A title that will put a smile on the face of every indie fan and folks who remember the good old days of gaming. Crystals Of Irm is heading straight to PC, PlayStation 4, 5, XBOX One, Series S|X, and Nintendo Switch on January 21st, 2027! It wouldn’t be us if we didn’t invite you to check out our carefully crafted trailer, straight from the deepest dungeons of our video magician.
Speaking of dungeons, in Crystals Of Irm you will have plenty to crawl into! Dungeons mean dreadful monsters, backpacks full of loot, and powerful spells. As the party leader of three heroes from Irm, you will unleash your force on all the monstrosities in unparalleled fast-paced Grid Battles where your wits will be tested. So, move quickly!
But smiting opponents all day might make you tired, naturally. So, explore the Overworld map, talk to vibrant characters in unique cities, quarries, mines, and farms. Or, grab a rod and just catch your breath while fishing. There are plenty of ways you can enjoy your time in a game that sheds some new light on retro games and creatively blends first-person dungeon crawling with bullet-hell battles.
On behalf of Deck13 Spotlight and developer David Schütze, we’re honoured to invite all gamers to exploreCrystals Of Irmon PC and Consoles, January 21st 2027. Mark your calendars, polish your armor, pick powerful spells and may the Crystals shine for you!
Annihilated is a Roguelike RPG sent my way by Flashlight Games and Death Kumiai Games, and for that I am grateful. Annihilated is not your usual roguelike; it is very story-driven. So much so that I should warn you: some patches are very text-driven. This is not a big deal for most people, but for some of you it might be, and I thought I would give you a heads-up.
Another thing to warn you about: the game has various branching paths. You can make a decision that will end your game quite suddenly, and hilariously. Do not worry too much about that; the game does revert you back to before you made that choice so you can avoid it.
This brings me to my favorite part of the game: the combat has managed to make me not hate destructible weapons in an RPG. See, normally the only thing losing a weapon gets you is the fear of using a powerful weapon that you may waste, or if you are lucky, the game lets you get an item from it to build or enchant something else. In this one, basically anything that isn’t your basic setup will break after you use it enough. As you would expect, those are also the best items. The reason it isn’t bad that they break however, is that’s when they become the most useful. Your healing item might heal for far more; the damage-dealing beast you have may suddenly become something even bosses can’t deal with.
When you combine this with a cast of characters you won’t soon forget and an art style built for this sort of game, it becomes easy to recommend. When you find out it is a $17 title, however, it becomes a 9/10 must-buy. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Friendly Foe Games sent me Pit of Goblin, and I thank them for that. Admittedly, this one was a weird one for me to review. Don’t take that to mean the game is bad; far from actually, sort of. I am going to go in reverse for this review and tell you where this game epically fails, so when I say the good stuff and inevitably recommend this game, it won’t come off as weird.
First, the game has no tutorial at all. You will be dropped into the game to just figure it out. Should you buy a torch? A rock? Follow the other people and sort it out. How does the elevator work, and what floor should you go to? Better guess. The game also has some sketchy controls and graphics and no explanation for what you should be doing, really, but talking to a few people on the top floor does make it pretty clear you need to feed the queen.
The lighting is also kind of terrible at times; even with a light source, some areas are so dark it is hard to see. Stack this with the fact that playing alone or with a random group is basically not an option. You need the right group of friends to make this game fun.
This brings me to my final point. The game is $8, and aside from some minor technical issues- nothing game-breaking- when you do get lucky enough to have a good random group, or if you have a group of friends to play with, this game is one of the most fun games at this price point. Listening to your friends scream as a rat suddenly pops out, or it being feeding time and being just a bit too low on food so you try to toss your friend on the food tray to see what happens, is worth the money alone. The game is a 6/10 game, but with friends it is a lot of fun and worth picking up. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Escape From Playtime was sent my way by Mob Entertainment. Thanks to my daughter, I know way more about Poppy’s Playtime than I would like, and when I saw this, I thought, finally, one of their games I would actually like to try, even though I own and have played as few.
I won’t lie, I have heard the rumors that most of the team was laid off earlier this week. That won’t affect my review or my recommendation for this one. Yes, this is either a sign of my ethics or a sign of what is to come. If you don’t know, keep reading and find out; if you do know me, keep reading and find out if I actually have ethics.
The concept of the game is sound. It fits naturally with the world and the lore. It is just you and your friends (or solo, but it is meant for co-op) trying to survive in the Playtime universe in places like the warehouse or classrooms while being hunted by the hungry dwellers. This all sounds great, and all for $10. So where does it break down?
It really starts to fall to pieces when you download the game. At first, unless you had a friend or joined a Discord or group, there was no way to play with other people. It was strictly password-only. Eventually, they did add matchmaking, and this made the game only slightly better. I say slightly because it didn’t really become easier to find people to play with. It could still take a decent chunk of time if you picked a bad time to try, and never if you picked a worse time. (There are fewer than 300 people as I write this.)
The controls also aren’t great; there are maybe one or 2 enemies that matter, so any decent team is fine, and worse, most of the items are either useless or so overpowered that finding a few breaks the game anyway. The biggest sin this game commits, however, is that it doesn’t do anything. In a world with a ton of things going on that could have been placed in this world to make it different from the 20 other games that follow this same pattern of explore and collect items, it did not do any of them, or even invent a new one. It did not even try to fake it. At $10, this 4/10 early-access title is going to have to stay there for a long time before I can recommend it. With a multiplayer aspect that barely works and very little to do once it does, don’t waste your time with this one. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Stupid Never Dies was sent my way by the great people over at GPTRACK and I am eternally grateful for this one. Everything I am about to say about this game is one mans opinion. Stupid Never Dies has been met with mixed reviews, some positive, some saying it is just ok. One from Polygon very unjustly calls it “Easily the worst Game of 2026” (Yes I linked them, give them the traffic I don’t mind, then come back and tell me if i am overreacting calling it unjust in a year when Tokyo Scramble came out?)
Now anyway I digress, Stupid Never Dies is the story of Davy, a zombie in a world not unlike ours, except very different. Here monsters live on tv and in games and books. In Davys world they lived more in a parallel layer of Earth near us. One day, someone or something disturbed that and monsters mixed into the human side.
I will skip past a bunch of plot points as to not ruin the story, suffice it to say Davy ended up with some friends in a mall, attempting to over throw the king of the monsters. They all have their own reasons for wanting Davy to use his powers to eat other monsters and use their powers to beat the king, but Davys? Only one thing can make a zombie rise of from the weakest creature on Earth to fight a possible god, and it isn’t brains, it is love. Well one sided love, she is frozen solid in a freezer and has no clue Davy exists.
Ok so have we established the story is basically an 80s B movie in video game form? Awesome lets move on. Graphically the game is impressive considering the company has made exactly this game. The music is equally amazing at really hitting home the pop punk vibe they were going for. Now, if you don’t like these things I can quickly see where the game won’t be for you, but don’t mistake not for you with bad.
The combat however is where the game struggles, and that isn’t up for discussion. How in 2026 do you not have a lock on button in an action game? They thought to add a ring around the player to represent how far certain ranged attacks would land, but not a lock on? This alone made using certain powers damn near pointless to even try to use. I have thousands of kills with certain monsters and maybe 30 with others because there is no pay off to struggling against the controls.
As much as I personally love this game for the story and how much I enjoy the humor, this is 100% one of those games I will caution you before you buy. $50 is a hefty price for a game you may not enjoy. You can expect about 15-20 hours if you play at an average pace, so maybe wait for a sale if you are on the fence. I enjoyed my time with this 7/10 title, and would say it is worth the $50 for me personally, but I will say many would disagree. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
First, a huge thank you to Stormind Games for sending us the deluxe version of the game. The soundtrack is exquisite and I really enjoyed the artbook; absolutely worth the extra money. This is my first time with the Remothered series, so unfortunately I can’t really compare it to the previous installments or pick up on the series overall connections.
Sarah’s daughter Agata went missing without a trace. Her and her husband might’ve come across a glimmer of hope at the Ashmann Villa beneath the looming, slumbering volcano Mt. Etna. Quickly Sarah and her husband are separated and it becomes clearly they aren’t safe. Sarah is plunged into a dark mystery of vengeful nuns out for blood as she discovers her own supernatural gifts, learning Agata maybe the final piece in a horrific puzzle.
Oh boy, the story of this game is not for the faint of heart. Much like Hellraiser: Revival and Mouthwashing, this game deals with some incredibly heavy topics such as sexual assault and the trauma related to it. There is a trigger warning upon starting the game, but I’m just putting it out there. The game’s overall story I found to be one of it’s best selling points. I was genuinely intrigued to find out what in the hell was going on. I will say I wasn’t so much invested with Sarah, the player character, but the tragic story of Gloria we unravel throughout the game through memories. I really enjoyed the use of psychic abilities like recovering memories and finding secrets within mirrors.
Gameplay is predominately stealth based with puzzle solving. You can’t kill the enemies but hide, run, and stun. I was utterly grateful this wasn’t an Outlast situation where it’s running simulator. The enemies are persistent but not enough to be annoying. The Bride is the standout enemy of the game for good reason, her design is pretty damn disturbing and instantly elevates the anxiety the game does well to maintain. I like the unsettling black and white clips littered throughout the game with some jaw dropping imagery I wasn’t prepared for. The puzzles aren’t too demanding but not brain dead.
I must confess I wish the game clicked more with me. Partly way it took me so long to finish this review was trying to putting my finger on why it wasn’t. Great story, atmosphere, music, and enemy design with solid gameplay. I think part of it was I never connected with Sarah at all. Her voice actress did great. All the voice talent did. Sarah does a few stupid things throughout the game like running into danger alone when she could’ve had back up if she waited thirty seconds, and some of her narration made me laugh when it wasn’t supposed to. I found the enemies of the story so much more engaging than the main character. Part of it maybe the stealth aspect which makes traversing slow, which ain’t bad, but when you suck at path finding like myself, that means a lot of ground to back track.
In the end, I enjoyed Remothered quite a bit although ultimately, the game wasn’t quite for me. As it stands, I’d give it a solid 8/10 because it will hook you and keep on edge throughout a fair length game. Again, many thanks to Stormind Games for sending us the deluxe version, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Now, as you may have noticed, I rather enjoy hunting games, and Nacon has been nice enough to hook me up with a copy of Hunting Simulator 3, their foray into the genre. Now, I have never played their older games, so all I really have to compare it to is TheHunter: Call of the wild. So, is one better than the other? Short answer, no. Long answer: it all comes down to how you want to play the game.
Graphically, the game looks great but my favorite thing about the game is the fact that it separates and makes it very clear the difference between your trophy score, which is the quality of the animal you killed. The difference between killing a beautiful 12 point buck and a young 4 pointer. Then there is Hunter skill, which is how well you did at hunting the animal. A bad shot at the 12-pointer won’t be worth as much as the perfect shot at the 4, even if the 12 pointer is the better trophy, so you may end up breaking even on the score board overall.
Now it is a simulator, and the tutorial is much better than its counterpart. This is important for new people because hunting isn’t as simple as point and shoot. It goes quite in-depth, teaching you how to hunt deer and ducks. This is where I ran into my first issue. There were some collision issues standing on the dock where, even leaning over it, id hit the dock and not the duck I was aiming at. This was the only time I ran into this issue, for the record.
The maps themselves are beautiful, and even while just taking a stroll looking for your animal, there are sights to see. My only other complaint is having to get a single licence to hunt. This makes it a bit annoying to be going back and forth and getting a license, etc. Still, $50 for the standard edition, with starting content competitors charge you for, such as a dog right out of the box its easy to recomend. It is an 8/10 experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
As I am sure some of you know, and many of you do not, 2026 saw something called the Slow Game Club. It was something of a cool idea that I vaguely heard about late last year, but it was actually sold out by the time I did. What it is, in their words, is ” No endless libraries, no recommendation engines, and no algorithm deciding what you should play. Just twelve games, one a month, hand-picked by people who love games and want you to discover something extraordinary.“
That is the simple idea behind Slow Game Club, and to tell you the quality of games coming up, some of last year’s games are in the press release, and I will share those, but the first game for 2027 has been announced already, and that is Esoteric Ebb, with the rest being announced well by the time you read this, honestly.
Here are some of the important highlights from the press release below.
Key information about Slow Game Club
£49/€59/$59 annual launch pricing
An amazing indie game delivered every month via Steam key
A members-only Discord community to discuss and review each game, including a curated book-club style discussion group.
An exclusive live podcast and Q&A with every single developer
Available worldwide.
Physical Merch Box including:
An SGC-themed “Retro” Scarf
An SGC-branded vintage dad cap
A premium SGC-branded notebook
An SGC Mousepad with custom artwork
Exclusive SGC-branded Sticker Pack commissioned by indie game artist Frederikke Frydenlund (Art Director of Nippets)
6x Art cards with art commissioned by Into Games IG50 winners for every order
The club returns following a sold-out 2026 membership featuring Thank Goodness You’re Here!, Sorry We’re Closed, Promise Mascot Agency, despelote, Wanderstop and The Drifter.Our 2026 collection has a combined average Metacritic Score of 81.5.
Between them, the collection went on to include a BAFTA British Game winner, a BAFTA Game Beyond Entertainment winner, an Australian Game Developer Awards Game of the Year winner and an Indie Game Awards Best Debut winner.
We picked almost all of these before they were even nominated. We don’t claim to predict awards. We just know a good game when we see one.
And the members agree. In a survey of 327 members, 87% said Slow Game Club offered great value for money. The most common reason for joining? Discovering games they would never have found on their own. One member put it simply:
“I’m terrible at making decisions, and a subscription where I get given a game means it’s far easier to just… play a game instead of getting stuck on what to buy.” Another added: “Slow Game Club feels very well curated, and so far none of the games have been a complete miss for me.”
Twelve more independent games, all 2026 releases, chosen for their extraordinary worlds, characters and experiences. Already announced is Esoteric Ebb, the offbeat, narrative-rich fantasy CRPG from developer Christoffer Bodegård and publisher Raw Fury. The other eleven remain under wraps for now. Partly because the games are still in their launch period, and partly because the surprise is half the fun.
“I got sick of seeing a wall of games that a line of code told me I should play; I wanted real recommendations by real people. Most of the game store gurus are gone now, so consider Slow Game Club your resident indie expert. We do the crate-digging, the exploring, the deep dives. We respect your time, and then let you experience a game as it was intended. Slowly.” Brandon Cole, Creator of Slow Game Club and Co-Founder of Into Games
PLAY GAMES. HELP KIDS MAKE THEM. Slow Game Club was created by Into Games, a UK-registered charity helping young people from low-income backgrounds access careers in games. 100% of proceeds support its charitable work, including free game clubs, careers festivals and internships.
2027 memberships launch Thursday 5 November at 10:30 GMT. £49 / €59 / $59.
If this looks like something you would be into, you can sign up here. https://www.slowgame.club/ ( Full Disclosure: Savior Gaming does NOT receive monetary compensation from this site; the link is provided in case you are interested in gaming and possibly helping a charity.)
Tower Tactics 2 by Assemble Entertainment is a new card deck-building tower defense game that they sent my way, which I am grateful for. Now, at $15, the game may not look like much, and they make a bold claim of having over 100 hours of content. Personally, I have around 10, and I have to say, it certainly seems possible.
The game has a pretty simple concept. Each character has their own deck, and all 5 play differently. You can further fine-tune them with trickets that do things like make poison or burns last longer, give you regeneration, or make towers that would normally disappear after one turn ( these are normally free towers, something else spawned) last longer. This may seem small, but it can also change how you play a deck completely.
Another important thing to mention is that there are multiple play modes, from a campaign to a survival mode and even a little Crystal Mine mode that just gathers crystals you can use to trade in for more precious materials. The real question remains: how does it play, and is the content worth exploring? Honestly, that will come down to you. I spent about 10 hours in the game, and that took work, and I mean to keep it down to 10 hours. The game very much has a one-more-round feel to it, as I always wanted to try to find a better way to arrange my towers.
My biggest complaint is that many of the stats and menus offer no explanation as to why they exist. The axe and the same axe with the half crescents next to them mean something, but I am not really sure what. I think attack and attack speed, but the game doesn’t do a good job of explaining that. It also isn’t great at explaining that USUALLY 3 of the same tower will combine into one and level up. I say usually because some towers have special level-up circumstances, and this is usually on the card.
Be that as it may, for a $15 game with a massive amount of content, the game is worth buying. It is a 9/10 title you should not miss. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Skyhook Games sent me a copy of Lawn Mower Simulator 2, which I greatly appreciate. It is even more appreciated since I played the original Lawn Mowing Simulator and thought it was one of the most boring games I had ever played, but this one looked like a significant improvement. The question now is, was it?
Well, graphically, the game is far superior, as you would expect, but more importantly, the controls have been greatly refined. Everything just feels better. Mowers feel easier to control, and now even the more realistic aspects of overheating the motor feel like things you can control and act like you think they would.
This does, however, lead me to my biggest issue with the game. When it looks good, it looks amazing. You know what grass has been cut and what hasn’t; using the leaf blower, you can see the leaves move around wonderfully. But when the game looks bad, it looks terrible. The screen tearing and slowdowns can be very real and very distracting. I have also seen reports of save bugs that can wipe your save, but I never experienced this. I did get my copy a bit after release, however, so that may have been fixed prior to me playing.
The management aspect I find nice. It isn’t overwhelming, and it is as simple as it should be for this sort of game. You own a business for lawn care. It should be as simple as assigning equipment to an employee, assigning an employee a job, and away they go. Better employees do better jobs and make you more money. Bad ones cost you money in equipment repairs and bad work.
The most important change from the original to Lawn Mower Simulator 2 is the fact that this one actually feels fun and like a simulator, not like work. It is a $30 game that fans of the simulator genre will actually enjoy playing, I think. It isn’t the best in the genre, but it is the best on this topic. It is a 7/10 title that respects your time and effort. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
