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A brand new phone and a 3-month-trial of Apple Arcade introduced me to the cozy world of Japanese Rural Life Adventure . From the creators of Food Truck Pup, Tiny Pixel Farm, and Tiny Island Survival, this game continues their signature style of relaxing pixel art gameplay. Publisher: Game Start LLC Developer: Game Start LLC Platform:  Played on iPhone Availability: Released on September 15, 2023 for Apple Arcade. Your journey begins with a simple character creator, followed by a scenic train ride to your new home in a mountain-side village. While your first major quest involves renovating your old, abandoned house, the game offers complete freedom in how you progress by letting you set your own pace and choose your activities. The main storyline revolves around bringing life back into your new village home, with various NPCs to meet and help along the way. To that end, completing a quest for these villagers brings in new tourists to the town, helping that revival. The mechanics of the tasks are straightforward: completing tasks consumes energy, which you can restore through eating or napping.  Navigation is intuitive, with exclamation points marking tasks and interactive items highlighted by matching bubble icons. The gameplay itself also matches that simplicity, with most activities using only tapping or light interaction to complete. Despite that, Japanese Rural Life Adventure  offers a large number of systems to engage with. Farming, fishing, cooking, and crafting are all here to toy with to varying degrees — the game is simple, not shallow. What truly captivated me was the game's charming pixel-based art style and soothing soundtrack. Japanese Rural Life Adventure  is full of Japanese architecture and cultural style, as the name would suggest. Shops, homes, and shrines all carry that visual style to great effect, granting an authenticity to the experience. The perfect blend of peaceful atmosphere and engaging content kept me playing for hours, and while it may no longer be my primary gaming focus, it will remain my go-to choice for relaxation and peaceful gaming sessions for some time.

Even growth unchecked is finite. Welcome to Rise of Industry 2 , where success is guaranteed with only 3 things: production, influence, and money. Six years after the first Rise of Industry , SomaSim has taken their bite of the industrial apple with Kasedo Games returning from the original to publish this as well. The 1980's USA is a perfect time and place for rampant industrial expansion, something you will be doing as fast as your cash flow allows in this retro industrialist paradise. Get out some spreadsheets and get ready to shift paradigms, build value chains, and globalize! Publisher: Kasedo Games Developer: SomaSim Platform:  Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Releases on June 3, 2025 for Windows PC (Steam). Expand, expand, expand, the only goal in this game is ever present. With no timed objectives, the pace is left to the player to exchange imports for self-sufficiency — while expanding and diversifying exports on any of the fifteen expansive maps. Each map starts with a Headquarters Complex that acts as a pivotal thoroughfare for all of the company’s imports and exports. Complexes are the main building blocks of expansion, whether it be mining, manufacturing, generating power, or disposing of waste. Plotting out space for these will be the first step for any new complex. Having a limited space for any single complex forces some planning for logistics, but as long as every building is connected by a continuous access road, the complex will work without issue — leaving the main focus on road and utility access, space optimization, and future growth.  Once an initial supply chain of materials and finished products to sell are in motion, the game can be hard to outright fail, unless expenses are not managed and the utilities are shut off as a result of not being able to pay for basic running costs. After only a few hours of company growth, the expansive graphs and charts the game provides are invaluable. Tracking what opportunities the current infrastructure can support or where you might need more foundries to take advantage of a new mine’s output is key to increasing income to diversify your exports. Hire and direct a team of executives to fast-track research, acquire land, manage unions, and leverage influence to schmooze your way through anything without spending a dime. Rise of Industry 2 has a distinct and interesting aesthetic, replicating a distinctly 80's vibe. The live action cutscenes are funny and charming, blending the right amount of 80’s corporate sleaze with a profit at all cost mindset. Having a great actor deliver comically honest directives for the next scenario from a controllable tube television really hits the mark. Now go ahead and cut down the forest to sell paper — at least the company turns a profit when the fine for deforestation gets printed on it. Apart from the menu and HUD’s retro futurism stylings, the gameplay map’s graphics are detailed without feeling busy. Buildings are easily identifiable with customizable colors and persistent labels to always keep track of where any complex is. While camera controls are standard and easy to use, the lack of being able to zoom out very far or a map can make it harder to organize at a larger scale. The expansive gameplay is straightforward and simple to manage although some UI choices hold it back somewhat. Taking just under an hour, the tutorial is long due to having to read and manually click through every step, with no automated tracking implemented; it would be even longer if every system and mechanic was explained to the player. Although discovering and exploring the menus is part of the fun, not being able to search through the glossary for help with a specific roadblock does add an unnecessary headache when trying to find which part of what broad section the specific solution to your problem is detailed in (I still don’t know how to join a country club. I need to up my networking game and the greyed out option taunts me). Some menus become cumbersome after even moderate company expansion — for example, selecting a specific complex from a long, scrollable list is frustrating. Similar complexes share identical icons, forcing you to mouse over each one to determine which mine is for coal or slowly searching for and clicking the complex on the map. Building is very easy to use, although not being able to build a road parallel under a powerline or having to delete both power and water utilities due to their ability to occupy the same space without the option to pick only one can be frustrating. Although discovering and exploring the menus is part of the fun, not being able to search through the glossary for help with a specific roadblock does add an unnecessary headache when trying to find which part of what broad section the specific solution to your problem is detailed in. Rise of Industry 2 sits comfortably in the cozy niche of the city building and management game genre. With no timer or impending doom, the player is free to take everything at their own pace to avoid problems or plan for the future. With expansive maps and endless potential for optimization at every step in production, any scenario could easily last over 100 hours before any real constraints are met. So grab your power suit, suspenders, and freshly shined shoes and get ready to navigate the corporate landscape. Verdict Rise of Industry 2 is an unexpected sequel that captures the ambition of industrial expansionism — though it occasionally bends under the weight of that same goal. The map’s design is clean and readable, with a retro UI that feels intentionally stylized rather than outdated. With no enforced deadlines, the gameplay encourages a relaxed, player-driven pace. If you enjoy management sims and just want the time and space to grow your perfect company, this game is for you. Image Credits: Kasedo Games and Joe 'Nid' Kaiser. Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product from the publisher.

TRON: Identity is a short, but engaging, visual novel set within Disney's TRON universe. Taking on the role of Query, your task is to uncover the mystery surrounding an explosion at the Repository. Branching dialogue and an intriguing story keep things interesting, even if the puzzle sections are quite a bore. While an individual run may take no more than an hour or two, the variability of each playthrough means there's a lot of room for discovery. Pros Really captures the TRON vibes and aesthetic. Choices in the dialogue matter. High replayability due to multiple endings and story outcomes. Cons Game ends on a big cliff-hanger. Puzzles are underwhelming. Verdict Publisher: Bithell Games Developer:   Bithell Games Platform:  Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on April 11, 2023 for Nintendo Switch, MacOS, and Windows PC.

Disclaimer: While there are no direct spoilers beyond the prologue, this review discusses some of the themes or ideas present within the entirety of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 . If such discussion would constitute a spoiler for you, or you feel like it may clue you into the direction of the game’s story, this content should be avoided.  The opening moments of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33  are a powerful reminder of the realities of death for those of us left behind. Playing as Gustave, a brilliant inventor and mentor to many within the world, you must find your lost love Sophie and escort her to the docks of Lumière (a twisted, Belle Époque era version of Paris), where Sophie and the other 33 year-old (or older) citizens will face their final day. Across the water, in view from those same docks, sits The Paintress, a giant figure seated beneath a monolith with a large number 34 emblazoned upon the rockface. Once a year, The Paintress rises from her rest and carves a new number upon the monolith, killing everyone of or above that age. Publisher: Kepler Interactive Developer: Sandfall Interactive Platform:  Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on April 24, 2025 for Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PC. The presentation of this event in game is absolutely stunning, with the characters fading away into ash and petals, all while a beautiful score punctuates the moment. The citizens of Lumière gather together to celebrate their final moments with loved ones, saying their goodbyes while adorned with roses. It is at once beautiful and horrifying. Despite this aesthetic beauty, the moment was a bit too familiar for me. My mother died earlier this year after a short battle with terminal cancer, and much like everyone within Clair Obscur , she knew her final moments were approaching in the days leading up to her passing. We all did, really. And so, she spent her last hours on this earth among family and friends, saying goodbyes, and making sure everyone around her knew how much she loved them — just as we spent those moments telling her how much we loved her. No matter how much any of us wanted her to stay, it was her time to go.  Of course, much like in real life, the game leaves us contemplating what we would do in the face of such a certain death. Do we spend our time relaxing among friends and family, do we look for a way out, or can we balance both in a way that is both fulfilling and productive? For me, the thoughts about those questions would have to wait a bit longer. When the Gommage scene ended, I could not bear to do more than sit at my desk and cry. And cry. And cry some more. I do not know how long I cried for, but every ache of my mother’s passing and every fear of my own mortality came to a head during those opening moments. Once I collected myself again, I knew I had to fully immerse myself in Clair Obscur . I had to see it through to the end. Thankfully, Clair Obscur  doesn’t just rest on its opening moments — it never shies away from tackling (or at least touching upon) death, love, and grief through the entire experience.  Combat has so many options and abilities to work with, but the art direction elevates all facets to new heights. This title is built on homages. In the narrative, we can see how each character is reverential to those who have come before and those they have lost; how they dedicate their lives to the cause so that they may honor their sacrifice and build a better future for the ones left in Lumiere. The world itself is full of love for its real world inspirations, as well. Beyond landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe, every facet of the art direction and music leans into that French culture inspiration, including enemies dressed like mimes, stereotypically French costumes for your characters, and the occasional French phrase spoken within the English dialogue.  Likewise, the gameplay itself hits on a lot of classic notes for the “JRPG” genre. The combat uses a turn-based system that sees you navigate the encounters using menus, but adds its own twist by including real-time elements such as dodging and parrying. There is a world map that is traversable by the party akin to the older Final Fantasy titles. And so on. Many of the individual elements that make up Clair Obscur  are not necessarily unique to the title, no, but it does not feel lifted from those that came before. Instead, it comes across as reverential. By paying respect to and taking ideas from those titans of the genre, Clair Obscur  can work its own magic and paint its own picture with the materials. “ Painting isn’t about verisimilitude. It’s about essence. The truth of who they are. ” Of course, there is always a risk in formulating your game in such a way. Reverence and homage can often lead to blind worship. Rather than blazing a path forward with the work laid by predecessors, it can be all too easy to find oneself stuck in a mire, unwilling to go beyond the bounds of those creations. By avoiding the pitfalls of blind adherence to the norm, Sandfall Interactive has successfully navigated this in a way that many contemporaries do not, and they manage to do so by tying these ideas and themes to the narrative as well. It is not a mistake that the Belle Époque era aesthetic was chosen specifically for this story, and it’s not happenstance that everything within seems so eager to tickle nostalgia in our minds. The way the game has managed to tie these ideas and tackle them through the story, gameplay, and development in tandem is mesmerizing to me.  While the prologue was deeply affecting for me on a personal level, I do find myself thinking more about many of the events that transpire later in the game, and the ideas or themes surrounding those moments. What does it mean to honor someone who has been lost? How do we move on from our pain, but still respect the memories we have? I don’t know the answer to those questions, necessarily. I’m still struggling with several recent losses of my own. Perhaps it would be easier to look back and lament the days gone by. To sit and think about how good we had it in the past. That is fiction, of course. Life is never easy, and each step forward in society comes at great cost — often by those least positioned to bear it. Verso has a great quote in the later stages of the story that cuts at the heart of the game’s messaging: “Painting isn’t about verisimilitude. It’s about essence. The truth of who they are.” When we honor someone or something, it is not enough to blindly copy it. Instead, we must understand the underlying essence of the events or parties involved in order to move forward in our own ways. It can be difficult to face, but the past is gone. Instead, we must move forward with dignity of our own, trying to do right by those who paved the way. For those who come after, we continue. Verdict Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a breathtakingly beautiful examination of death, grief, loss, and love. With an obvious deep respect and reverence for the cultures, people, and video games that came before it, Clair Obscur  strikes the balance between pastiche and derivative work. While the main story is not particularly long, there is quite a bit of side content available to further explore the various characters and the world itself. Despite all of the positives, the repetitive nature of the combat did wear on me, and I found myself longing for the end. Image Credits: Taylor Rioux

Wizard of Legend  is a frantic and flashy take on the dungeon crawler genre. Tight controls and a dynamic spell system keep things interesting on subsequent runs, with outfits and relics spicing things up a little bit further. There are so many options in terms of spell selection and playstyle that it can feel a bit overwhelming at times, but the dungeons themselves are a bit lacking, with only a few permutations in each zone. While the game reaches exceptional highs at points, the repetitive nature of the dungeon crawling creates some wear and tear.  Pros Fast and flashy combat is a blast to play. Varied arcana (spells) and relics give you a staggering number of options. Gorgeous pixel art style with a unique flair. Cons Lack of enemy variety. A small number of permutations for room layout in each zone.

Not pur-fection, but I'm feline fine. As I lay on a pillow, curled up into a ball, a robot strums an incomprehensibly horrid tune next to me. But this stray is comfortable all the same. I arise from my rest, stretching and then making my way to a nearby doorway to sharpen my claws. Next thing you know, I am climbing conspicuously arranged air conditioners and building fans all the way to the top of a nearby abode, where I then sit neatly within a bucket on a long zipline. Suddenly, I am in a sludge-filled arena with dozens of strange creatures who are scrambling to devour me. Sprinting and weaving between dividers, jumping over railings, and scrambling beneath the pipes, I make my escape — just in time to pull a nearby lever and complete my mission. Such is the life of a stray cat in this world. Publisher: Annapurna Interactive Developer: BlueTwelve Studio Platform:  Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on July 19, 2022 for PS4, PS5, and Windows PC ; August 10, 2023 for Xbox one and Series X/S; November 19, 2024 for Nintendo Switch. Stray is ostensibly a game about being a cat. Just a regular cat, though — no powers or special abilities; only carrying a little bot who assists you. Slinking and pawing your way through the world as you climb through the neon-lit streets of Dead City, the game nails all of the mannerisms, sounds, and animations of a typical cat. Purrs and meows are cute as heck, while ear twitches and sleeping animations feel so familiar I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to my own orange cat, Cheddar. Each little quirk and tic from the unnamed cat drew a smile from me, and I ended up calling the game a “Cheddar Simulator” when talking to my wife. I often imagined the little demon resting in my lap scurrying about a city and causing trouble in a similar way. The camera is a big part of making that work well. In keeping low and close, you see the world from the perspective of a cat, even if the actual view is not first person. The robots and environs tower over you, creating a daunting landscape that you must navigate as such a small creature. There are some issues that come with such a tight camera, of course. Narrow rooms or pathways make viewing the scenery with any sort of clarity a major struggle, and in really cramped spaces, the camera can move erratically. Most of the time, it’s not much of an issue, but those who struggle with motion sickness may find themselves grappling with it — I know I did. That perspective helps frame the narrative, as well. As you follow the story, the events become much bigger than yourself or any one character, crafting a heartwarming and moving tale in a bleak world. Gameplay revolves around exploring the walled cyberpunk city via platforming elements, and solving puzzles to enter new areas or unlock secrets. The puzzles are far too easy to call this a puzzle game by any metric, but they are engaging enough to keep things moving. Those light puzzles do serve as another reminder of just how cute your cat is, though. Mischievously knocking paint cans down onto unsuspecting citizens or carrying objects in your mouth as you trot away from your unsuspecting victims, this curious cat is just a joy to play. You can also talk to the robot citizens to learn more about them and the world, and there are a small number of collectibles to gather in your time here. Those small activities can really help flesh out the world around you, which then deepens your connection to both the world and those same characters. Neon-lit streets give way to desolate landscapes for your little orange avatar to navigate. Those characters are the heart of the story, in many ways. Each robot wears their emotions in quite an explicit way by showing their feelings through emoticons on their faces (screens, really). The animation work here is excellent, as well. The bots have very expressive movements and distinct body language that help the player understand the vibe of the text during the conversations. They’ve also built a living society full of love, fear, loneliness, and hope — much like our own hellscape. While I’m not sure the rabbit hole goes particularly far down, the game uses these moments to explore themes about the relationships we have with each other and our environment, and calls into question what we would do to build a better world for those who come after, even if we don’t live to see the fruits of our labors. While the moment to moment gameplay of solving puzzles and running through the streets is serviceable, I find Stray ’s biggest strengths to be the way it uses every element of its gameplay to elevate the basic premise of playing as a cat. From the way the world is put together to the camera angles and minor activities — each aspect serves a purpose. Stray never overstays its welcome, either. With chapters moving at a brisk pace, and collectibles being kept to a very manageable number, I never got the sense that I was stuck in one place for too long. After all, we know orange cats aren’t very good at sitting still. Verdict Stray  is a lovely platforming adventure game that sees you playing as a cat in a somewhat dark, but ultimately hopeful world. Much of the gameplay revolves around exploring your surroundings or solving puzzles, but the real highlight is just how well it nails its animations and tone. Playing as a cat is such a joy thanks to all of the little inconsequential ways the game lets you do it, like scratching up carpets or knocking objects down from counters. I was fond of the story, as well, and would love to see more from this team in the future. Image Credits: Taylor Rioux

A new dawn would be most welcome. Have you ever thought to yourself, “man, I wish I could boot up a game and do nothing interesting while constantly and consistently being hounded to enter my credit card information”? If so, you have come to the right place. Dawn of Ages  is a vapid, highly-monetized auto-battler with little in the way of creativity. A medieval strategy game with base-building aspects that never amount to more than busywork. While the soundtrack and visuals are mostly inoffensive, the gameplay itself is highly objectionable.  Publisher: BoomBit Games Developer:   Stratosphere Games Platform:  Played on PC, Android Availability: Released on May 8, 2024 for Android and iOS; April 28, 2025 for PC (Steam). There are multiple systems in place to manage, such as crafting equipment, collecting resources, equipping your soldiers with gear, and positioning them in advantageous areas on your field. Occasionally, you may command units through a series of battles, but a hefty majority of the gameplay centers around micromanaging equipment and buildings, rather than commanding your units in any real way. Unfortunately, this micromanaging of the environs is not engaging whatsoever, with everything handled with a single click, and set on massive timers — all in the hopes you will pay real money to speed things up.  The battles themselves are quite simple — you command a squad of 5 units, and place them in positions that are most advantageous to your current scenario. There is an effectiveness matrix to keep in mind while you equip and position your units. Swords are effective against light armor, spears are great for medium armored targets, and blunt weapons handle heavy infantry well. Once you place your crew on the field, you select a tactics card (which are per-battle bonuses to give yourself an edge). The battles then play out autonomously and unceremoniously, with drab soldiers flailing around until someone’s units go down — at which point a victory or loss screen just kind of pops up. PVP is another major part of this game. Unfortunately, as Dawn of Ages  is pay-to-win, any player looking to play without additional funds is out of luck. The game has a small userbase, so you are pushed into battles with whales and higher level players occasionally. Predatory shops, timers, and battle passes are constantly pushed to the player, with failures and quest objectives pushing you to interact with the monetized elements. Prices are absurd, but that’s par for the course in this type of mobile title.  These images are functionally the entirety of the experience. If the monetization was the only issue with the game, maybe we could wave the game off as just another mobile game port hoping to cash in on a drowning market. But the game is barely functional at times. I have run into major bugs throughout my dismal time with Dawn of Ages.  UI disappearing during play, units being lost mid-battle or disappearing from the screen; freezing when accessing warehouses, participating in battles, or interacting with other menus. I have encountered disconnection issues when accessing the workshop, and experienced slowdowns during combat, as well. At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves what we want to leave in this world. Are these bland, uninspired projects the type of thing we want generations to come to remember us by? The type of thing  whose only purpose is to extract dollars from unwitting or susceptible people? I understand that this is the way things are now in the industry at large. Dawn of Ages is not the first game to do its best to mine its players for money. It won’t be the last, either. But it should be. It is a monument to the type of decision-making that has poisoned the well for video games as an artform. Is this the worst game I have ever played? No, but I hope it’s the worst game I play this year. I read A Minecraft Movie review recently that lamented how often we excuse bad products through the lens of "It's just for kids." In many respects, those same sentiments extend to mobile games just like this one. Excuse after excuse is used to prop up the worst tendencies in the space. But games like Dawn of Ages don't even have the one major positive that a film like Minecraft does — an ending. Despite being another pointless checklist of references, there is a release from the experience once the credits roll. Mobile games such as this have no such catharsis as they intend to keep you in perpetuity, fully on the line with your credit card in hand. Just one small purchase and you can finish the building. Punch in your Visa and that sword could be yours. A simple donation and you can finally gather enough resources to upgrade your armor. Maybe then you could finally play and enjoy the game. Verdict Dawn of Ages  is a vapid, highly-monetized auto-battler with little in the way of creativity. A medieval strategy game with base-building aspects that never amount to more than busywork. Riddled with bugs and offensive pay-to-win monetization, it offers so little of value that I came away offended that it exists at all.

The hull groans as your ship, the merchant ship HLV Herald , begins its long journey across the ocean. While the waves may be familiar to many onboard, for player character Devan Rensburg it is a new experience. As a man of mixed heritage, you are not afforded the same courtesies as those above your station. Nevertheless, you must acquaint yourself with the ship and its crew, finding your way in a hostile world, trapped by both circumstance and sea. Framed as the retelling of events that have already happened within this 19th century alternate history world, Herald: The Interactive Period Drama – Complete Edition  ( Herald )   is a tale of power; a tale of those who have and have not, a tale of those who do and those who do nothing. Outward appearances belie the true feelings or ideas harbored among your crewmates, many of whom are initially cordial or friendly. But this is a world ruled by and for white men, with The Protectorate (think British empire) standing as the only superpower after having conquered much of the lands abroad. Publisher: Wispfire Developer:   Wispfire Platform:  Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on May 1, 2025 on Steam and GOG. At its core a point-and-click adventure game, Herald: The Interactive Period Drama – Complete Edition has you move across the screen by selecting points within view, and you can examine objects in the environment to learn more about the ship and the people on it. But this aspect is a much smaller part of the experience than its more visual-novel dialogue and story structure. Not only is the story and text of Herald  well written, it is also a game where your choices in those dialogues can change the course of the story and alter the fates of those within it. But as this is ultimately a story about power — or powerlessness — it is more about navigating your relationships with everyone onboard.  As a servant of the empire in low standing, Devin has very little outright say in how things go. Instead, you manage your reaction to the events and asides of the narrative, making choices here and there — often with no clear indication of what the true end will be of each choice. Chastising someone may lead them to rethink their actions, or perhaps it just makes them angry with you, leading to a lost friend; being forgiving to another person may lead to someone’s untimely death. Ultimately, I find this to be quite refreshing. There are no easy answers, no click-to-win buttons. Instead, you must use your knowledge of the characters and the world at large to guide you — how you use that is up to you. These dialogues are presented using some absolutely stunning character portraits and accentuated by a fittingly beautiful score. The character models and environments outside of the speaking moments are much more simple, but they remain well-crafted. Individual rooms are especially interesting, as the items you can find in each person’s quarters will tell you about who they are and what they think. Even without Devan, or the person themselves, explicitly telling you what each person feels or thinks, you get a sense of the people aboard — and let me tell you: the vibes are way off. Herald lives up to the "Interactive Drama" part of its name. Herald does not shy away from dark subject matter, even early on, with the most prominent of these subjects being racism, sexism, and the oppression of any non-white male. And it is pervasive. From off-hand comments to finding a human skull with measurement tools attached lying among phrenology literature — the reality is that Devan and those like him are not equals here. Every injustice and inequality is normalized, bubbling just beneath a veneer of respectability.  Devan doesn’t have to sit idly by. You may speak back or try to change the way things are in the course of the game, but you’re faced with the reality that this is fundamentally a world that does not give a shit about you beyond your usefulness and subservience to the collective aims of the empire. To that end, Herald  does manage to pack a wild variety of crewmates for these ideas to be borne by. Characters from the Netherlands, Brazil, India, and beyond all occupy the space, allowing the player to engage with their perspectives and see firsthand the effects of The Protectorate. There’s also a journal to help you along with the material. In it, you can examine documents you find or get some of the world’s history and comments from Devan on it. It’s a nice refresher tool while also adding some more flavor to both the world and Devan as a character himself. It should be pointed out that there does not seem to be anything you would only see within the journal that is necessary for advancement. You could just power through the game, but I do think it’s worth examining this for the details. With the story being broken up into four separate acts, the game starts out really strong, bringing both worldbuilding and drama in equal measure. Events at the end of Book I spur things in motion, and the game takes that momentum and runs with it. Herald  shuffles you from one scene to the next, with very little in the way of freedom of how you move about the ship, but this helps keep things focused so you’re not spending much time trying to figure out where to go. Each individual room or scene has a lot to examine already, so this prevents the player from becoming overwhelmed with items or tasks. This basic structure holds true for the first three books, but the fourth book changes things pretty dramatically in every sense of the word. As the resolution to all of those threads laid out earlier, Book IV does away with the interactive elements, functioning mostly as a story delivery sequence. Its execution mostly works but the lack of exploration does make the final book feel much shorter than the other three. While this act serves as the culmination of your choices and the events of the game, on repeated playthroughs it is my least favorite to retread. Varied camera angles and lighting choices set the scene. Generally speaking, for a visual novel or for games made on the idea of ‘choice and consequence,’ you would expect more agency or for your actions to have greater effect on the events of the game. Herald doesn’t really do that, but it’s not a mistake. There is a true marriage of the narrative structure and the themes and plot of the game. That lack of agency is key to understanding the messaging within Herald: The Interactive Period Drama , and makes all of those moments throughout the game even more powerful. In this sense, the game leverages both the video game medium and the players’ expectations to drive home its intent. The journey on the HLV Herald was a perilous one, fraught with danger and mystery. And while the journey loses a bit of the wind in its sails by the end, it was still one worth making. With absolutely stunning artwork and spectacular characterization at the helm, Herald: The Interactive Period Drama – Complete Edition  passes muster with ease. Verdict The final two books in Herald: The Interactive Period Drama – Complete Edition  stay the course, and deliver upon the promising narrative laid out when the first two books were released in 2017. The artwork, characters, and writing got their hooks into me immediately, and kept me on the line through the entire trip. While the lack of clear and distinct agency or choice may throw some overboard, the design serves the broader narrative and drives home many of the underlying themes, crafting a powerful tale about agency and oppression. Image Credits: Wispfire and Taylor Rioux Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from the publisher.

We spoke to Wispfire's Art Director Aïda de Ridder about her process and work Herald: The Interactive Period Drama – Complete Edition and beyond. Initially containing only the first two parts of a four-part story, Herald: An Interactive Period Drama released on February 22, 2017. Just over eight years later, this vibrant point-and-click adventure finally gets the chance to close the book on its tale with the release of Herald: The Interactive Period Drama – Complete Edition on May 1, 2025. Herald  features some absolutely stunning artwork, particularly the painting-esque portraits of the diverse cast of characters. As the art itself immediately grabbed me, I reached out to Art Director Aïda de Ridder to learn a little more about her artistic journey, and Herald’ s part in that. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your role on Herald: An Interactive Period Drama? I am a self taught visual artist who was primarily focused on illustration before taking up the role of Art Director at Wispfire. What was your path as an artist like? Did you draw or paint from a young age, or take it up later in life? Did you go to school for your art? I was basically always drawing or crafting things from a young age. Before I really got into drawing, I was writing stories that I would draw pictures for. Eventually I enjoyed the drawing more than the writing and continued doing that for a long time until I got into working on games. Drawing has always been a hobby for me, and art school was more a way for me to collaborate with others rather than hone my personal craft. Right now I really enjoy the entire production of making games to satisfy my creative itch. Some of Aïda's illustrative work on Herald: An Interactive Period Drama . When did you start working on video games, and what drew you to it? My love for games really started very early, but really engrossed me once I realised the powerful potential of it as a multidisciplinary medium to create larger experiences. I’ve always enjoyed designing the entire experience of an entertainment product, to fully immerse the viewer or player into its world building. I also really enjoyed working together with others to create an experience. Was the art style shown within Herald core to its initial concept, or was that something that came along later through development? One of the reasons we started our own game studio was really to focus on our own strengths as artists. So I always relied on my own skillset and art style to bring our projects to life. I did do many sketches to see how stylized or more naturalistic I would draw the characters in, but the overall color scheme of Herald really came from my own personal feelings regarding the project and the world we were creating. "My love for games really started very early, but really engrossed me once I realised the powerful potential of it as a multidisciplinary medium to create larger experiences. " How closely do you work with the other members of Wispfire in developing the concept or visual identity on a game like this? My team members trust me with the art direction, and give me a lot of freedom with it. But we do always discuss everything and I work with their feedback to tweak things to better match the story. But every part of this production was very collaborative and all our ideas mingle together to create a final product. What influences (within or beyond games) did you draw from? My drawing style was influenced by both 90’s Disney classics and my later fascination with Anime and Manga. I also read a ton of European comic books growing up. I’d like to think all of this mixed together to create a style that uniquely appeals to my own tastes (and hopefully others!) I am very focused on 2D art and try to incorporate its appeal into our games. Since Herald has a 3D world, we ended up going with hand painted textures for everything, to match the 2D animated portraits. What was working on the art for Herald like? How did you work in tandem with modelers for the assets beyond the portraits and textures? I had a pretty clear vision for the 3D style of Herald, I worked closely with our 3D artists to direct the type of stylized models we wanted, and then we used our large hand painted texture library, to create an uniform look between the models. I am still quite happy with the end result! What were some of your inspirations for the UI and other elements like the journal? What type of considerations did you have to make between usability and style, if any? We all had a rather minimalistic and diegetic vision for the UI, and then the idea to create a 3D journal came rather naturally from that. We wanted the main focus to be on the world and story, so we made an effort to try and keep it fairly simple. The hardest part was combining the visual novel style dialogue panel with pleasing looking 3D camera angles. We always had to make sure the 3D characters were visually smaller than the 2D portraits laid on top. This was often pretty hard to pull off, especially in some of the very small rooms on a ship! "We all had a rather minimalistic and diegetic vision for the UI, and then the idea to create a 3D journal came rather naturally from that. We wanted the main focus to be on the world and story, so we made an effort to try and keep it fairly simple." It has been over 8 years since the original release of the first two books. How has your process changed, if at all, leading up to the release of the Complete Edition? I find this hard to answer because my process is always evolving with each new project. It’s fun to be challenged so our newest game project, while having similar elements as Herald, is a wildly different type of production. What sort of lessons or ideas were you able to take from Herald into your other work, like Acolyte and The Talon Moon? The big discovery for me during the production of Herald, was learning how to rig and animate 2D portraits, and really enjoying that. This is something I hope to keep incorporating into many future projects! I’m sure it’s tough to choose, but do you have one particular piece or element within the game you are most proud of? If so, Why? I am proud of the visual cohesion we managed to pull off within the 3D game world, despite working with many different 3D artists over Herald’s production. I enjoy walking around the world we created and I hope others will feel immersed into it as well! Herald: The Interactive Period Drama – Complete Edition Releases May 1, 2025 for PC on the Steam and GOG storefronts.

This freeze extends to all Microsoft-related gaming. After weeks of rumors and speculation, Bethesda shadow-dropped The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered  today on April 22, 2025, much to the delight of many long-time fans of the Elder Scrolls series. While such a large RPG would generally be right in our wheelhouse, we’re going to sit this one out. Normally, such an omission would not necessitate an announcement from us, but things are a bit different now. On Thursday, April 3, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement made Microsoft a priority target, calling for the boycott of all products whenever possible, due to Microsoft’s ongoing complicity in the Palestinian genocide. As part of our efforts to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to exist, we will abide by the BDS recommendation to boycott Microsoft’s gaming products.  The simple fact of the matter is this: I, personally, cannot in good conscience support Microsoft so long as they aid and profit from the ethnic cleansing and murder of the Palestinian people. And while reviews are not necessarily an advertisement, they do sometimes lead to sales or further engagement on a topic. I do not want to be a part of that. I hope you understand, and I hope my readers also consider divesting from Microsoft products and holdings where possible. Thank you, Taylor J Rioux Owner, JetsonPlaysGames

Kaya’s Prophecy  does not shy away from its influences, positioning itself as a mash-up of Slay the Spire  and Stacklands . However, by explicitly naming them, it does open itself up to direct comparisons. While it may not reach the highs of Slay the Spire , the comparisons are not at all disastrous for Kaya’s Prophecy , which manages to blend the village management mechanics quite well with the card-based battles.  Publisher: Yogscast Games Developer:   Jérémie & Thibaut Platform:  Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Released on April 10, 2025 on Steam. Developed by Jérémie & Thibaut, Kaya’s Prophecy  starts off with the destruction of a nearby village by a malevolent god. As the sole survivor of the event, you must rebuild the village and repopulate, all while checking off the boxes the game gives you in your checklist. There is a story here, but it’s not particularly substantial — you just get snippets here and there after major checkpoints, as well as dialogue between the villagers and whichever boss you encounter at the end of the area. Once that basic plot groundwork is laid down, the game hits the ground running, putting you into the village management portion of the game. Building up your village requires you collect and stack cards to craft recipes you either buy or find, which in turn allows you to check off the list of objectives to progress further. Items you don’t need or have too many of can be turned into Evil Blood, which can then be turned into booster packs to provide you with another set of resources or locations that you can use to craft what you need. The RNG nature of these booster packs adds a bit of tension, as each day in the village is on a timer and you need a specific number of food items in a day to appease the god who torments you. This may lead to frustration early in the game, but by the later stages of a run, you’ll have more resources and food than you know what to do with. Explorable locations can be purchased from an in-game shop once it is crafted, and this is where the game brings in the Slay the Spire  aspects all the marketing alludes to. Starting on a map with multiple pathways, you work your way through card battles and randomized events to collect resources which can be brought back to the village to help in advancement. Some resources are only available through the exploration and card battling portion of the game, so venturing out is necessary — it is also the most fun aspect of the experience. I love these card battler games, so there’s just going to be some bias there, but Kaya’s Prophecy  nails the battles, even if they’re on the easier end. The attractive art and clear visual indicators make Kaya's Prophecy easy on the eyes. Each battle consists of your exploring villager taking on 1-3 enemies using hands of cards dealt to you 5 at a time. Your villager has 3 energy, which can then be spent to use those cards, with each card having a specific cost tied to it. Card types are split between armor cards, utility cards, and attack cards. Attack cards do damage to enemies, armor cards give your villager armor to resist attacks, and utility cards do things like draw additional cards, heal, or give your villager additional energy to use on a given turn. While this is extremely similar to Slay the Spire , this game differs in the fact that armor is carried over between rounds and it is not as difficult. Building your deck in Kaya’s Prophecy  is extremely easy and I would say a mostly passive endeavor. You gain powerful cards through equipment you craft within the village sections of the gameplay and you can occasionally swap out abilities here and there when you traverse through locations. Not a ton of customization, but you do get noticeably more powerful as you advance — to the point where later stages of combat feel mostly inconsequential. The art style is simple-but-effective, with easy to read icons and text, and pleasant backgrounds and UI elements. It clearly draws major inspiration from aboriginal cultures, using similar body paints and even leaning into the Australia/Oceania connection by using cassowaries as recurring entities on the currency and other iconography. Whether those cultures are well represented is not really something I can speak on, but I do not feel like there’s any hint of negativity in the portrayal. However, the stylings being so obviously drawn from traditional aboriginal imagery was immediately obvious to me, a random American across the planet, so I do wonder how this lands with people within those cultures or spaces. I’m not sure that I would consider Kaya’s Prophecy the most original game — it is blatantly and intentionally not so. However, the concepts and ideas it draws from Slay the Spire  and Stacklands  are well executed, with great balance between the two disparate gameplay sections. While the two elements themselves are quite different from one another, they are married beautifully together, with each feeding into the other to create a fun, varied experience. Verdict Despite not being wholly original by design, Kaya’s Prophecy succeeds in marrying the two disparate ideas of card battler and village management. A simple, yet distinct art style, combined with timeless deck building mechanics makes for an endearing and addictive experience. Image Credits: Yogscast Games Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from the publisher.

Bailing on the high seas Don’t let the cutesy art and cheerful tunes fool you — Seafrog  is brutal. A hybrid platformer and skateboarding game, Seafrog  lures you in with its intuitive controls and fun animations, then hooks you by making sure there’s always just one more thing to collect. Using your trusty wrench to ollie your way across gaps and grind your way over spikes, the crux of the game lies in collecting objects to advance the story and repair your ship.  Publisher: OhMyMe Games Developer:  OhMyMe Games Platform:  Played on PC (Steam) Availability: Releasing on April 15, 2025 on Steam. While the basic mechanics are simple, with only a single button used to skate or perform tricks, the real challenge comes from navigating the levels using the tools available to you. Levels, separated by ships and broken down into sublevels or rooms, get progressively harder and more intricate as you advance through the game, with many challenges or sub-objectives available for you to participate in as you play. While the first few levels may only include a ramp and a rail to navigate, you’ll soon find yourself under threat of sawblades, freezing temps, and acid pits — forcing you to get creative in how you traverse the landscape. These platforming puzzles are brutally difficult at times, requiring split-second precision and specific gear to conquer.  The frustration can be exacerbated by the game's checkpoint system, which sees you returned all the way to your main ship upon death. Failing a task could set you back minutes at a time depending upon what you have unlocked or where you are trying to get back to — and that’s just getting to your destination. Still, despite any frustration, the level and puzzle design is great overall. I found myself admiring the ways in which I could use my various tools or gear to navigate sections in myriad ways. For example, a room may look like you need a specific tool to advance, but smart use of boosts or rail-grinding can deliver you safely to your destination. That creativity is aided by the availability of upgrade pathways (chips) provided to you. These chips can serve as flat stat boosters (extra health, boost speed or fuel, and even increased trick points) or provide the necessary function of being able to utilize specific environmental pieces (mag walls, bumpers, etc). You can mix and match these chips to give you whatever specific boosts you might need in any given moment, although many are either outclassed by other available options, or rendered obsolete when you finish a ship. It feels a bit like the Mega Man games, in some respects. If the level design and puzzles are the peaks of Seafrog , the progression is the valley. There’s an absurd amount of backtracking to be done within the game in order to progress or collect many of the items. With four main ships (themed zones with specific gimmicks), you will progress part way through one at a time, hopping through several (or all of them) before ever being able to complete any individual ship. In order to finish the first ship in its entirety, you’ll need equipment and items from the second and third ships, which you won’t know until you arrive in a room you do not have the tools for. This ship-hopping takes away from an otherwise arresting rhythm of tricks and ollies that are so much fun to pull off. The game’s fast travel or navigation systems make this more of a slog than a joy, as you’ll need to travel to specific rooms in order to teleport back to your main ship. Once there, you can choose to change your next destination to various limited other rooms on each ship.  Seafrog ’s unexpected difficulty is heavily contrasted by the playful and whimsical vibes of the story, dialogue, and music. So much of the text is joking and tongue-in-cheek wordplay, all while the characters are vocalizing complete gibberish. Chipper tunes blare in the background as you splatter rats or exorcise ghosts; each animation from your frog is cute and stylized, enhanced by the vibrant pixel-style graphics. It’s family friendly in all the ways that matter, and it’s a joy to play most of the time. While the story is sparse and by no means laugh-out-loud funny, it’s worth a smile.  Despite the seeming identity crisis,  Seafrog is undeniably fun. Doing trick combos is entertaining, even if extremely simple, navigating the ships through inventive application of your abilities is rewarding, and I can skateboard on top of rats to extend my combos. Which is where the disappointment comes in for the fast travel system, I suppose. When I turn on Seafrog , I just want to keep playing it, and sometimes the game seems like it doesn’t really want me to. Verdict Surprisingly difficult, Seafrog  is at times a joyous experience and at others a bit of a bore. Creative level design lends itself to navigating through inventive use of your abilities, but failure is punishing in all the wrong ways. Contrasting that brutal difficulty with such cheeky dialogue and light tunes is, in a way, a bit of a laugh. Image Credits: Taylor Rioux Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from the publisher.