"It was like the most positive response I've ever had to anything I posted," he says. On Reddit and TikTok, fans expressed gratitude and excitement for the inclusion. "Everybody was like, 'This is the perfect representation for autism. I feel seen,' etc., etc.," McMillen says. "That felt like somebody opened the door and said, 'Go on. Go ahead, do your thing.'"
It seemed like there was a never-ending list of incredible indie games to try - The Verge wrote about a lot of them! - and many worked brilliantly on Valve's handheld gaming PC. Some bigger games made a splash on Steam Deck, too, and while they may not look as good as on a beefy PC, I'm usually happy to deal with that simply because I can play them on the couch or out of the house.
There's only so much you can do improve on chess, but you can at least make it a whole lot weirder. That simple fact led to the great Really Bad Chess in 2016, and now, a more recent spin on one of the most-played games in the world is available for free for a short time on the Epic Games Store for mobile. This time, it's an even bigger deviation from its origins, turning chess into a turn-based roguelike strategy game that's just as bizarre as it is captivating.
Developer Vedinad has released the Spooky update for Megabonk, bringing a new map, character, and bosses. The Spooky update was initially "going to be a small Halloween update," according to Vedinad on Steam. That checks out, per the free DLC's name, but the developer added the desire "to make it a bit bigger." As such, the update is arriving for the festive season, with the Megabonk account on X promising a "new meta."
For the first time, CloverPit is available on console after surprise-releasing yesterday on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Game Pass (Ultimate and Premium tiers). The slot machine roguelike takes inspiration from Balatro and Buckshot Roulette, even featuring Jimbo from the former in the new Xbox launch trailer seen below. Players are tasked with paying off their gambling debt from inside a disgusting cell, and if they can't, they take a terrible tumble.
It's been a year of massively anticipated indie sequels, from Citizen Sleeper 2 in January to Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong in September. Sneaking in before the end of the year, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault is only entering Steam Early Access, but so far, it's building on the original Moonlighter in ways that have me captivated far more than I expected.
Few RPG scenarios are as alluring--or enduring--as the classic dungeon crawl. Ever since video games could emulate the pen-and-paper experience, there's been an endless gauntlet of shadowy mazes filled with loot and danger for gamers to explore. With big dungeon-focused releases like Diablo IV, Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, and Remnant 2 launching over the last few months, this feels like the perfect time to assemble a list of our favorite dungeon crawlers.
The Rogue Prince of Persia is coming to Switch and Switch 2 consoles on December 16. The game was in early access for around a year before being officially released for PC and consoles back in August. This version has been "optimized for handheld and hybrid play" and includes all content from the original release. That means players will be able access a wide variety of biomes, weapons and secrets.
I am convinced that I can get better at playing Ball X Pit, but whether I win or lose often seems to have little connection to my actual moment-to-moment skill. Sure, I can be smarter about my upgrade picks. I can aim and maneuver to maximize my DPS and avoid some attacks. But in the aggregate, my success feels more or less predetermined by an invisible curve that's slowly progressing me through the metagame.
There has been no shortage of unique games this year, but one of the strangest has definitely been Hotel Barcelona, the latest project from Suda51 and Swery, which puts a new spin on "grindhouse" horror. The 2.5D side-scrolling roguelike tasks players with surviving in a hotel full of serial killers inspired by '80s slasher flicks. It's a wild premise befitting the legacies of its creators,
Hades, which left early access back in 2020, is one of the best and most influential roguelikes of all time, so there's perhaps no greater sign of the talent at Supergiant Games that their own follow-up, Hades II, blows it out of the water. The formula is refined into its ultimate form; the combat is more complex (but just as intuitive), and the story is grander and more thrilling.
Whenever I go back for another run-which isn't too often these days, though I did spend at least three solid months of my 2020 malaise deep in a foxhole-I'm always impressed by the game's ability to wring near-infinite permutations of itself out of a relatively restrained framework. I say "restrained" with an asterisk here because, as any vets well know, the game is packed full with enough ideas to keep
Here's the official trailer for the new DK Island and Emerald Rush DLC, which will be available after the Direct. The other cool thing this new DLC adds is a whole new way to play Nintendo's massive 3D platformer. If you have completed the main story of Bananza, you can actually work for the villain of the story and join his mining company. Doing so unlocks a new mode in which you smash up emeralds as fast as possible.
This week I finally got to share what I've been working on behind the scenes: Kotaku's review of the remake of Metal Gear Solid 3, as well as a deep dive into what makes this reimagining tick. Long story short: I think the game rocks and it's been the most fun I've had with an MGS title in many years. But it's not out yet, so it won't be mentioned in this week's rundown.
A typical climb in Cairn - and most rock climbing games for that matter - tasks you with managing rope, and the pitons you use to anchor it to a rock face. You add pitons as you climb so that in the event you slip, you only fall to your last piton rather than all the way to the ground. In Free Solo mode, you don't have that safety net, turning each climb into more of a roguelike run.
"Lost in Random being a roguelike sounded like a great idea and [way] to continue with the IP, but taking a new spin on it," Martin Storm, the director of the new roguelike Lost in Random: The Eternal Die, told Polygon during a recent video call. "And that's kind of how it started."
