When the seas boil into the red giantess of our sun, one grand monument will escape the ravages of solar apocalypse. Secure in the Humanity Memorial on Titan, future civiliations will find an ancient leatherbound tome with a thousand pages. It is the Crashbook.
A new page beckons, containing thirteen more games I have not played.
345/ Blue Suburbia
BlueSuburbia is a haunted world where you explore poems through immersive environments. Seek out dark secrets, confront your demons, and delve deeper into a dream that dances between beautiful and terrible. Explore forgotten dreamscapes and open worlds on your quest to find hope.
Crash notes: Nathalie Lawhead. Currently free to play, but in early access.
Windows | Steam Link | Early Access
346/ Haikuna
Haikuna is a word search game set inside The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Don Quixote. Players teleport around these stories to find the words to haiku written in the Nanboku-chō, Edo, Genroku, & Meji eras of Japan.
Crash notes: What is this?
Windows, Linux | Steam Link | Released Jan 2024
347/ Killer Frequency
Killer Frequency is a first-person horror puzzle game set in 1987, that puts you in the role of a late-night radio talk show host in small town America whose callers are being stalked by a mysterious killer.
Crash notes: This has a lot of positive reviews. Was this a big hit last year? I never heard of it. Even though Chris Franklin did a piece on it. I am very attentive.
Windows | Steam Link | Released Jun 2023
348/ Exiled
Charlotte is missing. Decode an ancient language, investigate a mystery, and stay away from ancient monsters in this compact puzzle thriller.
Crash notes: Can you break a code while playing Five Nights at Freddy’s?
Windows, Mac, Linux | Steam Link | Released Jan 2024
349/ dotAGE
Village elder, help us! The Apocalypse is approaching, and we need your guidance to survive. Assign your workers and build a thriving village against the pending doom. DotAGE is the merciless survival roguelite turn-based city builder. Will you fulfill the Prophecy?
Crash notes: Recommended to me by an Electron Dance reader! Well-loved on Steam. There’s a piece on GamesRadar on how it’s one of the biggest surprise hits of the 2023.
Windows, Mac, Linux | Steam Link | Released Oct 2023
350/ Saltsea Chronicles
It begins with a kidnapped captain and a stolen ship. Where it leads next? That’s up to you… In this story-driven adventure game you will explore strange and wonderful communities, uncover a deep conspiracy, and chart a journey through twists and turns, difficulties and delights.
Crash notes: I meant to put this on the last Crashbook, whoops. From Die Gute Fabrik, who previously brought you Mutazione. I’ve seen a number of positive reviews of Saltsea Chronicles and it boasts a large writing team, which seems increasingly common with heavy narrative-focused indie projects.
Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Released Oct 2023
351/ Home Safety Hotline
Hearing noises? Seeing things? Call Home Safety Hotline! Our operators are standing by, waiting to give you the answers you need to protect your home from all manner of pests and household hazards.
Crash notes: Okay so I’ve now discovered people are calling this stuff “analog horror” although I find it difficult to square that moniker with an extremely digital Windows 95 interface? Regardless, there’s a clear Local58 vibe to this.
Windows | Steam Link | Released Jan 2024
352/ Mother Hub
A first person shooter horror, inspired by classics like Half-Life, Doom 3, Fallout, and Deadspace. You must try to survive and save the last of humanity, trapped within a massive vault in the distant future. Discover the secrets of the past in a lore rich world.
Crash notes: Don’t know if this will be any good, but always nice to see someone working on a new horror FPS.
Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased
353/ Dreamsweeper
The floor isn’t lava, it’s Minesweeper! Dreamsweeper is a Dungeon Crawler x Minesweeper Roguelike and a lo-fi musical experience like no other game before.
Crash notes: The aesthetic is nicely done and I’m interested to see another riff on Minesweeper after Let’s! Revolution! turned out well. Not Etherlight’s first game – they published another title last year called Mislight.
Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Unreleased
354/ Pacific Drive
Face the supernatural dangers of the Olympic Exclusion Zone with a car as your only lifeline in this driving survival adventure! Scavenge resources, load up your trusty station wagon, and drive like hell to make it through alive.
Crash notes: I’m in. And I’m hearing good reports from people who have tried out the demo.
Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased
355/ Neoproxima
Investigating a time-loop during the Cold War, light years away from Earth. Neoproxima is a text-based adventure game that combines exploration and simple RPG and survival mechanics. Plan your next loop carefully, and go as far as possible before time catches up with you.
Crash notes: Might be interesting. Exploration seems to be via truck driving, but also looks like this is a text-heavy game where you converse with various characters.
Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased
356/ 20 Small Mazes
This is a puzzle game with twenty small mazes. They’re good mazes, though.
Crash notes: After RYB, FLEB is back with a new game! Like, right now, after I streamed RYB on a whim for Thinky Games last night? Free!
Windows | Steam Link | Releasing Next Week
357/ Haque
Haque is a glitch fantasy roguelike adventure about cute monsters, low-bit hauntings, and a suspiciously talkative narrator. Choose your character and battle through forests, deserts and dungeons to defeat a mysterious evil. Die often. Try again!
Crash notes: Felt like I’d already added this to Crashbook, but I just searched the Crashbook database and found nada. Maybe it turned up on Crashbook’s precursor, “Caught My Eye” on the newsletters? Anyway, has a nice old-skool-but-done-today sheen. Some positive coverage.
Windows, Mac, Linux | Steam Link | Released 2017
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OK so the Let’s! Revolution trailer says it’s a Minesweeper/roguelite matchup “with procedurally generated mazes” but Minesweeper already has procedurally generated maps! That’s the point! Are you just saying it’s a Minesweeper/RPG mashup or what?
I looked at the webpage for the studio (?) that made Lets! Revolution! and I found “an evocative, story-driven, global campaign” featuring basketball great Dwyane Wade and I was like “They have a game featuring Dwyane Wade!” but it’s an ad campaign. For nutritional supplements. Phhbbbbt.
Anyway if we’re varying Minesweeper, I’m putting 14 Minesweeper Variants in my Crashbook. It’s by the same people (person?) who did Understand.
Haque is in at least one of the yottabundles. Played it for a little bit back in the day and wasn’t super grabbed, IIRC Gregg did the same, but I only really played it for a little bit.
Pacific Drive (literally) looks gorgeous. *sob*
Just realized that 14 Minesweeper Variants has a demo, and I went to install it it gave the “is this game relevant to your interests? similar to games you’ve played: Slay the Spire” which is funny for the only game that doesn’t claim to be a roguelite and also Slay the Spire is a Spirelike (or Dream Quest like) rather than a roguelike but never mind. (Since I am not the person who plays the most on my Steam account its recommendations are often weird, for instance it is sometimes convinced that I don’t play Sokobans much, but also I find it strange that it didn’t mention that this game was similar to the other game by this studio I’ve played, or the Minesweeper variation [Bombe] that I’ve sunk a ton of hours into?)
Ah, you know, I actually have Haque and it seems like it was from one of those itch bundles. I should probably think of running 14 Minesweeper Variants for a Thinky Games stream sometime; I was aware of it and it’s parentage.
Tried the Dreamsweeper and 14 Minesweeper Variations demos!
Dreamsweeper impressions: Sadly, no. There’s a lot of UI problems (like I think in order to find out what an item does you have to hit Escape to see the inventory, and I couldn’t figure out how to unmark squares), there’s technical glitches too (I maximized the game window and at every new level the game automatically went back to the old size, plus I couldn’t find a native quit button), but fundamentally the minesweeping puzzles don’t seem interesting and also didn’t always seem solvable? Oh! And when I hit a combat suddenly I was playing a Bit.Trip Core game where things weren’t necessarily on the beat. What was up with that?
14 Minesweeper Variations impressions: my God what have I done
i tried the Pacific Drive demo, and heres the thoughts i wrote on it elsewhere:
it wasnt quite the game i thought it was going to be. in my head it was Jalopy x STALKER, with similar strange and lonely vibes to them. but the vibes werent there. there were very chatty npcs always commenting on things through the radio. its not a continuous world, you have (maybe roguelikey? unsure) expeditions into separate levels from your base. theres an overwrought crafting system through which all your scavenging is filtered. and theres a ton of hud all over the screen, which further dispelled the vibes i wanted. i had fun with the demo, but im not going to be in a rush to buy the full game.
Decode an ancient language? Sounds like my kind of thing. And it turns out Exiled is available on Android, so I should stand more of a chance of actually getting round to playing it!
Neoproxima looks very intriguing, too.
Matt & vfig – thanks for the notes on Dreamsweeper and Pacific Drive respectively. Sounds like I should give the former a miss, at least for now, but I may still be up for the latter.
Phlebas – I’m surprised Exiled is on Google Play! It being somewhat FNAF-school of design I thought that would be rubbish on a handheld.