5 Things I Played This Winter

One Last Story

I played One Last Story late at night, alone in a dark room absorbed into the game's world of simple white outlines on a black screen. For the roughly one hour I stared at the screen I was emotionally gut punched by the games exploration of grief, depression, suicide and love. OLS is a deeply personal and intimate experience from queer Brazilian creator Meiri that details the aftermath of the death of a nearly entirely unknown internet writer & blogger from the perspective of a fan, their lover, a stranger and themself and in the process manages to tackle themes ranging from writer’s block, the rejection of challenging art, self harm, and mourning with a biting sincerity that made it impossible to avoid confronting my own thoughts and emotions on these topics.

I’m gonna keep discussion of this game brief to mainly avoid spoilers and allow people to experience it for themselves, but if there is one game on this list I hope you go check out it is this one.

https://meiri.itch.io/one-last-story 

Beastieball

Beastieball is the latest release by Greg Lobanov and the team at Wishes Unlimited the creators of Wandersong and a personal favourite of mine Chicory: A Colorful Tale. The game mixes three of my favourite things: Pokemon, sports anime & Lena Raine’s music into a wonderful monster collecting turn based volleyball extravaganza that feels specially brewed for me personally. 

Beastieball’s best trick is taking inspiration from Pokemon’s competitive doubles, or “VGC”, format to create a faster paced and more tactically dynamic turn based combat system than is typically seen in the monster collector genre. It even expands on the most unexplored element of the VGC format, the position of your beasties, by adding a second dimension to the playing field. As Beastieball is ultimately a 2v2 turn based take on volleyball, the player must attempt to return the ball and to do so this often means taking damage. This creates fascinating risk reward decision making opportunities as the player balances the position of their beasties, type matchups, special combo moves and more. Finally, the game features a relationship mechanic between beasties that presents the breadth of love in a way few games actually accomplish, allowing your beasties to be bestfriends, rivals or even go on an enemies to lovers arc as well as simply being romantic partners and each type of relationship can drastically effect how your beasties play together.

This fascinating combat system is wrapped in an adorable package of cute beastie designs, charming characters and a delightful soundtrack (featuring one of the funniest samples placed in a villain theme I’ve ever seen). It is still in early access, but if like me this game seems perfectly designed for you I recommend you give it a go!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1864950/Beastieball/ 

Psychroma

Psychroma is psychological-horror 2D-adventure game from the Toronto-based indie studio Rocket Adrift. You play as Haze, the newest non-binary member of a found family that lives in a seemingly haunted building in future-Toronto. As Haze deals with memory loss things start going horribly wrong, the power goes out and people start going missing. Haze must use her own and other people’s memories to understand her past and the past of the house and its inhabitants. The game gets gore-y and weird and falls into the fun trend of using psychological horror to talk about the trans experience.

The game has some adventure game quirks (I had one moment I ran around the house for like 20 minutes desperately trying to figure out what to do next) and I have seen some cishet people not mix well with the game but as a non-binary person myself this game captures the suffocating discomfort of gender dysphoria in a way that feels similar to a24’s ‘I Saw the TV Glow’ while providing an interesting mystery around both Haze and the house’s past wrapped up with a tense conclusion. I recommend it to any queer people, especially if you’re trans.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1879950/Psychroma/ 

Keylocker

Keylocker | Turn Based Cyberpunk Action caught my eye by using the naming convention of one of my favourite games ‘VA-11 Hall-A Cyberpunk Bartender Action’, in short if you promise me Cyberpunk Action in the title of your game I am so down to play it. Keylocker is self described by developers Moonana Games as a Turn Based Rhythm JRPG. The world of keylocker, like all good cyberpunk stories, takes place in a world deep in the thrall of late-stage capitalism, but this one has also banned music. 

You play as singer, songwriter & guitarist B0B0 (and a party of other eclectic musicians that make up your band) on a journey to dismantle the systems of oppression, both financial and religious, that uphold a violent police state, massive income inequality and suppressed art, along the way uncovering the secrets of the planet. The turn based rhythm combat is a refreshing take on the JRPG formula, prioritising the timing of your attacks, in a way similar to the Mario & Luigi rpg games, while adding an important layer of strategy around positioning your party appropriately on the game’s hexagonal grid system. Perhaps most importantly for a rhythm JRPG, the game sets all this to a soundtrack that is a delightfully synth heavy take on the stylings of more traditional JRPG soundtracks from Icelandic composer Elektrobear.

Keylocker is a powerful reminder in the face of rising facism around the globe of the power that revolutionary art can hold.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1325040/Keylocker__Turn_Based_Cyberpunk_Action/ 

Spirit Swap

Spirit Swap: Lo-Fi Beats to Match 3 To is a wonderful celebration of queer POC identity and culture that also has the benefit of including a surprisingly hectic Match-3 game as well. In the game’s main campaign you take the role of Samar, a witch that is responsible for keeping spirits at bay on the outskirts of the city of Demashq, and are introduced to their so very gay friend group. Once you have completed the game’s short campaign, dealing with an outbreak of the aforementioned spirits around the city, you are free to interact with and romance all of your friends. You can join a lesbian polycule, date your goth best friend or go after an angel that is obsessed with macaroni sticks.

Once you’re done with the main story you can continue to engage with the game’s core match 3 system. You can kick back and relax in endless mode while vibing to the wonderful Lo-Fi soundtrack composed by Meltycanon or you can dive into local versus against a friend or the CPU for a shockingly intense competitive experience. (You also get to play as best girl Kedsi here)

Spirit Swap provides a much needed expression of queer POC joy with incredible character designs, a great soundtrack and a creative take on the Match-3 genre.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1592170/Spirit_Swap_Lofi_Beats_to_Match3_To/