Gold-Plated Games

Nothing like another batch of Weeklong Deals to lift your spirits! What there is this time is pretty good, including some rare picks like Golden Krone Hotel which doesn’t get discounted very often. There’s a decent smattering of platformers and puzzlers to pick out as well, so it’s a decent week to find something worth playing.

The big news right now is that we’re finally doing our fabled PRIME-TIME WEEK over on our Twitch channel! That’s right, I’m actually streaming during daylight hours this week, on the following schedule:

• Monday Feb 10 from 1pm to 5pm PST
• Wednesday Feb 12 from 1pm to 5pm PST
• Friday Feb 14 from 1pm to 5pm PST

We already had a lovely time today getting through A Short Hike and checking out more Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! and if you missed out, you can find all that fun right here. On Wednesday, we’ll be looking at the new Dead Cells DLC, and for Friday we’re planning a look at recent management sims. And of course, regular evening streams are proceeding as usual, with the end of Red Faction Guerrilla tonight!

I LIKE

They Are Billions (Review) – Was a fine zombie survival RTS back in Early Access, I have no reason to believe that’s changed

Catmaze (Review) – Charming metroidvania built around very interesting Slavic myth

Golden Krone Hotel (Review) – Classic roguelike with elaborate vampiric mechanics

The Dream Machine (Review) – Great claymation adventure game with some seriously dark parts

The Town of Light (Review) – One of the rare indie horror games to effectively tackle real-world horrors

Hexcells (Review) – Simply one of the best puzzle games on Steam

Hexcells Plus (Review) – More Hexcells is good, but be warning this one picks up right from the last in difficulty

Alwa’s Awakening (Review) – Charming mix of exploration and puzzle platforming in a retro aesthetic

Cities in Motion (Review) – Chill little transport management sim

Mysterious Realms RPG (Review) – A deceptively fun little dungeon crawler with a neat battle system

Paranormal State: Poison Spring (Review) – Solid hidden object game with a cheesy as hell theme

I HATE

Bloody Trapland 2: Curiosity (Review) – I’m curious why anyone would bother with a precision platformer with terrible controls

The Bridge (Review) – Not nearly as clever as its MC Escher aesthetics suggest

Bardbarian (Review) – A poor realization of a novel idea

Apparition (Review) – Might be fun for a bit, if not for the excruciating jumpscares

Woodle Tree Adventures (Review) – They tried, I know they did, but dang…

Hack, Slash, Loot (review) – Behold, a roguelike with essentially no strategy whatsoever!