Golf Club: Wasteland

Narrative-driven dystopian crazy golf. It’s a high concept, but all three elements are crucial – Golf Club: Wasteland works because it adds up to more than the sum of those three parts. The dystopia is enjoyably bleak. Having made an absolute mess of Earth, the super-rich have moved to Mars, and come back to Earth …

Read more

Islanders: Console Edition

Islanders looks like a city sim, it plays like a puzzle game, and might just be a comment on class politics and land use in the modern world. What’s not to like? You start with a procedurally generated island, a beautiful little thing, to survey, to see how things might play out. Pick one of …

Read more

Alveole

Alveole is intriguing. It drops you in a giant hamster wheel, gives you the absolute minimum of instruction, then leaves you to get on with it. And ‘it’ is pretty limited: all you can do is start running, and once you’ve started running, all you can do is jump. From there it’s about working out …

Read more

Haven Park

Haven Park’s developer – one man, Fabien Weibel – is very honest about its inspirations: A Short Hike and Animal Crossing. There’s nothing wrong with that: there’s plenty of room in the world for more games about having a nice time doing nice things in a nice place. And that pretty much sums up Haven …

Read more

Sumire

Appearances can be deceptive. Sumire might look twee at first glance, but it very quickly puts that right. Sumire’s grandmother has died, her father had left, and her mother is withdrawn. She is, quite understandably, unhappy bordering on hopeless. Let’s have a narrative adventure! There is a fair old dose of twee in some of …

Read more

Say No! More

Say No! More has an excellent trailer. The unique say-no mechanic, with superbly overblown results; the ’90s tech aesthetic; the over-the-top Hogan-esque instructor – what’s not to like? There’s nothing not to like. But there’s also not a lot left for the game, and sadly what works in the two-minute trailer isn’t sufficiently developed to …

Read more

Isolomus

It’s always interesting to play something created by just a couple of people – there’s something almost intimate, getting a glimpse into what’s going on in their head. And with Isolomus, what’s going on in their head is grotesque. It’s a follow-up of sorts to Wurroom, Michael Rfdshir’s short plasticine-crafted point-and-click curio which we reviewed …

Read more

Art Sqool (Switch)

There’s arguably a difference between what you do in Art Sqool, and what Art Sqool is. And I think what you get out of it will depend to an unusual degree on what you put into it. Let’s get the facts out of the way: you play as Froshmin, who has just started at Art …

Read more

Seers Isle

Seers Isle doesn’t make life easy for itself – or the player. At the start of the story (we’re in interactive graphic novel territory here) the main character is mysterious at best, and it’s not even clear that you’re making decisions as that main character. It makes for a slightly awkward first playthrough, and only …

Read more

Along the Edge (Switch)

You’ve broken up with your boyfriend. You’ve moved to the massive country estate you’ve just inherited. So let’s chalk up relationships and small-town politics. That’s two elements. But the rule of three; three is always better than two. So what other ingredient do we find in this interactive visual novel? It’s obvious: witchcraft. It’s a …

Read more

Get 10 Quest

There’s a surefire way to know that a puzzle game has sunk its claws into your brain: it’s there when you close your eyes. It’s happened with Get 10 Quest, which is almost all you need to know. With that said, on with the needless detail. It’s a simple mechanic: tap an area of two …

Read more

Singled Out

It’s not easy to keep things simple, to resist the temptation to over-complicate. Singled Out originally came out of a game jam (theme: ‘only one’), and the full release – initially on Steam, now on Switch too – hasn’t tried to needlessly bulk it out. This is a self-proclaimed “short, simple but challenging arcade game”. …

Read more

The Touryst

I can’t remember the last time a graphical effect made me double-take. But the light of the setting sun filtering through the palm trees on Ybiza did exactly that. The characters and scenery are pleasantly chunky, but belie what I assume is significant technical whizz-bangery to make it all pop in quite the style that …

Read more

Freedom Finger

There’s a lot going on in Freedom Finger. It’s a shoot ’em up, sure. But it has at least three unique selling points: the mechanics, the presentation, and the music. The first two are connected: your ship is a hand giving it the middle finger, which gives us the non-standard shoot ’em up mechanics, and …

Read more

Nintendo knows exactly what it’s doing and/or has no idea

In the same week as a Nintendo Direct which included the confirmation of SNES games on Nintendo Switch Online, Nintendo has thrown this excellent teaser video out there: What is it? Why it’s some sort of ‘Nintendo Circle’ of course! The leading theory is something along the lines of Switch Sports or Switch Fit, and …

Read more