Games of the Week: Chickens, Cats, and Horrific Eldritch Monstrosities!

Get your controllers charged, pull out those blue-light blocking gamer glasses, and prep yourself for a stack of new games. I took a bit to scour the new releases and I’m happy with the results. Check out some of our favorite games we’ve seen in the past few weeks. 

Haven Park 

When I first saw Haven Park I got big A Short Hike vibes. You’re a squat little bird wandering around a lo-fi natural world– but Haven Park hides the fact that it’s actually a management game. Sure you’re hiking around a park and meeting cute characters, but what makes Haven Park different (and what I like most about it) is that you’re building campsites for guests. These can be as simple as bringing the right items to the right place, or a little more complicated requiring things like tractors. 

The appeal of A Short Hike is still here: this is a really pleasant space to exist in for a few hours then go back to your normal life. It’s a brief vacation in an otherwise stressful world, and I can’t recommend it enough for that. 

InBento

Did you eat yet? If you haven’t you may be in trouble, because this next game is the tastiest game I’ve seen in years. InBento is a game about — as you can probably guess– putting things in a bento. Yep, it’s that simple. 

You’re given instructions for how to prepare bento for some cute cats which then becomes the puzzle aspect of the game. You can’t just drop pieces of fish wherever you like, as you have specific strangely shaped ingredients that can’t be broken up. It’s a spacial sort of puzzling that is both accessible and relaxing without being too easy. 

Grime

If you want your metroidvanias gross then look no further than the appropriately titled Grime. This isn’t your normal double-jumping lightning fast side-scrolling adventure, this is a much slower affair with chunkier hits that ask you to commit to your attacks. On the other end of your attacks are some really varied enemy designs. Some are small, but where Grime really hits its stride is when you run into the game’s building-sized bosses. The slower combat means that there’s less of an emphasis on getting in a bunch of fast attacks and more of a push for calling your shot and praying the timing is right. 

Grime’s art style isn’t going to be for everyone but if you like what you see in screenshots then you’re probably going to have a great time here. 

What have you been playing lately? Let everyone know in the comments below