As Jalopy [official site] continues to trundle on through early access, the roguelikelike roadtrip ’em up has added Bulgaria in an opt-in beta. It’s not perfect but if you fancy pootling over the holidays, it should see you right. Along with adding the twisty and hilly new land, the update adds different road conditions and different tyres to go with them, plus new hazards like oil spills, and pot holes. … [visit site to read more]

SOMETHING BEHIND THE DOOR IS SCREAMING AND PULSING AND THROBBING AND THE BEAT GOES ON EVEN WHEN BONES HAVE VIBRATED TO DUST

Behind door 22 of our Advent Calendar, which celebrates the year’s best games, you’ll find the best music game of 2016. It’s Thumper [official site].

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So sure, Night in the Woods [official site] is delayed once more but, y’know, stuff happens. At least this latest delay is only a few weeks. Besides, given the state everything will be in after New Year, I probably wouldn’t have time for it on its original date of January 10th. The cute explore-o-adventure about a college dropout cat returning to her home town, where something strange is happening in the woods, is now expected in early February. … [visit site to read more]

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Roundabout [official site] is the game about a chauffeur and limousine. The limousine is constantly spinning, which makes navigation difficult, and the live action cutscenes are sweet, funny and a bit Wes Anderson.

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Team Fortress 2 [official site] recognises that yes, Smissmas is a time for gibbing your fellow man then leaving their labelled hunks under the tree, but also somethings for coming-together. Valve’s free-to-play FPS has kicked off its Christmas event with an update bringing the traditional assortment of new icy items but also handy features for casual play. A new team autobalancing systems gives players gifts if they even up teams, while Casual matchmaking now keeps players together after matches to pick a new map and go again. This should mean more fun, less yelling, and an end to the Red and Blu sides of the family glaring at each other across the lounge on Boxing Day. … [visit site to read more]

It’s easy to forget that as we sleep soundly in our beds, the screaming, blazing grindwar of Battlefield 1 [official site] is still happening on foreign servers. It’s a good thing the combatants enjoy it. And, lucky them, there’s a new game mode being introduced as part of a Christmas event, as well as some other bits and bobs for the troopers. Snuggle up and I’ll tell you all about it. … [visit site to read more]

Overwatch [official site], aka The Shooter Whose Locker You Leave Perfumed Notes In, will be getting a server browser next year alongside other updates, says Blizzard in a developer update. It’ll let you set your daft custom games as ‘public’, and they want to have a working version of it running in “early 2017”. There’s other small changes on the horizon for our best multiplayer shooter of the year, including the ability to have up to four emotes equipped at a time, which is downright obscene. … [visit site to read more]

When people tell me working from home must be great, they don’t expect me to rave about the delights of office chairs, office coffee machines, office clothes, and office deskmates on the rare occasions I’ve done freelance odd jobs in offices. Mate, I’d love to work in an office. No, from the looks on their faces, their idea of offices must match up fairly well with those in Yuppie Hell [official site]. It’s an upcoming survival horror RPG about a chap starting a new job at a huge corporation which, turns out, is cursed by a witch. That’ll be why the photocopier is crawling around on four giant hands. … [visit site to read more]

While checking some 2017 release dates for a feature it looks like Birthdays The Beginning [official site] – the sandbox sim from the creator of Harvest Moon where you can create and curate worlds full of plants and creatures – has slipped back a couple of months. The game was previously scheduled for March, 2017 but is now pegged for May. … [visit site to read more]

We have, at last, reached the end of 2016. I’m not going to do a top-ten list both because a lot of the games I might put on this list are things I’ve already covered elsewhere in previous columns, and because I think some of the most interesting things to happen in 2016 were about trends rather than single hits. But here are a few highlights of the year past. … [visit site to read more]