Far Far West got off to a great start after arriving on Steam Early Access this week. The co-op shooter from Evil Raptor and publisher Fireshine Games sold more than 250,000 copies in its first 48 hours. It usually costs $20, but there’s a 10% introductory discount until May 5.
As a robot cowboy, you can play alone or form a team with up to three friends and go bounty hunting. You will hunt down elusive and dangerous targets in order to eliminate them and collect rewards.
You’ll encounter undead enemies such as skeletons and vultures, as well as haunted mines and ghost trains. There is an element of mining to this (you can try to complete additional objectives for better rewards), although it feels more like Helldiverse 2 than a more survival-oriented experience like Arc Raiders. You can use your loot to upgrade your equipment with new weapons, abilities and spells. You can also personalize your cowboy and horse.
I really like the pixel-art look of the 2D hack-and-slash adventure Soul Quest. The animations (which are said to be perfect) in the trailer are super smooth, which makes sense given that the combat is built around light and heavy attack combos. You will also have magical powers and ultimates at your disposal.
You play as Alys, a recently widowed warrior who refuses to accept her husband’s fate and sets out to reclaim his soul. A soul search, if you will. It took the small team at SoulBlade Studio seven years to bring the game to fruition and seven seconds for me to add it to my wishlist.
Soul Quest is available on Steam (usually $20, although there’s a 20% discount until May 15). You can get a taste of what it has to offer by checking out the demo.
Gambonanza is a chess game, Balatro-esque roguelite. It’s enjoying solid momentum, given that over 170,000 people downloaded it during a recent Steam Next Fest event.
The goal of each round is to capture all the opposing pieces on a small-scale chessboard. To do this, you will probably have to break the traditional rules of chess. Usefully, Gambonanza has over 150 powerful “gambits” that modify your races. These could make your pieces more powerful or force the enemy to skip a turn. The tiles on the board can also be changed (to, for example, lock an enemy piece in place) and you can deploy additional pieces to turn the tide in your favor.
Along the way, you will face bosses. It appears that one of them is a machine named M2ch4gnus C4rls3n, evidently after the real-life grandmaster and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen. That alone convinced me to check out this game.
Gambonanza – from solo developer Blukulélé and publishers Sidekick Publishing and Stray Fawn Studio – is available now. The Steam version works on PC, macOS and Linux. It usually costs $15, but there’s a whopping 35% off until May 15. You can also get the game on iOS and Android for $7.
As I started watching this trailer, I thought Bobo Bay looked like a collector of cute and cuddly creatures. But then these Bobos started fighting against each other in a beat’em-up mode, and one of them pulled out a gun to shoot an opponent. It didn’t seem as intense as seeing World Pal for the first time, but it made the game more interesting than it seemed at first glance. “Think creature collection meets cozy island life, with surprising depth beneath all the cuteness,” a press release says. No joke.
You can breed and evolve Bobos and combine their traits. You can customize them and enter them into races and other events. And shoot each other, apparently.
Bobo Bayby NewFutureKids, is available on Steam. It will usually cost $25, but there is a 16% discount until May 6.
Inasmuch as Ball x Pit sick, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the latest free update, which arrived this week. It added two new characters, 11 additional super-powered bullets, passive abilities, and a way to reroll character upgrades you previously opted for.
Alas, I’ve been too busy with another game to check out the new characters and balls just yet. I know that as soon as I do it, Ball x Pit is likely to hold me over for at least another dozen hours.
