Big Walk
Developer: House House
Publisher: Panic
Platforms: Steam (Windows, Mac; Steam Deck Verified), PS5, Nintendo Switch 2
Price: Usually $20, with a 25 percent discount on Switch and Steam until August 18. Available to claim on PlayStation Plus
The latest project from Untitled Goose Game developer House House is a co-op puzzle and exploration game that makes heavy use of proximity chat. Big Walk sees you going on an adventure with up to 11 of your friends across an open world.
You won’t get far if you play solo and there’s no matchmaking, so you’ll need to rope in at least one friend or find new pals to hop in with you. There’s crossplay support across all platforms, which will help you get enough people together.
You’ll need to communicate well with each other to solve puzzles and move forward. Along with voice chat, gesturing is important too, especially when you’re tackling puzzles that prevent you from hearing each other. When you’re separated from your buds, you can keep in touch using walkie talkies, notes, flares, cowbells and so on.
Reviews for Big Walk have been absolutely glowing so far. I’d like to check it out, even though I don’t especially love using a microphone while playing games. I’ll have to get over that if I want to make the most of going on a large stroll with some companions.
ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs
Developer: Mandragora
Publisher: tinyBuild
Platform: Steam (Windows, Mac)
Price: Usually $20, with a 10 percent discount until August 20
ReStory has been on my radar for quite a while and I can’t wait to dive into the full game. It’s a repair shop management sim in which you clean and restore retro gadgets. Many of them clearly draw inspiration from real-world gizmos like the Tamagotchi, Nokia phones, Playstation Portable and original Xbox. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news — devices from the 2000s can certainly be called “retro” at this point. The names of many of these products have been changed, but there are officially licensed Atari devices in the mix.
At times, you won’t have what you need on hand to repair an item. You can scour the web for components or other devices that you can strip for parts. Customers will sometimes ask you to customize their gadget and you’ll need to manage your shop’s finances. There’s a branching narrative that plays out depending on your choices.
I dug the demo and this is an instant buy for me. I’m far from the only one who’s interested in ReStory, as more than 750,000 people have wishlisted it on Steam.
Echobreaker
Developer: Upstream Arcade
Publisher: Weekend Games
Platform: Steam (Windows)
Price: Usually $9, with a 15 percent discount until August 20
Echobreaker is all about going fast. It’s an isometric precision platformer in which your character is brought in by a company to put a time-altering armored body rig through its paces.
You’ll need to take out all of the enemies before you can complete a level, in similar fashion to Neon White. Finding ways to do that while maintaining as much momentum as possible is key. You can slow things down and then get a burst of speed after taking out an enemy. You can sacrifice units of health (or “echoes”) for special abilities. In some cases, you can use these to earn more echoes.
To progress, you’ll need to beat a level within a certain time limit — you can go back and redo them for better times and ranks. Figuring out the ideal routing and executing runs cleanly are essential here.
I’ve played a bit of Echobreaker and while I’ve broadly enjoyed it so far, it’s not totally clicking for me in the way games like Rollerdrome have. It looks and sounds great, and zipping around the courses feels satisfying. My lack of engagement is more about me lacking the patience to optimize runs than it is an indictment of a well-designed game.
Akatori
Developer: Contrast Games
Publishers: Games Harbor, Esprit Games
Platforms: Steam (Windows). Coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on August 12 and Switch 2 later this year
Price: Usually $15, with a 15 percent discount until August 12
Akatori has been a long time coming. I first saw this during E3 2021 and it’s been on my Steam wishlist since then. It’s a very pretty-looking Metroidvania in which you use a staff for traversal and combat. It can even transform into a bird that you use for gliding. There are more than a dozen skills and abilities to use and seven biomes to explore.
You play as a teenage girl named Mako who sets out to save all of these worlds from storms that are poisoning all life. Steam reviews suggest Akatori is tough, but I might be willing to let it kick my butt if I can drink in those visuals.
Pigeon: A Love Story
Developer: Wristwork
Publisher: Wristwork, Tiny Dragon
Platforms: Steam (Windows, Mac, SteamOS/Linux; demo available), iOS, Android
Price: Usually $8 on Steam, with a 20 percent discount until August 20. The mobile versions start at $3 for the London map, with additional maps costing $1 each.
I adore the concept of this game. You play as a pigeon on the hunt for its one true love among hundreds of thousands of birds in a life-sized city. The developers used real-life map data to build out their versions of London, Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo and New York. Once you finish the main game, you can keep going and explore a procedurally generated world.
Players have submitted rejection messages that Wristwork has started adding to the game. Alternatively, birds that aren’t The One might give you a hint on how to find the pigeon you’re actually seeking.
There are two ways to play Pigeon: A Love Story in co-op. You and up to eight friends can race to find your paramour or split up and search for each other. You can “coo” into your mic to help you locate them, if you want.
Another thing I’m into here is that you can play the Steam version of Pigeon: A Love Story as an idle game. Your pigeon can search for its one true love in the corner of your screen while you’re doing other things. While Valve hasn’t verified the game for its handheld system yet, there’s said to be Steam Deck support.