Jan 4, 2024Snack Size News
Inspired by classic tabletop roleplaying games, Baladins is a choose your own adventure perfect for all skill levels and ages. Set out on a quest as one of the Baladins: the cook, the luxomancer, the dancer, or the pyro. Their quest? To entertain the masses, of course! Wander from town to town to fulfill this mission as you make choices that will shape your story.
Each character brings their own unique set of skills to the table, and you can further improve them by making choices and picking up items. None of your decisions are inherently good or bad, but every single one shapes your outcome. And if you prefer to play with others, you and up to three friends can play together online or locally! Plus, whether you play solo or cooperatively, Baladins offers gameplay that you can complete at your own pace. And of course, there’s a dragon!
Baladins is coming to Steam this year!
Ages of Cataria is another choose your own adventure!
Dec 28, 2023Indie Highlight
River Tails: Stronger Together is a 3D co-op adventure platformer. Immerse yourself in a colorful cartoon art style as you and a partner embark on an epic journey. Play as Furple, a curious kitten, or as Finn, a fish with an attitude problem.
Work together to complete various puzzles across different environments. Your ultimate goal for River Tails: Stronger Together is to save Furple’s family, who are in danger. Team up with some unexpected allies to make your way upstream and into the snowy mountains. Explore the rainforest, delve into river caves, and cross a treacherous swamp to reach that distant mountain. You’ll also need to defeat some angry enemies and bosses, but if you work together, anything is possible!
While River Tails is designed as a two player game, there’s also a LoneWolf Mode so you can play on your own!
You can find this fun co-op game on Steam now! There’s even a demo for you to try out.
Nov 30, 2023Reviews
Fae Farm is a beautiful farming sim where you cultivate crops, craft items to decorate your home with or sell, and care for adorable farm animals. Befriend a varying cast of townspeople, and even romance some of them. Plus, you even get to venture into the faerie realm, where you’ll see faeries and fantastical creatures not seen in the human realm. Even delve deep into the mines to collect resources, fight enemies, and uncover mysteries!
The art in Fae Farm is absolutely gorgeous. It’s easy to fall in love with the game based on that alone. The scenery is varied. The NPCs all look different. Even your clothing options are lovely. Then, the furniture and decorating choices are great. You’re sure to find something that suits your style, whatever it may be. Adventuring into the fae realm is probably my favorite part. It’s so whimsical and magical. Even the dungeon is dreamy, though chock full of enemies. The art is absolutely what drew me to the game to begin with!
What I also really like about Fae Farm is that tools switch automatically for you. Walk up to a tree to chop, and you’ll immediately have your axe in hand. Then, go to a rock and poof! There’s your pickaxe! It’s a super handy mechanic that I would love to see in all farming sims. It saves time and lets me switch between activities much faster. Besides that, fast travel unlocks early game. There are several points across the map called Wayshrines that act as fast travel spots. You need to craft a seal from cave resources in order to activate the Wayshrine, but you can accomplish that easily early on. Having fast travel early in the game makes it genuinely useful and not just an afterthought. Plus, the mines have waypoints where you can place seals you’ve crafted in order to get to different levels without going through the whole mine. Think Stardew Valley’s mine elevator, but with more magic and teleporting!
Unfortunately, Fae Farm has more aspects that I dislike than I like. In order to play multiplayer, or even just name your character, you need to create a Phoenix Labs account. Otherwise, your character’s name defaults to the account name that’s on the system you’re playing on. So, my character’s name is a string of random letters I used for my Steam name. It kind of ruins any romance when my husband calls me by name.
I once wasted a precious Fae Farm day sitting in the crafting menu or almanac menu thinking the game was paused. It certainly was not. The nice thing is that you aren’t negatively affected for passing out after bedtime, so all I truly lost was a day of play time. It didn’t decay friendship points with my critters, and it didn’t ruin any quests. Then there’s the sales tables. The limited sales table spots really get in the way of me mass selling a hoard of items I’ve held onto for too long. It doesn’t inhibit money-making, just clearing out that stack of 600 fibers I probably don’t need so many of.
The exuberant laughing at everything is obnoxious, though. When I accomplish something, I laugh. When talking to an NPC, they laugh instead of speak. None of it is funny! I’d prefer if they muttered some nonsense like Sims do. Unfortunately, the laughing just lends itself to the overall soul-less feel the game has. The NPCs have no deep backgrounds, and their dialogue is repetitive and shallow. There’s not even a point to befriending anyone unless you’re trying to marry them. And there’s only a handful of marriage candidates. Even the festivals feel lifeless. They’re not exciting and engaging. Everything feels very surface level.
Don’t get me wrong, Fae Farm is somewhat fun. I’ve put some hours into it, but I’d hoped for a lot more polish for that AAA price tag. A better story with more meaningful characters would have made this game an absolute gem. I’d also like for everyone to have a nose, please! Everything feels so shallow and surface level. I don’t need some deep, dark secrets to go into it, just a little more substance that makes me want to talk to people or do things. And when you add up several minor gripes, things feel lackluster, and that’s what we have here.
Overall, I’d give it:
You can find Fae Farm on Steam and Switch now!
Check out another of my reviews on a magical game: Witchy Life Story!
Nov 8, 2023Indie Highlight
Spells & Secrets is a captivating rogue-lite adventure where you use a number of spells to fight your way through dungeon levels. You’re a first-year student at the esteemed wizard Academy of Greifenstein, eager to learn together with your fellow magic users. However, something odd has happened to the school on your very first day there. It’s now over-run by magical creatures, and of course it’s up to you to defeat those creatures, save your classmates, and save the school.
Start your magical adventure by creating your very own character with Spells & Secret’s comprehensive character creator. Select a body type and height that suits your vision, then craft the perfect eyes with shape, color, and makeup. Choose skin color, mix and match hair colors with different hairstyles, and pick clothing that suits your style. There’s even accessories to complete the look! Once you’ve created your perfect character, set out on a fun, spell-slinging adventure as you explore the castle’s ever-changing layout.
Use your arsenal of spells creatively to defeat enemies and overcome puzzles. Fling tables or use bolts of magic. Stun creatures or sneak past as a cute little mouse. Even find powerful artifacts throughout Spells & Secrets to enhance your abilities. Buy new spells and upgrade old ones by speaking to your professors. Uncover clues and secrets about the magical world as you explore the castle and rescue your classmates. And if you’re tired of playing alone, invite a friend to play with you via local co-op or Steam remote play!
Coming real soon! This will be available on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch tomorrow!
If you’re more interested in raising magical beings than defeating them, check out Fantastic Haven!
Oct 4, 2023Reviews
Yaruul’s family inn has been stolen by the evil wizard landlord, Colin. You must reclaim the family’s legacy by managing the inn solo or with your friends. Brew potions, dispel curses, catch fish, cook food, and fight negative influences. Prove you’re a better innkeeper than the evil wizard by making the inn a success! Innchanted is a heartfelt and hectic adventure set in a fantasy universe inspired by Indigenous Australian tales.
Pick from four different, adorable playable characters and cooperate with your team or even an AI companion to run this magic inn. Innchanted’s AI can be assigned to serve customers, refill potion stations, or defend against thieves. Serving customers includes cooking meat or dispensing potions, too. They’re quite useful for filling in when you’re playing solo or even with a second person. The AI is a little slow moving, as they can’t dash like player characters can, but that only adds a little bit of challenge without overwhelming you, I think.
Plus, the layout changes every day, so you never know what obstacles you’ll face! You’ll encounter different challenges across Innchanted’s 50+ unique levels while serving patrons. One level may be wide open and easy to navigate, while the next has counters that move every so often meaning the level layout changes while you play. And don’t forget about the thieving birds waiting in the tree outside for the opportunity to take off with a slab of meat. Don’t leave your items unattended for too long!
Use your hard-earned shells to upgrade your inn. Make grills cook faster. Increase your team’s efficiency. Even unlock decorations to beautify your inn. From fun wall flags to pretty rugs, you’ll find over 60 decorative items in Innchanted to beautify your inn to give it that personal touch. And at night, take time to unwind, speak with other characters, make important choices that will affect your next day, and practice new mechanics you’ve learned.
Innchanted is a challenging, but fun adventure akin to Overcooked. It’s perfect for playing with friends! It doesn’t present the same frenetic, frantic player experience as Overcooked, though. It feels a little more chill and laid back, while still being silly and fun. It’s a cute little game that I’d recommend to anyone for some fun, though.
I give Innchanted a:
You can find this fun co-op game on Steam now!
Jan 12, 2023Indie Highlight
Farm Your Friends is like Among Us, but farming. While you won’t be sneaking around a spaceship to sabotage the other players, you are trying to become the best farmer through hard work and sabotage. Gather up to 8 people and see who will outwit the rest to become the best farmer!
As a fast-paced, competitive multiplayer game, Farm Your Friends isn’t one to relax with. Players will run around planting crops and harvesting them when they’ve grown. Or, you could skip all of that and just steal the crops from your opponents! You’ll be able to choose from different traps, too, in order to protect your precious farm. Place a land mine to turn players to ash, a carnivorous plant to eat your enemies, or even a fun spring-loaded ground tile to fling opponents away. Perhaps even forming alliances will help you win, too. Defend your farm at all costs!
The fun doesn’t end, or even begin there. Each player will be able to customize their character by choosing from a variety of costumes, similar to Overcooked’s character choices. Plus, farming and sabotage aren’t the only things to worry about. Farm Your Friends also has random events like being struck by lightning or attacked by a shark.
Unfortunately, this cute and frenetic multiplayer has no release date available. However, you can Wishlist it on Steam to keep up to date with it!
For another frenzied co-op game, check out Camped Out!
Dec 6, 2019Quick Bits
I’ve been following this creature-collection MMO, created by Crema, for quite some time now. It may seem very similar to the beloved Pokemon series however it does offer some unique differences such as designing your own home interior, and fertility values for breeding and player emotes for online fun! Since I’ve really been enjoying Pokemon Shield’s multiplayer online features, I can’t wait to discover a variety of new monsters in a game completely designed for online!
Become the best Temtem tamer and explore the six islands of the Airborne Archipelago! Thanks to a new announcement trailer, we can do just that very soon as Temtem will be available in Early Access January 21st, 2020 on Steam here and Humble Bundle here. The developers note that the Early Access will contain the following: “50% of the story content, three different islands (each with its own unique biomes), co-op campaign, player customization, breeding, Luma hunting, and a competitive rule-set.”
Don’t worry if you’re not a PC gamer as Crema still has plans to launch Temtem on all major consoles sometime in Q4 2020.
Sep 1, 2019News
Over two years ago, we covered the then-upcoming PS4 release of a cute little game galled Wuppo. Imagine our surprise when, after sneaking onto the Nintendo Switch e-shop to admire Link’s Awakening screenshots (again), we saw Wuppo: Definitive Edition gleaming proudly among the other upcoming releases! The game is set to release less than a week from now, on September 5.
Wuppo is a Wum. (Wums appear to be small spherical creatures of different colours who resemble something between a rice ball and a gumball with four tiny legs.) And Wuppo has lost his home. He has been exiled! There’s nothing left to do but travel the world and find somewhere new to call home. It looks like he’ll have some pretty big adventures along the way. And maybe even resolving some ancient conflicts as he goes! If you’ve got to resolve ancient conflicts, we think doing so in a cute and colourful world is the best choice.
We look forward to honing our social skills and collecting bits of filmstrip to piece together the world’s history on September 5th. (Wuppo: Definitive Edition will also be on Steam and GoG.) Watch the video here for more information.
For another game about a cute protagonist trying to get home, check out A Hat in Time. It will hit Nintendo Switch on October 18, and it, too, will have a brand new co-op mode!