Water gets all the credit. When gaming companies want to show off new graphics technology, things tend to get wet; splashing waves that are only possible with the latest physics engine, or puddles that can reflect the world around them thanks to ray tracing. But there's something special about snow. It might not be as technically impressive as water, but when it comes to creating a mood in a game, snow can be very powerful. And two recent releases - Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth and Froggy Hates Snow - really capture just what snow is capable of.

Let's start with the Moomins. Winter's Warmth is the second game based on the iconic Finnish fai …

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It took me a while to get into Esoteric Ebb, a new CRPG from developer Christoffer Bodegård. The elevator pitch is basically Disco Elysium, but in the fantasy style of Dungeons & Dragons: You play as a cleric wandering around a small town who's trying to figure out, among other things, the mystery of why a tea shop in town exploded, and all the while, you're having conversations with different character traits in your head. Like Disco Elysium, you see the world from an isometric, top-down perspective. Also like Disco Elysium, Esoteric Ebb requires a lot of reading, weighing the opinions of your competing voices, and making some bold dice rol …

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The last few weeks have bordered on overwhelming for science fiction fans. While Project Hail Mary is dominating the box office, For All Mankind is currently in the midst of its penultimate season, with a spinoff streaming next month. When it comes to games, Capcom kicked off a new sci-fi franchise with Pragmata, and Housemarque is about to launch the haunting shooter Saros. With all of that going on, it'd be easy to miss Aphelion. It's a comparatively small and quiet adventure game, one focused more on storytelling than gameplay. But that also makes it a perfect complement to all of the current blockbusters, offering something much more int …

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The first rule of Titanium Court is that you can't explain Titanium Court. Not because we're living under the omerta of an 8-bit Fight Club, but because it's one truth I can stand by. For the past week, I've been facing the consequences of getting isekai'd into a digital pastiche of the entire history of dramatic allegory and contemporary humor, leading a whimsical quasi-sentient court of wildly unmedicated faeries to their doom. They try, in their roundabout faerie way, to be helpful, because I don't know what I'm doing. "I'm looking forward to you explaining the game to me," said my editor Andrew Webster - words he silently swallowed after …

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When Vampire Survivors first exploded onto the scene, it was pretty much all I could think about. The formula of jumping into runs, taking on thousands of enemies, and becoming absurdly overpowered kept me picking up the game again and again - Steam says I've played it for more than 60 hours. Over time, though, despite the game's many updates and expansions, the formula got stale, and I haven't played it in more than a year. But I've become obsessed with the Vampire Survivors universe once again thanks to the new spinoff Vampire Crawlers.

Vampire Crawlers - technically, Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors - successfu …

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With a vacation comes a big choice: What game should I focus on during the trip? I thought about grinding out the harder levels of Super Meat Boy 3D, but I was looking for something more chill. I could have dabbled more with Slay the Spire II, but I already know that's a game I'll be playing for a long time. I wanted something that I could really get lost in and finish in a little over a week. People of Note, a new music-focused RPG from Annapurna Interactive and Iridium Studios, turned out to be exactly what I needed.

In the game, you play as aspiring pop singer Cadence. What starts as a journey to outperform a popular boy band turns into …

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Over the last few years, Capcom has done an exceptional job of solidifying its lineup of big, long-running franchises. The likes of Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Street Fighter have all been on strong and consistent runs, an impressive thing given the current strain of uncertainty that runs through the games industry. And now the developer is using that momentum to launch an ambitious new property called Pragmata.

The game takes the bones of Resident Evil's slow-paced action and merges it with a sci-fi world that explores everything from lunar colonization to artificial intelligence. It has some genuinely great ideas, including an incr …

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There's one very specific reason I keep a Wii U handy, and that's so that I have an easy way to play the classic pinball game Devil's Crush. Over the years, it has become a comfort game for me. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but there's something about the combination of familiar pinball gameplay and the demonic imagery that works so well together, and lets me lose myself in the chase for a high score. But now I have something else to fill that need, and it comes in a much smaller package.

Devils on the Moon Pinball for the Playdate has an extremely literal title. It's a game about playing pinball on the moon, which happens to be home to …

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