No Payne, No Game

Night in the Woods , developed by InfiniteFall, is one of the smash hits of 2017, and will soon be releasing a major update. It's also a story about going home. Though in  Gone Home we find that there is no one there, in Night in the Woods, we find everyone there. Still there in the small little town of Possum Springs, Pennsylvania. Night in the Woods, is, like Spelunky, a 2D platformer, but it's quite different in the requirements. The mode of locomotion is a lot less frantic, and there isn't really a challenge to overcome. Or rather, the challenge is within. Night in the Woods is a tale of failure. Mae Borowski drops out of college in her sophomore year and goes home. She arrives at night, with no one to meet her at the bus station. The game uses this as a nice opportunity to teach the player about jumping to solve one of the game's puzzles. From there, the jumping continues until Mae falls off a telephone pole(one of the game's favorite forms of travel), and c...

Darkest Dungeon is a "dungeon-themed management sim" which arrived to PC in January of 2016. Like many dungeon-based RPGs, it's based on a 4-member party system designed to force players to think about balancing a team. However, the complication of this game doesn't rest in the typical RPG mechanics. The game isn't a top-down RPG, but a side-scrolling march down a hallway. Nor is Darkest Dungeon a game where you form a party and must live with the consequences forever. It's a game where you have a wide band of adventurers which you can mix and match up before sending into various dungeons on different quests. I think it's pretty well suited to new players despite it's difficulty. The game reels you in with a quick hook. You've inherited your family estate, which has fallen to a curse due to the greed and hubris of the previous owner. You have been tasked with reclaiming your land from demons and monsters which have inhabited the various landmark...