Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 PS5 Review 10/10 "I’m Terrible at Clair Obscur and I Love It" ⚔️ @SandfallGames #IndieGame #GameDev

I am comically bad at RPGs. Something about having to look at percentages and statistics during my leisure time just shuts my brain down. The lizard brain takes over, and I pour everything into strength—because obviously, swinging a sword the hardest is the best way to fell a mountain-sized Elder God.

I’m even worse at turn-based combat. I’ll inevitably end up with a team of glass cannons who get wiped out if someone sneezes on them—and they can’t even do that much damage because I didn’t bless their weapons with the Scrotum of K’Narl fifteen hours earlier.

I tried Baldur’s Gate 3, based solely on the enthusiastic response to its narrative and rich characters, but the combat was a brick wall I couldn’t surmount. It’s always humbling when the loading screen stops saying “You can change the difficulty at any time” and starts saying “Why don’t you have a nice lie down instead?”

Enter Clair Obscur: Expedition 33—the first (I repeat: first!) game from French developer Sandfall Interactive, and the latest critical darling trying to woo me back to a genre that routinely makes a fool of me.

The Blue Prince Xbox Series X Review 10/10 "A Labyrinth of Love" 🩵 @dogubomb @RawFury #IndieGame #GameDev

I’ve had my peepers on Blue Prince since it appeared as the cover article in issue 6 of Debug, a narrative-led puzzle title, it certainly sparked my intrigue.

The young nephew of a recently departed uncle, the protagonist has been tasked with locating the 46th room deep in the heart of a sprawling mansion that resets its rooms each day. 

The setup and premise – as well as the future revelations and key moments - are delivered perfectly, with every aspect of the game seeming a perfect fit with the other. For example, the rich, graphic-novel style visuals dovetail with the lilting, curious audio in a way that really pulls you into the game as you delve further and further into the mansion, collecting coins, jewels and more incremental permanent unlockables as you do so. 

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story Review 10/10 "If you have even the slightest interest in games as an art form, you must play this." 🦙🦙🦙 @DigitalEclipse #IndieGame #GameDev

Jeff Minter has been making my soul sing for three decades. I have hazy memories of being confused by the Amiga version of Revenge of the Mutant Camels in the early 90s, but Tempest X3 on PlayStation blew my young mind. Impossibly cool, brain-meltingly intense, and powered by a throbbing rave soundtrack, it felt like being allowed entry to the clubs the bouncers wouldn’t let me into yet.

Back then I didn’t know X3 was an inferior version of Tempest 2000 on the Jaguar, but it burnt a love of all things Minter deep into my gaming tastes. From there I hoovered up Space Giraffe (which looks incredible on Steam Deck OLED), developed a crippling late-night addiction to TxK that burrowed into my dreams, and played Polybius in VR for so long that after one session I fell down the stairs and hurt my shoulder. Worth it.

⛏️ Aground | Review (revisited) | XBox Series X | "One of The Best Games I Have Ever Played 10/10" ⛏️ @WhiteThornGames #GameDev #IndieGames

I first reviewed Aground in its initial PC incarnation back in July 2020 (https://www.gamesfreezer.co.uk/2020/07/aground-pc-review-best-2-d-crafting.html) and I absolutely adored it. Rich (my hateful, drunken boss) tends to cover a lot of the PC games we receive for review and I lean more towards console releases.

I mention in my original review that it was totally by chance that I picked it out for coverage when my Switch was being Animal Crossing-ed to death by someone who shall remain nameless* and I’m so glad that I was introduced to it.