Come see all the games, more games than one can play. I put some of them in my special book, thinking of days distant with hours unturned.
In this episode, seventeen more games I have not played are added to the Crashbook.
130/ Paper Trail
Paper Trail is a top-down puzzle adventure about leaving home, set in a foldable, paper world.
Crash notes: Feels like I’m late to party on this one. Another one of these puzzle games where you manipulate space to solve challenges.
Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Unreleased
131/ Gigant
Gigant is a horror point and click adventure game. Escape from the terror of the unknown creature ‘Gigant’ and the conflict that revolves around it.
Crash notes: I’m not sure I saw anything that convinced me this was going to be a hidden gem but, I don’t know, it’s called Gigant, you know?
Windows | Steam Link | Just Released
132/ Melkhior’s Mansion
A fast paced, action packed throwback to the classic games of the 80’s, in 15 glorious colours, hand picked from the infamous ZX Spectrum colour palette (we left out bright black!)
Crash notes: Another of one these projects which could be described as nostalgia: rebooted. Looks like the Spectrumesque presentation is wonderfully done.
Windows, Mac, Linux | Itch Link | Released 2020
133/ SquishCraft
Squish blocks together to solve challenging puzzles.
Crash notes: The trailer is off its trolley. But, @Zarawesome slid it towards me saying “you’re gonna have to trust me on this one” so I will definitely be following up on this one soon.
Windows | Steam Link | Released Jul 2022
134/ The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow
The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is a folk horror narrative-driven adventure. Explore the isolated moors of rural Victorian England as you uncover the mysteries of Hob’s Barrow. The answers lie in the soil…
Crash notes: I know, I know, “you’ve stuck a horror game in the list again, Joel” but this looks really well done.
Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased
135/ Ctrl Alt Ego
Transmit your disembodied consciousness between robots and devices and exploit their capabilities in first-person sci-fi immersive sim Ctrl Alt Ego. Tool-up and break bad bots into broken bits, or sneak a bug into the system as if you were never there.
Crash notes: This reminds me of one of Infocom’s more experimental works, Suspended.
Windows | Steam Link | Released Jul 2022
136/ Intraquartz
INTRAQUARTZ is a multidimensional experimental maze puzzler where you control a microscopic mining rover inside extraterrestrial crystals.
Crash notes: Not really sure what’s going on here and it looks extremely minimalist.
Windows | Steam Link | Released Jul 2022
137/ I don’t think I’ve walked this stretch of road before
Walk the length of your memories on a lonely country highway. Follow the signal. Return to the place you left behind. Piece together a truth you can live with. A short, ambiguous narrative adventure game.
Crash notes: I hear it is very short and more in the “walking sim” vein.
Windows | Steam Link | Released Jan 2022
138/ Ex-Zodiac
A fast-paced low-poly 3D rail shooter heavily inspired by classics of the early 90’s. Join protagonist Kyuu as she fights to free the worlds of the Sanzaru Star System, overrun by the intergalactic terrorist organization known as Zodiac.
Crash notes: Star Fox.
Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Early Access
139/ NIVA
The player slips into the role of a mighty forest god to restore the harmony in a mesmerizing forest and relieve it of a mysterious infestation. This shuddersome, mothlike infestation is drawn to the conflicts of the forest’s inhabitants. Through observation and by using the abilities of nurturing and withering fascinating plants the player can solve said conflicts. NIVA’s scenic art style, relaxing music and simple but intriguing game mechanics invite to explore the forest and have a rest from the stressful everyday life.
Crash notes: PWYW. Some of the NIVA developers went on to make Weaving Tides, referenced in a previous Crashbook.
Windows, Mac | Itch Link | Early Access
140/ The Sirena Expedition
Explore a mysterious, abandoned underwater facility at the bottom of the Mariana trench. Who built it? What was it used for? Perhaps you will find answers, or perhaps the answers will find you.
Crash notes: This is an commercial expansion of a 2021 jam game.
Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased
141/ Were.Wolf
Were.Wolf is a stealthy puzzle platformer where you play as a young man who is turned into a werewolf. Follow him through a dark and mysterious castle as he tries to reach the potion to lift the curse and escape.
Crash notes: Free and I think its less than half an hour in length.
Windows, Mac, Linux | Itch Link | Released May 2021
142/ Betrayal At Club Low
Tonight you’re on a rescue mission, infiltrating a nightclub that was once a coffin factory. Will you succeed? Will you fail? Or will your night take an unexpected detour? Roll the Pizza Dice and find out!
Crash notes: It’s Cosmo D again for Chrissakes.
Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Unreleased
143/ UTTER INVERSE
Something wicked enters our Dynast’s high demesne. UTTER INVERSE – an RPG about the meeting of two points. Salt on your tongue : as the night sky crackles : the SWORD hums in your hands.
Crash notes: Got that unhinged appeal.
Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased
144/ IKO 39
IKO 39 is an adventure sci-fi detective. Find out what happened at the station, which had lost contact with the Earth. Emie – the artificial intelligence of the station – will help you to solve the mystery.
Crash notes: This has been in development for several years; looks lovely but no idea how much depth lurks below the facade.
Windows | Steam Link | Just Released
145/ Epicinium
Epicinium is a strategy game where nature is a finite resource. Is it worth winning a war when you end up conquering nothing but dirt and ash?
Crash notes: PWYW. I love the concept of baking climate change into a war game and curious as to how it plays out in practice. Like, is it just “war has never been such fun, especially when you take the planet with you”?
Windows, Mac, Linux | Itch Link | Released 2020
146/ Rollerdrome
Rollerdrome is a third person action shooter that seamlessly blends high octane, visceral combat with fluid movement and tricking mechanics into one complementary and challenging whole, to create an original adrenaline-pumping shooter experience like no other.
Crash notes: Holy shit, have you seen this?
Windows, PS4, PS5 | Steam Link | Released Today
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The puzzle design in Squishcraft is genuinely amazing. The game is also extremely cursed. Definitely worth checking out.
I just bought it, like this very second.
Ctrl Alt Ego sounds interesting – elements of Cholo as well as Suspended, maybe? Now there was a game ahead of its time.
Paper Trail looks lovely but I recall giving Carto a spin on Game Pass and it just not grabbing me. Paper Trail gives me a similar feeling.
I’m a sucker for that Spectrum aesthetic. Currently playing Rats, Bats and Bones and there’s a side of me that wants the distinctive Speccy colour clash from overlapping sprites! 🙂 I don’t think I ever played Knight Lore but listen to those sounds in Melkhior’s Mansion!
The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow caught my eye a while back. One of these days I’ll play some more adventure games but it’s a genre I seem to want to play more than I actually do.
Ex-Zodiac looks gorgeous. I loved Starwing back in the day (yes, the UK had a stupid name for Star Fox). I played Star Fox Zero on the Wii U only last year and I missed the much simpler arcade-y gameplay of the original game. The Space Harrier section in Ex-Zodiac was a very cool surprise! Wishlisted.
The Sirena Expedition seems like my jam, or cup of tea. I love the lo-fi PS1 visuals.
And you know how much of a fan I am of Cosmo D’s stuff! Never looked back since the Norwood Suite demo.
I jumped the gun with posting!
Epicinium reminds me of Advance Wars with simultaneous moves but… with an environmental angle. Interesting. I wonder how much a zero sum/mutually assured destruction dynamic impacts multiplayer, or an AI!
And yeah, Rollerdrome looks brilliant. I thought it was multiplayer so I was getting sad over the thought of others not wanting to play it with me but, oh ho ho, it’s single-player! That clears that up 🙂
Ctrl Alt Ego – From the description it reminds me of an Amiga FPS called Genetic Species. Which btw for an Amiga FPS is pretty great looking. The gimmick of that game was that you could take over enemies’ bodies
I have to say, looking at the selection of games, your tastes are much broader than mine. If I could I’d play nothing but metroidvania platformers and Harvest Moon clones with a bit of whatever-Kojima-makes-nest spiced in between.
I’ve been spending a lot of the time playing Cult of the Lamb recently which is a glorious mashup of so many different games. I evne made a twitter thread about that but I can’t link it because web twitter is too many parallel universes ahead of me and I just can’t it.
Ha ha, so now we have Ctrl Alt Ego = Suspended + Cholo + Genetic Species. We’re going to have add a few more games in there, surely.
I’m suspicious of Epicinium because I want it to be “win condition must include saving the world” but I don’t know if it will. All I have to do is play to find out, right?
True story: I published this last night and I saw Rollerdrone after it went out. And I thought, you gotta be kidding – I’m adding this to the list as the post is still fresh and no one has read it yet.
In terms of my tastes being broader, I’m not sure that’s entirely true. I also put games on Crashbook that I don’t think I’ll ever want to play, but there’s something about the title that I find interesting. For example, I have no Star Fox nostalgia but I realised Ex-Zodiac might be of interest because Star Fox is a big draw for some.
Also, I think if I wasn’t writing (hah, “writing”? what, right now am I writing?) Electron Dance I’d probably focus entirely on my comfort zones because that’s what has happened to my TV watching in recent years!
I just played the demo of Paper Trail. At first I was afraid it was going to be like that one dull samurai pop-up point-n-click game, you know the one, but the folding is actually doing stuff. Then the first few screens made it seem a bit Gorogoaesque, trying to find ways to match edges, with one particular puzzle that was a bit moon-logicky. Then what that unlocked was a bunch of spatial navigation puzzles, involved enough that I seem to have spent 2.5 hours on the demo, and rule-bound rather than intuitive.
The main ish I have is that, like the pop-up game (Tengami), it’s sloow. It’s all mouse controlled and your character moves pretty slow, and the folding mechanism can be effortful. This is in line with the mood, and I like the mood, but it can be a strain when you’re experimenting through a tough puzzle (and the last puzzle, hoo boy).
There’s a nice innovation when, on the occasions where you have to push and pull boulders, clicking on a boulder will highlight the squares you can reach in one push, and dragging the boulder will automatically send your character where she needs to go to push/pull it. OTOH this could be effortful too, I kept doing a drag-click in a way it didn’t recognize.
Also, pretty! I feel somewhat in the mood for a puzzle game with atmosphere and characters and story, though I don’t know how much of a one this is.
Warning: In the demo, the save system seems pretty messed up. I tried “reset level” once and instead of resetting the screen I was on, it sent me to the beginning of the whole dang puzzle area. And though there are save slots you can load, I can’t see anyway to save, and it didn’t seem to autosave either. But if you quit and restart, it will take you back exactly where you were, which is good for the last level which has lots of moving parts.