In praise of labyrinthine game design

Amazing Mazes and labyrinths can be confusing, frustrating, oppressive,nightmarish. But as productions, they can be strangely economical, oddly light-footed. Mazes and labyrinths, after all, twist up space and as such, discover or create additional spacewithinspace. But don’t take it from me, an armchair developer with armchair socialist sensibilities. Take it from The Legend of Zelda. As such, each room’s tileset has to be available in VRAM simultaneously. After all, every adjacent room and its tileset would need to be loaded into VRAM at once....

November 17, 2023 · 1 min · 153 words · Eric Jordan

My kitten has a new favourite video game

But while she usually watches games and television with casual interest, she’s losing it overSebil Engineering. On one hand, I’m glad she enjoys me playing it. The game is good, and my cat is cute. Yes, absolutely this post includes a video of my cat. Rather than build anything new, all our fixes come from raising and lowering roads and ground. Left-click to raise a point, right-click to lower it....

November 17, 2023 · 2 min · 292 words · Richard White

New roguelike Realm of Ink is Hades by way of Chinese mythology

I think I’ve played a couple of hours tops. “Everything seems to be destined,” intones the blurb. Hence the roguelite bit, then. The character progression seems to be a mixture of limited-to-each-run and longer-term. The game’s swish inky art direction is its obvious silver bullet, or perhaps, silver rope javelin. The voice-acting is certainly lacking in the come-hither stakes. Still, I’ll let the internet’s fan artists make the final call....

November 17, 2023 · 1 min · 73 words · Crystal Guerrero

NYT Connections hint and answers (Friday, November 17)

Need a hint for today’s Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #159 This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s solution? Check out theConnections hint for Tuesday 22nd April! It’s calledConnections, and if you haven’t played it before, now’s the time to start. We’ll also explain how to play Connections if this is your first time coming over from Wordle! If not, check just below for the full answer....

November 17, 2023 · 1 min · 134 words · Catherine Wilkins

Occult mysteries and sapphic yearnings abound in Long Live The Queen dev's recent(ish) visual novel

I didn’t remember adding it to my wishlist, and honestly I didn’t remember what it was. Still, a visual novel about lesbians solving occult mysteries? Oh, and it’s made by the studio behind RPS favouritesLong Live The Queenand Black Closet? Ah, go on. Our Grahamnotedthe launch of Night Cascades in March 2022 but we didn’t take much of a look after. Enter Diane, a teacher and author with a degree in folklore....

November 17, 2023 · 2 min · 264 words · Kenneth Curtis

One of the original Mass Effect writers is making a sci-fi near-future action-adventure

“There’s the whole ARPG genre now, which is probably one of the biggest markets out there. They really lend and borrow a lot from each other. But I think ultimately what it came down to was a little bit of…. I’ve done RPGs and I love them, but I wanted to do something that led with story. It looks at choice and consequence and things like that but in a different light....

November 17, 2023 · 1 min · 141 words · Thomas Klein

Small Saga review: a short, story-heavy RPG that's light on challenge

Forget the operatic choral chants of Final Fantasy bosses. The new rallying cry against peak villainy is now some no-nonsense British commentary about the state of human extinction. This review was based on a retail build of the game provided by the developer Darya Noghani.

November 17, 2023 · 1 min · 45 words · Christina Nguyen

Wordle hints and answer (#881): How to solve the Friday November 17 Wordle

Stuck on today’s Wordle word for November 17? Read our hint or find the answer below! This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s solution? Check out theWordle hint and answer for Tuesday 22nd April! Scroll down a bit further and we’ll also reveal today’s Wordle answer for 17/11. Use ourWordle Solver toolto help you figure out the answer to any Wordle in moments! Just pop your current guesses in the grid and watch the tool instantly give you all the potential answers....

November 17, 2023 · 3 min · 431 words · William Kemp

Kaiserpunk is an alt-history blend of grand strategy and citybuilder

They also publishedAquatico, a citybuilder in which you construct your cities on the bottom of the ocean. Kim Armstrong called the latter “soothing” in herAquatico reviewearlier this year.

November 16, 2023 · 1 min · 28 words · Nicole Livingston

Killstreaks vs Scorestreaks in Modern Warfare 3

The big question is though, which one should you choose? Killstreaks are made up of the number of consecutive kills you achieve. Scorestreaks push the player to complete game mode objectives rather than just purely doing it for the kills. If there’s no objective here, then earning points towards your score won’t make a difference. For this then, you may opt for Killstreaks. In the case of pretty much every game mode in Modern Warfare 3 then, you should choose Scorestreaks....

November 16, 2023 · 1 min · 111 words · Kelly Campbell

Loddlenaut review: a cute, but simple ocean clean-up adventure

A low pressure cleanse The ocean planet of GUP-14 is not a happy place. It’s always clear what you’re meant to be doing, too. The trash will just keep on coming, and the loddles will continue to suffer for it. Perhaps this sense of inevitability is intentional and I’m worrying over nothing. But even this quote minor degradation began to nibble away at me over time. Games with such a strong environmental theme shouldn’t just stop at ‘switch-off-brain-and-have-a-good-time’....

November 16, 2023 · 1 min · 108 words · Sarah Benton

NYT Connections hint and answers (Thursday, November 16)

Need a hint for today’s Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #158 This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s solution? Check out theConnections hint for Tuesday 22nd April! It’s calledConnections, and if you haven’t played it before, now’s the time to start. We’ll also explain how to play Connections if this is your first time coming over from Wordle! If not, check just below for the full answer....

November 16, 2023 · 1 min · 134 words · Erin Herring

Pick up HYTE's Revolt 3 SFF PC case with 700W 80+ Gold SFX PSU for just $110

The ideal case for Mini ITX PC builds.

November 16, 2023 · 1 min · 8 words · Taylor Sandoval