Botanicula is free on the Epic Games Store

Monday, gay-disabled dating sim After Work revealed its Kickstarter. Tuesday, WoW‘s latest patch is coming soon, but it still doesn’t include free delivery of inflatable sex dolls daily. Wednesday, if the graphical fidelity of WoW in 2025 (or 2005) is too much for you, there is Erenshor, which looks like it is metaphorically standing on Roblox‘s toes to be just a little higher, and Squirrel with a Gun also caught up with 2006 by adding a gravity gun. Thursday, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound had a second character revealed.

Moving on to the Epic Games Store, I don’t think I’d be allowed back in the Carolinas if I got to say what I wanted. This week, you can sign in to play Firestone Online Idle RPG and receive some free-to-play drivel. Realistically, I’d say something other than drivel that starts with S. Still, my editor wants me to be nice about getting the exclusive “The Legendary Hoplite” skin for some shaved gibbon named Boris, 2 avatars, 10 common chests, 5 uncommon chests… and a partridge (wahey) in a pear tree. Sorry, I’m trying to keep myself alive while talking about a dull game.

Honestly, it is the typical drug dealer, “Here’s a taste of your brain feeling good” before you spend the 200 gems, game and prestige tokens, scrolls, dust, and chests, and are returned to grind-y play. That’s how these free-to-play things work: they give you a taste of crack, you use it up and feel good enough about the game, and then they tell you that what you just experienced was $100 worth of fun. Meanwhile, it is all scientifically designed to perfection to make you feel good when you play with those add-ons. That’s how Candy Crush and others made billions.

The other game currently available is Botanicula, a simple adventure-style thing that tries to be humorous while talking about botany. Released in 2012 by Amanita Design, the developer behind 2009’s Machinarium, Samorost, Pilgrims, Creaks, and Happy Game, the studio seems to have found its niche and stuck to it. If you’re a fan of the obtuse point-and-click adventure games that try to be funny just by doing surrealism, there is certainly something here for you. The trouble with it is that it’s clearly not for everyone, so it’s difficult to sell to people in these articles.

Both games are available on both the Epic Games Store for PC and mobile. Of course, that’s globally on Android and only in the EU for iPhone and iPad. If that’s how we’re shifting here, I’ve got a feeling I’ll stop covering these weekly. Not the mobile portion, the whole thing. There is a reason I cover PC and console games, there is a much higher chance of the games being good, but for mobile it is these two in a nutshell: Free-to-play tripe or something that inspires like licking a handrail in a public space to play something like this.

All this week, you can pick up Botanicula and log in to Firestone Online Idle RPG to get (respectively) the game and get cheap dopamine on both the Epic Games Store for PC and mobile until Thursday, the 24th of April. Moving on to next week, it’s another one of Amanita Design’s titles, Chuchel, and some utter nonsense for Albion Online. Sadly that isn’t the one that will beat you to death for looking at them funny while in dystopian London, or as we normally call it, London.