Hey what’s up folks! Sam here, introducing the latest issue of our monthly games news round up and review-o-mendation e-mail. Is it late if we don’t have a consistent release schedule? Yes? Yeah. Sorry! The outside worlds been chucking scratchy little pebbles of optimism at my window to get me to peer out, followed by big fuck-off dumpsters full of intentional governmental ineptitude and cruelty and hopelessness, so I’ve been spending a lot of time boarding all that up. As I’m sure everyone has! The world and the people in it continue to keep at it though and that inevitably means video games are gonna be made, re-made and podcasted about so enough excuses huh! Have a list of stuff two other people have enjoyed.
This lovely article by Abbi Ruggles on the comfort of repetition in games, and the value of spending some time in your comfort zone. It’s a sentiment I can’t share enough honestly, and I’m very happy to read it in someone else’s smarter and better words.
Terry Cavanagh (of Dicey Dungeons, Super Hexagon n VVVVVV fame) highlighted this wicked collection of micro arcade games by Kenta Cho on his must-bookmark Free Game of the Week blog; each one of these is a masterclass in minimal game design. Who needs more than one action or button or sound effect? It’s all so bright and neat and perfect and most importantly and impressively of all, genuinely fun and exciting! I’ve been brought to the edge of my seat by a green box and some blue rectangles and I love it.
Elise Favis talks to game studio Fullbright about the frustratingly under explored mother-daughter relationship in their upcoming game Open Road.
Checkpoint mainstay and superstar composer 2 Mello lends his experience ‘n shares his trepidations about the recent trend of old soundtrack “restorations” in his excellent first bit of writing for Vice Gaming. They’re cool to hear and retweet for sure, but are these updated versions better? Nah.
Robin Trench of Game Workers of SoCal challenges the assumption that smaller, “indie” studios workplaces environments are safer than their more obviously repulsive AAA counterparts. A lot of grim statistics and stories inside for sure but also a lot of hopeful tips how and reasons for folks too organise and a whole bunch of valuable resources.
An unarming-ly honest account of growing up inside and outside of The Sims, and the invaluable escapism and experimentation it (eventually, a sequel or two later) afforded the writer Meggie Gates.
Super Mario 3D World / Fortnite
Nintendo / Epic Games
Switch / Everything but iPhones? Fuck knows
I’ve not really played much cool new stuff recently, honestly, regrettably. Not that there’s not a tonne of wicked stuff to play, the bright and wonderful Dicey Dungeons came to Switch not too long ago, as did the super cool highly lauded and very smart Heaven’s Vault. I’ve bought and played an hour or so of both of these and they rule. But… I’m just not hungry for that kind of experience at the moment. Most of my time has been spent (outside of my dedicated Destiny 2 hours) with a noxious mix of Fortnite and Super Mario 3D World with my younger cousins and siblings and it’s… been exactly what I wanted. 3D World is so good and it was such a shame more folks didn’t get to experience it cos they (rightly) thought the Wii U was some kind of add-on for the Wii Fit board. It was the last game me and my siblings all played through together properly, over a couple of my visits home, and revisiting each of these colourful and brilliantly varied worlds with the wonderfully antagonistic one screen camera with new players has been a blast and I can’t recommend it enough! The cat world kaiju fight thing is fine too, super cute, just don’t go into it expecting it to feel as good as Odyssey.
Fortnite has cars with radio stations now and Chun Li and the Joker are in it. — S
Hidden my game by mom 4
hap Inc.
iOS / Android
If you aren't familiair with this one yet, the game's title pretty much explains it. You are a small child who wants to play the 3DS but mom isn't having it, so she goes and hides your handheld around the house. If you manage to find it, mom has it hidden again the next day. Having to take increasingly absurd measures to keep it from you she involves a zoo's worth of animals, remote controlled drones, stealthy ninjas, and 2021-appropriate hand sanitiser. You solve mom's puzzles by touching and tapping at things around the house but the hiding place from one day might hide a snake the next day (yeah mom is really serious about you not gaming!). It's as delightful a phone came as they come; real nice to look at, genuinely fun, and adorably weird. — J
And now a business update from me, Joes. You’ve probably noticed this mailer looks a bit different , that’s because we have now fully switched to Substack, something we’ve talked about for a while. Hopefully this is going to make the process of putting these together a little easier, maybe even help us get back on a sorta regular schedule! If you had already subscribed nothing changes, you’ll still get a Checkpoint in your inbox as usual. If you’re new here, you can subscribe below and if email is not your thing just check out checkpointgot.substack.com. You can visit the archive if you’ve missed out on previous Checkpoints, just working on bringing over some of the earlier ones. We’ll be back with a more game-filled issue next time but until then, keep on keeping on!