Typing royale, paranormal investigators, and a colourful shooter

Why hello there! It’s been a minute, huh? Since the last dispatch I’ve been and returned from TGX in Melbourne, Australia. I’ve caught a chest infection and recovered. My son started nursery school which was, and continues to bring me sadness. Oh, and I just turned 39 on Wednesday. A lot an happen in three weeks, right? So apologies for taking an unexpected break there, but life got incredibly busy.

I have managed to play some games during all of this, the main one being Esoteric Ebb, which has utterly captivated me. If you played the demo during Next Fest, you probably walked away thinking that Ebb was nothing but a facsimile of Disco Elysium, just in a colourful fantasy world. Some 15 hours in, that statement is still true in some regards.

Yet Ebb managed to ape out its own unique existence as you dive further, and further into the twisting philosophical questions that are hiding within the thoughtfully written quest design. I want to write something more concrete once I roll credits, so expect to hear. more about my esoteric adventures at a later date. What I would say is that if you like adventure games and Disco didn’t land with you, I would still give the demo of Esoteric Ebb a shot. It might be my favourite adventure in recent memory, even surpassing the incredible Citizen Sleeper, which I did not see coming.

Anyway, let’s take a look at what you should check out this week.

Developer: quicktequila
Steam rating: N/A
Store Link

First up this week is the hyper colourful corridor shooter TAMASHIKA from quicktequila, the developer behind the blissfully chaotic Lovely Planet. Keeping in line with their arcade shooter leanings, TAMASHIKA is a visual feast with hand-drawn animations, and a style that is unlike anything else I’ve seen. You have access to a semi-automatic pistol, and a short tanto blade, and you run through a procedurally generated level that changes every 24 hours. The game takes 10 minutes to complete, and there are specifically no checkpoints, unlocks, or cutscenes.

Stylistically alone, this one shot to the top of my list. The Steam store description hints that there may be more than we are seeing in the trailer waiting for us though, so I am interested to see what depth TAMASHIKA will bring. Definitely keeping an eye on this when it drops tomorrow.

Developer: Button Mash
Steam rating: Very Positive
Store Link

Sometimes an indie game gets thrown my way that I feel was custom made for me. Final Sentence is one of those games - a Battle Royale typing game with a weird World War II aesthetic and super impressive typewriters.

40 typists awaken in a darkened hanger with a masked guard holding a revolver to their heads. You type out a bunch of text, with each mistake causing your guard to fire the revolver. Is there a bullet in the chamber? Eventually, the answer will be yes. Out-type your enemies to live to type another day. The whole thing is dripping with a super serious meets ridiculous tone that I just can’t get enough of.

Multiple game modes. Private lobbies for friends. Detailed typing analytics to help mark your progress. Typing of the Dead may have finally been surpassed as the best action typing game.

Developer: Cyber Temple
Steam rating: Positive
Store Link

If your favourite part of Return of the Jedi was the Ewok tree village then DarkSwitch might be the game for you. A fantastical city builder where you need to build and protect a city in the trees from the impending doom hidden in the veil.

Mixing the city building of Frostpunk with some tower defense and exploration elements, DarkSwitch has a 20+ hour campaign with branching narratives and quests to complete. There are 80+ buildings to construct, technologies to unlock, and the style here is really something else. It’s certainly an interesting take on the city builder, one that I think a lot of will want to dive into.

Added to my wishlist. I am pretty new to the city building genre, but I definitely want to add some combat into the mix. DarkSwitch looks like the perfect place for me to start.

Developer: Stellar Fish
Steam rating: Mostly Positive
Store Link

Spark in the Dark is a medieval dark fantasy capital D Dungeon Crawler that looks super slow and methodical, something that is not typical of the genre these days. I remember seeing footage of this somewhere eons ago, and now it has finally crawled its way into an Early Access release, and the buzz seems quite positive already.

Spark in the Dark definitely is taking a bigger inspiration from Dark Souls than Diablo. The grim corridors of the dungeon will pit you against standard enemies like big spiders and skeletons, and the combat looks to be heavy and considered. There are already five classes of heroes, each with unique skills that level up the more you use them.

The reviews on Steam are mentioning a lot of interesting things, like how the mix of RPG and survival horror is a unique element that the genre has never seen before. That sounds pretty promising to me. They all mention that this game is HARD AS NAILS though, so get prepared if you plan on diving into the darkened abyss.

Developer: DALOAR
Steam rating: Mostly Positive
Store Link

I am a sucker for the Eldritch or Detective games, and The Occultist looks to combine the both. You are a paranormal investigator who arrives on an abandoned British island in search of his missing father. The wrinkle being that this island used to be home to an infamous cult back in the 50s, and it also just happened to be the place where our dear old dad spent his formative years as a child.

Armed with a mystic pendulum, you will need to solve puzzles, investigate the dark corners of the shrouded island, and survive in this narrative adventure. There is no combat in The Occultist, just you and a bunch of very normal cool paranormal things, and you’ll need to make your way through the muck in order to survive.

There was significantly good buzz surrounding the demo for this one, which is still up if you want to try before you buy, and the reviews are still trending strong after release, so if you want something a little spooky this weekend, this one has you covered.

The folks behind 1000xRESIST, one of the wildest narrative games I have ever played, just dropped a trailer for their next project. The tagline for the game on Steam immediately sells the vision of what this wild ride is going to be:

An AI dares to dream she is human. You’ve been hired to put her in her place.

Insanely excited to see this one when it drops sometime in the future.

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See you next week - Steve