It is a Sunday and I have just finished the most stressful game of Dota I’ve played in a long time. I might need a second weekend to properly recover. But while I munch coffee from the jar and attempt to refrain from napping, here are some links to interesting things from this week:
Sundays are for recovering from a few days away. Best start by gathering the week’s best (mostly) games writing.
The Eufloria universe, the game series surreal strategy enthusiasts will remember as That Thing Wot Was Probably Once A Dream Jim Morrisson Had In The ’70s, is expanding with a new RPG game based on the now-dead Eufloria Adventures.
It’s fittingly called Eufloria RPG [official site], a game in which you command a ship which can plant colonies where it travels. This is being developed on the old Eufloria Adventures engine by series slatwarts Omni Systems Limited, along with a little crew known as Tuna.
A couple months ago we mentioned a game called Homesick [official site] – A kind of Dear Esther-like, moody first-person explory puzzle thing. Here’s a handily placed link.
Alex has pitched Kholat [official site] to me as “looks alright, has Sean Bean in it.” So naturally, moved by his booming recommendation I’ve slipped on my Sharpe #1 Fan jumper to take a look.
And O! It takes me back to those dark nights in Canada reading through Wikipedia’s strangest entries. Have you heard of the Dyatlov Pass Incident? The event saw the mysterious deaths of nine hikers in the Northern Ural Mountains in 1959. Kholat, then, sees you explore Dyatlov Pass to work out how and why those deaths occured.
It may surprise you to know that Hot Date [official site], a game about going on a series of dates with a dogs, didn’t come to my attention through my weekly Butt Dungeon newsletter. In fact, I think I in some ways I always knew that some day a game would be inspired largely by the events of my life.
I really should be inserting something clever here, but all I can think about is how adorable that bucket of plushies is. There’s something mildly disconcerting about the setup, to be fair. Why do they resemble severed heads? Is that ice in the bucket? Are they being kept alive through supernatural means? Unnatural methods? Who knows. Questioning minds need answers to this cute yet uncannily strange bouquet. Only Loc Gz has the answer. In the meantime, enjoy the bargains.
Fellow denizens of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt [official site] will have to wait around a few more days to see a fix arrive for a bug that’s reared its ugly head.
Hello again, you. This weekend’s post comes to you from Hebden Bridge, as I’ve escaped my computer and come to The North for… a games event. I have brought my swimsuit for a dip in a river though.
It’ll be good to get away from my computer before The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth‘s daily challenges arrive and stops me from ever leaving it for a day or more.
Goodness, is that the time? And, more importantly, the date? Well, yes. In my defence, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt [official site] isn’t the kind of game you can rush, in any way whatsoever. It’s the RPG that CD Projekt has been working on for ten years now – the first two games in retrospect simply being necessary baby-steps steps on the road to this, the Witcher game of their dreams. It’s a flawed masterpiece, but make no mistake, it’s absolutely a masterpiece – one of the best RPGs ever created, and a true tribute to Sapkowski’s stories. Here’s Wot (Else) I Think.
Last time I posted about D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die [official site], I was a bit vague about what it is. It’s an adventure game, right? But not like typical adventure games. And it has action segments. And it all has loads of QTEs that tire your character. And coming from the chap behind Deadly Premonition, it’s obviously a bit weird. It’s… look, you can see for yourself as a demo has arrived ahead of its release next week. Finally, respite from relying upon this dolt’s foolish clacking!
I’d presumed Frictional’s upcoming SOMA was basically just sci-fi Amnesia: the night is dark and full of terrors, and all that. Turns out there’s at least one major change to formula: you get to talk to people. And you know things about those people that they don’t know themselves. And it’s horrifying.
… [visit site to read more]
Provided you’re not hoofing around on a dancemat, wiggling your Wii-stick, or re-enacting all of your favourite John Woo films with a lightgun in hand, playing games shouldn’t be particularly arduous. When I was a kid, a day off school with some vague illness was a perfect excuse to spend a couple of hours at the altar of Doom. Playing games while wrapped in a duvet was pretty much the entire point of being ill.
Now that I’m An Old Man, I find that I struggle to play games when I’m ill. Maybe that’s because Old Man illnesses are actually real, unlike the sniffles and pangs of youth, or perhaps it’s because even a sniffle can fell a fragile frame, laid low by booze and time. I’ve been trying to find games that can provide respite in times of sickness.
