Recent reviews by Worldcrafter

Dead Cells is yet another rogue-lite genre mashup, but this one is something special. From the opening screen the art and music are fantastic, fluid and catchy. And once you take control of the character, a pile of slime inhabiting a beheaded corpse, the movement and combat are sublime. Rolls, parries, double jumps, ground slams, running through the Castlevaniaesque environments of this game are a delight. The enemies are varied and equally enjoyable to fight.

And fight you will, with a swords, knives, bows, shields, bombs, traps, and, and, and. There are tons of weapons to unlock, each encouraging a different play style, and when combined with other weapons and items there are endless builds to try. With 2 weapon slots, 2 item slots, and a necklace slot, there's a lot of room for experimentation:

• A knife that causes bleed combined with a sword that crits on bleeding enemies.
  
• A shield that slams enemies off ledges and into walls and a spear that crits on enemies against a wall.
  
• A bomb that soaks everyone in a radius in flammable oil and a necklace that ignites your ground stomps.
  
• A bow that crits at short range, a bow that crits at long range, and bombs that help you recover arrows.
  
• A magnet that draws enemies in and a slow moving ball of death to wipe them out.

You are at the mercy of the RNG gods, but part of the fun is finding a new combination you hadn't tried before. The levels are also randomly generated, so everything between than the entrance and exits is a discovery. This game is hard and deaths reset you to the start (all unlocked weapons/items stay unlocked), but deaths never feel cheap. Every time I die I know I could have done better, and immediately try again. The "one more time" is strong with this game, and finally making it past the section you died on last time is immensely satisfying.

The developers have been amazing supporting this game with constant updates that expand the weapons/items, levels, enemies, and systems. They are excellent at listening to player feedback and incorporating suggestions into the game without undermining the core gameplay. This is Early Access done right. Dead Cells was a rock solid blast when I bought it months ago, and it's even more fun now. I look forward to seeing how this game continues to evolve.

One of the formative games of my teen years, Toonstruck is equal parts Lucasarts adventure, Roger Rabbit, and a junkie clown shooting up in an alley. If it sounds insane, it really is, but in all the best ways. I'm not sure which part I love the most; the characters, the jokes, the frenetic animations, or the beautifully drawn locations. And don't forget the star cast! That said, it's a 90s era adventure game, so puzzle solutions can swing from obvious to obscure, but at least there are guides this time around.

Bottom line: If you liked The Curse of Monkey Island and somehow missed Toonstruck, now is a great time to fix that.

After a fresh install, the game consistently crashed on startup. I switched to Win 7 compatability mode as suggested on their site's FAQ, which did allow the game to run, but it was unplayably slow and choppy (on my 1.6Ghz i7 with 4GB RAM). I could spend more time trying to get it up to speed, but after playing a few rounds it didn't seem like it was worth my time.