Trine was a 2D yet 3D platform puzzler, in which you controlled 3 different characters each with unique skills, as they fight/swing/levitate their way across a traditional fantasy world. It was really charming, had simply gorgeous visuals and had some really clever little physics-based puzzles. I was sold on it from the demo, but I went and bought it from Steam as soon as it was out and played through it both by myself, and with my 10 year old cousin in the local co-op feature (I was on the keyboard, while she used a 360 gamepad). The only thing it was lacking was online co-op, which the game would have benefited hugely from. Apparently, Trine 2 will have such a feature, and its going to be great.
There was a trailer released at E3 and it looks to continue the story of the knight, thief and wizard, though how exactly they’ll justify them getting back together will be amusing, since if I remember rightly they managed to separate themselves at the end of the first game, after the ridiculously difficult final level. Not that it matters, I just want more cool physics puzzles to jump around in and I’ve never seen such a quality looking giant toad in a game before. The original Trine only came out on the Playstation Network and the PC, so I hope this time they release it on XBLA since it’d fit in very nicely. Though again, I’m mostly interested in the PC version, since it’ll clearly be the prettiest.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
Doki Doki Literature Club has dug its way into my chest and ripped me apart over the last couple of nights. It’s a free visual novel game where you get to know a bunch of girls in an afterschool book club… except not really. It looks exactly like any other tropey Japanese dating sim type game, but what lurks underneath this cutesy exterior is something really quite sinister and thought-provoking. The game’s tagline does a good job of reminding you that all is not what it seems: “This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.”
Return to Castle Wolfenstein introduced me to the world of PC gaming. I have my uncle Dave to thank for this. He used to play two games, Wolfenstein and Fighter Ace, and I loved going round his house because he had a gaming PC, curiously built by a company called Gateway… The PC was something so alien and awesome to me that it made my N64 seem like the toy it always was (I still love you, my 64). Wolfenstein became Enemy Territory, a free standalone multiplayer component, but it was the ‘original’ Return to Castle Wolfenstein that dragged me into PC gaming, and I’ve never looked back since.
You might have heard of Pokémon. I can’t quite believe that date. 1996!? Holy crap. 21 years ago, apparently, I got well into this strange Japanese game about collecting made-up animals, stuffing them into balls and training them to fight each other.
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