March 27 - April 2

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IMAGE(https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/pictures/pictures/picture-13445.jpg)   Felix “Bigger Boat Needer” Threepaper

Welcome folks, and happy “178th Anniversary of the invention of those things that we all call band-aids” week!

On March 27, 1848, Drs Horace Day and William H. Shecut were granted a patent for a strip of medicated cloth that could stick to the skin. They sold their invention to another doctor, Thomas Allcock, who marketed them as Allcock’s Porous Plasters. They were only sold within the medical profession until 1920, when Johnson & Johnson came up with a rubber adhesive plaster for household use, calling it the Band-Aid. Like the plasters themselves, the name stuck. You may all celebrate by playing a game where bandages restore your health.

Besides the PC release of The Last of Us Part 1, there’s no big AAA releases, leaving the week clear for some triple-I indies.

Dredge has a lot of buzz this week. It’s a New Zealand-made fishing game, with survival horror elements mixed in. You take your boat out on the water, looking for bubble spots that indicate fish. There’s a fishing minigame to catch them, and inventory tetris to slot your catch into your hold. Then you head back to town and sell your catch.

The horror part of Dredge comes because some of the most valuable fish can only be caught at night, and night is when the eldritch horrors come out. There’s a panic meter for night fishing and the higher it goes, the more the horrors manifest, threatening your boat and precious catch. Crows can come and steal your catch, ghostly kraken can batter your boat, and much worse. It opens up that risk/reward equation when deciding how far to push a fishing trip. You’ll need to upgrade your boat to withstand the spooky surprises that can befall you, but you start with a debt to pay off. The first few hours could be sluggish until your boat is better decked out. Still, the art style is crisp, and the story is replete with mysteries. It looks like a cool hook for survival fishing.

Terra Nil is a building sim in reverse. Normally, you exploit a pristine, natural environment to construct a megalopolis. In Terra Nil, the aim is to rehabilitate wastelands into lush ecosystems: cleaning the air and soil, creating rivers, reintroducing plants and wildlife, and so on. It looks very calming. I’m not great at sandboxing for sandboxing’s sake, so I’m hoping it has a strong campaign.

Gripper is a game where you’re on your motorbike, racing through tunnels until you hit a boss fight arena. Your bike can shoot out a grappling hook to grip things, with different things providing different effects, like healing or damage to enemies. The heavy use of neon purple, and the synthwave soundtrack, give it a cyberpunk feel.

The Great War: Western Front is a World War One RTS from people who worked on Command & Conquer. There’s a strategic overlay theatre map, where you move troops and build up resources before zooming in for set-piece battles. On the battle map, there’s a setup phase where you put down your trenches, barbed wire, and troops before fighting starts. You can call in reinforcements during battle, at higher costs, but troops that start off on the battlefield are more vulnerable to the enemy’s installations. In typical World War One fashion, you lose way more troops when attacking than defending. I’m not sure how they do the campaign—is it 4 years of unrewarding, resource-sapping grind until everyone unlocks tanks? Still, where else are you going to go for a World War One RTS?

Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure is an expansion that takes Forza off-road with a new rally map and rally cars that you can play after you finish the main game. You’ll even get a navigator who sits next to you, screaming “Hairpin right! Hard left!” while you kick up photorealistic dust. The devs also want you to know that the open world map features a palm forest that’s “entirely smashable”, because videogames.

Innchanted is the latest in the genre of “co-operative chaos”, which was sparked off by games like Overcooked. In Innchanted, you’re running a bed-and-breakfast, with all the chores that entails: cooking and serving food, tidying rooms, protecting your inn from monsters and burglars, and so on. It’s going for a less frantic vibe than Overcooked, so hopefully you’ll still be friends with your co-op partners at the end of a session.

Rhythm games are so hot right now! This week’s one is Infinite Guitars, which puts a guitar-shredding minigame into turn-based RPG battles.

Lunark is a side-scrolling action platformer that looks like a sci-fi version of the original Prince of Persia. From 1989. It’s even got similar animation when your guy jumps to a ledge and hangs there for just a moment, feeling like he just made it. The cinematic style and rotoscoping also serve strong flavours of Another World. The screens look straight out of Space Quest, with colourful pixel-art settings. A great pick for the retronauts.

The Last Worker is a narrative puzzle game presented as an FPS, like Portal. The story is about the hell of working at Amazon the world’s largest retailer. You’re exploring the factory where you work, searching for missing coworkers, using your grabby gun to solve puzzles along the way. The satire ratchets up as the story continues, and the writing and performances seem good.

Speaking of games set in a dystopian capitalist grind, Citizen Sleeper comes out on PlayStations this week. Also coming out on consoles is the side-scrolling beat-em-up Blade Assault, which got mixed reviews when it came out on PC last year.

There’s a lot to like this week. Looking at Lunark makes me think of 1989 again and a whole era of gaming. The Last Worker has some interesting stuff to say. Terra Nil is very soothing and looks like a great podcast game. However, Dredge serves up the most original-looking game. It’s got a Sunless Sea vibe where you feel uneasy, but you know that playing it safe means a slow decline, so you keep going, pushing back against the void. GOTW.

Here's the list, in release-date AND alphabetical order!

PC

  • 03-27

  • 9 Years of Shadows
  • Alex's Tunnel
  • Astro Adventures: And the Portals of Madness
  • Brave Archer
  • Chinese Expeditionary Force - Assault Team
  • Ethernal
  • Future Front
  • GUARDIAN OF DYNAMITE : A BOMB PROTECTOR
  • Heartwood Heroes
  • KingMini
  • Manacle
  • Midnight Market
  • Netherguild
  • Pencil Plus: The Wrath of The Spankster
  • Save The Queen
  • Stadium Renovator
  • Stories from the Outbreak (Early Access)
  • Succubus: Hellish Orgy VR
  • Tactical Assault VR
  • The Last Hero (Atomic Fabrik)
  • The Secret Life of Dorian Pink
  • Unknown Ways
  • VR Drums Ultimate Streamer
  • Warspace
  • 03-28

  • 0xFF
  • 1000 Man General
  • Active Soccer 2023
  • Battle Tracks
  • Catacombs: The Asper Case
  • Crime Boss: Rockay City
  • Death Roads: Tournament
  • DROP - System Breach
  • Faraway Proximity
  • Fractured Sanity
  • Glory Room
  • God of Gamblers
  • GUTTERBRAWLERS
  • Innchanted
  • Johnny Chainsaw
  • Monster Factory
  • Pineapple on pizza
  • Poly Jigsaw: Animals
  • Railways: Train Simulator
  • Random Chat
  • SIFU Arenas
  • Simon the Sorcerer Origins
  • Slave Doll
  • Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher
  • Sokoboxes Duo
  • Subtension
  • Terra Nil
  • The Last of Us Part I
  • Touch Type Tale - Strategic Typing
  • 03-29

  • ACL Pro Cornhole
  • Adventures of DaKoo the Dragon
  • Ballsvoid
  • Dungeon Legend
  • Farmer's Father
  • Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure
  • Gripper
  • Handless show
  • Invariance
  • Linked Worlds
  • Metal: Hellsinger - Dream of the Beast
  • PictoPull
  • RAIDBORN
  • Smalland
  • Souls of White Star
  • Super Puzzle Cross
  • Sword and Fairy Inn
  • The Great Divide
  • THE ILLUSION: CURSE
  • Vault City
  • 03-30

  • Anyaroth: The Queen's Tyranny
  • BookyPets Legends
  • Crazy 21
  • Crazy Poker
  • Cursed Pantsu
  • Darksy's Adventure
  • DREDGE
  • Eggcelerate! to the Tropics
  • Eightrun
  • Ferb
  • Forbidden Dojo
  • Freedom's Twilight
  • Friction
  • I commissioned some dogs
  • INFINITE GUITARS
  • Jump Jump Cyberpunk
  • Lovely Wife_Misaki's evidence of cheating
  • Lunark
  • Plasma
  • Project Astra Dominium
  • Pyramis
  • Ravenbound
  • RE:Solver
  • Rooms Within
  • Roterra 4 - Magical Revolution
  • Royal Affairs
  • Saga of Sins
  • Sinful soul
  • Slayin 2
  • T.D.Z. 3 Dark Way of Stalker
  • Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
  • The Great War: Western Front
  • The Last Worker
  • Tomomon
  • Total Tank Generals
  • Traffic Brains 2
  • United Assault - World War 2
  • Unlimited Fight Ultimate Strike
  • Vertigo 2
  • Wastelander
  • 03-31

  • Aery - Calm Mind 3
  • Aquascaping Designer
  • AsteRoid Rage
  • Be A Rock
  • Blind and Schizophrenic
  • Crimson Connect Origin
  • Crush the Industry
  • Cycle Chaser H-5
  • DobbyxEscape: Pirate Adventure
  • Erin's Naughty Friday Prologue
  • Exodus: Trapped In Time
  • Family curse
  • Farming Sweeper
  • Finger is 300 bugs
  • Formula Retro Racing: World Tour
  • Ghosts over the Water: Changing the Tides of Japan's Future
  • GlowBoarding
  • Grotesque Realm
  • Hill Agency: PURITYdecay
  • Irradiant
  • Island Bender
  • Jiangcheng Entrepreneurship
  • KAKUDO
  • Keyboard Warrior
  • Kill Your Shapes
  • Mars Colonization
  • Memories from Beyond a Coral Sea
  • Metroplex Zero
  • Nautikin Adventures
  • NinjaFall
  • No More Inputs
  • OrbRider
  • Paintball with Friends
  • Search (Ahmad R.H.)
  • SHIRIME: The Curse of Butt-Eye
  • Shukuchi Ninja
  • Solbane
  • Solomon Snow - First Contact
  • Soul Dream: Undesired Shift
  • Squad Game
  • SWORD HERO (OneShot)
  • T.I.MO
  • The Dawn is Inevitable
  • The Fisherman and the Sea
  • Tribefort
  • Troublemaker: Raise Your Gang
  • Umbra
  • Well...
  • Wizards of Chaos
  • 04-01

  • Crab Champions
  • Lillusion
  • 04-02

  • Bye Bye Swingby
  • Dare To Spread
  • Hanatouchu no Ten
  • Monster Girl 1,000
  • revere
  • Risk your life to get your dinner back -Nyanzou action game-
  • Snake
  • Vegan Challenge

Xbox Series X

  • 03-28

  • Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator
  • SIFU
  • 03-29

  • Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure
  • Metal: Hellsinger - Dream of the Beast
  • RunBean Galactic
  • 03-30

  • DREDGE
  • Lunark
  • Saga of Sins
  • The Last Worker
  • 03-31

  • Blade Assault
  • Rally Rock 'N Racing
  • Shukuchi Ninja

Xbox One

  • 03-28

  • Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator
  • MLB The Show 23
  • SIFU
  • 03-29

  • Kingdom Rush Frontiers
  • Pirates Outlaws
  • RunBean Galactic
  • 03-30

  • DREDGE
  • Guns N' Runs
  • INFINITE GUITARS
  • Lunark
  • Tales of the Neon Sea
  • 03-31

  • Aery - Calm Mind 3
  • Blade Assault
  • Formula Retro Racing - World Tour
  • Rally Rock 'N Racing
  • Shukuchi Ninja

PlayStation 5

  • 03-28

  • Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator
  • 03-29

  • Metal: Hellsinger - Dream of the Beast
  • RunBean Galactic
  • 03-30

  • DREDGE
  • Lunark
  • Saga of Sins
  • The Last Worker
  • 03-31

  • Blade Assault
  • Citizen Sleeper
  • Shukuchi Ninja

PlayStation 4

  • 03-28

  • Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator
  • 03-29

  • Pirates Outlaws
  • RunBean Galactic
  • 03-30

  • DREDGE
  • Lunark
  • Saga of Sins
  • 03-31

  • Blade Assault
  • Citizen Sleeper
  • Shukuchi Ninja

Switch

  • 03-28

  • Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator
  • Kana Quest
  • Kraino Origins
  • 03-29

  • Gripper
  • Pirates Outlaws
  • RunBean Galactic
  • 03-30

  • Anyaroth: The Queen's Tyranny
  • Assault Suits Valken Declassified
  • BookyPets Legends
  • Doodle World Deluxe
  • DREDGE
  • Guns N' Runs
  • INFINITE GUITARS
  • Like Dreamer
  • Lunark
  • MOTHERED - A ROLE-PLAYING HORROR GAME
  • Norn9: Var Commons
  • Orebody: Binder's Tale
  • Papertris
  • Saga of Sins
  • The Last Worker
  • Ultimate Anime Jigsaw Puzzle
  • Yukiiro Sign
  • 03-31

  • Blade Assault
  • Formula Retro Racing: World Tour
  • Shukuchi Ninja
  • 04-01

  • Panda's Village

Comments

Dredge sounds very interesting will keep an eye on that one.

Dredge is getting pretty good reviews so far!

If they cleaned and tightened up Formula Retro Racing, it could be really good.