They found it in the gloom of a forgotten loft, pressed into the dirty blanket of foam glass insulation. In his final years, the old man had scribbled down every strange idea, every vivid dream, desperate to save these treasures of the mind. Twenty years after his passing, they uncovered the Crashbook.

A new page turns, revealing nineteen more games I have not played.

461/ Hail to the Rainbow

The story of a lonely young man named Ignat, who survives in the dangerous and gloomy world of post-apocalyptic cyberpunk. You have to face the trials of a new reality and plunge into the secrets of the surrounding chaos.

Crash notes: Floated up via Campfire Burning on Bluesky who said the demo opened with “driving through the snow, alien concrete towers, terrifying bunkers with sewing needle robots” and he loved that. The rest of the demo however…

Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased

462/ Decarnation

Where do you run to when your demons reside within you? Decarnation is a pixel art adventure/action puzzle game with a horrific story inspired by some of the most influential films and novels in the genre. Dive into a breathtaking thriller where nightmares and dreams intertwine…

Crash notes: Liz Ryerson was spreading love for this French game. Jeepers, the trailer looks incred.

Windows | Steam Link | Released May 2023

463/ The Electrifying Incident: A Monster Mini-Expedition

An adorable bite-sized adventure from the creators of A Monster’s Expedition – explore the facility, avoid the live electricity, and repair the malfunctioning reactor.

Crash notes: I really should have added this to the last Crashbook. It’s everybody’s favourite monster who gets caught up in the most ridiculous puzzling scrapes.

Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Unreleased

464/ Sorry We’re Closed

Sorry We’re Closed is an eccentric story-driven survival horror game about demons, angels and what happens when both sides collide. A mix of classic fixed-camera exploration and arcade-style shooting where Michelle must use her Third Eye to see between worlds, uncover secrets and solve puzzles.

Crash notes: My son enjoyed playing this at (the late) WASD but what’s finally pushed it into Crashbook was reading Badger Commander’s review. “There is a level of confidence to everything here that is impressive, it manages to be weird without being awkward, clunky without being alienating, and nostalgic while not being beholden to the weaker aspects of that genre.”

Windows | Steam Link | Released Nov 2024

465/ ASYLUM

An epic supernatural horror adventure and the spiritual successor to cult classic Scratches set in a massive, decaying mental institute. Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, Hammer Films and twisted Euro Horror from the 80s.

Crash notes: This has been in the cooker for a long time and I wouldn’t have known it had been released if it hadn’t been for Andrew Plotkin waving the news on Bluesky.

Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Just released

466/ INDUSTRIA 2

INDUSTRIA 2 is a narrative FPS adventure about a woman stranded in a parallel dimension. Explore, scavenge and fight your way through a mysterious boreal landscape consumed by an ever-hungry artificial intelligence to find a way home.

Crash notes: This was a big surprise – I had completely accepted there wasn’t going to be a followup to Industria. I streamed it properly for the first time in March – I’d tried a while back but my videocard wasn’t happy streaming it.

Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased

467/ Lingo 2

Lingo 2 blends word puzzles and impossible geometry, with brand new puzzle mechanics and a large, colorful world to discover. Welcome back!

Crash notes: I’ve always meant to have a look at original Lingo but–

Windows | Steam Link | Just released

468/ Orion’s End

Orion’s End is space trading life sim. Trading, smuggling, pirate hunting, or pirating. Be a hero or a rogue. But also be a friend – there are residents on each planet who need someone like you to talk to, help them with quests, or to just gift them with loot from your adventures.

Crash notes: Lovely bedroom developer feel to this and the trailer suggests the team is shooting for a Star Wars vibe – although the rich, scrappy universe rather than Rebels vs Darth Trump. The developer suggests they are trying to blend cozy with action-adventure. Honestly, that depends on how frustrating/challenging the combat will be.

Windows, Linux | Steam Link | Unreleased

469/ Long Gone

Decades have passed, play as a survivor stranded in an old-world suburban neighborhood. Explore the secret lives of people Long Gone through their forgotten belongings and platform through overgrown streets in this 3D pixel adventure inspired by games of old. Oh, and watch out for the zombies.

Crash notes: Saw the trailer, piqued my curiosity. A mixture of gore, black comedy and melancholy. This seems to lean into the loneliness rather than the zombies.

Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Unreleased

470/ Castle V Castle

A stylish single player 1v1 card game funded and supported by Slay the Spire’s Casey Yano and inspired by browser classic Castle Wars. Build up your castle and knock down your opponent’s brick by brick!

Crash notes: I put this one down originally as a Side by Side candidate but turns out this is a single-player deckbuilder. Looks interesting; word on the street is that the demo is hard.

Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased

471/ qualia

Intellica thanks you for volunteering in this short text-based Research Study. Pay attention to the participants answers, and classify them as either Human or Artificial. Join us in shaping the future of technology. Remember, think happy!

Crash notes: Free! Number of reviews seem to like it but be warned there is apparently a jump scare buried in this.

Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Just released

472/ BURGGEIST

With the walking fortress Burggeist at your command, fight back the enemies and build “the Tower.”

Crash notes: This Japanese title looks like an RTS where you don’t get an omnipotent view with fog of war but have to physically explore the battlefield. Dominic Tarason says, “Burggeist is one of those indie gems that seems cursed to fly under everyone’s radar because it’s impossible to even get a feel for what it IS until you’ve played a couple hours. There’s familiar elements – some light tower defense stuff, action wizarding, etc – but it plays and feel truly unique.”

Windows | Steam Link | Released Oct 2024

473/ Pathologic 3

Save a town from a mysterious plague in this narrative first-person RPG. Learn the stories of its unusual inhabitants. Shape their lives with your decrees. Diagnose patients. Face the Plague. Connect the dots. Find out who killed the immortal man. Correct your mistakes in the past.

Crash notes: Maybe it’s time I played Pathologic? Jesus, how many IMPORTANT CRITICAL GAMES am I planning to “play in the future”? In my defence, I was the early bird on Cart Life 🙂 There’s also a free prologue available, Pathologic 3: Quarantine.

Windows | Steam Link | Unreleased

474/ Reignbreaker

Reignbreaker is a high-octane action rogue-like set in a dystopian medievalpunk world. Step into the boots of Clef, a fearless rebel ready to rid the world of the Kingdom’s oppression, take down the Elite and lay siege to the Queen’s grand Bastion. Grab your javelin and become The Reignbreaker!

Crash notes: Vibrant but of course this is the kind of action roguelite that requires button mastery.

Windows | Steam Link | Just released

475/ Metal Garden

Travel through an overgrown megastructure, and discover what lies beyond it. Metal Garden is a short, atmospheric singleplayer FPS game.

Crash notes: Although I found the trailer to be a little too muted for my tastes (both in terms of palette and audio) I’ve heard positive things about this short shooter.

Windows | Steam Link | Just released

476/ CARIMARA: Beneath the forlorn limbs

You are the Carimara, and your mission is to exorcise a ghost by answering their questions using your cards. A short and creepy fairytale, full of surprises and mysteries.

Crash notes: Inscryption vibes but looks interesting.

Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Unreleased

477/ A Little Perspective

A Little Perspective is an abstract, perspective-based puzzle game where perception and reality are one and the same.

Crash notes: A new game from the developer of Sensorium? Of course I’m adding this to Crashbook.

Windows, Mac, Linux | Steam Link | Unreleased

478/ Wirelight

A tiny turn-based tactical… soulslike! Explore a twisty, interconnected world, battle enemies using a unique spin on a ‘posture’ system, and employ different combinations of upgrades to your advantage.

Crash notes: To be honest, the trailer looks a trifle overwhelming, but it’s not going to stop me jotting it down here, is it?

Windows, Linux | Steam Link | Unreleased

479/ Wednesdays

“The hardest part is not to speak up. It’s being heard.” Part video game, part graphic novel, Wednesdays seeks to raise awareness about child sexual abuse through a surprisingly hope-filled story.

Crash notes: A very late addition, literally released today. I don’t have much to say, but the developers stress that it’s an uplifting tale despite the subject matter.

Windows, Mac | Steam Link | Just Released

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14 thoughts on “Crashbook #30

  1. Reactions!

    Ignat: “The story of a lonely young man named Ignat, who survives in the dangerous and gloomy world of post-apocalyptic cyberpunk.” This reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s gag about how to write poetry: “The wild man went his weary way to a strange and lonely pump.” (The part of that poem I always quote to myself is “But when he thought of publishing, his face grew stern and sad.”) This is not really the game’s fault.

    Electrifying Incident: I played the demo and, as you’d expect, it’s good!

    ASYLUM: link to Plotkin is borked.

    Lingo 2: these games just from the bare description sound like my thing. Alas!

    Long Gone: this sounds like what I think is my thing, and might actually be my thing if it’s done absolutely perfectly (like Knytt Underground, broadly speaking: exploration, melancholy, good action that isn’t constantly in your face, also the best visuals and music). “Wishlisted and I’m assuming that “not compatible with Catalina” just means “dev hasn’t jumped through all the Apple hoops” yet. “leans into the loneliness rather than the zombies” is promising but “made for the controller” is trepidacious.

    Pathologic 3: I can’t play these and am not sure whether, if I could, I would like them or find them rage-inducingly frustrating or completely impenetrable, but I am definitely looking forward to the stories about whether or not the developers managed to realize the vision of the original Pathologic this time. (My inability to get to the horror part of Saturnalia might be a bad sign as to whether I would be able to deal with Pathologic. Maybe I should see if I can run Knock, Knock through Wineskin.)

    A Little Perspective: hey recently I played this cool new little game called Monument Valley. Maybe a candidate for the Crashbook? OK this is not at all a criticism, there is a lot of puzzle juice left in that orange.

    CARIMARA: Is there anything wrong with Inscryption vibes? The thing is you can’t really say “It’s like Inscryption” without spoiling yourself a lot. I should probably finish Inscryption, though I had the feeling that the more I learned about what was going on the less involved I became. Which maybe means that “first part of Inscryption vibes” would be good for me? Though it seems like it’s not [5000 words about “roguelike deckbuilder” deleted]

    Reignbreaker: obligatory

  2. God game how did those quotes get there? Plotkin link fixed.

    Inscryption vibes for me forever mean facing off against an opponent in first person, in the gloom, possibly involving cards.

    I understand the other Monument Valleys might have more to them but I found the first game so utterly disappointing I couldn’t bring myself to attempt a sequel.

  3. I think I liked Monument Valley–and, to be clear, I mean the first one, which I played for the first time a month or two ago for “just got sole personal use of a phone” and “showed up on Netflix games”reasons–because I had been thoroughly prepared, possibly by you, not to be blown away by the puzzles but just to sit back and absorb the visuals and stuff. Hmm the word “Tengami” just popped into my head. OK I think the differences with Tengami are that the puzzles are a bit more substantial, and also of a slightly innovative form as opposed to “you are literally hiding a code in one place that I have to input in another like a Flash room escape game but not as good,” and also that Tengami was really excruciatingly slow.

  4. btw CARIMARA is by the developer of TRIP from crashbook 28, which, hmm. Looking at that reminds me of a bunch of interesting games I haven’t started–still devoting ridiculous amounts of time to Legerdemain–and also that I promised/threatened an account of what I like in rhythm games. I think that belongs under the last discussion post though.

  5. “Inscryption vibes for me forever mean facing off against an opponent in first person, in the gloom, possibly involving cards.” ah yes. the good part of inscryption. when it moved on from that part, it lost all appeal for me. but i suppose we are not here to talk about inscryption.

    i have played the demo of one of these games, and didnt enjoy it, but then didnt really expect to, having played but not really enjoyed its predecessor. its just not a genre that works for me, i suppose. 7 points if you correctly guess which game i mean.

    i really ought to say something about Pathologic 3: Quarantine, i suppose, being the resident pathological aficionado of pathologic. but… i havent played it yet, even though its been a week and a half. i dont know if i am afraid that i will dislike it (because of its radical gameplay changes), or if i am afraid that i will like it (because of its radical gameplay changes). i have seen a little of it played, however. it does seem that the radical gameplay changes move it quite a long way from the “simulation that puts you in the boots of a doctor during an epidemic” design that pathologic [classic] espoused—somewhat clumsily—and that pathologic 2 embraced to momentous effect.

    nevertheless: everyone really ought to play pathologic 2. do not look up a guide at all, because a guide is someone else making choices, which is your responsibility in the game. and play it on intended difficulty; if you get completely stuck in a death loop because you didnt tend to your needs before they were all critical, dont change the difficulty settings, but instead load a save from a few in-game hours before and tend to your needs then and there: as in any desperate situation, your main job each day is to survive until the next day. okay, end of sermon.

  6. Right. Pathologic 2. They did make that.

    I’m not sure what my reluctance towards trying it was. Possibly just the intuited understanding that it represented a particular nail in a particular coffin: that I could never go back to being young, and having lots of free time, and really truly believing that games could provide something vital and new and change you, meaningfully, just by playing them! Somehow these ideas seem linked. Changing yourself is not an old man’s game.

    Pathologic 3 therefore seems – only to me, you understand – to have the psychic resonance of Dark Souls 3 – which I just recently finished (smugly pats self on back); that is, a sense of finality; the ‘you can’t go home again’ feeling. There was nothing technically wrong about the game, it was just a comfortable retread, a diminshing circle.

    This is not the fault of Icepick Lodge – I didn’t play Pathologic 2! I’m being profoundly unfair! – more an observation that I don’t know how you’re supposed keep life from circumscribing certain idealisms.

    (I guess maybe you do it by actually playing games.)

  7. Decarnation looks gorgeous and fascinating but some of the user reviews have me concerned about some frustrating mini-games! It reminds me of Octopus City Blues which I saw last year some time. It too looks gorgeous and fascinating (I particularly love the colour scheme).

    https://store.steampowered.com/app/1192230/Octopus_City_Blues/

    I’m really curious about Sorry We’re Closed and wonder when I’ll be able to fit that in! I adore the visual style of it.

    Asylum looks like that old Scratches game that I saw a lot of over at Adventure Gamers. I never played any of those fixed position/panoramic camera-style games but was always curious.

    If BURGGEIST is anything like Timemelters then I’m in! That was one of my favourite games last year and it also flew under everyone’s radar. A proper thinky/puzzley strategy game with mindbending time manipulation involving layering up past versions of yourself (similar to Isochronous and Chronobots). I may have to pick up BURGGEIST, it looks so unusual and confident. 100% positive reviews so far too, out of 76!

    “Maybe it’s time I played Pathologic?”

    Hahah, yeah, me too!

    I was not prepared for how grey Metal Garden is! The gunplay seems bit anaemic but I dig the mood and architecture. Reminds me a bit of Babbdi and Straftat.

    Wow, CARIMARA looks brilliant, and I’m intrigued by Wirelight and Wednesdays too.

  8. Apparently Orion’s End is already on my wishlist. I just wish they’ll provide font options for the UI, I hate reading pixelart fonts (and all-caps at that..)

    Several of your links are still borked: Campfire Burning on Bluesky, Badger Commander’s review, Dominic Tarason says, Pathologic 3: Quarantine

  9. Quickly: I’ve fixed all the links I think. The reason this happened is that I’ve used a different approach to make Crashbook where virtually all the content is in a spreadsheet and smart quotes screwed up all the manually created links. I’ll put some code in to strip these out if this happens again…

  10. vfig, CA: Aw yes. I want MOAR, MOAR discussion of Pathologic 3 by Pathologic fans. Even if you haven’t played it! Like, what radical gameplay changes? I have gotten the impression that Pathologic 1 is a game made out of struggling for every tiny bit of progress, which is an absolutely amazing experience if you can devote your life to something that painful which (as CA alludes to) we can’t anymore, and that Pathologic 2 is “ah they remade Pathologic in a way that fixes the flaws that were flaws and kept everything good about it and GAHHH THEY RAN OUT OF MONEY ONE-THIRD OF THE WAY THROUGH.” And that I will be experiencing these all vicariously at best because of no Mac port. Though as I may have mentioned, I played Knock Knock a bit and was totally confused before it fell victim to time and then the great 32-bit purge.

    vfig: Lingo 2? Honestly I cannot tell what genre it is.

    zazaza: Orion’s End looks lovely and I like the idea of “tootle around in space and you can plot your own path” though I think I have a game or two like that in stasis. One thing that might be concerning is the thousands of minigames thing; as we talked about in a discussion post a bit ago, Kitchen Sink gameplay is tough because the different parts kind of all have to be good, or mostly. Though it sounds like the dev’s aesthetic is to make them not too hard and not too mandatory so you can focus on the ones you like, which sounds peachy.

    Gregg: Apparently ASYLUM is Scratches! or “The scratches dev returns after all these years with this game.” I never heard of it before. I feel not really in the mood for any point-and-clicks right now, if I want one I can pick up one of those kentuck’-em-ups I don’t finish, though could be persuaded.
    Speaking of point and clicks and “that dev again,” I found The Trip (by the CARIMARA guy) intriguing but–having cheated on the puzzle–I think the interaction mechanisms were opaque. Like I put the clues together but did not see how to get to the solution in a way that I didn’t think was my fault. OTOH the CARIMARA mechanism of “find cards, use cards as conversation topics” looks like it should be very clear! Also ISTM that this is like Inscryption only insofar as “cards,” I’m tempted to bring up Signs of the Sojourner since that’s “conversation cards” but really it looks like the cards are just a way of representing conversation topics as inventory objects. Which is fine.

    Totally off topic: for some godforsaken reason I started Quadrant again today and on my second try I finished the first level again! with a D grade! maybe the tensest I’ve ever been playing a game. Someday will talk rhythm games.

  11. I read through the discussion I just linked and want to do some updates:

    I reached an ending for Can of Wormholes at 72%. I feel bad about being so ranty. The dev got in touch with me to ask about the issues I had and for suggestions for the next update and was very nice about it. My suggestions were mostly “pleeeeease add a hint mechanism to the overworld.” However… I am still discontented with the overworld. And also kind of confused about how to even access the rest of the content (I have two unsolved levels in what I can reach fwiw). It is a good puzzle game though, just seems like it might be a good idea to play it when you know that there’s someone you can ask about overworld stuff who will be helpful. I ran into the wrong person on the Thinky Games discord.

    The main other reaction I had to that thread is that thinking about Jack Lance makes me sad.

    I also started Tunic which Kat was talking about! did not play very far in though. Always theoretically intrigued by a Soulslike but intimidated by action combat too, plus if I really want one I should probably git gud at Hollow Knight. Which means what would really float my boat is… a tiny turn-based tactical soulslike! boom this was on topic the whole time (of course, no mac port).

  12. matt w: many paragraphs for you, happy birthday!

    okay lingo 2 first, even though you summoned me, that was presumably by accident, since i dont speak the lingo—er, didnt mention lingo. BUT its genre is first person, walk around a space, solving puzzles placed around that space in your own time. is that a genre? and the puzzles are all word puzzles of some variety or other. (i havent played it myself, but have watched friends streaming it, and chimed in with solution ideas here and there).

    also, your apparent discussion link is all nice and link-coloured but doesnt actually link anywhere.

    also, jack lance: yes, an enormous loss.

    pathologic 2: the result isnt really what is implied by “AHHH THEY RAN OUT OF MONEY ONE-THIRD OF THE WAY THROUGH” — pathologic 2 is a large and entirely complete game in and of itself. yes, the original pathologic had three playable characters, each with their own entirely unique story taking place within the same twelve days (but assuredly not the exact same series of events), and pathologic 2 only has the one playable character. but that only means original pathologic was three entire games jammed into one small box.

    still pathologic 2: as you allude to CA’s comment, i will also. (noting also that pathologic 2 is significantly shorter, in a typical playthrough, than dark souls 3)—yes: you cant go back again, only forward. which is what P2 does. it is not in the least a nostalgic remake (and indeed, if you are a pathologic veteran starting P2 thinking you know how everything works, it has bigger traps for you than for new players). the fact that your primary opponent is Time and its relentless passing certainly resonates more strongly with me now approaching my mid-40s than it would have twenty years ago. i still urge you to play it, or at least give it a try: the first three days (25%!) of the game are not difficult (although perhaps bewildering if you are unfamiliar with the setting). maybe it will grab you like it did me. or failing that, maybe watch someone else play it? i can recommend SulMatul’s series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO6dQRhxbNE_QA5eAjRwoyOJrwPUqryv4

    pathologic 3: the radical gameplay changes i refer to are: you are no longer inhabiting a single viewpoint, in linear time, through a series of twelve consecutive days. you are no longer having to constantly scrounge for your next scraps of food or dig through rubbish bins for oddments to trade for it. and the story is not even taking place solely in the Town, during those twelve days: Quarantine has sequences taking place in the Capital, before Bachelor Dankovsky begins his journey, and the full game is supposed to have even more of that backstory—only relayed in fragments in a few letters in the original pathologic—fleshed out as playable sequences. i dont yet know what i feel about these changes (beyond anticipatory trepidation), but they run deep enough that i might argue that P3 will be a game in a different genre than P1 or P2.

  13. Oh no! Let’s see if this link to the previous discussion about kitchen sink et al. works.

    lingo; I was trying to win the seven points by guessing which game you’d played the demo of. Apparently I was wrong! Your description of Lingo’s genre sounds like The Witness, though I guess there’s the question of “are the puzzles nicely set out in discrete puzzle bits like The Witness or hidden in the environment also like The Witness,” but really there the proof is in the particular puzzles which is a good thing because, I feel like I sometimes kind of tiptoe around in deference of its importance to Joel, I absolutely hate The Witness. Part of this is the 3-d environment, I’m easily disoriented so navigating probably takes more time than it’s supposed to, but the killer was after wandering off from a puzzle sequence and laboriously finding my way back, I realized that I did not find the puzzles at all compelling and did not want to think about them. But I like word puzzles!

    Pathologic: Oh that does sound kind of like I expected, that the change from the first two games was that you don’t scrounge for your next scraps of food. And, er, everything else I guess. It might be something worth checking out but I use a Mac laptop and the Pathologics don’t run on Mac. (Same deal with Lingo and many other games.)

  14. matt w: in which case you will probably not enjoy lingo purely from a navigation perspective. most of the rooms and hallways are squarish, pretty featureless, and samey. you can open a map, but it is terribly hard to read, and made near-useless anyway because the game has many Antichamber-like nonlinear connections (and, so far as i could tell, just because it could, not for any particular gameplay reason—though i did not see the whole game so might be wrong about that). navigating in the witness is a cakewalk in comparison—although lingos world is a lot smaller, for what thats worth.

    as for the puzzles, theyre all of a similar form: you walk up to a cube with a word or short phrase written on it, and underneath an indication of the number of letters in its solution. you can click on the cube and type in what your answer, and if youre right that puzzle is marked as done. figuring out how to get to the answer is the real puzzle, and you might use contextual clues or a nearby example prompt/answer to determine that. in that aspect of having to deduce the rules at play, lingo is definitely witness-like.

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