When you first open Bloom, it seems very drab. A blank grid stretches out into the darkness, inviting you to bring it to life with the undulating, neon plants that you can create and the music that they bring in turn. Though this prototype version…
Last summer I lamented the failure of KYE Creations’, Jaws of Extinction on Kickstarter. The project’s lead developer assured backers that despite failing to reach their funding goal the team wasn’t ready to quit. Now this promising open-world survival game is back with a new campaign and a…
Our road trip takes a Banjo-Kazooie style turn about back to the UK to chat with Julian Adams, programmer on Hyper Light Drifter and Swords Of Ditto. Cliqist: Please tell our readers who you are and what you do? Julian Adams: Heya! I’m Juju Adams, a technical…
A short game about exploration, Let’s Go Somewhere New takes inspiration from the 2D Zelda games of yesteryear. It tasks players with solving riddles and puzzles in a watercolor-styled world. With atmosphere being core to the game, players will talk to local residents as they…
Into the Breach, aka Kaiju Chess, aka the unexpected reboot of The NeverEnding Story, excels across the (64 tile) board. It’s gameplay and minimalist lore file neatly into a challenging and rewarding loop accessible for players of myriad dispositions. I struggle to outline the cascading…
The Librarian starts with a cozy scene; the titular librarian (who is unnamed in the game but identified as Liz on the game’s itch.io page) curled up in bed with a book. This peace is shattered quickly by a sudden gust of wind blowing open…
Do you ever just appreciate the concept of colour? I love those twitter bots that just tweet out swatches, or the clock that turns the time into a hexadecimal value. (At the time of writing this, it’s a kind of mauve.) Arboreta gives me that…
I get the impression that every woman who’s into women has stories like the one that plays out in Got A Light? I know I do. Dark nights outside parties; strangled conversations about feelings; the creeping, confusing anxieties of identity and relationships. A real moment…
After so many years since its successful Kickstarter, many (but not all) believed Confederate Express to be a vapor ware scam that would never materialize. And yet, the game is now available for preorder on Steam. No, that isn’t a typo; a page for the…
After the first attempt on Fig wasn’t fruitful Swery announced that The Good Life would still happen and that the game would seek funding on Kickstarter, although asking for a more reasonable amount of money. And now the wait is over, and The Good Life…
Sometimes I gaze outside my window and marvel at the incomprehensible beauty of the natural world. Then I think, nope. I’ve got books to read and games to play. Also, outside contains wasps. But books? Books are the best. Video games are also the best….
Who here hasn’t been stuck in a rut? Or trapped in a joyless existence where one only finds solace in video games? What if the games we played were directly related to our lives?! That’s the premise behind Legendary Gary; a game that takes a…
Remember text adventures? How you’d start at a cave and after a block of text describing where you were you’d think “I’ll go north” only to get eaten by a grue? Do you wish they were simpler? If the answer to all three is “Yes”…
It’s no secret I have a love affair with Earthbound/Mother series inspired games, and Japanese cult classic Yume Nikki isn’t an exception. I haven’t actually finished the original game, but I’ve delved into plenty of videos, lore, and fan theories over the years. Enough to have formed opinions…
Seeing Team Gotham‘s Solo for the first time immediately draws comparisons to Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Reading about it however, made it seem more like Undertale, if the player was romantically involved with the antagonist. Except that in Solo, there’s no combat. At all. While kind…
The results are in from the Independent Games Festival. Both Night in the Woods and Baba is You have landed major victories at the 2018 IGF Awards. Going into the awards, both titles held several nominations across multiple categories. Night in the Woods, a story-focused adventure…