Bore Blasters and its mix of Vampire Survivors meets Dome Keeper is, dare I say it, a blast

It’s coming out March 8th, but you can play its Next Fest demo now

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/8BitSkull

Many a Survivors-like has come and gone over the last couple of years, but Bore Blasters might be the first one that’s really struck a chord with me. Or maybe that should be struck gold, as this mining roguelike is all about collecting little gem-like nuggets while boring deep underground for treasure and fending off all manner of flying eyeballs, bats and other unmentionable horrors with wings. I’ve been playing its Steam Next Fest demo this morning, and my initial impression is that it’s a little bit Dome Keeper , a little bit SteamWorld Dig , and very, very good. Even better, developers 8BitSkull have just announced it’s coming out in full next month.

Launching on March 8th (with native support for Steam Deck in tow, too), Bore Blasters gets three things absolutely right. Its sound design is impeccable, with the low grumble of your gyrocopter’s guns tearing through rock meshing perfectly with the satisfying blp blp blp of sucking up gold and crystals and the rocky, almost Doom-like guitar wails of its underlying soundtrack. I also love the rush of your special ability, which lets you rip through all manner of rock tiers in timed blasts like a jet-propelled shark. It only lasts a couple of seconds, but really lets you make some headway in getting down to the level’s maximum depth while conserving your limited amount of fuel (which can be topped up by blasting little fuel cannisters along the way if you spot them).

The thing I like most about Bore Blasters, though, is all the lovely chunky numbers. It’s like Borderlands on steroids, and the sheer amount of quantified destruction on display is just, yep, that’s the good stuff right there. Your gem counter is constantly racking up as well, with later upgrades letting you earn more each individual nugget, and at the end of each level you get a full rundown of your earnings, the depth you achieved, blocks destroyed, gems collected, and enemies defeated, all to the tune of chain-like crankings as the numbers tick up in front of you. It’s glorious, and makes every completing a level feel like a real achievement.

Admittedly, the Next Fest demo doesn’t really tap too deeply into its Vampire Survivors -like vein just yet. The levels which do have enemies are reasonably tame by Poncle standards, and since each level ends when you reach its respective treasure, the stakes never escalate to the point where you really need to start thinking about which upgrade you’re going to choose next. Still, as levels get deeper, darker and trickier to navigate, I hope this will come into play a bit more in the final game. I do love how levels start out with great visibility but increasingly rely on your copter’s torchlight to see where you’re going the deeper you go, and I can imagine things getting quite hairy when you’re trying to cut through rock, fend off baddies and not deplete your limited number of shields by crashing into things all at the same time.

Still, Bore Blasters’ 30-minute-odd Next Fest demo is great fun even without all that, so do give it a go when you get a chance (along with all our other Next Fest recommendations ). Here’s hoping its full release on March 8th will deliver the goods on this promising first impression.

Bore Blasters

PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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15 Steam Next Fest demos you should play first this February

Where to get started with 2024’s first Steam Next Fest

Image credit:Valve

The first Steam Next Fest of 2024 is officially upon us, though this year there have been so many demos going live early that you may well have played a bunch of them already without even knowing it. Still, in case you need a helping hand cutting through the many hundreds, if not thousands of free demos that are currently jostling for your eyeballs on Steam, we’ve put together this shortlist of recommendations to get your started.

There are 15 picks here, covering everything from citybuilders to horror games - and a lot of these are games we’ve never written about before, either. But, in case you are looking for demos of more well-known PC games, we’ve also listed some of the big obvious choices you might want to check out as well (and all the other demos we’ve written about over the last couple of weeks). You know, because we’re nice like that. So come and join us for 15 (plus!) Next Fest demos to get you going.

• Homeworld 3 ( Steam demo )
• Lightyear Frontier ( Steam demo )
• Balatro ( Steam demo )
• Pacific Drive ( Steam demo )
• Arco ( Steam demo )
• Tales Of Kenzera: Zau ( Steam demo )
• Pepper Grinder ( Steam demo )
• Flock ( Steam demo )
• Ultros ( Steam demo )
• Summerhouse ( Steam demo )
• Millenia ( Steam demo )
• Deviator ( Steam demo )
• Telmari ( Steam demo )
• Children Of The Sun ( Steam demo )

Reus 2

Image credit:Firesquid

Edwin: I didn’t realise how much I’ve been yearning to play a god sim till I sat down with Reus 2 . God sims can be a very laidback genre, for all the talk of being all-seeing, all-knowing and all-meddling – gods are notorious for being absentee landlords, after all, whereas I’ve been playing a lot of strategy games and RPGs lately that go heavy on the old micromanagement. Reus 2 is gloriously gentle, capturing Black & White at its most spaced-out. You’ve got a fully rotatable, 2D planet and three kindly giants to do your bidding. Care of these giants, you can turn sections of crust into biomes such as rainforest, ocean and desert, and place resources such as fruit trees and crystal deposits. Then you sit back to watch nascent humans scurry about foraging, raising towns, herding, or just cooling their heels in the surf.

That’s the early game, anyway. There’s a war component later, and a perfectionist alchemical undertow in the shape of combining specific believer communities with specific resources to produce a flourishing civilisation. But the machine of history only advances when your giants act, with historical time represented as purple points that add up into changes of era. Everything the little people do on the surface takes place in a blissful purgatory, and watching them go about their lives is a balm. Back in 2013, Alec Meer called the first Reus “my ideal screensaver” . Here in the grim salvages of 2024, I nod my head in agreement.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Crow Country

Image credit:SFB Games

Katharine: If you have a hankering for some olde Resident Evil spookings with chunky PS1- Final Fantasy VII -style characters to tank around in, get thyself to Crow Country , one of two upcoming games this year from the devs behind Tangle Tower . You play Mara Forest as you investigate the mysterious disappearance of Edward Crow, the owner of the eponymous theme park, at said eponymous theme park. Only this isn’t a happy, haha fun times kind of joint anymore. This rundown maze of buildings is thick with a yellow-green smog, and not at all kosher trails of gibs and garbage bags strewn across the floor. Yes, something terrible clearly went down in this place, and it doesn’t take long for you to find out exactly what it is. Just mind your health bar, as you can only check on how you’re doing from within the menu screen. Just like the good old days, eh?

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Duck Detective

Image credit:Happy Broccoli Games

Alice Bee: I was expecting Duck Detective to be a cutesy, cartoony puzzle game - and it is, indeed, that. As the Duck Detective, you investigate a charming and whimsical crime: an anthropomorphic animal is stealing the lunches of the other animals at the bus company they work at, right out of the office fridge. The Duck Detective gathers evidence from a scene and can then fit the right verbs and nouns in the right gaps of a deduction he’s written in his notebook (in a sort of My First Golden Idol ). Some things he can look at in more detail, for more specific clues, like a calendar that can tell you what day it is and what events are coming up during the week.

The animation and art style is lovely, like a kid’s sticker book. But the little spike on this otherwise conventional volleyball is that the trope of a washed up, bitter private investigator is played extremely straight. The first thing the Duck Detective says, in a gravelly drawl, is that he’s a “freshly divorced duck” who can’t afford his rent. This is, to me, extremely conceptually funny. It’s like the “one human actor in a cast of Muppets” thing except the human is still also a Muppet, somehow. Excellent.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Death Of A Wish

Image credit:Syndicate Atomic

Alice0: Top-down Bloodborne violence with a wildly over-the-top edgy MS Paint webcomic art style? I’m in. I’m very in. Death Of A Wish sees you off to destroy the cult you once called home by bashing strange enemies to bits with your supernatural powers. The action’s a bit like a top-down Bloodborne. Left-click for fast attack, right-click for heavy, charge for escalating attacking chains, switch elements mid-combo for different attacks, dodge to zip about, middle-click unleash your to Nier: Automata pod, parry by dodging into attacks, yes, yes, I like this. You even get an abootility granting that Blooborne-esque window to recover health after taking damage by attacking. And to me, this is the perfect amount of angst about family and religion. If you’re going to play in that field, lean all the way in and make your character say things like “Now I must commit the sin no one will forgive. Utter Annihilation.”

Download the demo on Steam right here .

RAM: Random Access Mayhem

Image credit:Xylem Studios

Katharine: Keen-eyed readers will remember RAM: Random Access Mayhem is one of this year’s IGF nominees for the best student game category, and cor, this top-down roguelike shooter is quite something, lemme tell ya. With its twinstick controls and bevy of robot opponents to mow down, this is a fast-paced action game that doesn’t pull any punches. Then again, maybe you do want to pull at least some of your punches here, as this is a game about mind-jumping from one robot shell to another rather than simply trying to stick with the same character you chose at the start. You see, each robot you come across will maybe only last a couple of rounds going toe to toe with other enemies, so you’ll need to think fast to keep yourself alive. Plus, because you’re an apparently rather sadistic form of AI, you’ll earn more points for destroying your old discard bodies in the flashiest way possible - such as an immediate shotgun to the face, or booting them off a cliff. Add in class-specific bot abilities and upgrades along the way and this has all the makings of the next great moreish roguelike. One to keep an eye on, for sure.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Spring Dash

Image credit:Dillon Steyl

James: What if Neon White , but with vegetable magic instead of gun cards? That’s Spring Dash , a first-person speedrunner that demands various feats of verdant wizardry to propel yourself through its dreamy floating obstacle courses. At first, that just means sprouting bouncy leaves to boing up walls and across chasms, but later additions of vine grappling and windy air dashes promise to make you the zippiest of zippy forest mages. Provided you put the effort in with them, anyway. Successfully zooming between islands is a great time, and there’s a nicely realised sense of momentum, but Spring Dash’s speedrunning is as unforgiving as it is fantastical. Still, there are regular checkpoints and retrying is instant, so it’s not fist-through-the-wall frustrating either.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Backpack Battles

Image credit:PlayWithFurcifer/IndieArk

Ollie: Backpack Battles scratches the same autobattling itch that compelled me to play endless hours of Super Auto Pets a couple years back. But this time around there’s the extra lure of some very satisfying inventory management . In Backpack Battles, your character’s attacks and abilities are determined by what items you manage to shoehorn into your limited backpack space. After each fight, you get to buy and sell new gear, most of which have synergistic bonuses with other items in your backpack. The items start off fairly innocuously, with shortswords, shields, and the like. But as your backpack fills and expands, it becomes a tapestry of ridiculous items ranging from baby dragons to lightsabers. It’s moreish and challenging, and I regret the time away from playing more Backpack Battles that it took me to write this paragraph.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Mouthwashing

Image credit:Wrong Organ

Ed: I’ve not played How Fish Is Made by the folks over at Wrong Organ, but Mouthwashing seems to be of a similar variety: surreal, haunted, and with a pinch of humour. The demo provides the sort of horror that’s not, say, absolutely terrifying. But it oozes an unsettling atmosphere, as you navigate the innards of a crashed space freighter in an attempt to piece together what led to the crash and how your crew are getting along (not well). It’s little things for me that lend it weight, like the clunk of your steps as they ring off metal. Opening up someone’s jaw to feed them pills. Tactile buttons and dials. And each scene presented almost like a quick vignette in a story that flits between a carefree past and horrifying present. I am desperate to prize open that interim and see whether the true enemy all along was plaque.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Normal Fishing

Image credit:The Bworg

Alice Bee: I normally play a bunch of horror demos around Next Fest, but didn’t get tickled by many this time (and Ed beat me to Mouthwashing). Normal Fishing is a retro-inspired game in which you and your incredibly strange wife have moved to a lakeside community where, to maintain her lifestyle, you must fish. Get fish of increasing size and rarity and exchange for money at the fish shack, where you can exchange that money back for better equipment. There’s a cast of characters including an old woman and a fellow fisherman, and the fishing mini game is a fun one. You do have the “press button at right time to reel fish in” bit, but before that you do a 2D side-scrolling shmup, where you fire food pellets at your quarry and dodge old boots. Good stuff. Then some toxic waste falls in the lake and you have to shotgun a giant crab to death. Things get worse from there. One for Daniel Mullins Games fans to take a peek at.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Berserk Boy

Image credit:BerserkBoy Games

Katharine: It’s been a long time coming, but after years of (somewhat mysterious) turmoil , the fact-paced Mega Man -inspired platformer Berserk Boy is finally powering up for a full release. It’s coming quite soon - in just a few weeks’ time, in fact - and its Next Fest demo lets you get to grips with some good old fashioned runnin’ and gunnin’ in its opening couple of levels. Its platforming makes a strong first impression, too. Berserk Boy’s anime-inspired pixel visuals give our hero a well-defined silhouette as he zips across the screen dashing and zapping enemy robots, and the desire to collect every last energy orb quickly butts up against, well, simply staying alive amid the chaos of enemy projectiles, exploding missiles and everything else. Still, I was pleased to see two difficulty options present here: a more retro-focused limited number of lives affair, and a more modern and approachable ‘infinite restarts’ setting, too. I have no shame: I opted for the latter, and had a whale of a time.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Antipaint

Image credit:Vilius Prakapas

James: Antipaint is a roguelite twin-stick shooter where the battlefield is your canvas. Vanquished blobs of paint explode into streaks, splats, and Cubist patterns, with each completed stage leaving a finished artwork you can view later. All your creations are given names, too – I think The Horrendous Vibe will become my most famous work, even if my real opus is The Absolute Computer. The bosses, meanwhile, are a gang of angry (and conveniently public domain) portraits from the annals of painting legend. I got past the Mona Lisa without much trouble, though Napoleon Crossing The Alps kicked my head in. Daft? Yes. But funny daft.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Raw Metal

Image credit:Team Crucible

Edwin: “Metal Gear Raw, morelike!” he brilliantly quips, except that this isn’t just a stealth game , Edwin, you perfect dolt. It’s also a fairly technical beat-em up. In Raw Metal you’re a rangy scavenger infiltrating an exoplanetary mining facility, made up of dungeon floors full of baton-wielding guards. You must rove the shadows in top-down view, using noisemakers to lure people off and shattering light fittings with darts, Thief-style. Don’t worry too much if you’re caught, however, because Raw Metal is possibly more fun as a brawler. The bread-and-butter basics are light and heavy punches and kicks, a parry and a dodge – more advanced techniques include wall slams, slides and gadgetry such as electric traps. I get an ever-so-slight Absolver vibe despite the starkly shaded aesthetics. There’s a similar crispness to the combat animations.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Abiotic Factor

Image credit:Playstack

Alice0: While survival games are not usually my genre, I am smitten with the premise of Abiotic Factor : what if you were a regular Black Mesa employee when everything went wrong? Not a nascent superhero like Gordon Freeman, just a regular old employee, the type who’s only good for screaming, opening doors, and vanishing into vents before being spat out as a shower of gibs. How would you survive in your workplace when another dimension comes calling? You can find out in this non-copyright-infringing research facility in Australia. You (and optionally your pals in online co-op ) will sneak about, craft tools and weird gadgets, cook food, build bases, attempt to bash baddies as best a nerd can, lay traps, feast from vending machines, crawl through vents, and so on, all within the sprawl of a place which is definitely not Black Mesa. It’s delightful and makes me wish I had pals who played survival games.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Botany Manor

Image credit:Whitethorn Games

Alice Bee: Described by a colleague as “Alice-bait”, Botany Manor is a lush 3D puzzle game where the puzzle is to make weird plants bloom. So, yes. You play as a retired botanist and victim of nominative determinism Arabella Greene, pottering around Botany Manor and collecting the information you need to propagate a flower that spins like a pinwheel and cleans the local atmosphere, or maybe a larger plant that only produces flowers in a thunderstorm. Similar to a detective game, you examine the environment to collect clues that apply to each plant, and put them together to find what conditions are needed and how to create them. Take the thunderstorm flower, for example. How would you recreate that in a drawing room? Ah, it seems someone was doing a lot of flash photography. But you’re out of the flash powder! There’s probably something around here that’ll let you mix up a new batch… It’s a very charming, brain-massaging demo.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Synergy

Image credit:Goblinz Publishing

Katharine: What if Frostpunk looked like a Moebius painting and was set during an apocalyptic drought instead of a future ice age? Well, it would probably look a lot like Synergy , a game whose terrible name hides what is actually a very cool and engaging citybuilder. It’s also a lot more laidback than Frostpunk, ditching the moral quandaries of child labour and using hospitals to experiment on some, err, less than savoury workarounds for your dwindling food supplies, and just letting you get on with building a functioning little caravan. Houses need to be in range of food tents, hospitals and warehouses, for example, and some citizens need to be kept free so they can courier supplies to new building locations. At times, you can almost forget it’s set during a full-on climate crisis! Though the demo tutorial does also give you the benefit of several temperate seasons in a row, rather than chuck sizzling heatwaves at you to really test how much clean water you’ve been saving. Still, lots of promising stuff here, especially if the thought of more grim decisions to make in Frostpunk 2 gives you the shivers.

Download the demo on Steam right here .

Abiotic Factor

PC

Antipaint

PC

Backpack Battles

PC

Berserk Boy

PC

Botany Manor

Video Game

Crow Country

PS5 , PC

Death of a Wish

PC

Duck Detective: the Secret Salami

Xbox Series X/S , PC , Nintendo Switch

Mouthwashing

PC

Normal Fishing

PC

RAM: Random Access Mayhem

PC

Raw Metal

PC

Reus 2

PC

Spring Dash

PC

Synergy

PC , Mac

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