Gaming News — puzzle

We’re just about to wrap up the month of February, and time is just passing by in a flash. Thankfully, in game releases, things slow down just a bit for us to catch some exciting titles. Always got something for everyone in the retro sphere, that’s for sure.

Paying tribute to the classics is one of the best ways for budding game devs to show their appreciation, showcase their skills, and exercise their imagination. We got a few love letters to retro gaming this week worth checking out.

STRAY THE SCOUT 

First, we’re looking at a very familiar-looking game that’ll get the good old dog workin’. Scout the Stray for the Commodore 64 is a maze bass game that, as players take on the told-off, you guessed it, a stray dog who’s out to collect bones while avoiding being caught by some evil-doers.

LC-Games has been hard at work with its title, and it now includes in-game music, along with a few updates and fixes to make playing far more enjoyable. Finding bones on the run is no easy task, so it's good that we won't have any trouble helping out good old Scout. In terms of the game, each stage is a randomly generated maze with all the necessary bones scattered around.

Each level ends once you find all the bones, and in total, the game has 32 increasingly difficult levels, with the speed of the chasers increasing more. So it's intense! Definitely a dog-eat-dog world out there. So make sure Scouts stay safe if you decide to pick this game up.

BEEP'S ESCAPE 

It's time to hop into the indie side of retro gaming, especially for those who swear by the PC master race. If you're on steam right now, you can check out Little Martian Games and their later release, Beep's Escape. It just oozes old school and according to the creator, it's a not too subtle nod to the ZX spectrum games of the 1980s and particularly the Dizzy Franchise of Action Adventure Games. Yes, indeed. You get them feels just by looking at the aesthetic.

You take control of Beep, a brave robot on a mission to escape from the strange Tech facility with just your wits and the items around you. If you’re the kind of gamer who enjoys old-school platforming, puzzles, and helpful NPCs, you might be up for the challenge. When it comes to both retro looks and feels beeps, escape definitely checks those boxes and checks them well. So check it out!

IT RETURNED TO THE DESERT 

Now we look at a tribute to an all-time classic, which released an old-school console in the eighties, but now finds its home on PC. Thanks to TimRachor, a fun re-imagining of It Came from the Desert just dropped on Steam, and it has a nice touch to its title. It Returned to the Desert. Oh, it absolutely did, and it’s just unnerving as it was back then.

The tactical combat and story-driven adventure game take you to the desert town of Glint Rock, where a meteor crash is causing a stir that might involve some giant mutated ants later on, spoiler warning, for anyone who hasn’t seen the eighties movie. Like any tactical game, you’ll recruit a party, prepare for combat, and use your time well just to survive what could be a literal ANT-pocalypse? Freaky stuff I tell ya.

If you’re curious, the game features retro pixel art, an atmospheric soundtrack, free saving, and multiple difficulties. It’s a very modern take on an almost 40-year-old game. So if you’re here for all the Monster Madness, check it out on Steam.

Check the Weekly Gaming News video here:

Come play and talk with us on Discord and subscribe to our YouTube for more Retro Gaming News!

Hey guys, we're here to bring you more weekly gaming news.

Have you ever heard the quote “Life is like a puzzle, it all seems a mess but when it gets fixed it looks awesome” well if not maybe you'll understand when you try playing Where Cards Fall. In the game the unnamed protagonist traverses different landscapes from forests to cities to classrooms that represent their key memories as they reminisce the events that took place in their teenage years all the way through adulthood. Often the ultimate goal of an area is to get from point A to point B using card based structures to overcome obstacles. Now that's where the challenge of translating the physicality of 3D cards onto a 2D plane comes in. You would spread decks of cards to solve challenging spatial puzzles and progress through dream-like landscapes. It attempts to tell a story with minimalist details but you can only draw vague inferences to the pantomime that's taking place on screen. You'll need to make your way towards the end of the level which is represented by a solitary card to move on towards the next one. To do so you'll be constructing houses, platforms, and buildings of varying size and heights with stacks of cards. The basics of these puzzles would need a bit of getting used to particularly with its fiddly controls on the switch but they are largely compelling brain teasers that reward your hard work with the rush of dopamine and if all else fails you can count on the ever reliable hint system that will get you out of tight spots.

Our next game would give us the right amount of refreshment off the bat the release date is not yet known to us but the title itself just tells you that it's going to be a hit. For starters it's got Boba, enough said right? It also has really cute art and in the game, you have the ability to date demons. In Hell Boba Cafe you'll be working at a bubble tea store at the edge of hell. The thing is your customer is a local demon population. You're going to have mysterious and spooky ingredients at your disposal to make something tasty. Mind you most demons have never ordered Boba before so you'll need to figure out what they'd like. You'll have to cope with demons being tricky and very cryptic in their orders and you'll need to master conversations to do so. In summary, prepare mouth-watering Boba tea, make dialogue choices, and flirt with demon customers to build new relationships. There are over 1400 Boba combinations so get creative. 

Lastly is this upcoming voxel sandbox game Teravit it's from Cyberstep and they already have a demo for it if you want to check it out because who doesn't love a good sandbox game right. It's a world filled with various biomes, some planes with flowers so that sounds promising right. What's interesting is that the game seems to have a more direct story compared to most sandbox games - The demon king came along and ruined everything by getting his servants to destroy the world's villages then built a bunch of castles to live in which can only mean that darkness is probably going to spread around the World. However, you've just arrived and it's your job to try and stop that however you think is possible. There is of course single-player and multiplayer but you can also just play however you want because it is a sandbox. 

This has been Retro Indie News, Join our Discord and subscribe to our YouTube for more!