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I can’t tell you about this game too much because it will spoil it for you. What I can say, it’s a sort of simplified Trials game (you know, that motorbike on a 2D track thing) but also that it isn’t.
It’s also not very long, is very free (on Steam), and it’s by Nifflas who you might know from such games as Knytt and Affordable Space Adventure.
I maintain that I am not really a fan of sokoban type puzzle games, and yet somehow, I seem to enjoy them. Perhaps it’s just when there are crate-pushing puzzles in otherwise crate-push-free games that I don’t like?
In any case, A Monster’s Expedition was one of the ones I did enjoy. You are a monster, who navigates islands which seem to make up a sort of Museum of Humans, as there are many artefacts (sometimes amusingly mislabelled as to their purpose) to be found. The game, however, isn’t about finding the artefacts – it’s about finding a way to leave the islands completely.
To do that you have to reach a ferry, and to reach the ferry you have to complete crate-pushing puzzles on each island in order to open paths, build log bridges, or make rafts to get around. Of course, they’re not crates you have to push: they’re trees.
You can chop down trees, then push the trunks as logs. If you push them sideways, they roll until they hit something or fall in the water, and if you push them lengthways they flip up on end and then over onto their side again. These, plus the double-height trees and some rocks, make up the majority of the puzzles and they’re all about trying to get logs into certain positions on each island to progress.
It’s simple, although many of the puzzles are not. Later on, you discover a few meta-puzzles, where there’s a collection of islands to solve, but not just to allow you to move between them – you have to make way for a log that needs to traverse the islands and bridges you’ve made too, which may mean the solution you had originally may not be enough for the log as well.
A Monster’s Expedition is a nice little (well, not little – it’s bloody huge) brain-scratcher, with a bit of humour and some fiendish puzzles. Oh, and if you’ve bought the itch.io Palestinian Relief bundle, you already own it!
Someone recommended this game over on Mastodon and it looked interesting. Then it turned out I already owned it and could play it on my Steam Deck. Result, eh?
It’s a match-3 puzzle game, but one that messes with the rules a bit. The idea isn’t just to match-3 (or more), as it matter which icons you match. For example, you only have so many moves, but matching certain symbols gives you more moves. Additionally, there’s a digital creature on the board, usually hidden, and you have to use symbols to track it down (such as arrows to point at it) and then blow it up. Triggering arrows and bombs use power, though, and you need to match other symbols in order to replenish it.
Furthermore, some of these digital creatures affect the board, or need blowing up more than once, or can’t be blown up. Or shouldn’t be blown up. It’s a lot more complex than your average matching game.
The surrounding motif of Beglitched is that it’s all set in a computer system. You’re a user of a sort of message board, and one of the prominent figures of the board has vanished and everyone else there now thinks you’re them – and most are out to stop you doing whatever it is that you need to do. It plays out as a series of small grids of levels, where the grid itself often contains puzzles and enemies. Progressing in the game opens up new folders on the computer, each acting as a sort of world with, generally, a specific change to the basic game rules.
It’s a good concept, and changing up the rules stops the core gameplay from getting stale. It certainly has a lot more depth than similar games, but it’s also somewhat shorter. Definitely worth playing if you like a good match game.
Rental is (or at least, was at time of writing, who knows what the Terrifying Future holds) a free game on Steam and nothing is more important in gaming than low, low prices. So why the hell not, eh?
Perhaps the best way to describe the game, assuming you can’t see the screenshots here, is What if Animal Crossing was Resident Evil on the PS1? Or maybe, Silent Hill: Sylvanian Families. It has the cute animals and the quaint little house and then Horrors.
As you take your cute little bunny into this holiday cabin, you quickly realise something isn’t right. In full BBC Ghost Watch style, you catch a glimpse of a thing. Or there’s a noise. Or a voice. It’s a bit creepy, especially given all the tweeity in the graphics.
I won’t spoil what happens, especially as it’s so short so, coupled with the freeness of the game, you’ve no excuse not to discover it for yourself, but after some hunting for items it gets even more disturbing and weird. Do you like cute free games that subvert your expectations and turn disturbing and weird? Then you’ll like Rental.
Another game off that SNK 40th Anniversary Collection thing I found Prehistoric Isle on. The game title really doesn’t match anything in the game itself, which is a platform shooter starring Athena (the SNK girl who is in a few of their games) and there aren’t any soldiers, psycho or otherwise. And you know what? I really enjoyed it!
It’s quirky, very different to other superficially similar titles from the same era, and Athena sings her theme tune as you play. Incredible work on a system which presumably had a pretty simple sound chip that plays samples rather than the ability to play back digital audio files like you’d get today. You also turn into a dragon for some reason every now and then.
Surprisingly, Psycho Soldier wasn’t impossible without infinite credits. In fact, I even managed to complete a few levels without dying at all. Unheard of for an arcade game, especially one I’d never played.