With how sporadic my posting cadence is anymore, I’m not entirely sure an explanation is required for my absence in the back-half of June. That won’t stop me from giving one, however.

The short version is that a close friend of mine returned to Canada for a few weeks to visit with friends, and family. It’d been almost a year since I last saw him in-person, so I decided to make the most of our limited time together. Ergo, I spent most of June with him once I got my Next Fest coverage sorted out.

He’s a bit of a private person though, so I’ll leave it at that.

Other than that, June was largely uneventful.

Well, okay that’s not really true. 

There were a deluge of new game announcements, and trailers thanks to a dozen different showcases that all aired throughout the first 2 weeks of June. I chose to abstain from writing about the majority of them since there were only 1, or 2 things, per show, that really caught my eye. The one exception to this was the Thinky Direct wherein I immediately wishlisted half a dozen titles, which is why I felt the need to spotlight it in particular. Evidently, we (the royal we) quite like our Puzzle games in this house.

Otherwise, the remainder of my June was spent playing through a bunch of demos for Next Fest, which you can check out in the following articles:

As always, I tried to hit a variety of different genres with my coverage of Next Fest, but my list of ones to keep an eye on are all largely “Steve” games. I don’t think any of my friends, nor my wife were surprised by any of the inclusions. Though, hopefully all of you out there found something new to try, or wishlist during the event. 

Anywho, I did sneak some other gaming time in between visiting with my friend, and Next Fest so here are the highlights from June:

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BOKURA

In somewhat of a running theme throughout June, I spent the bulk of my gaming time with Mir. We had a growing collection of co-op titles that we’d been meaning to play, and June seemed like the perfect opportunity to play through most of them. It let me catch-up with wifey while I was home, and it’d give me something to write about later. 2 birds, 1 stone! Peak efficiency.

God…you can still see the programmer in me.

Anyway, BOKURA was the first of a few different co-op titles that we decided to tackle. It’s an asymmetric Puzzle-Platformer, heavy emphasis on the Puzzle, where both participants are shown completely different versions of a puzzle from one another. You’re then expected to relay information with your partner so that you can arrive at a shared solution.

As a brief example of how that asymmetry can manifest: I recall one of the puzzles where Mir could see a spring that she needed to jump on, but all I saw was a box. However, she wasn’t able to reach the spring/box because there was some kind of impediment in her way, but the path was totally clear for me. As such, I retrieved the box, so that she could use the spring in her version of the puzzle.

That’s a fairly simplistic example, but I think it captures the gist of what BOKURA is going for. A lot of the puzzles are designed in a way where neither player is equipped with all of the information, so you end up chatting quite a bit with your partner as you try to work out the solutions to each one.

This was especially true during my favourite series of puzzles, which involved separating my character’s head from their body. This meant that I couldn’t see what I was doing, and had to rely on Mir calling out instructions from the other room to progress through several puzzles. I know she was super stressed out by the whole ordeal, but I found it extremely entertaining entirely because of how novel the concept was. Best of all, this idea, and several others were abandoned before they overstayed their welcome giving the whole experience a fairly brisk pace.

Though before I move onto the next game, I think it’s important to mention that BOKURA wasn’t without flaws. Namely, the online co-op left a lot to be desired. There were a couple times throughout our playthrough where the latency got bad enough that we had to stop playing altogether. I don’t know exactly what was going on there, but it wasn’t a problem for the other co-op games we played, so I thought it pertinent to call it out here. 

Pizza Possum

Next up on our co-op crusade was Pizza Possum, which is a game that I first discovered during a Next Fest from a few years back. However, I’m not certain that I wrote about it though, nor do I believe that I covered that iteration of Next Fest.

Regardless, Pizza Possum is an arcade-y action game where you, and your partner run around stealing, and consuming as much food as possible before you’re caught by the local assembly of guards. Every olive, baguette, cheese brick, and apple consumed awards points, and once you hit various point thresholds, you’ll open up new areas on the map where you can continue to pillage.

That’s it. That’s the whole game.

In no uncertain terms, Pizza Possum is a decidedly straight-forward experience with little in the way of secondary, or tertiary features to offer players outside of its core gameplay loop. That said, it’s also cheaper than a cup of coffee, so I’m not entirely certain that it should be judged too harshly for this lack of ambition. That’d be a bit like comparing a Pizza Pockets to a wood fire pizza. They’re offering 2 radically different experiences at 2 very different price points.

That said, Pizza Possum was fun enough for what it was. Hell, it even strikes me as the kind of game I’d be able to play with my non-gamer friends, or my niblings once they’re a little bit older. On that basis, I’d give Pizza Possum a thumbs up, though that’s obviously a heavily qualified one.

Crashout Crew

Finally, to round out the co-op gaming in June we have Crashout Crew, which I know I’ve covered before.

It’s a game in the style of Overcooked where you, and up to 3 friends work at a variety of truly cursed warehouses. Your job is to drive forklifts around the warehouse assembling orders of various goods, which usually results in chaos. For example, one of the game’s levels sees you making orders of flaming lanterns, and fireworks. If the flames ever escape the confines of their metal prison then the whole warehouse will light up like the first of July.

And yes, for my American readers, we do our fireworks (today) on the first instead of the fourth.

Regardless, Crashout Crew has a lot of the same components as its clear source of inspiration, Overcooked, and results in a lot of the same kinds of chaos.

Unfortunately, comparing Crashout Crew to Overcooked doesn’t do the former many favours. Both Mir and I came away from it feeling like Crashout Crew was largely a less complete experience owing to how repetitive it gets. I think the primary reason for our shared experience is how most levels only feature very superficial differences. For example, we’ve played 3 (maybe 4) levels now where the layout was some variation on a figure eight. In all 3 cases, we used an identical approach for completing our deliveries, and sailed through with very little pushback.

On top of that, none of the levels feature unique impediments for the players to overcome. Instead, all potential curve balls (meteor strikes, lava puddles, pollen clouds, etc.) are pulled from a shared pool. This means that you’re equally likely to run into these impediments across all of the game’s levels, which further enhances how similar they all feel.

Frankly, there isn’t much to distinguish each of the game’s levels aside from the handful of unique items that you’re asked to deliver. And even those start to get repeated in Crashout Crew’s later levels.

However, similar to Pizza Possum, I think it is important to acknowledge that Crashout Crew is half the price of Overcooked, and a third of the price of its sequel. As such, it’s not entirely fair to make an apples-to-apples comparison here. Evidently, one of these games is aiming for a much lower bar, and the price accurately reflects that level of ambition.

As such, I’d probably still recommend Crashout Crew in the same highly qualified way that I did Pizza Possum. It’s fun enough for what it is, but there are other games out there that eclipse it in terms of overall quality.

inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories

To wrap things up for June, we’ve got inKONBINI, which is a Visual Novel where you play as Makoto, a college aged woman who is covering a week’s worth of shifts at her auntie’s konbini store. Specifically, you’ll be working the night shift which sees you placing orders, restocking the shelves, and helping the few customers who stop by for some late-night shopping.

As far as how it actually plays, inKONBINI is a bit like 2016’s VA-11 Hall-A. That is, the bulk of the experience is your typical visual novel fair where characters converse back and forth, but that talking is regularly punctuated by your store clerk duties. It’s a rhythm that I really enjoyed because stocking shelves is just enough busywork to keep your brain warm between conversations while also providing space for certain beats to breathe before the story continues moving forward.

Though, I’m a little ashamed to admit that I got really into stocking the store shelves. Doubly so because the daytime staff seemed totally incompetent at keeping the store properly organized. For instance, one of them left ice cream in an open-air fridge. Good job, bozo. I’m sure our loyal patrons were elated when they bought melted ice cream. Next time, try storing it with the other frozen goodies in the chest freezer that sits beside the shelf of baked goods instead.

That said, for as much as I enjoyed stocking shelves, it was actually the writing that kept me coming back for more inKONBINI. For me, it felt like a bit of a meditation on the importance of accepting change, while also appreciating the good that surrounds us in life. There are a few different character beats that I think really drive that home, but I don’t want to delve into the specifics. Namely because I’d rather avoid spoiling the fulcrum upon which the majority of inKONBINI is balanced.

It probably goes without saying, but I rather enjoyed inKONBINI, though I’m not sure I’d give it a blanket recommendation. It strikes me as the kind of game where you need to be in a specific headspace to enjoy it. There isn’t really drama to pull you in. Instead, you need to be open to a slower paced, slice-of-life story that’ll unfold at its own pace.

Indie Spotlight

Quick correction from June’s spotlight: Denshattack! was moved from its original June release date to July. As such, it’ll be coming out this month. If you’d like to read about it then you can do so by reading my previous spotlight here, or read when I covered it during a Next Fest here.

Now for the other games coming out in July, of which there are several…

The Incident at Galley House

Do y’all remember when I gushed about the ASCII Detective game Type Help back in February? Do you also recall how I said it was getting a re-release under a new name with improved visuals, voice acting, a new soundtrack, and some additional puzzles?

Well, this is that game. And I, for one, couldn’t be more excited. Doubly so because I received a review code for it, so you can (hopefully) expect to read my review for The Incident at Galley House sometime next week ahead of its July 14th release date.

Steam Page

Desktop Explorer

A few days after Galley House, we’ll have Desktop Explorer, which was one of the select few games I decided to cover with a larger article ahead of its recent Next Fest demo.

Frankly, I was quite impressed with the variety of puzzles in that demo, but it was the overarching mystery that left me keen to see more. I don’t anticipate that I’ll have time for a full review of it, but I do want to carve out some time for Desktop Explorer amidst the, frankly, stacked release schedule this July.

Steam Page

The Mermaid Mask

For our third Detective game of the month, July also marks the release of Detective Grimoire’s latest adventure: The Mermaid Mask.

While I was a little lukewarm on the ending of the previous game, Tangle Tower, I still enjoy SFB Games’ particular approach to narrative mystery games. They manage to hit the perfect intersection of being challenging enough to be engaging without being as manically involved as something like Roottrees, or Obra Dinn. As such, I’m keen to play through their latest offering, and hope it’ll leave me feeling satisfied once I lay all my cards on the table.

Steam Page

Annihilated

Finally we have Annihilated which is another game that I’ll (hopefully) have a review for ahead of its launch during the back-half of July.

It’s a mix of Visual Novel, and Deckbuilder with light RPG mechanics. Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure what to expect from it, but the press email I received about the game left me sufficiently intrigued to find out more. As such, I suppose we’ll both find out more about Annihilated later in the month.

Steam Page

And that’ll do it for June.

I’m a little surprised at how much I ended up writing given I didn’t end up playing all that much. It seems that my fingers were eager to get back to my keyboard, and had plenty to say once I got back into the swing of things.

Either way, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one.

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