Games have taken a backseat to work at the moment, but I have stumbled across a few interesting titles I would like to get into.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

What a peculiar game. Made originally by a group of students from DePaul university, you play a man who, unbeknownst to his wife and children, is a secret octopus. The game revolves around performing daily tasks in an incredibly awkward and unwieldy manner. It is a strangely compelling physics game that really has to be played to be understood. Even simple tasks like crossing a room quickly before a door closes are extremely challenging as you try to master alternating left and right mouse clicks to drag Octodad’s feet forward, while the rest of your body appears to be flailing aimlessly at times. I haven’t played the newest game, but the original version is free here on the Octodad website.

Tengami

If you thought Octodad was strange, perhaps the next game will be even more unusual. Tengami is an atmospheric point & click adventure game inside a Japanese popup book. An interesting concept and even more striking visual style, this game looks very promising so far. It’s a shame it has been delayed significantly, but I hold out hope that it will be released in the near future. It combines two of my all time favourites – adventure games and Japanese culture! And the music is good too.

Renegade X

Of all the Command & Conquer games I’ve played, the one that has had the most impact on me was the original, and second, the bold Renegade. C&C Renegade was a rather ambitious FPS/RTS hybrid, which was no easy task. The game wasn’t perfect, with an extremely scripted and linear story and terrible AI, but the core concepts were quite interesting. One thing I loved in particular was the scale of the buildings; structures that seemed small in relation to units in the earlier games in the series are massive when you look  at them in first person.

Renegade X is not Renegade, but perhaps even better. It is a spiritual successor to the original game, refining and improving the core concepts. The aim of the game is to destroy the enemy base while protecting your own. Graphically the game is much improved too, and worth a look. I have only played it briefly, but I intend to try it more thoroughly when I get some free time.