Beacon Pines is free on Epic

Monday, CloverPit gets PlayStation and Switch ports, and Allogloom got an October release date too. Tuesday, Mexican Ninja is something White folks have to be careful saying out loud and now has a release date, as does that less symanticlly satiated sounding game, Tiny Eden, which also got a release date for September. Wednesday, Static Hour got announced and is just a wet dream of mine to be like Jim (Jesus of Suburbia) from The Newsroom, and August’s Humble Choice offers were revealed. Thursday, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave had a showcase during Nintendo’s latest Direct.

Moving on to the Epic Games Store, and only the Epic Games Store this week because Jeffrey isn’t paying my contact over there anymore, we’ll start with the multiplayer offering of We Were Here Together. Released in late 2019, and the second sequel to 2017’s We Were Here, you and a “friend” quickly become shouting opponents as you try to avoid getting the automatic lock-in to the Medieval Zone. Listen, if you don’t know Richard O’Brian’s career in the 90s, that’s your loss. It is yet another “escape the room” deal, but this time you have to shout at someone else over the internet.

The mobile offering is actually something that’s on my wishlist for Steam (we’ll talk about her in a minute), and has been for some time. A Guidebook of Babel is a narrative-driven puzzle adventure where you take an adventure on the ship Babel. Indeed, it is not the tower from Genesis 11, though it is weird that Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel, and Phil Collins would write 11 books about a tower. Jokes aside, it is a pretty adventure with a hint of time travel, even if I think it might be better served for a bigger screen (and zoomed out a bit).

As a bonus, since the people at Amazon/Prime/Luna don’t want to bother doing work, you have until the 9th (Sunday), or until stocks last, to pick up Moonlighter on Steam. That’s the 2018 dungeon-crawling Rogue-lite ARPG where you also run a little shop. A nice idea that I think was a bit limited by the fact that once you realize the prices to sell things in your shop, you’re left with another bloody Rogue-lite dungeon-crawler on Steam… in reading that sentence alone, 93 of the things released with overwritten plots and limp gameplay. Here’s hoping Moonlighter 2, releasing in 1.0 on September (obligatory eye-roll) 2nd, is better.

On to the “main” game of the week on Epic. We have another one of those games where I saw the art style, and it instantly went on my wishlist… then it released, request for a key ignored, and remained on my wishlist. 2022’s Beacon Pines is a mystery adventure book-style deal with an art style that I swear has been abused by Rule34 (I’m not checking). Indeed, stop being a weirdo. Over 4,000 positive reviews can’t all be furries, so there is clearly something good about Beacon Pines other than the pretty art; my editor Alexx quite enjoyed it.

All this week, you can pick up Beacon Pines, We Were Here Together, and A Guidebook of Babel on the Epic Games Store until the 13th of August, with the latter available on the mobile app. Don’t forget Moonlighter (1) is available until the 9th as well. Moving on to next week, I am honestly surprised we didn’t hold this one off until the international holiday of September 10th. Caravan SandWitch is a pastel-shaded narrative-adventure with an emphasis on exploration.