Author: Anna

Phonopolis is the latest puzzle adventure from Amanita Design — the Czech indie collective behind Machinarium, Samorost, Creaks, and a catalog of games that consistently prioritise handcrafted artistry over scale — and it may be the most technically ambitious thing they have ever made. Every building, every character, every frame of smoke and flame in Phonopolis was first built or painted on actual cardboard and paper, then digitised and assembled into a hand-animated 3D world that runs at a deliberate 12 frames per second to preserve the look of classic stop-motion film. The result is something that genuinely cannot be…

WILL: Follow The Light is the debut release from TomorrowHead Studio — a self-funded, self-published indie built by a small team with a clear CGI and visual art background — and it is one of the most visually impressive first releases we’ve seen from a studio this size. A first-person narrative adventure set in the harsh northern seas, it follows Will, a lighthouse keeper who sails into the frozen expanse to find his missing son after a disaster strikes his home. What unfolds is a meditation on fatherhood, regret, and the truths we carry with us that we’d rather not…

📟 Our team reviewed TMNT: Empire City on the Valve Index. We look forward to revisiting it on the upcoming Valve Steam Frame headset when available. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is the first TMNT game built exclusively for VR, and for a franchise that has spent decades in every gaming format imaginable, that distinction matters. Developed by Cortopia Studios — the team behind GORN 2 — and published by Beyond Frames Entertainment, this first-person VR action-adventure drops you directly inside the shell of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, or Michelangelo in post-Shredder New York. At its best, Empire City delivers…

Legionbound, the retro autobattler RPG from solo developer Spicy Garlic Games, is one of those rare $10 games that has no business being this good. Combining party-based RPG mechanics with modern autobattler combat and a solid roguelite progression layer, Legionbound hit 30,000 players in its first week for a very good reason: it nails the fundamentals and then keeps surprising you with how much depth is hiding underneath the cheerful pixel art exterior. The core concept is immediately compelling — instead of managing a traditional four-person party, you’re assembling a legion of up to 50 heroes simultaneously, stacking class synergies,…

The killing game genre has a problem. Since Danganronpa carved out its niche, countless spiritual successors have tried and largely failed to capture what made those games special — usually because they borrowed the aesthetic without understanding the soul underneath it. Kumitantei: Old-School Slaughter, the debut episodic murder-mystery from Indonesian indie studio Mango Factory, is something different. It doesn’t just borrow from Danganronpa — it dissects it, understands it, and then confidently builds something that feels genuinely its own. Set in a fictional alternate Empire of Japan, 1989, sixteen “Absolute Students” wake up trapped inside a decaying bunker under what…

There’s a certain type of game that hooks you before you’ve had a chance to put your guard up. Pebble Knights, the Early Access co-op roguelike from 51% Games, is exactly that. You sit down for a couple of hours and suddenly it’s three in the morning and your friends are yelling at you to stop eating their corpse mid-wave. It’s chaotic, it’s surprisingly deep, and at $9.99 it’s one of the better value propositions in the genre right now. The premise is immediately charming: a Hell Fungus is spreading across the land, and a band of tiny pebble warriors…