Lached Up Games serves a very specific niche with its quirky and colourful visual novels. Is there much of an audience for fanservicey visual novels filled with Australian humour about genderswapping (and now, with Help! I’m Turning Into A Mermaid!, species swapping)? Probably not. But for the people who do appreciate something that takes “oddball” to a truly surreal place,…
There was a time when video games were primitive enough that a book could be a more vivid gameplay experience. For example, the original Wizardry came out in 1980, and though it’s rightfully remembered as a classic, it’s also not much more than the seemingly endless sequences of corridors and…
Read MoreWe get a lot of games, films, books, and other such media that take place during the Sengoku era. Samurai Warriors and Nioh, for example. There are endless films that depict various battles from the era. Netflix even produced a documentary, which was terrible, but highlights that the Sengoku era…
Read MoreUchikoshi Kotaro has a well-deserved reputation for being one of the thinky game artists going around. The Zero Escape series established that reputation, while the original AI: The Somnium Files reinforced it. The sequel, nirvanA Initiative (‘A’ and ‘I’ capitalised, geddit?) doesn’t break new ground, but then again it also…
Read MorePiofiore: Fated Memories is one of the most powerful, provocative, and interesting visual novels that you will ever play. It tells a story of a woman and three rival mafia factions, and it goes places. Now, thanks to Aksys, we have a release date for the sequel, Piofiore: Episodio 1926.…
Read MoreI’m a big fan of itch.io for the freedom and open platform that it allows for developers to be creative, experimental, and directly canvas the audience for feedback for games that are not yet ready for primetime on Steam and its ilk. In addition, itch.io allows you to be transgressive,…
Read MoreI have a preferred list of supernatural entities: ghosts, cryptids, aliens. Sometimes they get mashed together, as it happens with the Mothman; he is thought to be an alien creatures who either warns of or creates catastrophic events. Developer LCB Game Studio and publisher Chorus Worldwide have announced Mothmen 1966,…
Read More13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim did to me what all good science fiction does – it made me, just for a little bit, question my perception of reality. Vanillaware’s latest title deviates from its gorgeous 2D fantasy brawlers to deliver a visual-novel-RTS hybrid that’s heavily focused on character interaction. The strategy…
Read More… And no, it’s not Fate/Stay Night. In fact, I think at this point it is safe to say that Type-Moon is having a laugh at our expense. The first game launched a massive, money-spinning industry in its own right, and we still do not have an official localisation of…
Read MoreI’m a big fan of itch.io for the freedom and open platform that it allows for developers to be creative, experimental, and directly canvas the audience for feedback for games that are not yet ready for primetime on Steam and its ilk. In addition, itch.io allows you to be transgressive,…
Read MoreWow! It has been quite the process and drama getting this together. When a hard drive AND backup crashed and melted, no only did we miss our original January release date for A Week On The Water as we had intended… but we very nearly lost the entire game! I’ve…
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