Author: Ray Watts

The Fall In Love Visual Novel Festival, hosted by Studio Élan, brings fans a worldwide collection of over 250 visual novels across countless genres—all without the use of generative AI. The second annual Fall In Love Visual Novel Festival runs September 1st through 9th at 1pm EDT. Though the Steam festival page may disappear in a couple of days, these games, and their coverage will persist. Below is a brief overview of the games I played during the festival. You can find more coverage from streamers, reviewers, etc. by using the #FallInLoveFestival tag on Twitch, YouTube, and social media platforms.…

The UVW-CWA hardship fund is available to all qualifying North American games workers, even non-members. The hardship fund bundle has raised over 200k, with a final goal of 250k in the next two days. You can support it by buying over 100 games for $10 (or more) right now. We’ve seen a huge amount of layoffs and closures in the last few years, including the massive Xbox layoffs just last month. The UVW-CWA’s Game Worker Hardship Fund was created to offer a lifeline to those impacted by loss of income as a result of industry layoffs beginning in January 2024.…

Yes, I do have games on my phone. And this is a pretty good one. STYLZ: Daily Runway brings to mind classic fashion games in the style of syn Sophia. Better in some ways, worse in others – it will live or die based on how active the playerbase is and whether or not the microtransactions get worse. I think a lot of us really enjoy the idea of designing and dressing up our characters – we’ve got MMO transmogs, Fashion Souls, multiple Destiny dress-up subreddits, Stardew Valley outfits, whatever is happening with Baldur’s Gate mods, Monster Factory (in its…

Visually and aurally similar to an old school installment of Castlevania, built with gameplay that rewards speed but allows patience. The most fun and rewarding gameplay loop is one based on the risk-reward calculus of when to ride your momentum forward and when to play defensively. The itch store page provides what would have been the back of the box, or maybe instruction manual text, if the game had come out in another era: “Undead hordes are swarming the countryside and endangering townsfolk, and you’re the only one who can stop them! Make your way through flesh-hungry skeletons and track…

Celestial Return has many individually interesting elements that don’t fully come together, but may offer enough to satisfy players willing to wrestle with some technical issues. The concepts of the setting in Celestial Return are great. A detective noir cosmic horror corporate dystopia where the horrors are more human than the corpos. Strange, untamed power appears and the first thing we try to do is weaponize and monetize. You play as Howard, a former cop turned private detective who carries a rescued sentient clairvoyant rose in his coat pocket. You live and work in Netherveil, a strata of city built…

Tri City Monsters is a game about finding love, acceptance, and growth in a dark world. Immediately, Tri City Monsters show you that everyone is welcome here. Character creation involves choosing your name, your pronouns, and your genitals (penis, vagina, or ambiguous). The gender you choose does not impact any of the choices or story beats, just how your character is referred to in certain instances. I also noticed a lot of the language is already not gendered, which is nice. Your choice in genitals dictates how your arousal and certain sexual acts are described, but none of the art…

Sugar Shatter provides low floor, high ceiling gameplay in a cute package designed to engage and entertain. Sugar Shatter pulls inspiration from many sources. You’ve got fun, distinct characters. You battle for control of the ball, and thus the ability to score. Positioning, timing, and managing your super moves are crucial. Stages, and even the bricks you’re breaking, come with a variety of effects. Your characters like to get a little trash talk out. It’s a synthesis of Smash Brothers, Lethal League, classic 1v1 fighters, and block breakers all in one. In a default match, a few blocks and a…

The New 8-Bit All-Stars Bundle is a wonderfully curated love letter to a classic era and the modern devs who keep it alive. The New 8-Bit All-Stars Bundle, curated by devs Dale Coop (SkateCat) and John Brobst (Pelusa Saga: Kaji’s Trials), is one of the most interesting projects I’ve seen in years. It’s thirty fully-fledged NES/Famicom homebrew roms across a ton of different genres. It represents thousands of hours of development, hundreds of hours of gameplay, and (at the time of posting) you have about two days left to get it all for $30 via their itch bundle page. Unless…

Burden Street Station tackles themes of commodification, grief, hope, and reconciliation. Sometimes glib, sometimes serious – always sincere. Mortal lives are distilled into singular moments, those moments are transformed into sentient books, and higher beings consume them for their enjoyment in much the same way as you might watch a reel or a TikTok. You play as a librarian meant to catalogue these moments for The Collector. A chance encounter with a book without a moment somehow spirals into you being cast out with no real direction or guidance, tasked with finding a derelict God on a world where no…

The new Time Crisis is a pretty good port of a great port of an amazing game. It still is not enough to save it. The original Time Crisis arcade machine is one of the all-time great light gun games. I’d go so far as to say it’s in the top 20 arcade games, period. In an era that was full of really solid “stand-and-shoot” and rail shooter games, Time Crisis immediately stood out as the first major cover light gun game. The cabinet came with a best-in-class light gun and an innovative cover pedal. Seeing it for the first…