🛡️ Bad North: Jotunn Edition | Review | XBOX | "Mega-Lo-Mania in 3D?" 🛡️ #GameDev #IndieGames

This is an odd game. It's billed as a "minimalistic real-time tactics roguelite about Vikings," which just seems to be missing IN SPACE or GONE WRONG. Being a gentleman of a certain age, it reminds me a bit of Mega-Lo-Mania in 3D.

🏹 Valentina | Nintendo Switch | Review | "A Micro-Budget Title From Brazil" 🏹 #GameDev #IndieGames

Currently 89p on the Switch eShop, Valentina is very much priced correctly in term of what it offers players. 

A Brazilian platformer, Valentina tells the story (through broken English) of our titular heroine as she bows-and--arrowses (definitely a term) her way through a 2D world to destroy the encroaching Dark Empire over 40 stages of action.

😈 Lust From Beyond: Scarlet | PC | Review | "Get Ready To Clutch Those Pearls" 😈 @MGLunarium #IndieGames #GameDev

Back in 2017 I wrote a preview for a game called Lust For Darkness (I never played the finished version) which I concluded was essentially “pretty… but tame” in how it supposedly was to show the extreme lines between pleasure, fantasy and pain.

It’s effectively the Hellraiser thang (most memorably illustrated in the first movie by a man sneering at a woman’s back during love-making) and the preview version of Lust for Darkness suffered from the same issue I had with the original Hellraiser movie, it felt somewhat muted.

When someone tells me ‘I want to show you the boundaries of human endurance between pleasure and pain’ my mind goes beyond the purchasing of a risqué bronze statuette with a coquettish grin on its face and its bum out.

Lust From Beyond: Scarlet is again a preview of a final game, a sort of self-contained tech demo that exists to show off the gameplay features that will be included in the full game. Scarlet is a separate story that acts as a preamble to the tale that will be told in that final product.

🕊️🦉🦜 Feather | Review | PS4 | "Do you want to fly away (yeah, yeah yeah)?" 🕊️🦉🦜 #IndieGames #GameDev

Feather is a casual game with no enemies, puzzles or challenge beyond enjoying flying around an island as a bird, Feather entertains for a short while but the complete lack of any goal and the relatively small size of the island you explore from above quickly catches up with you. 

⚽️ Ganbare! Super Strikers | PS4 | Review | Better Than Captain Tsubasa? ⚽️ @_rese @RatalaikaGames #IndieGames #GameDev

Ganbare! Super Strikers is a mix between an anime Tactical RPG and a Soccer game. 

You need to Win matches to level up your players and also to earn new equipment that will allow your players to learn up to 35 special abilities.

These abilities will boost your players' stats or protect them against altered status effects inflicted by opposition players

In story mode, you can create your own team to take on the rival teams in Japan in a 7v7 competition which takes place over 7 matches.

If you win the Japan competition you then get the opportunity to play in the World Cup in a 11v11 tournament.

You can also play a local multiplayer mode with up to 8 players with quick match, league, and tournament modes.

🎙️ Not For Broadcast | PC | Review | "Chuck Five Nights At Freddy’s and Papers Please Into The Telepods From The Fly" 🎙️ @PixelHunted @notgamesuk #GameDev #IndieGames

Chuck Five Nights At Freddy’s and Papers Please into the telepods from The Fly and something like Not for Broadcast would squirm out of the other end. 

You are a broadcast engineer, tasked with making sure the nightly news looks professional and well-edited.

🪓 The Long Dark | PC| Ten Minute Taster | "Totally Bleak and Totally Engrossing" 🪓 @IntoTheLongDark @HinterlandGames #GameDev #IndieGames

 

Bright lights flare across the night sky. The wind rages outside the thin walls of your wooden cabin. A wolf howls in the distance. 

You look at the meagre supplies in your pack and wish for the days before the power mysteriously went out. How much longer will you survive?

Welcome to THE LONG DARK, the innovative exploration-survival experience Wired magazine calls "the pinnacle of an entire genre"

The Long Dark is a thoughtful, exploration-survival experience that challenges solo players to think for themselves as they explore an expansive frozen wilderness in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster. 

There are no zombies -- only you, the cold, and all the threats Mother Nature can muster.

👁️ Witcheye | Review | Nintendo Switch | A Nintendo eShop Hidden Gem! 👁️ @devolverdigital #GameDev #IndieGames

 

Witcheye is a colourful, old-school pixel art platform adventure with a unique control system. 

You set off on an adventure as a mild-mannered witch who transforms into a flying eyeball of vengeance after a smarmy knight and wizard steal her spell ingredients. 

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

🕹️ GAME LINK:🕹️ 

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/witcheye-switch

💻🎮 4 Reasons Why Online Gaming Has Risen In Popularity 💻🎮

Image Credit

The UK has an estimated 20 million people who regularly play video games, with the gaming industry experiencing growth throughout its mobile, console, and PC platforms.

Online gaming is one trend in the gaming market that has fast gained popularity globally.

According to a 2013 study, there are at least 700 million online gamers, which is equivalent to nearly 45% of all users online.

Research shows that traditional online gaming has evolved to include trendy additions like Esports, virtual, and augmented reality.

These additions are slowly gaining ground in the UK online game market, and experts predict their rapid rise. Here are four such reasons that account for the increase in online gaming.

🦅 Feather | Samurai pink interview with Nicholas McDonnell 🦅 @samuraipunk #GameDev #IndieGames

We took some time out to speak to Nicholas McDonnell who is the Managing Director of Samurai Punk games who have just released their hit PC game Feather on PS4/Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

💦🍆Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry | XBOX | Review | "A surprisingly good-natured, innuendo-filled rump, er, romp" 💦🍆 @CrazyBunchTeam #IndieGames #GameDev

Platform Reviewed: XBOX ONE

Developer: CrazyBunch

Looking back over Leisure Suit Larry’s release history is long and hard. First exposing himself on our screens back in 1987, the adventures of Larry Laffer have been received in a range of ways, from standing so achingly proud that you feel worryingly light-headed to depressingly flaccid, with the last major entry in the series, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, being as welcome in my bed as a genital-eating spider comprised entirely of clones of my father’s disapproving eyes that can only be thwarted by watching a looped, grainy VHS tape of myself weeping into a hessian sack filled with physical manifestations of suppressed memories as I’m force-fed burnt clown-hair.

📼 💻Telling Lies | Review | Nintendo Switch | "An interesting concept, if you have the patience for it to reveal itself" 📼 💻 @A_i @mrsambarlow #GameDev #IndieGames

Sam Barlow’s previous game, Her Story, put the player in the position of a person watching the interview of a woman (in VHS format, natch) as she reveals more about herself and her situation. 

Naturally, the order in which you watch the clips is scrambled and thus the player must make the story cohesive in their own mind from what they have seen. 

This approach reminded me a lot of Simon Meek’s performance piece, Marnie Wakes, which is presented as 32 cards with fragmented thoughts and dialogue on each. This means that the order in which you approach the information dictates how the story plays out in your head, a different story for each person but the same cards are provided. Saucy.

🏎️ Inertial Drift | Review | Nintendo Switch | "A Sleek, Cool and Very Pure Racer" 🏎️ @InertialDrift #GameDev #IndieGames

Game Title: Inertial Drift
Platform Reviewed: Switch
Rating: Ice Cool

Inertial Drift is a stylish racing title that may take a few minutes to click with but boy, when you get the hang of it… you’ll feel like Cole Trickle (but you probably have a name with more gravitas).

There really is a lot to love about Inertial Drift, Level 91 Entertainment’s retro-futuristic racer. The music is vinyl-purchasingly good with its moody, synth beats that bleed neon, the perfect match to the intense, focused racing. 

🎙️ Super Rare Games - Ryan Brown Interview - "Head of Saying Stuff at Super Rare Games" 🎙️ @Toadsanime @SuperRareGames

Britt: Hi Ryan! I know we’ve met at game conventions over the years but for those unfamiliar, could you give an overview of your personal gaming history and current position at Super Rare Games? 

Ryan: Absolutely - hey readers, I'm Ryan Brown, perhaps better known as Toadsanime in the gaming sphere. I'm the Head of Saying Stuff at Super Rare Games, a company that publishes a rare print physical Nintendo Switch game every 3 weeks. 

If you see newsletters, social media posts, marketing campaigns, or even press releases, that'll be from lil ol' me! I previously worked in a similar role for video game merchandise and games publisher Numskull, and as a video games journalist for The Mirror, etc.

🏔️⛺️🗻Kholat | PC | Review | “I tried so hard, and got so far, but, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.” 🏔️⛺️🗻 @PixelHunted #GameDev #IndieGame

Chester Bennington once sang: “I tried so hard, and got so far, but, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.” This could be the motto of Kholat, an indie horror title from IMGN.PRO that starts strong but gradually becomes less and less enjoyable

Kholat is inspired by the notorious Dyatlov Pass Incident in which nine Russian hikers died in Ural mountains in 1959. 

An investigation revealed that they’d frantically clawed their way out of their tents in the middle of the night, with their bodies found naked and mutilated in the mountains - some reports claiming that high levels of radiation were found on the bodies.

🏚️🏰🏚️ Westmark Manor PC | Review | "You can’t toss a stone in the horror genre without disturbing something vile..." 🏚️🏰🏚️ @PixelHunted #GameDev #IndieGames

HP Lovecraft may have been a daft turbo-racist, but man, that guy could nail creepy.

His Cthulhu Mythos has blossomed far beyond his books, spreading its tentacles into every facet of pop culture, finding a particularly sticky purchase in games.

You can’t toss a stone in the horror genre without disturbing something vile, ancient and unknowable. 

Eternal Darkness, Darkwood, World of Horror, The Sinking City, Moons of Madness, Call of Cthulhu, Sunless Sea/Skies, Bloodborne… Hell, even the venerable Quake ends with you telefragging the pulsating and veiny Shub Niggureth. 

Do we really need more Lovecraft games? 

Well, Nodbrim Interactive and Toadman Interactive think there’s room for just one more…

🔪 Party Hard 2 | Nintendo Switch | Review | @partyhardgame #IndieGames #GameDev🔪

“Andrew... Buddy. What’s up? 

Yeah, it’s Jimmy here. 

Yeah, JIMMY. Ya fuggin’ agent. Calling up to see how ya doin’. Don’t mean to bust ya balls, but the guys up here at Island Records are getting real twitchy. 

They loved Party Hard man, LOVED it. Great tune. 

But that was then and this is now. They need another hit. Tell me you got another hit in that monkey brain a yours? Another smash for your pal, Jimmy?  

You have? Really? So what’s it called? Party Hard 2...

Oh, ok. Just as long as it’s not a rehash of the first one…”

💻 Zasluke Game Capture Card | Unboxing & Tutorial | Nintendo Switch | OBS 💻 #CaptureCard

 

I bought a Zasluke Game Capture card for £22 off of Amazon and I decided to make an unboxing and Tutorial video on it as there isn't much out there covering the low-end budget game capture cards.

⛵️ Spiritfarer DEMO | PC | Ten Minute Taster | "Row Row Row Your Boat" ⛵️ @ThunderLotus #GameDev #IndieGame

Spiritfarer® is a cosy management game about dying. You play Stella, ferry master to the deceased, a Spiritfarer. Build a boat to explore the world, then befriend and care for spirits before finally releasing them into the afterlife. 

Farm, mine, fish, harvest, cook, and craft your way across mystical seas. 

Join the adventure as Daffodil the cat, in two-player cooperative play. 

Spend relaxing quality time with your spirit passengers, create lasting memories, and, ultimately, learn how to say goodbye to your cherished friends. 

What will you leave behind?

🕴️ Peaky Blinders Mastermind | PS4 | Review | "By Order Of The Peaky Blinders!" 🕴️ @FuturLab #GameDev #IndieGames

 

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind is a puzzle-adventure game.

It’s obviously based on the multi-award-winning TV show Peaky Blinders and it tasks you with becoming the Mastermind as you control key characters in puzzle box levels and attempt to pull off perfectly synchronized plans by moving each character into positions to utilise their special skills.