Video Games

Even 47 years later, this thing gets me hyped. The “Master Component” had a 16-bit microprocessor?! Three-part harmony music? A display they called an “extraordinarily high level of resolution”? That sounded like the future. Sign me up.

And when they start hyping up ROM cartridges to a general audience, most people probably had no clue what that meant. But it must have felt like home electronics had just landed on the moon.

This was the first real console war: Intellivision vs Atari 2600. And wild to think—two years ago, Atari finally bought Intellivision.

Time Hollow (2008) for Nintendo DS.

The DS really was a treasure chest for Japanese adventure games—and the stylus had everything to do with it. The system flipped open like a book, which made it perfect for late-night reading sessions or zoning out on a bus ride.

Time Hollow is one of those “timey-whimey” mysteries. You wield the Hollow Pen (your stylus) to cut literal windows into the past, swapping objects and rewriting events in search of your missing parents.

It’s all wrapped in sharp manga art, with anime cutscenes that still hold up. The vibe is what the kids now call “cozy.” I lucked out and found my copy at GameStop for C$15, back when they still had DS shelves worth browsing.

@videogames@piefed.social

Silent Dragon (1992) for arcade is Taito’s forgotten attempt at a Double Dragon spiritual sequel.

This one came from East Technology, the same crew who made Double Dragon III (arcade, NES, Genesis, everything). That game is infamous for its stiff, awkward animation—arguably the weakest of the trilogy. But here, they got another shot.

And Silent Dragon is much better. You can tell East Technology saw what Final Fight was doing and tried to mash that polish with the Double Dragon formula. It’s still not Final Fight—by 1992, Capcom’s juggernaut was the yardstick every brawler got measured against—but it feels tighter than what they’d done before.

The action has weight, the sprites pop, and the set-pieces—like smashing through a clothing boutique or blowing up scenery—keep things lively.

It’s also packed with oddities that make it memorable. The bosses are wild: Animal Cupid (a bandaged brute), Wolfkid (basically Jagi from Fist of the North Star), and Frankenman (a stretchy mummy-thing). The HUD even has a bat icon that foreshadows the man-bat enemies later on.

And when you run out of credits, you don’t just get one “Continue?” countdown—you get a second screen with Catherine begging you to keep going, practically shaming you into feeding the machine another coin.

Mechanically, it’s a mixed bag. No separate punch and kick buttons, so the combos never get as flashy as Capcom’s. Still, you can wield a car battery as a weapon, chow down on gift-wrapped chicken, or watch a monkey pelt you with Molotovs before randomly dropping apples as health items. That sort of nonsense is peak arcade beat ’em up.

What I always notice, though, is the stock cast of enemies. Punks with mohawks? Check. Whip-wielding dominatrixes in leather? Of course. It’s as if there was a genre rulebook that every developer cribbed from. Silent Dragon follows it to the letter—only with a few more quirks to keep you smiling while you’re bashing away on the buttons

@videogames@piefed.social

10 new(-ish) Linux games from itch.io that caught my eye lately.

I dug through, tested, and researched these—and every one of them runs excellently on Linux.

Spirit Stackers (fluttersprite)

A competitive falling-block puzzler spun out of the Paranatural webcomic. Spirit blocks drop in pairs, spectral energy zaps across the board, and clever chains bury your opponent in junk. Local 1–2 player, arcade mode for solo, and a wildcard block that can swing a match at the last second.

https://fluttersprite.itch.io/spiritstackers

COLORMUSE (TheJohnyFeeD)

Twin-stick bullet ballet. Swap polarities like Ikaruga, eat your colour, dodge the rest. Add in an online leaderboard, Lunatic difficulty, and a pounding electronic soundtrack. Feels arcade-authentic in a way most shooters don’t.

https://thejohnyfeed.itch.io/colormuse

Mycelium (Leoseverini)

A cozy survival-puzzle where you build out a fungal network one tile at a time. Collect resources, fruit your mushroom, and slowly surface. Still in development, but already a satisfying little zoom-and-pan clicker.

https://leoseverini.itch.io/mycelium

OBRII (Exponenta Games)

A stripped-down colony builder that makes Mars feel like a puzzle box. Every turn you drop terraforming tools, reshape craters, carve out deposits, and watch as your settlement teeters between survival and collapse. No tutorial bloat, no grind—just tight mechanics and a stark aesthetic that makes every decision bite.

https://exponenta-games.itch.io/obrii

Ship Miner (arielsan)

A one-bit twin-stick about grinding rock in the dark. Asteroids aren’t just scenery—they’re loaded with minerals, scrap, and the occasional hostile surprise. Strip them down, haul the loot, and pour it into upgrades: triple mining rays, photon thrusters, even healing drones to keep you alive when the void bites back. It’s sharp, frantic, and weirdly hypnotic..

https://arielsan.itch.io/shipminer

Children of the Spring (Arcanzu Games)

The world’s gone under, leaving only scattered islands and a sea that hides more than it gives away. Children of the Spring drops you into that flood with a ship that evolves alongside you—unlocking new ways to fight, explore, and dive into the depths. Real-time combat, secrets tucked above and below the waves, and a looming tower that dares you to climb.

https://arcanzu-games.itch.io/children-of-the-spring

Hope of Taru (Seidel Games)

A family-built platformer with hand-drawn charm. You play a wanderer piecing together memory, collecting stone fragments, and slowly lifting the curse from a ruined village. Six levels, a bespoke soundtrack, and just enough rough edges to remind you this came from a summer project at home—not a studio boardroom.

https://seidel-games.itch.io/hope-of-taru

Waste your Wedding (Antoine Foucault)

A side-scrolling aerial brawler where you crash a wedding to steal cake. Yes, really. Attacks double as extra jumps, you can quick-warp with F-keys, and there’s even a palette swap button. Ridiculous in the best way.

https://antoine-foucault.itch.io/waste-your-wedding

Hungry Horrors (Clumsy Bear Studio)

Most deckbuilders have you slashing goblins with swords or zapping them with lightning. Hungry Horrors says forget that—you’re cooking for them instead. Every beast from British and Irish folklore shows up starving, each with its own bizarre cravings.

https://clumsy-bear-studio.itch.io/hungry-horrors

Moth Planet (Moth Fried Games)

A platformer that feels like it crawled out of a sketchbook and took flight. You play a tiny moth in Lepidopteros—bouncing, gliding, and fluttering through hand-drawn landscapes stuffed with secrets. It’s equal parts whimsical and unsettling, with a narrative that doesn’t spoon-feed but keeps you curious.

https://mothfriedgames.itch.io/moth-planet

itch.io is absolutely flooded with experiments like these—some polished, some messy, but all more interesting than whatever safe sequel AAA is rolling out this quarter. And the best part is that every single one here is playable on Linux right now.

@videogames@piefed.social

Ultros on Steam Deck.

Not exactly the game I’d recommend if you’re high—the visuals alone will melt your brain.

But once you settle into it, you realize it’s a rock-solid Metroidvania with smart progression and satisfying exploration.

@videogames@piefed.social

In 1972, this must have felt like stepping into the future. TVs had only ever been passive, and suddenly the screen could respond. Families were seeing their living room sets turn into game machines, with paddles controlling little glowing squares.

Now, the overlays look wild. Plastic sheets taped to the glass to turn dots into tennis courts or haunted houses. It’s clumsy. Also brilliant—an early hack to add color and imagination to an otherwise bare signal. You had to supply the magic yourself, which makes it all the more fascinating today.

And the way Magnavox pitched it. What are you going to do when your kids are snowed in? It was sold like a family appliance. Little did they know that this would be revolutionary.

Final Fantasy VII (1997) for Sony PlayStation.

One of my all-time favourite RPGs. I put it right up there with Trails in the Sky—and that’s the highest praise I can give any JRPG. But unlike Trails, this one became a phenomenon. It moved consoles. It sold the PlayStation itself. And at the time, those pre-rendered backgrounds blew my mind.

I also own the PC release, which I adore even more. The models are sharper, Cloud even has a mouth. But make no mistake: this game belongs to the PSX era. It’s the defining title.

@videogames@piefed.social

Denis Through the Drinking Glass (1983) is a text adventure about Margaret Thatcher’s drunk husband, Denis. Yes—this was a real thing.

The copy I played was on Commodore 64, but it first staggered out on ZX Spectrum in 1983—later crawling onto Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, and Acorn Electron. It was built in The Quill, and not just any Quill game—this was the very first commercial release. From the start, the whole thing was drenched in satire and barroom humor.

The hook is that you don’t lose because of goblins, or hit points, or bad parser guesses. You lose because you sober up. Ten turns without a drink and Denis blinks back into reality, game over.

Sobriety is the fail state. 42 years later, that mechanic still feels uncomfortably brilliant.

Applications Software Specialities never made another game. One shot, one kill. But if you’re going to bow out after a single release, you could do worse than a rhyming, headline-spitting adventure where the only way to keep playing is to stay hammered.

@videogames@piefed.social

Dyer Expedition just hit Steam—and I wanted to love it, but I can’t.

Can it be fun? Sure. Great ideas? Definitely. But the presentation wrecked me. The way the color and low-res textures strobe against each other made me nauseous—fifteen minutes in, I was dry heaving and clutching my stomach like I’d been on a bender. Closest I’ve ever felt to a hangover without actually drinking.

So here’s the setup. It’s 1931. Antarctica is still the great unknown. Miskatonic University sends William Dyer to the ice to dig up fossils and prove his academic theories. The supply ship sails home and finds the base abandoned. Contact is gone. You fear the worst—colleagues lost, dread mounting—and so you mount your own rogue mission. Passage through Australia, a fishing boat dropping you at the ice, two days to find out what happened. It’s straight Lovecraft, riffing on At the Mountains of Madness.

That part is compelling. The problem is how the game plays. First cabin you enter? Doors you can’t open. No explanation, no feedback. Why build doors into a level if they’re nothing but wall dressing? And while the atmosphere screams “explore me,” the structure is rigidly A-to-B. Even 1980s adventure games rewarded curiosity. This one corrals you down the track like a tourist on a rope line. If it’s linear, fine—but then don’t fake openness.

Visually, I usually enjoy PSX-era blockiness. But something about this clashes—the chunky textures grinding against color gradients until it’s physically unpleasant. It’s the rare case where a retro filter makes me want to hurl.

Audio is stronger. Puzzles actually lean on sound cues, which is clever. The sound design is tense and practical. Music (if you can call it that) drifts in and out like background radiation—ambient to the point of forgettable. Stereo separation is nice. Custom volume sliders are there. Credit where due: Sjellos composed the score, and while it isn’t memorable, it fits the cold.

Controls are keyboard and mouse by default, Xbox pad supported. But nothing about the layout is intuitive. Expect to wrestle with it before the game lets you settle in.

Quality of life is barebones—Steam Family Sharing, and that’s it.

Specs are featherweight. An old Intel HD 620 runs it. You only need 4GB of RAM and a single gig of storage.

Windows is the official target, but the demo shipped a Linux build, and I can confirm the full game runs flawlessly on Linux too. Even on Steam Deck is plays well.

Monkeys With Jobs, a solo Austrian dev, spent three and a half years making this. It’s their debut. Launch price is C$9.44 with a 10% discount. On day one there are only two Steam reviews, both positive. I disagree with their sentiment.

For me, the linearity, the fake interactivity, and the queasy visuals ruin what could have been a strong Antarctic mystery. It made me sick—literally. And when a game puts me flat on the couch in under twenty minutes, I can’t recommend it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2179390/Dyer_Expedition/

@videogames@piefed.social

People often ask if I’m the same Chris Trottier who designed The Sims.

No. While we both like video games, I am not that Chris Trottier.

For one, that Chris Trottier is a woman. I’m a man.

But here’s where it gets funny. When she was exactly my age, 43, she gave a presentation called Designing Games for the 43-Year-Old Woman.

And right now? I am 43. And I often talk about game design for women—just not from her perspective. She speaks as a woman. I speak as a husband and father who buys games for the women in my life.

There’s one more odd connection. She worked at EA. And me? I’ve worked with and am friends with at least eight people who are or were at EA.

So no—we’re not the same Chris Trottier. But the parallels are uncanny.

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/chris-trottier-designing-games-for-the-43-year-old-woman/7361534

@videogames@piefed.social

Are we misremembering what PS2 games looked like?

I think we are. Because it’s about time the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube era got its comeback—and not many indie devs are even trying.

I went looking at YouTube footage. God of War. Ratchet & Clank. Grand Theft Auto III. And almost none of it looked right.

Most of it was stretched to 16:9 when these games were made for 4:3. A handful supported widescreen, sure, but that wasn’t the norm.

And the jaggies? I don’t remember them looking that raw. CRTs hid a lot with interlacing. They blurred the edges, softened the movement. The PS2 looked smoother than the sharp pixels you see now.

But YouTube is filled with emulated footage. Nothing wrong with emulation—I use it myself. But much of it has been upscaled and filtered to look “modern.” Which misses the whole point.

People still say the PS2 is too modern to be retro. That’s wrong. It came out 25 years ago. It’s as retro now as the NES was when the PS2 first launched.

If you want the real PS2 experience, you need a CRT. And CRTs aren’t being made anymore. They’re getting expensive, and they’re vanishing.

That’s why I want indie devs to aim for the authentic PS2 look. Not a parody. Not a cleaned-up facsimile, but the actual thing. Because if younger generations saw what the PS2 really was—they’d understand why it mattered.

@videogames@piefed.social

Love that Metal Jesus is diving deeper into obscure PC games. As a former Sierra employee, he brings a perspective few retro enthusiasts can match.

And honestly, any spotlight on PC gaming history is welcome. It’s a part of retro culture that too often gets pushed aside.

Which blows my mind—because even if you only count DOS and Windows, leaving out Mac, Amiga, and Linux, PC still has the single biggest game library of all time.

Wander Stars just launched today—and playing it feels like watching a lost 90s anime taped off late-night TV.

Everything from the CRT fuzz to the Dragon Ball-ish character art makes it look like you should be blowing into a VHS head cleaner. It’s committed to the bit.

But don’t call this a JRPG. It isn’t. It doesn’t even play like one. The devs are from Spain, not Japan. And the whole combat system is built around words.

You don’t grind for gear—you mash together “PUNCH + FIRE + SMASH” into bizarre attacks, then juggle cooldowns and Spirit points. There are 200 of these words scattered across the game, and the real goal is to collect them, win “honorably” to earn Pep Ups, and eventually ascend into some kind of cosmic Kiai master.

The story is episodic—literally ten anime-styled “episodes.” You play as Ringo, a hot-headed martial artist searching for her brother, and Wolfe, a sketchy drifter running from his past. Together they chase fragments of the Wanderstar Map across the galaxy, bickering like they’re trapped in a Ranma ½ filler arc. It’s tropey on purpose, and it works.

The visuals are hand-drawn, full of color swaps and filters, and yes, you can adjust the camera if the CRT effect makes your eyes melt.

The music is great. It's composed by Sayth Vashra with a full 55-track soundtrack. Sound effects punch, menus click just right, and volume can be adjusted without digging through Windows mixers.

Controls take adjustment, because the whole “word-sentence combat” is strange at first. Do the tutorial. Once you do, you can play it your way—keyboard, mouse, Xbox pad, DualSense. There’s no quick-time button-mashing nonsense. Everything’s deliberate.

In terms of quality-of-life: Steam achievements, cloud saves, family sharing.

It’s even Steam Deck Verified, and I can confirm it plays fine on Linux.

Official specs are modest—old i5, 8 GB RAM, GTX 760—but don’t cheap out below that unless you like stutter.

Paper Castle Games only made one other game—Underhero—and I own it. It’s excellent. Wander Stars is cut from the same cloth: inventive, scrappy, and weird in a way big-budget games don’t dare to be.

Reception is still tiny: currently 100% positive on Steam with a dozen reviews. My bet? Most players will click with this immediately.

Launch price is C$29.25. Considering the work that went into it, that’s more than fair.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1575810/Wander_Stars/

@videogames@piefed.social

Folly of the Wizards just dropped, and the whole gag is that you’re a wizard who sucks at wizardry. Not “novice bad.” I mean “illiterate with your own damn glyphs” bad. You join a cult, flail your way through dungeons, and hope the enemy dies before you miscast yourself into oblivion.

There are four wizards. Doesn’t matter which you pick—you’re still an idiot with a wand. The game throws 130 relics, tomes, and scrolls at you. Sounds impressive until you realize half of them are suicide notes disguised as items. That’s the design: roguelike chaos disguised as “progression.”

On paper, the numbers look stacked—83 quests, 22 bosses, 9 biomes. In practice, they’re just the scaffolding for pratfalls. You can prod relationships, make choices, and stumble into one of seven endings. But the real throughline is failure dressed up as comedy.

Visually this is your basic cartoon 2D game. Serviceable, forgettable, not offensive.

Audio should be better—Major Bruno composed the soundtrack, and it’s sold as DLC—but on Linux it’s busted. I got sound, but it was garbled garbage.

Runs fine otherwise. Works well on mouse and keyboard. Gamepad support’s there too.

Quality of life? Don’t expect much. There’s family sharing, and that’s it.

It’s native Windows only, and while Proton gets it running, the sound bug makes it a no-go for Deck until Valve or the devs patch things.

UpFox Labs made this. I don’t know them—this is probably their Steam debut.

Launch reception is “positive,” but that’s 11 reviews, which means nothing. My take? It’s playable. Not great, not terrible. Just playable.

Problem is, playable isn’t worth C$31.19. Plenty of roguelikes do the same thing cheaper and better. If you’re curious, wait for a deep discount. And if you’re on Linux, wait longer—because right now the only magic trick this game pulls off is turning sound into static.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2452320/Folly_Of_The_Wizards/

@videogames@piefed.social

Break Arts III just launched on Steam—and it’s the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen.

This isn’t “pick a mech, shoot some lasers, go home.” No, you’re knee-deep in connectors, plugins, and joints that control everything from remote weapons to deployable wings. It’s nerd engineering hell, which means it’s also nerd heaven. Normal people won’t touch this with a ten-foot pole. But if you’re the type who stares at build spreadsheets for fun, congratulations—you’ve found religion.

And after you spend hours making your machine, the game throws you into races, arenas, and PvP matches where math vomits all over the HUD. Stats, cooldowns, ranges—everything glowing on screen like Excel learned how to fight. At least you can tune the difficulty so you’re not instantly humiliated.

The presentation is shiny as hell. Chrome armor, purple neon reflections, nightclub Gundam energy.

The soundtrack noodles on the guitar so hard it could make Yngwie Malmsteen roll his eyes—and yes, they’re selling it as DLC. Sound effects are solid, with robotic voiceovers sprinkled in for good measure.

Controls are sane: keyboard and mouse feel best, but Xbox pads are supported. No gimmicky timed button presses, just raw handling.

The game has a single-player campaign, co-op, and PvP.

Cloud saves, family sharing, all the boring checkboxes are ticked.

Specs lean mid-high: i7-6700, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660, 20GB space. Windows only, but Proton makes it work on Linux.

Made by MercuryStudio, published by PLAYISM. They also made Break Arts II. (Break Arts I doesn’t exist. Don’t bother looking.) Reception is strong—96% positive reviews on launch day. Price at the moment: C$21.14 with a launch discount.

So yeah. Break Arts III isn’t casual. It’s unapologetically, aggressively nerdy. And that’s exactly why it rules.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2522430/BREAK_ARTS_III/

@videogames@piefed.social

The problem with self-identified “gamers” is that they don’t much like games.

What they really like is outrage. Endless Twitter threads about Ubisoft. YouTube rants about EA. It’s the same cycle every year—and every year, they eat it up.

Now, yes—sometimes outrage does move the needle. Loot boxes got attention because people wouldn’t shut up about them. Steam’s refund system only exists because players demanded it. Fair enough. But let’s be honest: that’s the exception. Most of the noise is just outrage as lifestyle.

Because while gamers are busy fuming over Assassin’s Creed DLC, thousands of games are releasing—many of them incredible. Games that will never get a spotlight, because gamers would rather keep hate-watching the same corporations they claim to despise.

Kicker is, Ubisoft and EA don’t actually matter unless you make them matter. They don’t have a constitutional right to your wallet. If you stopped buying Assassin’s Creed, it wouldn’t exist. Yet you do buy it. Then you complain about it. Then you buy it again.

Meanwhile, you could be playing Baldur’s Gate, Silksong, or any of the other masterpieces sitting right there waiting. But no—better to log on and shout about how much you hate the thing you voluntarily gave $60 to.

So sure, outrage has its uses. But don’t pretend it makes you some champion of the medium. If you care about games—actually care—play the good ones. Otherwise, drop the gamer label. Because what you’re really into isn’t games. It’s the drama.

@videogames@piefed.social

If Final Fantasy VII is The Beatles, then Trails in the Sky is The Velvet Underground.

FFVII sold millions on day one—PlayStation kids got their big, shiny JRPG and Square never looked back.

Trails, though? It slipped onto PC with barely a sound.

FFVII was instant mass appeal. Everyone played it, everyone talked about it, and then the industry moved on.

Trails built something slower, denser, and people who touched it carried it forward. Now it’s impossible to talk about story-driven JRPGs without bringing up Falcom’s saga.

FFVII is the obvious landmark JRPG. But Trails in the Sky is the one that grew underground until you couldn’t ignore it anymore.

@videogames@piefed.social

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, a JRPG, just got released on Steam—and this is a big deal because this game is to PC what Final Fantasy VII was to PlayStation.

You play as Estelle Bright, a stubborn but big-hearted teen, and her adopted brother Joshua, calm and secretive, as they work as junior agents of the Bracer Guild—mercenaries who handle everything from lost pets to bandit raids.

What begins as simple small-town jobs in the idyllic kingdom of Liberl slowly peels back into a slow-burn political thriller about coups, ancient technology, and rival nations circling like sharks. The genius of Trails in the Sky is how it ties everyday people and personal stories into that larger web of conspiracies, making the upheaval feel like it’s your neighbours and your home on the line.

Some history is in order. The two most influential JRPG developers are Square Enix and Nihon Falcom. Square Enix gave us Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Nihon Falcom gave us Dragon Slayer and Ys. Square pushed the turn-based JRPG. Falcom’s big innovation was the action JRPG.

Dragon Slayer in particular was groundbreaking—without it, there’s no Zelda, no Hydlide, no Neutopia. It was the template for action RPGs to follow, and it was so successful it spawned spin-offs. One of them was The Legend of Heroes. That series was so successful it spun off again into Trails in the Sky. And yes—Trails itself kept spinning into more games, until it became a saga of its own.

So why haven’t you heard of it? Because Falcom wasn’t console-first like Square. Their heyday was the PC-88 and PC-98—computers that never came west. When Japan switched to Windows, so did Falcom. Trails in the Sky first arrived on Windows in 2004—but only in Japan. A PSP port followed in 2006. Still Japan only. North America finally got it in 2011... on PSP. By then, nobody here was playing PSP anymore.

It wasn’t until 2014 that the Windows version—better than the PSP one—was localized and released on Steam and GOG. It took more than a decade for Westerners to notice. But once they did, they realised this wasn’t just another RPG—this was a landmark.

The comparison to Final Fantasy VII is apt. Trails in the Sky is Falcom’s premiere JRPG. It cemented their reputation for long-form storytelling and kicked off a serialized epic that continues today. And if you think there are a lot of Final Fantasy games, Trails makes it look modest.

The difference is in the type impact each had. Final Fantasy VII was an atomic bomb. Trails in the Sky was a hurricane—starting as a whisper, then building into a storm. Westerners know the sequels like Trails of Cold Steel and Trails from Zero, but how many ever went back to the original?

Now they can. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a re-imagining of that first game. And “re-imagining” is exactly the right word. Same story, not a simple remake.

What’s new? A lot. The original was purely turn-based. This version lets you switch on the fly between the classic grid system and a new real-time action mode. Combat feels fluid and layered, and Falcom themselves estimate about 80 hours to clear—double the original’s runtime—thanks to extra quests and expanded exploration.

The graphics are completely redone. The old game was 2.5D isometric sprites—think Diablo with anime characters. The new one is full 3D, third-person, HDR-enabled, yet still faithful. Rolent, the first town, looks like you remember, just rebuilt in polygons.

Sound has levelled up. Fully animated cutscenes. Professional actors in both Japanese and English. Steam even lists French, German, and Spanish text, though only English and Japanese get full voice tracks. Most importantly, Falcom’s iconic music is intact—because unlike too many remakes, they didn’t dare mess with perfection.

Controls are flexible. The devs push gamepads, but keyboard and mouse works beautifully. Xbox and PlayStation controllers are supported natively, and thanks to Steam Input, just about anything—Logitech, 8BitDo, you name it—will work.

Steam officially says Windows-only and lists Deck support as “unknown.” But previews already note it runs smooth on Deck, looks gorgeous on OLED screens, and will almost certainly get the “Verified” badge. I tested it myself on Linux—it’s flawless.

Specs are reasonable: Ryzen 5 1600, 8GB RAM, GTX 1050, and 33GB storage will net you 60fps at 1080p.

The price is steep—C$77.99. Steam also launched it with a pile of optional DLC: costumes, boosters, items. Normally I’d balk at paying that much. But this is Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter—rebuilt so a new generation can see why it’s legendary. And if that’s still too much, the 2014 version is cheap: C$21.99 on Steam, or just C$11.00 on GOG.

Reception so far is glowing. Steam already shows a 96% positive rating across 233 reviews. Players love the balance of modern upgrades with old-school heart.

Either way—whether you buy today’s re-imagining or grab the older version—you owe it to yourself to play Trails in the Sky. Because if you care about JRPGs, even a little, this is the one you don’t skip.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3375780/Trails_in_the_Sky_1st_Chapter/

@videogames@piefed.social

88 games were released on Steam today.

And to put that into perspective, that's more games than were ever released for the Nintendo Virtual Boy, Atari Jaguar, and Neo Geo Pocket. In other words, one day of Steam releases is greater than entire consoles' entire game libraries.

I am, of course, delighted that we have so much choice. But the reality is... I don't think most of these games are going to find their audience. I, myself, was only able to review seven of them---and this wasn't even close to the games I wish that I reviewed.

So now, let me mention the stuff I wish I could try but couldn't:

Heroes Against Time:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3667720/Heroes_Against_Time/

Twilight Epoch:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2886740/Twilight_Epoch/

Sand: A Superfluous Game:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1748330/Sand_A_Superfluous_Game/

Arctic Awakening:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1275550/Arctic_Awakening/

You Are The Code:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3333330/You_Are_The_Code/

Class of Heroes 3 Remaster:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3301820/Class_of_Heroes_3_Remaster/

Dying Light: The Beast:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3008130/Dying_Light_The_Beast/

Mai: Child of Ages:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3499550/Mai_Child_of_Ages/

Moros Protocol:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1605250/Moros_Protocol/

Wobbly Life:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211020/Wobbly_Life/

Tri Survive:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3072970/Tri_Survive/

Megabonk:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3405340/Megabonk/

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1910090/Towa_and_the_Guardians_of_the_Sacred_Tree/

Alphadia III:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3818380/Alphadia_III/

Can't vouch for any of them, but they at least look interesting enough for a mention.

@videogames@piefed.social

Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum just got a full release on Steam—and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it might be one of the most innovative games I’ve ever played. A top-down stealth shooter with hacking at its core, it pulls tricks I’ve never seen done this well.

I’ll be honest. My first reaction was a groan: “This looks like BASH. Do I really want to play a video game that’s basically BASH?” And yet, here I am—hooked.

You’re cast as the ultimate corporate cyber-agent: a mix of deadly gunplay, time manipulation, and outright supernatural powers. And the hacking is wild. You can hijack computers, drones, people—and yes, even bullets mid-flight. If that’s not the future, nothing is.

The transition between shooting and hacking is almost seamless, like slipping between realities. Time manipulation ties it all together—slowing the chaos to a crawl while you rewrite the battlefield in real time.

Visually, this is “high concept, low fidelity.” It looks like a Linux tiling window manager more than a game—no GNOME, no KDE, just raw windows and command lines. But paired with the stripped-down sprites and CRT filter, the whole thing radiates authenticity. It’s lo-fi by design, and it works.

Sound is beautiful. Lo-fi hip-hop beats carry you from mission to mission. They loop, sure, but the vibe is right—I catch myself nodding along. The crisp sound effects give everything that satisfying hacker snap. And yes, you can stream the soundtrack separately if you want the vibe without the firefights.

Controls are strictly keyboard and mouse. Don’t even think about a gamepad—you’re typing real commands, and nobody wants to peck out characters with a joystick. Accessibility mode (“EZ Hack”) exists for those who want mouse-driven shortcuts, but the core experience is pure keys and text.

Platform support is superb. It runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux. I tested it on Linux, and it hums along beautifully.

Requirements are modest: an old i5, 4GB of RAM, OpenGL 3.2 or Vulkan, and 2GB of space. Even integrated graphics can hang.

The developer—who goes by nodayshalleraseyou—is making their Steam debut here. And what a debut.

Out of ~620 reviews, 99% are positive. That’s rarified air, and I see why. The systems interlock in ways that reward creativity, the moments feel fresh every run, and the whole package just sings.

Introductory price is C$10.86. For one of the year’s sharpest indie releases, this is a bargain.

Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum is the kind of game that makes you feel like you’re hacking reality itself—and it’s totally worth the investment.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1545990/Deadeye_Deepfake_Simulacrum/

@videogames@piefed.social

Game & Watch Gallery 2 (1997) for Game Boy Color

I give Nintendo a lot of grief—and they often deserve it. Their recent Pokémon trademark antics are a perfect example of how they operate like a hungry lawyer factory.

But here’s where they do deserve credit: respecting their legacy. Game & Watch Gallery 2 is proof of that. For countless players, these compilations were the first real introduction to Nintendo’s Game & Watch handhelds from the 1980s—devices that predated the NES and paved the way for portable gaming.

The package is simple but effective. Each game has two flavors: Classic Mode, a faithful black-and-white reproduction of the original LCD experience, and Modern Mode, which reimagines those games with Mario-era characters, color, sound, and new mechanics. You start with five games (Parachute, Helmet, Chef, Vermin, and Donkey Kong), with Ball as an unlockable bonus if you earn enough stars.

It’s funny, what was once called “Modern Mode” is itself ancient history now. The Game Boy Color came out in 1998 outside Japan—that’s over 25 years ago. The math is wild: the gap between the original Game & Watch handhelds (1980–81) and Game & Watch Gallery 2 was only about 16–17 years. We’re now nearly three decades past Game Boy Color. So the “modern” in this collection has aged into retro in its own right.

A neat little time capsule—proof that even Nintendo, for all its corporate sins, sometimes remembers where it came from.

@videogames@piefed.social

Reel Deal Casino: Shuffle Master (2003) for Windows 98.

So I found this relic on Best Buy’s site and thought, “Why not?” It’s a simple casino game—slots, poker, the usual suspects. Nothing remarkable. Except… the characters.

My God, the character models. It’s as if the devs collectively decided they hated human beings and wanted to prove it in 3D. Their faces look like someone poured wax over mannequins and left them under a heat lamp. The jowls are extra jowly. The hair? Like Antarctic crops fertilized by penguins. And Q—yes, that’s his name—looks like he’s moonlighting as a uranium mule headed for Pyongyang.

Do I recommend it? Only if you’re running a Windows 98 museum piece. Otherwise, no. It’s a casino game that doesn’t run on modern hardware, so… take that as you will.

@videogames@piefed.social

Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition just hit Steam—and I wish this franchise had been given more respect.

Back in 2007, the first Puzzle Quest was genuinely groundbreaking. It was one of the first games to fuse match-3 puzzling with RPG progression. Quests, loot, spells—all mapped onto Bejeweled-style mechanics. It worked. It was influential. It spawned a hundred imitators. And the bitter truth? Some of those imitators ended up outshining Puzzle Quest’s own sequels.

Now comes Immortal Edition, trumpeted as the “definitive Puzzle Quest”—a banner release bundling nearly twenty years of content. That means you get Challenge of the Warlords, its expansion Revenge of the Plague Lord, plus all the Switch-only content from The Legend Returns. Add in a new Swordmaster class, 40-plus items, and redrawn 4K art, and on paper this looks like the ultimate package.

But let’s talk execution.

The new character models are flat and lifeless. The match-3 gems look like assets ripped straight out of a generic mobile game. If you’re going to lean into retro, lean hard. Instead, this looks halfway modern and halfway cheap.

And the music—oh boy. They swapped it out. Which is madness. Imagine if Nintendo re-released Super Mario Bros. with a different soundtrack. Or if Street Fighter II came back with all the stage themes replaced. You don’t mess with the auditory memory of a game people have carried for almost two decades.

Mechanically, it’s still Puzzle Quest. Keyboard and mouse work fine. Xbox and DualShock controllers are supported.

This is verified for Steam Deck. Has the green check mark. And that means it plays on Linux without a hitch.

Specs are microscopic. An old Intel i3, 4 GB of RAM, 2 GB of space—you can run this on a potato. Infinity Plus 2 is still at the helm, now tucked under 505 Games. They’re the same crew behind Puzzle Quest 3, which landed with a thud thanks to its free-to-play grind.

As expected, reception is mixed. On Steam it’s sitting at 69% positive from 26 reviews. To be fair, this is still Puzzle Quest—there’s fun to be had. But it should have been better.

Introductory price is C$15.19. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you might be better off hunting down the original Puzzle Quest.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3236710/Puzzle_Quest_Immortal_Edition/

@videogames@piefed.social

Easy Delivery Co, an open-world delivery game, just hit Steam today—and yes, it stars a cat driving a tiny kei truck around a snowy mountain town.

You’re underpaid, overworked, and always behind schedule. But it’s chill. You load packages, slip across icy roads, and meet the town’s residents—who are friendly on the surface but definitely hiding something. The store page even jokes “no secrets here,” which is basically a confession. People are already calling this Silent Hill meets Animal Crossing meets DoorDash.

The visuals are straight out of the PS1 era—low poly, heavy pixelation, and fog everywhere. And honestly, I missed fog. Modern games chase ultra-realism, but here fog makes the town feel both cozy and a little unsettling. The cats, though—they’re the highlight. They’re adorable. They keep the whole thing grounded in charm instead of leaning too hard into creep factor.

Sound design is big here. There’s ambient weather, the satisfying hum of your kei truck, and an in-game radio that spins jungle and lo-fi electronic beats. The soundtrack is so good they’re selling it separately as DLC for about C$4.24. Worth it if you like that hazy, late-night FM vibe.

Controls are fine once you adjust. Keyboard and mouse are surprisingly solid, but the dev openly nudges you toward a gamepad. Xbox and DualShock pads both work great. Driving physics are springy—cargo really feels like it could tip off if you’re reckless.

Performance-wise, this thing is featherlight. Minimum spec is basically “do you own a PC from the last decade?”: Intel i3 or Ryzen 5 3500, 8 GB RAM, and 1 GB of space. Even integrated graphics will run it. It’s also Steam Deck Verified—green checkmark official. I tested on Linux with Proton and it’s flawless.

The dev is Sam C, publishing under Oro Interactive. Looks like their Steam debut, and it’s a strong one. The full release expands past the demo with truck upgrades, new equipment, multiple regions, and even little side activities like ice fishing. They also tucked in a split-screen race mode if you want to throw packages at your friends.

Reception? Fantastic. Steam’s at 96% positive with just under 200 reviews on launch day. Reviewers are digging the “cozy but uncanny” vibe, short 3–5 hour playtime, and the sense of atmosphere. Press outlets are also praising it as the perfect fall game—quiet, strange, and seasonal.

Launch price is C$12.36 with a 25% discount (regular is $12.99 USD). There are bundles with Dredge, Keep Driving, and a little “keitora” bundle with Promise Mascot Agency.

If you like retro visuals, weird small towns, and lo-fi ambience, this is an easy pick-up.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3293010/Easy_Delivery_Co/

@videogames@piefed.social