Video Game Thoughts

Developed by Mad Head Games, Adam Wolfe bills itself as a paranormal mystery adventure. Thrust into the role of paranormal investigator Adam Wolfe, we're presented with a handful of cases that ultimately tie into the larger mystery of our missing sister. With fights against elementals, cultists, and even a car chase sequence, all of the pieces are in place for a what, at least on paper, sounds like a thrilling, action packed adventure. Set in San Francisco, our first case se

Developed by Italian studio Stupid Pixel, Death Noodle Delivery began with the fairly simple premise of combining the arcade classic Paperboy with a dystopian, cyberpunk future. While the idea of delivering papers in even our modern era seems a bit odd, the conceit of delivering food, in this case noodles, helps to update the general premise. The game does a pretty good job of bringing the classic arcade action to modern audiences, delivering it with a side of cynicism and hu

As the sixteenth entry in the Fire Emblem series, Three Houses marked the first home console release in over a decade, with 2007's Radiant Dawn being the last entry before the series made the jump to handheld. After the unexpected success of 2012's Fire Emblem: Awakening, which helped save the franchise from cancellation, and after working on both Fates and Shadows of Valentia, the team at Intelligent Systems decided to partner with Koei Tecmo in order to create what they fel

Though serving as the ninth game in the Ratchet & Clank series, Rift Apart was the first game where development wasn't helmed by Insomniac's secondary team in North Carolina, instead being developed by the entire team at both studios. Serving as a follow-up to both 2013's Into the Nexus and 2016's remake of the first game, Rift Apart was designed to appeal both to newcomers and veterans of the series. Taking advantage of the Playstation 5 hardware, the team landed on dimensio

Beginning development in 2018 as part of CyberConnect2's new focus on creating new, original titles, Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a strategy role-playing game that served as the first self published title from the developer. Having worked on the .Hack and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series, the title is a departure from their previous work in almost every way. Serving as the fourth title in the Little Tail Bronx series, acting as a prequel to the PS1 game Tail Concerto, the story fo

Starting as an experiment by Matt Stark in 2019, early footage of the prototype went viral in 2020, leading to him dropping out of university to focus on development. By 2021, he had developed the concept enough to establish the studio Robot Turtle in order to fully build out the game alongside Robot Teddy. The team took influence from other puzzle games, chief among them being Portal, including the way in which Portal slowly introduces players to new mechanics. The game cent

Beginning development in 2012, Far Cry 4 was originally going to serve as a direct sequel to 2012's Far Cry 3, set on the same island, expanding on the players' story and bringing back familiar faces such as Vaas Montenegro. After about four days of brainstorming, the team realized that this wasn't the game they wanted to make, and scrapped the idea to focus on a brand new setting and story. While I obviously can't comment on the direction the game didn't take, I can say that

Released in 2023, Meg's Monster is an RPG that takes very clear inspiration from Undertale, both in terms of world design and in its sense of humor. We play as Roy, an incredibly strong monster with a love for toxic sludge as he sets out to protect a young girl, Meg, in his quest to return her to the surface world. What the game lacks in length or difficulty, it makes up for in spades with its adorable sprite work and a genuinely novel and engaging combat system. Though the w

The year 2020, with all of the absolute insanity that led up to and occurred during it, will likely stand as one of the most fascinating times in modern history. I truly do not envy those who have to study everything that occurred during this incredibly strange year. However, one of the things that will likely help to show just how bizarre the world was is to look at the media that arose from it, and Five Dates, developed by Wales Interactive, does a fairly good job of captur

Inspired by his love of reading through the fictional bestiaries of Dungeons & Dragons, developer Nick Lives began work on Home Safety Hotline in 2020, going so far as to create a prototype that was later abandoned. After discovering the analog horror genre and inspired by Hypnospace Outlaw, Lives resumed working on the concept, deciding to lean into the 90's era media formats. Set in the year 1996, we play as someone who has been recruited to work at the titular Home Safety

As the name may suggest, The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a game that deals with a few very heavy topics that could be deeply triggering for some people. Over the course of the narrative, there's a continued focus on a young girl's suicide and the events that lead up to it, which include grooming, sexual abuse of a minor, teenage pregnancy, and a host of mental and emotional damage surrounding everything. While the game handles these topics with respect and nuance, I feel it b

As the debut title for studio Kaizen Game Works, Paradise Killer is a first person adventure mystery game that draws heavy inspiration from the works of Franz Kafka, HP Lovecraft, and the Danganronpa series to name a few. Having played and loved the studios second game, Promise Mascot Agency, I was interested to see if the studio had played it safe and made a more traditional experience for their first outing. To my utter delight, they did not, with Paradise Killer being even

Developed by Chinese studio Cotton Game, Dad's Monster House is a charming addition to the point and click style adventure genre. Featuring a delightful hand drawn aesthetic and some genuinely thoughtful puzzles, the game possesses a charm all its own that seeps through the relatively short playtime, combining with a surprisingly sweet narrative to deliver an endearing experience well worth the price of admission. We begin as our protagonist, Carlos, receives a mysterious ph

Released in 2018, Merrily Perilly puts us in the role of Perry, an unfortunate man who can't seem to catch a break. We begin as Perry, who is already severely dehydrated, stumbles upon a small, unfamiliar town. With the goal of finding something to slake his thirst, we begin speaking to the eccentric residents which include bears, witches, vampires, mermaids, and most terrifying of all, would be comedians. With the clock ticking away, we have more than a few options for findi

Developed by Oh, a Rock! Studios, The Pizza Delivery Boy Who Saved the World bills itself as a semi-autobiographical visual novel about pizza and time travel. We play as Doug Rivers, a man seemingly stuck delivering pizza for a local pizzeria while dealing with lazy coworkers, idiotic customers, and a boss that is equal parts corrupt and incompetent. This all changes when, after yet another exciting day of slinging pies, he's approached by a man who claims to be him from the

After serving as director for both Silent Hill while at Konami and later Siren at Sony, Keiichiro Toyama gained a bit of a reputation for working within the horror genre. With the increasing costs and decreasing profits of the genre, he decided to prove his ability to design outside of it, turning a vague idea about people floating in space into a gravity action game. Originally intended for the PS3, the gameplay was inspired by his experience with the Sixaxis controller prio

Billed as a psychological horror game, The Town of Light is more of a walking sim with sadly true to life horror elements sprinkled throughout. Truly the most horrifying aspect of the game is the fact that as awful and inhumane as the subject matter is, it's only slightly fictionalized, and depicts the very real treatment of actual human beings. Before going any further, I cannot stress enough how traumatizing and triggering the subject matter of the game is. It depicts some

Beginning development in 2008, 999 was the first title for which Kotaro Uchikoshi would serve as director in addition to his duties as writer and designer. Bringing his love of browser based escape room games, and feeling they could benefit from a larger focus on storytelling, the game plays largely as a visual novel with puzzle elements added that serve to deepen the mystery surrounding the plot. Uchikoshi's writing style, which sees a larger emphasis on storylines over char

While video games have been host to simulation titles as far back as the 80's, there's a newer sub-genre that has developed in recent years. Starting, arguably, with 2013's Surgeon Simulator, which took a far more tongue in cheek slapstick approach, this new generation of simulator games focus less on accuracy and more on the sheer absurdity of the genre itself. More recently, the trend seems to be churning out sims for every role imaginable, often using pre-made assets and A

Developed by studio Coal Supper, a team consisting of programmer Will Todd and artist James Carbutt, Thank Goodness You're Here! is an adventure puzzle game with a distinctly British sense of humor. The initial concept for the game was a series of sketch comedy vignettes with plans to incorporate deep puzzles, complex controls, and non-linear elements to string them together. Fearing that without a stronger vision for the game that they would end making a bad puzzle game, the