We’ve just watched the announcement trailer for Still Wakes the Deep, the latest game from The Chinese Room – and we’re excited for it!

That’s right, the studio that brought us Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is coming at us with a new oil rig horror game that promises to be a chill fest!

Described as a ‘narrative horror game’ set in Scotland circa 1975, it’s a first-person game that takes the studio ‘back to its roots’.

The announcement trailer is full of atmosphere and tension – which is just want you want from a horror teaser trailer.

Check the official announcement trailer out below:

The Chinese Room have released a short blurb to go with, which reads:

“Disaster strikes the Beira D oil rig off the coast of Scotland. Navigate the collapsing rig to save your crew from an otherworldly horror on the edge of all logic and reality.”

And, if you don’t mind us saying, this seems to be generally a good time for Scottish oil rig horrors, what with the success of The Rig and all!

Still Wakes the Deep will be released early 2024 and will be available for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC and Game Pass.

In the meantime, you can buy Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs right here on Steam or the entire collection of Amnesia via the Playstation Store.

Source: Engadget

Now is the time to sell your copy of The Last of Us if you’ve done with it as demand for the game is booming.

Decluttr reports a 1,116% surge, using their internal data to reveal how dramatically the interest has risen.

Liam Howley, Chief Marketing Officer at Decluttr, comments:

Since The Last of Us premiered we have seen the demand for this video game skyrocket! As our inventory has been struggling to meet this unprecedented demand, we are now offering double the value in cash for the most popular The Last of Us video games from now until the end of March.”

Geek Native tried to find out how much an x2 boost on your sale would be and so popped over to the sales page, clicked “sell media”, and got no further. You need to scan the barcode on the game. Decluttr will likely use this data to check against the console, edition and other facts about that specific game instance to calculate the current price.

Why all the interest? The HBO show started on January 15th and is available on NowTV in the UK.

As all press releases must seem to do but some invisible law, Decluttr also included Google search data. TikTok too.

In the last 90 days, searches for “The Last of Us game” have climbed by 1,351% per cent, and in the last year, searches for “The Last of Us part 1 PS5” has increased by 2,850% per cent.

On TikTok, the #TheLastOfUs hashtag has had more than 57 million views.

Decluttr confirms that it’s the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 leading the pack, so their bonus cash applies to these;

• The Last of Us Remastered PS4,
• The Last of Us Part II PS4,
• The Last of Us Remastered Hits PS4.

Quick Links

• Decluttr.

My attention was recently drawn to a virtual tabletop roleplaying game called Demeo by Resolution Games. As an ardent roleplayer myself, who enjoys being both a GM and a participant, it naturally piqued my interest, but not as much as when I was told that one of the specialities of this game is its ability to closely replicate the tabletop experience with other players online.

The cynic in me soon tempered my expectations. I’ve heard such promises before and usually only a clunky and poorly defined experience awaits. Imagine then, to my surprise and delight, a game that not only subverted my expectations, but which genuinely drew me in.

Like real-life tabletop games, your first decision comes in the form of choosing one of seven archetypal classes to play; Guardian of the Realm (armour gains and knockback), Assassin of the Shadows (backstab and sneak), Hunter of the Woods (ranged attack and charm), Sorcerer of the Elements (stun enemy and area-of-effect), Singer of the Mortal Sonnets (courage and confusion), Warlock of the Ancients (pet and barrier) and the newest character, Champion of the Arena (hook melee and weakening shout). Nothing too out of the ordinary here, but a decent mix of characters to choose from.

When I was a much younger roleplayer, I used to default to the heavily armoured, front-line attack classes, like paladins and fighters, but as I’ve got older (if not necessarily wiser), I’ve come to enjoy the strategy of distanced and stealth attacks like those of ranger and rogue classes. Therefore, the assassin or hunter are my modern day go to, but there’s plenty of options for your own preferences. Interestingly, there’s no restrictions on who can play what character class, so if more than one player wishes to be the same class, that’s entirely up to you.

Upon starting, you are presented with a virtual gaming table located in an atypical gaming den. Atop the table is a three dimension dungeon, populated with the player characters, all looking like proper table-top pieces. The game is turn based and combat focused. There’s a virtual die to be rolled, and each character has two action points per turn. Each character also starts off with a handful of cards which give additional attack or defence attributes and more can be collected by plundering the dungeon that you’re adventuring in. When a character encounters an enemy and an action is played, the static character piece springs to life with a pleasing animation.

Where Demeo differs from real-life tabletop games is in the complexity and level of engagement. You won’t be able to take the same player-made character through a series of long, drawn out campaigns, levelling them up and unlocking additional abilities. No, each campaign here is of a length that could be completed within a single evening’s session, and each player character already has their abilities unlocked at the start of play, relying on skill, strategy and, of course, the luck of the die roll and the cards you receive to see you through.

Now, if this lack of overall depth gives you pause and makes you think this game might not be for you, don’t be too hasty in making that decision. What this game lacks in complexity, it makes up for in accessibility and sheer playability. In terms of replicating the sociability of real-life tabletop gaming, Demeo rises above many who have attempted such an endeavour and fallen at the very first hurdle. Also, the ability to drop into the game and start engaging with it, regardless of your experience in roleplaying, is not to be underestimated. There are far too many roleplaying games for which weighty tomes of seemingly endless rules, in tandem with constant stat checks, elicit a look of fear and confusion among the less practiced. For such players, Demeo could be considered a gateway experience, a means by which to enjoy dungeon crawling without being bogged down by all the mechanics that can sometimes suck the joy out of a game.

Even for more seasoned roleplayers like myself, the ability to just go in and get straight into the heart of the action can be a welcome relief. It’s like going to a restaurant and avoiding the full multi-course menu and opting for the lighter taster menu instead. You still get to enjoy all that’s on offer but you’re a lot less bloated as the evening wears on. What’s more, those dungeons can get busy, so if you think you’re just going to wander in and breeze through each level with the bare minimum of effort, think again. Strategizing and cooperating with other players becomes necessary for survival

As for gameplay options, you can create a private session from which you can invite three other players to join in (a session code is provided that you can pass on) or you can create an open session where random players join you. You can also join an open session, hosted by someone else, where you will join three other random players. Alternatively, if you’re not up to playing with others, or are unable to, you can use the single-player mode, where you control all the characters in the party. Like all online multiplayer games, the fun and success of a session can depend on the people you end up playing with, so if you encounter someone unpleasant or offensive, you can boot them if you’re hosting the session, or you can leave without penalty if you’ve joined someone else’s session. Believe me, as a regular online multiplayer gamer myself, some of the best times, and the worst times, come down to who you’re randomly put in a party with.

Expanding on the sociability of Demeo, you don’t have to actually be playing the game to enjoy a chill experience with your friends. There’s a hang-out space that you can all congregate in to paint little virtual character models, listen to music, and read lore books. The latter part is of particular interest to me as whatever game I end up being involved in, I’m usually the Lore Master, soaking up all the history and details of the game world. Want to know where an object originated from, ask me. Want to know how a particular species evolved over time, ask me. The hang-out space may not be a must-have feature, but the fact that it’s there shows that the creators and developers at Resolution Games really do understand gamers and the things that appeal to us.

You can even visit Resolution Games Demeo website to download and print-out monster cards and lore books to enjoy offline.

As well as being multi-platform, Demeo is importantly cross-platform, so you have a wider pool of players to engage with. This, along with additional content appearing over time, has elevated Demeo from what was already a very playable game at launch to one that will continue to bring players back again and again. I heartily recommend it.

Demeo is available on Pico, Meta, Steam and Epic Games platforms, with PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR2 versions coming in 2023.

Quick Links

• Steam: Demeo

Inkluniati is a computer game by Yaza Games, published by Daedalic, and comes to almost everything and everywhere in January.

As the name suggests, there’s an ink theme, but the game also invokes medieval manuscripts and is an excellent match for the bardcore singer Hildegard von Blingin’.

The YouTube for the official Beasts of Yore song, by Hildegard and for Inkluniati says;

To arms! The rabbits are attacking! I present one last song before the New Year, which I created for the medieval fighting game Inkulinati. They originally asked me to write a song, but I also ended up voicing my namesake character, Hildegard von Bingen. If you play this game you may hear me die over and over again. Or…hopefully win! Inkulinati is an ink-based strategy straight from medieval manuscripts, where a rabbit’s bum can be deadlier than a dog’s sword. Become a master of the Living Ink, build your own bestiary, defeat medieval superstars and collect perks to unleash hidden powers!

The song is loosely based on Neidhart von Reuental’s work, (1180-1237) “Meie, din liehter schin” with original lyrics and a Latin-ish chorus. The characters you see in the video are all units/beasts that you will command in the game.

Inkluniati screenshots

Good Shepherd Entertainment and Dark Horse worked together and in collaboration with Mike Mignola on the roguelite computer game Hellboy Web Of Wyrd.

The game is wishlistable on Steam but isn’t out yet. PlayStation 4, 5, Xbox XIS, One, Nintendo Switch and PC versions are being developed.

Lance Reddick voices Hellboy. Heck, yeah. Mignola designed the game’s key art.

Amanda Kruse, Publishing Director at Good Shepherd Entertainment, told the press;

Adapting the Hellboy comics to a game is a dream project for all of us. The opportunity to create something authentic — that’s something we take very seriously. Our partnership with Mike Mignola and the creative team at Dark Horse has been inspiring. The support and trust they’ve given us has allowed Upstream Arcade to bring their vision to life. Hellboy Web of Wyrd is a bold new work we are excited to share with fans of the comics and action-adventure games alike.”

What is a roguelite computer game?

A roguelike is a computer game characterized by its use of randomly-generated levels, turn-based gameplay, and permanent death of the player character. The term “roguelike” comes from the 1980 computer game Rogue, which is widely considered to be the first game in this genre. A “roguelite” game is similar to Rouge but often has less emphasis on randomization and permanent death and may include other features such as upgrades or unlockable characters.

Mike Richardson, CEO of Dark Horse Media, also told press;

Mike Mignola has created a hero and world unique in comics, and this game gives fans a new way to share in his supernatural adventures.”

The Xbox trailer, which is embedded above, notes;

Like the comics, the game sends Hellboy on a series of vastly different and wholly unique adventures. While those stories stand on their own, they are all tied to the mysterious legacy of The Butterfly House. When an agent of the B.P.R.D. is sent on a reconnaissance mission to the mansion and promptly goes missing. It’s up to you – Hellboy – and your team of Bureau agents to find your missing colleague and uncover the secrets of The Butterfly House.

Hellboy Web Of Wyrd highlights

• An Authentic Comic Adaptation: Created with series creator Mike Mignola, the story, images, and mood capture the original comics’ approach. Every scene feels like a comic book.
• A New Story Inspired by the Hellboy Universe: Lance Reddick as Hellboy voices a huge, spine-tingling original story that stays true to the books.
• Become Hellboy: Explore the Wyrd’s secrets and find unimaginable horrors. Survive a nightmare of alien monsters by combining melee and ranged assaults.

Quick Links

• Hellboy Web Of Wyrd.

Ratalaika Games’ Caffeine: Victoria’s Legacy is a visual novel. It’s a graphic novel for your Switch, PS or Xbox. I think it’ll work best on a Switch when you’re stuck on a bus, too tired to play a game, but too restless to turn pages or sleep.

If you’re unfamiliar with the style, imagine seeing a static image, like a graphic novel background, overlayed with one or two characters that are sometimes lightly animated while bite-sized bits of text flow past.

I don’t think it’s right to call visual novels or Caffeine: Victoria’s Legacy a choose-your-own-adventure, but sometimes you get to select responses that nudges the storyline.

Is Caffeine any good?

In Victoria’s Legacy, caffeine is so good it’s magical.

Is the visual novel Caffeine: Victoria’s Legacy any good? I enjoyed the opening chapters but haven’t finished the story, and I suspect I won’t. My hunch is that next week will keep me busy, then something else will distract me, and while I enjoyed a weekend in Victoria, it won’t surface at the top of my to-do pile again.

Mind you, I was watching/reading from my sofa, and on my dusty Xbox One S. That’s the same sofa I could be watching Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, She-Hulk, Rings of Power or Andor from.

If I had a Switch and travelled, I think it would be a different story. Victoria’s Legacy would have been a great companion to Tabletop Gaming Live in Manchester a fortnight ago. I would have taken the combo to Glasgow this week for my overnight stay.

You start the story as a young engineer on a flight to look for his runaway dad. A young woman gives you an amazing cup of coffee and is then implicated in bringing the plane down (a coffee terrorist?) with an explosion.

You survive and wake up in an alternative reality in which coffee is magic. Yes, there’s this expected bit where frustratingly, your character struggles to accept this and then, once he does, decides not to communicate anything intelligent to anyone.

Instead, you’re roped into keeping a coffee shop (your dad’s, as it happens) afloat.

As is the way of these things, Victoria’s Legacy is a romance and those choices you get steer you through four romance options.

Expect all the anime tropes and tricks, including faceplanting into a woman’s chest, breaking the fourth wall and duels.

The art gets repetitive, but this is often the case in this game style. I’m far from an expert, having played through/read through barely half a dozen, and I think Victoria’s Legacy is pretty good. Yes, there’s a repetition of art and scenes but it’s not as bad or as common as some of the leading books in the field.

Ratalaika says there are some 450,000 words in the story in total.

There’s also partial voice acting which means key scenes are spoken, but much of the game is not. Again, that might sound weak, but it’s pretty good for the genre.

Tips

I don’t think there are ‘tips’ in the gameplay tips for Caffeine, certainly none that I found. You can be a jerk if you want, helpful, pushover, or somewhere in between. It’s relatively evident which narrative choices lead you towards which of the many young women you’ll encounter (and you’re always playing as a bloke).

However, there are some tips that I think make the game better. Open up the settings and increase the speed of the text and auto-next. Both are set pretty slow to start with, and speeding them up makes a positive difference.

Overall thoughts on Caffeine: Victoria’s Legacy

I enjoyed it, but I’m sure I didn’t get €18 worth of gameplay/reading from the title. If I stick with it and return to explore beyond the opening chapters, I’m confident that €18 is there.

If you already know you like visual novels, then, yeah, give Caffeine a go. My hunch is that it’s a robust performer.

If you’re uncertain but curious, I also think you should give it a go if you can afford to write that €18 or $18 off.

I don’t think this graphic novel will change your mind or win you around if you’re doubtful. I think your mind will wander.

Disclosure: My copy of Caffeine: Victoria’s Legacy was provided free to review.

Quick Links

• Caffeine: Victoria’s Legacy

I’ve shared videos of my Destiny spacecraft flying cinematically over the planet and taken snaps of my Exo looking cool (so I think) against a dramatic backdrop. A friend still regularly shares beautiful Skyrim vistas on Facebook.

Some games encourage this behaviour, and know full well that virtual photography like this encourages people to buy and keep playing. Photo mode was introduced way back in 2005 with Gran Turismo 4.

Which games are most popular for virtual photography?

Hardware company Crucial.com have been mining Instagram to find out which game is the most popular with virtual photographers.

Are these the most beautiful games?

Red Dead Redemption is the most popular game for video game photography, with over 20% of Instagram posts about the Western adventure being game photos.

Horizon: Forbidden West just came out, but it’s already in the top 5 most popular virtual photography games, with more posts than games that came out a few years ago.

Some of the most popular games for photography are Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077, which also have some of the highest system requirements. No doubt that’s the point hardware shop Crucial.com want to make!

Quick Links

• The Most Beautiful Video Games.

VPN company SurfShark has been poking at stats from Google and YouTube, as much as Alphabet’s two search engines make visible, to work out which computer games people look for cheats.

Why does a VPN care? Two reasons. Firstly, it’s marketing and here’s Geek Native writing about the research. Secondly, people hitting the web for cheats and cheat codes can sometimes get scammed or run malware.

However, SurfShark also cites Professor in Game Studios & Design, Mia Consalvo in Cheating: Gaming Advantage in Videogames, to talk about gaming capital.

Tightly linked to the concept of the paratext is gaming capital. As a form of currency gaming capital is highly flexible, able to adapt to different types of gameplay, various games, and changing notions of what’s important to know about games. Players can accumulate various forms of gaming capital not only from playing games but also from the paratextual industries that support them. And depending on a player’s social circle that capital can be quite valuable in building a reputation.

So, sometimes people search YouTube for walkthroughs to progress with the game. Other times it’s about bragging rights and hoping to cash those in.

As SurfShark’s research shows, Minecraft is the game responsible for people looking for the most ways to cheat. I’ve played a few times, and I imagine it would be frustrating if Creepers kept on stopping a building project you wanted to finish.

However, Among Us is the second on the list. That’s more disruptive, isn’t it? That’s someone else’s gameplay you might be undercutting if you’re deploying an actual cheat. On the other hand, there’s no problem watching videos about the murderous game to learn some tricks.

RPG cheaters

The definition of RPG is always hard to pin down for computer games, but SurfShark has included Pokemon. Pokemon, specifically Sword and Shield, comes top, but games like Disco Elysium and Mass Effect 3 are listed.

Perhaps it was people looking for alternative ways to end Mass Effect 3? Remember that drama? I missed the tension around Sword and Shield, though, and SurfShark points out that the twin games sold a combined 24 million, but there was some concern around its arbitrary skill levels and inconsistencies from NPCs.

You can find the full report at SurfShark’s hacking wins 2022 report.

Battlefleet: Gothic Armada publisher Tindalos has revealed a new Alien game at the Summer Game Fest.

Tindalos is the studio behind Aliens: Fireteam Elite, so make of that what you will. The trailer is mainly cinematic with just an acid splash of actual gameplay. Make of that what you will. It does, though, cinematically look good.

Can a squad shooter work in Alien? Yeah, there’s lots to shoot, but would it feel like Alien? As it happens, the free-to-play Steam game Alien Swarm is a popular co-op shooter.

The difference between Swarm and Dark Descent is that you’ll be alone in the latter.

The slim hints and synopsis so far, says;

… infiltrate large open levels and annihilate enemies with your squad, dispatching orders strategically and intuitively at the touch of a button.”

Dark Descent is a game with permadeath, so you really need to look after your squad. That means watching your weapons, ammo and armour.

Tindalos note;

…forge unique paths for survival, uncovering shortcuts, creating safe zones, and setting up motion trackers in a persistent world where your actions impact levels forever.”

It sounds like they’re trying to make this real-time game suitably scary. Creative director Romain Clavier told the press;

The entire team at Tindalos is dedicated to delivering a gaming experience faithful to the spirit of the Alien franchise and adding its own, never-seen-before elements to this iconic universe,”

The game is due next year for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

It’s not often a newsletter that describes the sender as “a benevolent megacorp that develops and publishes games for deckers worldwide” but that’s what Paradox Interactive did today.

The World of Darkness owner also has some dibs on Shadowrun and today announced next-generation console support for The Shadowrun Trilogy.

We’re getting a remaster of the Shadowrun Returns RPGs, the ones from Harebrained Schemes, but updated, upscaled and enhanced. It’s good news for owners of Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

If you buy computer games on pre-orders then you can do that today too. There’s a discount of 25% if you do, but game prices can drop quickly as well.

The Shadowrun Trilogy comprises 3 cult tactical RPG games taking place in a dystopian cyberpunk future in which magic has re-awakened, bringing back to life creatures of high fantasy. Initially created as a tabletop RPG over 30 years ago, this one-of-a-kind setting that has gained a huge cult following during the past three decades.

The story-based RPG is still popular and the Kickstarter $1m to fund Shadowrun Returns still memorable. It was designed by Jordan Weisman, who created the original tabletop RPG. The two sequels are Dragonfall and Hong Kong.

Quick Links

• Paradox’s Shadowrun Trilogy