I’d like to start off by apologizing for the slower month. There were a lot of interesting game releases in May, but I wasn’t able to cover even half of them thanks to a few different things coming up in my personal life. I decided to take a couple weeks off (guilt free), which gave me the space I needed.
That said, I’d like to thank any of the new people who stuck around for making May my best month ever as far as views are concerned. I’m told that Nine Sols was a free game for PlayStation Plus subscribers in May, which meant that my Boss Guides popped off last month. Hopefully the guides helped, especially with the Lady Ethereal fight. She seemed to be the biggest stumbling block for a lot of people if my metrics are anything to go by.
Anyway, onto the games.
Navigation
Cairn
I think I’ll start off in the most obvious place: Cairn.
If you’ve read my recent article about the game, then you’ll know I concluded a second playthrough of Cairn over the past few weeks. It’d been a bit since I rolled credits on my first playthrough, so my brain was a little fuzzy on certain side stories that you can encounter throughout your journey. Ergo, I decided to climb the mountain a second time to familiar myself with some of the finer details that I reference throughout my article where I discuss Cairn’s themes and story.
Honestly, I’m still blown away by Cairn. It’s such an interesting game both mechanically, and narratively. Going up the mountain a second time helped to solidify a lot of my takeaways about the game’s story, but it also brought into sharp focus just how deep the game’s climbing system is. In my first playthrough, I’d struggled most of the way, but felt relief whenever I put my sweaty controller down after conquering another section of the mountain. However during my second climb, I was able to glide up the mountain with ease like a spider. Evidently, having some existing familiarity with Cairn’s mechanics allowed me to forge a much easier path up to the summit.
While I don’t expect it’ll be for everyone, I suspect that I’ll continue to recommend Cairn to people with the same frequency that I recommend Return of the Obra Dinn. There’s something very special here, and I think it’d be a damn shame if people pass Cairn over without at least dipping their toes in.
Also, it likely goes without saying, but I’ll mention it anyway: I’m very much looking forward to the free DLC update that was announced during the Triple-i showcase in April. I don’t expect the update will tie into the base game narratively, but there’s a certain zen in climbing walls in Cairn.
The Artisan of Glimmith
The only other thing that I played in May that I have anything new to talk about is The Artisan of Glimmith. It’s a Logic Puzzle game where you’re tasked with repairing stained glass windows. Each window has a set of rules that inform how it must be designed, and your job is to figure out what the intended pattern is while adhering to those rules.
For example, here’s the solution to a puzzle where the final design needed to incorporate all of the shapes that are noted on the board:
As someone who enjoys Sudoku, Glimmith has been like crack for me. Each of the game’s areas introduces a new rule alongside about 30 new puzzles that wring as much value as possible from said idea. Things start out easy, but quickly ramp up in complexity to challenge the player’s abilities. Then, once players have worked their way through a couple of areas, rules return in combination with one another for even more fiendish logic puzzles.
It’s so good.
Though, Glimmith isn’t meant to be an exercise in sadism. Players are only asked to solve about 66% of the available puzzles, meaning they can shove off to the next area after they’ve completed the bulk of the intermediate ones on offer. Basically, you’re only ever asked to demonstrate that you understand a mechanic well enough to use it again when it invariably appears in a cross-over puzzle. That’s always appreciated, especially on days where I just want to solve a few easier puzzles instead of 1 of the trickier puzzles on offer.
At the time of writing, I’ve cracked around 300 puzzles, but I want to say that’s nowhere near close to the full breadth of what’s on offer. Mir said there’s over a thousand, which I can believe. Each new idea mixing with all of the existing ones quickly causes the number of available puzzles to balloon such that it’s almost overwhelming to think about.
Regardless, if you’re in the market for a new Logic Puzzler then you might want to give The Artisan of Glimmith a look. It’s basically a giant puzzle book, and it’s very easy to pop in and out of when you want to toil away at a handful of logic puzzles for an hour.
Review Round-up
Vultures – Scavengers of Death
As promised, I was able to play and review Vultures in May. I rather enjoyed its mix of traditional Resi style Survival Horror with Grid-Based Tactics. It doesn’t make the game as spooky as something like Crow Country, but it does make the combat encounters a lot more interesting to fight your way through.
Having said that, I think I might like to play through the game again. The development team added an additional difficulty to the game in response to player feedback, which I’m very curious about. Namely, I’m wondering if the increased difficulty will help combat encounters to feel a little more tense than they do at present. We’ll see if that curiosity prevails, and pulls me back in, or if I stick to playing a handful of new releases throughout June.
Indie Spotlight
I’m realizing that there is a bit of a flaw with this section of my monthly newsletter. Namely, that I’m not omnipotent. Almost half a dozen games came out in May that I’d have mentioned in last month’s Spotlight, but I didn’t know any of them were coming out until after I’d published the article. Unfortunately, I can only report on what I know, so some very interesting games slipped through the cracks in May.
Regardless, I still like the idea of trying to highlight upcoming games, so I’m going to continue writing this section as part of my Month in Review.
Though, I think June will be an unmitigated disaster. I expect at least half a dozen games will be shadow-dropped during the deluge of showcases that’ll happen over the next few weeks.
Either way, here are some upcoming indies to keep your eye on throughout June:
Voidling Bound
The first of 2 spots for June’s Indie Spotlight goes to Voidling Bound, which is a game that I covered during February’s Next Fest. It’s a Third-Person Looter-Shooter affair where the primary hook is that you’re able to play as a wide variety of ever evolving critters. Think of that like a non-standard skill-tree where you’re constantly making either-or choices about the long-term trajectory of your critter’s abilities by changing their physical biology.
Honestly, I could see myself losing several hours to Voidling Bound just out of curiosity alone. The creature designs were so interesting, as was seeing what new active abilities they’d gain with each branching path in their evolution tree. As such, I’m keen to see a lot more of the game when it launches on June 9th.
Denshattack!
For the final spot of June, we have another game that I covered during the Next Fest: Denshattack!
I’m still not exactly sure how to describe Denshattack! if I’m being honest. It’s something of an Infinite Runner with the trick system of an Extreme Sports game. The whole thing oozes with early aught’s charm, which is further reinforced by the game’s Dreamcast-esque artstyle. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have assumed that Denshattack! was a piece of lost media from my childhood.
Either way, I really enjoyed the demo, and I could use something bright and colourful after the past few weeks. Hopefully Denshattack! delivers when it launches on the 17th.
And with that, I think I’m done with May, and ready to tackle June. That’s a good thing too since June is going to be busy. There’s a Next Fest scheduled in a few weeks, which I will be making an effort to cover. Thank you to all of the developers who’ve reached out ahead of the event. I know I don’t always reply to all of the emails that I get, but I do appreciate the heads up as it gives me an idea of some interesting titles to check out ahead of the event’s official start date.
Also, there is no short supply of showcases happening in the coming weeks. I don’t expect that I’ll cover all of them individually however. Maybe if I walk away from any of them having added half a dozen titles to my wishlist on Steam. That’d be good enough justification for informing all of you out there about some neat looking titles that I’ve spotted.
Either way, thank you for reading, and stay safe out there!
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Frostilyte Writes 