Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is a timely reminder of the power that fantasy stories can have to explore real-world issues. Fantasy and science-fiction have a long history of taking on things like class conflict and racism through metaphor, but it seems to often fall short, especially in video games. I …
A little while ago, an animation popped up in my Twitter feed that captivated me. It was a simple loop, showing a group of fireflies flitting around a shrine in the forest, but it was mesmerising. I soon learned about the game it came from: Miyamori, an action-adventure platformer that aims to …
Rise of the Tomb Raider was one of the best games of last year, but it didn’t get its due. It came out on the same day as a game called Drawl Out 4 (or something like that) and somehow got overshadowed. Despite a concerted marketing push from Microsoft, the timed …
Rose of Winter is one of the cutest games I’ve played. It’s a simple, short, no-frills otome visual novel, but with its lovely art style, fantastic writing, and absolutely frickin’ adorable characters, it filled me with a giddy joyfulness to a degree that’s rare, even within the realm of dating …
With its square-jawed focus on the inner workings of Bruce Wayne, Batman: The Telltale Series has, until now, been missing a lot of the sort of relationship drama that’s the highlight of the best Telltale games. I must admit, the previous episode, Children of Arkham, worked so well as a …
Burly Men at Sea is a picture book in video game form. I don’t mean that it’s a visual novel, in the sense of a mechanics-derived game genre – though I guess it is that, too. Rather, I mean that it quite brilliantly captures the calm, simple sense of wonderment …
Comedy must be the most difficult thing to write. A weak adventure story can be salvaged to some extent by exciting action sequences and likeable characters, for example. Sometimes, an intricate plot can save a thriller from being cold and clinical to a fault. But comedy? When the jokes don’t …
Looking at screenshots or even video footage of Yomawari: Night Alone, you might not expect a particularly creepy game. With its chibi character designs and isometric 2D world, it looks adorable, but that’s a big part of what makes it so unsettling. Japanese horror has a long history of twisting …
In a world full of games focused on being fun or exciting in some way or another, it’s oddly refreshing to play a game like Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor. Billed as an “anti-adventure game”, it’s a repetitive experience about the daily grind of being a trash collector – but …
Memory’s Dogma CODE:01 will be out soon, and along with a the launch of new Steam store page, developer Liz-Arts has released a free Memory’s Dogma manga to introduce the game’s world and a few of the characters. It sets up what will no doubt be a fascinating story, with a candid exploration …
