, and it doesn’t sound as good. And yet, I had fun because numbers go up. But it was empty calories. I wasn’t fulfilled or satisfied.

You play as characters that look like animated versions of Happy Days characters. They carry guns. So original. The only characterization they get is through their stats. Even Vampire Survivors recorded voice lines to add some character. The cover image artwork looks great. I wish that translated to the game. During gameplay, all the artistic charm is lost because the guns cover their face. They’re mostly distinguished by their hair or skin color. It’s a thoughtful way to make each character identifiable beyond clothes. But the guns are that big because you could pick up a piggy bank. Gotta see that, right? What the developers have forgotten is that we’re not focused on what we’re using to shoot, we’re focused on what we’re shooting. The fun is seeing the weapon on the ground in its full silhouette and artwork, then picking it and realizing what it’s firing. Let the character shine during combat. Let the ammunition do the talking for the gun.

Of course, you’re walking around a map, shooting enemies, and trying to survive for the allotted 15 minutes. The selling point, if we want to call it that, is that you manually shoot. You hold the trigger, you aim the shots. When Vampire Survivors first launched, I wondered what the appeal was for a game where you just walk around and let the game shoot. I quickly understood that focusing on positioning is very liberating. And the real challenge is that you don’t get to choose what you’re aiming at. It’s important to choose upgrades wisely. Just Shoot answers the question: What if you did everything yourself? The answer is that it’s pointless to hold the right trigger.

But aiming provides a different feel. In auto-aiming Survivor-types, your positioning is based on what the game is shooting at. Just Shoot lets you create your own paths based on where you’re aiming. It changes how you play, but it doesn’t change the overall strategy. Enemies still swarm, and the best way to avoid that is to run to where there is the most open space—whether you create it or the game creates it, the pressure you feel is the same. So, ultimately, aiming is pointless. The auto-aim formula proves you can’t beat maximum efficiency.

It’s strange how fast you level up. I felt like I was choosing upgrades more than shooting at times. The constant pauses breaks the flow. I didn’t realize how important it was to space out leveling because every other Survivors-type I’ve played does it properly. Again, numbers go up, so it’s exciting to pick something and become stronger, but it makes the game too easy.

This is also another indie developer that doesn’t understand the benefit of sound. You can be sure they gave the guns sound effects. You also get a sound when you pick up a heart, but in my first run, while I was bobbing and weaving through enemies, I didn’t notice I was getting hit. I didn’t think I was. If I don’t catch the invisibility blinks because I’m focused on positioning, I have nothing to tell me I’m taking damage. Enemies don’t make any sounds when they die, either. It’s okay for a Survivor-type to have dying sounds. Picking the right one is difficult because you don’t want to annoy the player, but something might be better than nothing. It’s joyless to kill something, and I don’t get to hear their pain.

Try Just Shoot.

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Trine 6: Together in Time is already confounding people. Some don’t like the way it looks, suggesting Trine 2 looks better. What they remember is mostly glowing things. Lighting wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now, so to make it more magical looking, almost everything that lights up glows. It’s beautiful, but everything is also darker. Trine 6 is lit with modern lighting. Some things glow, but it’s less like a candle and more like something that properly glows in the dark. It’s still pretty, it’s just different.

The levels shown off in the demo aren’t what people remember of a classic Trine landscape. The first level is a castle, and the second is a swamp. Both are traditionally fantasy settings in many entertainment media, and they serve the design well. It’s immediately Trine with its curvy designs, teetering between realistic and cartoony. They are lit brightly, with little room for stark contrast, and that’s probably what’s confusing people, but they can have these kinds of areas because the shadows are much more sophisticated. Everything doesn’t need to be dark to hide that shadows couldn’t be replicated as well in the past.

Where Trine 6 continues to excel is its puzzle design. You’re given a shield that can bounce balls of light off it, which creates some mentally tricky puzzles. Trine has been the platformer that requires thinking before proceeding. But it doesn’t copy from the likes of modern puzzle-platformers like Celeste. It maintains its identity by manipulating environments and magical objects to reach the other side. The puzzles still feel inorganic—they always have—but they’re satisfying to solve. It’s a combination of object manipulation and platforming timing.

One puzzle I liked involved the ball-and-shield combo. Above were destructible stones, and I had to guide myself with my shield pointed skyward like it was a game of Breakout.

I haven’t played the Trine franchise in a while, so I forgot how bad jumping is. It never feels natural. You burst from the ground, float at the apex, and drop like a rock. Distance is deceptive, too. I died a few times thinking the jump lasts long enough to reach a height, but I’m tricked by how short your float at the apex. Jumps should be consistent from jump. It should be easy to understand. It’s why Super Mario jumps are so easy to understand, and many platformers still use that as a good benchmark. But even in cases like Super Meat Boy or Celeste that make theirs extra floaty or extra weighty, respectively, you can immediately feel what you can and can’t get away with. Trine seems content with this abomination of a jump.

Try Trine 6: Together in Time.

I hate that the Slow Roads demo didn’t work with gamepad, even though gamepad is available. I’ve never used a keyboard to drive, so my driving was erratic and dangerous for the beautiful roads. But I managed to recognize some of its beauty beneath my frustration and cramping hands.

Slow Roads is about getting in and driving. I like that the music was locked in the demo. I could hear all the sounds. One of my favorite car sounds is hearing the rushing wind fill the cabin while going at high speeds. As a child, the roar from the air blowing through our rolled down windows put me to sleep. I had to focus on driving in this game, but I felt that same aural pleasure as I pushed absurd speeds through the twisty hills.

Everything is procedurally generated—no AI. Choose what kind of road you want to drive on (slow or fast), how wide you want the lane, how twisty do you want it, and what kind of surface do you want to drive on. The game takes its seeds and randomly generates something for you.

The hills I drove through were vast and wide. Greens, yellows, and blues flew by. I drove through forests, next to lakes, through valleys, and around high altitude bends. It felt like driving through real locations. Having a real life reference made driving much more relaxing. When it was night time, I remembered actually driving through a tunnel of trees and coming out the other side seeing a cascade of stars fill the sky. It’s beautiful. And it’s beautiful in Slow Roads. In fact, driving through those forests at night could be scary in real life, but the developer did a good job of recognizing that and making it feel magical by adding white-petaled flowers that almost sparkled as my headlights lit them up.

You’re able to change the weather and time of day as you please. Tired of the bright sun? You can drive in overcast weather. Or dusk. Or dawn. All these subtle options are exactly what makes driving fun, when you’re not doing it because you have to. Even the sound of the car is relaxing. It’s not a gas-guzzling, loud supercar. It’s an electric vehicle. Its soft and happy hum as it reaches greater speeds feels warm and inviting.

I only wish that driving fast wasn’t so easy. I had to keep managing my speed which took me out of the joy of seeing everything. My natural inclination while playing was to stay around 45-55 MPH. It’s a good speed to be able to catch my surroundings. There is an autodrive feature, and I probably should have used it to give my hands a break, but I wanted to steer the wheel.

What’s interesting is that it doesn’t feel like the tires are touching the road. The car doesn’t feel weightless, but I don’t feel like my tires are gripping the road. But I like that in Slow Roads. It goes with the casual, relaxed feel. It’s a game that’s supposed to simulate the emotional feel of driving, not the physics. And so there are a few concessions made in the physics, which is likely why the car feels less weightier than what you’d find in a Forza or Gran Turismo.

I was just watching some of my footage—no sound—and it’s pleasurable to watch without steering. I’m just watching the road snake in and out (despite my erratic driving). No matter how you play this, it’s all so relaxing and pleasant. And this is just the demo. The full game must feel amazing.

Try Slow Roads.

No shade to the developer, but I downloaded Poly Fighter, a roguelike fighting game, thinking it was another roguelike fighting game I saw during Summer Game Fest. Three roguelike fighting games have suddenly sprung into my radar in less than a week: one built within 2XKO, and now Poly Fighter, and the other I need to find ASAP. But I’m glad I found this one.

I can lose myself in a well-constructed fighting game. It doesn’t matter the sub-genre. Good mechanics, awesome sounds, cool characters and moves, bring me in. I can appreciate everything else later. Poly Fighter is getting most of that correct.

It mimics an arcade environment with its simplicity. Load the game, press start, choose your character, and get going. I’m glad it doesn’t waste my time. It’s a fighting game. No more needs to be said.

You’ll fight many different characters up a branching tree. For each person you win against, you can select one of their moves to add to your selection. This is where the game is a lot of trial and error and could use a streamlined method of helping players understand what connects with what. Roguelikes benefit from discovery, but what can happen in this game is that certain attacks you choose may not work with your set of moves, so you’re constantly swapping or ignoring attacks. Roguelikes are built on increasing strength through buffs, but if you don’t get a good attack, you’re not getting any buffs. The best way to play this game is to put together a collection of moves that creates ridiculous combo opportunities. As expected, that’s not going to be possible based on what characters are in your path, but I think it would be far more fun if you could combo anything.

Poly Fighters is a game that requires some basic skill to get the most out of it, particularly if you’re using command-based inputs (you can choose simple inputs, too). If you’re not pressing buttons at the right times, you’re not going to connect your combos. If you press the wrong buttons, you’re not going to connect your combos. If this game is made for the average, or even less than average, fighting game player, why not have a giant pool where every move can combo into each other in some way? Our job is to figure out how to connect them in interesting ways. Instead of leaning into something more serious, take advantage of the fact that this is a single-player game and go a little bananas.

D-pad inputs need tweaking. I’m using a Victrix Pro BFG and the D-pad is too sensitive for Street Fighter 6. I jump when I don’t want to. In Poly Fighters, I can’t jump when I want to. Too many times I’ve tried to jump out of a corner and it only registers an Up input unless I’m right next to the Left or Right input. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for command input users, and I’ve dropped combos using simple inputs.

There’s an opportunity to teach mechanics in Poly Fighters being that it’s a single-player game. If this game is aimed at people who enjoy playing fighting games, but are below average, it would be helpful to give us the combo timings. Because I’ve played fighting games, I figured out that most combos continue on hit. There’s not much of a buffer before a strike. That’s fine, but imagine the button masher figuring that out. Nothing wrong with being the button masher, but let the button masher know why their combos aren’t consistently connecting by telling them how to connect combos. There’s no gain in hiding things like that in any fighting game at this point, let alone a completely single-player game.

The training area has a huge opportunity for playing around and pushing mechanical development. As it functions, there’s a standing dummy to punch, which is mostly useless when it comes to understanding what is a true combo or not. Yes, there is a combo counter that stops counting when a combo is dropped or if a combo isn’t possible, but it also drops after a wallbounce, which should technically continue a combo because the opponent is in hitstun. There also could be an option to access all the moves in the game to construct your perfect fighter and practice.

Fights are generally fair, but the AI sometimes predicts what you do based on what you press. Some of my attacks are perfectly blocked as soon as I press the button. Another fight was a mirror against myself and the mirror had no delay in specials, which is an utterly foolish idea to implement. Those matches are an instant avoid if you can help it. If you can’t, then winning is based on luck rather than skill. That’s not the type of unfair that’s good for a fighting game. Make AI overpowered, make them take crazy damage with a jab, create ridiculous endurance rounds, anything that makes matches feel insurmountable. Prediction AI and bots that have special input advantages are a no-no.

It’s the biggest concern I have if I were to make it to a higher round. For a single-player game, how else do you make it more difficult except by adding in the ability for the AI to know what you’re pressing and counter it? On the flip-side, some fights I was able to cheese the AI. During a boss fight, I repeatedly threw my opponent until they lost.

Some of the best fighting games included great background activity, too. Take this guy to your next party.

Try Poly Fighters.

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Rogue Eclipse is a galactic aircraft shooter that’s unreasonably frenetic. It wants you to feel like you’re in a dogfight like a Star Wars movie, but what the developer doesn’t understand is what’s shown on the silver screen is exciting because we’re not the ones in that environment. Recreating that experience in a game isn’t fun. There’s a delicate balance between recreating feel and Rogue Eclipse shatters it.

You’re immediately thrust into a dogfight. You alternate chases between your ship and the enemy while exchanging laser fire, and while dodging missiles from larger spacecraft. If I were R2-D2 co-piloting, I’d be doing its signature scream constantly. You’re totally in control but it’s so fast it’s like a young child flying an aircraft with their hand. But even a child knows that flying needs reprieve and time to reset, and Rogue Eclipse gives you none of that.

No matter what I did, I always felt like my enemies were on me. There were no moments to reset and the enemies seemed like they never needed to reset; I couldn’t tell how far away I was from the mothership or other fighters; my shields are always in danger; arrows are constantly telling me I’m in proximity even though I boosted away. I feel fast, but maybe I’m not.

I can lock on to an enemy, but I have nothing to shoot with. I see a missile icon, but there are no buttons to shoot the missiles. I’m mashing everything, nothing happens. Braking only opens me up for immediate fire, but it’s the best way to take down the other fighters because the controls are so sensitive.

It’s annoying when flying games allow the enemies to easily get the jump on you, but there’s no way counter to their maneuvers. That’s Rogue Eclipse.

They say it’s a very early build. I’d say way too early.

Try Rogue Eclipse.

The Rabbit Haul unmistakably looks cozy—and it is—but the longer I played, the more it felt like lying in bed: the longer you do it, the more you become comfortably cemented to it.

This tower-defense game doubles as a farming sim. It works in phases. During the day, you’re planting, watering, hunting, gathering, and dumping all of your crops into an ever-growing haul that looks like a landfill of fruits and veggies. At night, Raccoons come to steal from the haul. You must protect it because if it empties, your run is over. You brandish weapons like swords, knives, frying pans, flywheels, and magic wands. I’d like to see a game starring animals use less human-like weapons—I’d just like to see creativity—but I can appreciate the whimsy of some of the weapons.

I use the word “run” specifically because The Rabbit Haul is a roguelite, too. You’ll choose buffs that do things like fortify your crops, increase your strength, or simply give you items for free. The roguelite element is forgettable. All my fun came from buying new weapons and towers, discovering crops and enemies around the forest, and managing each day to maximize my horde. Choosing an upgrade whenever I leveled up, which wasn’t often, didn’t make noticeable differences. As with many indie games, it feels like its in there because that’s what people are playing. But I’m confident I wouldn’t miss it if it were gone.

The map isn’t big at all, but the developers did a good job of creating moments of discovery just by randomizing what’s the forest each day. Sometimes there are enemies, sometimes there are lots of blades of grass to slice like it’s The Legend of Zelda, sometimes there are treasure chests with goodies, and sometimes there are free crops to pick to add to the haul. You never know what you’re going to get. You could be disappointed, you could be elated. This design feels deliberately like it came from a template—games must have discovery; create random things in the world to discover—but it works because its cozy vibes keep things simple. In The Rabbit Haul’s case, simple is good.

You don’t have to think hard. You don’t have to manage how much water you’re using, how many crops you have, how long the day or night lasts, nothing like that. Day is as long as you want it. Night ends when you defeat the enemies. Watering plants is as simple as just tapping the key to pour water over the soil. The most thinking you do is combat and how to place your towers.

Even the art style doesn’t require a lot to process. It’s colorful and extremely limited in animations. In some ways it looks amateurish, but it’s in-line with how simple the rest of the game is. If it were there were more animations, it would feel out of place.

There are a few quirks I hope are resolved before launch. The first is that the animal crew who are stealing from your haul are called the Trash Panda Posse. So far, all I’ve seen are raccoons. I’m open to the idea that they’re the lower-level lackeys to the panda’s, but if that’s not the case, and I don’t see any pandas in this game, I’m going to have some questions.

The second quirk is the controls. I played most of this on a gamepad because it said I could and, again, it’s another indie game that submits a demo with clunky inputs. I shouldn’t have to fight the game trying to figure out if I’m using a mouse or a gamepad. That is the kind of stuff it’s imperative you fix before you release the demo. If you’re going to give the option, people are going to use the option. I also think it’s odd that the only way to move the cursor is only through tabbing around. I think the Destiny cursor is the worst thing happened to gamepad menu navigation design, but there are games where it’s a useful option.

When I used the mouse and keyboard controls, I lost my cursor because it flew off-screen even though I had Full Screen checked in the settings. I’m not saying these are easy things to fix, but I am saying they’re easy to test for. I imagine if you put gamepad controls in, make sure it works without flaw, at least for the most common PC setups. If you’re going to utilize a Full Screen option, make sure the cursor doesn’t fly off the screen.

I know it’s a demo, but first impressions matter. I’m glad that everywhere else The Rabbit Haul is pretty solid.

Try The Rabbit Haul.

Duppy Detective Tashia follows a young Jamaican girl, named Tashia, who drops her phone in the middle of the street. Someone bumps into her and somehow, while she was standing next to the phone looking at the culprit who bumped her, someone snatched her phone from under her. It could have been the one who bumped her; it could have been someone else. With a crowd around her, I’m not sure how anyone would get away with crawling on the ground to grab a phone that was obviously not theirs while she’s audibly complaining about it. I’ll try to suspend my belief.

The animation is great. It’s a mix of Proud Family and anime expressions. Tashia chases her thief—the scene cuts to a funny overhead shot of the street with two icons, one chasing the other. When the scene returns to the ground, she continues the chase, then the screen fades to white, and we’re now looking at a towering burly tree. I thought this was a scene change, but according to the archangel we just met, we’re dead. Tashia ran into the street without looking. It wasn’t clear she died when the screen turned white.

Tashia is a silly game. Avoiding showing Tashia’s death was likely less about keeping things kid friendly, and more about avoiding sad feelings. A moment of shock to show something happened with a faster fade to white could help make sense of the transition. There are silly ways to convey that. I’m not sure why the developer didn’t choose to do that. It shows negligence.

Negligence is common in Tashia, like when dialogue ends without any punctuation. Yes, line breaks make more obvious the sentence ended, but what’s the trouble of adding a dot? A few times I was confused if the person had a full stop or if all the words were meant to run together. It’s a shame something like punctuation has been demonized. Somehow “No” is softer than “No.” What broken-hearted person concluded that full stops were negative? And can we not let them dictate social grammar? Besides, any missing punctuation means we can insert our own meaning, and that’s not the point of writing. Stories are told with words, and they’re felt with punctuation. They’re felt with punctuation!

Okay, you get it. Anyway, Tashia’s in a forest now. The archangel explains that someone of great importance has been murdered and he’s trying to figure out who did it. Tashia’s freaked out about being dead, but quickly volunteers to help solve the murder, but also wants to find her phone so she can someone escape from the forest—but she’s still dead. I can’t suspend my disbelief anymore. I don’t understand the motivation. Again, negligence.

This is a point-and-click adventure game. So once we get through the nonsensical setup, we get to actually enjoy the game. Based on the demo, it’s more about meeting people and catching what they say rather than utilizing a mix of conversation and environments to hide clues. It’s a cozy type of murder-mystery, so it’s our connection to the characters that moves our interest. It works. All it takes is a little absurdity, a little red herring, and we’re not quite sure who could be at fault. But the story plays out almost linearly. It feels guided. By the end of the demo, it becomes a social deduction game. You have to vote someone out the forest, and I felt like my choice wasn’t mine because I didn’t—read: couldn’t—gather enough information. If the goal is for it to be guided, I think it works because the characters are intriguing, but my expectations weren’t set for that.

The characters are a range of silly but intriguing personalities, and written using their Jamaican dialect, which is sometimes hard to understand. I’ve talked to and heard enough Jamaican’s to figure it out, but I can only imagine what people who haven’t heard a Jamaican are thinking. I wouldn’t propose a dumbed down translation. The game opens up with a definition of Duppy (pronounced duh-pee). It means ghost or spirit. The word originated from Africa and is frequently used in the Carribean, particularly Jamaica and Barbados. Perhaps one could click on an esoteric word and a funny pop-up appears to clarify and provide more examples of the word in context. No matter the solution, it’s best if it makes the game easier to understand and brings more understanding of the culture without sacrificing its intended idea.

Try Duppy Detective Tashia.

Blood Dungeon seems like a masterclass in game design. None of the game makes sense, but everything is so equally ludicrous that blends together. You’d never think that a smoothie with strawberries, bananas, spinach, and kale would be good, but it is. Blood Dungeon is that kind of crazy. And it’s funny, too, so it might be just as healthy.

When I heard of it during Summer Game Fest, I waved off one the developer’s selling point that you can climb on things. The image showing while that was said was a flailing baby character latching on to a gate. It looked like nothing more than Super Mario World—nothing original about that. I must’ve been doing something else because I didn’t see the character climbing on everything. That’s the single-most fascinating thing about the movement.

You could be on a square and crawl down the side of it, then swing from the bottom of it, and climb the opposite side to reach the top. Depending on the surface, you may not need to jump. Considering the jump isn’t all that great anyway, it’s good there’s more then just finding the best route around the top of a surface. It’s the perfect movement system for a game where enemies can fly through walls and mob you from all sides.

It feels like the game is moving faster than it is because the art is constantly wiggling, writhing, bouncing, spinning, and twerking. Even the default character runs with its arms flailing just because it looks silly. Everything else is changing colors and grooving to the beat of whatever is going on like it’s a silent dance party. It livens the pace and strangely isn’t distracting because the color palette is pretty neutral except for you and everything that’s coming after you.

Blood Dungeon is an experiment in how far they can take the craziness. The characters are just as wild. The mature content description on Steam says “Two characters the player can choose to play as are nude.” Yes, one male has its genitals just hanging out. It’s crude silliness, but it totally fits. He climbs and does everything the same, but grunts and lets it all hang while doing it. He also swings a giant sword around his body. Hehe.

The jokes don’t last long once you reach higher levels as the enemies swarm and become bigger and badder. You’re focused on surviving. I wish skillful platforming were a much more necessary way to succeed, but these games have always been about blasting away hordes of enemies in overpowered glory rather than moving through the hordes. In that regard, it’s consistent with other Survivors, where it’s more advantageous to run. But it’s so much more interesting navigating a dungeon in all directions than walking up and down while enemies swarm. There are even timed gates that as you cross them, they shut and you cannot pass until the timer is up, which could be disastrous. In situations like that, Blood Dungeon does demand more compared to other Survivor-likes in terms of movement and spacing, and makes the Survivors concept more engaging.

As more people continue to experiment with Survivor-types, Vampire Survivors may find itself exceedingly outdated in a year or two. Blood Dungeon is certainly making that clock tick faster.

Imagine driving on a highway. You’re driving full speed. Plenty of cars are on the road. You’re bobbing and weaving between lanes, avoiding traffic. You’re doing this because there’s a giant monster chasing you. You can’t outrun this monster, you have to lob bombs at it to destroy it. But the twist is that you can only see the monster when you’re looking in the rear-view mirror. So you have to balance looking at what’s in front of you so you don’t crash, but look in the rear-view so you can see where you’re throwing the bombs. Sounds like a lot to manage, yeah? That’s what Screenbound feels like. The idea of playing a platformer where you’re in 3D, but also in 2D, is novel and refreshing. But it’s extremely frustrating.

You hold a giant Game Boy in your hand called a Q-Boy that renders your 3D world in 2D, but your 2D form still moves on different axis’s depicted by the background becoming more or less opaque. More opacity means you’re on the foreground, less means you’re somewhere in the background. Objects and items also phase through degrees of transparency and what’s full opaque can be collected, destroyed, or should be dodged.

Everything in the 3D world is fully rendered, except for what’s invisible. Anything invisible is shown in the 2D world on the handheld, unless you peer through the Q-Boy’s lens. This is how the game presents its challenge. In 2D or 3D, the platforming is simple, but withholding information in either dimension presents the challenge.

Control and precision is everything in a platformer, and Screenbound takes it away and repackages it as challenge. First-person platforming is already tough enough, but Screenbound forces you to do it with a giant block obscuring your landing zone. You can move the Q-Boy, but it’s not simple. You need to hold the option button and move the right stick down to move it from view—very difficult to do while you’re in the air, and it makes it impossible to move because you have to take your left thumb off the stick. Whatever side you move it to, it helps make it much more manageable until you have to do turns in midair, so it’s going to block something on the screen. Why have the Q-Boy in the middle at all?

Bounce pads launch you in the air, but your directional momentum continues after you touch it, so you’re constantly readjusting your landing position while you have this brick blocking your view. On top of that, sometimes you have to dodge invisible items in your path, which are only visible while looking down at the Q-Boy screen. I don’t know how the developer finds this design acceptable. There are enough platformers that feature bounce pads—Sonic being one of them— that suspend momentum and your ability to move, usually until you reach the apex of the jump. It makes landing manageable while still giving you a little wiggle room to mess up. I understand why the physics work that way. It aligns with the rest of the physics in the game. But it clashes with the level design. Platforming is about precision, and Screenbound sacrifices much needed precision to call itself challenging when it’s really incompatible design.

I got stuck on my demo run (featured in the video above) because I had to use a wind fan that would propel me into the air, catch a balloon that I could use to float to another platform, and dodge spike balls that were invisible in 3D. But some of the spike balls were off screen in 2D. So I would jump to catch the balloon and the spike ball would be in perfectly lined up to my body that I couldn’t avoid it, and I’d have to start from the beginning. There’s no way to know what the timing is.

What I would eventually realize in hindsight is that I should peer through my Q-Boy’s lens to potentially see the timing, but these off-screen shenanigans would continue while I’m in midair, and I have to look through the lens, which means sacrificing my 2D view, and manage where I’m landing in 3D. It’s absurd.

Classic 2D games like Kirby’s Dreamland 2 had characters that would suddenly appear from off-screen that made me lose health or die. The difference is, the developers were wise enough to know that would be unfair to have a character do that randomly, so it was always the same. First time, shame on the game. Second time, shame on me. In the case of Screenbound, it’s always shame on the game.

When you die, you start almost exactly where you left off. That’s good, but it’s no excuse for poor design. Just because death is inconsequential doesn’t mean you get to keep poor obstacle ideas. That’s unacceptable. Anyone should be able to get through a level without unnecessarily falling if they have the skill to do it.

A lot of standing and evaluating is required to play Screenbound correctly, which is the antithesis of a good platformer. Screenbound conditions you to take one jump, look down at your 2D screen to check for obstacles, move forward to a different platform, stop and check again, and repeat over and over. There’s no flow. I had moments where I’m jumping without a care and suddenly I crash into an invisible obstacle and fall. You’re right, I should have been looking at my screen, but at least when I look both ways before crossing the street, I don’t have to take a few steps and wonder if a car’s going to materialize like it’s Back to the Future. Platformers need flow. An entire game can’t be about second-guessing what’s a safe move.

I also wonder why there’s even a hearts system in the first place. You have three hearts. If you lose them all you respawn exactly where you left off as if you lost a heart. Coins respawn, but you don’t lose coin count. Why not just have no hearts? It doesn’t add to the challenge. It’s just another reason to be aggravated because you lost something you know you should keep. There are no stakes if we always respawn the same way. I’m not asking to make start completely over if we lose three hearts. Just get rid of them.

This game is about finding your classic damsel in distress. This time it’s your mom. Sorry, mom. I may have to leave you stranded.

Try Screenbound.

I’m shocked 1666 Amsterdam is able to get away with a 30 minute demo without any action. One swipe from a cat is all you get. I can appreciate the confidence. It’s well deserved.

The demo begins in a sepia-tinged forest, God-rays beaming through trees over the top of an animal corpse with cats chewing through its guts. You use the disgusting corpse to cast some kind of incantation to light candles. You’ll use this incantation more than once, and it’s seemingly to light something. It’s an unfulfilling spell. But those candles illuminate your path and, later in the demo, reveal more interesting and perplexing discoveries.

Down the path, you walk through credits. It’s a very engaging way to present those who have worked on the game. The way they hover on the screen is inescapable, and the way they float away, like leaves scattering in the wind, is graceful. The typography doesn’t fit thematically, but I know it’s a demo.

Once you reach the end of the path, you join your commencement ceremony—a group of Zaindaris in hooded dresses who are participating in what looks like a blood ritual. There’s another animal corpse with more cats eating its innards. You scurry them off, and they climb into a dry, leafless tree. You slice your hand and drop one spot of blood onto a small cube that turns into a twisted spherical concoction that conjoins to your hand and creates a long spike. If there weren’t enough Assassin’s Creed references, this is certainly the most obvious. But we don’t assassinate anyone with it, at least not in the demo.

Now, we choose a cat that will become our companion. I’m not sure what the cats do. They have names and descriptions, but their use isn’t mentioned or demonstrated in the prologue. I can imagine how frustrating it is to include something in a demo and have no way to assess its quality, but the developers want to tease, and the tease does its job. I’m left with more questions than answers.

The prologue purposefully obscures details because the end of the demo sets up the premise and its mystery, leaving us on a cliffhanger that’s memorable but not potent enough for us to keep it locked in our heads over an undetermined number of days.

Similarly to Assassin’s Creed, you bounce between the past and present. In the modern day, you follow a woman named Clio, who seems to come from the same lineage as the Zaindaris, the people wearing the hooded dresses. Clio is socially awkward, earnest, and seems to lack confidence. Her professor, a friend of her deceased father, has knowledge of the Zaindaris, but seemingly not enough to help Clio—or maybe he knows more than he lets on. We also meet Noa and Aaron, two modern day people—Clio’s parents—who seem to be having a referential Templar/Assassin relationship, assuming the Zaindaris are Templars, if we’re following Assassin’s Creed logic. I could be reading too much into it, but the parallels are inescapable.

I was confused by gameplay that felt inorganic—it felt like a video game. When you discover new items, they pop out and immediately drop to the floor. There’s a section you need to explore a library to find a book. When you find it, it magically appears and immediately drops to the floor. Other items you need to collect, like pulling something off a top shelf are handled the same way. I’d rather a prompt tell me I grabbed it. It doesn’t fit the universe. I imagine that can be worked out by launch, but it needs to be noted, in case it remains. It’s incongruous.

Another sequence you walking through a storied explanation of how Clio’s dad is no longer around. This is a letter to his daughter, but his description of details regarding him and his mom feel unrealistically specific. I have a daughter. When she’s old enough to knock boots, I still wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing about my hookups with her mother. “Agnes went directly to the bathroom ‘to put on her magic touch’, she said.” Yeah, Dad. Didn’t need to know that. The practical language feels out of place, but it is coming from someone who lived in modern times, not 1666. But the way we ebb from centuries in the past, to possibly decades in the past, makes it hard to keep up with the stylistic changes in speech. I don’t expect a millenial dad to speak like a 1600s person, but I suspect the tone to remain the same. Ezio spoke like an Italian of his time, but Desmond also spoke like a person of his time, and their tones matched—grounded, realistic. Clio’s dad sounds like a writer who’s trying to find what the right vibe is.

DLSS looks like it’s fighting to overtake faces in this demo. It’s most prominent during the scenes between Clio and the professor. The professor has an old, wrinkled, and freckled face, while Clio looks like she could be a woman in her 30s or a little older—or younger depending on what the DLSS is doing. Their faces constantly go from soft and feathered to sharp and detailed. Most of the time the technology is straddling the middle and it’s distracting. You’re helpless watching the characters have their conversation and their faces constantly shapeshift like a someone toggling a before and after test.

If this is what we have to look forward to with DLSS 5, it’s not welcome. I know it’s a demo, but this isn’t a good first impression of the technology.

Try 1666 Amsterdam.

I forced myself to stop playing 13Z: The Zodiac Trials. At some point, I needed to start writing, but I was captivated by my ability to obliterate the enemies within this Eastern Zodiac-themed hack-and-slash roguelite. I was having fun, but was equally confused at how I never died, and was only hit four or five times in one hour. I became so good at fighting and at choosing perks, I wondered if it was too easy.

I chose the hardest difficulty, and I performed even better after taking time to equip myself with permanent passives and upgrades to the attribute tree. The demo was too easy. But I want to play more.

The world is filled with fascinating art, symbols, and characters. I know nothing of Eastern Zodiac mythology. All I know is of the uber-mainstream version of Zodiac. 13Z is not based on that, though you can see parallels. The world isn’t lit properly with or without global illumination, yet it’s still mesmerizing to look up and see the stars and notice the rest of the architecture surrounding you.

The attacks also kept me interested. They’re swift, and the main character swings her sword with elegance like Xianghua from Soul Calibur. Perhaps that has more to do with the sound than the animation, as the animations in the demo are extremely clunky when slowed down. But I can’t deny that watching the attack performances encourages me to keep my combo going as long as possible.

That’s something I wished 13Z had (and maybe it will when the game launches): more attack variation. Your light attack has three slashes, like a typical three-button press combo. You can combine that with a heavy attack that goes up to two combos. From there, you can combine it with your special attack. There’s no difference if you do your light attack twice, then go into your heavy attack. That animation simply interrupts the light attack combo. So finding the optimal combo is rather simple, even if you’re not looking to optimize.

The choices between levels have an interesting twist. You can choose the type of upgrade you’ll receive before the next fight. After you finish a section, you usually can choose something that buffs the abilities you have or adds something new. In 13Z, you can choose something like “Change or improve your Light Attack, Heavy Attack, or Special Seal” or “Change or improve your Dash, Parry, or Walk Seal.” Let’s say you chose the former. After you finish a section, those choices that any other roguelite has will appear, but they’re based on what you chose before you started the mission. And then once you choose the actual buffs, you’ll choose another, sort of, pre-choice again.

I wonder if this is why the demo felt too easy. It felt like I was manipulating my choices, like using the Artifact of Command in Risk of Rain 2. I don’t get to decide the color, but I get to decide what’s inside. This is the opposite. I don’t get to choose which perks show up, but I do get to choose the type of perk. And to be clear, there are two choices (they are random, although pairs seem to be common), but the choice still gives immense strength to a build.

I can’t tell if this is the intended design. If it is, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with being overpowered early, but part of the charm of rougelites is hitting a wall and needing gradual upgrades to break it down. Upgrades seemed to bring my power over 9000, making the hardest difficulty easy. That kind of fun will only last so long. I’m not in the camp that every game must be played for hours, but as a roguelite, the assumption is that it will be challenging, and 13Z isn’t.

I’ve heard some say the attribute tree could use variation. All the upgrades are flat. +20 health here, 10% attack increase here, etc. That doesn’t matter. Granblue Fantasy Relink has the same kind of tree. It serves as a means to increase power or unlock other abilities. 13Z has a method for unlocking other abilities. But it is too easy to unlock those attributes. That has something to do with how much I breezed through the demo, but I’m positive that had something to do with my ability to crush the enemies on hard. There are several consequences I can imagine for making them cost more versus reducing the buff amounts, and none of which would be easy fixes, but that is a bigger problem than simply adding useless choices just to trigger another hit of dopamine.

This could be one of those demos that is far outdated compared to the current internal build, which is why I’m still optimistic about 13Z, but I think its fair to say those concerns are real. But so is the potential.

Try 13Z: The Zodiac Trials.

Beatdown City Survivors reveals a problem with taking a popular concept and combining it with other genres. On paper, Beatdown City Survivors is Vampire Survivors except in the city and it’s melee focused. You’re punching and kicking thugs, police, giant rats, small rats, sludge creatures, and other ridiculously ugly specimens that would roam the sewers in a child’s imagination. You’ll collect different items like knives and 4x4’s that are automatically hurled at your enemies. The formula fundamentally works in this format, but it’s a mix of unique ideas that should be implemented in every Survivors game going forward, and a few elements that dull the approach.

A few dichotomies surface with this genre blend. One of them is I don’t feel the punch. Classic beat ‘em up-style games like Streets of Rage 4 perfected making every punch feel like it hurts. In Beatdown City Survivors the punch feels like slap-boxing and your enemies basically melt, I suppose beating them to a pulp. I’ll be fair: I’m not sure how one would solve that problem. The choice is functionally appropriate. The action is fast. Where is there room to accentuate the hits? But it’s undeniable that part of the fun of beat ‘em ups is feeling the hits connect with the enemy and seeing them agonize. That’s not here.

The other dichotomy is the licensed music. I’m glad black developers are uplifting black artists. I wouldn’t want the developer to ever change this approach. It’s hard enough for us as it is. The trouble is the song selection doesn’t uplift the action. It just feels like a Spotify playlist playing in the background. It’s even presented that way with a “Now Playing” with the song name and artist appearing in the top right corner. It’s clearly an intentional choice, perhaps meant to mimic walking the streets with a radio—a soundtrack of the neighborhood—but we are playing a game. My theory is that everything in a game should serve the experience, and few songs strengthen the frenetic action. I’m not referring to quality. The songs are good. I’d listen to them without playing the game. But the best game soundtracks, licensed or otherwise, blend with the game, not simply become background music.

These minor objections don’t dilute where the developers of Beatdown City Survivors clearly spent a lot of time perfecting: the environment. The environment plays a critical role in success or failure. There’s a liquid system where blood, toxic waste, sludge, gas, and water all contribute to your fight in the streets. If it gets on enemies, they drag it around. If it gets on you, you drag it around. All of the fluids do something detrimental to you except water, which can washes everything off. But even water can turn into an electrical current by knocking down street lights and busting up air conditioning units. That’s the other part of Beatdown City Survivors that works really well. You can destroy different parts of the city to uncover cash or food for health. This should be the standard for Survivors games going forward. And if not, there better a good reason for not utilizing the environment.

Including the environment does make this game one of the harder Survivors games. It’s difficult to earn money for upgrades, and it’s hard to survive. It’s fair as it simply requires more runs at lower levels, but it opens the door for weariness to creep in. Good Survivors have solid pacing, and that’s hard to come by in this game.

Another element I love is designated spots for upgrades or health. Food trucks are city staples, and Beatdown City Survivors makes them a part of the experience. The food trucks are randomly placed around the map and clearly marked. The feeling of knowing you’re low on health but there’s a food truck nearby increases the tension that goes beyond the number of enemies flooding the screen. It’s well-implemented choice.

Try Beatdown City Survivors.

Golf, like any good sport, is very simple. Take a stick and smack a ball it into a hole in a little shots as possible. It’s why miniature golf is so fun. But it’s so simple and also a very, very slow game. It’s why miniature golf courses are filled with zany designs and feels like a carnival—it needs pizazz for the average person. Ballgame (which sounds more like a baseball game) takes the same approach as miniature golf—simple but adds zany courses. You navigate a level, that is physically designed like something out of Super Meat Boy, by smacking yourself across the level in as little shots as possible. The simplest ideas are the best ones.

You’ll have to figure out how to hit the ball in as little shots through water, ropes, and other objects strewn around even level. You’ll have to figure out how to hit the ball at angles, vertically, and around obstacles. It requires the same kind of concentration as a game of miniature golf, and it’s just as satisfying when you successfully drop the ball into the hole with few shots.

Blue Gems hang around the courses, and if you collect them they reduce your shot count at the end of a level, allowing you to score 0. It’s an intelligent way of adding Celeste-style-strawberry-collecting-complexity while adding benefits other than bragging rights.

Where I have concerns about Ballgame is what their desire to add more to an already solid game, and that there are already features in the game that feel like they’re there because that’s what games are supposed to do. My concern is portrayed as soon as the developers’ trailer plays on the Steam page. When it starts, why is the co-founder catching a red playground ball? I imagine it’s an attention-getter, but it’s a golf game. How does this fit? I know this has nothing to do with the game, but it’s indicative of the type of decisions the developer is willing to make.

Let’s get game specific: Why are there pennies you can collect throughout a course that would absolutely screw up the stroke count? The developer considers Ballgame a platformer. What do nearly all platformers have? Some kind of coin. Nintendo added the currency in Super Mario Bros. as a means of gaining lives and to incentivize exploration. Ballgame does it so you can earn customizations and upgrades. Why are there customizations to a ball that’s the smaller than a penny on screen? Are upgrades really necessary?

“Well, what’s wrong with currency and upgrades?” you might ask. Nothing in and of itself, except that it assumes you need it. It’s a good game without the extras. I wasn’t playing the demo thinking “This game really needs an upgrade mechanic.” But according to Video Game Development in the Day of Live Service Manual, it says “Players will leave your game if there is nothing to earn.” So, as it seems, there’s stuff to collect even though the game is absolutely fine without it.

The Video Game Development in the Day of Live Service Manual also says “Development must remain ongoing if you are to keep your playerbase.” Ballgame’s game description says “We have a ton of features and ideas for launch and beyond.” So the developer promises more features, and wants to hear yours, but it comes off as if they’ll be able to quickly iterate and features. They’re only setting themselves up for failure if that’s the case.

They’re absolutely allowed to develop this game however they want, but this is a skill-based game. Is mastery not enough to bring that audience back? Are they afraid people will master their ruthless levels quickly? Do they plan on selling these additions? I’m not sure what’s being communicated here. Perhaps these current features are there in case players get bored of the mastery part and want some other reason to flick the ball around. I can buy that. But that’s not the sense I’m getting from the demo and the product description.

I know some of this is meta video game analysis, but the business of games directly influences how games are made. Just look at what’s happening with Roblox and all the live-service games on the market. Games are expensive to make and players have wildly different expectations and misunderstandings of development. Ballgame should be good when it launches, but everyone, including the developer, should tread cautiously.

Try Ballgame.

Corsair Cove is a city-building game based on the life of intrepid pirates rebuilding their lives after The Crown and pirate hunters have put a stop to their swashbuckling and plundering. I expected this premise to end as soon as the game started, but it seems there’s a story built into milestone events as you build your city. I love a good city-builder, but by adding a story—albeit a relatively uninspiring story—events and stakes take on new meaning, and it clearly inspired creative opportunities. Corsair Cove is an example of how a good premise can juice an entire game.

Everything is pirate themed. You build tents, taverns, woodcutting buildings, warehouses, piers, ships, and moonshine still’s. And you build them in all sorts of odd places. Place buildings on cliffsides, on a beach, in a jungle, over the water, against a rock, and on and on. Pirates are ingenuous, they don’t play by the rules, and neither does their engineering. All the professional city builders have their work cut out for them. There are no roundabouts to abuse; you have bridges and cliff paths. Connecting them can be frustrating. If you build something on a cliffside, connecting them downwards could be problematic. It depends on what the camera and the geometry want to do.

City builders tend to ignore the people that inhabit them, but the pirates have a sim-like quality to that’s as fascinating as watching a line of ants coordinate their movements. You’ll see some carrying four times their weight, you’ll see them drunk and dancing with pigs, you’ll find them working hard in their zones. Watching the humans inhabit their city isn’t a consistent part of city builders, but it’s always better when it is. The sound effects enhance this effect. The way the pirates scream in rage while Outrage is triggered feels like a mutiny, and the voice actors do a great job of mimicking the familiar pirate accent.

Some would like to see real-time combat in this game, I don’t think that’s feasible or necessary. That’s a lot of game to build within a city-builder. It would be cool to see your turn-based choices play out in 3D scripted combat, but what you get is a dice-rolling cannon fight that also works well. The rest is left to your imagination. You can see what attacks your enemy will do and act accordingly—attack or defend. Everything you do uses supplies, so you have to manage that while taking down your opponent. Whatever you choose to do, the dice determines how effective it is. It’s not as grandiose as a pirate battle you’ll find in Windrose, but it’s an appropriate and fun solution for a city-building game. You have to manage something, you have choice, and there’s some randomness.

And I must note: Corsair Cove is a beautiful game, too.

Try Corsair Cove.

Entropy’s story begins as chaotic as the definition of the title. You take the role of a theater actor who is thrust into a terrible battle with demons who have inexplicably invaded your town. It seems the demons weren’t supposed to reach as far as they did, but you take up arms with fellow soldiers. You die. What happens after that is unclear. Did a spirit take over the heroes dead body? Was the monologue of the living person but you can see the spirit? I couldn’t figure it out. Either way, you end up living, and for some reason you are burdened with traveling to another town called Tourmaline. Why? “Nobody knows” the game says. But you must go because the game demands it. All it’s missing is the phrase “Would you kindly?”

For an opening that seemed to veer into developing character, even briefly, that’s completely gone once you start the game. You died fighting while drunk; you arise as a potential hero. Now I have more questions. It’s possible the full game can answer those questions but we’re talking about first impressions here, a demonstration of what will be. And what I see is fragmented storytelling attempting to withhold useful plot development to lure us to keep going. It’s not alluring. It’s bewildering. Balancing plot teases is difficult, but if this is how Entropy will be, I can’t imagine this will be good.

The turn-based mechanics hold up, though they have their own quirks. Combat has options for basic attacks, targeted attacks aiming for specific limbs to dismember or disable, and skilled attacks. Mechanically, these options create interesting choice. You have to decide between these attacks based on how they will help you (or hinder) or by the odds it will hit. Unfortunately, there is a lot of whiffed or backfiring attacks, which can be very costly because party members can potentially die. If they do fall in battle, the game randomly decides after the fight if they actually lived or died.

Whether your party lives or dies is more relevant to your survival than the story. When I lose characters in Fire Emblem, I’m endeared to them. In this, they can be mercenaries or characters I picked up along the way because they need help, but I just need another body so I’m not absorbing all the attacks.

Chance is how most of Entropy functions. It’s a lot of dice rolling. One attack has a 65% chance of hitting, but you can dismember the enemy and they drop their weapon. But there’s also a chance the enemy doesn’t become dismembered, so should you just use a regular attack with more damage? Or should you use a skilled attack and lose a turn? I can’t remember a time where a turn-based game had combat mechanics with almost no upside. You’re always left to chance, which feels unnecessarily punishing, and doesn’t make the game or the story better.

The minimal grid system has a lot of potential. Your party is lined up in two rows. The front row protects people in the back row (the game says “directly behind them” but they’re lined up off-center from each other, so I don’t know what directly means). Characters in the back row behind party members can’t be targeted with melee attacks but can be hit by ranged attacks. Back row characters can’t use melee attacks, only ranged. It’s an interesting mechanic I didn’t utilize as much since I only had two party members most of my playthrough, but in hindsight, I probably could have used it more often.

Other oddities plague this game like the camera is defaulted to moving in reverse—left is right. Why that was acceptable, even in a demo, I’ll never know. And the graphics are atrocious. I’ve seen several people say they like the PS1-era graphics, and I’d like to know what era of PS1 they’re referring to. The entire game is pixelated as if the they have a memory budget of a PS1. Yes, some graphical rough edges existed during the PS1, but the intense pixelation was mostly reserved for backgrounds that had little need for high-quality textures, or close-ups. Racing games had these kind of low-texture graphics in some instances. But we’re in 2026. Anti-aliasing has been a thing for a long time now. Even emulators provide it. Clarity is king. It’s always been king. You see how clean this looks? There is nothing captivating about that much pixelation across every moment of the game.

The sounds make me want to puke, too. I’ll pass by, what I think is, a furnace and it sounds like a kitchen sink draining tin cans inside an empty cathedral. Fire sounds like leaves rustling in the wind. Poison attacks sound like teddy bears squeaks.

It’s easy to dismiss these things as part of a demo, and that it will launch into Early Access, but it’s about respect. You can have much better, even in a demo. These are the sound effects they chose. They uploaded this with default camera controls that are backwards. Animations are unnecessarily slow. The character’s run speed looks like he’s sliding in place and not going anywhere. These are not design choices that require weeks of improvement. This is what they want to show off to you. That’s poor judgment. The developers are taking advantage of goodwill. We excuse what we want to like, but it’s best to demand better. These developers have the experience. They can make even a demo better.

Try Entropy.

Orc Incremental creates the discussion around the line between auto battler and idler. I’m not engaged enough with it enough as an auto-battler, and I can’t disengage enough to let it be an idler. The developer should pick one and go all in with it, and I think idler would be the better option.

There’s not enough strategic substance. Pick units, send them to battle, watch them work, earn money, pick upgrades, expand your army. There are no type advantages, strategic implementations before a fight, or anything like that. Any ongoing maintenance is choosing an upgrade based on the money you have. The appeal of an auto battler is making strategic choices, and watching those choices play out. If that were the case with Orc Incremental, I wouldn’t mind the low stakes nature of failure, but it’s a terrible combination of low stakes and breathless choices. Yes, the battles are automated, so it’s technically an auto-battler, but the functions feel closer to an idler and unit upgrades might as well be assigned to the game so it can fully be an idler.

If this were an idler, it would be cool that there is an option for us to engage if we want. We can throw fireballs at the enemy units. But we have to do a lot for an idler. The first boss fight at level 10 must have destroyed my units at least 5 times before I finally upgraded them. I don’t see a world where my units win that fight without my intervention. The game says I can step away, but my poor units can’t upgrade without me. I don’t get the sense that’s how an idle game should work. There should be an auto-upgrade option.

I want to see my number go up. That’s the point. When I return from doing something for a few hours, I want to come back and be awed by the amount of units on the field and how they’re obliterating the enemy. Sure, they lose a battle or two, but there’s a clean method for their progression.

You can rewind to previous levels if the units are too underleveled so you can farm money. But again, you have to decide to do that. An option to rewind to whatever level I choose after losing a pre-determined number of fights would be nice, so the game can be, y’know, idle.

But it’s not an idle game. It demands some micromanagement because it wants to be an auto-battler, but Orc Incremental isn’t committed to that genre, either. I think it would work better as an idler, where the whole game could control itself, but have the option to take control if you wanted. I spent an hour talking to my wife and playing the game that way. I can get behind that.

Try Orc Incremental.