The new A Little To the Left Cupboards & Drawers puzzle pack expands on the popular puzzles from the base game and will have you sorting through multi-layered levels, with multiple drawers and secret compartments galore. From cleaning products and craft knives, to dice and D-batteries, you will have to arrange and align hundreds of objects in A Little to the Left's most elaborate puzzles yet.
You can get the Cupboards & Drawers DLC on PC, Mac and Nintendo Switch.
If you’re anything like me, you may tend to struggle solving puzzle games. On the other hand, maybe you’re just an exploration lover and you’re on the hunt for a mini atmospheric adventure game to play in your spare time.
If any of these apply to you, Silt might be the perfect candidate to add to your collection.
The developers’ previous game – Anodyne 2 – was my game of the year in 2021 and I’ve been waiting to get my hands on Sephonie since it was first announced, I admittedly had high expectations, knowing what gold the devs were capable of.
I have never played any of the original series, although I have heard of them, and had an idea of what they were about - but I never went ahead and gave them a go, so with this release, it seemed a perfect chance to jump in and experience them in all their new Unreal Engine 5 glory.
I’m happy to say that the gameplay is the game’s biggest strength; it’s fun, brutal, and packs a punch. Matches are about building momentum and damaging your opponent, you use a combination of strikes and grapples - strikes are a combination of punches and kicks, which can be chained together for maximum effect; grapples can be done in a variety of positions and take many forms, they are easy to execute and have a nice variety. There is a nice fluidity to all of the combat giving a fast pace to matches.
SUNSOFT's beloved physics-based action platformer finally bursts onto current platforms enriched with a rewind feature, a time attack mode, online leaderboards, and modern extras.
The cover – which is rich with shades of pinks and purples, features a bespectacled and smiling Zelda – with Master Sword earrings, natch – emblazoned under a starry night sky, with the Tri-Force symbol behind her, and mountains rising up from a neon checker design that stretches into the horizon.
This artwork (courtesy of ONSTA) is GLORIOUS. There are nods throughout - in the designs and clothing - of Zelda to the franchise, whilst being a vibrant, stylish piece of art in its own right – it completely conjures up the melding of Zelda and synthwave in incredible detail, awesome stuff.
The rear cover art furthers the landscape set out on the front with the Duelling Peaks, black palm trees and that neon pattern drenched in hues of – again – pinks and purples. It’s very evocative of the ‘80s, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Don Johnson tucked away in there somewhere….wearing wicker shoes with no socks in sight.
The records are ensconced in anti-static sleeves and comes on double red/purple, pressed at 45RPM. – again, the colour choice and inner-circle design are completely in tune with the rest of the artwork, it’s a very mood-setting record, even when taken at first glance.
Opening the cover shows off the illustration that is spread across the double gatefold sleeve, a starry Zelda on a pink motorbike surrounded in a fuzzy dreamscape – a smile still plastered across her face. On the right-hand side are the track listing and credits, the blues of these pages breaking up the external colours whilst also being a thematic match.
Dredge starts with your character - a fisherman, nonetheless - making his way through a foggy sea before he inevitably has a shipwreck. Waking up on a deck on a small fishing island called Greater Meadows...his journey begins.
35 years later (...ugh) and, despite my best intentions, I haven’t substantially improved. I’ve often returned to dip my toe into the genre, figuring that critically acclaimed darlings like
Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga, or Gradius V would finally give me the motivation to get gud.
I never did, but even though I’m crap at them I maintain an admiration for their purity, the focus they require to master, the complex interlocking systems and, perhaps most of all, for the gaming wizards that can one credit clear these bad boys.
Enter the Ray’z Arcade Chronology, which consists of best-in-class remastering studio M2’s ports of three classic Taito shmups, 1994’sRayForce, 1996’s RayStorm and 1998’s RayCrisis.
Stay Out of the House is split into four sections; the first act is named Night Shift, whereby you go to your character’s night shift at a gas station. Things start out pretty normally, you clean up, deal with customers etc. the store also has an arcade cabinet in the corner which you can play when the store is quiet - oddly enough the arcade game is about a killer chasing you, and you must collect things in order to escape. I really liked this introduction it was a nice build-up of suspense, and even though you can see what’s coming, it still made me jump.
Luckily, the codes still worked and so began my adventure into the Switch indie vortex, and thus it was a bloody fantastic evening.
The first game I dived into was Donuts ‘N’ Justice, a game that has always tickled my fancy – and, as I was very much in the mindset for some pacey arcade action, it was just the ticket.
A 2D run-and-gun game with pixel visuals and a thumping soundtrack, the way I would describe this one in a single sentence is, ‘NARC, if it was snappier, groovier, and better.’
Developer FobTi also made Gunman Tales, which I covered earlier in the year – and whilst I didn’t get quite the same punch from Donuts ‘N’ Justice, this is still a very fun game to dip in ‘n out of – especially with a friend.
Finding information. Keeping up with the news sites you follow. Forums and chatrooms. Online shopping. Web browsers have been used for almost everything you can do online, especially on PC and laptop, for a long time. However, as many a gamer is aware, they have also plagued a pretty pivotal role in how many of us have gamed, at one point or another. Here, we’re going to explore the history of browser games, as well as how they continue to survive, and are perhaps even thriving in new ways today.
It is a genre that has morphed through many permutations through the decades, and if one were to cover it, surely they’d need a pretty lengthy documentary – maybe even one that’s four-and-a-half hours long? Just like this one, in fact!
