Christopher Lannoo's Reviews
Have you ever wanted to spend a semester at uni trying to avert the apocalypse with a bunch of friends? Then you can’t go wrong with Demonschool, as it pays homage to horror media from past to present, all the while bringing the turn-based RPG genre into modern times. You might get lured in by the gorgeous visuals, but it’s the stellar combat that will get you hooked and will keep you coming back to the game again and again.
There are few places that can match the modern history of a city like Berlin. The past century has seen regimes rise and fall in a massive way, due to which we often forget that the city was inhabited by regular people like ourselves. These are stories of victims, of those who refused to let these huge events stop their lives, of survivors. They are also tales of the beauty of the human spirit. The Berlin Apartment is a beautiful testimony to the perseverance of the people of Berlin and to human kindness itself.
Having not been all that good at video games for most of my life, I fell in love with games that focused on great stories, usually with interactions a bit more limited than in fully fledged RPGs and the like. It’s why I still adore series like Life is Strange and (most of) the Telltale games. AdHoc Studios takes the foundations of those games and brings them up to the next level. The polish is astounding, with perfect performances, brilliant art and music, and fantastic, thoughtful writing hidden underneath a heap of swear words. Dispatch is brilliant, and you should play it.
Translating an actual life into a video game is not an easy task, but Jenny Jiaso Hsia and her colleagues have managed it beautifully here. Through a collection of fun and short minigames, we get to dive into the soul of young Jenny and discover that our experiences might be more universal than we had thought. Carrying the pressures of your parents along with your own is not easy, and it’s just delightful to see how she has handled it all.
Arctic Awakening is a beautiful walking simulator that clearly takes inspiration from those that made the genre great to begin with, and while it makes valiant attempts at creating its own mysteries and forging its own connections between its characters, it just fails to land the final punch. Choices don’t feel impactful enough, with the game remaining very linear despite the dialogue options on offer, and the game’s bugs do enough to sour the experience as a whole.
In a summer full of remarkable cosy games, Discounty is another standout in the genre. Its story is a lot of fun, with twists and turns that you might not see coming; its characters feel so very human, which is always a messy joy, and the actual running of your shop feels so satisfying.
Tiny Bookshop made me nostalgic, even though I’m not a nostalgic person. It made me long for the days when we weren’t distracted 24/7 by all kinds of media but could take the time to just sink into one. Books have this magical ability to transport you away from this world, and this game recognises that. Even though it’s set in the present, there’s no talk of social media; you’re just able to take your time browsing a cute little bookshop before heading home and devouring the pages, only to come back the next day and ask for more. We need more games like this.
Ritual of Raven is a much-needed refresh of the farming sim genre. It manages to mostly avoid the trappings of similar games while adding some great touches of their own. The writing is fun and engaging, the gameplay is addictive – I don’t even know how many times I just kept on playing because I needed to do ‘just one more thing’ – and its world is gorgeous. I had high hopes for this game, and Spellgarden Games has duly delivered.
Wheel World is a highly polished game, with the beautiful visual style being accompanied by expert handling of your bike. You can practically feel the grind beneath the bicycle thanks to the gentle rumbling of the controller and the great audio. The synthwave soundtrack is a lot of fun, adding to that sense of going out for rides during the summer. The game might lack a little bit of character and story depth, but don’t let that hold you back from checking out the game. Even for a non-lover of biking like me, this game was a treat.
Whether you love music or just adore turn-based RPGs, there’s something here for everyone. Fretless would have been an excellent game if it wasn’t this huge ode to music, but being what it is makes it even better.
As debut games go, Quantum Witch sure isn’t afraid to take risks. It takes some pretty adult themes, combines them with incredibly witty writing and a really fun art style, and leaves you wanting more when you’re done.
Date Everything! really does give you exactly what the title implies. From your toaster to your bathtub, from your sex toys to your record player, you get to date everything within your house and the game sets you up with some really fun dialogue, even if upgrading your stats can become a little tedious. It’ll be interesting to hear who your favourite characters were, as they are clearly the stars of this show, thanks to great writing but truly extraordinary voice acting from a stellar cast. Just don’t expect a quick, streamlined affair: you’ll be entangled with this one for some time.
If you loved the first Monster Train game, you will absolutely adore this sequel. The developers iterated on everything that made the first game special and just upgraded it in every fashion. If you haven’t played the original, first of all: what are you doing? But all jokes aside, you will still find so much to love here, especially if you’re already a fan of the genre.
The Duck Detective games are a blast. They provide a perfect entry point to a genre that is slowly getting stacked with excellent games. And even if you’re not all that fussed about investigative work, there is a story mode that makes the deducing a lot easier. The games also only take about two to three hours to finish, so they’re perfect for an afternoon full of fun. And luckily, the game’s end does seem to tease future instalments, which I am 100% here for.
How to begin summarising an experience like Without a Dawn? For all its brutality, there’s a gentleness, even something delicate about how it presents its themes. Mental illness can be the harshest of things, but telling these stories can’t be as rough, as people wouldn’t be able to listen. Jesse Makkonen sticks the landing beautifully, though, with a game that’s as thoughtful as it is creepy. I found myself recognising so much of my own mental health struggles, without ever feeling attacked. No, I felt seen and understood, and that’s all you can ask of art. To make you feel seen and heard in a way that’s mesmerising and haunting.
Deck of Haunts gameplay loop, with the building phase during the day and the combat phase during the night, will keep you coming back for more as your mansion grows bigger and stronger. There’s a real power trip to be had, but just like giants can be taken down by many smaller enemies attacking at once, it’s tricky to not get overwhelmed by all these people wanting to figure out your secrets. But finding out your own strategy is a ton of fun, whether you go in for the kill or choose to cause madness galore.
Everything combines to create an incredibly addictive game. Drop Duchy throws you into its gameplay immediately, not bothering with too much story in a similar vein as Slay the Spire. You’re here for the gameplay, and boy does it deliver.
Like some of the best narrative games in recent years—I’m looking at you, Citizen Sleeper, 1000xRESIST, Spiritfarer, and Celeste— Many Nights a Whisper is ultimately a meditation on what it means to be human. Why we put ourselves under the stresses and burdens that we do and what ways we look for when it comes to finding ways to get away from those. And it succeeds in a magnificent way: not by telling us what to think but by making us question things we take for granted.
StarVaders is a game that takes the best influences from the genre—the seemingly simple basics that can be iterated on to make it as complex as you want, mostly—and adds its own unique twist. Maybe the best way to describe the game is ‘what if Cobalt Core leaned more into Space Invaders,’ with this one taking the best from both of those classics without being a copy/paste job. The game looks classy, plays wonderfully, and sounds amazing.
Despite there being a lack of big emotions and intriguing environmental storytelling, there is an absolute gem of a puzzle game to be found.