Rare bonne bell lip lix chapstick

Princess Farmer [Samobee] (Nindie Choice!) - When you try to tackle coming up with a new and exciting take on the action puzzler space it’s a bit of a tough deal given the already well-established big players in the space. Undaunted by such a challenge Princess Farmer has found a way to set itself up with a play feel that’s just familiar enough to pull you in initially, but then also deep enough that it will require a fair amount of work to get super-effective at. Charged with being the kingdom’s new Princess Farmer you’ll need to tackle two tasks, the first getting the hang of the pretty simple but deep mechanics of pulling out and then replanting crops in order to make matches in pretty well any direction, and the second coming through in a sort of visual novel way where you’ll choose how to interact with other characters and hopefully may a positive impression in order to reap some added rewards. As you progress the specifics of each scenario, its rule, the game board, and your objectives will change, which actually does a solid job of keeping you on your toes and focused on perhaps some different style of play than you normally would just to chase high scores. Whether you play solo, with a friend, or even with an AI helper there’s plenty to enjoy here for a game very reasonably priced, though you may find you’ve finished it sooner than you’d like. Propelled forward by its propensity for pink and a very cutesy look, Princess Farmer absolutely knows what it set out to be and while it may not be amazing in terms of presentation it’s still a novel and reasonably addicting action puzzler worth a look for fans of the space.

Slipstream [ansdor] - There’s no doubt a great deal of nostalgia in the arcade racing community for the late 80s and early 90s games like OutRun, Daytona USA, the Cruis’n series, and some others as well. To date the Switch has been blessed with some solid riffs on those formulas to varying success, but with a few stand-outs in the space that roughly show the high water mark the rest are trying to meet or exceed. Slipstream, definitely feeling more inspired by the look and general feel of OutRun makes a valiant attempt to both recapture some of that nostalgia as well as provide its own spin on things, but given a few struggles in critical areas it never really manages to set itself up at the front of the pack. The main issue I ended up having was with the control, specifically with the drifting, at least when trying to use manual mode. In principle it makes sense, you brake a little before starting your skid, but it just never felt consistent or natural to me. In particular the turns had a tendency to feel slippery to me somehow, especially if I would try slowing down to try to keep from going off the track, trying to pick speed back up in the turn just made for a mess and really didn’t even make much sense. Turning it over to automatic things improved immensely, resulting in something more akin to OutRun’s pretty loose style, but mechanically everything suddenly seemed to work as I’d expect, if nothing else underlining the weird feelings I’d had with manual mode. The slipstreaming mechanic I also found more annoying than helpful since you don’t accumulate boost you can hold and use strategically, instead it just kicks in when you get enough. The issue I had was when this would happen pretty often in big turns, making it more of a nuisance than a help. With all of that in mind the game’s greatest strength is probably the variety of modes you can participate in, including a Cannonball Run style mode that lets you control traffic you’ll encounter (though honestly this didn’t feel like it made a tremendous difference) and a few other variations. All things considered I’d say this lands somewhere in the middle of the pack for indie racers on the system, failing to inspire real love but also not falling so far short as to be brushed off. I’d still say there are a few titles out there worth picking up first, but if you’ve exhausted those and are craving another retro racer with some patience this one has some decent gameplay to enjoy.

Dice Legacy [DESTINYbit] - One problem many solid PC strategy games have had on the Switch has been trying to take what are often intuitive controls and screens from the mouse and keyboard world and trying to map them to a controller. Unfortunately, I’d say that Dice Legacy falls prey to this, and in a pretty bad way even compared to its peers, with a scheme I really wasn’t ever able to 100% get comfortable with as it just feels very unintuitive overall. The shame is that if you remove that obstacle there’s a pretty different and refreshing strategy take here, incorporating an additional layer of challenge to things as your resources are all represented as dice and you’ll have the expected ups and downs with your luck as the RNG gods play a direct role in your efficiency in implementing your plans for your kingdom. Each task set before you will require a specific worker type, and if you’ve rolled without anyone being a match to fulfill that task you’ll need to re-roll, at the cost of worker fatigue, in the hopes you’ll get it the next time. Throw in multiple classes of dice to concern yourself with, seasons that will test your resources and planning, and surprises as you continue to discover what lies beyond the edge or your kingdom, presenting new challenges along the way, and there’s quite a bit to like here… the question is whether you can take the Switch version of the interface (or perhaps if you have a PC consider just getting it on that platform and save the headache). That there is additional DLC on the way later this month additionally sweetens the deal if you enjoy the strategy take the game offers.

Big Bang Pro Wrestling [SNK] - The NeoGeo Pocket conversions coming to Switch are always a bit fascinating and tend to be a surprise in some way, with a few of them having been stand-outs as not just great representatives from that surprisingly-powerful system but just as solid games in general. While I’ll say that the sheer number of modes do help to give Big Bang Pro Wrestling a little more general interest than the typical fighter, down to being able to play with rules for special matches if you’d like to experiment, the problem for me here is with the controls. While a few of their fighting titles have managed to impressively pack nuance and depth into their 2-button control scheme, in this case I just wasn’t feeling it at all. I wouldn’t consider the scheme terribly intuitive or effective, though perhaps I just didn’t have the patience to try to dig in long enough to get the feel. The thing is, even as I managed to do a little better in the matches in general it didn’t feel like the diversity in moves was really there to sustain my interest, outside of simply seeing what each wrestler brought to the table with their own signature style. For people who had the original this may be a terrific throwback to help you enjoy a slice of the past, but for people without that connection even though there are few competitors in the space I’d say they’d be better starting points than this particular title.

Floogen [Iananimator] - Quite some time, back in the SNES era, there were some games that featured claymation as their animation style and, at least briefly, it was a thing. Myself I was a fan of Clayfighter, though not just for the way everything looked but also what at the time were at least reasonably-good play mechanics and a generally silly style. Now, so many years later, perhaps the likes of Floogen are here to make the old new again? Well, maybe not in this case. Keeping in mind that this is a pretty low-budget affair it would be cruel to beat up on it too much, but while this reasonably basic platformer has some quirks and charm with its appearance and general approach to some sequences that attempt to make it a little more elaborate there’s no getting around its general wonkiness. Whether it’s the controls that I’d say are best characterized as “chunky” and perhaps clumsy, or just some unintentionally weird or awkward moments created by the game not feeling particularly polished, it’s a game that can be tough to love. But if you enjoy the art style and have some patience it still may have enough charm to be some simple fun.

Gunborg: Dark Matters [Rickard Paulsson] (Nindie Choice!) - More budget-friendly titles are almost always a challenge to know how to score against their more full-priced brethren. When the game is a bit cheaper than most, what expectations can you pull back and how far tend to be fair questions. The beauty is the ones that show up on your doorstep and surprise you with quality gameplay that removes the concern with how to be fair about scoring them, it’s just clear that they work. Gunborg keeps things a bit on the simple side with its twin-stick side-scrolling slashing, shielding, and shooting but there’s beauty in how tightly it controls and how solidly it’s executed. The platforming can be challenging at times, especially when you’re embroiled in some combat, but it’s almost always fair… it just keeps raising the bar periodically and asking you to be better and smarter, and I can respect that. Though it doesn’t last more than maybe a small handful of hours it’s a lean and focused title that knows what it wants to do, executes it well, and leaves you challenged as well as satisfied. If you’re down for some intense action that changes things up between the need to shoot, shield, and slash, never quite allowing you to simply get into a comfortable rhythm, it delivers nicely.

tERRORbane [BitNine Studio] (Nindie Choice!) - When it comes to adjectives I like to see associated with games, weird and funny are pretty high on my list, though I’ll concede that that doesn’t always make for a top-notch play experience necessarily. tERRORbane is an odd duck, on the one hand being set up as a traditional JRPG with an overworld, plenty of NPCs, and turn-based combat. On the other hand you’ll be “interacting” directly with the game developer, who promises the game is complete and ready for play, but it’s clear pretty quickly that very much isn’t the case. The result is an odd experience, which you could take two ways. If you’re showing up to play an RPG you’ll likely be a bit upset, but if you’re there for the weird ride where your objective is more often to hunt down any way you can to “break the game” it can be a bit fun… though that still can feel like an odd experience since it involves spending a fair amount of time being unsuccessful as well. If you enjoy an experience that skewers the ordinary and has a sense of humor about the genre and even the broader industry it’s a fun ride with jokes that range from the more obvious to the unexpected. A definite treat for the weirdos out there!

Red Wings: American Aces [All in! Games] - As a huge fan of titles like Wing Commander and some others back in the day I developed a love for dogfighting games quite some time ago (obviously). While obviously not set in space, and also in a much earlier era of aerial combat, Red Wings does deliver on a relatively challenging and long set of missions for you to work through, conquering consistently-escalating challenges as newer and tougher enemies and mission formats consistently emerge. One struggle I had early on was having to kick my normal desire to conquer each mission as they come, honestly getting all 3 stars in the early missions feels like it's pretty deliberately impossible. Without the upgrades you’ll gain, and the more effective craft you’ll unlock, maintaining a high combo meter to knock out planes quickly and efficiently would be a Herculean task. Instead, you’ll want to go long, as simply completing missions will slowly unlock new aircraft which will then allow you to find your preferred craft and then eventually begin going back to earn stars to pump up your stats with upgrades. If you’re just looking for plenty of content and challenges this does a pretty good job of delivering, just keep in mind that the scope is pretty narrowly focused on more of a straight arcade-like experience, lacking more satisfying depth or intrigue beyond shooting things out of the sky.

Flat Kingdom: Paper’s Cut Edition [Fat Panda Games] - It’s always cool to see new ideas emerge in the indie space, and Flat Kingdom delivers that both visually and in general terms of gameplay with its papercraft looks and shape-shifting main character. Charged with trying to save the day, you’re a pretty humble little cut-out named Flat, and you’ll need to make the most of your ability to shift between shapes and forms to solve a variety of puzzles as well as knock out opponents. In principle this doesn’t work too badly, and some of the puzzles have their moments, but there’s also just a clunkiness to the flow that shows up too often as you try to shift forms. That and the rock-paper-scissors nature of the “combat” where the key is really just being the right form for dealing with a given opponent effectively neuters the action and it leaves things feeling like a bit of a grind as the game begins to struggle to come up with novel ideas the further you progress. It’s accessible and has a great look, but for more seasoned gamers there are simply too many stronger options out there in the eShop.

Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between [Silverstring Media Inc] - While I’m always down to check out games that venture out on their own towards a new type of experience there’s no denying that it’s a risky proposition. When you remove the somewhat superficial trappings of pretending to travel, Glitchhikers really boils down to being an experience focused on exploring philosophy, with you encountering different odd individuals or aliens that pose different topics and lines of discussion to explore. At times this can be interesting, though that depends greatly on how receptive you are to the exercise of taking a step back and looking at the world and yourself in different lights. Since that’s ultimately what the game is focused on I sort of wish they’d removed all of the other elements that don’t really serve a great purpose and just contribute to dead time and filler. If you enjoy introspection it may be of interest to you though.