September 16 - 22

  Felix “Wintry Oates” Threepaper

Welcome folks, and happy “31st Anniversary of the premiere of Frasier” week! You may all celebrate by playing a psychological horror game.

The Plucky Squire, published by Devolver Digital, has some LittleBigPlanet magic, charismatic narrator and all. The main idea is that you are adventuring through the pages of a children’s book—this part looks like a clever, 2D Zelda-type game with some combat and puzzles, where text appears next to the pictures, forming part of the puzzle. But you will also frequently leave the book’s pages and enter 3D levels, which contain all sorts of minigames and different mechanics. There are a ton of accessibility features to tweak for combat or the puzzles, so you never have to get stuck. This looks like one to enjoy with the kids.

Frostpunk 2 will have you managing a city during a snowy apocalypse. The city-building and resource collection from the first Frostpunk have been streamlined, and the real challenge is in managing people.You will have to keep your workers healthy and also marshal enough votes to keep the Council on side. This means making hard decisions that will always annoy somebody, like: do you work your adult miners to death to keep powering the city, or send children down there to help? It’s all rendered in a fantastically detailed steampunk art style with instrumental strings that are so hot in strategy games these days.

Keeping the Arctic theme going, Faaast Penguin is wacky kart racing with penguins, and you can have up to 40 people racing at once. The penguins are tobogganing rather than driving vehicles, so controls are not even as precise as your average kart racer: it’s all about speed and goofs.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Mask of Darkness is some chunky DLC for the first hit game of 2024. It’s a new area where you lose most of your powers and have to master the fiendish platforming and combat challenges on the dev’s terms.

On PC, UFO 50 is a concept album: a bunch of indie devs pretended they were a game studio in the 1980s and designed 50 games across a variety of genres: shmups, shooters, RPGs, block pushers, strategy, adventure, you name it. I have not had time to look at any of them in depth, but it’s like a Christmas hamper: there’s gotta be something good in there! PC also gets some God of War: Ragnarok and Final Fantasy XVI, as a treat.

The Plucky Squire looks well-executed, but it’s just not my cup of tea this week. I prefer my tea freezing cold, with a gangrenous thumb floating in it. That’s why I’m giving the GOTW to Frostpunk 2 and its grim choices, beautifully rendered. I’m just going to start it up, and may be some time.

GWJ Word of the Week

Kart racing: a subgenre of racing game where everyone is racing go-karts. For some reason this makes everything a lot more cartoonish and unfair than in the big cars. The karts can power slide, and often hop, and the tracks are littered with crazy powerups that can change a race in an instant. The genre was popularised in 1992 with Nintendo’s blockbuster Super Mario Kart, in which each kart handles differently and each racer has unique abilities and powerups, and the template has stayed pretty consistent since then. Until someone introduced a ball into the equation and Rocket League was born.

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

PC

• 09-17

• click frenzy
• Deathly Dominion
• DOCE
• Escape Team
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Hidden Cats Invade Venice
• Kajipeet
• Machinika: Atlas
• Mannequin machine
• Marko: Beyond Brave
• NEON Squad Tactics
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Mask of Darkness
• Repent
• Restaurant Owner: Prologue
• Resurrection : Nuke Island
• Seed of Heroes
• Subside
• The Plucky Squire
• Tidy Backpack
• Train Sim World 5
• Volcano Jumper
• Zly.ii: The Hacked Station

• 09-18

• Angelica's Chaotic Hardcore School
• Diverse Defenders
• Family Bible Quest
• GT Manager 24
• Keylocker
• OBSESSION
• Slackers - Carts of Glory
• Sound Horizons
• Spooky Pixel Hero
• StartPlay
• TOUHOU GENSOU MAHJONG
• UFO 50
• War Lands
• Water Delivery

• 09-19

• A Shade Darker Than Gray
• Agent Mirai and the Submission Machines
• Beast Brawl
• Beyond Shadowgate
• Card Rogue
• CatBox
• Copycat
• Cricket: Jae's Really Peculiar Game
• Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster
• End Of Death: Prison
• Enotria: The Last Song
• Falling Cube
• Gallerie
• Gates of Migad
• God of War: Ragnarok
• Hero Guider
• Hooked On Speed
• Hope of Taru
• Night Hacking
• Project: AHNO's Ark
• Rainy Day
• RECORD_DrowsyVortex
• Sweet Hot Spring
• Tanks Logic Puzzle
• The Adventure of a Tramp
• The Neighbor
• The Town of Nie
• Time Over

• 09-20

• 3D PUZZLE - Pirate Tavern
• Alexandria IV
• Ancient Savo
• Basil and the Isles of Spice
• Beyond Up
• BM Love Cafe
• Bring Me...
• Caution Ahead: Part 1
• Come Back Home Please
• Countin' Stars
• CRISIS Command
• Dairy of the Dead
• Deckception
• Elegy of Fate
• Excommunicated
• Faaast Penguin
• Frontier: Battle Royale
• Frostpunk 2
• HSS:Reload
• Inferno Sentinel
• Lorn's Lure
• Lyndaria: Lust Adventure
• Matchbox Driving Adventures
• Paper Kingdom
• Parking Garage Rally Circuit
• Rainbow Sea
• Rats in a Cage
• Seasonspree
• Shira's Adventure - Cave of Destruction -
• Slum Guide
• Sovereign Stars
• Spiral - Episode 01
• The Icarus Experiment
• The Karate Kid: Street Rumble
• The Train Station
• Theater School
• Touhou Fantasy
• Welcome to Empyreum
• Whispers of Prague: The Executioner's Last Cut
• XBall
• Yesterday's News

Xbox Series X

• 09-17

• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Mask of Darkness
• The Plucky Squire
• Train Sim World 5

• 09-18

• A Night On The Farm
• Keylocker
• The Last Shot

• 09-19

• Between Horizons
• Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged
• Byte The Bullet
• Cricket: Jae's Really Peculiar Game
• Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster
• The House of Da Vinci 3

• 09-20

• Faaast Penguin
• Home Safety Hotline
• Matchbox Driving Adventures
• MindSeize
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 2
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 3
• The Karate Kid: Street Rumble

Xbox One

• 09-17

• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Mask of Darkness
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
• Train Sim World 5
• World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing 24

• 09-18

• A Night On The Farm
• The Last Shot

• 09-19

• Byte The Bullet
• Cricket: Jae's Really Peculiar Game
• DROS
• The House of Da Vinci 3

• 09-20

• Home Safety Hotline
• Matchbox Driving Adventures
• MindSeize
• Paper Plane Arena - Lost Places
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 2
• Poppy Playtime Chapter 3
• The Karate Kid: Street Rumble

PlayStation 5

• 09-17

• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Mask of Darkness
• The Plucky Squire
• Train Sim World 5

• 09-18

• A Night On The Farm
• Keylocker

• 09-19

• Between Horizons
• Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged
• Cricket: Jae's Really Peculiar Game
• Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster
• Enotria: The Last Song
• Into the Radius

• 09-20

• Astebros
• Demons of Asteborg
• Faaast Penguin
• Home Safety Hotline
• Learn to Play Vol. 6 - Labyrinth
• Matchbox Driving Adventures
• The Karate Kid: Street Rumble

PlayStation 4

• 09-17

• Core Keeper
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Mask of Darkness
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

• 09-18

• A Night On The Farm
• Touhou Genso Wanderer -FORESIGHT-

• 09-19

• Cricket: Jae's Really Peculiar Game

• 09-20

• Home Safety Hotline
• Learn to Play Vol. 6 - Labyrinth
• Matchbox Driving Adventures
• The Karate Kid: Street Rumble

Nintendo Switch

• 09-17

• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Mask of Darkness
• The Plucky Squire

• 09-18

• A Night On The Farm
• Keylocker
• The Last Shot
• Touhou Genso Wanderer -FORESIGHT-
• Ziggy

• 09-19

• Atama
• Aura of Worlds
• Between Horizons
• Blokdoku
• Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged
• Byte The Bullet
• Bzzzt
• City Driver: Police Parking Simulator
• Coloring Pixels: Collection 4
• Cricket: Jae's Really Peculiar Game
• Desktop Dodgeball 2
• GINKA
• Heavy Hand: Pixel Tree Forest Fury
• Hidden Cats in Berlin
• Highway Legends: Traffic Speed Racer
• Hunt and Fight
• I Got Isekai'd Into a Shmup
• Japanese Rail Sim: Hakone Town of Natural Beauty and Hot Springs
• Kamaitachi no Yoru x3
• Loddlenaut
• LUMbA: REDUX
• Moonless Moon
• Nie no Machi -Iro Musubi-
• No Case Should Remain Unsolved
• Pixel Game Maker Series NYANxTECH
• Sinister Mansion
• Star Cruiser
• Tamagoneko
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime ISEKAI Chronicles - DLC 3: Martial Arts Tournament
• The Town of Nie
• Zombie Attack: Zombies Survival Shooter

• 09-20

• Faaast Penguin
• Farm It
• Home Safety Hotline
• Jump, Dodge, Die, Repeat
• Matchbox Driving Adventures
• Rainbow Sea
• Seasonspree
• The Karate Kid: Street Rumble
• They Came From the Sky 2

• 09-22

• Samurai Katana Rampage Stickman Saga