Indie team Megagon have announced a delay to the upcoming launch of their PC & Game Pass hit Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders on the PS5. Originally slated to launch on December 3rd, the title will now be pushed back – but the good news is, it shouldn’t take long.
‘We were very set on the December 3rd date, but unfortunately a last minute bug has forced us to delay,’ said Megagon co-founder Daniel Helbig. ‘Me and the team are truly sorry for the disappointment. Rest assured we are working hard on a fix, and are optimistic that the game will be released the following week.’
We will be back with the official release date ASAP!
Thankfully, the delay shouldn’t be long. Until then, enjoy the trailer, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
From Blumhouse Games and developer EYES OUT, led by Cory Davis (Spec Ops: The Line) and Robin Finck (Nine Inch Nails), SLEEP AWAKE blurs the boundaries between sleep and death.
In a desperate attempt to remain awake, the denizens of the last known city on Earth are reaching a panic crisis of reckless experiments in their effort to avoid The HUSH, the inexplicable disappearance of those who sleep. Playing as Katja, players must survive the devotees of various depraved death cults, try to stay awake and solve the puzzles of this mysterious world.
Key features include:
A psychedelic trip of the senses: Hand-crafted environments combine with a stunning color palette, unique FMV integration, and bending light to submerge the player in a cosmic horror like they’ve never seen before.
A world where sleep means extinction: Step into a unique setting, where an unfathomable phenomenon means that humans are disappearing when they fall asleep. The result is a warring world where dogmatic factions insist they have the one true solution for staying awake.
Arresting audio experience: Musician Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails has crafted an auditory experience to create heart-pumping moments and exhilarating dream-like sequences.
Survive to save the ones you love: Stealth and wits are your only weapons against the warped minds and bodies of humanity’s last remaining citizens. Avoid their twisted experiments, solve the puzzles of a distorted reality, and save the remaining good in the world.
Pirates Outlaws 2: Heritage is an upcoming deckbuilder from Fabled Game Studios, for which they were kind enough to send me an early copy. You play as a young child who survived a catastrophe and is following in the footsteps of their parents to be a famous pirate adventurer.
Your first test, fight chickens
All the usual tropes of these games are here: build a deck, travel on a map to different locations, fight monsters that grow stronger over time, and try not to die. This time, it is all pirate-themed. Of course, you will eventually die, and when you do, you can spend gold on perks to come back stronger than ever and do better on your next run.
There are some added things this time around, however. You can get some different companions to help out, for example, my first one was a chicken. I picked him because he was cute. There is a black market that allows you to ban cards you don’t like using, or a workshop that enables you to upgrade cards, making your starting cards stronger.
Another nice touch to the game is that you have to manage supplies throughout your run as you sail around. This isn’t some huge issue; it isn’t a survival game after all. Pay attention and make stops here and there to restock, and you are fine. You can also heal in much the same way. The downside to doing this is that it takes time, and elite enemies can disappear while you do this, costing you valuable rewards.
The biggest downside to this game, honestly, is that it is fun and can be challenging. The game doesn’t really bring anything new to the table or do anything we haven’t seen before. It also doesn’t do anything better than any of the other 50 games in the genre already available. To give credit where it is due, it also doesn’t do any of it worse. The game is fun, and I would definitely recommend it to fans of the first game in the series or the genre as a whole. It also isn’t a bad starting point for people wanting to get into the genre. But if you are specifically looking for something new and fresh within the genre, this isn’t it. It is still a solid 7/10 game that’s worth playing. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
As some of you may be aware, not long Free League Publishing sent me a PDF of their Starter set for Vaesen. If you want more details about what is in that, you can read about it here. A few weeks after that, I got home from work to a package on my doorstep, and it was the physical version of that same starter set and the core rule book. Now it is an excellent starter set, but I got to wondering, can someone with no experience playing this game, truly get a group together and play this game? So I gathered the women in my life together, a case of our prefered alchol, and got started.
Beautiful cover art for the core rule book. I didn’t use this for my experiment
The first thing I did was have everyone blindly choose one of the 5 playable characters that the set came with. My daughter decided to play as a rugged Soldier named Fronz who couldn’t read. I don’t know why she decided he couldn’t read, but I just went with it. The other ladies chose the 2 ladies in the group; they have names, but admittedly, that isn’t important. By not important, I mean I forgot their names.
The starter set we used
Now, the Castle of Gyllemcreutz story that comes with the set is a great starting point that introduces you to the basics of the game. I don’t want to get too in-depth with what is involved with this story because it is easy to give too much away. Much of the story involves investigating a large castle to find clues on how to solve the mystery involving ghostly lights and missing people.
Dice rolls are all based on rolling a D6; players need to roll a certain number of 6’s to succeed. How many completely depends on how difficult the task is. There is also very little combat in this module, but the person running it could easily change that if they chose to. Nothing is stopping them, and all the information needed to do it is included.
But how did my players do? Well, they never were confused on how to play; they made their way through the castle with very little coaching besides trying to get them to stop goofing off, and the big finale of the whole thing was figured out before we figured out how to finish off a case of alcohol in 2 hours between the 4 of us.
I would absolutely say this starter kit provides everything you need to get you started playing Vaesen with limited or no experience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Forever Skys was released by Far From Home earlier this year on consoles after being in early access on Steam. They were nice enough to send me a copy recently to check out, and I have to say it is one of the more original survival games I have played.
All the typical survival types are here: gather food and water so you don’t die, build a bed so you can sleep. The usual suspects. Even having a special gun and scanner to discover new things to build isn’t new. It is all very well done, however, which is important.
What is new, however, is that instead of building just a base somewhere, you are building an airship. Yes, it is fully functional, needs engines and fuel, etc, to fly, and you will fly it yourself. It can be damaged, and you can fall off of it. You also gather food by fishing off the side of it.
The game really picks up when you have to find bigger and better things in the underworld. See, the game does have a story, and that story is basically to save humanity. And while you are pretty much safe while flying through the sky on your ship, traveling below the clouds is when it gets dangerous. This will require special preparation, because most things down there want you dead.
This brings me to my only real complaint about the game: getting around can be annoying if you are an idiot like me and don’t put the radar somewhere easy to see while flying. Don’t worry, I fixed it. Even then, a lot of the map looks the same regardless of where you go, and I just wish there was some sort of variety. The game is still an 8/10 survival game, and the ability to build and fly a ship from the start is nice. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
DemonSchool from Developer Necrosoft Games and publisher Ysbryd Games is a tactical RPG, and proudly wears its Persona and Italian horror roots on its sleeve. Thankfully, they sent me a copy to check out.
The combat is interesting; unlike most of these games, you won’t simply be moving a few squares, choosing an attack, gaining levels, and learning new skills. Every character simply knows the attacks they will know. You, of course, can learn new skills throughout the game, but these work like buffs. Your healer learns to weaken enemies, or your attackers can learn to also stun enemies, things like that.
Killing enemies will see them explode into blood
The other interesting thing about the combat is that you move in directions, not to spaces. This may sound odd at first, but it works out very well and creates an interesting dynamic. This becomes even more true when you realize characters like Namako will move through a group of enemies, stunning them just to end up on the other side of them. Faye can then attack that same group and create a combination attack with Namako.
Bosses are an entirely new situation
Bosses create an entirely new situation, however. They are all very large and have their own gimmicks to overcome. Many, if you stay in a certain zone for too long, will kill you in a single shot. This works in both directions, however, and trapping an enemy there will also kill them. Each boss has their own reason for existing and is part of the story attached to them.
Now you will notice I haven’t touched on the story yet, and that is intentional, as I don’t like to risk spoilers. You play as Faye, probably one of the only people left in the world who knows about a prophecy that demons will return to start the apocalypse. She journeys to this college on an island in an attempt to stop it. She teams up with Namako right away, another person with demon hunter blood in her family, despite her initial refusal. There are several tone shifts throughout the game, and they are all amazing.
The writing can be a bit cliché and silly at times, and it won’t be for everyone. The game, however, is a solid 8/10. The battles can be a bit redundant, but I enjoyed them. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
JDM: Japanese Drift Master has finally come to Xbox after being long available on Steam, and Gaming Factory was nice enough to send me a copy to check out. First thing I have to say is the game is beautiful. There is just no way around that fact. The map is based on real-world Japan, and just driving around it, you can see the inspiration and even some real-world places. Just driving around, drifting for no reason, can be fun. The cars themselves are some of the best I have seen in a video game.
I am a sucker for Manga cut scenes
The story itself plays out in Manga-style cutscenes. Don’t worry if you have never read one; the game has a handy help system for that. This, I thought, was a nice touch and really just steered into the Japanese aesthetic. More games really need to do this, I think.
All of that truly doesn’t mean much if the controls aren’t good. As someone who isn’t huge on racing games but has played some, they are fantastic. You have two different modes to choose from. A more arcade-style for an easier beginner person, and a sim mode where pretty much all the help options are disabled. This makes the game more approachable for everyone.
Now, some of you may be wondering, does the game support steering wheels? The answer is no. It was designed for a controller and does not support steering wheels. This may be a deal breaker for some of you, and I understand that. I do find it odd myself, considering it is a single-player game and they don’t have to worry about someone having an advantage in multiplayer.
At the end of the day, it is a 9/10 racing game. Drift fans will love it, many of whom have long waited for their chance to play this game that has been trapped on Steam. Is it easy? No, there is a ton to learn and get used to. But it is beautiful and fun to play. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Duskpunk is inspired by tabletop games and is definitely a mature title, not because of its visuals, but because of the images that will spring to mind by the words on the screen. Sent to me by Clockwork Bird, this title is not for the faint of heart. It is both challenging and grotesque in how it plays how, and I mean this in the best way possible.
My first play-through saw me as a soldier, missing part of my memory nursing an injured leg that I would soon lose. Struggling to survive and even find food in a world at war that didn’t care. I won’t go too deep into specifics, but suffice it to say, even the clergy offered me drugs to help me get by and ease my suffering. Every choice is life or death at times, from gambling in hopes of gathering enough money to eat to choosing where to sleep.
There are some downsides, however, while the story is fantastic and every character I came across is interesting and well thought out, dice rolls can be brutal even on the easiest setting. The game seems to be built on making you fail since many even simple decisions require multiple dice rolls to succeed, but only one to fail. Even a small injury to a stat can be game-ending. I don’t say this to discourage anyone, but gathering resources while racing against the clock and fighting dice rolls won’t be for everyone. After multiple play-throughs, I am still enjoying the game, but I can understand why some people would not.
This is one of those games that fans of this genre need to check out. For example, if you enjoyed Citizen Sleeper, you will likely enjoy this as well. However, if you don’t like games like this, I don’t see this being the game that changes your mind on the genre. At a price point of $20, it is an 8/10 that fans of the genre should’t miss. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Dread Meridian is a VR survival game, and they were kind enough to let me know that they have a playtest coming up on PC VR, META Quest 2,3, and 3S. Here is a quick blurb from their Steam page so you can learn more about it. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Dread Meridian is a VR survival horror adventure across the frozen wasteland of Oglanbyen.
Play as Daniela, a researcher who ventures to a remote arctic island in a desperate search for her missing twin sister, Isabella. Scavenge for resources, solve cryptic puzzles, and battle unimaginable creatures while unraveling the mystery of her disapperance. Will you pierce the veil surrounding Oglanbyen, or succumb to its terrors? Test your wits against the twisted creatures that stalk the lands. Planning is key to survival on the lost island.
After checking out the demo for this, all I can really say is, go check out the demo. It is essentially a turn-based RPG combined with Monster Hunter. You go into battle and kill enemies, then use those parts to build bigger and better weapons. Effulgence RPG has a demo available, and it is well worth checking out.
Key features at a glance
Text-only visuals – the entire game (characters, environments, effects) is built from text symbols.
Tactical turn-based combat with a PING system that controls turn order and timing.
Convert enemies into gear – harvest raw parts from defeated foes and print new weapons and items.
Short satirical dialogues and a slightly absurd, darkly humorous tone instead of a heavy epic story.
3D-style globe map built from symbols, with locations gradually unlocking as you progress.
It should be noted, and the Developer has been very up front about this, that the December 2nd release into early access will be a very compact version of the game because they want to focus on player feedback for the first part. There is also a supporter DLC during early access that will be completely free to anyone who gets the game before the 1.0 release and won’t become paid until after that. (Those who got it free will have it free forever.) So go check it out, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 