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We both enjoyed the game even with the little flaws here and there. Blitz mode really is a chaotic mess, but would only recommend if you all wanted to get one more round in. The game is fun to play with other while on a discord call. I’ve honestly placed this game into my rotation of games to play with Lucifera and others like Repo or Peak. Even though the game will start Early Access on Jan 19th, I’ might change the award depending when 1.0 comes out. I give Lunars the Thumb Culture Silver Award
Mutant Football League 2 is largely a fun time. Some underwhelming presentation and graphical issues aside, this is a fun, easy to pick up arcade football title that plays fast and loose with the rules of the sport. Even if you have only a fleeting interest in American football, chances are you’ll still get a kick out of all the explosive, anarchic mayhem on the pitch. So, with all that said and done, Mutant Football League 2 gets a Thumb Culture Silver Award!
The core gameplay and aesthetic of Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is present. There is definitely some room for improvement though to keep it from just being a DLC or D&D reskin of Demeo. I love the concept of keeping it simple, but in this case having more depth to the game mechanics is a need. A more robust storyline would also add depth with additional choices for variety rather than just an option of which map to do first. With this in mind, it receives the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
A Game About Digging A Hole is proof that not all games need to have 50+ hours of content to be great. In fact, the short length actually works in its favour, giving players just enough content before the admittedly repetitive gameplay grows stale. Trophy hunters may be disappointed at the lack of a Platinum Trophy, but, for the price of a coffee, this is well worth playing! Thus, I’m awarding A Game About Digging A Hole, a Thumb Culture Gold Award! Isn’t that fitting?
I Am Future: Cozy Apocalypse Survival manages to successfully blend the post-apocalyptic survival genre with a stress-free gameplay loop. There were times when I found the constant back-and-forth journey for resources a little slow, and other times when I wanted to skip the corny dialogue. But, overall, I had a lot of fun! I would easily recommend it to anyone looking for something that — whilst perhaps not genre-defining — is easy enough to get to grips with and isn’t bogged down with a myriad of complex systems. Therefore, I Am Future: Cozy Apocalypse Survival gets the Thumb Culture Gold Award!
I can understand the divided reviews to a degree. This isn’t an arcade style beat-em-up. You can’t just rock up without learning the core mechanics and expect to land a load of knock out blows. Plenty of times, it felt like my swings barely affected my opponent, while they could just step into my character model and unleash a barrage of heavy hits before I had a chance to back up far enough to even see them. It feels a lot more like an actual boxing simulator. The training videos suggest that you’ll be rewarded for actually fighting like a real boxer, rather than just flailing your Quest remote toward your opponent’s head. But I like what it’s trying to do. A game where improving your physical abilities will let you be better at the game is exactly what VR should allow. I’m going to keep playing, working out, trying to improve my own abilities. For this reason I’m happy to award Thrill of the Fight 2 the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
Netherworld Covenant is a game with clear intent and uneven execution. When its systems align, particularly in higher-difficulty combat, it delivers a tense, satisfying rhythm that rewards patience and learning. When they don’t, repetition, audio issues, and balance problems chip away at that momentum. Netherworld Covenant does not hold your hand, nor always respects your time, but it does offer moments of genuine strength and identity. Upgrades make you feel powerful without breaking the world entirely, and its visual style commits fully to its bleak fantasy. With refinement, particularly in sound design, map variety, and balance, Netherworld Covenant could stand taller among its inspirations. Thumb Culture Silver Award
Dead Format starts off strong with the mystery and worlds, but quickly ends up tedious and the story lacking. Which does suck some of the fun. The stalker is too aggressive at times, and with the amount of portals for her to enter the world from, it seems rather annoying to avoid. Especially during the end segments of the game. I’d probably say the highlight of Dead Format is definitely in the presentation, rather than its game-play. Although the game-play is fun with the minor puzzle moments it has. Yeah, I Would suggest checking Dead Format out, as the game has a noticeable amount of love in it. And I feel it deserves the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
The was an enjoyable experience in the first half, but because of bugs and my hard drive sounding like a engine because of this one game. Even with the many issues I was dealing with, I still had some fun. Hopefully, they fix these issues and maybe add a few more things to the game after beating it. But, that’s just my opinion. I give This Ain’t Even Poker, Ya Joker the Thumb Culture Silver Award
The Berlin Apartment tells its story beautifully through the eyes of many different narrators. There are plenty of opportunities to replay chapters if you’re going for for the platinum like I will be. For the slight bugs and graphics issues, I have to give the game the Thumb Culture Gold Award. Once these issues are fixed, I could easily bump this up to a platinum game.
Though Dream Garden may not feel like a game to someone like myself, it has a solid core. Everything in the game is available right away; without restrictions. No having to unlock or buy things after so much time or effort in advance. It gives the player the creative freedom without jumping any digital hurdles. With that freedom comes the cost of lack of objective or direction. Regardless, Dream Garden is worthy of the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
Disregarding the occasional nuisance of not lining up with enemy combatants to land a hit, MARVEL Cosmis Invasion is delightful and slightly addictive. Unlocking characters, learning each of their combat moves, and figuring out which one best suits your play style do not feel like a chore but rather a goal in and of themselves. Obviously, this game relies heavily on nostalgia and caters to millennials, but its modern playstyle and character depth make it fresh and contemporary. It’s a great example for other game developers to follow. Tribute Games took a genre that had aged out and turned it into something new, whilst celebrating the games and comics it was inspired by. I hereby grant Marvel Cosmic Invasion the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
I wouldn’t expect too much from Unboxathon, as the trailer shows everything you will probably experience. You can take your time with it, or simply have it run in the background (when you reach a strong way of making passive income). But overall, the game does well to kill time. A big issue I had was when I reached pretty far into the upgrade trees and newer boxes, the bubbles would randomly stop spawning new boxes. This would happen every time I would open a new menu. My only fix would be to close the game and boot it back up. After a while this issue stopped, but it was weird. I mean, Unboxathon will find its audience for sure, but from me, it gets the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Although not a huge step up from the original releases, Atelier Ryza Secret Trilogy Deluxe Pack is a fantastic collection of three charming and engaging RPGs. For returning players, the new content may not be enough to warrant the cost. If, however, you’ve yet to play any of the Atelier Ryza series, then this is the best way to experience them! With plenty to see and do, and a great cast of characters to adventure with, this should be on any RPG fan’s radar.
I’d say the game made me question if I actually had Arachnophobia, as I wasn’t overly bothered by seeing them. But I will admit the lack of sound and jump scare does excellent to build up suspense. More so, when you can see one of the eight-legged buggers, just out of view. Some highlights for me when Huntsman shines, was the use of different spiders, I honestly thought I was going to only see one kind. Sad that there are a few tedious bugs here, and there, with one that caused my game to soft lock. For more details when heading to the loading dock, I returned to the security room to make a quick save. Only for it to weirdly repeat the opening segment with the player to kill time. This led to me not being able to leave the room no matter what I did. Luckily, a save I had wasn’t that far back. In the end, I would say the game still stands out, regardless of its current issues. I would suggest picking it up for a good creature scare. That is why I’m giving Huntsman the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Although Night Swarm still outranks some of my other recent games, there are some areas for improvement. It has taken a lot of the foundation of the genre and built only mildly upon it rather than reshape it into more of it’s own image. What is there is at least enough to earn Night Swarm the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
So there is no concern that the lack of hype for this game was due to it not being very good. Men in Black: Most Wanted is a very enjoyable VR experience. It finds a great balance of being rewarding for existing fans of the franchise, whilst not allowing newcomers to feel alien in this world. I definitely recommend giving it a try. Even though I’ve wrapped up my review, I’ll still be making sure to finish my playthrough. I award Men in Black: Most Wanted the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
Death Howls stands out from today’s crowded space of indie soulslikes with its unique mix of deck-based, turn-based, grid-locked combat. Its oppressive darkness, pixelated Nordic tribal aesthetic, and an incredibly well-accomplished audio all blend together in perfect harmony to create an atmosphere that pulls you into its weird, mysterious, and creepy spirit world. It does fall into a repetitive loop as you farm lesser spirits for upgrades, rather early on in the game. But overall, the game had a level of difficulty and a layer of complexity, both in story and gameplay, that really lured me in. For lovers of the pixel-heavy soulslike / soulslite genre, I definitely recommend this game. It is as challenging as it is rewarding. With that I award Death Howl with the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
The game is okay, and I’d suggest picking it up to numb your brain on the weekend. But it does become repetitive rather quickly, thanks to the lack of tools or fun upgrades. I would have thought as you upgraded the trash bin, we would have unlocked some funny tools, like a vacuum cleaner or maybe bombs for getting through rubbish quicker. I would also suggest maybe having the dog clear trash rather than just finding valuable items. As the game doesn’t make them all that hard to uncover. This is why I’m giving My Wife Threw Out My Card Collection (So I Bought a Dump to Find Them All) the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Demonschool is a refreshing take on the tactics RPG genre. Simplifying the battle system and giving players the ability to plan and adjust each turn in combat provides a fun and engaging puzzle element to battles that had me tinkering and tweaking my team selection and tactics to find the most efficient solutions to each fight. Unfortunately, playing the pre-launch build led to a few bugs and hiccups along the way, but thankfully, nothing that rendered the game unplayable. Necrosoft have released patches, including a day one patch that updated the in-game font and confused me for a moment, and are continuing to bug fix. Hopefully the bugged PlayStation trophy is fixed in the next patch and people can get their Platinum. If you’re a fan of old-school tactics RPGs and want something a little bit different, but cut from the same cloth, join Faye and the gang in trying to prevent an apocalypse. Demonschool gets a Thumb Culture Gold Award.