Happy this week, all! Summer is well and truly afoot in south England, and I’ve marked the occasion by ceremonially pivoting my desk to face the window. This gives me a restorative view of some grass and trees, while allowing me to behold people walking their kids to school – a sight that fills my heart with hope and tenderness. The drawback is that random pedestrians can also see my expressions of diabolical excitement, poisonous confusion and mortal terror, while I try to make sense of the latest new PC game releases.
Monday 27th April
Out this day in early access, Deified is a dungeon roguelite with turn-based grid battles and relics that confer bundles of buffs and debuffs. Looks a bit like Chants of Sennaar, and a bit like a Mike Magnola comic.
Tuesday 28th April
How many dinosaurs? Not enough dinosaurs. Never enough dinosaurs!!! Bwahahahaha!
Aphelion (pictured) is a sci-fi escapade from Don’t Nod, creators of Life is Strange and Banishers. You play a pair of crashlanded European Space Agency astronauts – the ESA are, in fact, collaborating with Don’t Nod on the game. You must clamber through a frozen wilderness while avoiding some kind of hostile lifeform.
s&box is the spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod, created in the Source 2 engine by the original Garry. It’s a game-making sandbox with the ability to monetise stuff and eventually, publish your work direct to Steam.
Far Far West is a rootin’ tootin’ robot vs undead shooter, launching this day in early access. Gunsling and gallop around creepy dustbowl maps with your mates. Beware the flying saloons and bone dragons.
MotoGP 26 is some kind of motorised bicycling game. Where is Mark? He likes this kind of thing. Look, Mark – more of your precious horseless conveyances.
Industria 2 is a story-driven FPS set in a “mysterious boreal landscape consumed by an ever-hungry artificial intelligence”. I never really played the first one, but I did like its monstrous Cold War setting and diegetic, physics-based crafting elements.
Horror extraction game Mind Biotics is like Lethal Company but you can plug your deceased mate’s robot brain into a kettle and/or hoover to prolong their life.
Thursday 30th April
I probably wanted to be a toymaker when I was little. Thank the gods we didn’t have games like Toycrafter at the time.
inKONBINI is about running a small-town Japanese convenience store. I found this enjoyable at SGF a year or so back, but there is a bit of a stink around the game – last year, the official Twitter account posted allegations that the development studio’s head had underpaid and mistreated workers. The tweets have now been deleted – Nagai Industries did not respond to my request for comment.
Out this day in early access, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is the first new entry in the strategy RPG series for over a decade, and Julian and I think it’s pretty decent, with the caveat that neither of us know much about HOMM.
Invincible VS is a 3v3 tag-team fighting game based on the animated show in which JK Simmons disembowels planets.
Friday 1st May
A Bumpy Ride is about running your own little railway, and reminds me of The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, except there are no demon locomotives to contend with.
“This is fine” is a videogame now. Looks a bit like Earthworm Jim.
Spotted a great game we’ve missed? Here’s your damn medal, you snickering know-it-all. Now get out of my sight. Wait, come back and tell us about it in a comment, first.
As for what the Treehouse denizens are doing this week: James will shortly be flying to Gamescom Latam in São Paulo. Adeus and safe travels, Mister Archer. Julian is venturing out to an event slightly closer to home, where he expects to reckon with rats and long-haul truck drivers. Bon voyage, Mister Benson. As for the rest of us: I don’t know, maybe some news about videogames. I hear Valve are doing a thing.