Even if the name weren’t a giveaway, you’d know Tales From Off-Peak City is a Cosmo D game from the philosophical pizza order, the eclectic collections of oversized objects, a building morphed into a face, and his visual style that I’ve just realised reminds me of 90s multimedia CD-ROMs. The musician and developer recently announced his next game set in the world of Off-Peak, another first-person adventure game exploring a strange place, poking into secrets, opening drawers and pressing buttons, and getting tangled in something stranger than it first seems. I am well up for another Cosmo D game.

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I quite like dogs, me. Kicking off a trailer with a sad ol’ Shiba is probably unfair, but oh – they’ve pepped right up! Oh gosh, there’s more of them! They’re a little more crabby, but a pooch is a pooch. You can’t fool me. Oh, christ, there’s a few of them now… wait, why are they swarming? Good dogs, nice boys, please don’t bite my arm– ouch!

Overland, the proper stylish disaster road trip from Finji, is hitting the road for real. The roguelike survival strategy has been driving around quaint little low-poly dioramas for a few years now, but every journey needs a destination. Overland will reach its on September 19th.

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Alec Holowoka, the co-creator of Night In The Woods, died on Saturday morning, his sister Eileen Mary Holowka has reported. Alec Holowka was co-designer, coder and composer on Night In the Woods, and previously filled the same roles on Aquaria. Last Monday, he was accused of sexual assault and abusive behaviour several years ago by developer and writer Zo Quinn. Alec’s sister didn’t state a cause of death, though the implication is clear.

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Absurdly bad German accents. That s what happened in this game. Prisoner Of War was a stealthy third-person adventure game about breaking out of a POW camp during World War 2. Except every time you broke out of camp, the German army simply caught you and put you in a bigger, worser camp. Eventually, you end up in Colditz, which is like Hogwarts but with Nazis.

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Dota Underlords builds are wondrously complex and finnicky beasts. Combining your knowledge not just of heroes and abilities and items and alliances, but also the pacing of a match and your relative needs on different rounds can all get pretty mind-boggling pretty quickly – especially now that you also have to factor in the new Ace Tier heroes and effects with version #245 and later.

So we thought it’d be a good idea to revisit our Dota Underlords builds guide to see what still works and what no longer does. Below we’ve put together six of the very best builds heading into September, from Knights and Dragons to Trolls and Warriors, and many more.

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Sundays are for visiting the Novelty Cinema in Newbury, only you can’t because that’s actually what we call my friend’s house when we watch nice films together. Don’t turn up, it would be weird. Here’s the best writing about videogames from the past week.

Over on Vice, I enjoyed Patrick Klepek’s thoughtful interrogation of Nintendo’s inconsistent approach to deliberately glitchy player-created Mario Maker levels. Unsurprisingly I’m entirely on the side of players who revel in pushing Nintendo’s pristine building blocks to breaking point. Why ban levels like that when you could just flag them as weird?

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If you’ve not been following PC games goings-on across the week, catch up on some of the big stories quick in our noncomprehensive Weekly News Digest. I’ve slipped in a few things we haven’t already posted about, and do also read The Updates Update for some of the week’s notable patches and updates. It’s been a short week for us here, thanks to the bank holiday Monday, but there sure is enough going on.

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Dota Underlords patch notes tend to be pretty game-changing – as it should be, for a game still in early-access. But boy, does it make my life as a guides writer busy! Now they’ve gone and added two entirely new mechanics (Ace-Tier Heroes and Contraption items) amid a plethora of other balance changes and features.

So it’s time once again to sit down and have a read through what’s changed in our Dota Underlords patch notes analysis, exploring how each change may (or may not) shift the meta in a new direction.

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In all the hubbub of the week, you might’ve missed some of the patches and updates rolled out to games. Presenting the Weekly Updates Update, a noncomprehensive roundup of new maps and characters and balance tweaks and fixes and such which caught my eye over the week – including a few we haven’t posted about.

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Greetings, all! It’s the end of August, and so, these dog days are over. The temperatures might remain warm well into September, but do not be fooled: autumn is on its way.

It has been one year since I started writing Priceless Play, carrying the baton for Free Games of the Week. I love it! Bringing you weird writing on weird games week after week is a joy. So I hope you’ll indulge me for the next month as I take a brief step back. The break isn’t a glamourous drinks-in-a-coconut-with-tiny-umbrella variety, but rather a break to devote time to writing my comprehensive exams. Who said getting a PhD wasn’t glamourous? Everyone? C’est la vie!

Here are a handful of games to tide you over. Wish me luck!

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