Twogether: Project Indigos is another release from Spain’s PlayStation Talents program, this time from Madrid-based developer Flaming Llama Games.  This brief two-character teamwork-based puzzler definitely hints at burgeoning talent from its indie developers, but is ultimately weighed down by finicky controls and overused puzzle design that makes it seem more like a proof-of-concept trial rather than a full-fledged release.

Twogether: Project Indigos tells the story of a group of kids endowed with supernatural powers, who are being held against their will in the laboratories of the Hexacells Corporation.  Hexacells is using the kids to nefarious ends by harvesting the fluids from their heads, in an effort to share their supernatural powers with their rich investors.

One afternoon, something happens in the lab and two of the children are freed from their rooms; Sam, a boy with the power to teleport to wherever he can throw his Rubik’s cube, and Rafi, a girl with the power to move large objects through telekinesis.  The two meet up in a hallway and decide that if they work collaboratively, they just might have the opportunity to escape the Hexacells facility and free those that are left behind.

Each puzzle requires the use of both characters’ powers.  Sam might climb onto a box that Rafi will lift with telekinesis, putting Sam at just the right height to toss his Rubik’s Cube through a broken window, so he can teleport into the room and unlock the door from behind.  Or Rafi might lift a box to block one of the overhead radiation lights so Sam can walk underneath without being irradiated into oblivion.

The cooperative puzzles seem very unique the first few times you do them, but after a few levels they become a bit stale.  It might have helped if the characters had more than one supernatural power, but with each kid being a one-trick pony of sorts, the solutions quickly become obvious.  In fact, the after short while, any challenge comes only from the wonky controls and fussy level design, which require near-exact positioning to interact with objects or block the aforementioned lights enough so Sam doesn’t have to respawn a half-dozen times.

Looking very much like a classic 3D platformer with comic-book stylings, Twogether: Project Indigos is actually visually impressive for an indie title.   The atmospheric audio is quite impressive, with synthesized cinematic quality music thick with reverb that delivers a futuristic ambiance.  It’s only too bad that there are no voiceovers in the game – all narration and character dialogue is expressed via onscreen text. Still, other than some moody (but eerily accurate) teen speak that grates my nerves as a parent of teens, the text the job done.

As I alluded to earlier, Twogether: Project Indigos is quite short, only an hour or so of total play.  The full title includes the parenthesized “(Chapter 1)” which combined with its relatively cheap retail price of $9 is a pretty good indication that there are planned sequels to follow.

I sincerely hope that if Flaming Llama does come out with a sequel, that they take the time to make some tweaks to the controls and overall gameplay, because while Twogether definitely showcases promising possibilities, the overall experience is a bit lacking in depth.

As a fan of the Pikmon franchise, I felt at home playing The Wild at Heart. The Wild at Heart is a truly enticing successor to Pikmon if there was ever need of. The art style feels like you have entered a children’s book and looks fantastic. Between the hand drawn environments, characters, and enemies The game does not rely solely on the art style as the gameplay is outstanding as you use your knowledge to solve the puzzles of the forest. The story is engaging with plenty of content to find throughout the world.

You play as Wake, a young boy who decides to run away from home. He gathers up supplies for his escape like his trusty handheld game console, PB & J sandwich, and homemade vacuum. He heads off to the woods and follows the map he made where he is supposed to meet his best friend, Kirby, so that they can both leave their troubled childhoods behind. He gets lost however and ends up in a very deep part of the woods where he discovers a weird creature who he follows deeper into the woods. Once Wake gets deeper, he finds a group of people who are trying to contain an ancient evil called The Never. This group of guardians need Wake’s help gathering all their lost friends in the Woods.

 Exploring the woods is not done alone though as you befriend forest creatures called spritelings. These little ones follow you around and can complete all sorts of tasks like build bridges, move massive stones that are blocking paths, as well as fighting against hostile enemies. As you go deeper into the woods, you find different types of spritelings that will be useful in different situations. It is simple and quick to switch between the different types too. As you gain access to different types of spritelings and increase the number that can follow you around, you’ll uncover new pathways and hidden secrets. It’s a real joy to explore all the different areas of the forest and try to find every hidden item.

Once Wake finally reunites with his friend Kirby, you’ll be able to switch between the two of them and have them move around the forest separately. Kirby can squeeze through small tunnels and access areas that Wake can’t reach, whereas Wake can use his homemade vacuum device to activate wind spinners and suck things towards himself. The puzzles start out simple but then gradually become more and more complicated as the game progresses. You’ll find yourself revisiting some areas as you try to complete some of the puzzles or find your next course of action, but it never starts to feel repetitive.

There is a day/night mechanic that changes the environment at night causing it to be more dangerous to travel. Never creatures will come out and start to attack you and your little spritelings forcing you to retreat and safely wait out the night at camp.

In the beginning, it can feel as if night comes way to quickly and force you to make split decisions last minute. I would be exploring new areas and would have to retreat to camp due to being low in health or need more items for healing. On the other hand, there are a lot of useful things to do at your campsites. At camp, you can craft new items using the scrap and materials you’ve found as well as hatch new spritelings to join you. Camping for the night restores you back to full health. It also lets you see into Wake and Kirby’s dreams. These dreams show you more about their lives before the deep woods. This helps build onto the narrative and help you understand and relate to the two protagonists. There are plenty of other things to do when you aren’t exploring or fighting the Never. From completing bounties and finding cats, there is always something to do in this magical world.

The Wild at Heart is a magical and well-designed game. With its enchanting music and gorgeous hand drawn environments to explore, it’s a beautiful adventure that will keep tranced until the end. Using spritelings to solve puzzles and fight on your behalf is a fun gameplay mechanic and adds lots of interesting dynamics to the puzzles. The Wild at Heart is a fantastic game and deserves to be bought and played!

It’s almost 2022; why aren’t Gundams and mobile suits already everywhere in society? Toonami really got me back in the 90’s with all those ads for “in the near future”. Guess I’ll make do with the release of Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operations: Code Fairy Vol 1 developed by B.B Studio co and published by Bandai. Thank you, Bandai, for not giving up on us fans, in fact, give us more! Code fairy uses the Battle Operations 2 engine from the game of the same name released for PS4 and PS5. It’s been adapted to give us a single player experience in the form of Code Fairy.

The story is given to us in a multitude of ways such as audio snippets, anime style sequences including previews and opening and closing sequences. I found the anime sequences the most interesting because every chapter had an opening theme, a closing them and a preview as well, just like something you’d watch on T.V or more likely your favorite streaming service. I won’t deny that I got over those parts of it around the 3^rd chapter when I realized it was going to happen at the end and beginning of each chapter. They had a great color; characters were appealing, and I could see them making a compilation of them and calling it a side story show or short movie.

You take the role of Alma, a rookie thrust into leadership of “Noisy Fairy” a covert all female squad under the Zeon side of the war. Code Fairy takes place during the one-year war from the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime, and the battles are in North America. As you progress through the story you will start to understand that Alma isn’t just your regular pilot.  It’s my understanding that she has some sort of special ability that makes her so good at piloting mobile suits. She is supported by two other pilots; an engineer called Mia and Helena who you pretty much leave to their own device the first couple of chapters until they introduce the ability to mark units for them to focus and pilot abilities which are special skills on short cooldowns such as instant repair of your suits, decreased damage taken and increased mobility to name the basics. As your pilots level up they earn more, but I hate to say it, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” really came into play with these.

Beating missions and completing certain objectives unlock parts to increase the stats of your mobile suit, so I was excited to try out the hard mode that you unlock when you beat the game the first time, hoping it would give me the chance to earn a new suit to pilot, but aside from making the enemies harder by having them take less damage and dodging more, nothing was to be earned. The part I did like was unlocking side perspective missions that you could play the same missions from the perspective of Alma’s compatriots, so you could play the game in a sniper role and in more of a support role. It gives you more insight into what was going on with them while you were off doing your own thing in the main story and also fight in a much different manner than what you were used to.

The battles consist of your typical kill all bad guys, defend the location and one where we got to destroy a convoy. At a few different points you did finally get to fight someone in the titular Gundam suits but nobody canon from the shows that mattered, and frustratingly I’d defeat them in one battle just to have them come back later in a newer suit.  Those named bad guys that never die sort of battles are frustrating and really took all the glory out of beating them. As this is based on the B.O games the battle triangle still exists of mobile suits being categorized as three types, Raid, General or support with each having a weakness and a strength against another, something I’ve never understood because if I get stabbed with a freaking beam saber it shouldn’t do any more or less damage due to my typing.

As I’ve said, the anime style visuals are great when you aren’t in battle, then it switches to the Battle Operations 2 engine that they have been using for the game that this is based on. I’ve played Battle Operation both on PS4 and PS5 and Code Fairy doesn’t really seem to improve on any part of it. The mobile suits, because that’s what they are actually are, that you pilot are essentially custom grunt unit models that the pilots utilize the whole first 5 chapters that Volume 1 is comprised of, near the end one of them gets a newer model but you as the protagonist/main character use the same suit the entire game with the ability to change your primary weapon from a rocket launcher to a machine gun after the second chapter.

Do they look good? I can’t deny that they look good, but compared to what is the question? They look the same as they do in Battle Operation 2. The issue that I’m getting to is that being called a Gundam game, hell even a Battle Operations game, I expected the ability to customize and change my suit or get a new one at some point, but I digress. Gundam Battle Operations: Code Fairy Vol 1 and Vol. 2 are out now with Vol 3 coming Dec 3^rd.

Insomis has been making the rounds on the net in various forms over the past two year, before finally achieving its 2021 release on the PS4 – which is fitting as it was produced by fledgling Barcelona-based indie developer Path Games as part of the PlayStation Talents program.

A first-person horror puzzler, Insomnis does a fairly good job delivering a generally disturbing atmosphere as the gamer explores the dilapidated (and haunted) mansion once belonging to the recently-deceased grandfather of the game’s main (and only living) character, Joe Castevet.

Upon Grandpa Roman’s death, Joe receives a message from his grandfather’s lawyer informing him that he has been bequeathed the mansion as a part of the will. Joe arrives at the mansion late at night in the midst of a storm, leaving him little more to do than to explore the eerie mansion uncovering clues that indicate a dark family history.

For an indie game, Insomnis is initially quite impressive in its overall sense of tension and vulnerability.  With only minimal lighting, tense background sound effects and music, and disturbing artwork scrawled across the walls, there is always an impending feeling that something sinister is going to happen.  Only, it doesn’t.

Seriously, other than a few jump scares scattered around – at no point is Joe in any real harm in the entirety of Insomnis.  The NPC’s are simply there for the scare factor and to provide additional clues, as they pose no threat to Joe whatsoever.

The gameplay is all about wandering the halls, entering rooms, searching drawers and cupboards for items, and solving random puzzles which help you repeat the process.  There’s a lot of backtracking to-and-fro as previously-locked doors are suddenly unlocked – most times with little-to-know no indication as to why.

I’m the kind of gamer that likes to have a good handle on what’s going on and where I should go next, and I never felt like I knew what the hell I was supposed to do next while playing Insomnis.  The result is that what started off as intriguing, quickly became irritating, and I would have completely nodded off if it weren’t for the few startling scenes of kids slamming doors or crawling across the ceiling to shock me back into consciousness.  If you ever downloaded and played Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills demo P.T. a few years ago, the demo in which you kept circling the same halls over and over waiting for something to scare the bejeezus out of you – welcome to Insomnis.

Once again, for an indie game, Insomnis does a great job with the eerie presentation.  And kudos to the Spanish developer for doing a great job translating the game to English – including the handful of voiceovers.  And even though I found a handful of the puzzles were actually quite clever, the fact that I found more interest in finding the hidden collectables than actually playing the game is a pretty good indication that the overall gameplay is lacking.