PC • Here’s a bold prediction. Kerberos Studios‘ Pit of Doom will be a runaway hit. And not just one of those cult sleepers, name-dropped for cred at gatherings of those in the know. A bona fide smash. It sounds ludicrous to predict the fortune of an unfinished game, one still slick with Early Access afterbirth, but I have that tingling sensation. Could be the creeping onset of Zuul poison, though. You never know.
PC/Mac, PS4/Vita, Xbox, Switch • You sneaky bugger. At least, that’s what you should aim to be, and Nintendo Switch owners can work on their window-smashing, wall-sliding, robot-braining, loot-grabbing, computer-hacking antics with the fresh release of a modern classic. Dan Marshall’s The Swindle has arrived.
iOS Universal • With our limited time for posting these days, I usually don’t post about the same game twice unless there’s something special about it. You know what I mean, it’s a Playdek or CGE release or a AAA game that managed to make its way to the App Store. Your standard weekly App Store releases are usually a one-and-done here on the blog [and then only when Dave can get his fat butt to actually sit up and write about them -ed.]. We’re breaking this rule today to remind you of the imminent release of Grimvalor for iOS. Don’t like the added attention this action-RPG is getting? Blame Pitta.
iOS Universal, Android • Tinder-esque role-playing roguelike, Meteorfall, landed on the App Store back in January like a…um…hmm, something falling from the sky? Can’t think of a good metaphor. It will come to me at some point, I’m sure. Since its release it’s been the recipient of several updates including the massive (and free) Necrodude update which added a new hero, the titular Necrodude. Yesterday another update crashed into Meteorfall like a…jeez, I really just can’t think of anything. Anyway, it’s called the Demon Update and the changes it makes to the game are on the hefty side.
Alice is dead. So is Lisette Coalface. Halfling Shadowblade and Dwarven Berserker, they died in shockingly similar ways, neither overwhelmed by a tide of foes nor slain in dire melee with some fell champion, no, each was humbled by a single critical-hit with a spell. I begin to see why they massacred all the wizards (game lore… of course there are a great many spellcasters-in-hiding).
So much for Sunday night… or early Monday morning. Well, better late than never, I always say [they do always say that, and I always pull out my hair and scream at them to no avail -ed.] From the moment I wrote about the importance of keeping “decadent” 3D art and animation out of roguelikes, I knew I’d need to re-load Wazhack. Wazhack, if you haven’t played it, is a roguelike that breaks a lot of the rules about what roguelikes look like and how they play, while remaining shockingly faithful to the feel of the genre. Wazhack is a side-scrolling roguelike with fully animated low-poly 3D art that plays out in a kind of frozen “real time” that makes it the roguelike ancestor of Superhot, though it plays more like Steamworld Heist than anything, especially with any ranged or magical class.
iPad, Android Tablets, PC/Mac/Linux • One thing I look forward to every year is a Jeremy Handel sighting at Gen Con. He’s incredibly hard to find, but when you do you won’t be disappointed because he’ll be dressed as someone else. Sure, there’s a lot of cosplay at Gen Con, but not many people cosplay as characters from Sentinels of the Multiverse. This year, my son and I ended up getting sick on Saturday and our time in the convention center was nil from Saturday morning on, so I didn’t get a chance to find Jeremy this year [for the record, we did meet up with Jean-Marc Giffin of Handelabra who was affable as always -ed.], but I did get a chance to play a ton of his latest game, One Deck Dungeon. That’s because Handelabra released the major expansion, Forest of Shadows, the Wednesday night before the Con opened.
PC/Mac/Linux • There’s something a little less exciting about a game releasing when it’s been available on Steam Early Access for a long time prior to going “live”. I mean, I’ve been playing Factorio for so long now that if they took it out of EA and into actual release, I doubt I’d really notice. That said, Star Traders: Frontiers is a Trese Brothers game and we kind of love those around these parts. If you need reminding, they’re the dynamic duo behind the oft-overlooked but much-loved Templar Battleforce. Star Traders: Frontiers went live while I was at Gen Con and I’m dying to dive into it.
iPad, Android tablets, PC/Mac/Linux • Considering that Handelabra‘s digital port of One Deck Dungeon is so damn good, it only stood to reason that we’d eventually be seeing the stand-alone expansion, Forest of Shadows, make its way into the app. Earlier this morning we got a confirmation of the digital expansion from none other than the designer and head of Asmadi himself, Chris Cieslik. Not only that, but he sent us our first image of the expansion in action. Well, almost in action. It’s the selection screen, but it’s still cool.
iPad, Android Tablets, PC/Mac/Linux • Sentinels of the Multiverse was deluged with constant updates, new content, expansions, and more after its release and at a pace that would make most developers shut down from exhaustion. You’d think Handelabra would have a hard time replicating that with their latest baby, One Deck Dungeon, but it’s starting to feel like déjà vu. They’ve already added the Phoenix Den and tomorrow the roguelike card game is getting not one, but two new characters to kill with poor dice rolls: Fanatic and Caliana.