According to the latest press release I’ve received, the developers are now releasing Rhythm of the Universe: Ionia as the first of seven titles in the game’s franchise, and it’s set to be released in early 2021 for the PSVR, Oculus Quest, and other virtual reality headsets. What sets this apart for me is that most of the VR music games I’ve seen such as Thumper and Beat Saber seem to be more fast-paced, action-oriented rhythm games; ROTU, on the other hand, seems to be a bit more complex- a story oriented title with musical puzzle solving.

I also want to note that the game’s world looks different from the first time I saw it- in a much better way; this version of ROTU seems a little reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa if it were re-imagined by Cirque du Soleil.

Are you looking forward to ROTU: Ionia? Hit us up in the comments below or tweet and follow @1RuleBeCool.

Curious Expedition 2, now available on Steam and in Early Access, is pretty similar in a lot of ways, but sets itself apart in many other ways. CE2 seems to have less of a focus, thus far, on juggling resources than RE:IS– it’s more streamlined, but in exchange for complexity, it seems that there’s more content. At least, that’s my initial impression.

Set in a fantastical late 19th century, in Curious Expedition 2, you start off with a small party that lands on a mysterious island, and in your hunt for treasure, you discover that the island and its inhabitants have more secrets than you initially bargained for. As it turns out, mysterious islands have begun to appear in the Atlantic, and as you explore, you bring home treasure and intrigue to show off at the upcoming 1889 Paris World’s Fair.

As your party explores the island, your sanity slowly drains, as indicated by a meter atop the screen. Is the place driving you mad? Nope, that’s just a side effect of exploration, nothing to be worried about- your sanity is restored by finding a safe place to rest, eating chocolate, or drinking whiskey. Be careful about that last one, though, as it occasionally backfires, creating alcoholic crew members who function worse without booze. If your party manages to lose its sanity, every step you take puts you at increasing risk for a catastrophe. One of your party members might get fed up with your ceaseless wandering and straight up quit, or somebody could get injured and you’ll need to use your finite medical supplies to heal them.

Something I really love about Curious Expedition 2 is that your party members have personalities that extend beyond their roles. For instance, I hired a translator who turned out to be a real sexist; sometimes when my party was resting to restore their sanity, this would cause rifts between him and other party members. Sometimes, characters would start hating each other, and this would put the unity of the party at risk- meaning that things could go really wrong if you manage to lose enough sanity.

A lot of things in the game are decided by dice rolls and random chance; for instance, if you activate a trap at an archaeological site Indiana Jones-style, you’ll need to roll a set of dice that’s determined by who’s in your party. Each character has three attributes- for now, let’s call them strength, agility, and wisdom, in varying measure- and each is linked to a different skill. So if your party’s full of agile characters, you’ll probably be okay, since the dice roll for agility has good odds of helping you escape the trap. But, if you picked a party full of beefcakes, your trapped character might get injured.

Combat works sort of similarly- suppose you’re fighting a bunch of hyenas- when it’s your turn to attack, you roll the dice and they’re all blue, for understanding- whatever healers are in your party will be able to take advantage of this, but vigor and cunning- red and green- are missing, meaning that attacks or buffs that depend on those abilities will be unavailable unless you re-roll the dice, which will be necessary in order to actually attack.

One of the most interesting facets of the game, in my opinion, is that you’ve got a reputation that follows you around on your expedition. To illustrate, if you start your expedition by blasting through mountains and destroying local wildlife, it has a negative impact on the way the people on the island see you. You can improve your reputation through favorable trade, by having the right characters in your party, and by taking certain opportunities to learn about the culture of the people on the island. I am curious as to if the game’s writers will, in-game, broach the topic of imperialism and showing up to somebody’s island, taking their stuff, and leaving. I get it- Curious Explorers is a video game set in the late 1800s, and it’s not super serious. I do appreciate that it treats its characters with respect; while they’re all pretty simple by design, they have depth and motivations- the natives of the islands you encounter on each island aren’t amorphous primitives but little societies- the game’s writers have done well in this regard. I just think it’d be neat if the game offered some sort of commentary on the long term consequences of taking somebody’s stuff and putting it in a museum.

Then again, the game isn’t quite complete yet- it’s in Early Access for a reason- besides the fact that the developers are still adding content, they’re also in the process of adding features. I do wish that the game would warn me before I made certain decisions- for instance, after one particularly successful mission, I paid a couple extra new characters to join my next expedition- after my ship landed, however, I discovered that there was no way to embark on the expedition without first dismissing those new characters from my party. I couldn’t just leave them on the boat- which would’ve made sense- I had to straight up fire them. Besides this, however, I don’t really have any gripes with the game as I played it, and I’m looking forward to playing more Curious Expedition 2 as it’s developed further. As I was writing this piece, in fact, the developers dropped an update full of dinosaurs, with new locations, events, and some quality-of-life fixes.

Overall, I recommend checking out Curious Expedition 2; I confess to not having yet played the original game, that said, it doesn’t seem that you need to be familiar with the rest of the series to jump into this one. If you’re looking for a laid back adventure that lets you explore at your own pace, you’ll want to take a look at this one.

Signs of the Sojourner is a story-focused single-player trading card game; the game’s premise is that you live in a country that’s fallen upon hard times, and like your mother before you, you join a caravan of trucks that transports goods around to trade. Back in the little town you come from is your shop- the goods you pick up on your journeys get deposited here- it’s necessary to keep your shop operational in order for your little town of Bartow to remain a stop on the caravan’s journeys.

There’s a purity to be found in Sojourner’s deceptively simple gameplay- there are really just two modes of play- choosing which town to visit next, and the conversational card game that takes place in each location. Most narratively focused games, in my experience, tend not to pay quite so much attention to the systems by which you communicate with other characters- often, you’re presented with a few choices as to what you’ll say, and then the other characters in the game will respond.

In Signs of the Sojourner, you don’t really have that sort of control over what’s said. When speaking with characters, you’re playing as a silent, unnamed protagonist who, from your perspective, never says anything. This sort of thing isn’t at all new to video games; what makes SotS so special, however, is that instead of picking choices off a dialogue tree like you would in a Choose Your Own Adventure, you’re playing cards that correspond to conversational elements that reflect the personalities of each character you encounter.

To put it a bit more simply, your best friend in the game, Elias, is both empathetic and logical. When he talks to you, he’ll be playing those sorts of cards- you have to play cards that link his words with yours. Each trait is represented by a symbol on either side of any given card- so if Elias plays a card that’s an orange circle- empathy- on both sides, you just need a card with empathy on its left side. But, there’s a catch: Elias needs to be able to match whatever’s on the right side of the card that you play. So if you play a card with a logical right side, but Elias can’t match it, that’s a strike against the conversation. If a conversation has enough mismatches, it ends before you accomplish anything.

At the end of every conversation- no matter how it went- you must discard one of the cards from your own deck while gaining one from whoever it was you were speaking with. Everybody you speak with rubs off on you- and this changes the way that your character interacts with others. This struck me as an incredibly creative way to handle in-game dialogue, because generally, when I think about branching dialogue as it relates to changing character, I’m thinking in much more strict narrative terms- if you say one thing, then you can’t say another, or if you start pushing your character in a certain direction, certain bits of dialogue and choices would just be lopped off and grayed out. Here, though, your silent protagonist is given depth by what sort of conversations they can have in the first place.
In a way, it’s an extended metaphor for your character’s growth, because you’re not just picking up traits- you lose them, too. You change as a person, all without saying a word.

I’d love to see more games integrate a similar approach- not necessarily ripping off the system from SotS entirely, but building on it. Imagine a game where your speaking protagonist doesn’t just develop relationships with others, but needs ongoing work on their personality and the way they present themselves in order to accomplish their goals.

One thing I especially appreciate about Signs of the Sojourner is the freedom that it offers you, the player- while your goals and how to accomplish them is relatively clear-cut and straightforward, how you go about doing things is up to you. At some point in my own playthrough, I accidentally separated myself from my caravan. I drove to one town, they drove to another- but the game didn’t go out of its way to punish me for it, and I wound up seeing sights I might have otherwise missed- in fact, sticking closely with the game’s main “quest line”- if you could call it that- is a surefire way to miss stuff. I appreciate that there’s a calendar which shows you upcoming events, and the game gives you an idea of how long it takes to get between towns, so if you separate from your caravan, you can still meet back up with it- this is easier said than done.

Probably the most striking part of the freedom the game affords happens in this one brief part of the game where I realized that I needed to perform poorly in a conversation in order to protect a character. While it was clear what the moral and right thing to do was in the case, it wasn’t immediately obvious from a gameplay perspective. I do wish that SotS had a few more segments like that one, since it was so memorable, and I felt the game wasn’t holding my hand.

Signs of the Sojourner is relatively short; you can finish it in the space of an afternoon- but for its length, it’s really quite satisfying. I’m not so much of the mind that a game should be judged by its length, but by what it does in however long it takes you to play, and from start to finish, Signs of the Sojourner had me hooked. I loved the game’s world and characters- it almost seemed post-post-apocalyptic- that is to say, whatever catastrophe made the world a mess had long since passed and everybody’s trying to live their lives as normally as they can. There are half broken-down robots trying to perform menial tasks while making sense of their own existence, pickle merchants with family problems, fish smugglers, starving artists- the characters are all memorable and unique.

While many of the characters were funny, they also had surprising depth; while the characters had jokes, it didn’t seem like anybody’s presence was a joke.

I do wish that Signs of the Sojourner had a New Game Plus mode that saved your progress, because there were some areas I hadn’t explored and characters I hadn’t really had the chance to have great conversations with- the ability to keep exploring after the game’s end would be great- unfortunately if I want to continue exploring the routes I uncovered and keep talking to the characters I’ve met after the game’s maximum five sojourns, I need to start over.

On the whole, I had a great time with Signs of the Sojourner and I would like to see more games set in its world- and I also hope that other game designers take note of how the game handles relationships. Signs of the Sojourner is available for Mac and Windows.

#1 Skatebird

Skatebird is a game I’ve been waiting for- I backed the Kickstarter a while back and I’m a pretty big fan of some of the dev’s previous work, Hot Tin Roof. The game’s premise is super simple- you’re a bird, and you know how to board. Exciting as the upcoming remakes of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater sound, you don’t get to play as a budgerigar.

#2 Haven

Haven took me by surprise- it caught my eye with its stunning aesthetic, sure, but it kept my attention with through its writing.

The demo dropped me in the middle of this relationship between the main characters, Yu and Kay, who’ve escaped some sort of regime called the Apiary to a distant planet- as the demo goes on, it does a good job unveiling the story and bits of the world instead of exposition-dumping everything on you at once. I like the relationship between Yu and Kay, and I feel like this game handles the dynamics between the couple with a refreshing sense of realism. There are two core gameplay loops, it seems- you run around on the surface of the planet, surfing on energy threads to pick them up and fuel your home, while foraging for food and fighting dangerous creatures, and then you go home, have conversations about your relationship and cook dinner with whatever you foraged that day. The game’s aesthetic reminds me of Gravity Rush, while the relationship elements remind me of an experimental game called Facade that I played several years ago- albeit without the parser and a lot more upbeat.

I’m really looking forward to seeing more of Haven; the little taste I received in the demo makes me want to know more about the game’s world. Haven is coming to Windows later this year.

#3 Peglin

Peglin is a pachinko roguelike that’s inspired by both Slay the Spire and Peggle– if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s basically pinball, but you have no control over the ball after you’ve launched it- you just have to set a trajectory and rack up points before your ball falls through the floor. What sets Peglin apart is that you’ve got to deal with slime monsters along the way- each ball you launch through the course counts as an attack against these- the more stuff it hits, the harder your attacks land. If you get hit hard enough, it’s game over. It’s a cute, relaxing game that’s well worth checking out if you need a break from the action- it’s a roguelike that won’t break your heart.

#4 The Captain is Dead

I’m a simple man- you throw Star Trek at me, and you’ve got my attention. The Captain is Dead is a game that draws a lot of inspiration from Trek– the moderately overwhelming tutorial was narrated by a rather Q-inspired character and, well- just look at your ship.

As for what the game is about, imagine if you were in the last few minutes of a Star Trek episode, everything’s on fire, your shields are down and crew are injured- you’ve got to stop your ship from exploding. The gameplay itself is pretty interesting- it’s turn based, and in each turn, you control a different crew member, each with their own set of abilities. As different systems are attacked, it’s up to you to balance repairing said systems with keeping your crew alive and actually fulfilling your mission. This video game is actually based on a board game of the same name- it’s a little on the complex side (and it felt like the tutorial threw the kitchen sink at me) but once you’ve got a handle on it, it’s a lot of fun.

#5 Ostranauts

If you’re looking for an unabashedly complex spaceship life simulator, you may have some fun with Ostranauts; I tried the demo for this one, and it’s legitimately fascinating- every aspect of life in a somewhat messed up sci-fi future seems to come into play here. Unfortunately, I found it hard to navigate, and the demo doesn’t do a great job of explaining how things works- it sort of just dunks you in there.

I see great potential in this game, for sure- it’s just too complex for my personal taste. I particularly enjoyed putting together my character’s backstory- it was handled sort of like a choose your own adventure game, with the choices you make shaping not only their history, but their personality and interests. While Ostranauts isn’t really my thing, it’s still pretty cool, and if it sounds like your genre, check it out.

#6 The Wild at Heart

The Wild At Heart is best described as Pikmin in the style of a point-and-click adventure game with an autumnal aesthetic. You play as a kid named Wake who found himself lost in the woods- and you meet some weird characters. With the help of spritelings- little creatures who follow you like they’re your clingy friends at a party- you make it through your environment. You can throw them at whatever’s ailing you. Being attacked by a giant stag beetle? Toss ‘em. Need a boulder moved? Throw those babies and they’ll get right to work.

Besides being incredibly charming, I’m seeing good potential in this game for some good, family-friendly puzzling action. While the demo wasn’t too hard, I could definitely imagine the final game being quite challenging. As a big fan of Pikmin, I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.

I’m not quite done with the festival, but I wanted to hurry up and get this video out before it’s all over- are there any demos you’ve been enjoying from the festival this week? Hit us up on Twitter @1RuleBeCool with your thoughts.

This isn’t the first time we’re seeing the game remade; back in 2012, Robomodo released Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD digitally to mixed reception- that game featured levels from the original two games in the series; in 2015, they released Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 which was a hot enough mess that the studio shut down.

This new version of the game is being developed by Vicarious Visions and much like THPSHD features remade versions of old levels, but also includes some fresh content, such as online multiplayer and new tricks to perform. Most excitingly, the official press release mentions “Songs from the era”- if there’s one thing the games were known for, it was their soundtrack- Rage Against the Machine, Papa Roach and Primus are all mentioned as being part of the game, which is pretty nice- quite often when a game features licensed music, it doesn’t survive the transition between generations due to said licenses expiring.

One of the game’s most exciting features, Create-A-Park, will be just what it says on the tin- an editing suite that will enable you to design your own skate park.

I’m curious what sort of impact the game will have in 2020; Tony Hawk’s name very clearly has a lot of power when applied as a brand twenty years later, and there’s relatively little competition in the skateboarding game arena at the moment as it’s been quite some time since we’ve heard a peep out of EA and their Skate franchise. It’s also worth noting that, much like with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which were hits that got driven into the ground with a few too many releases, THPS was seeing some franchise fatigue, and the middling reception of the Robomodo titles in recent years didn’t do much to help the franchise in recent years; it’s probably for the best that Activision let it rest for a while.

Personally, I’m looking forward to this one- that said, I’m not quite as excited for this remake as I am for SkateBIRD, which is coming out in 2021 and as you may rightly assume, allows you to skateboard as a bird. What do you think- does this remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 have you excited, or would you rather see them do something new with the franchise- or are you still waiting to see Skate 4 released some day? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @1RuleBeCool.

Today, Atari announced PONG Quest, which I assumed was an elaborate joke until I realized that March has 31 days and I began to question everything I thought I knew about the game industry. Here’s the trailer for PONG Quest. It’s real.

I’m unironically hoping to see PONG Quest come out and succeed- in a lot of ways, this is PONG remixed, with customizable paddles, RPG-style battles and balls that do weird stuff. There’s also supposed to be a goofy storyline of some sort- I’m cautiously optimistic about that. The press release I received mentioned unveiling a mystery involving a “Spooky Door” but little else.

Atari as we tend to think of it died long ago- at this point, it’s pretty much been reduced to a name, logo and licenses for a few classic games that, while awesome in their own right for their historical significance, can only be repackaged so many times- such as in the Atari Flashback consoles which rather notably predated the Nintendo mini consoles by several years.

At long last, however, it seems that something creative’s being done with the world’s first video game IP. At the time of this article’s being written, it’s still March 31st- it’s not too late for Atari to unveil this as being an elaborate joke- but at this point, I don’t think it is as they’ve announced the developer, Chequered Ink, is working to bring PONG Quest to the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 and PC this spring. Strangely enough, there’s no mention of this game coming to the Atari VCS, the Linux-based console that was supposed to ship its first batch this month but was delayed due to the ongoing pandemic.

What do you think of PONG Quest– is this a good use of a classic game that was, up until now, all played out? Hit us up in the comments below or @1RuleBeCool on Twitter.

The premise of Nowhere Prophet is pretty straightforward- you’re the titular prophet in what seems to be a cyberpunk, postapocalyptic India- only, it’s not quite India, but another planet called Soma. The catastrophe that struck has left behind scattered pockets of humanity, replete with roving bands of bandits, little villages struggling to survive and dreadful, ravenous creatures. This isn’t your everyday apocalypse, however, as the world of Nowhere Prophet is also full of killer robots, Luddite cultists and labor unions. I’m not kidding. While I’ve played less of this game than FTL: Faster than Light (one of the game’s that inspired Nowhere Prophet), I have to say that overall, I have a better feel for the world; it doesn’t feel like a pastiche built on tropes but an incredibly unique and original setting.

Within this world, dozens of little stories unfold- the game being a roguelike, you’ll never encounter them in the same order twice, and depending on your circumstances, you have to figure out the best ways around them. For instance, you may encounter a wandering family- you spot them in the distance and you’d like for them to join you- if you’ve got points in altruism, they may recognize you as being a good person, and choose to join our quest. On the other hand, if you’ve been absolutely merciless, they may shy away from you.

I have to say that I really love the way that Nowhere Prophet handles morality; it is, explicitly, a function of the game in the way that it affects events. There are rewards for choosing to play kindly, but there are also very real consequences. Sometimes, you’ll be betrayed for your kindness, and sometimes it just won’t pay off. From a storytelling perspective, this is exciting- it keeps you on your toes, so to speak, since you can’t be sure what outcome you’ll get- but here’s the thing: you don’t just have to worry about your altruism. Belief and wisdom are also factors in the game; sometimes the altruistic action doesn’t net you additional knowledge, and sometimes the action that reinforces faith does nothing for altruism.

Though the game bestows upon you the title of prophet, your disciples don’t necessarily need to believe in you in order for them to continue following in your footsteps and fighting your battles. I do feel that the belief aspect of the game, while well integrated into the lore, doesn’t seem to impact gameplay as much as altruism- an intentional choice on the part of designers? Perhaps.

In terms of gameplay, Nowhere Prophet is pretty straightforward; the game’s map is divided into explorable nodes with different encounters at each location- you may uncover a village that worships a giant machine, or accidentally walk into a funeral- as mentioned before, sometimes you handle these scenarios by communicating with the game’s characters- other times, however, you need to walk the way of the warrior.

The game’s battles involve two decks of cards- the leader deck and the convoy deck. The leader deck contains various abilities for you, the leader- they can strengthen your followers, strip away the power of enemy followers, place obstacles on the board, etc. The convoy deck, on the other hand, is composed of your followers. Each has its own unique set of attributes; besides their capabilities in battle (there’s a dog who’s a little overpowered and I love him), they’re also useful when you’re not fighting. For instance, there are blue skinned mercenaries with a strict warrior code roaming around. You don’t understand the code- but if one of these mercenaries joins your convoy, they can interact with other mercs for you, defusing tense situations and, sometimes, haggling for cheaper items.

The game’s combat feels a lot like Mojang’s Scrolls (now Caller’s Bane)- albeit with a few key differences. Much like in Caller’s Bane, you place your followers onto a grid, and each has a different cost; each turn, you have a little more energy to pay the cost of placing your units. Unlike in Caller’s Bane, your units take damage when they attack other units- if you use a unit with four points of attack and five HP to strike a unit with five points of health and five HP, the unit you’re attacking will be damaged, but yours will be eliminated from the match. If a unit is eliminated during a match, it’s considered wounded, and it’s recommended that you heal it before using it again- if it’s eliminated while wounded, it’s lost forever.

The different boards create some unique battlefields with a lot of opportunities to play creatively- it’s just a matter of creating a good synergy between your followers and their abilities along with your leader cards and the terrain.

While Nowhere Prophet is finished, it does seem to have some small balance issues- the “normal” difficulty is, at times, a little too easy; once you’ve got a good synergy figured out, it becomes a little too simple to steamroll the game’s final boss- this is an issue in a game wherein much of the enjoyment comes from struggling to survive. Then again, having played a lot of the game, I’m pretty biased.

Overall, I recommend Nowhere Prophet; it’s a unique package in the world of roguelike deckbuilders- while its story isn’t quite as dense as something like Sunless Sea, it’s definitely more involved than that of FTL, with a lot more moving pieces. It explores a theme you don’t see often in games- the creation of a religion- and it has one of the best settings I’ve seen in a while. Check out Nowhere Prophet if you’re after something different; it’s available on Mac, Windows and Linux.

See also: Our coverage of the game from PAX East 2019.

In Far from Home, quite a number of these Easter eggs came in the form of license plates scattered throughout the movie on various vehicles; watch the movie with an eye out for these and you’ll see various comic books getting referenced. There was one, however, that was particularly cute. in my opinion. Spoilers ahead!

In the scene on the bridge, when Spider-Man finds his friends after the big attack, there’s a car flipped over with the license plate “TASM 143”. This is a reference to The Amazing Spider-Man 143, which came out back in April 1975 and featured the first appearance of The Cyclone- a minor villain with a bit of thematic relevance to Far From Home, since the film’s antagonist uses wind powers to catch Spider-Man off guard.

More exciting, however, is that in this issue, Peter Parker shares his first kiss with Mary Jane before heading for France. In the movie, this happens right on the scene on the bridge- Peter and MJ kiss for the first time. If you’d like to pick up a copy of this comic, it’s available right here on Amazon.

It’s a small touch, but it’s one that I really loved; did you catch any interesting Easter eggs in Far From Home? Let us know in the comments below.

We’re putting up even more over on our Instagram, @1RuleBeCool. Are you in our gallery? Let us know in the comments below!