Calico and Lonestar are Free on Epic

Monday, Destiny 2 is wrapping up, Party Animals shot itself in the foot with AI, and a console port was announced for the unique horror game, The Florist. Tuesday, Warhammer Survivors has a demo, and Paralives is out now. Wednesday, weird “reading-style” fantasy RPG, Veritas Tales, was announced. Thursday, Windows ’98 sim Market Chain 98 has a demo. Also, since I have space to promote it, ahead of faux-E3, we’ve been busy and I drove the 2026 F1 cars in a preview of the new DLC.

Moving on to the Epic Games Store, and it is another one of those triple-bills that I (sarcasm) love. We’ll start with the mobile offering because I think it is such a weird offering to put out there, 2018’s city-building RTS by Shiro Games, Northgard. On PC, sure, but an RTS on a phone? I hate reading comments on social media on my phone, never mind reading the woes of villagers in a fantasy version of Norway. Otherwise known as Norway.

Alexx did the Switch review of this next one, as Calico doesn’t get a great opinion out of me. Previously, I’ve said that it gives me a sore head, because of the art style, and there were a few people moaning about bugs a while back, though that seems to have been fixed for the most part. Sure, it is a cozy little thing that’s there for your life-sim casual play desires, but I think there are “better” options when it comes to those sorts of offerings.

Now, I’ll admit this third offering I did throw my head back and moan about, but I should also note that Math Tide and Thermite Games’ Lonestar is already on my Steam wishlist. Originally released into early access in mid-2024 and into 1.0 by April 2025 (a rarity), Lonestar is a deck-building Rogue-like turn-based strategy that certainly has been compared visually to FTL for one reason or another. Though Lonestar is praised, it is worth noting that it is criticized across the board for having poor descriptions.

All this week, you can pick up Calico, Lonestar, and Northgard on the Epic Games Store, the former two on PC and the latter on mobile, until the 4th of June. On to next week, and I still can’t predict the future. Hopefully, this is the last of our mystery week nonsense because next week is the start of Faux-E3, and to say we’re busy at Phenixx Gaming would be an understatement.