Hello! Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie Games Release Roundup!
This week, vampires, pirates and fake MMOs.
In smaller releases, Cosmodrill (PC / Morse Morse Games) is a game about flying through space and mining asteroids, Mothkeep (PC / Ivette Schmidt) is a hidden object game about cataloguing moths, Bravest Coconut (PC / Little Nebula) is a quirky adventure game about a cat trying to return a library book and ending up on a vast quest and Undergrounded (PC / Game Studio Inc, room6) is a point and click adventure set in the bowels of the earth that contain the entire history of America.
Backyard Baseball (PC) is a revival of the kid-friendly baseball series originally made by edutainment masters Humungous Entertainment, and now handled by an exceptionally determined elementary school teacher and indie team Mega Cat Studios. It strips baseball down to the basics, makes it more arcade-focused in its gameplay and sets it in the context of kids playing it for the fun of it. Also has a theme song by Snoop Dogg, impressively. Console releases are coming at an unspecified date.
You know that esports have joined the big leagues in sports terms, simply because they now have a management sim. Esports Manager 2026 (PC) puts you in charge of an esports organisation, so you have to assemble your team, trade players where necessary, hire the right coaches and devise tactics. Perfect for fans of competitive Counter-Strike and spreadsheets. Developed by Neurona Games and published by indie.io.
Emerging from Early Access, Palworld (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S) is the hugely popular Pokémon-meets-Ark survival game that Nintendo have tried (seemingly unsuccessfully) to sue into the ground. You catch beasties, put them in sweatshops and take over a dangerous wilderness. Developed by Pocketpair.
Despite its complete lack of immediate branding connecting it to the anime, Echoes of Aincrad (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S) is an action RPG based in the world of Sword Art Online. Effectively this is the in-universe game the series is based around, as you explore the land of Aincrad and try not to die. As someone only vaguely familiar with the source material, I apologise if any of those details aren’t entirely accurate, but that’s how I understand it from Bamco’s descriptions. Developed by Game Studio Inc and published by Bandai Namco.
In the latest in a long line of possibly unnecessary remakes, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced (PC, PS5, Xbox X/S) sees Ubisoft bring the pirate-based fan favourite Assassin’s Creed to new systems. Contains overhauled combat, new story missions and visual upgrades. Also the entire modern storyline has been stripped out so if you were somehow not enthralled by Office Work Simulator in the middle of your pirate adventure, rejoice! Oh wait, I’ve been informed it inexplicably has microtransactions now. Oh, Ubisoft, you just couldn’t help yourself.
Game of the Week is Moonlight Peaks (PC, Switch), a game best described as Stardew Valley for goths.
You are a vampire tasked with running your family homestead. This means all the usual life sim trappings such as maintaining crops, looking after livestock and befriending the locals. However, since you are a vampire, there’s an element of the supernatural here as you also get involved in potion making and spell crafting, have the ability to transform into a number of vampiric forms and can uncover some spooky secrets.
Cosy games are overabundant right now and it’s hard to justify most of them since they just tick off the Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley checklist and smile nicely at you. This one lets you be a vampire, and if that’s not enough to make it interesting enough to consider over the competition, I don’t know what is. Developed by Little Chicken and published (appropriately) by Story of Seasons owners Marvelous.
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