Video Game Thoughts

Beginning development in 2018, the team at Cococucumber wanted to capture the nostalgic feel of childhood in a small town with the active turn-based gameplay of the early Paper Mario games. Using the same voxel-based visuals the team had previously used on the game Riverbound, the game has a unique blend of retro style graphics that still allows for the freedom provided by a fully three dimensional world. This helps the game feel fresh and new while helping to establish the e

Set in what passes for early 20th century England, we play as Lord Winklebottom, a gentlemen giraffe who also happens to be a world class detective. Together, with our stalwart hippopotamus life mate, Dr. Frumple, we're invited to a party hosted by a reclusive friend ours where he intends to announce something big. After a brief point and click tutorial in which we ruin tea and help an old sea dog sober up, we're off to our reclusive friend's island, where things aren't alway

During the development of Serious Sam 4, the developers at Croteam began to experiment with the use of interactive objects as part of the game design. This led to the creation of some complicated puzzles that, while they didn't quite fit the action based design of Serious Sam, the team felt inspired by to build upon as a separate title. After about a year of development, with around 80% of the puzzles that would be used having been completed, the team brought in Tom Jubert a

With development beginning in late 2002, near the tail end of the production cycle for the original .hack series, .hack//G.U. sought to fix some of the issues players had noted with the original series while having a story that was connected yet separate enough as to not alienate new players. Where the original series was comprised of four entries, .hack//G.U. was developed to tell its story over the course of only three. Though the release was initially delayed, this was in

As the third and final game in the Vandal Hearts series, Flames of Judgement actually serves as a prequel to the original game. Released as part of Xbox Live Arcade, which focused on smaller, cheaper games, the scope is significantly smaller than previous entries in the series. This was right around the time that Konami started to shift focus away from traditional video game development in order to focus on much more profitable mobile and casino style gaming. While the shift

Oh, to be a child again, in the long, halcyon days of summer. The sun shining brightly, the world rife with the orchestra of life as each day sprawls before you filled with wonder and adventure. While it's easy to take these moments of tranquility for granted, as an adult I often find myself yearning to return to simpler times where my only concern was what to do with all of the excess free time afforded to me. It's these feelings that Kabuto Park aims to evoke, and it's safe

Following the release of Pokémon Go in 2016, work on Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee began to capitalize on the resurgence in popularity of the franchise. Aimed primarily at a younger and more casual audience, director Junichi Masuda decided to make the game a remake of Pokémon Yellow, as the incorporation of elements from the anime made it resonate more with the target audience. The decision to have Eevee be the mascot of the paired version came down its fairly wide popu

Created as recently as 1987, nonograms are picture logic puzzles in which cells in a grid are either colored or left blank according to numbers along the the edges in order to form a picture. Due to the easily scaled difficulty of the puzzles, along with the binary nature and blocky nature of the puzzles, they've been a fairly popular form of puzzles in the video game landscape since the mid 90's. So, what do we get when Ed Fear, writer for the game The Sword of Ditto, teams

The first of three DLC packs available for Far Cry 5, Hours of Darkness is, for my money at least, the hands down best of the bunch. Far Cry 5 definitely went above and beyond in terms of how out there they were willing to go for the DLC, including a zombie storyline and a mission to Mars, but Hours of Darkness stands out for how grounded it is not only in real life history, but also in terms of how it provides context for a minor NPC and the sidequest he sends us on. I don't

After the release of Far Cry: Primal in 2016, Ubisoft announced that the next installment in the franchise would need more time in development, and thus would not release in 2017 as had been previously planned. Instead, the game released in 2018, and though it released to mostly positive reviews, the game was steeped in controversy due to the setting and plot. Far Cry had long been known for its more exotic locales and antagonistic groups that were easy to identify as being

After the release of Sunset Overdrive for the Xbox One, Sony Interactive Entertainment's VP of Product Development, Connie Booth, met with Insomniac Games' CEO, Ted Price, for an informal, off the record meeting. From this meeting, Marvel's Spider-Man would begin to form, seeing a marked difference both in how Marvel would handle its video game releases, as well as marking the first time Insomniac would work on a licensed property as opposed to an original IP. Since 2000, Act

After an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign, the most successful ever for a Spanish developed game, Mika and the Witch's Mountain released in early 2025. With heavy inspiration from Wind Waker and, most prominently, Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service, the game puts us in the role of Mika, a young aspiring witch who travels to small island in order to receive training from the witch that resides at the top of the mountain in the center. The story begins as Mika,

Beginning development in 2019, shortly after the initial release of Sword and Shield, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet represent an ambitious step forward for the series. The titles ditch the linear routes and progression the series is known for, instead focusing on a fully open world that had been heavily requested by fans. The team at Game Freak made realism one of the primary goals of the games, setting out to craft realistic areas, redoing Pokémon models with more detailed text

Originally released in 2017 exclusively on mobile, the game later found its way to Steam in 2020 and consoles in 2021. As the name may imply, Nexomon is another in a long line of games that's heavily inspired by Pokémon, featuring over 300 monsters to collect and battle with. Given the benefit of over two decades worth of Pokémon games from which to draw inspiration, how does Nexomon compare? Better than I'd have thought, it seems, but not as well as I'd hope. We begin our j

Originally released for iOS and Android in 2015 and 2016 respectively, Agent A made its way to consoles in 2019. Featuring artwork inspired by the works of Shag and Kevin Dart, Agent A is a relatively short point and click style puzzle game that puts us in the role of the titular Agent A. The game has a distinct 60's retro style that, combined with clear inspiration from classic Bond films, gives it a style and flair all its own. Originally released in an episodic manner, the

First conceptualized while developers Chip Moore and Dylan Takeyama were in college, the pair set out to match the gameplay style of older tactical RPGs, such as Fire Emblem and Shining Force, with a modern look. Created in GameMaker, the game saw a successful Kickstarter campaign before being surprise released on Steam and later ported to the NIntendo Switch. The story follows a group of military academy students who get swept up in a questionable war before finding themsel

Developed as the second game from Black Tabby Studios, a Canadian based indie developer consisting of husband and wife Tony Howard-Arias and Abby Howard, Slay the Princess is psychological horror visual novel that tasks players to, surprise, slay a princess. While this may seem like an overall straight forward goal, it becomes clear pretty quickly that there's much more going on. We begin our journey as an unnamed character in the woods. The narrator sets the scene that we a

In 2011, a user on the internet's dumping ground, 4chan, posted an image of a HobbyTown location that was undergoing renovations. The image featuring a large carpeted room, fluorescent lighting, and pale, yellow dividing walls, began circulating on the site, and in 2019 was the featured image for a post on a paranormal themed board asking for "disquieting images that just feel 'off'". Another user replied to the post, supplying the image with its first description. Mentioning

Inspired by his childhood in Ecuador, Julián Cordero originally conceived of a game that would use the universal language of football in order to convey his memories of growing up. Wanting to avoid the high budget look of sports games like FIFA, as they didn't represent the soccer that he grew up with, he struggled with how best to move forward. With a little help from his University Professor Gabe Cuzzillo, the designer of 2019's Ape Out, he was inspired to bring the place t

As the first original intellectual property released by publisher Dotemu, Absolum combines everything the publisher had learned working on other side scrolling beat'em ups they had published for other developers, as well as Guard Crush Games' experience as the co-developer for Streets of Rage 4. Looking to create something new and bring the beat'em up genre to a new audience, the team decided to add roguelike elements to the game after with them in Mr. Nightmare X, the DLC fo