Tag: gaming

Watch the first trailer for cryptid-collecting deck-building auto battler Portentum

Snowfall Games has revealed the first trailer of their upcoming cryptid deck-building auto-battler Portentum. Coming to Steam later this year, Portentum combines original hand-drawn cryptid artwork with deep deck-building strategy, letting you hunt for broken combos using legendary creatures from around the world, like Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil, Mothman, the Chupacabra, and of course, Jimothy. If somebody’s uncle saw it in the woods in 1973, there’s a good chance it’s a card in Portentum!

Embark on each run by building a deck of 30 cryptids and mushrooms. Each cryptid is equipped with its own unique ability to deal damage, heal, summon a minion, manipulate the dice, and many other one-of-a-kind effects. Abilities can trigger upon a roll of the dice, another ally taking damage, or an enemy healing an ally. There are endless combinations and broken strategies to be discovered.

Once you’ve assembled your deck, head to the shop to deal a hand from your selected deck for that run. Spend gold to play cards from your hand, mobilize a five-slot warband, and then send your squad of monsters out to fight! Win ten rounds to achieve victory. Lose five, and you’re out.

Portentum’s meta is ever-evolving, as every warband you create joins the pool that other players face. As you keep playing and earning card packs, entirely new deck-building possibilities and obscenely killer combos will enter the fray, providing an endless array of strategic possibilities and challenges!

Portentum’s meta progression is built around long-term collection growth and competitive ladder play. Expand your card pool through booster packs, earned through gameplay or purchased via the game’s virtual currency system. These cards feed directly into both deck construction and strategic experimentation. This structure is supported by an asynchronous PvP system that removes queues and timers entirely, allowing you to engage in competitive matches at your own pace across multiple platforms and play sessions.

Ledgerbound Steam Review

Ledgerbound is one of those games I asked for, not knowing what to expect. I have never worked with OmniMegaSuperCorp, honestly; nobody has. This is their first game as far as I can tell. Thankfully, they sent me a copy.

The story is not simple in the most simple way possible. You work for an insurance company, and you not only love your job, but you are the best at it. You insure heroes in case things take a turn for the worse, and they die. Your job is to investigate and reenact those battles and prove they should have won, and show they were neglectful, so the company doesn’t have to pay those families the insurance money.

The problem is the best heroes in the world, with the biggest and best insurance policy, were just wiped out with ease, and now the company you work for and love is about to go bankrupt paying out that premium. Your mission is to find a loophole that shows they should have prepared better, fulfilled a prophecy, and saved the world. Well ok, you want to save the company, but the world will also be saved.

Also, it is a dating sim, because why not? Personally, I think the dragon chick is pretty hot, but hey, I’ve always had a thing for dating people I shouldn’t, and the HR lady is definitely forbidden fruit.

All that is meaningless if the game is bad; luckily, the combat in this turn-based strategy RPG is anything but bad. Each character has their own element to worry about in the usual rock-paper-scissors system and their own weapons and abilities, meaning you will need to focus on your strategy every step of the way. It may seem like a good idea to rush in with the big guy and let your archer hide in the back, but if the fire guy rushes the water guy, it might be game over before you know it.

The real question is, should you play Ledgerbound? The short answer is yes; the long answer is absolutely yes. If you like RPGs, this game has basically everything you could want. Interesting story, interesting characters, romancing options, sexual innuendo, humor, and a fun battle system. Aside from one instance when the game froze, I never encountered any technical issues. This is an 8/10 title. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

[Deck13] Release Window Reveal For Bullet Hell Meets Retro RPG ‘Crystals Of Irm’ (PC & Consoles) ***BER 2026

Gamers who crave juicy, good old RPGs with a unique battle system should definitely keep an eye on Crystals Of Irm. Our game will grace PC, PlayStation 4, 5, XBOX One, Series S|X and Nintendo Switch later this year. To build up some hype among our fellow gamers, the release window reveal is backed by a flawless trailer and a signature Deck13 Spotlight move – Mark your calendars for ***BER 2026!

Deck13 Spotlight and developer David Schütze are thrilled to invite all players to the beautiful world of Crystals Of Irm later this year! Your party of three brave heroes follows the archetypes known from beloved classic retro RPGs: fighter, mage, and ranger. They will test their might by exploring dangerous dungeons and traversing the vast lands of Irm with its cities, villages, and towns (in first-person 3D!) full of citizens awaiting your assistance. A complex combat system makes the gameplay challenging but never unfair.

In Crystals Of Irm, you will lead a party of heroes – proud representatives of three unique guilds, each embracing a different combat style, but sharing the same quest: to restore the long-lost Crystals that must be united once again. But it’s no easy task. Legends speak of three horrifying dungeons where the Crystals were mysteriously hidden. Many before our heroes have succumbed on this glorious mission. Will you join them, or will you bathe in glory? Do not forget that the world of Irm is huge and unforgiving. You have a long way to go before you even touch the entrance to those horrific places…

May the Crystals shine for you, travelers!

But brave heroes also need some time to rest. Set up camp and gather your party around a hot pot of delicious stew. Fish in the lovely ponds around Irm, and enjoy vibrant, one-of-a-kind cities featuring unique characters in every single one.

Crystals Of Irm will put a smile on the face of every single retro RPG fan with its massive overworld map and first-person dungeon-crawling elements. The combat system adds some much-needed freshness to the genre with one-of-a-kind, movement-based grid battles. Suddenly, from classic systems, you will be pulled straight into modern, fast-paced battles, where movement is key to casting spells or unleashing powerful attacks. On top of that, just like in a proper bullet hell, your agility will be tested because the key to survival is dodging enemy attack sequences.

Kynseed PlayStation 5 Review

Kynseed has finally hit consoles, and Pixel Count Studios was nice enough to send me a copy. Truth be told,I don’t know the best way to describe this game. It is a lifestyle sim, you start out living in a shoe- yes, if you are familiar with your fairytails, THAT old lady’s shoe. You and your twin sister will be adopted. Your childhood will act as sort of a tutorial until you inherit what is known as the Kynseed, where you trade 5 years of your life for it. When you come out of what I can only describe as a 5-year time warp, your uncle is dead, and your sister is pissed. Congrats tho, you own a house.

From here you can sort of do whatever you want. Go fishing, mine some ore, become a blacksmith, buy a store, buy many stores, help out around the village, start a family. Hell, go buy a kid. Sorry, I meant adopt a kid from the old lady in the shoe for 500 gold.

Combat is also an option; you can tell how hard combat will be by the name of the forest you are fighting in. Don’t worry, it isn’t hard to figure out. The best method is to do a bit of everything, but honestly, the game truly does not care what you do when you continue through the story and have to increase your reputation; pretty much everything will increase it.

The game has beautiful pixel graphics and functions very well; the real question is how fun it is, and the problem there comes down to how fun you find what you do in it. I love fishing, and the mini-game for blacksmithing is quick and simple. While the cooking could be better explained, once you get the hang of it you will be whipping up meals in no time. This is a 9/10 title that has been locked on PC for far too long, and is worth every penny of the $25 price tag. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Forsaken Realms: Vahrin’s Call Steam Review

Forsaken Realms: Vahrin’s Call was sent my way by the nice people over at Titan Roc, which I always appreciate. I think to truly understand why the game has mixed reviews on Steam, we have to understand what this game is not. It is not the next Fable, despite what the trailers may suggest. I don’t know why anyone went into this game expecting a 60-hour epic adventure with towns, dungeons, and side quests. This was never even suggested. You are simply a mercenary searching for your next adventure to make some money in a war-torn land.

Now, for starters, the game is beautiful, especially when you realize this game was made by a small team. I believe it was 7 people, and for most, if not all, it was their first project. Together, they made a handcrafted world for you to explore and live in. They also put a story together that manages to be both cohesive and yet allows you to feel like a mercenary who isn’t really some powerful chosen one by god, just some guy looking for chances to make money.

If there was anything bad to say about this game, it’s that while the checkpoint system is nice and it is refreshing to be able to die in a game without being punished, just reload at the last checkpoint and try again, it’s that the combat is clunky and it doesn’t matter how you play. If you want to play with magic, arrows, sword and board, or a giant sword, it will take some getting used to. My first two deaths were because I dodged or healed, and my character just didn’t do anything.

This can be worked around by being a bit more defensive than you otherwise would be, and it is far from game-breaking as some would have you believe. The price point, however, $35, does give me some pause on recommending the game. As my long-time readers know, I love indie games and have supported many over the years both with my reviews and by purchasing others. Forsaken Realms: Vahrin’s Call can be beaten in about 15-20 hours, and while fun does have its issues, and at $35 is a bit steep. It is a 7/10 title that, unless you are a hardcore fan of the genre, you will probably want to wait for a sale. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Far Lands PlayStation 5 Review

Far Lands on PlayStation 5 was sent to me by Axyos Games, a company I have worked with a few times in the past on games like Ebola Village and Apartment No 129. The good thing about Axyos Games is that you always know what you are going to get. The bad thing about them is it will never be a fantastic game. Far Lands continues that trend; it is an open-world survival game where you survive a plane crash and find yourself with nothing but a rock. Do not lose this rock until you use it to mine some more rocks and wood, or you will have problems.

If this game is starting to sound familiar, it is because it is basically the premise of most other survival games out there. You will also get attacked by zombies, only a couple different kinds, and very quickly run into guys with guns. Yes, if you are quick, you can kill them with the aforementioned rock; they don’t track you very well with the gun if you get close. None of the enemies are very smart, truth be told.

I know this sounds like I didn’t like the game, and I still haven’t even touched on how bad some of the animations are. I don’t know who designed the horse riding animations, but those look like something from the N64 days. Not liking it actually could not be further from the truth; you see, what they made was a FUN game. Yes, the game is clunky and adds nothing new to the genre. The game isn’t all that good-looking, but you can build some interesting things if you want; just looking around is fun in its own way, and there aren’t many survival games out there for $15 that function well and also offer this many ways to customize your base.

This game definitely isn’t for everyone, and the best way to play this is with friends who don’t take it seriously. It is a 5/10 game if I ever played one. I can’t hate it though. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault Launches Sept. 2 on PC and Consoles; Original Moonlighter Free on Steam Until August 9th

Every successful business needs time to grow before it can truly thrive, and Will’s humble shop is no exception. After nearly eight months in Early Access, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault launches in full on September 2nd on PC and, for the first time, consoles. To mark the occasion, the original Moonlighter is free to claim on Steam from August 5th to 9th – the perfect chance to meet Will before his biggest adventure yet. A demo for the sequel is available now on all platforms.

A sequel to the beloved original, which introduced players to Will—a resourceful merchant and adventurer balancing dungeon crawling with running a village shop—Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault entered Early Access in November 2025. On the road to its full release, the game received two major content updates. Greed and Glory introduced the HEX combat path, Blo-Blitz dual guns, and the wave-based Greed Colosseum. Blob-Life Balance followed with Bloblet shop companions, a stackable Poison Path, new weapons, and a Very Hard difficulty mode.

With the arrival of version 1.0, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault brings its main story to a satisfying conclusion while introducing new weapons, armor, and the Bomb Path; a combat ability that causes enemies to explode after taking enough hits, damaging those nearby. Will’s shop also reaches its final level, unlocking additional Bloblet slots, new cosmetic options, and even more room to make Tresna truly feel like home.

For players eager to continue the adventure, the Infinite Endless Vault offers a new postgame challenge: an ever-escalating gauntlet of gold-filled runs designed to test even the most seasoned merchants. And for the truly fearless, Hardcore mode raises the stakes to their highest level—fall in the dungeon, and it’s back to the very beginning.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault is open for pre-orders on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, with the full release incoming on September 2nd on PC, Xbox Series X|S (also in Game Pass), Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation 5.

Moonlighters 2’s: The Endless Vault demo is available now on all the above platforms. The Steam giveaway of the first Moonlighter will be held from 5th to 9th of August.

HellSlave II: Judgment of the Archon Steam Review

It isn’t often I play a game and its demo so close together, but it wasn’t that long ago I checked out the demo for Hellslave 2: Judgment of the Archon. Dear Villagers and Ars Goetia were kind enough to hook me up with this one, for which I am eternally grateful. For people who enjoyed the first one and just want to find out if this one is also worth playing, the quick answer is yes.

For those who want more details, let’s get started. You will begin by creating a character. I once again decided to give people the plague; I wanted to finish my game out and see if this would be as game-breaking as the demo made it out to be. Maybe don’t use this build on easy; with the right gear, you can win entire battles, even against weaker bosses, before they even start or in the first round. The right gear will let you start the battle dealing massive amounts of poison damage and then stack even more on top of it with your skills.

The battles kind of remind me of old Dragon Warrior in a way, as you only ever have yourself to fight with. You can manipulate the battle quite a bit by judging how long moves take and by waiting or defending, which is a nice touch. Again, on easy you can get away with just spamming your strongest moves, but anything higher than that and you will have to think before you act. The standard difficulty feels like the way the game was intended to be played.

A nice touch is that, rather than punishing you for avoiding enemies, the game rewards you for killing every enemy in an area, not just with experience but with extra stat points. In this way, my level 10 and your level 10 characters may not be even in power simply because you decided to kill every enemy in some games and I did not.

This brings me to my one issue with the game: there is a weird bug that did not exist in the demo. A few side quest bosses, for example, the skeleton you fight early on, for some reason just die when you enter the fight. I never had to hit him; the battle never started, and my weapons before battle skills never triggered. I just entered it, and the quest completed. I got credit for it, but the battle just resolved itself.

Aside from those weird bugs, the game looks and plays great. I loved my time with it; it is an 8/10 title that I am sure I will play again. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Soulbound: Online Steam Review

Soulbound: Online for Steam is classified as a pixel art action roguelite with an MMORPG overworld, which sounds like a lot is going on for only $15, even if it is only early access. With this much going on, you would think at least something would suffer.

Turns out, basically everything is suffering. We will get to that; let’s talk about the good first. The game does look great if you like pixel games, and the ability to work with up to 3 friends to raid and fight bosses is a lot of fun. The almost bullet-heaven-like dungeons are a lot of fun, and I am always a sucker for farming or fishing in a game.

Now the bad: the game lags a lot, more than most Early Access games I have played, depending on what is going on and how many people are playing. This goes for both input and output. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for what is coming next, which is honestly unforgivable.

While the real-time waits aren’t long at first, later on they become massive, literally days, and I have heard even weeks. If this wasn’t bad enough for a game you have to pay to play, I could deal with it. The unforgivable part is the fact that there is a progression wipe coming at some point, most likely at release. Anything bought with real money would be kept, everything else being reset. This, to me, is unforgivable and kills any reason to play the game; you are simply a playtester paying to play the game. You will lose all progress, and worse, and this is after fighting through lag, bugs, and waiting real time for it all. For this reason, I have to give the game a 4/10 and suggest you wait for a few patches and the full release or news on the planned reset being reversed. Best wishes, and may the gaming god bring you glory.

Echo Isle Steam Review

Echo Isle was sent my way by Josh Koenig Games, which is always appreciated. I won’t lie to you; I did not expect much from a game that cost $5 and was made by one guy and in every way appeared to be a complete rip-off of the original Zelda. I have learned one thing over the years, however: judging games by a quick look and the price is a quick way to miss out on a fun title.

First, yes, there is no way to avoid there is no way to avoid comparing this to Zelda because this game is an homage to the early games in the series, and it wears that very proudly. More importantly, it does it very well.

Now you are going to notice fast that this is a pretty short review, because the game is designed to also be short. This is sort of Josh’s thing; he makes retro games that are affordable, easy to get into, with no fluff. The dungeons are small, which doesn’t mean easy; some of the bosses can be tough if you aren’t careful. You get in, find the key, and then upgrade, fight a boss, and move on.

The story is equally as easy to get into. The lighthouse on the island has gone out; you are on a quest to relight it. The people on the island help with what they can; you explore a bit to find a few secrets, and away you go. The game can be finished in one sitting; I think I beat it in about 2 hours. My only complaints are the lack of achievements and the sword on some enemies could be a bit finicky later in the game. Not in any sort of game-ruining way, but a few times I swung and missed when I definitely did not miss. Still, this is a 9/10 game. Everyone should buy it. If you like old Zelda games, you will love this; if you don’t, this might give you a reason to try them. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.