Burrowing heroes, cozy cities, and shape-based deckbuilding

Hello friends. I am barely back from a whirlwind week of press appointments and booth building for the always excellent BitSummit event! We had a nice little booth up on the third floor of the convention centre, and across the three days we had tonnes of lovely folks swing by and check the game out. These shows are always a double edged sword for me. I get to see old friends, and make new ones, while also seeing the team be energized by having folks play the game and getting their real-time reactions. It gives me GOOD VIBES! But building a booth, and managing a booth for three days, while also hosting a part, and taking a media crew around for the days leading up to BitSummit. That part is also fun, but very draining. I am tired. Happy. But tired.

Thank you to everyone who came by, said nice things, bought me coffee, and to all those I missed - I hope to see you at the next BitSummit!

Anyways, onto the good stuff!

Developer: Yacht Club Games
Steam rating: Very Positive
Store Link

After many lengthy delays, Yacht Club Games has finally released Mina the Hollower, a retro-pilled 2D action game that is as much a love letter to Link’s Awakening as it is to Dark Souls.

You play as Mina, a heroic Hollower who is on a quest to save a cursed island. Using a combination of tight platforming, a unique burrowing mechanic, Mina the Hollower has some seriously great looking traversal. When you combine that with brutal boss fights using an arsenal of weapons, each with their own specific game feel, and you combo that with a series of sidearms, it seems this game has a lot of combat and traversal options that will allow you to create a build to suit your specific play style.

Yacht Club earned their reputation with Shovel Knight as a retro throwback that was trying to stay true to the constraints of the 8-BIT NES, creating a game that felt like a futuristic relic of a classic Nintendo game that COULD have existed if we never advanced technology. Mina does the same thing here, targeting the GameBoy Color but adding some modern animation flourishes. It’s a mighty fine looking game, and I cannot wait to pit myself against its challenges later tonight.

Developer: Snake Tower Games
Steam rating: Very Positive
Store Link

Moonsigil Atlas is out this week, a novel take on the roguelike Deckbuilder genre. It throws out the notion of energy or mana, and instead constrains players to use physical play space to unleash their intense combos.

What do I mean by physical space? Instead of a power cost, each card features a shape as its card art, showing you what shape and how many tiles it will take up in your play space. The real trick is to craft a deck that has certain synergies where you will be slotting these shapes together to create rune overlaps and devastating combos. It’s a little hard to explain, so just watch the trailer. But it’s one of those games that when I saw it I instantly wondered why no one has tried to do this before? It’s genius!

It picked up a few laurels at Ludum Dare 52, and has been doing the rounds for a while it seems, but it only came across my radar on release day, so chances are you may also have missed it, and you too may find your next Deckbuilder while you wait for more Slay the Spire II updates.

Developer: Kniv Studio Co., Ltd.
Steam rating: Positive
Store Link

Strategy RPGs are a genre I really wanted to get into, but I just haven’t found the right one that can teach me the mechanics. Maybe I should give STARDUST: Wish off the Witch a go, because early reports are that it’s a pretty good time!

This gorgeous pixel art single-player SRPG focuses on the journey Star and her childhood friend, Yu, two kiddos that are out there for adventure to find out the mysteries of the stars.

STARDUST brings in some of it’s own flair though with the use of a card system that expands the standard turn-based tactics that are a hallmark of the genre. You will need to read your opponent’s moves and get ready with devastating combos and counters.

The art looks really great here, big gorgeous sprites with a cinematic lens. This kind of setting is usually not for me, but reading the Steam reviews, it could be a stepping stone on a journey towards tackling some of the more well-known games in the genre for me.

Developer: Galaxy Grove
Steam rating: Overwhelmingly Positive
Store Link

If you are looking to kick back and play a cozy game this weekend, Town to City is the big recommendo this week. An adorable blocky city builder that has you building your dream 19th century Mediterranean town, one that looks so cozy that I wish I could just climb inside the screen.

The big thing here is that the space is gridless. You can shape your town as you see fit, truly making it a one of a kind place. If you want to see what it would be like to live in your town, there’s a first-person mode where you can walk around and take photos, and explore the world you have created.

Town to City has a full story mode, or sandbox mode for those who want to just chill out and keep building. Honestly, I can’t stop looking at the trailers for this thing. It looks absolutely stunning, and I wish I had time to just veg out with some snacks and build a little slice of paradise. Please, someone do it for me and let me know how it goes.

Developer: Pipapo Games
Steam rating: Positive
Store link

Map Map - A Game About Maps is EXACTLY what it says on the box. This is a single player game where you travel around and island which camping with a group of adventurers. They task you with finding places around the island, so using your map and logic, you need to be a cartographer to work out where you are, where you are going, and where you have been.

This one looks REALLY neat. They say that it is super cozy and really rewards you going off the beaten path to find secrets. Just don’t get too lost, and make sure you map the way for future explorers?

Map Map - A Game About Maps has won a TONNE of awards over the past two years at Indie festivals. It seems so very wholesome, and watching the trailer makes me smile. I like smiling.

Remember at the start of this post how I mentioned a media crew? That media crew was Haley MacLean and Sarah Podzorski from the excellent team over at MinnMax. They were in Kyoto to visit 17-BIT, the studio where I work, and we spent the week together talking about making games, living in Japan, and which one of them would win in a sumo fight. They are putting together a studio spotlight on our crew, but they also did some shooting at Bitsummit. If you watch the whole thing, you will hear me talk very briefly about the lack of women in games, and see my tired dead eyes on the booth after a long one the night before.

They say never meet your heroes, but everyone I’ve met from the MinnMax crew is absolutely delightful. These folks are making AAA content every week, so consider throwing them a few bones via their Patreon, or at least subscribe to their podcast and YouTube channel.

Thanks so much for reading, and please tell some friends to subscribe! If you enjoy the newsletter please buying us a coffee. Got something that we should be playing? Drop me a line on Bluesky or something!

See you next week - Steve