Hello! Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie Games Release Roundup!
This week, powerful bonds, hairy men with claws and gladiatorial battles.
Bot Slash Bot is an action game about a robot whose entire movement is dashing and slashing. You control it by clicking where you need to go, drawing deadly lines around the game’s various levels. Developed by Traveller’s Box.
Dimraeth is a co-op pixel-art Soulslike with a deep combat system built around combinations of eight main classes. You and your friends can construct bases, build relationships and fight hordes of enemies as you survive in a harsh world. Developed by Mudtek.
The Guild 1 Remake: Europa 1410 is a remake of Europa 1400: The Guild, an old PC simulation game from 2002 built around medieval life. You take on the role of a medieval citizen finding their place in wider society. With multiple career paths to choose from, relationships to manage and power to accrue. Developed by Ashborne Games and published by THQ Nordic.
In smaller releases, we start with a game whose title is anything but short. Brazilian Drug Dealer Before 4: Demons from the Portal to Hell I Opened Are Still in the Favela and Now I Have to Save Mamadas from Ronaldo (PC / Joeveno) is a ludicrously Brazilian boomer shooter where, well, I suppose the title says everything you need to know. Second game in the series, by the way.
In smaller RPGs this week, Dunebound Tactics (PC / Terahard, indie.io) is a tactics RPG about a band of travellers crossing a vast desert to find a new home, facing hardships along the way. And Kernel Hearts (PC / Ephemera Games, Whitethorn Games) is a co-op roguelike action RPG about magical girls, where your goal is to climb the Tower of Babel and dethrone God, as is standard for the genre.
If you want games that are all about inventory and resource management, we have a couple. Cloudbreaker (PC / Ballast Games) is a bullet heaven with an inventory management twist, where you graft engine parts onto your ship as you soar through the air blasting everything that tries to take you down. Runeomicon (PC / TLR Games, Joystick Ventures) is a tower defence game about protecting an arcane ritual from those trying to stop it, casting spells by drawing runes.
In the cosy corner, there are a couple of games. Woodo (PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox X/S / Tiny Monks Tales, Daedelic Entertainment) is a sweet little game about building wooden dioramas and vibing with your little frog and fox pals. Shiba Sweet (PC / Maowoo) is a cooking game where you play a Shiba Inu running a dessert shop, made by a solo developer.
We have three different varieties of horror on show this week. Fright Train (PC / WildArts Games, Black Lantern Collective) is a Resident Evil style survival horror game set on a train where every character is an anthropomorphic animal, including your protagonist. Roman Sands Re:Build! (PC, PlayStation, Switch 1, Xbox) is a genre mashup game which combines a job simulator with a survival game, all set in two stories that suggest an impending apocalypse. Finally, Lily’s World XD (PC / SonderingEmily, Kwalee) is a desktop horror game set entirely inside the laptop of a teenage girl from the 2000s, featuring YouTuber LilyPichu.
Finally, Train Sim World 7 (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S / Dovetail Games) is for the sickos and the Germans who just can’t enough of managing a train network, now with weather, freight and the passenger network around Leeds (I assume that’s exciting).
We have a couple of licensed games this week, and your mileage may vary on the quality on offer. The Grinch 2: Saving Christmas (PC, PlayStation, Switch 1, Xbox X/S) is a 3D platformer about Dr Seuss’ festive curmudgeon, now reformed with his oversized heart and on a quest to prove his newfound loyalty to the hobby. It’s from Outright Games, who pump out licensed kids’ games on a budget, and this certainly looks like it’s continuing that pattern.
And there’s also a Walking Dead game, which are always of varying quality. The Walking Dead: Streets of Survival (PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox X/S) is a side-scrolling brawler set in the world of the AMC TV show. And I specify that, because unlike the Scott Pilgrim brawlers, this is pulling character appearances direct from the show instead of the comics despite that being a more logical choice for this art style. Developed by Odaclick Game Studio and published by Trailmark Games.
Blackwood (PC) is an action game where you play as a DVD store owner by day who becomes John Wick by night. This means you have two styles of gameplay. The first is a management simulation where you keep your shop running smoothly, and the second is a third-person shooter where occasionally you can break out some (possibly scripted) gun fu. It’s ambitious but it does, admittedly, look quite jank. Developed by AttritoM7 Productions and published by IZilla Games.
Aniimo (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S) is basically Palworld without the edge and with more gacha elements. You explore a big world, capture creatures and use them to progress through the adventure. Can’t tell if the art style is AI-generated or just painfully generic but something about the character models in this feel off-putting. Developed by Pawprint Studio.
Do you know what Bloomkeeper (PC) reminded me of when I watched its lead Steam trailer? Pikmin. You’re running around with a bunch of plant-shaped lil guys, strategically using them to assist you in your goals. You play as a forest guardian in a world that’s been burned. Now you must guide you little Pouic friends to plant themselves in the wasteland to revitalise the land. But along the way there are dangers you need to protect them from. Looks adorable. Developed by Resonance Interactive.
Another Eden Begins (PC, Switch) is a retro styled RPG led by Masato Kato, best known as a writer on Chrono Trigger and Xenogears. Similar to Chrono Trigger, this is a time-spanning story where our protagonist, Aldo, must work to prevent the space-time continuum from destruction. There are 18 recruitable characters, multiple endings and a theme song written by legendary composer and previous Kato collaborator Yasunori Mitsuda. Developed by Wright Flyer Studios.
Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter (PC, PS5, Switch) is the latest remake in the Trails series, revisiting Trails in the Sky SC from 2006. Taking place immediately after the first game (also available as a remake), you play as a girl named Estelle, whose closest friend Joshua has revealed some secrets about his past and left. Now she sets out to find him, embarking on a grand adventure filled with airships and looming apocalyptic events. Probably one of the easiest ways to get into Nihon Falcom’s massive Trails series at this point, to be honest.
Runescape: Dragonwilds (PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox X/S) is an open world survival game set in the world of ancient MMORPG Runescape. Developed internally by Jagex, this sees you building up your skills in order to reach and defeat the dragons plaguing the land. Can be played co-op with up to 4 players.
Nintendo’s beloved strategy RPG series is back this week with Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave (Switch 2). Set around the Heroic Games in the land of Dagsion, fighters are gathering to participate but the threat of a demon god looms in the distance. The story revolves around four fighters, each with their own story that can be hopped between as you see fit. Following the critical success of Three Houses and the less than stellar reaction to Engage, the fact that Fortune’s Weave appears to be a more direct followup to the former is promising for many fans.
Insomniac Games remain locked in the superhero mines and now we have Marvel’s Wolverine (PS5), where the most popular X-Man gets the cinematic Sony treatment. Critical reaction to this one has been a little mixed, with a lot of criticism based around the aforementioned Cinematic Sony formula and the presence of maybe a few too many hint systems. But it seems to be a perfectly serviceable 12-hour hack-and-slash based on a Marvel property. If that sounds good to you, you’ll likely have a good time. Meanwhile I wish that someone would lock Insomniac back in the Ratchet & Clank mines instead.
Game of the Week is Duo Quest (PC), a combination of a deckbuilder and The Newlywed Game. Developed by 1+1 Studios and published by Rising Tide.
Duo Quest is a roguelike deckbuilder where you and a friend must team up and use your combined decks to take down various monsters along your journey. And when I say combined, I mean that your cards will occasionally gain power from your real-life bond, based on answering questions about each other.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t make a roguelike deckbuilder Game of the Week, as the genre is flooded with samey games with little to differentiate them. Duo Quest, however, slaps a Jackbox game into the mix and fundamentally changes the game’s entire dynamic. And honestly, that’s enough to make me not only think that’s intriguing, but I also know exactly who I want to rope into playing this with me as a fun friendship test. A quirky idea that simply has to be Game of the Week.
I loved the guild when I was in HS, but even then, it felt unfinished. There were ways to make money, ways to build, and then…what? Hopefully the remake fixes the lack of goals or endgame.