I play Devil Daggers and note my thoughts across several sessions. I wasn't very hyped for the game based on what I've seen and read, will I change my mind after experiencing the game for myself?

​My tram-tastic experiment continues. Last time I built up Tramtown into a small city, and had begun the process of bringing everyone together with trams. My plans at the end of the last session were to build a large new residential area on the north bank of the river, to construct a second tram bridge and tram lines to allow people to travel around the whole city with only trams, and to ban cars from all commercial and industrial zones. Step one is establishing the new residential area.

​Can you build a city that runs almost entirely on trams? That's the question I plan to answer with my latest Cities: Skylines production, inventively named 'Tramtown'. Tempted by a recent sale, I bought the Snowfall DLC - mainly for the trams. Unfortunately the snow part of the DLC comes as a new environment type to choose when making a new city, meaning that you must choose between snow forever or snow never - I chose no snow. There are a few snow specific mechanics like snow ploughs, but honestly the DLC seems a bit overpriced for what it offers. During a sale though, it felt reasonable given how much entertainment I've got out of the game overall... and I really did want those trams.

​Hyper Light Drifter is an excellent game that I've enjoyed a great deal. The combat is challenging but satisfying, the secrets are fun to discover and figure out, and from the environment to the creatures the artwork is simply incredible. You need to like pixel art of course, but my favourite part of the game has been exploring and admiring the vistas you encounter. Apart from the central home city area, there are four other regions, with themes like snowy mountain and aquatic city - I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know three of them - the fourth I haven't visited.

Looking through my Steam screenshots folder, it reminds me that there are a number of games I thought interesting enough to take screenshots of, but then never got round to doing an article on. Grow Home is one of these, and because it's pretty I'm going to do a post now. In short, you play a robot tasked with growing a special plant to a suitably massive size, probably so it can be harvested for something of value - it's been long enough that I've forgotten any detailed plot information. Not that it matters, since the game is more about the joy of exploring and moving around the world than why you're doing it.

A couple of weeks ago I made a game for the Global Game Jam as part of a two man team, in the course of 48 hours. This was interesting for me since it's my first time in a jam making a 3D game, working in Unreal rather than GameMaker, and working as part of a team!

The Global Game Jam page for our game with download link can be found here.

​The Silent Hill games have been of interest to me for a while, but I never got around to playing any of them, until recently. I decided to start with the earliest game I could for the PC, which was the Silent Hill 2 Director's Edition. Quite a few people have hailed it as among the best examples of horror in video games, so I had high expectations on that front - though I was aware that certain age related factors (specifically graphics and controls) might stand out more for me playing the game now about 14 years after the original release, and I think 12 years after the Director's Cut edition.

I got Hotline Miami 2 on a sale recently after hearing about a release date for the beta version of the level editor. I enjoyed the first game a lot, but didn't feel an urgent need to buy the second one when it came out. It's quite an intense game, and I honestly wasn't sure if I'd want to play more than was in the original - but the prospect of creating my own levels just to experiment with the game mechanics was appealing. The sequel offers some entertaining variety and a conclusion to the story, but it still almost overstayed its welcome for me.

​Qvadriga is a game about Roman chariot racing - a very good game about chariot racing (not that there's a whole lot of competition for that title). Turn-based at heart, though with a real-time option in case you needed more pressure - I don't - it still captures the excitement and brutality of racing with an elegant set of rules that offer variety without needless complexity.

​The concept of tight, exciting action games which don't overreach is something I'm a big fan of... in theory. Add in well thought out random elements, incremental or unlockable character customization options, and some nice art, and I'm there. But for some reason I keep finding myself disappointed by these sorts of games (Spelunky being the most notable exception).