Train Valley 2, the train tycoon management and puzzle game by indie developer Flazm, is now available on Steam Early Access, (that’s Windows, macOS, and Linux).
Train Valley 2 – Bust My Buffers
The game allows you to build an efficient, or inefficient railroad based on your actions, upgrade your locomotives, and keep trains on track without delays to meet the evergrowing demand of the industries in the valley:
Key features include:
Gameplay which mixes puzzle micromanagement with tycoon elements
There are 50 levels in ‘Company Mode’
You can upgrade your stock of locomotives and unlock advanced engines with 18 locomotives from 6 different generations
There’s even a level editor with Steam Workshop integration where you can create your own Valleys – or play levels from other players. It’s a useful addition that should extend the lifespan considerably. All you have to do is use that noggin.
You can pick up Train Valley 2 for $9.99, around £7.
Supposedly Wonderful Future is a sci-fi narrative game created by one person, in four years, with zero budget. If you believe those sort of constraints are the key to true creativity, read on.
Supposedly Wonderful Future – A Dark Path
Supposedly Wonderful Future was born out of a fascination the developer had with video games as a storytelling medium. It’s a project with a singular focus: to tell a ‘meaningful, thought-provoking, and emotional story’.
A cross between a point and click adventure, a text-heavy RPG, and a visual novel, SWF sees a young man invited to skip his own death by relocating to the year 2048. The catch? He has to complete some work for the world’s biggest corporation first. And we’re guessing they’re corrupt… It wouldn’t be a leap of the imagination now would it:
Here’s everything the game has to offer, with some pretty amusing features from the developer:
Supposedly Wonderful Future contains a word count of around 125,000. The estimated play time is 4 to 8 hours.
There are 5 chapters and a prologue.
It has UI customization options to keep the text as readable as possible.
Modest system requirements (a decade-old PC should do).
There are enough jokes to forget about the daily horrors of the human condition. For a bit. Maybe.
There are some choices, but they don’t really matter. Or do they?
If that sounds like your type of thing, you can pick it up from the 18th April on PC, via Steam, for $9.99 – around £7.
The Swords of Ditto, from developers Onebitbeyond, should probably have been talked about before now. It’s got everything you could possibly want from an indie action adventure game:
Swords of Ditto – Indie Action Adventure
As you can see from the trailer, there’s beautiful 2D graphics, upbeat tunes and old-school game design. What more could you ask for? Co-op play and procedurally generated and bite-sized adventures, you say? Well, The Swords of Ditto has all of that going for it too.
Today the developers also announced that the PS4 version of the game would have an exclusive LocoRoco themed quest for you to discover. I’m a sucker for LocoRoco, so I’m happy whenever I get to see those little yellow guys’ smiling faces.
The Swords of Ditto will be launching on PC and PS4 on the 24th of April.
Control the skies and battle your way through blistering aerial combat in the 2D procedurally generated, dogfighting arcade game – Rogue Aces. Set in the slightly historical World War II, players will soar across over 100 hundred missions throughout the dangerous skies riddled with enemy bullets.
Rogue Aces – PS4, PS Vita, Switch
Publishers Curve Digital has announced the release of Rogue Aces with an exciting trailer showcasing the hectic dogfighting you’ll find in the arcade aerial combat title.
Here are a few takeaways from the announcement of Rogue Aces:
Over 100 procedurally generated missions including rescuing prisoners of war or fending off enemy bombers from destroying ally buildings.
Simple but unique control scheme has players adjusting direction and throttle control using only the two analogue sticks.
Limited fuel supply for each plane adds a deal of strategy when replenishing and repairing your bomber during the aerial combat and capturing of enemy bases.
The heated combat and acrobatic manoeuvres provide an excellent pick up and play style of gameplay, good for handhelds!
Releasing on the PS4 and PS Vita with the cross-buy/play platform, and the Switch – Rogue Aces is set for release on April 12th, 2018. With a price of £9.99/€12.99/$12.99, this aerial dogfighter looks like quite the little package of intense arcade chaos on the go.
Science and the spiritual realm are often considered opposites within our modern cultural milieu. So, what happens when the two clash together as very real yet polar counterparts? More specifically, what happens when the realms of madness come into contact with the methodical clockwork of the scientific method? Tesla vs. Lovecraft poses one answer to this: absolute and glorious chaos.
Tesla VS Lovecraft Review
Tesla VS Lovecraft Review
We recently did a full review of Tesla vs. Lovecraft for the PC, but as a bit of a refresher, the game centres on an ominous interaction between famous horror author H. P. Lovecraft and well-known electric guru Nikola Tesla. After ignoring Lovecraft’s pleas not to continue with his work on electricity, Tesla finds his laboratory raided by minions of the sinister Cthulhu. Tesla must now take back his inventions and castigate the forces of darkness using his scientific knowledge, and enough firepower to take out any collection of onerous elder gods.
The battle has finally made its way onto the Nintendo Switch and thankfully none of the monster exploding mayhem has been lost in the transition. The neon blue of Tesla’s teleportation ability, the brilliant green of underworld portals, and the bright purple tones of a devastating blast translates just as well whether on full screen or in tablet mode. The monstrous hordes are just as crisp and clear on my TV as they are on the small tablet screen aside from the obvious reduction in size. At no point did I feel at a disadvantage using the tablet over the TV mode.
Tesla VS Lovecraft Review
In fact, I actually preferred using the tablet over playing in TV mode despite the smaller screen and decreased speaker output. I used a pro-controller to play on my TV and felt the larger screen combined with the more fluid, slightly raised analogue sticks made the movement feel less precise. The slighter, tighter movement of the Joy-Con controls matched with the smaller screen felt far more precise and made the action flow more fluidly for me. Of course, this will be a matter of preference and hand size, but I do think the game feels more natural on the tablet.
Plus, the visuals will still feel crisp and clear and the audio on the tablet, though not a match for TV speakers, handles the techno jive and bass output of the soundtrack quite well.
Tesla VS Lovecraft Review
The Switch version brings with it all of the quick gun action and screen-filling hordes that keep the pace pumping along at breakneck speeds. You will find numerous weapons of varying effectiveness lying about and will quickly learn which is best for dispatching enemies in the swiftest and most visceral fashion. Tesla can also collect certain perks that can be added at the start of each level. You will also acquire a mech that will increase Tesla’s firepower and shield for a few seconds before exploding. You can then begin collecting the parts from around the level in order to regain the power of the mech for a few seconds before the cycle begins again.
Tesla VS Lovecraft Review
Tesla can momentarily escape being consumed by the throngs by using a teleportation ability. This becomes extremely useful and often keeps you from feeling overwhelmed. But, be careful. It does take some seconds to recharge after a few uses. Once you get the hang of the dual-stick combat, you will find yourself dancing around and through the monstrous masses like some badass ballerina equipped with weapons that would make the Terminator jealous.
Hollow. As if some cosmic justice, some divine destiny or simply just bloody good luck, that’s exactly the game I’m going to review today. Finally, I get to review a game I want to play, something I was looking forward to…
Hollow Review [Nintendo Switch]
Hollow is a first-person survival horror game by Forever Entertainment. The game has you play as a male pilot waking up in a capsule pod boarding Shakhter-One: a mining space station that gathers resources from Jupiter. Boarding Shakhter-One and playing as another amnesiac, all you know from an emergency warning is that the power generators are down and that there are no living people aboard. It’s your job to regain power to the space station and find out what has happened on Shakhter-One.
As soon as the game loaded up with a warning ‘This game contains scenes of violence and gore’, a smile appeared on mine and any survival horror fan’s face. A lot of this game does seem to cater to a certain gamer of a certain generation, the golden age of survival horror games. As you move around, your character is clunky and slow, and even with the fastest movement toggled, your character doesn’t move that fast at all. Like the games of past, this isn’t an action fest either, it’s slow-paced and infrequent.
Hollow Review
As you start to play the game, you begin to release it’s just as much of a corridor shooter with the puzzle elements of a survival horror game mixed in; the game does what all great survival horror games do, feed you enough ammo to deal with most situations, but it makes ammo rare, not easily accessible – if you are a crack shot you can drop enemies with a single bullet.
Hollow adds a new mechanic I’ve not seen before, which is when you reload, you remove the clip with the ammo remaining within that clip; essentially throwing away bullets, it’s a great feature to have in a survival horror game as it adds more tension and more of a thought process to the genre.
Hollow has you typically finding notes and reading files to get a deeper understanding of what has happened aboard Shakhter-One; you’ll find keycodes, but unlike other games, this one expects you to remember those codes. There are also collectables in the form of files and radios that play rather disturbing audio clips: ‘Rip his skin off’. Regarding enemies, there isn’t much variety as there are only 3 types. And there’s a lot of this around the ship:
Hollow Review
Hollow is a dark game, a very dark game. I am squinting most of the time playing it. Not to mention that your flashlight can sometimes hinder your view further as the light bounces off surfaces. It really makes you think of the best times to use it and the darkness makes you cautious, giving the game a claustrophobic feeling.
For an indie game, the environments are impressive, they feel lived in, it feels like Shakhter-One is a real space station, even with the reused assets. You’ll sometimes come across bodies hung up by chains with intestines laying around, it’s very ’90s.
Hollow has some great moments too, one in which all the power drops out and all the ambient sounds just stop… oh pants. I laughed right near the end as well, it’s one of the messages, I won’t ruin it, but good work Forever Games!
There are a few glitches and irks, unfortunately, especially with the textures going a bit crazy. I’m also not a fan of when you die, it takes you back to the main menu, making you sit through a large number of load screens. Necessary? The game isn’t great at signposting either, I missed the first gun in the game simply because I didn’t see it. It’s that dark. Lastly, the writing and voice acting, in short, are terrible, but, to be fair, it’s survival horror from yesteryear.
When I was a young kid, I went down to South Florida every December to visit my grandparents. They spent winters down there to avoid the three straight months of extremely cold weather, and I certainly didn’t mind getting a momentary reprieve as well. The two of them lived in what could best be described as an efficiency motel, where their room had a kitchen and acted like a pied-a-terre of sorts.
All of their friends were there, and there were nightly events and activities for the residents. One of my favourite activities (and I must preface this with the fact that I was six), was Bingo night. They had one of the old school metal cages that housed the balls, and cards that must have been in circulation for decades. Every time I think of Bingo it reminds me of that time long ago.
Bingo Review Nintendo Switch
Jump to today, and developer Starsign has released their version of BINGO for the Nintendo Switch with a little twist. It doesn’t have the same appeal as playing in that Florida Motel, but the game certainly has its charms.
There are four different modes to choose from, each accommodating up to four players. If you don’t have any friends around, you’re forced to play with the computer, which is not nearly as fun. Players can choose from Classic BINGO, Buzzer BINGO, Slide BINGO, and BINGO Poker, with each mode having its own set of rules and play mechanics.
Bingo Review Nintendo Switch
Classic BINGO is just as it sounds. The numbers come up as usual, and when you can complete a row, you win. Buzzer BINGO pits players against each other, where everyone must scramble to grab the numbers as they pop up on screen. You must be quick on the draw, or you’ll be left in the dust. Slide BINGO is a game in which you move the rows around to align the red tiles on your card to make a winning row. Finally, there’s BINGO Poker, a game in which you try to get a BINGO using both the pre-existing red tiles and the new numbers you get. However, when you acquire a new number, you must throw away one your existing numbers in return.
There really isn’t much else to say about this one. It’s definitely designed to be a party game for when you have a group of people together. Playing it solo with just the computer as my opponent quickly became boring and tedious. Without the comradery of a group of friends, I simply didn’t have any interest in playing for any length of time. With basic designs and a no-frills soundtrack, there was only so long I could tolerate playing by myself.
Bingo Review Nintendo Switch
There is a niche market of consumers who will pick up this title, most notable being the board game types if I had to guess. There is nothing inherently wrong with it, but the game will most likely come and go with a whisper of remembrance.
Big news out of Passtech Games – creator of the favourable tower defence title, Space Run – as they have officially announced a release date for their upcoming strategy/adventure game – Masters of Anima.
Masters of Anima – What’s It About?
You raise armies of golem smashing guardians in this new adventure across the magical, and dangerous, world of Spark. Check out the announcement trailer below:
Taking on the role of the Anima apprentice Otto, you’ll embark on an adventure to save your fiancée from the dreadful grasp of the dark lord Zahr and his army of golems. A few takeaways from the official announcement are:
You can control up to 100 Guardian soldiers – each type with their own unique combat style, talents and abilities.
You can conjure up the sacred power of Anima – the life source of everything in the vast world of Spark.
You can learn new skills and abilities with every victory against massive armies and powerful bosses that stand in your way along the journey.
We can expect to see the latest release from Passtech Games – Masters of Anima – hit adventure seekers on April 10th, 2018 on the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC systems.
There’s not going to be many names more difficult to remember or type out this year than Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner M∀rs.
Aside from the difficult name, it’s also a noteworthy release thanks to the fact that it’s not just a remaster of a 15-year-old game, but it’s a game published by Konami. The Japanese publisher has been less than prolific in their releases lately and seemed quite happy to fade away from the games industry entirely.
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner M∀rs
Moving on, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner M∀rs looks like it’s had some real love and care poured over it. The video below clearly showcases just what the development team have been up to in bringing the game kicking and screaming into the modern age. They’ve done a whole load of work but it boils down to making the game look really sharp and 4K ready:
Zone of the Enders: the 2nd Runner M∀rs also has a ‘1st Person VT Mode’ being touted on its promotional materials. What this mode actually consists of can’t be confirmed yet. Perhaps you’ll be able to play through the whole game in this mode, perhaps not.
It’s fair to say that the original Zone of the Enders was mainly sold to people through a demo for Metal Gear Solid 2 – there’s no way I was the only one who did that. Still, a pleasant surprise was in store for people happy to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a demo. It turned out that the original Zone of the Enders was a great game and this was also true of the 2003 sequel.
Look out for Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner M∀rs when it launches on the PS4 and PC this September.
To say My Lovely Daughter is an unsettling story following the depths of how far a grieving father will plunge into alchemist hell might be the only reasonable explanation to describe the grim simulation narrative. Between work/money management, experimenting with alchemy and selfish murder all for the sake of resurrecting your recently deceased daughter – GameChanger Studio delivers an unnerving tale of fiction, but unfortunately comes with a rather tedious concept.
Faust is a man suffering from extreme memory loss discovering his departed daughter immediately upon gaining consciousness. Set centuries in the past, the small village serves as only a slight reminder of who he was, but after discovering the state of his beloved daughter he comes to the realization he, himself, studies in alchemy. The confidence of his abilities only strengthens from there, and off we go on a dark tale about how far a man will go to bring back what he cherishes most.
The idea behind My Lovely Daughter is to use your medieval alchemist abilities to, of course, bring your precious daughter back to the living. If you’re a fan of the anime series – Full Metal Alchemist – we all know what happens when you attempt to bring back the dead using alchemy – but Faust is a desperate man who’s only memories are adrift in the clouds. Slowly he begins to fill in the pieces of his memory as he begins to re-learn the shady process of alchemy.
Tedious Slave-Driving Management
The gameplay requires players to perform a series of tasks which all help to nurture the soul of Faust’s daughter, and eventually use the soul to bring her back from the dead. Players will use materials such as wood, clay, meat and water to transmutate into living homunculus that you’ll lovingly suffocate with work and gifts in order to reach specific affinity levels to add to your daughter’s remaining soul. Creating multiple homunculus will net Faust more income as you send them off into the village to earn a hard day’s wage, as well as grow in experience levels, but showing each one particular affection raises each one’s specific affinity.
Check up on your daughter’s corpse or begin the fusion, perform alchemy to transmutate new homunculus, check up on your family of homunculus or set off for the 7-day work week.
Homunculus comes in a variety of affinity emotions ranging from anger to joy, to sadness and fear – and it’s up to the player to determine which place of employment decreases the affinity levels the least. The affinity tied to every transmutated homunculus is determined based off of the three ingredients used in the alchemy process. The affinity levels increase when particular items are gifted to the daughter-like homunculi, or the player decides to spend some much-appreciated time with the miserable chemistry experiments.
Across the village map lays a number of places to send your precious homunculi daughters off to scrape together necessary gold to keep your loving daughter in a composed form, as well as keep your homunculus collection happy. There are around 2-3 places pertaining to each affinity emotion, like pet grooming for sadness, gardening for joy or smelting for anger. The players send off from their house for a seven-day workweek emulated through a flowing timeline lasting around only less than half a minute. Within this time frame players are able to freeze the clock while they assign their homunculi crew to specific workspaces to earn gold and experience, purchase necessary items and strategize the remainder of the work week. This whole process is fairly easy to grasp early on making for a simple concept, but can grow rather tiresome and feel like a monotonous grind the longer you play.
Possessing a collection of various homunculus each representing a different emotion selfishly puts gold into Faust’s pocket with every passing day. Earning gold allows Faust to keep his daughter’s body from decomposing throughout the weeks spent obtaining crucial alchemy ingredients and perfecting the ancient art. Raising your homunculus affinity levels are important for finding the perfect formula needed to resurrect your daughter which is precisely where players must experiment with sacrificing their many homunculi.
Once created, your homunculus are separated into affinity categories depicting their permanent emotion, such as anger, joy or sadness.
Collecting Your Sacrifices
Between the assortment of alchemy ingredients players will transmutate one homunculus after another in order to nurture, work and inevitably slaughter, in turn adding to your daughter’s overall soul affinity level. To reach your goal you must configure the perfect formula of the affinity emotions that perfectly match the amount of joy, fear, sadness and anger in which make up your daughter’s personality. The higher the affinity level for each homunculi means more of that specific emotion contributes to your daughter’s soul, but only after the homunculus has been mercilessly sacrificed. Every four weeks the player may decide to try to fuse the affinity-collected soul with your daughter – in an attempt to bring her back, but in doing so will apply all current affinity levels making all of your work prior to the fusion attempt a complete gamble.
The constant homunculus experiments, slave-driving mentality from our “hero” Faust, bizarre method of nurturing your twisted alchemy collection and unholy desire to relentlessly slaughter them as quickly as they were created is the entire concept of My Lovely Daughter. While grim as it is, the underlying tone urges players to dig deep within themselves and question: just how important is one’s life compared to another? The pleas and confusion displayed every time you decide to exterminate a homunculus are borderline gut-wrenching knowing this is your only option moving forward in the game. Still, growing a bond with your homunculus and watching as they begin to develop a faint wisp of trust for Faust only to be snuffed out in the name of the one daughter he actually gives a damn about is a tough pill to swallow, time and time again.
Once players have specific homunculus reaching a high enough affinity level – or things just aren’t working out – Faust may choose to end the bond through sacrifice…Sacrificing isn’t something Faust is exactly hesitant to either, often leading to gritty dialogue of his extraction of the homunculus.
The workload in the village rewards players with a modest pay in gold, but the cost of homunculus gifts, alchemy materials and expensive preservative balm – applying this periodically to your daughter’s corpse is vital in keeping her from decomposing – begins to add up. Aside from the typical everyday workspaces, players may also take on requests from the villagers. Usually asking for a number of specific materials gained from sacrificing your homunculus, i.e. clay, wood, iron etc., players may choose to take on these timed side quests to gain a hefty step forward in your gold total. While not mandatory, these do add a bit more depth to the otherwise tedious gameplay, but nothing to seriously change the overall concept of the game.
The dreadful story and bleak setting of My Lovely Daughter are enough to captivate players interested in experiencing a tale not typically told in video games. However, the constant grind and gambling process to achieve the overall conclusion is what may drive most of them off. While appreciating what the creators of My Lovely Daughter have accomplished in this maturely themed narrative, the gameplay is a bit lacking – let’s say something closer to a semi-strategic visual novel. Though the constant difficult decisions to sacrifice your lonely creations after so much time and effort put forth into bonding with them, and listening to their often depressing stories still somehow manages to weigh heavily on your conscience well after you finish the unique experience that is My Lovely Daughter.
Darkness, nothingness, a plain canvas, nothingness again, quiet, tranquil, and then… BANG!
Matter, colours, shapes, particles, atmosphere solar systems, planets, cells, organism, parasites, plants, nature, wildlife, animals, people, pedestrians, slaves, gods. Hussle, busy, move out of my way please, the cries, the tears, the years, another baby another being, another baby another killer, climate change, freedom of speech, will you please shut up, love, love, love, and then… nothingness, darkness, another plain canvas to start again.
Genesis Noir is Avaliable To Pre-Order
Genesis Noir is a game set before, during and after the big bang on earth and higher dimensions. In this adventure game, you play as ‘No Man’ and save your loved one from being shot to stop the big bang. With a cast of gods and men, a love triangle and a story spanning time and space; this is one point and click adventure, may I say, out of this world…. (I’ve won awards for stand-up comedy, you know?)
Developed by Feral Cat Den, inspiration has been taken from various forms of media to give the game a worldly look – the themes being expressed artistically:
Personally? I think it looks absolutelyfantastic, from concept to art, to sound. I love film noir, as you may remember from my Pixel Noir piece, and I love adventure games – oh, and some jazz.
It’s only been announced for PC and iOS, but console ports will surely follow; come on Feral Cat Den, you know it makes sense.
Genesis Noir has hit its Kickstarter pledge and is available for pre-order now. Anyone else gushing over this like me?
Just like any Nintendo Direct or ‘Nindie’ presentation, there was a lot of speculation from the gaming community on what would and wouldn’t be announced in the most recent Nindie showcase. The funny thing is that the game everyone had as a shoo-in to be announced at the showcase, was actually announced after it ended…
Hyper Light Drifter Switch
Yes, that’s right, Hyper Light Drifter is finally coming to the Switch. Let’s get you guys caught up:
Believe it or not, Hyper Light Drifter was originally supposed to come out for the Wii U. But, thanks to the technical limitations of that console, Hyper Light Drifter never saw the light of day.
The new “Export to Switch” option on Gamemaker Studio 2 (the software that developer Heart Machine used to make HLD) means that Switch owners will finally be able to play one of the most beloved indie titles.
Like I mentioned above, HLD actually wasn’t shown in the most recent Nindie Showcase. The reason for this exclusion is currently unknown, but if I was a betting man, I’d say Nintendo wanted to show off more unknown/obscure up and coming titles, and not have them be overshadowed by an indie juggernaut like HLD.
Shortly after the showcase, Nintendo actually posted a tweet confirming Hyper Light Drifter’s upcoming release.
Hyper Light Drifter will launch on the Switch eShop this summer. But, the real question is whether HLD will get a physical release for Switch. Just like some other indie titles have – Axiom Verge, Wonderboy and Darkest Dungeon.
So, will you guys be picking up Hyper Light Drifter on the Switch? Or are you going to hold out for a possible physical edition? Let me know in the comments below.
