Gaming In The Wild - Video Game Reviews

Coffee Golf is an improbably compelling and addictive daily phone game. Each day, you get a new five-hole golf course. It takes luck, skill, and strategy to get around the course, and whittle down your stroke count to get the best possible score. Also, for bonus fun – listen out for a 4.2 earthquake that happened while I was recording! Also in this episode: a July indie game roundup, including Syn...

Gerda: A Flame in Winter is an excellent choice-based story game set in Nazi-occupied Denmark towards the end of WWII. The compelling story is packed with ethical quandaries that have real impact on the story, and the stakes are high as your moment-to-moment decisions can have life or death consequences. In the roundup: Annapurna Showcase – Lorelei & The Laser Eyes, Cocoon, To a T, Lushfoil Ph...

This week's review is a short, beautiful game that tells a compact, emotional story. Its watercolored visual style and ambience are breathtaking, and perfectly capture the feeling of loosely-remembered childhood summers. But the gameplay is often a chore—sometimes literally. In the roundup: FFXVI, Nintendo Direct, Super Mario Bros Wonder, Gerda: A Flame In Winter. And many thanks to all the sh...

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is an ambitious and substantial visual novel that plays with a broad spectrum of ideas about hope, chaos, capitalism, community, mysticism, and the power of collective belief. However, the story succeeds despite the game's structure, as I'll go into in the episode. In the roundup: FFXVI and Viewfinder demos, Tales of Arise, and my picks from Tribeca Games Fest,...

This episode, we start with a look at all the cool indie games revealed at Day of the Devs, then move onto two reviews: the simple, colourful platform game Hoa, and the compelling mobster story of Adios. In the roundup: Summer Game Fest, Day of the Devs, Summerhill, Saltsea Chronicles, Beastieball, Viewfinder, Cocoon, Sludge Life 2, Baby Steps, Talos Principle 2, Retro Gadgets, Mars First Logistic...

On a little Zelda sabbatical, this week's episode rounds up a few recent indie games. The featured review is Ravenlok – a short, charming fairytale adventure in which we enter a fairytale kingdom through a magic mirror, and take up a quest to liberate the realm from an evil queen. It’s a simple comfort-food video game with plenty of heart and some colourful, fantastical visuals. In the roundup...

This week's episode picks up where we left off with Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom. With special guest Ciaran Daly, we run through the Rito Village quest, and talk about our first steps into The Deep, our hits and misses in device building and puzzle-solving, and more. In the roundup: The Playstation Showcase, with Alan Wake II, Sword of the Sea, Neva, The Plucky Squire, AC Mirage, Talos Principl...

Tears Of The Kingdom is Nintendo’s impossible sequel. How do you follow up the best game of all time? Their answer was to expand it in all directions. Tears of the Kingdom uses the miraculous Breath of the Wild as its foundations, soaring high and plunging deep to create an astounding adventure in which the possibilities stretch as far as the horizon.  Note: this show covers the intro, opening sky...

Happy Zelda day everyone! This episode includes some spoiler-free impressions of the game we've all been waiting for, The Legend of Zelda: Tears Of The Kindgom, followed a deep dive into the ambnitious and impressive Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. In the roundup: Harmony: Fall of Reverie, Planet of Lana, 1000xResist, The Pale Beyond, Stray Gods & Ludonarracon 2023. Links mentioned in the show -...

Jedi: Fallen Order is a game I first talked about on episode ten of this podcast, way back in 2020. I finally rolled credits this week, so with that, Jedi: Survivor's release, and it being May 4th, it seemed like a good time to talk about it again. It's a nostalgic Star Wars action-adventure game that nails the elusive vibe that made the first trilogy great. There are some significant bump...

Betrayal At Club Low is an oddball point ’n’ click adventure game that melds weird storytelling, retro visuals, a loopy nightclub infiltration scenario, and compelling dice-based skill checks into a contemporary refresh for the genre. It's super fun, and feels like an instant cult classic. In the roundup: Jedi: Fallen Order, Storyteller, Minabo: A Walk Through Life, The Last Case of Benedict F...

TRON Identity is an atmospheric detective story set in an intiguing building called The Repository, over the course of a single rainy night. The presentation nails TRON’s singular aesthetic, but the story is over before it has really begun. In the roundup: Horizon: Burning West, and Nintendo's April Indie World showcase, including Animal Well, Paper Trail, Oxenfree II, Cult of the Lamb, Brotat...

Terra Nil is a relaxing, and at times taxing, terraforming game about repairing the ecosystem of a decimated world, then cleaning up after yourself and leaving it to flourish. It's a profound, philosophically important, and surprisingly emotional experience. In the roundup: TRON: Identity, Tears of the Kingdom, Horizon: Burning Shores, Tin Hearts, The Last Case of Benedict Fox, Wildfrost, Stra...

Tchia is a charming, sun-drenched open-world adventure in which a child protagonist sails, runs, floats, and flies through a beautiful mountainous archipelago. The engrossing world casts a spell that’s occasionally broken by unexpected bouts of combat, but it’s recommended nonetheless. In the roundup: Terra Nil. If you'd like to support the show on Patreon , you can do so from $1 per month at...

DREDGE is a crisply-designed mini-open-world fishing game with a murky, eerie atmosphere. Explore an odd, far-flung archipelago, heave up strange fish and stranger secrets, and piece together the story of this precarious, haunting world. In the roundup: Storyteller, Tchia, Have A Nice Death, and the IGF Award winners: The Case Of The Golden Idol, The Forest Quartet, Immortality, and Betrayal At Cl...

Panzer Dragoon will be well known to ‘90s console gamers. It’s a cult classic dragon-riding rails shooter that first arrived on the Sega Saturn in 1996, and got an unexpected remake for Switch and other modern consoles in 2020. In this episode, we take a rare dive into gaming nostalgia to see how it holds up, and touch on its sequels, Zwei, Orta and the legendary Panzer Dragoon Saga. In the roundu...

Wild Hearts is an idiosyncratic monster hunting RPG set in a fantasy-samurai world where humanity is beset by wild, aggressive megafauna. You track down these huge, spectacular "kemono" through fun open-world areas, engaging in multi-phase battles using dynamic, mid-battle building. The game's performance is supremely janky, but the addictive combat makes for a thrilling ride.  In the...

The Forest Quartet is a lyrical puzzle game about the death of a young singer, and the effect it has on her forest-dwelling bandmates. It's a short game that does a lot with a little, offering glimpses into the lives and minds of each member of the Forest Quartet, as we solve easygoing puzzles to help sooth their varying woes. In the roundup: Wild Hearts, A Little To The Left, and a March indi...

This week's show is an interview with Madison Karrh, the solo developer who just release the heartfelt, unusual point 'n' click Birth. We talk about ideas of pouring yourself into a game, learning to draw, and how it feels to put a game out into the world.  In the roundup: Wild Hearts, Psychonauts 2, Psychonauts: The Rhombus of Ruin, and Double Fine's Psycho-Odyssey documentary ser...

Birth is short, heartfelt point ’n’ click game in which we navigate a strange line-drawn city, interacting with the bony creatures and odd situations we find there. The puzzles involve playful physics, hidden objects, and pattern-matching mechanics that raise a smile, and evoke the sadness, seriousness and silliness of our fleeting lives. Also: Steam Next demo reviews, including Unmurk, Nine Sols,...

This was a news-packed week, so first we whip through the big reveals of the Nintendo Direct, and flick through the demo pile at Steam Next Fest, including some new indie games to get excited about. Then, our featured review – a short and sweet rhythm game called Melatonin, that combines pastel colours, soft line art, and lo-fi beats into a dreamy vapourwave experience. You tap and combo your way...

Season: A Letter To The Future is a wistful exploration game in which the player cycles through a picturesque, all-but abandoned valley before it’s washed away by an inevitable flood. We document the sights, sound, traditions, and lives of this odd place, recording the details for posterity in a memorable, freewheeling journey. Also: a big thank you to podcast patron DovetailTrue17, who made an am...

This year’s game reviews kick off with a pair of gorgeous, undemanding little games – the Short-Hike inspired Lil Gator Game and Sony’s PS5 pack-in, Astro’s Playroom. In the roundup: Lone Ruin, Kirby & The Forgotten Land, Jack Move, A Space For The Unbound, Hi-Fi Rush, and more. Here's the “what game were you most addicted to?” Twitter thread mentioned in the show: https://twitter.com/gami...

This episode is a look ahead to all the amazing indie games that we can look forward to in 2023. Sure, sure, there'll be postponements – but here at Gaming In The Wild, we stay optimistic!  On the list: Colossal Cave, Season: A Letter To The Future, Birth, Terra Nil, Tchia, Hyper Light Breaker, Nine Sols, Venba, Planet of Lana, Schim, Dredge, Lorelei & The Laser Eyes, Spirittea, Highwater,...

This week I'm joined by friend of the show Ciaran Daly (@cmg_daly, @radartreview). We talked about what we're playing, including High On Life, Citizen Sleeper, Pokémon Scarlet & Arceus, Tony Hawk, and more. Next up were Ciaran's two GsOTY – Stray and Elden Ring – before we finished with hopes and dreams for Hollow Knight: Silksong, Starfield, and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I'...