Valheim is all the rage right now and I’ve been having a fantastic time with it and our friends who are also playing. It’s the first game my boyfriend and I have found mutual interest in, in like… 5 years? (It’s tragic that we have nearly opposite tastes in games.)
In fact, I’ve never felt drawn to the survival game genre. The only one I’ve ever really enjoyed is Ark: Survival Evolved, and that’s only because I’m highly dinosaur (and dragon) motivated. Spent the whole game taming dinos and nothing else. Valheim, however. Valheim I find so enjoyable that it’s inspired me to write about games for the first time in over a year!
Almost 20 years ago, Planescape: Torment made a promise. It demonstrated that video games as an art form are capable of delivering writing on par with the best narratives that exist over all forms of media. The world of Planescape offered prose so invigorating and eloquent, storytelling so pristine and cohesive that it captivated creative minds for decades to come.
In its stead, many games posed to be the promised heroes, ready to cash in on that promise but unfortunately, no one managed to soar as high… until now. Of all iterations that could have been, few could imagine that the savior of video gaming prose would take upon such an interesting form: bare naked, hungover, laying in his filth in the middle of a ravaged motel room, awoken from eternal slumber by a hellish clarion call. Rise and shine, detective. Welcome to Revachol.
When Kindergarten came out in 2017, it struck me by surprise. A small, unknown game turned out to be one of the smartest realizations of groundhog day concept in video games I’ve seen. In combination with a twisted sense of humor and witty writing, turned it into one of my year’s highlights. Obviously, when I’ve heard about the release of a sequel, I cleared my schedule specifically to play it. In retrospect, it wasn’t the smartest decision.
I expect to be meeting with a number of developers at PAX West to discuss their upcoming or recently released games, and I want to include interview questions from you! I’ll happily incorporate as many questions as I can in any time I have with the devs for these awesome indie games.
Below, in no specific order, I’ve listed each of the respective studios and the games they are showing that I’ll be trying to speak with a representative about. You can look forward to eventual reviews for almost all of them!
Haven – The Game Bakers
Haven is one of the games I’m probably most excited about at PAX West. I’ve had my eye on it from the moment it was announced by the team that made Furi.
“Like Furi, Haven is about fighting for freedom.
Haven is about two characters, Yu and Kay, a couple in love. They escaped to a deserted planet to stay together. You play both of them, you live with them, you explore fragmented planet Source with them, gliding over the tall grass.
It’s a completely different pace. It’s a game that aims at making you feel relaxed, making you laugh, making you fall in love with Yu and Kay. It feels good for all types of players, skilled and less skilled. It’s a solo game that’s welcoming for another player to tag along, so you can explore and progress together. “
Note from Angie: Today I’m pleased to introduce Bohdan, who is going to be helping the blog out with PC game reviews and other articles of interest on a regular basis. Here’s his first review!
Hello, everyone! My name is Bohdan and I’ll be joining this wonderful establishment as a regular writer. There’s not much I can say about myself that you would find interesting, so I’ll just note that I’m a big fan of niche, low profile games of video kind. So you can expect me to write aplenty about those and if you’d like, you can let me (or Angie) know if there’s anything in particular that you would like to hear about. Cheers!
To describe Horace in its entirety would be a disservice to anyone who wants to play it. It is the same conundrum I have had a few years ago with Undertale. I wanted my friends to check it out, but if I were to say why I was so excited, it would ruin all the fun. Horace is that kind of game. If I were to describe Horace with a single sentence I would say that it is one of the best games I have played, period. And let me try to explain why you should play it too.
Backlog Crusader 