I find the term “walking around simulator”, which games like this have often been categorised as, somewhat derogatory. It’s as if there’s nothing to the game at all, bar walking around, and it should be derided because of this. Which is missing the point. The aim of these games is not to “win”, not to solve puzzles and leap gaps and shoot Nazis, but to discover the story. Yes, you do this by walking around, but there’s more to it …
Gone Home, the game I kept writing “Grow Home” as over and over again, was in my Steam wishlist ever since I completed Dear Esther. Then, one day not so long ago, it was on sale and when I went to buy it, I discovered I’d owned it for months. Tch, eh? Like Dear Esther, you walk around and discover what’s going on by reading things and looking at things. Gone Home includes minor puzzle elements, but for the most …
At first glance, and indeed, at several subsequent glances, The Magnificent Trufflepigs looks and feels very much like Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture if it was a series of The Detectorists. It has the same slow, pondering walk through realistic British countryside aesthetic, no combat, and a story which just gets more interesting as you progress. Plus, you have a metal detector and have to dig stuff up. But the detectoring is just a delivery mechanism for the story, which …
My personal roundup of the best games I’ve played in 2015, and the game I’ve chosen as my Game of the Year.
Fantasy Life (3DS 03/01/2015) Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure (Wii U 20/01/2015) The Starship Damrey (3DS 21/01/2015) SteamWorld Dig (Wii U 30/01/2015) Picross e5 (3DS 31/01/2015) Weapon Shop de Omasse (3DS 04/02/2015) 3D Afterburner II (3DS 06/02/2015) Shovel Knight (Wii U 09/02/2015) Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition (Wii U 10/02/2015) 3D Fantasy Zone (3DS 15/02/2015) Rock Boshers DX (Vita 17/02/2015) Mario Golf: World Tour (3DS 19/02/2015) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (360 20/02/2015) Pokémon Shuffle (3DS 28/02/2015) Assassin’s Creed: Rogue …
