Great indie game reviews.
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.
Mago: The Villain's Burger is an adventure set in a world populated by fresh NES sprites and joyful playful storytelling. It is your responsibility as Mago (which is a perfect name for a sorcerer) to rescue the princess and do heroic things. It's filled with so many fun easy-to-learn but masterable abilities and unique mechanics that you just don't find in every game. The best way to understand it is most likely visually, but today I'll be talking about why Mago is a promising look at how its developers are creating something that is, possibly, capable of going big if they wish.
I'm spending time playing a lot of food games lately. While cooking sims are the most obvious manifestation of this, platformers like Dadish 2 are right on board too. Dadish 2 is a continuation of the original Dadish game and both are available on most platforms. You, Dadish, awake from a nap at work one day when your several radish children come to visit you for "bring your kids to work day." They convince you to leave the chainsaw and cannon-filled office building and set off into this weird world. Dadish 2 has a narrative that is humorously inconsistent but is very entertaining and quirky.
Welcome to my post about Make the Burger. This game's release date on Nintendo Switch occurred this week, although it has a presence on Steam and ItchIO as well. This is a casual food truck sim with catchy and fun pixel environments and a line-up of hungry and paying illustrated customers. Your entire success is dependent on your ability to remember ingredient symbols and who ordered them. Take orders from customers to cook the burgers they want as accurately and quickly as possible. Upgrade your establishment each day by using funds to purchase new ingredients, furniture, and various tools of the trade. Each session starts at the beginning and it's up to you to play as casually or seriously as you'd like.
My hunger for low-res grounded pixel games lately opened me up to a stellar sale on a game called Pizza Express. Pizza Express is an indie pixel-graphic pizzeria simulator about a fast-paced solo restaurant run by animal friends Gastone the cat and Lucky the rabbit--and also you. The game is fairly simple but incorporates playful dialogue and gameplay that is quirky in the best indie-adhering ways. It is very similar to the game Good Pizza, Great Pizza, but is older and definitely a bit more grassroots. I enjoyed it very much, so I've decided to bring this review of it together for your reference. Please enjoy.
If this headline doesn't raise an eyebrow, then stick with two, because this article is tapping into some unexplored territory with the game Necrow Co. by creator Zahran Worell. The game Necrow Co. is a 2D pixel platformer, playable with either a controller or keyboard. It's a light narrative about a crow who starts work for a company of reapers, featuring a cozy skeleton psychopomp grim dispatching you to a national park filled with spookies, squishies, and don't-touchies (terms coined on our end.) Abilities are basic: move left and right, jump, and shoot a sort-of crow song wave that disables mobs. Necrow Co. is a charming adventure, and despite the grim theme, fairly soft on the player. Let's take a look.
We've got a big event going on right now for THE BIG ADVENTURE. Many demos, many great indies. I set my eyes on What Lies in the Multiverse first. It's a collaboration between Studio Voyager, IguanaBee, and Untold Tales. Everything you'll see in this game has a silvery thread of classic games like Fez, Owlboy, etc. But it's a little more than technicolor flashing pixel animations, it's dealing with a really awesome powerful mechanic. Changing universes. That's right, when you click RT you change universes in this game, and, honestly, it's unique, it's a seldom-used trope, but a particularly amusing one, because when you play a game like this, you can drop out real quick and drop back in as if you were putting on a new hat.
Alright, folks, I am compelled to write about this. Last night I posted a video of a game on itch.io called Soul Delivery. Yes, it is true, the graphics in this game are so stunning, it's enough to short circuit. Though, until now, I've never even heard of it. I don't know who the dev is, and I don't know anything more than what's covered on the itch.io page. But, since there's a demand on this, let's just take a look at it right now, and I'll polish this up later once I've had a little more time with it.
Celeste. Yes, it's about time we did this. The renowned precision platformer from Extremely OK Games has been out for approximately three years now (Celeste was released Jan. 25, 2018, hence the three-year anniversary,) and it's not lost its charm. And why would it? The game sold over a million copies by the end of 2019. Whether you're hanging out in your game room or playing on your Switch en destination, this is the kind of pick-up and go game dreams are made of. You'll have to pardon me as I haphazardly introduce a game that's been out for three years! I'm compelled to share my heart with you on this one though. So, let's do it. Let's talk, Celeste. I'll cover "Farewell" a little bit as well.