Great games that I’ve tried and that you should too.
e of the octopus!) Using your squiggly limbs and momentum, propel yourself around the interior of the factory with the intention of escaping. You can use suction cups to climb structures and hurl objects at switches to reverse conveyor belts and such. There are three modes: speed mode, story mode, and “the floor is lava.” Despite the dire situation, the game is pretty pleasant and amusing. The graphics and art style are spot on, making use of mid-range graphics cards, which I confirmed on my desktop build. It’s best played with a controller in my opinion. The story is short and sweet, but this is a free game that rewards you for wanting straight-to-the-point gameplay to appreciate its concept. The game is from an academic dev at FH Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, which has some other projects out too.
Village Monsters is a solo dev project from Josh Bosser. It's a pixel art town sim that departs from conventional titles with an alternative community of friendly monsters. The game plays on similar genre themes as Stardew Valley but the content goes into the outsider/quirk genre of games with its monster acceptance communicated in each character's unconventional friendliness. It departs from too much comparison by offering a vast amount of exclusive unique story concepts in each characters' backstory and dialogue. Players can also enjoy activities like treasure hunting, fishing, exploring, working, and contributing to the town itself. Village Monsters is pleasantly surprising and the subject of this indie game collective showcase/review post. So, let's see what's inside!
The recently released pixel platformer Pompom: The Great Space Rescue ran across my desk as a showcase opportunity through my friends at Indie Game Collective. It's a precision platformer, sort of, with a feature I've never seen before this involving time slowing AND improvised platform placement. You can play with a controller, or you can play it with a mouse (or hamster actually, since that is Pompom's main character you play as.) The game balances innovative gameplay, a moderate learning curve, and generous leniency to keep your gameplay flowing. I'm thoroughly enjoying it, at the level of some other top precision platformers like Celeste. From the pleasant pixel art to the rewarding gameplay, this game earns every slice in the Mr. Dave Pizza pie. So, let me do my duty and share with you some information about this excellent game. Also, I made a cam appearance for the first time on this game's video--with my favorite hat! Not sure why, just felt like doing it.
I'm a big fan of fishing in games, but even more so a good story involving it. Moonglow Bay has done it. It's a story about a retired fisher getting back out there. It is also about settling a community's superstitions and getting back to the foundation of their livelihood. The story takes place in a traditional Eastern Canadian seaboard fishing village in the 80s. It is otherwise perfectly afloat in its conventional timeless qualities. I related to this game on a personal level, but it floats my boat on multiple. Let's see.
Dogs dashing, catching, posing, and dogs riding scooters to surfboards throughout the whole game. Pupperazzi is a comedy game with a pretty clean content concept. In all honesty, I initially wasn't too interested in the game, until I saw it was on Xbox Gamepass where I tried it for free. To my surprise, I found this game very funny, and it had enough achievement-based gameplay that it was actually quite fun. I know games like this aren't for everybody, but I thought it was a good romp that didn't require too much brainpower. So, here we go with my complete thoughts on Pupperazzi.
Forgive, me, because we're about to "dive into" some game material from the past. All the way back to the year 2018. Which isn't really that long ago, making the sentiment of that sentence nearly arbitrary actually. Donut County is on its fourth year after release, and I've been meaning to play it for about half of that time. Why did I wait so long? I have no idea, but anything that was offsetting about it has vanished from any of my pre-conceptions. Donut County is a hilarious, strategy-based game from Annapurna Interactive, a publisher of some really good indie games.
There's a short, charming story in Eternia: Pet Whisperer. Even if you're a cockatoo/border-collie lover like me, or whether you lean more toward the exotic koala/frill-necked lizard, or rat brothers. These animals have a slight backstory, and cute appearance, plus a natural subtle wit. It's got that solo dev quirk that I love best of all, where the plot derails to form a full loopable plot-line but keep things manageable; that's a plus, folks. And I'm not going to spoil it for you, because you deserve that, but also because I think it's one of the charms of the game.
The game Moonlighter is a combination rogue-lite dungeon-crawler mixed with trade simulation and story-rich RPG elements. This timeless, beautifully rendered pixel top-down was released by Digital Sun in 2018, and is available on most platforms.
Well, here I am, back to keep things fresh here in the pizzeria arcade (this is a lie.) I have the privilege of receiving a review copy for what was originally a PC game, now out on Switch, Xbox, and Playstation. Today I tested out the Switch version on the handheld mode and made my way through the first couple of chapters to see how well the transition has been (plus promote it to new players!) I've seen sketch-style game graphics before, but I was curious to see what this was all about. The developer reached out to my friends at Indie Game Collective, and many of us got to try this ourselves to our utmost delight. So, in the honor of storytelling, as is this beautiful mind-sharpening narrative, I'll be taking a look at the new puzzle game Inked: A Tale of Love.
Today, I plunged headfirst into the free games pile new releases over on Steam store. On my arrival, I discovered a cozy little visual novel among the listings called Fayburrow, and I decided to take a look at it. Fayburrow is a free game created by the self-named "Fayburrow Troupe" at VIA University College in Denmark. It just hit the Steam store today. What was first intrigue, turned into a fascination with the conjunction of such delightful graphics with a genre I have not covered in far too long! So, after downloading, I fired it up and took it for a spin at the courtesy of the game's student makers and you dear reader. Let's take a look at Fayburrow.
