At ten past nine every evening he sends you out into the darkening world. He's the presenter of Krypta FM - pronounced with the chopped staccato of every good radio announcer as Kryp! Ta! FM! - and you are his eager listener and hopeful protege. Sniff the evening air. Breathe deep! The small town world that lies sleeping all around you is just teeming with cryptids, surely. Anyone seen a mothman lately? A werewolf? Grab a camera and get out there - but be safe, okay?

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At ten past nine every evening he sends you out into the darkening world. He's the presenter of Krypta FM - pronounced with the chopped staccato of every good radio announcer as Kryp! Ta! FM! - and you are his eager listener and hopeful protege. Sniff the evening air. Breathe deep! The small town world that lies sleeping all around you is just teeming with cryptids, surely. Anyone seen a mothman lately? A werewolf? Grab a camera and get out there - but be safe, okay?

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What if Scorn, but it's one that your mum got you for Christmas? That's easy, it's Necrophosis, baby. Much like Scorn, Necrophosis is also part-inspired by the dystopian surrealist works of Zdzisław Beksiński, which means lots of plucking brains out of sinewy bodies and plopping them into fleshy receptacles. There's a demo out now and while it's not outstanding, it tickled my curiosity more than I thought it would.

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Are you a cosy game addict? Welcome in and take a seat among your fellow enablers as I, fellow addict Zoe Delahunty-Light, kick off my new weekly series Cozy Corner! This series follows me as I finally try to clear my backlog of 47 (and counting) cosy games in my steam library, and decide whether these games are relaxing enough to warrant the label 'cosy' at all. Cosy games have blown up over the last four years and because of it, there are more to try than ever before, and thus more competing for your attention. I'm going to find the best of the best so tune in for this new weekly series full of blankets, relaxation - I hope - and surprisingly harsh judgement.

Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator is the first game that's being subjected to the cosy interrogation. In it, you are responsible for bringing back life to the dilapidated garden belonging to the previous gardener Robin, and the spirit of the local community as they convene around you, the new gardener. But you're not on your own - Robin is unable to move on while the garden remains uncompleted and neglected, so they'll be there to guide you as you find your green thumbs. From creating bouquets to opening up new sections of the community garden, Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator is dedicated to gradual floral farming with heartfelt story elements. But just how cosy is Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator? Even though the word 'cozy' is in the name, it's time to put it to the test!

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Are you a cosy game addict? Welcome in and take a seat among your fellow enablers as I, fellow addict Zoe Delahunty-Light, kick off my new weekly series Cozy Corner! This series follows me as I finally try to clear my backlog of 47 (and counting) cosy games in my steam library, and decide whether these games are relaxing enough to warrant the label 'cosy' at all. Cosy games have blown up over the last four years and because of it, there are more to try than ever before, and thus more competing for your attention. I'm going to find the best of the best so tune in for this new weekly series full of blankets, relaxation - I hope - and surprisingly harsh judgement.

Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator is the first game that's being subjected to the cosy interrogation. In it, you are responsible for bringing back life to the dilapidated garden belonging to the previous gardener Robin, and the spirit of the local community as they convene around you, the new gardener. But you're not on your own - Robin is unable to move on while the garden remains uncompleted and neglected, so they'll be there to guide you as you find your green thumbs. From creating bouquets to opening up new sections of the community garden, Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator is dedicated to gradual floral farming with heartfelt story elements. But just how cosy is Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator? Even though the word 'cozy' is in the name, it's time to put it to the test!

Read more

Are you a cosy game addict? Welcome in and take a seat among your fellow enablers as I, fellow addict Zoe Delahunty-Light, kick off my new weekly series Cozy Corner! This series follows me as I finally try to clear my backlog of 47 (and counting) cosy games in my steam library, and decide whether these games are relaxing enough to warrant the label 'cosy' at all. Cosy games have blown up over the last four years and because of it, there are more to try than ever before, and thus more competing for your attention. I'm going to find the best of the best so tune in for this new weekly series full of blankets, relaxation - I hope - and surprisingly harsh judgement.

Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator is the first game that's being subjected to the cosy interrogation. In it, you are responsible for bringing back life to the dilapidated garden belonging to the previous gardener Robin, and the spirit of the local community as they convene around you, the new gardener. But you're not on your own - Robin is unable to move on while the garden remains uncompleted and neglected, so they'll be there to guide you as you find your green thumbs. From creating bouquets to opening up new sections of the community garden, Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator is dedicated to gradual floral farming with heartfelt story elements. But just how cosy is Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator? Even though the word 'cozy' is in the name, it's time to put it to the test!

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Carceri is a fizzy and kaleidoscopic, first-person "chaotic Art-toy" in which you explore/hallucinate an island resort that's also a concentration camp ("carceri" is Italian for prison) for sentient computer programs. Out sometime in May, it's the work of James Beech, who describes himself as "an on-again, off-again AAA veteran" with credits on Metroid Prime 4, Remnant: From the Ashes, and Crysis 3. The environments take hefty influence from Carceri d'invenzione, a series of prints created in the 18th century by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, whose name has become a byword for impossible spaces.

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I gave that Pools game a go recently - you know, the first-person traipse through some liminal spaces that happen to be pool themed. At one point it was trending on Steam and since then it's garnered loads of positive reviews, with people saying it's unsettling and drips with atmosphere. Reader, I do think it's quite atmospheric, but I do not think it's all that unsettling. If anything, I find it a bit dull, in a way that's semi-frustrating. Am I missing the liminal space-liker bit of the brain a lot of people have? Am I an anomaly here?

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I'm currently trying to find a new flat in London. This is not much fun, though it's a great opportunity to meet and bond with other would-be tenants over a shared, grinding resentment of landlords who will literally stuff a bed in a toilet and call it a "studio apartment". It's also left me powerfully invested in the premise of Blue Prince, a first-person puzzler which looks like a graphic novel and starts with your character inheriting a huge, weird, isolated mansion, Mt. Holly, from an eccentric great-uncle.

Lucky you! There's a catch, though: according to your great-uncle's will, you only get to keep the place if you can find its 46th room. The catch hanging off that catch is that going by its flatplan, the mansion only has 45 rooms. And the catch hanging off that catch is that the mansion changes shape between visits. Every time you open one of its many doors, you must choose from three cards to decide which room is on the other side. To find the elusive 46th room, you must "draft" rooms in certain combinations to unfold the mystery of the place and wiggle your way to its heart.

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I have a rule: no more than one post about a horror game per day. The mind can only withstand so much, after all. But POOLS isn't really a horror game. It's just a walking simulator in which you explore a bunch of underground swimming pools. True, their size and layout defy explanation - what is this, a swimming pool for Slender Men? - but look, there are cute covered slides you can ride down in first-person. You know, like the ones you used to enjoy as a kid. Always that element of anxiety though about getting stuck halfway down, am I right?

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Microsoft are bringing Maneater back to Game Pass. Yesterday they unveiled the next batches of Game Pass additions and two are returnees, with the delightful fighty platformer Indivisible accompanying brutal shark 'em up Maneater. What's more important is that it's adding the game with the cutest little Nurglings, grimdark retro-styled FPS Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. The rhetoric of 'purging xenos and heretics' surely doesn't apply to these darling babies. Read on for all the games coming to (and going from) Game Pass over the next few weeks.

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