If you happen to have a pre-school fan of Pocoyo in your home, this is one party you might want to RSVP too. Pocoyo Party expertly encapsulates the thematic feeling of the show to feel like a natural extension of it. It doesn’t contain a massive amount of content and a few of the mini-games aren’t as well thought out as the others but what is here is accessible and designed specifically for the fun of players aged 3-5.
A colourful, family friendly 2.5D platformer that makes no effort to hide its inspirations, Stitchy In Tooki Trouble delivers a few hours of well-crafted gaming. For older players, it’ll feel like a blast from the past that’s over just as quickly as it began. For younger players though, Stitchy will keep them engrossed for longer with forgiving systems, luscious worlds and slick platforming play.
Almost everything about Rain On Your Parade is geared towards giving the player a good time. A mischief simulator packed with wise cracks and pop culture references, it’s a lot of fun to play. Not all of the humour lands but enough of it does to make this an easy recommendation to anyone who liked Untitled Goose Game.
There are a number of technical issues which blight Forgotten Fields but there’s nothing here that couldn’t be addressed over time and with patches. The core of the game, featuring a very human and relatable story mirrored in a literary fantasy one, shines bright enough that those who can forgive a few glitches will find something unique and interesting here.
Vibrant, colourful, much deeper than it looks on the surface and doesn’t outstay its welcome, Say No! More is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. You’ll likely only play it once and it’s not a hugely interactive game, but if you like a game with a layered narrative, this will certainly deliver.
What The Dub?! takes a simple and enjoyable concept and builds a whole party game from it. There’s no deviation from the premise, for better and and for worse, and the game doesn’t leave a lot of breathing room between rounds. With a few creative jokers to play with though, this game gives you all the tools to have a very fun night in.
A competent, accessible, family friendly yet unusually dry quiz game, Papa’s Quiz offers up a few hours of party fun before the whole thing becomes stale. It won’t be challenging Jackbox for the party game crown but would fit right into a playlist of party games with friends and relatives.
While FMV game fans will likely enjoy moments of I Saw Black Clouds, there are some core issues here that prevent it from fulfilling the potential that occasionally glimpses through. The branching narrative needs a rework to ensure it respects all of the players' decisions because right now it feels broken, squandering what spooky atmosphere some decent acting performances manage to conjure up.
What’s good about Black Legend is very good. The gloomy atmosphere and the novel turn-based combat based on 17th century medicine are well designed and smartly implemented. Everything else about this game is either bland, rough around the edges or straight up poor. Diehard fans of turn based strategy games that can overlook the issues will still get something from Black Legend. For everyone else, there are better alternatives.
A unique blend of social deduction game and visual novel, Gnosia is a mixture of both and something new entirely. A strong narrative that’s unveiled little by little combined with a looping logic and deduction game make for a very compelling proposition and damn near essential for fans of either genre.
A flawed gem that’s an obvious labour of love, Mundaun combines unique hand pencilled visuals with an intriguing narrative that’ll keep you intrigued until the credits roll. It has a few issues and the game play can be a little reductive at time but there’s a lot more to love than hate with this game.
Despite a few niggles, Space Otter Charlie is a delightful, creative and fun game. There’s so many old school influences shining through here – a splash of family friendly Conkers humour, a structure similar to classic Zelda, traversal that feels like a modern day take on the Spectrum classic Jet Pac – that this game reminds me of the ‘good ol’ days’. If you’re in the mood for an old school action platformer game that benefits from modern day games design, this is the one.
Blind Drive is unlike anything else out there at the moment. It’s unique, innovative and hopefully the start of something new. As a proof of concept, this game demonstrates that it’s possible to create an absorbing, exciting experience based purely on sound. As a game in its own right, it’s thrilling, funny and a triumph of audio game design.
Battle Brothers has remarkable freedom that’s rare to see in the RPG genre. It truly feels like your decisions and actions have weight and that the responsibility for your band of warriors rests in your hands – quite literally on the Switch. That’s backed up by a deep turn based battle system that’s deceptively strategic. Unusually long load times and a frustratingly steep learning curve, compounded by a lack of an adequate tutorial, means that some players will bounce right off this game however, never getting to experience its best aspects.
Carving a destiny through The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante is a surprisingly heart-rending and engrossing experience. It won’t be for everyone – it’s a text heavy game and it navigates some heavy subject matters – but if you have a soft spot for interactive fiction, this is one of the best examples of the genre for quite some time.
Despite a few issues, Wind Peaks delivers 2 hours of zen-like, chilled gratification like only a hidden object game can. Games like this aren’t traditionally ‘fun’ or engaging but they scratch an almost primordial itch to find the missing things. If you need a Switch title to fill a boring train journey, this one would fit that bill.
Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 is less of a monster truck racing game and more a celebration of the most famous of the colossal vehicles and the bonkers things they can do. Almost every game play mode feels underdeveloped, you can wrestle with the handling and lose, and the tutorial is very poor. On the other hand, you can race around a dog bone shaped race track in a truck shaped like a shark. It’ll please its intended audience but for everyone else, there are alternatives worth exploring.
The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav has glimpses of ingenuity with its puzzle design, it looks great for its age and it has a satisfactory port of a point and click system on the PS4. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t pay off, often feeling disjointed along the way which isn’t helped by some uninspired vocal performances. Hopefully the sequel is better.
A few visual niggles and glitches aside, PUSS! is a challenging but equally rewarding game that’s utterly bonkers in all the right ways. An offbeat, eccentric art and music style, combined with an excellent risk/reward system, means this game gets a paw-sitive recommendation from me.
A great introductory game to the turn based strategy genre for younger gamers, Eldrador Creatures puts kids at the centre of its design. It probably could and should have been more than it is and this game won’t entertain TBS veterans but if you’re looking for something to entertain the kids in what remains of the lockdown, this game is worth a shot.