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• TFI Friday: three new indie games that have nothing in common
• The Artful Escape is "like if David Bowie went on a space journey and came back as Ziggy Stardust"
• Ultimate Audio Bang #11: pursuing our Destiny
• The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles has some great musical off-cuts
• Ubisoft CEO says "important progress" has been made after employees call for change
• Steam’s new storage manager will show you where your game’s gigabytes are
• Mystery Steam Reviews looks down the barrel this week
• Dwarf Fortress’s new mouse menus make it so much easier to dig deeper
• Samsung's 500GB T7 portable NVMe SSD is down to $59 at Newegg
• Gigabyte's excellent M27Q monitor is $290 at Newegg right now
• Stray shines most when it lets you be a jerk like a cat
• Banners Of Ruin is Wind In The Willows crossed with Slay The Spire
• A year on, Gabe Newell feels "great" about Half-Life: Alyx
• Minecraft Dungeon's Echoing Void DLC takes you to The End
• Outer Wilds' "first and only" expansion arrives this September
• Make Space Engineers looks a little more Satisfactory with the Heavy Industry update
• Everything announced at the Annapurna Interactive showcase 2021
• In Skin Deep, cats have recruited you to fight space pirates
• Hyper Light Drifter follow-up Solar Ash releases this October
• Neon White is part demon parkour game, part dating sim
• Starbase's early access space race has begun

TFI Friday: three new indie games that have nothing in common Posted: 30 Jul 2021 09:15 AM PDT It has been a hot minute since I hit you with some fun new indie games (I was on holiday! Gimme a break!) but I'm very excited to be back with some crackers this week. I was too tired to come up with a theme, though, so instead here are just some fun games that I think you'll like, woooooo! In fact, I've managed to pick three games that are so disparate in style and tone that I don't think I could link them by a theme even if I really, really tried. I can start with a more topical one, though. Yes, it's about vaccines. But like, in a fun way. I promise. Read more

The Artful Escape is "like if David Bowie went on a space journey and came back as Ziggy Stardust" Posted: 30 Jul 2021 09:00 AM PDT The Artful Escape has been a long time coming for Beethoven & Dinosaur founder and designer Johnny Galvatron. While his side-scrolling platformer - about a teenage musician going on a fantastical journey to find and create his own stage persona - made its initial debut back in 2017, Galvatron tells me this game has really been 38 years in the making. He's a professional musician himself, having been the lead singer of electronic rock band The Galvatrons in the mid noughties, but he's also been raised on a diet of video games since the days of the Sega Master System. He started designing his own games during the Nintendo 64 era, but it wasn't until 2012 that he finally decided to make a proper go of it. "Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP really made me want to make an indie game for iPad," he tells me, "[while] Kentucky Route Zero pushed me into the mindset of making something for PC. And, look, things spiralled out of control and here we are." Read more

Ultimate Audio Bang #11: pursuing our Destiny Posted: 30 Jul 2021 08:06 AM PDT On this week's episode of Ultimate Audio Bang, Imogen shares some juicy news nuggets with us. Splitgate – a Halo meets Portal FPS – seems to have garnered some serious interest. Naturally, both of us haven't played it. Sounds cool, though. Elsewhere Halo Infinite's doing a thing this weekend, which we also aren't playing. To be fair, we're waiting for John Masterchief's invite. And just to round things off, Apex Legends has a new character, while PUBG might be going free-to-play. It's a stacked one, folks. Read more

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles has some great musical off-cuts Posted: 30 Jul 2021 07:59 AM PDT It's been a great week for Ace Attorney fans. Not only has The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles finally arrived on Steam, giving us two brand new courtroom dramas to sink our teeth into, but there's also a rather brilliant double-pack deal going on right now that gets you The Great Ace Attorney and the Ace Attorney Trilogy for just £40, which is a mega saving considering both games currently sell for £30-odd apiece. If you've yet to experience Capcom's legal dramas and don't know where to start, I strongly suggest buying both. It's also a good week for Ace Attorney music lovers, too. Capcom's had the soundtracks for both games on Spotify for a while now, but hidden away in Great Ace Attorney's special content menu is a treasure trove of unused music by composers Yasumasa Kitagawa and Hiromitsu Maeba. Accompanied by little notes describing their thought process and why they ultimately weren't selected, it's a great little peak behind the curtain as to what goes into making a rollicking Ace Attorney theme. And I wish more games did this as a rule, too. Read more

Ubisoft CEO says "important progress" has been made after employees call for change Posted: 30 Jul 2021 04:55 AM PDT This week, hundreds of current and former Ubisoft staff signed an open letter in solidarity with Activision Blizzard employees, who took part in a walkout on Wednesday to protest an alleged culture of sexual harassment and discrimination at the Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft developers. The letter criticises Ubisoft's own handling of abuse allegations, and calls for "real, fundamental changes" across the industry. Yesterday, CEO Yves Guillemot responded, saying the company has made "important progress over the past year", but acknowledges that "there is still more work to be done." Read more

Steam’s new storage manager will show you where your game’s gigabytes are Posted: 30 Jul 2021 04:22 AM PDT When I think about it, I’ve probably spent more time looking at Steam than I’ve spent doing grown-up and useful things, like staring at my washing machine’s controls. And like someone who knows where all the bits are, I’ve gotten used to some design choices that could be better. I’ve been using external storage programs to deal with space issues across my multiple Steam installs, but Steam’s beta channel updated last night, bringing a new download manager and, importantly, a storage manager. Read more

Mystery Steam Reviews looks down the barrel this week Posted: 30 Jul 2021 04:00 AM PDT I know I've already mentioned it in the strap, but I should probably just let you know the end result of this week's Mystery Steam Reviews now. It'd be in line with this MSR's theme. But, my goal is to entice you past this opening paragraph that appears on the latest page, so click the thing and then watch the thing, alright? If you're reading this after clicking through, know that you are the real hero. Read more

Dwarf Fortress’s new mouse menus make it so much easier to dig deeper Posted: 30 Jul 2021 03:12 AM PDT I have failed at creating a Dwarf Fortress many, many times. No tileset has managed to help me, no mod finally made it work. I just can’t get over the lack of a mouse-driven interface. And I won’t have to in the future. The latest development update for the Steam release of the detailed fantasy sim shows menus and mouse control in pefect harmony. Creator Tarn Adams casually flicks through screens without a wiki open on his other monitor, and finds things without phoning the Dwarf Fortress helpline and asking himself for help. Read more

Samsung's 500GB T7 portable NVMe SSD is down to $59 at Newegg Posted: 29 Jul 2021 04:39 PM PDT The Samsung T7 is a rather good portable SSD, available in the extra-secure "Touch" version (shown in the photo above) or as the cheaper and equally speedy "vanilla" variant. Today, that plain Jane Samsung T7 has been discounted heavily at Newegg, with the company offering a 500GB capacity drive for just $59.50. That's well below the original $100 asking price of the drive, and makes for a great deal against more expensive competition like the Crucial X8. Read more

Gigabyte's excellent M27Q monitor is $290 at Newegg right now Posted: 29 Jul 2021 04:20 PM PDT The Gigabyte M27Q is one of the best value 1440p monitors on the market, packing in a 170Hz refresh rate, a Fast IPS panel and unique KVM functionality into a package that normally retails for $360. Today, this 27-in monitor has become even more appealing at Newegg, where it's been reduced to $290, the lowest price we've yet recorded for it. It even comes with a free game, Outriders, for PC. Here's why you should consider this particular model while it's on sale. Read more

Stray shines most when it lets you be a jerk like a cat Posted: 29 Jul 2021 02:53 PM PDT Tonight's Annapurna showcase brought news of many games, and among them was Stray. First announced at E3 last year, it's a gorgeous-looking third-person adventure in which you control a cat trying to survive in a cybercity. The first developer walkthrough of Stray revealed that someone has given the cat a gun. Watch the trailer below. Read more

Banners Of Ruin is Wind In The Willows crossed with Slay The Spire Posted: 29 Jul 2021 02:13 PM PDT After a day short of a year in early access, turn-based anthro-animal battler Banners Of Ruin has launched in full. It's Wind In The Willows crossed with Slay The Spire, or Animals Of Farthing Wood crossed with Game Of Thrones. Check out the launch trailer below. Read more

A year on, Gabe Newell feels "great" about Half-Life: Alyx Posted: 29 Jul 2021 01:42 PM PDT We learned a little more about the Steam Deck yesterday via Gabe Newell's chat with IGN, but that wasn't all that was discussed. IGN also asked Newell how he felt about Half-Life: Alyx one year on - and (with no spoilers), how he felt about the game's ending. Read more

Minecraft Dungeon's Echoing Void DLC takes you to The End Posted: 29 Jul 2021 01:01 PM PDT Minecraft Dungeons's latest DLC is out now, promising "the conclusion of the Minecraft Dungeons story." Conclusions sound to me like the sort of thing you ought to include in the base game - but the DLC does also add the Minecraft biome known as "The End", Endermen mobs, and new items. There's a trailer below. Read more

Outer Wilds' "first and only" expansion arrives this September Posted: 29 Jul 2021 12:33 PM PDT Mobius Digital's excellent space exploration game Outer Wilds is getting an expansion. Announced during Annapurna Interactive's NotE3 showcase, Echoes Of The Eye is set to release on September 28th. While the devs say it will be involved in the game's existing narrative, they're keeping quiet on what exactly we'll be getting up to. But, judging from the name, it likely has something to do with Eye Of The Universe, a mysterious object in the solar system that you spend most of your time in Outer Wilds trying to reach. Read more

Make Space Engineers looks a little more Satisfactory with the Heavy Industry update Posted: 29 Jul 2021 12:31 PM PDT Space Engineers feels ancient to me at this point, but it seems only to grow in popularity. Its developers continue to support the game, too: today saw the release of the 1.199 major update and the Heavy Industry DLC pack. The changes are largely cosmetic, but it's good stuff if you like building big factories full of pipes. Read more

Everything announced at the Annapurna Interactive showcase 2021 Posted: 29 Jul 2021 12:30 PM PDT Tonight, Annapurna Interactive held their very first E3-like showcase, showing off loads of games they're publishing over the next year or so, as well as revealing new developers they're working with. We saw new gameplay for Stray, Neon White, Skin Deep, and a very special announcement from Outer Wilds developers Mobius Digital about a cryptic new expansion. If you missed the stream, read on, because we've made a big list of everything that happened at the Annapurna Interactive Showcase. Read more

In Skin Deep, cats have recruited you to fight space pirates Posted: 29 Jul 2021 12:22 PM PDT Skin Deep, the next game from Quadrilateral Cowboy and Thirty Flights Of Loving developer Brendon Chung got a new gameplay trailer at tonight's Annapurna Interactive showcase, showing lots more weird and wonderful ness for the "Die Hard in space"-like. It's a game where you've been, uh, "hired" by cats to be their insurance guy during a space flight. So, when pirates attack the ship, they pop you out of a container to fend them off. Naturally, I had to ask Chung: why cats? Read more

Hyper Light Drifter follow-up Solar Ash releases this October Posted: 29 Jul 2021 12:17 PM PDT Announced at the Annapurna Interactive showcase, the skating, monster-killing, vibey and vibrant Solar Ash will be released on October 26th. It's the next game from Hyper Light Drifter developers Heart Machine, sharing Hyper Light's cool and colourful 80s aesthetic, but flipping from 2D to 3D and putting a real emphasis on fluid movement throughout a huge world. I had a chance to chat with the devs about Solar Ash, and they told me a bit about why they decided to go for something so different, and about the challenges of making such a speedy character. Read more

Neon White is part demon parkour game, part dating sim Posted: 29 Jul 2021 12:07 PM PDT Neon White sounds like a lot. As you may have seen from tonight's Annapurna Interactive Showcase, it's a speedrunning first-person shooter where you use decks of cards that represent weapons to stop demons invading heaven. It also has dating sim aspects where you can chat and have a nice time with the other Neons (the demon slayers you're sort of working with). Better yet, it's made by the developers of Donut County, and designer Ben Esposito tells me that massive tonal change was because he wanted to go "apeshit". Read more

Starbase's early access space race has begun Posted: 29 Jul 2021 11:54 AM PDT Starbase looks like one of those games you could lazily suggest throws everything but the kitchen sink at the player, but after seeing the asset browser in the latest trailer, I think it might even have one of those in there, too. It’s Trine developers Frozenbyte’s fulsome space survival sim, one where you find resources, build ships, explore, trade, and fight with others. I could have listed way more things, but it was getting silly. And this is an early access release, so there’s more to come. Read more

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