Hello, Nauties. Been a fair old while, hasn't it? Well, you'll have heard me droning on and swearing as part of the Retronauts podcast, but you've been deprived of my typey-words for a good few months. I can only apologise for that! I have been swamped, but I do have reviews coming for quite cool games to keep an eye out for. In the meantime though, I've been dipping my flinching toe into the sea of indies, and discovered a couple of fun titles I'd like to highlight here on account of their Gipp-tickling ways. Don't think about it, just read it!
Xenobreakers: Classic Tower Defense
Well, it's a Ronseal title isn't it. You know what you're getting into and, by god, you get into it. I'm always up for some classic tower defence (not defense) because it conjures up fond memories of sneakily logging into Kongregate in my IT class, or tapping away at Ninjatown on DS - superb game, incidentally. And Xenobreakers caught me as an effort to create a smooth tower defence experience that's so familiar, so comforting, that the included (and unobtrusive) tutorials were barely required. I jumped right in, started setting up turrets and felt it all wash over me like days of yore. It's a lane-based bit of business, with all the mod cons you'd expect and a slick interface that puts everything at your fingertips with minimal arsing around. Blasting, stalling and exposing your enemies is second-nature, with Command Towers empowering your existing structures based on strategic placement.
And, the thing is, you've played this. Everyone has played a tower defence game like this, but I cannot in all honesty remember experiencing a tower defence title as accessible as this, as focused on giving the player the maximum possible level of intuitive input while minimising the kind of frustration that overly-complex TD offerings so frequently indulge in. So, this is very derivative, but it's also very good, and it's five dollars, so I would strongly consider getting it on your Steam Deck for some on-the-go throwback towerage.
Bubble Ghost Remake
The original Bubble Ghost is a 1987 Atari ST title that I have only a passing familiarity with; it's best-known for its Game Boy port, which hit the system in the rich cultural year of 1990. You're a ghost. There's a bubble. You've got to blow that bubble around a large, dangerous map that longs to - quite literally - burst your bubble in every way it can. Careful precision puffing and manipulation of the environment will see you and your soft sphere (quiet down at the back) through to the end, but you're probably going to get quite frustrated along the way. It's one of those games, where the input is intentionally a little fiddly so you'll actively be mastering the damn thing in order to get anywhere. I like that! It's fun to wrap your head around simple but deceptively complex mechanics, and once you have them down you'll feel like an absolute boss navigating each room of the enormous stage upon which the game takes place.
I had a good deal of fun with Bubble Ghost Remake, and it pleased me to see a relatively esoteric game being highlighted in this manner. Now, I have to be honest, I'm not wild about the character art - the ghost seems like a bit of a doofus - but it has character, is well-drawn and does not betray what I imagine is quite a modest budget. I won't be forever blowing bubbles, but I'll certainly be agitating an electronic viscous fluid past gauntlet of spikes, spiders and open flames for a good while yet.
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And that's me for now, Nauties - as I mentioned, I'll return before you know it with some more Littl'uns as well as covering some lovely upcoming Capcom games. Sloo! Now for a feast. A gaming feast.