Hozy__Review

Home is where the heart is, but it must appeal to the heart first. It trusts your eyes to assess the space in front and find potential, but I’m afraid, If it’s just not in it, you must leave before your passion does. If the heart flourishes, then the bond you develop enshrines the space and the room becomes a refuge of comfort and escape.

The beginning of Hozy’s budding living spaces presents a goal of atmosphere and vibe by resurrecting a dormant, trash-filled, single-room attic, café or studio with a finite set of tools and items. We rotate, pan and zoom in on pretty textures in an often cube-shaped and floating space, arranging to our desires – neat, swift and precise! The controls accommodate pedantic twisting and ‘just-right’ alignment of photo frames and ornaments. All of this intuition gives Mary Poppins-like ease. The mouse is a conductor’s wand, whisking the mop and squeegee into frictionless slides and nimble turning. Tiles and carpets plop and glide with brisk visual onomatopoeia. The real life labour is filtered, rendering sensual pleasure. Hozy’s (cosy and hazy?) thing as a room builder is the enduring link between tactile sensation and treasured memories.

This means that Hozy’s levels aren’t superficial scenes, but a stage for a romantic puppeteer – you. The line is often blurred between extracting sentiment from another’s immortalised past and birthing new moments through your personal touch. If that’s too veiled, picture this: levels are set in the present day but are past family properties that dad requests you renovate as he designs a secret, and one level asks that you tackle the sibling treehouse. It’s a nourishing blanket. The soundscape oozes cupping immutability of a playful summer, whilst the concise and curated item possessions unique to each level nudge at mutual affinities to create. It’s alluringly easy to linger in one spot placing suggestive possessions, and creating mini-stories. The Ouija board idles by the torch announcing the dinosaurs arrival (one of my favourite creations), or the wooden sword and water gun rest on the makeshift log next to the vacant chair, staring over the imagined garden. The developer’s contract is clear and narrow but breezy and flexing. The background narrative is lightweight and glazing. Some levels are a shared room for adopting memories as a gateway to your own, others start impersonal, with a journey to bespoke and drifting capsules of a non-descript time or context.

Stepping back, after cleaning, we’re given cardboard boxes to unload, labelled as such, “Big” or “Little things” maintaining the surprise but guiding your chose route. You pluck them like confetti until the box is all gone which acts like a thrilling card pull. You can plant fetched items nigh anywhere, temporarily, if you want to empty boxes like a sock drawer, or back-burner by dropping them into the peripheral nether to be later retrieved from a hammer-space crate. It would be handy to see a list of your hidden items once discovered, but the facilitation of editing or changing your mind is generally smooth and nice. Cramped spaces can be relaxed and the cosiness billows on with obsessive love.

This neighbourhood has variety and character. Each residence introduces an aesthetic that isn’t always my jam, but that’s the thing. It’s not about converting stylistic anathema or squares pegs and round holes, but finding alternative bliss! The moody musician’s goth flat or the zen craft studio hail from other poles on the Buddhist light spectrum, but even the judged book cover wins you over. The arrangement of quaint or quirky furniture is a slower burn to the same result. Artsy framework shelves and vividly bulbous chairs create uncanny families of holy patchworks, independent of contrast in other corners of space. If you have a basic grasp of harmony, you’ll find it, but boxes reveal generally thematic connections and lighting activates and validates your choices. When a section looks out of a place it parcels the juxtaposing areas, uniting the macro with the micro. Yes, there’s a sample of interior decorating going on here, but the principle purpose is finding soul in and outside of conformity.

You could continue pinching in each place but a level’s brevity reflects the precious time echoed in these spaces. The ‘drop-in start-up’ coffee shop or the ‘afternoon treehouse’ are capsules of fleeting visit and bottomless emotion. One certain space isn’t disappointing but weirdly jarring, presenting a darkly off-kilter premise only to uncomfortably allude to the theme it was trying to ward from when it moves on. The room does distance itself from it’s start through decorative progress, and other levels gracefully strike. I probably notched 45-minutes to an hour in each level racking-up a few hours in total, which is timely, though the subtext keeps you hanging on in heaven long after the conspicuous goal is over. Bravo.

Speaking of that domain, the unspoken immaterial hero of Hozy is the lighting. Shape and form cast shadow and template moments too, or nudge again towards idea. Hence, the café gives bustling New York-hipster-tourist-crossed-with-noir-desk-and-leather, so the jukebox and friendly tables welcome the stretching sun at the front, whilst the standing lamp, typewriter and grandad’s privacy rest in the corner. It all screams photo mode. Which is nothing special in feature, but I’ve never been so trigger happy before! Rigid depth of field not withstanding, the goldilocks angle and starring groups materialise the amorphous feeling I hoped to sell in this text, because the photos emanate the warmth of the past.

These photos launch me back to the power of home, but now in the sense of a sturdy building. The final level, in some ways, characterises everything about the perfect abode: In the night it’s as bright as day; it never moves but encloses everything; and it’s distant sighting makes you feel tall. Hozy’s spaces are fortresses.

Review__Pokémon Pokopia

If I were a Pokémon from the recent generations, I’d buy a ticket to sunnier seas – lately the mainlands have been drab. Excluding some of the more superficial spin-offs that exude its signature charms, nothing has fulfilled the latent visual quality that this joyous world deserves, which is now technologically capable of our childhood dreams. Music, menus and imagery continue to vigorously decorate the nostalgic window and the gameplay systems plod with complacent success, but the soul has been in transition since the DS. Until that is, Abra, Kadabra, Alakazam! And out pops Pokopia! This is undeniably a safe bet with unique touches, but on the flipside, a rare moment of depth and experiment in a franchise with nothing to lose.

As a checked out fan with reins on nostalgia, it’s taken something special to lure me back. I’ve always found the heart of Pokémon lay in the love and codependency between animals and humans. It’s a hangover sentiment from the Pokémon TV series admittedly. Even so, I’m glad that my personality sucked up the competitiveness AND the kindness  that rang out from the tunes and plots. When I glimpsed the latter in trailers – I was sold. It’s in this caring base for community that Pokopia pulls along a touching and offbeat tale of restoration from rested catastrophe.

Speculation has been rife about the truth behind human absence and it’s surprisingly serious, but reconciled by Pokémon’s typical heartening attitude. The meeting of Professor Tangrowth and Ditto lights the fuse of a quest to appeal to the return of humans, and the former – with their nostalgic and sad yearning for the superior companionship of old – guides your  restoration in each area and quickly sets the game’s jovial tone.

Comparisons are strong with the quest-oriented/sandbox hybrid of Dragon Quest Builders and Animal Crossing, and it’s certainly more structured than Minecraft. If you choose to largely ignore the main quest line which is very open and loose, the basic building tools, recipes and materials are there from the get-go. It’s hard to finger the exact order and structure of unlocking each new region’s pre-task, but it’s to do with the blooming environmental level that Tangrowth requests and the perennial tasks for and after attracting more significant denizens. This permissive approach is a whisper to explore at your own pace.

That’s incompatible with mainline Pokémon games of yonder, right? I love how the reverence to the original games is deftly recontexualised. There are remixed and cozy-clad versions of the Game Boy tracks, readable lore, and even straight-up HMs that Ditto copies to manipulate the world. Technologies of the past deserve a pass for their subservient restrictions, but the adventures of Red, Blue and Yellow now align closer with our expansive imaginations.

Nature has gently retaken each area by a century in lore! The blocky damage and patchy withering partially hides pathways and foundations. The clearing of rampant weeds, smashable rocks and parched trees uncover a subtle story and cropped approximation of a famous region. Before I designated myself as project manager, gardener and builder (because lots of furniture and decoration are tied to progress and regions so I pursued the story), I was compelled to peel back the connections to the old and figure out human disappearance. For Millennials especially, it’s a starry-eyed ploy and tight player-character bond that brings us both back to contentment. It’s genius.

Even the feeling of ‘catching’ a Pokémon is distilled and retained into a cozy context. You mainly find hints of Pokémon habitats from glistening patches that give pictures of their home and items needed in an arrangement. Multiple Pokémon often like the same habitat and only one can appear per iteration, but attraction takes a little while in a finished habitat. This is where the loop kicks: you deviate to frivolous and self-driven tasks like environment clean-up, totting up Pokémon happiness, or construction. You tend to forget about the gestating habitats and stumble upon another Pokémon with a speech bubble, investigating the russling patch of the same vacant home. Anticipation builds…then If you press to investigate the patch will shake three times (like pokeball capture attempts), and BAM! Out pops a new friend!

You’re never sticking to one task in Pokopia and busy-bodying isn’t my jam – I certainly spited myself by postponing the freeform purpose of building until the end. But I’m happy to report that there’s a quaint and tugging gratification to the gameplay loop, putting pride and pleasure in work ethic. The predominant task is bringing items to Pokémon or picking resources to spruce habitats or build new ones, attracting new Mons. You’ll venture further afield to extract tidbits but become consumed by a dig or dive for glimmers, mystery Pokeballs perched on cliffs and isolated Pokemon to befriend, resolve and return to your ad-hoc village. Maximum communal vibe! I was not prepared for the oozing spontaneity and serendipity. Discovery is definitely Pokopia’s biggest strength and the thrill of revealing Pokémon never ends.

We’ve had talking Pokémon displaying written language before in Mystery Dungeon, but nothing like this warmth, camaraderie and joy from their interconnection. When you build, they will come, bobbing, bouncing and chirping with each other! They congregate in habitats with cute social animations, passively, positively,  persistently, and reacting to new points of interest and items you’ve placed. I’ve never seen Pokémon so expressive and alive. You can even observe unique dialogues between them expressing personalities akin to Pokédex entries. Their behaviours speaks louder and more vibrant than ever before. It’s endearing, and I’m grateful to see each and every Pokémon moulded with character through written diction, and even real world accents! It’s been a long time coming for listless fans who’ve levelled laziness at the Pokémon devs to finally see more attention to animation.

To start a task or loftier quest for the story-attached Pokémon, each one displays a speech bubble with self-utterance or direct remark to prompt a conversation. This not only nourishes that sense of pervasive character, but it’s a method of conveying their independence and the low-pressure of progression. All tasks are tracked in the Pokédex, and their requirements – refreshingly deep as to my knowledge of the average Pokémon game – actually pan out as light puzzles. Fetch me “something sweet” or build me this habitat, and you’ll pursue an area in the environment to mould in the right way – it’s quite satisfying.

Task requirement presentation is my biggest gripe with Pokopia, that whilst not detrimental overall, quality of life could be easily fixed. Crafting criteria cannot be tracked whilst you move so it’s easy to overdo your haul, and no matter the low stakes of multitasking, forgetting irks. Certain types of Pokémon have unique skills like processing wood, but the world is relatively big and obscures small Mons bunched in cliques, tall grass or roaming, so you’ll need to repetitively open menus to find them. On the plus side, the Pokédex has a cute search function of presenting the selected Dex’ Mon to another Mon who points you in the target’s vicinity.

You’ll be finding myriad items so the Stardew Valley-esque inventory and key-item toolbar will quickly cramp. The carried inventory can be upgraded and external storage chests are cheap, but refinding contained items can be a niggling exercise. Sure, you could relocate all items to a collection of expanded chests in one area to streamline your memory, but a little convenience wouldn’t be a massive ask. Seeking my pre-discovered items isn’t cozy nor puzzling, but monotonous. I’d like a search feature in the Pokedex that highlights owned item locations, and while we’re at it, why are uncraftable items so veiled in benches? They’re nigh on spot-the-difference, so let us search by name! Fortunately, menus are many shades away from undermining the outside game.

Getting around is slick, thankfully, and environment control is tactile. Significant Pokémon teach their powers to the mysteriously selective mimicry of Ditto. Progressing through areas opens up new abilities that actually build a power curve, speeding up your creative reach – which some might find annoying if exclusively build-oriented – but also making Ditto a hero-philanthropist! Prepared food temporarily enhances abilities and is vital to breaking specific blocks. Pokopia is great at introducing you to its cozy mechanics through quirky quest lines, and then releasing you into unmarked territories on the map containing unassuming secrets.

The areas themselves are tailored shapes, and if I knew better, maybe Dragon Quest and Minecraft provide templated setups too, but it’s worth praising how readymade Pokopia is for adaptation or high-ceiling builds. Everything mentioned so far is deeper and wider than I ever imagined Pokopia would be. The default population centers are flat valleys or plains with differing rises of bordering cliffs and blocky hills with numerous types of ground – perfect guiding frames for the casual audience.

As for yourself, despite a paltry character customisation of few hairstyles and do’s, Ditto’s blobby extremities form a lovingly realised human profile with its curves and wobbles. Ditto’s ominously sterile face is converted with perfection into a goofy human version, who runs with naruto-style arm span in sheer joy to recover this dormant world.

And I share their bounding dash! Especially when each and every Pokémon appreciates your work and gifts your friendship and effort, creating a genuine relationship where you selflessly reciprocate. Acts of kindness like random outgoing gifts improve a Pokémon’s level of comfort; inward gifts are genuinely helpful bundles of basic resources for building and crafting, such as twigs, leaves, or food for regenerating your PP (the Pokémon games version of move/ability stamina). PP is never a burden because basic food is abundant and reduced at a calm rate. I just loved my unrealistic caring group of villagers.

Koei Tecmo has resoundingly implanted the Pokémon brand with grace and individuality into another genre, and for the second time of asking. If all spin-offs were like Conquest and Pokopia, my flame for them would burn olympically. It’s reassuring to know that Pokémon updates its popular games because I’ll stay here for the long run – I just don’t do that with any games. I’ll be right back, I’m going to build the entirety of Kanto within Pokopia.

Review_Despelote

To relate through a similar experience despite distance, is beautiful. To do it using nothing but a symbolic object? Greater. How do you find a common tissue between two foreign beings and disintegrate the divisions of border and language? For a fleeting ninety minutes of irrational emotion that seemingly has no meaningful staying power, it’s football. But something more resonant sticks around through Despelote, something binding. Despelote is ostensibly about a obsession with the beautiful game, but when excavated, it’s purer, exponentially relatable. It’s about a hobby, and it’s grasp on a child in their formative years.

I apologise in advance if this review sneaks off into my rambling day out at the park as a child, but that’s part of Despelote’s point. I can’t stop feeling grateful for the impeccable timing of Despelote’s setting and the intrinsic emotions that exist within it as a time capsule. Despelote is a slice of life and part-autobiography about football’s meteoric hold on the nation of Ecuador in the approach to the 2002 FIFA world cup, between 2000 and 2002. It’s not told on the pitch inside a roaring stadium, nor is it doctrine on football equals sanity for millions. Instead, it’s an ode to the simplicity of childhood play and escapism: friends, a park and any substitute for a football. It’s Innocence, and so damn nostalgic.

Julian the fictional protagonist is young and primary school-aged living in the capital and most populous city of Ecuador: Quito. When the school day nears to an end, he itchily ponders the playground beyond the window of his classroom. This is all seeped in a fuzzy and washed out colouring of cherry and terracotta, symbolising the warmth and blurriness of memory. It’s not one to one, but an honest approximation of fused and lingering images and feelings, according to the two developers who lived the intimacy of here. This imperfect fact adds a protective talisman over the game – feeling taking precedence over fully accurate memory. This palette is punctuated by distinct and strongly visible black and white representations of people and objects, that the developers vividly recall, by contrast, and it’s an extra homely touch. Principally, the muscle memory of how Julian remembers the bobbling roll of the ball, it’s glide and zippy switching between his feet that is most personal. After all, movements and locomotion are preserved in stasis, awaiting reactivation years after a hobby is put away.

The story doesn’t function like a narrative that has a super important overarching goal that compels the player to care about other characters. There’s a permitted selfishness that adults grant children in playing as Julian. The gameplay doesn’t require any skill either. He will automatically dribble the ball when the left stick is pushed in any direction, and a pull then push forwards of the right analogue stick passes or shoots based on the intensity of the push. The entire experience is meant to encapsulate the simple and exciting freedom of playing football after school or on weekends with your friends, ignorant to the passage of time. On the flipside, and from a bitter present perspective, it’s like taking for granted these fleeting and unstoppable moments. Nostalgia sometimes leaves with a gut-wrenching vapor, and we never see it coming as children.

In loose chapters without signpost, each begins with a scene setter of where Ecuador currently are in their qualifying campaign and how tantalisingly close they are to achieving the unprecedented – Ecuador qualified for their first world cup in 2002. Then, an endearingly mundane scene comprised of Julian, his parents and his much younger sister who all live together, precedes Julian’s escape into the neighbourhood to play out.

This prelude to the compulsive fun that Julian yearns for sets the foundation of authentic nostalgia and pitch-perfect connection between avatar and player. They give healthy but busy relationship vibes, often chatting away in naturalistic conversations about plans for a family outing, or catching-up on their jobs, whilst Julian plays a seemingly hand-me-down 90’s console, or wanders the house. If you’re anything like me and understand the compulsive passion of following football and the inevitable perpetuation of playing it caused by tournament football fever-pitch, you’ll know why Julian wants to play. It’s implicit, but Julian’s naïve indifference to adult’s dull and impenetrable conversations shows, as all children’s blatantly does. I became him! I don’t know if it’s intentional, but the speech bubbles inherent to each family member appear in small chunks on screen, and disappear at a modest speed. Because you know Julian is thinking about playing football -drawn to the vessel of the park as your parents drive by – these bubbles literally fade, and refocusing on them creates incoherence. Let me out! He shrugs.

Julian disobeys his parents, and goes out to play…oh! The serendipity! The world is your oyster, and your world will while away. There are no objectives on screen, footballing mini-games or score boosting side-quests to obtain. It’s the free-spirited aura of Julian’s liberal age and his unburdened mind that gives substance to this lack of direction. Kick your ball to your friends, pester the old man feeding the pigeons, spritely “hello!” to the teenage couple making romantic affirmations in the park – then back to your friends to steal the ball for a haphazard ping across the park. It’s darting whimsy and lack of schedule. Adjacent to the park is a shop-front with multiple street-facing TV’s, playing what I presume is real footage of Ecuador’s historic qualifying matches. Ecuador’s campaign is a triggering sweet spot for me. I remember England’s campaigns, maybe in the way of innocent revisionism, or approximation like the developers own take as a cradle for a perfect summer. The omnipresence of Ecuador’s matches in the background seem like a warm coat preventing the arrival of burdened maturity. I forgot – which is oh-so thematic – that there’s often a time that your mother instructs you to return before the chapter ends. Julian wears a watch, dutifully ignored and forgotten in play, ultimately in vein. How time flies…

It would be inconsiderate to label Despolote’s ending incomplete and sudden, though it’s those words that hover indecisively upon raw impressions. Not pejoratively, no – but derived from sadness once the nostalgia reaches it’s close. That could be the point. So socketed throughout playing out with his friends is the abrupt termination of fun, and I failed to see that it was an insidious sense of eternal youth electrically existing and declining. Childhood isn’t everlasting, but a fast, undetectable transition into adulthood. The resentment to the ending is really a vulnerability. Now, I accept that I can’t revisit Despelote and experience it afresh, ever again, but I’m thankful to the developers for transplanting and weaving their memories into mine and making them vivid one more time. They broke the borders.

Review__Sword of the Sea

All components of the game lift the grace of movement, buttering the edges of an already weightless mass. I couldn’t pinpoint the right words on how to envelope the feeling of moving in the Sword of the Sea, but that statement shall carry it home. Sun, sea and zen could front a holiday brochure and the inclusive package would be this game. If the most invisible of gases could be the heaviest of wholesomeness, it would be this game. Of course, Sword of the Sea has it’s intensities – the state of flow couldn’t be defined without pressure behind. You’ve read that the game has skateboarding tricks and profound aura that sincerely descends from it’s developers links to Journey.

THAT JOURNEY, from thatgamecompany. They don’t hide the DNA here. There are many scenic nods to it’s parentage from the golden glistening sand to literal scenes borrowed in new contexts, like the side-on-surfing behind lattice panels. Here though is a move along the spectrum towards game rather than interactive experience. What is also strikingly similar, is this is an instant classic.

Sword of the Sea’s titular ‘weapon’ is a cure. Your cloaked and blue-blazed character is a mystery, revived from a statue with a plop of head-bound water in a cavernous and stretching temple, seemingly. It ‘seems’, and the mysteries and origins of this world ‘seem’, because like Journey, everything’s nature, purpose and fate is floaty. Your intuitive but momentous objective that’s bigger than me and you – like scaling a mountain in Journey – is world-changing. Restore the bulging sea trapped beneath the choking desert. It refuses to silence as the sands billows and roil from the sea’s fight. Your sword is wielded as a boarded ride. Hover uncontested across the world.

A lot of games hinged on movement lock it’s zenith behind upgrades and combos, but Sword of the Sea’s begins as it ends – the pinnacle . We’ll talk more of sheer speed later, because it’s actually a bonus. Firstly, the surf-sword is levitation in practice as well as feeling, and this is arguably hitherto movement perfected. The sword-surfing glides across corridors of sand and other terrains and the feedback is seamless. Conflict with mountain walls and ancient domiciles is resolved like a confluence of minds. At the risk of hyperbole, I’ll state that I don’t remember flashing with any friction. Slowdown is ironed out by graceful realignment when turning, landing or stopping your board. Even the undulating masses of sand dunes in the early areas are defied by the wax of the board. I’m worrying I won’t get across how perfect moving feels…

There are biomes that I won’t divulge but each are sometimes only pockmarked by the liberation of water at the surface, but your affinity to it implies it’s bond to your core and that your purpose is on the benign side of the law of nature. Water is a luxurious hospitality in this arid world and you’re at home on its highways. You often birth flowering channels trailing your next destination. You don’t know exactly where you are heading, but water beckons, and the thousands of aquatic, gravity defying fish that speckle and teem in pools and rivers alongside you, bloom in return.

The world has lore and I haven’t completely figured out the meaning and significance of certain nodes of world events, and the history that contextualises your objective. There are many wondrous epiphanies to be had in your first playthrough and in retrospective contemplation, but like cousin Journey, the force of wonder, impalpable and essential, hold the framework of this world together. It’s the combined grandness of all the mystery and magic in the world, choir-led celebreality, and whistling wind that contracts like a serene set of lungs that transcends traversal into spirituality. And that’s the point. Maybe the only way to perfect movement in video game is to allow divinity in on the act.

Later in the game there are several environments that are way harsher in climate and in tone than the initial lifeless desert, that would stop you in your tracks in a mundane, urban motor vehicle and test the limits of human engineering. It’s hard to pick a favourite area of movement but I’ll illustrate here in these particular set of mountains. The game wants you to stop in new areas and just leave the ground without purpose and splay, to bound. Scale and height here are allies to be craved: their indomitable heights are just mere changes in angle for the ascent of your sword. Mountains are skateparks. Alas! Doesn’t this game love sending you throttling down a hill?

Which gives you a boost, so remember when I said that speed was a bonus? I hope everything I have illustrated so far has helped you understand that moving your sword-board-board-sword is inherently heavenly. Going down hill or across water speeds you up, and everything is notched-up, unstoppable, but never reckless; a wired peacefulness. And then there are tricks, and a score with multiplier – in case you weren’t enjoying yourself, you know? Basic tricks, and somewhat juxtaposing the modesty, though never silly or edgy. It’s totally, cool. They aren’t necessary to explore or progress. They’re only imposed when choosing a few timed challenge arenas of half-pipes and ridable mosaic walls, beautifully carved and tucked away in the world rewarding triangular currency at the end, demanding combos score. And if you love extreme sports and speed, wait to see what you unlock after finishing the game.

I haven’t played The Pathless, the previous game from Giant Squid, so I don’t know if conspicuous story is available unlike Journey, but I was surprised to find worded lore. It’s loosely pieced, interspersed on stele and incidental, but it absolutely adds weight to the act of service you provide to the environment.

Which are wide, mainly open-air spaces facilitating the urge of your board to breath and burst. Cloudy mountainous peaks loom in the background, and cliff walls border your play spaces on mesas above blurry drops, accenting the loftiness of your task. Remnants of civilised buildings and humanoid fish statues rise and spread in baked browns in the early sections, jutting strong from the sands, largely in ruin but with some in full-preserved grandeur, repeating throughout the other biomes. Upon arrival, most of a biome is invisible, as the scene frames the entrance using a natural geological arch with bright blocking light fading to reveal a panorama, and then a new drop-in proceeds your giddy feet. Another distant ascent gestures you forwards. Each environment serves the mindfulness emanating from the games vibe.

Gameplay usually centers around finding aqueous orbs that sprawl across an area when touched by another Journey-laden mechanic – the chime. It expands a bubble that is your interaction to execute changes in the world, revealing water. Your sword seems spiritually-coded, just like Journey’s icon-replete scarf. Otherwise, the chime activates text on stella, is destructive to certain rocks that gift that triangular currency which buys new movement mechanics and tricks, and lights lantern-esc arrangements on the surface that reveal platforms or secret areas. There are lots of destructible rocks and treasure chests for currency and stay well out of the way of your glide. There are secret grottos and nooks on open-ledges for example that hide this currency too, encouraging you to explore the borders. Being a clear extreme board-sport homage, there’s a fair amount of platforming but not precise or tense, as the control scheme is harmonious and minimal, and contrary to expectation from speed, halting or recovering your position is on a knife-edge.

Sword of the Sea is simply a dream. It’s a fantastical, ancient, baron world with an elusive and unspoken history etched into its atmosphere. Movement has never felt so spiritual with a superlative vessel that sails like the wind. It’s a game that I’ll probably return to multiple times in the future to realign my head, because this is one for the ages.

Cairn__Review

I can’t remember the origins of my virtual climbing intrigue, but that elusive core mechanic has long perched in my subconscious: a climbing system with direct control, subtlety, and most alluringly, danger. Games generally offer a superficial precipice: a backdrop of expanse and fading novelty. You hang on for dear life without real peril and nothing that a quick reset and a local respawn won’t fix. Cliffsides and escarpments should be perilous – depth is illusion if the the base is soft. “See that mountain over there? You can climb it”. Is it truly conquered without risk of defeat? The value of an ascent should be raised by the descent. Where is the purity? Where are the stakes?

Cairn swings, and hits the meteor skywards. As the adage goes: there is no place I’d rather be than stuck between a rock and a death trap. What we have here is an amazing approximation of an extreme sport. This is a masterclass in filling a single mechanic with blood, sweat and tears.

The doggedly worn Aava is our desired embodiment of guts and endurance in Cairn, a solitary figure with persistence of rain on a roof. Her lines are efficient and clinical, largely due to isolation throughout but I imagine mostly for our concentration. Her career as a rock climber rests in the echelons, but her drive is relentless. She’s resolute, but sometimes detrimentally austere. So, appropriately, she’s a simulation of a person I imagine actually doing this hobby and someone I ponder and envy from an armchair’s distance. Let that be a warning of my infinite inexperience with rock climbing. Gladly, not sharing her C.V doesn’t negate a strong level of empathy and vicariousness that the game allows. This is one of those rare games where avatar and player harmonise.

From the get go, we’re taught harsh but fundamental lessons. Aava is inspiringly opposable, but breakable. During Aava’s forced listen to her agent’s spiel, we attach a limb to a handhold on an easier gym climbing wall, and we’re told of the game’s inclination to safely choose the subsequent limb to manipulate. I find this isn’t always wise and choose the radial selection for the majority of my time. It’s a bendy but creaky system, nimble, and scary – this isn’t Breath of the Wild. Her elbow and knee joints have the most realistic and precise rotational control I’ve seen in a climbing game, and maybe, across video game history. Limbs sometimes overlap with a degree of realistic contortion, and the odd unorganic spasming can be endearingly dismissed. A toddler’s climbing frame then a neck-crank upwards at harder tutorial walls, and we’re straining up the real thing and it immediately shoots that Cairn is serious and our mentality must meet Aaya’s. This rugged and real mountain rock face at the gym rear rises to an exposed section of roof, transitioning into the mountain proper. Fortitude, and a massive Mount Kami await.

Cairn is a survival climbing adventure where the climbing is hardcore – a slow and incredible burn with an intuitively simple but deeply rewarding central mechanic. Climbing has graduated from forgiving padding to the main actor. Atop the wall we plateau, there’s a grassy area below the open mountain. Each checkpointy area of relatively similar flatness gives cutscenes and segments the mountain into story chunks, and relievingly provides low-lying and quite packed areas of grub. It’s also sizing time: survey the undulating section of sheer wall ahead and commit to a route. The pattern is cyclical: wander with the detachable camera up the slopes, ledges and extremity holds that seem the friendliest, then hop on the wall. Now, zoomed in, you realise it’s impossible to of remembered every facet and degree of difficulty. You’ve underrestimated the distance between holds in that fancifully safe perspective. Up close, it’s the rebellion against your arrogance from tiny pockmocks and fissures. Move, adjust, tremble, MOVE. Forethought and improvisation are the tightrope of Cairn.

You’ll be falling. A lot. After surmounting the initial faces of this collossal mountain, I thought I’d mastered movement. The key to progress is assertive shuffles from preplanned limb selection, and often detaching the camera and eyeing stubborn paths. The shifting colours along tried routes tell miniature stories of your pain – a code of toil and heft. The onset of the game teaches that balanced posture funds the next reach, but despite all these epiphanies and lessons, compromise is inevitable. There’s always an easier route that Cairn stretches a perspiration-away, but when you’re staring at the daunting grey mass threatening one false move, you can’t see the forest from the trees and you’re rashly speeding upwards. Pride is sin and depleting survival meters are hot pokers, causing a foolish wager towards a clautrophic spot closer to a good ledge. Aaya’s grunting and straining mirrors our inner swelling as a vulnerable leg or arm precariously holds her entire body weight, a collapse inevitable unless we spread out, rise to a lip or reset position. Aaya’s limbs tremble, gravity is tearing at our strength, and the screen starts to fade inwards… the mortal body concedes defeat! Goodbye sky!

We’re equipped with and accumulate pitons – mountaineering spikes drilled into the rock for semi-permanent holds. The key is use them frugally: squeeze more distance out of an untethered climb then checkpoint, as their number is limited until freely walking to recall via your robotic climbing companion. You’ll need to scavenge for more parts as you’ll damage pitons via a fall, and not all bits or complete pitons are always retrieved by the robot. Cairn is expertly paced so that pitons tow the line of scarcity and abundance: you’ll forget, glorify, and beg for more of them halfway up a cliff.

When you’re able to setup your bivouac, you can use your arachnid-like robot to recycle and reforge some. Under cover and warmth, we can cook, tape fingers damaged in falls, check the barometer, sleep to restore health and pass time to change light and weather (but deplete meters) and check stock. Taping has a fascinatingly grotesque and tactile screen where Aaya’s close-up palms are presented with gashed and bloodied feelers, where you spin the analog stick to loop fresh tape. Make sure to check-in on them or else grip is devilish. The portable tent is a refuge, and lifeline, on an indomitrable fortress. Detouring your route around the mountain is essential to forage for food and liquids. Cairn’s survival elements require top ups of hunger, thirst and warmth, with the latter joining in with an oppressive chorus of declining meters towards the peak on recommended difficulty. You must treat each plateau as a recuperation of health and will, in and around your bivouac, whipping-up small meals with timers whose end reduces their efficacy. Walls are nigh-void of sustenance, and long climbing attempts will drain meters and notify you of impending blackouts.

The pacing here is again clinical. The devils at The Game Bakers restrict access to your uniquely shakeable backpack (with moving contents) to free-movement and ‘off-belay’ (a term for safety no longer requiring rope-tension) where you use a piton anchor to let go. This can feel sadistic in the thick of piton-scarcity when you want to replish meters. Death reverts to save points on a plateau or a significant stage of a large wall. In general though, you’ll learn quickly and sometimes viciously, to search and pile food so starvation is rarely reality (until the final third…), and prioritise route tactics. Off-belay, then consume sustenance that also doubles up as temporary boosts of status effects such a grip, focus and speed. You can plan to implement them at a scoped-out burden on the wall, or spontaneously nosh off-belay. These thin but invaluable boosts can negate wobbly legs, gain quick distance, or shortly pause your declining meters. My favourite resource was climber’s chalk: a replenishing aid made from composted food packaging by your robot. Chalk plasters your hands in superglue for a mere double-figure of limb grasps, yet a timely wrench away from an accidental hell.

None of these resources ever ease Cairn. It’s integrity is sturdy and the onus of skill and patience press down on the player. Nor, do they ever render it an annoying survival title. They supplement the climbing experience and test your resoluteness on the the gruelling spire. There’s never a feeling of superiority, as Kami discipines, but within that gruelling space is an alcove of mental respite through one of Cairns soaring themes. Mindfulness and self-reflection are not only astounding contradictions in this oppression, but with a nudge here and there through presentation and periodic panoramic cameras and viewing spots, is one of the greatest and natural feelings of achievement. You’ll topple a section of wall through excrutiating pain and deft movement, after the loss of self-awareness and time, to peer down and appreciate the relatively tiny scale you’ve overcame. None of your tumbles, collapses and bruising landings feel wasteful. Ecstasy and exhilaration on a plateau feel extremely personal and refuel your motivaton to keep on. There are no piggybacks – climbing is deliberate.

Aaya has reflective triumph and despair that tightens your bond, but there’s a darker propellant inside her. Her opening statement at the game’s start asks if you can relate to her yearn to be part of a whole, to touch eternity for an instant. Which as drives go, is heavy, and a seemingly healthy and relatible human feeling of being complete. Her interactions with other fleeting and intrepid climbers and troglodyte remnants expose a poisoned obsession and a lonely outlook. This other major theme, whilst missing resolution and more development, presents personal success and freedom and counteractively asks if they are worth sacrificing companionship. Depending on your opinion of her persistent stance, there are course-correcting choices, not to idealistically heal, but to leave an open channel of optimism for Aaya’s life. The message is subtle but largely one-sided. There’s a lack of fleshed out characters and history for you to ultimately judge Aaya. You’re so mutually-invested in your shared goal of reaching the peak and hooked on effort and satisfaction, that it’s hard to deny her.

Cairn’s wonder takes another Zelda leaf with it’s sparing and whimsical jingles. When it works – because timing matters – the fleeting music creates a grand sense of wonder from your crazily vertical surroundings as you dangle above the clouds. It helps the player focus unlike the feeling of frolicking through Hyrule’s meadows. A perfectly timed introduction of music can snap you out of a tense and hazardous trance, destressing, realigning and rejigging your route. For this case, a pervasive soundtrack would be distracting. It’s also the right choice for weather sounds and Aaya’s painful vocal bursts, as they’re isolated and providing valuable information. She celebrates your chosen movement or laments her position and thus nudges you to veer. Its characters are wonderfully voiced, including a prominent NPC who tests Aaya, and most of the voiced characters exist to expose Aaya’s character.

The walls are the most complex character. They deserve a begrudging highlight for their literal depth and unpredictable nature. The comic book style produces sufficient illusion to convince an approximation of a rocks’s granular detail for immersion of setting and occupation. The interactivity is the slits, holes and crevices that abruptly deviate, disappear and flatten  in a progressively intermittent then downright sudden complexity throughout the game. Cairn’s authenticity also deserves loads of praise against the bugbear of most games. I expect to put my foot here and for it to fit snugly. I won’t wobble at this angle. I’m going to have to put up a fight here. The niches of the mountain are always readable to grasp and mount. I don’t know of the budget, but art contributors should be lauded for harmoniously and economically finding the sweet spot between abstraction and realism, to look like the former but execute the latter where it practically matters. The comic bold edges and sun-shadow contrast over rocks give fair guidance for route finding, but the weather system and sped-up diurnal cycles give or take pressure through a wet or harshly lit surface, obscuring glances to force inspection. Before I’m prodded into admitting that most games have mountains for set dressing so Cairn SHOULD have a high quality one, too many games inconsistently tell us what we can or can’t climb. Or, they do it well but clumsily with big, blaring out of place colours. The world here IS a mountain, but the language is professional and meticulously consistent and, natural from start to finish.

It goes without saying that Cairn is successful in it’s purpose. It satifies the hunger for climbing-kin like myself seeded in the popularised desperation but lightweight system of Breath of the Wild. It elevates and increases the use of equipment added but safeguarded in the teasing but disappointing authenticity of Jusant. It eschews the coordination and preservation of team in Peak, in favour of lonely focus and grit. Whilst it’s well-oiled player-avatar tandem slackens from the seldom spoken, but mean-spirited Aaya, it amasses mature layers I didn’t expect. All the latency in these climbing systems that came before is unlocked in a visceral and tactile system. The depth is perilous, the stakes are real. Kami’s lethal inhospitality summons.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault__Early Access Review

My yearn for improvement from the original Moonlighter was the shop. It was a light-hearted idea that materialized a hidden desire. Fast forward to now, having anticipated a potential upgrade, I’m mostly satisfied with the newer model. It’s bigger, better, yet mostly borrowed. A double-edged side-effect, but a positive outlook. Improved dungeoneering, against a competent but largely untouched shopkeeping, still makes a strong difference to this plucky Early Access sequel.

Will and the village of Rynoka have been forcefully ejected into another dimension, turning their lives upside down. Will, most-critically, is without a shop. Beholden to a creature local to the new land, Will must submit to demands for loot from other dimensions, in order to raise a living. That is, until Will independently opens a shop after his friends convince the greedy creature to let Will cook.

Pixel-art and jittery animation make way for a plump, smoother and energetic world, as Digital Sun successfully switches to 3D and an orthogonal camera. There’s a greater pile of colours with a retained softness, and a penchant for mysterious green and luxurious purple. Personality is a winner. Lighting and shadowing call forth the heroism, and the overall change feels like Will has matured, and so have the developers.

The dungeon format is opened up and slackened with outdoor and some interior spaces, with arms and ledges. The extrusions allow brief breaths in combat, but relaxation is still out of grasp. In the early access form this tension unintentionally loosens, though time is in Digital Sun’s hands. We’re accommodated a nimbler and larger range of motion, versus the rigid cardinal direction for attacks in Moonlighter 1. A dimension’s dungeon is still subdivided, but with the route of the branching rogue-like tree. Each selectable map-node contains floating chunks of landmass forming arenas. There’s an arid rock land, or a museum with bridges connecting their platforms, and they can slightly differ in altitude with raised sections to mix-up verticality. Verticality doesn’t have an amazing impact, but it does give variety for enemy positioning, traversal, and great cover from projectile-firing foes. I’m not sure if arenas are procedural, but their infrequency avoided stirring boredom.

Daunting anticipation in the old dungeon warrens, of squared, unpredictable, retro-zelda rooms, has been replaced then, but its the in-fill that’s most surprising. The branching and reconnecting web of the roguelike progression map allows a balance of murky foresight and planning. Expectations are tuned into something reliably exciting. Combat, perk, and boss nodes of varying difficulty and reward stretch out ahead, emotionally fluctuating based on a run’s security.

The return of the looting versus survival maintains the tension of a run, and I generally never worried about it waning. My memory forsakes me, but there seems to be a much higher level of it here, though this early access version as of the 04/12/25 finds latter runs easier. You can consistently reach a final boss with ample health, loot AND combat perks which dulled the high watermark, though it’s not monotonous. I still hadn’t rinsed unlocks for the shop or reached the final available zones at this point, so I have conviction that balance is inevitable.

The first moonlighter, testament to the strength of its core mechanics, didn’t lose dread behind it’s pixel art. Each room felt rigid and claustrophobic. Fear has obviously been altered through the new ambience, the wider, elongated spaces, and the outlined choices for your run. The net outcome sculpts a bolstered tone of adventure, largely through music. And it’s fitting. Will has evolved from a hero-fledgling facing strange and wild dimensions, into an experienced double-life with vicious dungeons under his belt.

So far, Moonlighter 2 could be perceived to be tracking a rote and familiar track, despite its forebearer carving out a strong niche, but its derivativeness is successful, if content. The zenith of Hades and the usurping Hades 2, is understandingly alluring, and their genre-defining blessings are coated onto combat and perks, too. Combat is resultantly frenetic, dynamic, and richer. Will is agile and snappier and loves rolling. Enemy’s attacks of projectiles, AOE, and close range compel them to press you often – but, applying or stacking explosive Foam and Wound status compels you to meet them head-on. It’s a potent rhythm to clinch a round of attacks during their wind-up. This creates a feisty and rapid advance and retreat cycle. Hades 2 wholly reinforced it’s combat model, and although Moonlighter 2 is weaker and far from eclipsing – especially by it’s much shorter story –  the shop is on the cathartic receiving end and is a cool down of this engine. The combat and shop bond is entrenched deeper.

One distinct combat change that Moonlighter 2 has, is the enemy rupture state, which is a fast track in arenas. Some enemies have a halfway marker on their health bar which shows their point of extreme vulnerability, so swinging your rucksack at them in this flashing, dark purple state propels them across the room. The effect is to ruin them, sharply felling health and whacking them into other foes. It also pushes enemies strategically backwards into damage-chugging traps. This feels like a plucky and makeshift way to mix-up combat and pop zits in the arena. Hades also has projectile weapons with infinite use, but not a finite-ammo gun (and later, variants). This is recharged by melee attacks, and whilst mainly utilised as a boundary-suppressor, a run’s playstyle can vitally increase its engagement.

Between punchier weapons, some with stronger states from filled meters, refreshing combat perks along the route, more proactive, increased and versatile enemies, a run’s changes favour a different attack. As a consequence, action is delightfully extended and more powerful than before. Sharper tension heavily weights the rewards of relics in a double step up over Moonlighter 1.

It took a little time to reach here, but expressing the improvements to combat was essential to sampling the satisfaction of selling goods, and the volatile amassing of run wealth. The backpack inventory mechanics have been deftly enhanced and raised into a prominent system, a ponderous game within a game, indelible to Moonlighter’s essence.

Each dimension has a unique inventory curse, like the first game, but with greater synergy, combined and singular risk, and variety, therefore, strategy. Items are comprehensively useful, not so much good or bad, which was my inclination from Moonlighter. An example from The Gallery dimension is a relic that shocks, which produces a tentatively brittle state. Unless a relic is relieved of it’s electricity by a numbing battery, another shock will destroy it. Shock, like fire, or crystallise, is a dominant curse, with other relics playing off that status to boost relic quality. One relic could have a trigger of shock that will repeatedly increase its value, or another, as a one-off effect, has an increase to multiple items value in the adjacent tiles. Positioning is also a negatively important factor. From the first chest opening on your run, it will aid smoother rejigging to prepare for high value loot, and, avoid mistakes. Special items with directional effects are extremely potent, but only when you’ve arranged efficiently. So, its imperative to avoid accidental placing when temporarily switching items between a chest and a tight inventory. There’s a particularly dangerous item, when placed in a corner, that destroys all same rarity relics in the same row to burnish itself. Predominantly, you don’t want to do this, as you’ll gambit lesser items for later. Arrangement is reassuring in its current state, as the quick move button eschews sluggishness, though a quick push to the sides would also be handy.

This system is fantastic, if, a little tempo busting. Though that’s the fault of easier combat in the latter Early Access lowering the consequence of wealth-loss. It also debases inventory methodology, when find-rates for rare, epic and legendary relics are largely improved through upgrades. For a good chunk though, videogame inventory chore becomes a bag of tricks: risky planning, preservation, the becoming of a puzzle. Accumulate potential wealth without triggering effects for too long, then risk minimalizing your take-home. Overlook the placement of a relic, then destroy valuable trinkets. Although dying only loses half of your inventory’s value – unlike losing most of the actual items in Moonlighter 1 – I felt a stronger sense of loss. Progression even retains value in function for common rarity loot that has become moot in value, to serve the superior needs of catchier relics. Each dimensions curse is coloured enough to branch out and mould its own course. The full game hopefully adds more courses and differentiates them further, though the test palette currently pitches thicker stakes through a run. Could the game tell me a little earlier to press my pendant, and escape intact? Yes. Though tis but a scratch – this is an inherently self-sufficient and permanently satisfying system, which the shop could learn from, for the full release, and the long term health of the game.

The shop, eponymously named Moonlighter, bags the rewards of the game’s meat and veg by being a soaking bath after the pressure. The  fundamental mechanics mostly stay the same. Price setting has multiple tiers that customers really like, like, reluctantly buy, or angrily pass.  Display cases now have passive boosts that vastly increase profit of certain quality-items, and are limited to one exclusive type on display. Loads more available furniture boosts sales as well, and is limited to one or two per carpet. The thing is, if it wasn’t for the superficial glaze of numbers flying upwards, deflating stress and reaping rewards, this system would be disappointing. There are leftover desires from the first attempt. It might be the victim of other system’s sizable upgrades, but I think that a large portion of reactive opinions will establish if the final game keeps on. I, was left slightly underwhelmed, wanting a competitive race to maximise profits with tactical mechanics, as impactful as the new form of dungeoneering. I think the game barely takes advantage of the different types of customers, or the hint of staggering item displaying to reward virtuous patience. I understand that the meal has been cooked, and service is all that remains, but the most unique ingredient of Moonlighter is being left behind.

On the other hand, the new perk system, the only major change catching the eye, does prod you to mix things up. For every likeable sale, the perk meter dings and soon unlocks interesting boons that prefer certain rarities to be sold. Some stack bonus profit for every sale! Even then, there’s no incentive to bust a move, as your general shop day starting haul will eventually be full of similar rarity, and the trading-clock doesn’t create a scorching pace. The quietness also gave me time to hold back and realise, that the same display pedestal could be used over again to maximise profit. Many display cases and furniture have overlapping functions and seem redundant. I don’t think the game wants to be this way, but I also believe the holiday from dungeoneering is intentional, somewhat. I did like that the calendar also incentivises revisiting dimensions, as certain indigenous items or rarities are temporarily popular, and that helps meeting your target in the earlier stage of the game. There are more unlockable furniture planned for full-release, but I don’t predict them being seismic at this stage. The shop is still full of unrealised potential that I wish Digital Sun will attune to, and make my shop-floor hounding feistier. I liked the auto-steering vibe, but I had a warehouse of energy left in the tank.

When the day rolls over and you redeem profit, there’s a lovely little hub with returning and new characters to support and sell to Will. It’s indulging and exciting to dash around the makeshift refuge-village on a deserved shopping spree. Upgrade your weapons, find-chance and health; buy furniture, decorations, and materials for upgrades. There are gaps on the village map that I presume are holdouts for new content, including more peeps. It all works well, though eventually routine, as like the relaxing of combat difficulty later on.

The village component is a passing layby without significance at the moment. Like the shop, it appears to be simple but honest, determined to serve the limelight of the combat, sitting as the first step in the gameplay loop. The Endless Vault underpins the longer term motivations of Will and his friends: a strange, sentient, golden geometric block, allying and giving essential rewards to them when reaching profit targets. This structure paces the upgrade paths. Characters gather at every reveal, and they exclaim wishes for the Vault’s blessings to benefit their endeavour: to reclaim and restore Rynoka.

During a few returns from runs, you find yourself accidently planted back at the dishevelled Rynoka, face to face with the ominous floating-chair villain searching for something, and eventually alluding to the desired vault. He then sends you hurtling back home. Your friends and the villain collectively affect a very background narrative, inputting fire-away jokes or minor chirps that briefly express personality. The dimensions themselves have subtle wrapped-up stories that are mainly lore-bound in relics. There’s a magical allure to stories, and many hub characters have ongoing emotional bonds and unsettled links to dimension’s fallen overlords and inhabitants, to which they quest you on. Though, nothing ties into the main goal so far. Their personal burdens are over quickly, and aren’t multi-layered or anything but boss-toppling. Overall, the top narrative and hub can feel hollow and below surface level, but depending on the size of the remaining story’s upcoming content, characters could bloom and interconnect.

The adventurous tone of the soundtrack reaps a upgrade in some parts here from no other than Christopher Larkin, fresh from further exposure in the dutifully composed Hollow Knight: Silksong. There’s a grandness in all of his works; heroism and breeziness weaves through the air. The opening theme tune plods a steadfast hoofbeat in rhythm, with strings building and nuancing the challenging horizon ahead, bejewelled with wealth. The starry tings of the night-time village guitar whisk a sleepier tone, almost a spa. They curve from mystical undertones and hint at the adventure, into gentle, childlike dreams, and the ebb and flow of the quiet life. All the elements find magic, whimsy, floating glimpses of the mystery and history of the dimensions around, and even in battle, they blanket. It would be great for the narrative to intertwine with the musical depth, instead of cameoing.

As technical performance goes, my arrival on the scene met a confidently smooth place, despite a brief wrestle with a now fixed stutter every time I rolled. So it seems, Moonlighter 2 ploughs away in a area that I thought was lower in the pecking order, though I beg to divert. I imagine many people will dislike the direction it takes, but to my ignorance, a subsection may have bonded over Moonlighter 1’s combat. Suffice to say, it’s more dynamic, livelier, and surges past the stiffer first attempt. I don’t feel hesitant to cast concern on longevity, as the current focal point has a vastly superior model in Hades 2. With that said, accusations of grabbing low-hanging fruit can’t be justified, because Digital Sun are catching rays in the domain of the Sun. Time is aplenty in Early Access to enlarge and buff the shop, so I’d find it a shame if the game’s identity homogenised. Right now, the glaze of the pretty numbers masks the priority, though Will would agree, the sale’s allure is as important as the journey.

Hades II__Review

Perfection elevated in the cauldron’d broth.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work”, is said to be a modern paraphrase of Aristotle’s take on the pursuit of many ideals, such as happiness and virtue. It’s hard not to draw parallels towards the habit of the task within this sequel’s recursive formula, or the subtlety of the watchmaker’s graft behind the scenes at Supergiant Games.

Second time around, dynamic new additions to gameplay and a weightier narrative somehow dig deeper to reep a more boonful harvest, even more rewarding that the first. A produce that even Demeter would be proud of. In Hades II, failure is close to being masked, effectively incentivised, paradoxically progressive.

We begin our cyclical plight echoing the persistence of Zagreus, with an inverse direction of the first game – descending into the depths of the Chthonic realm to investigate and ultimately vanquish the usurper of the throne: Chronos. The titan of time, the gold-gilded gramps of our new protagonist Melinoë, sister of Zagreus, reconstituted after his destruction by the Gods and he holds many cthonic gods captive. Melinoë was smuggled out of the House of Hades and saved as a baby by the Witch of the Crossroads, who was charged by Hades’ wife Persephone, to raise her daughter to excellence, and train her for a paramount duty – kill Chronos. Thus, restoring the throne and its family. Melinoë, now a young adult, seeks retribution for a family she’s never met.

We start within the Crossroads, the encampment-home of the forces of the Unseen, whom along with the displaced shades and the Witch’s plans to retake Hell and aid the besieged Olympus, are hidden via incantation from Chronos.  Unlike her brother’s, Melinoë’s task is grander and more consequential. Her demeanour reflects it’s mortality as she’s resolute from the beginning, and her drive is unflinchingly endearing from the beginning. Melinoë is overly tightened, courtesy of her strict upbringing; she’s a tad self-serious, understandably from her personal stakes in her goal. Yet, she finds heaps of time to be generous, kind, humble, witty and vigilant. Job well done to the Witch of the Crossroads. Overall, the heavier tone of the existentialism doesn’t cramp the eloquently perky Pantheon bunch revered from Hades 1, indelibly remembered from humour and their squabbling familial tendencies, that lifted Hades breezy and relentlessly cathartic course.

Upon leaving the rustic charms of the camp, we’re again met by our first boon. A typical pattern follows: you’ll beat an encounter, choose between potential boons, and continuously create a sumptuous build to beat multiple guardians before reaching the terminus of your goal. Boon effect and balance feel all sorts of more onomatopoeia: attacks like Zeus’ sequential thunderbolts or Poseidon’s waves bring mighty cacophony to your growing arsenal. Maybe I’m delusional, but the sound effects have increased ferocity. Setting boons aside, the most significant changes to combat is the new cast, and Hex. Replacing the bloodstone projectile, the cast is a circular zone in the form of a witch’s warding spell, that slows enemies trapped in it’s hold and damages them in polar quantities depending on your preference of build. Like the returning normal attack, and special move, it can be charged for a stronger variant using the new depleting resource, Magick. The craftsmanship behind combinations maintains vigour in all builds, used in mostly cramped wave-filled arenas, see-sawing between required thoughtfulness and desperate twitching to proceed. Your cast fleetingly delays and destroying enemies to help you adjust for a few seconds. Combat is more thoughtful and incessant, requiring moments of stoppage or space to keep the upper hand, courtesy of the cast.

Then there’s the Hex, your ultimate ability provided by the Moon Goddess Selene, opted and not available by default, and irresistibly powerful. Once you’ve used enough Magick, it becomes available in your chosen form, infused by the waxing of the moon which is cleverly signalled in a cerebral moment you can find before Melinoë leaves for her run. Combat is deeper, wider, yet tighter, tugging at your instincts in the throes of each run, snapping between known and unknown, morphing shape like a liquid spell.

Like the mirror of the night, Hades 2 has passive upgrades to push your steadfast run in the form of Arcana: a deck of tarot cards with beautifully vivid and saturated art scenes of characters, new and old, in that signature harmoniously colourful Supergiant pallet. The archetypes and bonuses range from extra revivals with “Death”, or increased chance to deal critical attacks with “Night”. Tarot cards need to be unlocked with a new resource called ashes which are accumulated as a reward at the end of encounters like boons, or can be eventually bought. For the majority of the game, you’ll have finite access to tarot cards, not only as you require that currency, but because the Grasp of the Arcana determines your limit of cards. Introducing another currency, Psyche, almost a manifestation of your spiritual capacity, that is gained from soothing stranded shades outside of the Crossroads. Increase your Grasp, visually represented by a ghoulishly green x-rayed hand, with bones, that light up when you activate cards, and then be able to use simultaneously cards. Cards are upgradeable too. Arcana is a subtle turn in your fortune, twisting your fate on a new run that slipped you up previously.

There are obviously more currencies in Hades 2, such as resources like fish, ores and seeds, though never overwhelming, succinctly described in concise menus, and contributing deftly to the greater system. Resources often have particular connections to upgrades, but are so versatile and are fastly plucked during a run to never obstruct your flow. You’ll never hoard aimlessly, and you’ll holistically add to the other elements of the game. Seeds can be planted in a little garden in the Crossroads, enhancing it’s homely esconce after a crashing defeat from a untimely foe. Fish can be sold for bones that buy returning Nectar – that legendary drink of the Gods that hones your relationship with the cast of NPCs – or the aforementioned Ashes or Psyche. All resources open up doors after doors.

What this versatility has established is a tighter interconnection supporting the roguelike system that Hades 1 seemed to magically season to perfection. Like the units of a storytelling scene – stronger when each one pushes characterisation, plot, AND world building at the same time, there is no selfish or hollow system in Hades 2. From reawakening in your private tent bonding with your familiar and abnormally talkative occupant-shade, discussing your fluctuating exploits with the cast of grossly charasmatic Hellenistic characters who reveal sublimely useful unlocks almost EVERY pre-run, to enacting incantations that also enhance every facet of the game, to extending the facilities of the Crossroads, to developing your Arcana, to choosing your weaponry from the Arms of the Night and selecting a Keepsake…Hades 2’s process in the Crossroads alone surpasses it’s former hub with a perpetually bubbling drive feeding the vicious cycle of the run. And the run feeds right back!

That’s what Hades 2 is: an effervescent cycle. And even in the latter stages, when the surprises start to slow, the well-oiled and relentless combat, eventually manageable but unrelaxing, will punish your complacency, then emerging from the tantalizingly anti-climatic night, something new arises! I champion the best surprise by respecting its anonymity for the purposes of the reader’s anticipation. Lets just say that Melinoë is granted a license to adventure that Zagreus could only claw at.

It’s this pivot where I decided that Hades 2 was sublime and better than its predecessor, somehow. With this new layer of content, it continued to show reactive characters with authentic dialogue at every turn and never lowered the bar of quality. When your surge towards the ‘ending’ pressures cracks in your focus, the reassurance of expected new content rather than daunting failure, is a confidence that never let me down. Knowing that each run would inevitably and substantially contribute to bettering your abilities or create permanent bonuses out in the world, like fishing pools, or allied statues, or knowing that every reset would provide new character lines with their own stories this time around, make the numerous pre-requisite runs to the narrative’s ending feel fluffy and light.

And the fantastical soundtrack that garnished Hades 1 with epic bass lines and intense metal guitar riffs is back in full force, with more Godly themes, and a handsome fixation on ghoulish tracks to underscore the Witchcraft. It’s that whining and wallowing reticent of the Mystery Gang in their investigative phase before the villain of the week turns up, but with a modern and extremely hip beat popping off with ancient greek strings as the hook. It’s a call to the legendary and classical hero adventure made sinisterly cool. Slow down and recooperate back at camp, with ambient forestry and drifting, intermittent notes that channel the lure of lingering magic.

Supergiant and superlative are synonymous by now, as Hades 2 proves again that THEIR rogue-like genre has no equal. A masterful yet intuitive combat system with smooth acceleration that runs hand in hand with it’s jovial pundity from the feisty pantheon. It’s the ultimate, premium, self-sustaining rogue-like that flatters the Gods at every dedication, pummeling other roguelikes for their repetitive sacrilege.

Keeper__Review

When DoubleFine announced Keeper, the trailer was stingy on expressive details, and they have stayed reticent throughout pre-release. We were presented with a sentient lighthouse and companion bird – a surreally alluring concept on it’s own, accompanied by colourfully wild biomes. In a prefatory post on DoubleFine’s website, creative Director Lee Petty explains that Double Fine “have gone to great lengths to preserve the mysteries and surprises the game holds”. Holding fast, the seal has stuck, and I really hope that this game spreads its wings and creaks its ancient masonry for countless to play, because you’re in for an absolute sleeper-hit here.

Lee describes elsewhere on the blog post, that this game has roots in the globally shared isolation and loneliness felt in the pandemic. His mountain hikes during the stationary period inspired reflections on these subjects, and connection, the ability for wildlife to survive and evolve beyond the existence of humans, particularly the interaction of the “vast underground networks that connect fungi, and how they are also used by trees to share nutrients and communicate with each other”. These core ideas have planted deep and held true throughout Keeper.

The ancient lighthouse awakens with shudders and creaks, partially collapsing from its lower masonry. Legs form from winding vines binding crumbled stone, and we bring the ancient guide tentatively down a promontory, careful not to stumble through momentum as it learns to walk. Our green seabird perches above, seemingly latched through relative safety, after the lighthouse first flickered with a vanquishing beam of light at a pursuing swarm of miasma, chasing the flying bird and it’s group. From here, we set out with an unknown purpose, speculative from wide-shots of a looming mountain.

Keeper suitably finds its rugged footing with a slow-burning opening, as the lighthouse ambles its gangly frame across and up wild lands of creepily endearing fauna and flora, one part dense and another subdued. The lighthouse’s signature light is rotated with a turn of the right analog stick, posing as an eye, charmingly disconcerting, but any adversity shaken off as its positive light force blossoms tree caps, fungi and more humanoid plants. It’s mesmerizing. There’s a ludo narrative link as the eye wanders in tandem with your astonished perplexion at the flourishing post-human environment. Though something is off.

The island is poisoned with a malevolent floral force. But like other themes in Keeper, the force isn’t largely painted this way. The game is abound with interpretation, inherent to the wordless story. My own worldviews wrapped up in the sense of long accumulated crisis that has burrowed into this land. There are clear parallels between the corruption and COVID, a rampant virus with an absent morality, but the celebration of life is vividly preferred as the dominant atmosphere throughout the game. The virus isn’t treated as the antagonist for much of our time here, rather the pungent wildlife and quirky sanctuaries are showcased, expressive and unfettered, strong yet brittle.

The lighthouse itself is fragile. A generous, if tenuous theme of human rebirth as pure protection, relieved of the duality of humankind. It suffers intermittent setbacks throughout the story; an unlikely epic hero that receives several genuinely mind-blowing transformations that throw curve balls. I was content with basic gameplay in service of world-building and cinematography that beautifully frames the small and big, thrown to the wind I was with liberating changes, sailing, galloping, wheeling! These changes occur over years, a vague enough hint to preserve the surprise. A testament to the resolution and perseverance of nature – the true hero – to contend, albeit, with the natural threat of the invasive Wither still gripping the land. These astonishing evolutions work at the basic level, as tempo changes, matching the escalation of threat towards the source of the Wither, for the advanced, there are more parallels: adapting and surviving. The lighthouse realising it needs to evolve like the hardy wildlife surrounding it.

The music is sometimes whimsical and delightful, and sometimes creepy, matching the variety and the strangeness that crops up in the environment. It also supports the focus on the celebration of life and endearing qualities of the nature. By the time game gets into full swing, and the antagonistic quality of the Wither becomes prevalent, it enables a more natural flourishing of the Lighthouse’s extremely vague purpose to synchronise with your own affection for the world.

We’re so far into the future that the lighthouse is far by the most explicit human design that exists squarely in the world, save for a few American style two-storey rural suburban homes in the opening few minutes. The lighthouse is almost like that private home wedged in between rows of businesses, quirkily distinct and refusing to relocate. Which is the polar opposite to the landscape itself here. Mankind has had a tendency and still has to plant human style architecture into existing natural geography, disrespecting form and function of our green neighbours, eschewing aesthetics and beneficial function to our mental health and general wellbeing. It’s almost as if nature has pacifistically regained it foothold, and unlike those stereotypical post-apocalyptic worlds where skyscrapers and streets are crudely veiled by an abundance of moss, vines and leafage, here, plants and rocks have twisted and covered architecture so awry that I would have to lean forwards to notice the past behind. It’s not malicious, but an intelligent and practical reuse of the industrial past to boost life. Theres a subtle painterly vibe to the textures of rock, dirt and biological material that helps the obscurity. Nature mercifully walks on by without judging though deserved after the rapture, but generously recycles our remains. Whether by intention, or wishful thinking, arrogance or a sense of responsibility, I sense that despite the near-total erasure of human footprint in this world, the lighthouse represents our spiritual redemption of us trying to save the world once more, or a desperate acceptance that a lingering part of us will have a place in the post-human world.

When you aren’t using your light to regrow, it’s often used to activate and deactivate objects, in collaboration with sending the seabird of onto glinting points to twist, pull and lift mechanisms with it’s beak, and by doing this during puzzles. They’re mostly simple, but unique and a little crafty. There’s a wonderful puzzling chapter involving a steampunk town enveloped by time, technologically, and in peril, where clockwork inhabitants are also fighting the scourge with time itself, to which you must utilise. Whereas the wheeled citizens seem to have developed technologies, other leftover human technologies reminiscent of art novueu and steampunk blends haven’t just been grown over, but some life-like entities are hard to distinguish between device or creature because of it. They seem to be part of the creature’s physiology, innate from birth, not just a wielded tool. The world broadly is as surreal as these entities.

The psychedelic colouring of the game not only perturbs the mind to visually separate our world from this even more, but this town established the latent connection to Tim Burton which I flirted with. The undertones of the grim and warped and it’s popping layering, look beautiful in this coppery  stylised town of ovalur stubby residences. If I had to nail a mash-up of inspirations that inspire this world, I get tropical Jurassic, with Alice in Wonderland and Tim Burton. Lee pinpoints his exact pop-cultural touchstones as The Dark Crystal and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Everything feels surreal and alien.

I know I’ve spent a lot of time describing the world and talking interpretation, but this was it’s overall hold on me and I’d argue that this is it’s aim: to provoke an experience. In fact, Keeper doesn’t become as memorable for interactivity and mechanics until around halfway through, with deft gameplay surprises all the more powerful because of the prior restraint. Many people will be turned off by the wait, or not care for the artistic expression, but fear not, this isn’t a walking simulator. If you can connect to it’s immersion, it’s cumulative gameplay will heavily reward you in an explosive finale that puts gameplay at the forefront.

Keeper will be a modern anomaly, risking any popularity for sheer surprise after surprise. And I’m not surprised if it develops a cult following instead. But it’s dedication to holding back pays off in boatloads. It’s a beautiful, uncanny, metamorphosis.

Review__Hollow Knight: Silksong

Let’s get something out there. Silksong is everything you wanted, but the outcome is curiously faceted. More metroidvania, subtly enticing lore, and wary interconnections that delight, and equally, ingeniously frustrate. What separates Silksong from its hallowed predecessor the most, isn’t evolution, but the friction between restraint and speed. These devious and incremental changes need to be used in a more focused finesse when you maneuver this treacherous kingdom.

Hornet is nimbler, and the blasted cast of deceptive insects are her bane. You’ll gain a quicker base speed than Hollow Knight from new abilities, at an early point in the game, but as you’ve probably harkened onto from my warning tone, speed is a poisoned chalice unless tamed. That friction is a volatile line, which is broken when you’re too hesitant, or rash. In the heat of an overwhelming skirmish, it’s all too easy to believe that Team Cherry are mocking. Approaching a new area of unpredictable bugs with laziness masked as calm, can consign death, making you feel sluggish. When a deceptively slow creature bursts to life, hurtling towards you on a tightrope sized platform, the odds can dramatically feel against you. On the other hand, addictively faster movement makes evasion seemingly easier, but adrenaline is intoxicating. Therefore, speed is a trap, paralyzing your cortex when multiple enemy types overwhelm. Stop and analyze enemy movement and attack patterns before you tiptoe forwards. A vicious cycle? Finding a balance is tough, though Silksong’s unpredictability is its greatest strength.

Excitingly, it’s the latter side of that line which Silksong endorses the most, which creates a fascinating dilemma, for broader conversation, and the game experience itself. Run backs will be a soggy talking point for months to come and ultimately fall in the middle when judgment comes calling – I daringly posit – but it’s hard to deny that many are exhilarating in this speedier frame. I stand on the opposition to run backs (with large caveats, which I’ll get to).

More than ever, honing your patience over multiple revisits towards finally defeating a boss is salaciously satisfying, fatigue evaporating, fireworks-launched from-fist-pumping extravaganza. Like the traditional Souls games, it’s an exhilaration like no other victory. The bosses are crafty, incessant, and crafty, deigning to combat your tiny frame in a culmination of every localized ability mastered so far.

There’s a curse at the heart of this flagging kingdom, sitting on top of the warren-like map, and unlike Hollow Knight, our general direction has been inverted, upwards. Whilst it was crushing to lose your geo currency and spatial progress to a long fall in Hollow Knight, Silksong’s emphasis on the ascent has cranked up the peril of an unintended descent. To clarify, I rarely fell victim to a deep, continuous fall, but rather, it was multiple consecutive drops of frantic scuffles before I perished. Other common deaths were via mistaken landing placement, erroneous pogoing (a devilishly floral return), bypassing abruptly discovered enemies occupying tight platforms of the airways pocketing the many climbs, or dastardly environmental hazards. Reflex, instinct and planning, are measures one can train to an extent, but for a strong percentage of this game, the painful deaths were the aerial ones, or recovering health in the run backs. What all this means, is that Silksong takes more focus from moment to moment.

Whilst we’re submerged in death, let’s ominously return to my paused digression – welcoming back frustrating run-back capitulations. To make it absolutely clear, Silksong is a masterpiece, and the spectre of the runback is gratefully not the downfall of Silksong pre-built mythical status. Once your brain is synced and observing deft level design, the majority of boss battles can be revisited quicker by saving at closer benches. It’s remembering to calm, halt the ego, and look elsewhere to tighten your reach, of which I’m no saint.

And to that ending, it’s hard to justify some of the run-back. With exception to a few bosses in act 1, the causes of my lobotomy-requesting laments were for bosses in the latter portion, and more characteristic of Silksong, enemy wave challenges. Both were so fiendish, that unless you’re a demigod, you can’t possibly defeat them without unjustifiable repetition to learn their patterns, and then preserve your health on the run-back.  Lose several times and face registering shards to repair your tools which surprisingly made the boss easier. With all challenges considered, the pin drops of guidance from Team Cherry whispering for you to breath, plan your resources and obtain upgrades first, lifted my spirits when I obeyed. I hated to love.

And those subtle changes I prefaced are no more excruciatingly shaped and symbolic than the diagonal air attack. The Wanderer could air-attack directly downward, now, Hornet is ambivalently gifted. For every ounce of manoeuvrability that Silksong gains, the diagonal attack is a double-edged needle. Either finely angle the left-stick to safely deliver bouncy, aerial jabs, or a fine slip could land you in close-quarter limbo. It’s an unglamorous mechanic with a momentous use.

There’s the holy string music that haunts and feeds the atmosphere throughout the narrative and world – transcending your gigantic struggles certainly feels like a blessing. You can’t help but connect the spiritual journey of Pharloom’s bug’s literal ascent to a holy capital with the triumphs of your victories, despite the sad and cynical undertones in your discoveries of the world. The currency of rosaries, through to the inherent divinity of music characterising the religion, symbolized by the bells proliferated around, ooze a majestic sadness over pureness and benevolence. The hero, Hornet, is as diligently cynical as you are.

And Hornet talks back! Which adds a layer of personality that the Wanderer never had. Her text-based interactions with kind, or downright transactional NPCs of the fractured corners of the world, reveal a not-so-clinical-as-it-seems layer to their façade. For lovers of the intoxicating lore, another incentive to bleach the expanse of the map is for wholesome nuggets of Hornet’s musings: a tap into her training, her sentimentality, a growing heart for the unfortunate dwellers of Pharloom of whom she often contractually converses as a prolific hunter.

I’ll stay comfortably clear of even touching upon the lore for risk of sacrilege, but for a broad mention – it absolutely amplifies the stories you can extract from the folk of the lands, and vice versa between the kingdom it’s nature, and bugs. The encounters with inhabitants are often brief, and albeit, imagination is warranted here to fill the gaps, but the pillars of the actual story along the way, retrospectively cement the narrative archaeologist within you when you connect the dots.

Another impressive addition are tools. Hollow Knight had notches in the menu providing space to attach a limited amount of charms which enhance or alter to your advantage. Here, crests replace charms, and many are throwable tools like pins, thrown like spears, or traps, thrown to be scattered along the surface. They greatly diversify your fighting options when the vanilla inherent attacks are failing you, or even if you want to ease the challenge. I found that tools freed some bandwidth to shift focus away from agility. To avoid implying that tools undermine challenge, most enemies still require a keen eye for assessment to roughly judge the efficacy of your tools, despite their potency. The finesse and agility of the challenge is definitely not dulled. Tools must be restocked or repaired via shards, which defeated enemies produce in varying quantities. Unlike rosaries, you don’t lose them upon death, and are recharged upon resting or reviving at benches. Just like rosaries, non-enemy sources are hunted from many obscured caves and dangerous side-tunnels. Tools often reduce the peril of runbacks or exploring for upgrades, by combatting an enemy, or in combination with vanquishing some to lesser the overall threat, maintaining health and bypassing the rest.

When you’re not lithely performing an alarming ballroom dance, the masterfully poised level design is presented by the serving hands of Team Cherry, from start to finish, constantly anticipated in wariness. As you trail undiscovered regions unknown to your map, prodding walls, committing to a new precarious path, praying for a bench, the elegance of the environment ensnares. The majority of areas in this cursed kingdom are natural geography, similar to its predecessor, enhanced with more detailed and enticingly blurry backgrounds.

There’s been an air of a foregone conclusion of what to expect from Team Cherry: greatness. The stone has been rolled back from the holy shrine, and Team Cherry has delivered another chosen child. Heavy is the one who wears the clown mask, but no lighter is the one who removes it.

The Alters__Review

Early in my journey throughout The Alters, I met my first Alter – the technician, or, Jan Technician, to give him his birth name. On the nose maybe, but also too premature to judge. He was cranky and confused, an emotionally unregulated version of myself, a divergence from original Jan’s very real and lived timeline. My rough reaction to his passive-aggressive reply to my words of comfort – heavy-handed, albeit – upon him waking from the cloning machine, was, oh…this isn’t a very subtle script. My upwards expectations for the cast of the Alters was laid by a clone-laden still image featured on the splash-screen. This was a survival game with it’s trump card as a social aspect after all, which would be fundamental to it’s quality. The picture impressed a diversely handful bunch just waiting to pounce and vye for my attention with their pedantic needs. But this guy, he just seemed to lack nuance. Would this perforate the enjoyment of the game, or would the cast of the Alters’ dispel my nascent vibes? I was more than pleasantly surprised.

The Alters’ hook, is it’s social dynamic, merged with light base-building, and the survival genre predominantly. It’s a genius take! I haven’t played many of the latter but through vicarious and actual first-hand (bad) experiences. I’d always secretly assumed they were monotonous and oppressive. Oh how oppressive rings true here…effusively! Towards an overarching desperate objective of escaping a hostile alien planet who’s sun is radiactively stalking you, the craftily clever concept of managing multiple collaborating versions of yourself is a nervously shifting dilemma. Each Alter has it’s own personality and background stemming from the original Jan. Jan is originally a team member, not a leader of this mission for resource extraction whos crew has tragically and mysteriously died in a crash-landed approach to the planet. As the unassuming sole survivor, Jan must thrust his amateurish credentials into a whirlwind grab of the daunting reigns. After holeing up in the base (the big wheel seen in previews and at the forefront of much marketing), and contacting his shady corporate employers back on earth, he is convinced to activate the onboard Quantum Computer to prolong his gasping fortunes. Cue unexplained and presumably mind-boggling pseudo science of copying a mind and inserting a deviated version of it into a synthetically produced human body.

What makes each characterisation of versions of Jan potent, is their existential confrontation. Their fragile spirits are ravaged by their whiplash discovery via original Jan (at birth!) that their pasts are fake. They are replete with original Jan’s memories to the point of their divergence in his timeline. That, topped with insecurities developed from periods in those fake lives, create a genuine sense of compassion to push through the mission for their sake, and not just your initial but equally sympathetic selfishness. I loved them, despite some wierd accent choices that jar the tone in sprinkles, and that on-the-nose writing for some of the alters that actually became endearing.

The wellbeing of an Alter is measured by their overall mood, which the type of visual data representation that appears nags my mind to think of the technical name, but crudely, its a sort of pie chart with moving ethereal coloured smoke that eminates towards the most dominant state the alter is experiencing. For example, motivation and joy are high points and rebellion is the nadir, which when dominantly present alongside other alters in an equal state, will culminate in a failure state of the game. Their surface level needs in order of ease, are satisfactory daily meals, and injury and radiation free health. Both of the latter have their own progressing yellow circle icons that need to shy from fullness – or result in death. General discontent from consistent poor well-being and unmet story goals mean that the aforementioned forbidden rebellion will occur, ending the game via mutiny instead. From time to time, in mostly off-screen ponderances I presume, whilst I grafted away in my own anxiety, the alters often confront their own existence, vulnerably. As their ad-hoc godly benefactor, your TM original Jan tries his best but flawed response in dialogue options to assuage their inner demons to juggle their industrial strength and their wellbeing.

It’s these conversations that were my favourite part of the Alters. Despite failing multiple times to infer the optimal option for my deeply-troubled mirror-image, even though their tendencies were hammered into me, learning that being platonically encouraging or giving them exactly what they wanted was actually counter-intuitive. The on the nose writing, actually belied a deeper complexity to their personalities. Failing helped me understand their root problems, so I had to be stern to the aggressively insecure, or I had to tell white lies to keep everyone in line. The range of my own reactive emotions was testament to their subtlety. Managing your alters is babying, and scarily letting go at the same time as each one is unique and no matter how relatively mature, a gratifying pain. I wouldn’t quite call it parenthood, but more of a compensation programme via community service, as you feel totally responsible, not just as this mission’s de-facto leader, but for the fractures in their fake personal lives back on imaginary earth in their chimera of a brain. On the flipside, it can be annoying that many of the Alters immediately question your judgments at critical junctions in the story in a furious or baffled tone. It seems all too coincidental that many of the alters jump to assumptions, perceiving your forced hand in this volatile situation as a malevolent agenda, or selfishness to pursue your own survival. Yes, that is why you birthed them, but I wished they could be more understanding and let go of the trigger, considering the sheer brevity allowed in decision making when a critical problem snaps your fragile smooth progression. The bloody sun is chasing you down on an alien world if they haven’t forgotten, and your decisions aim to benefit them in the long term. In these moments, the veil is lifted and we’re reminded we’re in a game, interacting with artificial vessels, and choice isn’t naturally grown.

Phew! I haven’t even gotten to the base building or resource extraction yet. Neatly tieing into that, each alter has a specialism, like ‘scientist’ or ‘miner’. The former can research new traversal items or efficiency upgrades whereas the latter is self-explanatory. Outside the safety of your periodically rooted base that runs from the rising sun after a story-critical doodad allows, you must explore the rugged terrain to detect and mine resources for expanding and improving your base, feeding your alters, improving their mental wellbeing, and building those doodads. Detecting resources requires pitching recyclable nodes into the ground which automatically connect together to project a digital surface view off the underground topology. As these nodes have a limited amount that can connect to each other at one time, you need to quickly retrieve them to extend your boundaries and eventually find bright red topology that dings. You can then fix-down a mining outpost. The extraction and utilisation of resources is automated with an alter, and a simple button held if you choose to personally extract. Alter’s need to be designated an outpost to mine the resource, but assigning them to their affinity speeds the production of the corresponding resource, and is easily selected from the main menu.

The management of your alter’s via the general menu interface is swift and never burdens the experience of in-world activity. You can track their location, their remaining shift-time, calculated final resource totals for the day’s end, and switch alters’ assigned jobs depending on your current demands. You’ll be switching them quite often, because unless you’re extremely organised in planning the day’s quota, and adaptible to abrupt plot changes and managing your alter’s needs, all under the scary timer, you’ll never have a harmonious crew for maximum output. Exploration to harvest the land requires brand new tools and upgrades, so you’ll need an alter to become a jack of all trades sometimes. If you’re printing equipment, you’re not out exploring – no exploring, and you’re probably not going to meet your main objectives. I know you hate me Technician Jan, but you’ve got to pick up my slack.

I’m aware that I cowardly dangled the timer mechanic in front of you, and there’s a sympathetic reason for that, I promise. The game’s unrelenting momentum is deftly accelerated along a daily clock like Stardew Valley, with piling severity. As game timers go, it’s combination with the other mechanics is superlative. It lifts all of the game’s simple mechanics from base-building, resource extraction, exploration and socialising from basic novelties into ‘more than the sum of it’s parts’ territory. Synergy is an aptly corporate word and perfectly descriptive here, but not in the usual beneficial sense. The precipice of brewing mutiny of alter’s basic desires, sub-objectives for endeavouring towards your next looming retreat, radiation storms temporarily locking you inside and pausing resource gains, and most crucially, the pursuing sun, all conspire to somehow make you nauseusly reach your goals in the nick time! All of your goals somehow seem to overlap and grind in imposing competition for attention to make what is honestly one of most satisfying loops of tension I’ve ever experienced. There’s a goldilocks amount of mental bandwidth used here that causes you to forget your priorities and erupt compromises – and that’s even without abrupt new objectives adjusting your agenda, or the hostile threats in the world curtailing your day. At night’s close, a vague “sun is approaching message” eventually escalates into stark warning if you push your stay in every region of the planet, and everything but the kitchen sink seemed to go wrong to delay my leave. Those radiation storms seemed to crop up just as I began to steer into practical headway, only to obstruct my progress via forced isolation into the base, restricting the crew to mainly base maintenance and resource reallocation away from main objectives. Meanwhile, the sun veered around the corner. I just about shoved our teams journey onwards, with sheer focus on prioritisation and clinical respect to the chopping board. Not everyone onboard was pleased, mind.

A calmer overseer could of probably wracked up all of the upgrades to create a slicker system, and ultimately reached an actualisation with all of the alters through stronger emotional intelligence, but I don’t think that’s the point of the game. I don’t know how The Alters rates in comparison to other Base Builder and Resource Extracting juggernaughts, but it’s social mechanics certainly steal the show with nasty choices to be made. And it’s there that I feel most successful, despite what the tallies in a hypothetical league might say about my proficiency in each of the game’s genres. After much social to and fro, I can declare, that to be a leader isn’t about achieving perfect relationships, but avoiding the craggy canyons on the road ahead, and reluctantly faking it until you make it.