Weekly Update 2026-05-31
The price of adulthood
Had a pretty busy week, and going into what will probably be an even busier one, and that’s before even getting into how much stuff is being released right around now.
Game Releases and Updates
EMUUROM release – billed as a ‘creature-scanning metroidvania’ this game is essentially what I was hoping for from the disappointing ANIMAL WELL, and more. Its release has been smooth, aside from a handful of bugs that needed patching, and I’ve played it enough to move some of that to the next section.
Underspace multiplayer beta – this space trader sim is apparently nearing the end of development, and a big step in that is finishing the multiplayer functionality. Multi isn’t that big a pull for me, and I probably would never play a game like this in co-op, but the game now also includes a free-play solo mode where you can create a custom character and bumble around without a story campaign just like co-op [but without friends] and a bunch of changes to expand modding potential, both of which are much more up my alley.
Moonsigil Atlas release – one of my Next Fest picks from last year. It’s also a deckbuilding roguelike, which was a hurdle for my attention that the demo managed to clear. I’m a bit tied up to give it a go right away, but my experience with the demo was positive enough that I probably will eventually.
Puzzling Places DLC packs – one of the things that’s kept me from locking in and writing up this jigsaw game now that it’s gotten ported is that it really only had a limited selection of puzzles, some of which I’d done already on the Quest, and I wasn’t sure how long it’d take for them to start to add the DLC packs that they’ve been churning out for years now on another platform. Well, they’re here, at least some of them – a few large packs, a couple individual puzzles, bundles costing more than the base game, a real Train Simulator experience, but aimed at people who are more autistic about jigsaw puzzles than trains. So, me.
Starvester release – another Next Fest pick, from February of this year, this Cookie Clicker descendant got its hooks in me immediately. I already got it, I already played it, I already beat it. More in the next section.
Devil Spire Falls mushroom biome update – again, I just want to share the following amusing line:
Librarians became so mad about thieves robbing their books that they went to the gym and are much stronger!
The State of Games Played
As with last week, I spent most of my limited time playing more Blades of Fire, making my way to, and then most of the way through, a full second map. There have been a couple rough spots, a few hazards that are frustrating to navigate, and some enemies that are annoying enough to spike my cortisol when I see them, but by and large I’ve been absolutely loving this game. I’m still having a blast splattering skulls and lopping off limbs, I really enjoy taking long breaks to futz around min-maxing and tweaking each new weapon at the forge, and one of the bosses was some shit straight out of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, with multiple phases and hammy acting and dramatic tension, an end-of-the-game level effort just on a mid-game pivot.
Even the story and character stuff keeps getting better. I laughed out loud at my companion saying his name for a new enemy type he thought was cool in such a tone as to suggest him shredding on an air guitar while saying it, followed by, not a reproach or ironic counterpoint from the more mature player character, but an equal amount of enthusiasm. Hell yeah, kid. The Exterminator!
I got a bit further in Verho, though I’m feeling torn on how to develop my build, since finding a few weapons that seem totally sick that I don’t have and probably won’t have the stats to wield on my current trajectory. I am enjoying some of the visual touches in the current area a lot – I thought the game looked pretty bland for a Kings-Field-like in the early game but there’s some good atmosphere now.
Following Starvester’s release, I ended up playing most of the way through it’s campaign in just a few sittings. I’m not complaining about its length, though, because I had a great time with it and a lot of why I sped through the early game was how familiar I was with it after devoting a couple hours to the demo a couple months ago. It’s definitely not perfect, and I’ll have more to say in a week or so, but until then, enjoy the sight of thousands of drones slowly converting a stellar neighborhood into more drones.
And, finally, EMUUROM. I’ve spent a good few hours in it, still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface, and am getting that warm sense of imminent intellectual strain that makes games like La Mulana so memorable. Without spoiling too much, the entire game is a mixture of platforming and scanning, with every living thing being something you can point your cone of lasers at until it freezes, unlocking a descriptive bio [or part of one] and maybe turning it into a platform until it thaws out.
But this is a game dense with secrets, from hidden creatures to coax into the light for you to scan to complete your EMUUDEX, tablets bearing hints and opening new paths, and most of all, dozens of individual behaviors and interactions with the various entities for you to read about, experiment with, and discover more about as you play. Shockingly, the game has decent boss fights considering there’s no weapon or attack aside from your totally harmless scanner. No clue how much longer the game will take, how deep it’ll go, how much will be reserved for post-game cleanup, I don’t even know if I’ll have to start taking physical notes soon [though the game has a pretty good feature where the map lets you re-read any tablets you’ve scanned already] but I’m excited to spend more time bumbling around until I figure all that out.
Writing
I probably spent a bit too much time writing too many words about Esoteric Ebb, and trying to explain too much about it without any major spoilers. I trimmed out some sections, struggled to find the right way to say certain things, and probably didn’t do as good a job as I could have if I spent another week picking at it, but I spent so long pecking away on the game itself that I really needed to move on.
Other
Like a lot of people, I caught the announcement from CDPR that Witcher 3 is getting another large expansion, over a decade from the last major expansion, Blood and Wine. Unlike most people, I was even more excited by a minor detail at the end – the new DLC is stated to be co-developed with Fool’s Theory, another Polish dev team, responsible for a game I loved, Seven: The Days Long Gone [though now it’s Seven: Enhanced Edition] and a game I adored but didn’t finish yet, The Thaumaturge.
The fact that they’re getting this chance, alongside also being contracted for the Witcher 1 Remake makes me more hopeful that some of their other plans will get a chance, including their tease of a possible expansion for Thaumaturge, and that makes me even happier than another excuse to finally do a Witcher 3 replay.
But to get back to announcements that you probably haven’t heard of yet, Danny Garay, the developer of Toziuha Night: Order of the Alchemists has set up a Steam store page for their next project, Nosferatu’s Curse. It looks to be a return to the 8-bit, mostly-linear Castlevania style that they started with in Toziuha Night: Dracula’s Revenge, but with more experience leading to hopefully a lot more polish, and more depth in mechanics and design, including CV3-style character swapping and apparently a co-op mode. This has me very excited – the Inti Creates Curse of the Moon spinoffs for Bloodstained were by far my favorite part of that whole situation, and I’m always up for more. Plus it’s just nice seeing a tiny developer picking up steam.
But let’s go even more niche – the developer of Neofeud, a… very stylish adventure game from a decade or so ago, has announced that a direct sequel is completed and heading to Steam soon. COMPLETED?? Not just in development? Well, I’ve been meaning to revisit this fever dream anyway!
I spent all weekend playing PowerWash Simulator and House Flipper but irl. Now my back hurts.