Monday Mushings #2

Welcome to the second edition of Monday Mushings, the weekly newsletter covering my 4 Ws:

• What I’ve been playing

• Where I’ve been playing it (platform, not actual physical place)

• When I’ll be posting next

• Who I’ve been reading

This past week I got funkier than usual by playing through Alpha Nomos’ demo twice, learning a new language through Morse’s demo, and getting a lot of reading done.

This past week was quite slow for game releases, so I stuck with demos instead. I’m still playing through Dishonored— and enjoying it—, I dabbled a bit into League of Legends (my forever game) with some friends, and I played two demos.

The first one was Alpha Nomos, an exciting action rhythm game that is sure to scratch the Hi-Fi Rush itch. I had the pleasure of speaking with one of the developers, Emil Lager, at DevGAMM Lisbon and had been looking forward to playing through the demo when it reached Steam.

While it still has some bugs and a few things to iron out, it is already a great experience and the demo’s constantly being updated by RibCage Games. I’m writing a review that will be published sometime soon at James Francis’ Adventures in Indie Gaming.

Keeping with the rhythm theme but in as different of a setting as possible, I played through MORSE’s demo and absolutely loved it. This is a “minimalist strategy game”, essentially a tower defense title that grows in complexity by increasing the number of attacking enemies and paths they can take.

As the title implies, though, its main draw is that you control everything in the game through Morse code. Using the default one-button telegraph control the only two buttons I had to press where spacebar and enter. Spacebar typed the Morse code in dots and dashes, Enter shot the missiles at the attacking ships.

Even though I only spent around an hour with the demo, I won’t forget how to type 1 (.————), 2 (..———), 3 (…——), and I (..) in Morse code. A truly unique experience.

This week was very PC-centric (as most weeks tend to be for me). Everything I played I did so at my desktop computer with the exception of Dishonored, my upcoming Steaming The Deck review.

I’d love to try Alpha Nomos on my Steam Deck, though, and I know for a fact that you can play MORSE on it because Alex Johansson, the game’s developer, posted a recent video doing so with a very interesting setup…

I’m still working on my Steaming The Deck Dishonored review and I’m on track to release it during the first week of December. This week I’ll be posting an article based on an interview I did with moi rai studios, and probably a MORSE review.

This week I’m highlighting 5 articles again, so you have something to ready every day of the week:

• Mirror, Mirror: AiliA, by Christena Maurer for AIIG- Christena Maurer, a fellow video game Substacker who writes the excellent Tunesday articles, pens another AIIG guest piece, this time reviewing AiliA, an enchanting puzzle game.

• How the games industry sees the decline of traditional reviews, by Harrison Polites for Infinite Lives- Harrison keeps proving his chops as one of the best videogame reporters on Substack with this piece covering how traditional reviews have mostly turned into “scores and pull quotes”.

• My new surprise obsession: A game about running a 1930s newspaper, by Stephen Totilo for Game File- Totilo reviews News Tower, a small indie game which, despite its arcadey tycoon look, creates an unexpectedly realistic simulation of running a US paper in the 1930s.

• Renowned indie studio Inkle announces something quite different: a found-footage World War 2 code-breaking mystery, by Robert Purchese for Eurogamer- Robert covers the announcement of Inkle’s upcoming game, one of the most unique-looking titles we’ve seen in recent years.

• Tavern Keeper: It’s Good, by Luke Plunkett for Aftermath- A loving review of the self-published indie title Tavern Keeper, a “cosy-chaotic management sim” where you’re building your own fantasy taverns worthy of hosting any first session of a DnD campaign.

See you next week!