Video game Recommendations and Anticipated Titles (Patreon)

Thanks to the fun but taxing work developing Daggerheart, I've been relying heavily on video games as a way to decompress. Here's a few recent games I've been enjoying plus a few anticipated titles coming out of the Triple-i Initiative and other developers.

1) Balatro. What, Mike getting into a Rogue-like Deckbuilder? Who could have predicted such a thing. :P Amusingly, it took me a couple of weeks to actually pick up Balatro, since I'm not a big poker player nor am I really into other traditional card games (Blackjack, Hearts, etc.) But after watching a few streams by the folks at Remap Radio, I took the plunge. The variations in approach needed to win with the different basic decks and the joy of unlocking new cards/powerups/decks was enough of a compelling treadmill that I got all the way on-board and now it's become my go-to wind-down and/or treadmill game.

You can get Balatro on Steam, Playstation, Xbox, and Switch.

2) Inkwell - This is the new game from Shiny Shoe, the team that created Monster Train, another one of my beloved Roguelike Deckbuilders. But Inkwell is a departure in form, trading the side-scrolling Slay the Spire-informed combat structure of Monster Train for a more tactical combat format reminiscent of Transistor. I've only played a few runs of this one but there's already good variation in the classes, the abilities, and the items you can pick up to modify your run. There might be a little too much going on for the kind of casual 'De-frag my brain' role I want the game to fulfil. It's just that I don't generally come to Roguelikes looking for story, which is part of what made Hades such a revelation. This game has a lot of Lore and I don't know that I'm as interested in it as I should be. But the combat and systems are pretty great. This one also has multiplayer, but I haven't tried that out just yet.

Inkbound is available on Steam.

3) Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - one of these things is not like the other, lol. FFVII Rebirth is the three-course meal game I've been playing with the roguelikes as appetizers and desert. I loved VII Remake but this game has much more of everything, especially storytelling. One comparison called VII Remake a tech demo compared to the full game of Rebirth. I don't know that I'd go that far, but Rebirth is massively larger compared to Remake, especially if you're at all a completionist. I played almost 100% of the side material for the first large zone and then quickly fell off in pursuing side material compared to focusing the main story. I did, however, go all-in on Queen's Blood, the in-universe collectible card game. IRL Queen's Blood sets when? ;) It's been delightful revisiting the world and characters of this landmark RPG, except now I have to wait a few more years for the next game/conclusion. I wasn't wild about the last 90 minutes of the story, but it did include some of the best video game cutscene instances of the kind of tag-team/team-up attacks that are the reason we have Tag Team actions in Daggerheart. <3

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is available on Playstation 5.

Anticipated Games

Many of these come from this week's Triple-i Initiative, a project started by a number of prominent indie video game studios (like Evil Empire, Red Hook, Heart Machine, Mega Crit, etc.) You can watch that showcase here.

1) The biggest one for me is obviously Slay the Spire 2. The first one gave birth to my love of Roguelike Deckbuilders and is still an all-time favorite. The idea of that team taking the time and budget afforded by their huge success to make a refinement of/iteration on the first game has me very excited.

2) Darkest Dungeon 2 is getting a new campaign mode as a free update. I had a bumpy road with DD2 during early access but ended up in a pretty good place with it after 1.0. This will be a great excuse to go back and play more.

3) The Rogue - Prince of Persia - This is the long-anticipated new game from Evil Empire, the company that some of the Motion Twin team created to support Dead Cells when the rest of the team wanted to move on to another game. There's already been a Prince of Persia game this year, but this one has a stunning art style and will definitely get a closer look from me upon launch.

4) Windblown - This is the game the Motion Twin team moved on to start making. The bright visuals and move to 3d isometric combat looks pretty promising to me and it's also going to have a Co-op mode.

5) Knights in Tight Spaces - This one was already announced a while ago during a Roguelike Deckbuilder event on Steam. As the name might suggest, it's a sequel/successor to Fights in Tight Spaces, one of my favorite games from a couple of years back. The art style has shifted as has the setting, so in this next game we'll be controlling a party of adventurers through tactical deckbuilder combat.

6) Lastly, Silksong is forthcoming at some point. And there's a good chance it's this year? I just try to be patient and not be grumpy about Team Cherry taking their time because they should take however long they need and not crunch about it.