Not A Cat Studios has announced STARCULT. Night: Twisted Age. The dark fantasy romantic visual novel is set in a world on the brink of disaster, and players must use an Emotion Palette to read others’ true emotions and intentions, influence relationships, and uncover the truth behind a brutal murder. The game has been officially announced for PC, with additional…
I first wrote about Ugly during 2022’s Not-E3 week. Its stunning art style and detailed animations are what originally drew me to the game – there’s something very charming there despite the game being described as a dark and twisted fairytale. It’s about secrets. There’s secrets everywhere. And those secrets…
Read MoreAfter all these years, the love of virtual pets is still going strong. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve said I want a new Tamagotchi in the last year; yet I haven’t pulled the trigger, as all my extra cash is going into savings or gifts for…
Read MoreI love a good spooky story; it doesn’t have to have jump scares, it just has to be deeply, deeply unsettling. That’s the kind of story told in Varney Lake, the second in a trilogy of Pixel Pulp games. I reviewed the first game, Mothmen 1966, about a year ago.…
Read MoreIf you’re looking for a turn-based JRPG that takes a little (okay, a lot) of skills, Virgo Versus the Zodiac might be for you. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy JRPG about Virgo, who is trying to revive something called the Golden Age and purge the Heretics swarming the galaxy. It’s been available…
Read MoreAffogato has players managing a coffee shop, listening to their customers enchanting stories, and using witchy powers to get rid of their inner demons. It’s kind of like Coffee Talk, plus strategic battles. It offers 30 unique “reverse tower defense” battle stages, a strategic arsenal of distinct Witch Cards, and…
Read MoreDie. Gather. Craft. Survive. Die again. Unlock new stuff. And try it all over again. That’s the basic premise of An Ankou, where players will explore haunted lands and become a servant of death. The whole ushering people to the end thing was done really well with Spiritfarer (seriously, play…
Read MoreI adore stickers, though I’m super picky about where I put them. As a kid in the early ’90s, I had one of those books (okay, many of them) of stickers that let you stick and peel and stick and peel; it was a huge playground pastime to trade. Smelly…
Read MoreMonster taming/catching games, like Pokémon, are often turn-based in nature. Adore is a little bit different as it features real-time combat instead. The developer, Cadabra Games, is based in Brazil; it makes sense that a Brazilian publisher, QUByte Interactive, would publish Adore. Th game has been in development since 2018,…
Read MoreOccult games are pretty common, but ones with puzzle-based gameplay are a bit more rare. Strange Horticulture is just that: a dark and cozy adventure presented as a hypnotizing occult puzzle game. It first launched for PC and Nintendo Switch in 2022, and is now just about ready to launch…
Read MoreRin: The Last Child is a magical, dark, fairy-tale Metroidvania (AKA action adventure platformer) where players take on the role of Rin, a demigoddess, in a mesmerizing adventure filled with runes, spells, and epic fights with powerful bosses. It combines exploration with crafting. If that sounds like something you’d like,…
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