Buried Treasure

This isn’t just incredibly smart in ways I find daunting, but crucially Emuurom (one M, two Us) is outstandingly well-made.

I had a lovely time with this especially interesting approach to the genre. Had it just been chapter 4 alone as a short adventure I’d have still been recommending this, but that it has the other four excellent conceits around it makes it into something novel and delightful.

I’m just so impressed! So no, as tempting as it is to call this “the missing Nintendo Zelda game” it does of course fall short of the bizarre perfection of A Link to the Past or what have you. But damn, it’s still tempting. This is a spectacular achievement, and a hugely fun and enormous game, packed with original ideas among the appropriately borrowed conceit. It’s a game the whole games press should be – I think the young people say – popping off over. Especially given it’s out for Nintendo Switch, along with other consoles. So let’s sing its praises until it can’t be ignored.

It’s that maturity that has stuck with me. That this is a cozy-game rug-pull is a treat, but despite only being two or three hours long, it’s the characters who have really stuck with me long after finishing. One frog called Liv especially, who in most other games would be played as a cranky old lady to patronise, but here is a force. I once knew a Liv – Jean her name was, she died at around 90, and I only met her when she was in her 80s, and she was the most splendid curmudgeon I ever spent so much time with.

So temper exaggerative notions based on such comparisons, because this is after all a solo indie project. And a brilliant one, that manages to combine its crafting loops with a fun, surprising story and a constant sense of satisfying progress. It also delivers a great ending, with a tense climactic finish, and then the good nature to allow you to return to before that moment to continue on surviving in your base should that be your jam.

Station to Station is often hilarious, often mortifying, and perpetually honest. As Perfect Tides so wonderfully depicted incredible specifics of adolescence, this sequel speaks as truthfully and intricately about the emerging of adulthood. It captures those moments of profound bliss and shattering devastation, alongside the beauty in the mundanity between. And it makes me miss those times with that magical girl from university, and so unbelievable grateful it’s so long in the past and never to be repeated.

The Amateur Deity Society is a splendid thing, combining interactive fiction with point-n-click in such an inventive and successful way. I don’t know developer Robert Carlson’s plans, but if there were a way to make this Godot-based game an engine others could use to script their own adventures, it could lead to something extraordinary. In the meantime, I really do recommend grabbing this for a fun short story told in an intriguing way.

CHDC is a very peculiar game, in both senses of the word, and I mean them both positively. While it definitely reminds me of Dreadrock, it’s certainly a unique little creation. It’s also packed with bonkers details, asides, letters sent between NPCs hinting at deeper stories, incredibly silly jokes, and a constant sense of variety. I wish to god that there were more opportunities to sell crap from your inventory. I wish the magic storage chest and cooking stations appeared a bit more often in the first half of the game. And I really wish there were a way to save mid-level, given you have to start each over no matter how far through. But I’m really enamoured with it despite all my wishing. It’s daft and breezy and very cleverly put together...I’ve not even mentioned that there are three different weapon styles to choose from, or if you’re mad you could pick from all three. Or how you need to manage food and water, but it’s never onerous. Or just how much it delights me every time I light a torch and the word “Fwoosh” appears on screen. I just love the word “fwoosh”. And the art! The drawings between levels are so splendid. It’s all a good time.

MotionRec is utterly amazing. It’s brilliantly clever, rewardingly challenging, and the aesthetic is completely delightful. It’s far more instinctive than you might worry, but then offers a challenge that rises to meet your skill. It’s one of those games you’ll want to call someone else in to see. I’m calling you now! Come in! See this!

It’s a fascinatingly disturbing game, but – yes – in that Lynchian/Cronenbergian way where if someone asked you to pin down exactly what it was that was making you feel so squirly you’d have trouble beyond, “HE RIPPED OUT HIS OWN HEART!” And, you know, fair play, that’s possibly a good reason too.