You’re an alien who runs and maintains a community support centre. Every day, you prepare a session to help struggling citizens of Mars; pick the topic, do some marketing, select the catering. Once midnight strikes, you’re effectively the event’s bouncer, responsible for inspecting attendees and ensuring they comply with the rules of that specific night. It’s a little reminiscent of Papers, Please and it’s a perfect opportunity to dust off one’s Playdate. Terrific game.

Relaxing little scenery builder with great vibes, awesome art style and terrific visual design. There’s already a decent amount of ‘items’ in your palette, but I also kinda wish there were more. Ripe for DLC, I guess! Still really cool already though, if you’re into purely creative games.

The Thaumaturge is a dense RPG set in alternate 1905 Warsaw with intricate settings, rich lore, and engaging side characters. Combat and sleuthing are secondary in service of its story, which I personally struggled a bit to connect with. Cool art, satisfying secrets, intriguing world and some compelling moral choices. Love the ambition and would recommend for fans of the genre.

A week after Nintendo sued its devs for “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale”, Yuzu has agreed to a $2.4M settlement and the shutdown of the Yuzu and Citra emulators. They’ll also cease all related activities and hand over domain, tools, and modified hardware to Nintendo. Read the final judgement here, and Yuzu’s statement here. While Nintendo are definitely setting an example here, the settlement means no legal precedent is being set.

There’s a temptation to talk about Pacific Drive with reference to genres: survival, extraction, roguelite, action, adventure, driving… But it’s doing something really cool with it’s tone and atmosphere, making it something altogether unique. Clever progression, tactile UI, great music, terrifying SFX, and a world worth exploring. Cool game.

After several years of radio silence, Neostream - the team behind potential vapourware Little Devil Inside - have re-emerged with six minutes of new footage and a relatively lengthy post on Kickstarter.

Began with a dream of two brothers. You supported.
…
Thank you all. For everything. We’ve not forgotten. Never will.

I backed this nearly ten years ago so won’t be holding my breath… but the footage does look great.

Bloody hell. EA is the latest to announce staff layoffs, cutting 5% of its workforce and moving away from licensed IP to focus on owned IP and sports games. Two EA studios were spun up to develop Black Panther and Iron Man games, and Respawn were working on Star Wars stuff, so those folks likely don’t feel great. This sucks, man.

Man, it doesn’t end. In a media release titled Difficult News About Our Workforce, SIE announce the laying off of around 900 employees: London Studio to close entirely, Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Firesprite impacted. Bloody hell.

Let’s goooo! Any new Pope game is an event, and an excuse to dust off the Playdate is doubly exciting. Mars After Midnight releases March 12.

Jason Schreier reports that British studio Supermassive (Until Dawn, The Quarry) will lay off 90 workers. This news comes like a month after PlayStation Productions announced a film adaptation of Until Dawn… Sad.