Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye

How do you improve upon perfection? Well, you can’t, really. Echoes of the Eye is the DLC for Outer Wilds – and since I never mentioned my final thoughts on Outer Wilds as a complete experience, I figured the DLC was the perfect time to do just that. The above screenshot has the fewest spoilers possible while technically showing some things from the DLC; this really is a game you should play blind, and the same is equally true for the DLC.

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Gorogoa

On the one hand, Gorogoa is a pretty great lateral thinking game all taking place in four squares. On the other, I’ve actually already played it on my mobile device where it worked a little better, interface-wise. Tier One on a touchscreen, low Tier One from Steam.

Steam link

Mini Motorways

Mini Motorways is a quasi-sequel to Mini Metro. If you’ve played Mini Metro, you know about what to expect in Mini Motorways – only instead of managing an ever-growing metro line with limited special components, you’re managing an ever-growing road system with limited special components (and on a grid this time).

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Subnautica (Completed)

I’ve started writing this, but I’m still not sure where I’m going to put Subnautica, tier-wise. It’s certainly good – my initial opinion wasn’t too far off the mark. Still, my mind kept making comparisons to FarSky even though it’s been three and a half years since I played either of these games. In most ways, Subnautica is just a prettier, longer, and more complete version of FarSky. The trouble is that that includes the flaws as well.

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Flash Games

Today, Flash dies. Or possibly the 21st. Or possibly not for a year or two as business applications will have procrastinated on moving to new technologies. But still – today will be the official death date, even if there are some throes for the next while.

Flash games were incredibly popular during what I would consider the adolescence of the internet. Newgrounds, Miniclip, and Kongregate were hubs of entertainment for bored children looking for free games. These days, the equivalents would be mobile games and indie Steam games – but where mobile games try to sap your time and money, flash games were just experiments by aspiring game developers or bored teenagers. Where indie Steam games are usually awful, flash games were, too. But at least they were free. And every once in a while you’d run across a gem. That’s hard to argue with.

Fun story: flash games were the first things I hoarded – er, “curated” – back when modems meant waiting multiple minutes for anything that dared to include audio at bitrates not meant for HitClips. Today, BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint has captured a staggering number of these games (close to 80,000) and preserved them (though my collection still includes a few that I need to curate into Flashpoint – though one of them I just can’t get to work, sadly). I figure this is a good time to remember a few of the good ones.

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