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The problem with deciding to play every single Nancy Drew mystery puzzle game for a column is that, because they have been coming out since the 90s, Her Interactive have built up enough steam that I may never catch up to the front of the plucky citizen detective train. They have today announced a release date of May 7th for Nancy Drew: Mystery Of The Seven Keys, along with the official trailer.
This time Our Nance is heading to Prague, for a sort of old-world-meets-new story about hacking, medieval myths, and a stolen necklace. Nancy is hired to find said heirloom, and interview a bunch of suspects, one of whom is creepy puppet guy up there (there are no screens of Nancy because she never actually steps out from behind the camera in these games; she may as well be a cryptid). I realise this may not be of interest to regular readers of this site, but while I may not have seven keys, I do have one to the back end of this website, so nobody can stop me.
Friends, I have officially discovered another game I can play with my life partner, who regards most games with enormous suspicion and fatigue. That game is Morels: The Hunt 2, released this week, and as you might guess, it is about finding and identifying various species of mushroom in lush, photorealistic wilderness locations. There are also unicorns, crystal skulls and robot parts. Slightly confused by the unicorns, crystal skulls and robot parts, if I’m honest. It feels a bit like developers Abrams Studios are unconvinced as to the popular appeal of mushroom hunting, and have garlanded the concept with random mythology so as to widen the Venn diagram overlap between “fungi fans” and “people who want to live in cyberpunk Narnia”.
The developers – who are indeed brothers – explain their thinking in broad strokes on the Steam page. “We loved morel mushroom hunting growing up,” they write. “We still do it every year. One of the greatest things about mushroom hunting is just being out in nature. We take a lot of photos while we are hunting which is how the game came about. We wanted to create an immersive experience of being out in nature, mushroom hunting, and photographing the beautiful environment around you into a game, without having to hunt something with a weapon.”
I guess the blend of photography and mushroom gathering makes sense, but I continue to be confused by the unicorns. You can also turn into one of the game’s animal in Exploration Mode, by the way – I’m not sure whether this extends to make-believe creatures. I do not feel a pressing need to either photograph a unicorn or turn into one, but I really want to fire this up and have my partner passenger-seat-drive while I go ferreting around for chantarelles.
Nowadays, I’m more than happy to sacrifice high frames and a big screen for the comforts of the Steam Deck. I like lounging on the couch, the light forearm workout, and heating my room in only a few minutes. So it’s good news that Moon Studios’ upcoming ARPG No Rest For The Wicked will be playable on launch for Deck, the ROG Ally and other handhelds. Minimum PC specs also don’t look too taxing, but those after the shiniest-looking game on recommended hardware may be in for a shock.
Bethesda’s very own Mr Handy (director and executive producer) Todd Howard has addressed the controversy surrounding the Fallout TV show’s treatment of Fallout backstory, reaffirming the canonicity of Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas and promising that Bethesda and Amazon are being “careful” to maintain consistency between the games and the TV series. Are you new to this latest lore scandal? Watch out for Fallout Season 1 spoilers ahead, then.
“It’s time to venture outside your fortress!” reads Kitfox’s invitation to play the beta for Adventure Mode in Dwarf Fortress on Steam. Sounds like a trap to me. Sounds like the kind of thing a werebadger would say, to lure you out of hiding. Are there werebadgers in Dwarf Fortress? If there aren’t, I have to ask what developers Bay 12 have been doing all these years. Doubtless, the hills and valleys of the hitherto base-construction-only Steam edition are teeming with were-creatures of every flavour. Werefinches! Wereotters! Werebudgerigars! Werepoets!
Last time, you decided that gliding powers are better than Dragon’s Dogma 2’s Unmaking Arrow. Honestly I’m surprised it was that close (66% vs 33%—don’t sweat the rounding), and I’m proud of your ability to weigh a whole concept against a single-game implementation. We are so good at this. Onwards! This week, I ask you to choose between placing things in two very different ways. What’s better: a ‘put back’ action, or standing atop another player’s heads in an FPS?
I briefly posted about this in The Maw, but was unsure at that point if SteamWorld Heist 2 was coming to PC day and date with the launch on Switch. That date is August 8th, by the way, and the answer is: yes it is! Though it was revealed at Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase earlier this afternoon, strategy action-adventure-with-robots sequel SteamWorld Heist 2 isn’t a timed platform exclusive, so that’s fun!
SteamWorld Heist 2 is, if you hadn’t guessed, a sequel to SteamWorld Heist, which came to PC in 2016. The first was a side-on tactics game where you, leading a team of robots, shot teams of other (bad) robots in turn-based skill-heavy tactical battles. While that all took place in space, the sequel has achieved splashdown, and you’ll be chuntering about the seas with a new lead character (Captain Leeway) and a new bunch of crewmates. It’s a robot pirate game, in other words.
If you can’t wait to start rummaging in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt‘s guts with its powerful new modding tools, you can now shoot for early access by signing up for a playtest on Steam. The new REDkit suite is based on the actual tools that CD Projekt RED themselves sued to create one of the best RPGs, and will let folks make a much wider range of mods. We’ll be able to make new quests, new characters, even whole new worlds.
FACEMINER is a clicker/puzzle game where you work from your CRT monitor to analyse packets of facial surveillance data for a mysterious company. It describes itself as a ‘hardcore thriller clicker set in 1999’. As a connoisseur of unusual word combinations – as well as a believer in the satirical power of clicker games since playing Universal Paperclips – I immediately set about downloading the free Steam demo.
