Bears in Space, Gothic Gloom, and Runescape chatter
What's out this week, and what have we been playing?
Welcome to the first Pixels for Breakfast newsletter! We are planning to roll these out weekly with a collection of new indie games that have been released, and a quick update of what we have been playing.
Let us know in the comments if we can make some tweaks to this format! This is our first, and we are sure it is all uphill from here. So without further delay, let’s dive in!
What’s Out This Week?
The Banished Vault
Developer: Lunar Division
Steam rating: Positive
Store Link
The Banished Vault has a VIBE! Embark on an interstellar journey as you construct outposts on hostile worlds, deal with all the various resources that are required to manage your expansion, and discover the mysteries of The Gloom. One part base management, with just a little dash of Citizen Sleeper via some dice rolls, The Banished Vault has this stark, gothic, space religious feeling to it that really makes it stand out. Run based games are always some of my favorites though, so I guess that I am biased.
Deadlink
Developer: Gruby Entertainment
Steam rating: Very Positive
Store Link
I promise, not every game on this list will be run based, but Deadlink looks like too much fun to ignore. This one has been floating around on various lists with regular updates for a few months now, finally getting a release date today!
Deadlink is a cyberpunk FPS roguelite, putting you in the shoes of an autonomous combat shell who has to move through the various sectors of the Deadlink project in order to thwart the evil corpo. You know, normal cyberpunk things. Looks incredibly rad, which is why we are bringing it to the table today.
Rightfully, Beary Arms (Early Access)
Developer: Daylight Basement Studio
Steam rating: N/A
Store Link
Bears are cute. Everyone likes bears. Give a bear some guns, and you have Rightfully, Beary Arms, a cute bullet hell roguelite that hit Steam Early Access this week. Make your way through a galaxy filled with ridiculous enemies, as you try to become the deadliest bear in the galaxy.
What makes Rightfully, Beary Arms super interesting however is that you are in charge of choosing the upgrades for your enemies. How much power do you want to give them, and how will that change your tactics? Super neat idea, and we are keen to check it out.
Vampire Hunters (Early Access)
Developer: Gamecraft Studios
Steam rating: Mostly Positive
Store Link
Calling all Boomer Shooter fans. Vampire Hunters is a roguelite retro FPS that asks if you will “become the baddest Vampire Huntger in Transylvania?” Yes. Yes I will become the baddest.
Taking inspiration from.. you guessed it… Vampire Survivors, this Brazilian-developed shooter has a neat mechanic that has you literally stacking every gun you come across until your entire screen is just a flashing mess of pain and destruction. A little light right now, with just two levels in the Early Access release, that hasn’t stopped fans getting behind this one after it picked up some fervor during the latest Steam Next Fest.
Koa
Developer: Chibig, Talpa Games, Undercoders
Steam rating: N/A
Store Link
I am a big believer that games should be more colorful, and less focused on combat. There are so many shooty shooty games out there, sometimes it’s nice to go back to a bright and colorful platformer, which is why Koa appeared on my radar this week. Based on the same universe as the Stories of Mara and Summer in Mara games, Koa got some buzz when it appeared as part of The Mix back in March, and it has dropped quietly this week. Not many Steam reviews there right now, but it seems that the few who have left reviews say it’s a minimalistic, but fun platformer, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.
What we’re playing
Eighty
A good chunk of my time as of recent has gone into Old School Runescape. My only experience with this before recently was messing about with my friends a few years ago, I'm pretty sure this was so long ago it was in the before times (pre-pandemic.) Lately my friend Kacey has picked the game up and it's really good at convincing me to try games out. I was convinced I would just mess around with it being a levelling stats, I love playing idle games (shout outs to: Leaf Blower Revolution, Cell to Singularity, and the OG Cookie Clicker!)
It turns out the quests in OSRS are actually well written. I won't spoil any of them, but one of the few quests I found extremely amusing was the Romeo and Juliet quest. Your character gets just so fed up with Romeo, it's actually funny. The game has some dry British humor and has actually gotten a good amount of smiles out of me which is kinda rare in the games I play. Outside of questing training skills is perfect if you're the kind of person who likes to zone out while watching videos or listening to music and still have something to do. Huge shout out to the community for how amazing their wiki is and how the wiki can tie into approved third party clients like RuneLite! I can't sing the praises of how the client can send info like completed quests to a server that the wiki can use for example like if you're browsing the Optimal Free-to-Play quest list and it will check off which ones you've already done. A feature I wish was available in other games as well.
Blue
When Minecraft first launched, I definitely didn't think it was a pretty game. The recent years though... I have a base nestled between a field and a frozen river. On the north is a spruce forest with snow covered trees. To the south is the gorgeous ice spike biome with pillars of ice sticking out of the frozen sea level. I've also transplanted some of new cherry blossoms nearby to have that ever gentle sprinkling of pink particles. Just lovely.
But what really sparks my enjoyment of the game is the nitty gritty mechanical aspect of it. How to manipulate mob spawns, where to get quality of life advancements in the game, how to get infinite resources in a game that started as "survival will always wear you down". So far in this new world, I've built a nether speedway to turn a 16,000 block possibly hour long trek in the overworld into a minute of ice boating. I've done the treacherous void bridging in the end to find wings to finally fly again. Which of course requires killing the Ender Dragon.
Rinoa Carmichael
I've been playing Bloom. So far it's a sweet little visual novel that plays out over real time, intended to be checked in 2-3 times a day. Characters text you, you grow and sell flowers in your flowershop with a very simple system. It's in many ways one would say outside of being on the playdate, it's not really anything special.
But I've really been enjoying it, it really showcases the same kind of artistry that makes old black and white mac games look distinct. I've had a busy time recently, so this week fitting in much gaming has been hard and it has been really nice to squeeze in some short sessions here and there, while learning more about the characters and their struggles. The whole game has some nice queer tones, a soundtrack going for the whole "lofi girl" aesthetic, and some interesting tension between the protagonist lying about continuing college to their parents while running a flower shop. I'm really keen to keep going and see where it ends up.
Steve Heller
I have played so many games over the past week, mostly because I was laid up in a hospital bed recovering from surgery. I was jumping from my Steam Deck and the Switch, and throughout the recovery period I was getting deep into Dave the Diver, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Triangle Strategy, and Aliens: Dark Descent. All of these games are class A bangers, and I cannot wait to perhaps write some pieces about all of them soon.
But the one game that really carried me through was DREDGE. This one got a lot of praise when it launched earlier this year, but I only picked it up a few weeks ago in anticipation of a meeting with the developers at BitSummit. I knew that it was the kind of game I would be into - Lovecraftian vibes set amongst the backdrop of the harsh cruel sea. But what I didn’t expect was just how relaxing the game could be, while keeping me on edge at all times because there was always this feeling that SOMETHING was lurking in the corners. That was a pretty special experience, one that I truly cannot shake. I think I’m going to slowly sail the open seas and knock off all the achievements I missed, just so I can explore every little mystery of every little island.
We will see you next week! Until then, please tell a friend about the newsletter!