Astral Ascent is free on Epic

Monday, a Switch release for Malapata Studio’s Book Nook has been announced, and as I keep getting emailed “The Last of Us meets Stardew Valley” Ashfield Hollow has a new demo. Tuesday, everyone spent themselves during Gamescom, meaning news is drier than a nun after Easter. Wednesday, Zelda fans weren’t dry, as Nintendo spaffed its load in a 40th anniversary Direct, while I got excited about crashing a rocket into the moon with In Control: Rocketry. Thursday, Nintendo didn’t stop spaffing its load, as it had another Direct a day after the Zelda one.

Moving on to the Epic Games Store, and I am sadly left wanting literally anything else to talk about. We’ll start with the mobile offering this week as I’ve previously covered it, mostly because it was available for us on PC last week. Alone With You is a sci-fi romance adventure piece that I think might work better on mobile simply because it is built more for that type of engagement. As much of a visual novel as it is an adventure-type game, being able to open Alone With You whenever – that’s the speed I’d like it at.

Onto the PC offerings, though, and it is an example of “I wish I could care.” First up is Hibernian Workshop’s Astral Ascent, an action Rogue-like (aren’t they all?) hack-and-slash game about being Ted Cruz in a prison. If I didn’t make the joke, you would have, as you pick one of four heroes fighting the twelve bosses representing the Zodiacs. In principle, I don’t hate it; I just don’t have an affinity for it either, despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews it has on Steam.

The second PC offering isn’t doing too much to improve my mood with its gameplay; however, to be fair, very few bullet hell games do. LUFTRAUSERS is a sepia-drenched arcade side-on bullet hell where you become the Maroon Baron trying to kill other fighter planes, battleships, and submarines. Praised on release and still praised for its enjoyably chaotic and quick pick-up-and-play aspects, I’ll be honest and say I prefer Vlambeer’s 2015 release Nuclear Throne more, even if not by much.

All this week, you can pick up LUFTRAUSERS, Astral Ascent, and Alone With You on the Epic Games Store, the latter on the games store for mobile. Moving on to next week, and I am not exactly jumping for joy over that either. First up will be another Rogue-like, but this time turn-based and deck-building, with Shogun Showdown, with the second of the two options being Mindcop, a non-linear whodunnit mystery with art almost pulled from an Adult Swim “comedy.” I’ve got a feeling I’ll be moaning about LUFTRAUSERS on mobile again next week at this rate too.