One of the most unexpected surprises of fifa 16 coins the year, Simogo’s SPL-T is a minimalist revelation of a puzzle game. It’s a bizarre combination of Super Puzzle Fighter SPL-T is a falling-block game of sorts, one in which some puzzle pieces have countdown-timers so that they eventually ‘zero out’ and vanish crossed with that grade-school game where you try to see if you can fold a sheet of paper in half more than eight times. It’s hard to describe, admittedly, because there’s absolutely nothing else like it. It’s also tough to get the hang of at first, just because it totally requires the player to think in such different ways spatially… but once you ‘get’ it, you’ll be hooked.
Downwell is a crunchy, rapid-fire “Spelunky-like” (are we at that point already? Are we prepared to start describing games as “Spelunky-likes”?) but, instead of side-scrolling, Downwell occurs vertically, in a procedurally-generated dungeon that the player falls down through. The player’s sprite will often fall right past powerups
enemies, and treasure rooms, making the game wonderfully frenetic torture. Fortunately, the player is equipped with a pair of goddamn gun-boots making you, the player, feel incredibly powerful for every second you’re not staring in shock at the Game Over screen. (Game designer Doug Wilson has written elsewhere on why Downwell is his favorite game of 2015, and he stages a very convincing argument.)
We cheated: As of this list’s publication, Grayout isn’t actually out, per se. But it will be soon presumably before the end of this month and when it does hit, prepare to have your mind BLOWN. Billed by its creators as a “prequel” to their 2013 Blackbar itself a dark, www.utfifa.co dystopian look at censorship and thought-policing Grayout is both mechanically and thematically veeeery similar to its excellent predecessor. Without giving anything else away: It’s also better, richer, more intuitive. We’ve already said too much! Watch for it.
