I'm not sure I trust the Page of Cups. As imagined by Pamela Colman Smith and A.E. Waite in the 1909 Rider-Waite Tarot, he's a cocky young man in a floral tunic, standing by the seashore hefting a goblet. There's a fish peeking out of the goblet and the Page appears to be gossiping with it, perhaps sharing a joke about the artist, because honestly, what kind of artist paints a guy talking to fish. Or is he thinking about offering us the cup? The set of his jaw is ambiguous.

When drawn in an upright position, the Page suggests a flash of inspiration reeled from the mind's ocean, or a dazzling opportunity. In this guise, he's been a good friend to Ami Y. Cai, a game creator and illustrator from Kentucky - though in her first Tarot deck, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's Shadowscapes Tarot, the symbolism has been flipped around a little, the Page depicted as a mermaid peering into a steaming bowl. “Sometimes sparks come to me through conversations, or while I'm doing something else,” Cai tells me over Zoom. “So when I see the Page of Cups, I know that a creative opportunity is coming my way.”

Read more

Puzzle games don't need a plot, or even a theme or setting. When very abstracted ones throw one in it's often an indulgence, or just an excuse to hang the aesthetics around something the devs happen to like. Blink Planets seemed like this at first, and that was fine! A little sexy hexy is all you really need if it's done right, after all. I cannot believe I just said that.

Partway through though, I realised Blink Planets isn't just about connecting things with lines of tiles. It really is about the urban planning its setting suggests.

Read more

Over the holidays, I decided to treat myself to the gift of funk, and bought myself a neat little acoustic bass. The guitar arrived as promised; I am still waiting on the funk. Any day now. In the meantime, I’ve taught myself the riff for Valley Of The Fallen Star, better known as the Cosmo Canyon theme from Final Fantasy VII. I’m not sure if I can adequately put into words how the original composition of the track makes me feel, but I am certain I’m not the only one.It is sonic nostalgia for a simpler time, where following a talking dog’s weeble uncle to the projection of the cosmos he kept in his loft did nothing to shatter my emotional investment in a story.

Read more

EGX is returning to Birmingham this year, March 4th-6th, and tickets are on sale now. The three-day event takes the place of EGX Rezzed, which was formerly held in London, and runs from Friday until Sunday.

Read more

Riot Games have outlined their strategy for their next five years, saying they think of themselves "not as a games company but as a gamer’s company." The lengthy post, credited to Riot CEO Nicolo Laurent, outlines not what they specifically intend to make, but the kinds of things they want to make and the internal changes designed to make it happen.

The post also acknowledges Riot Games' recent history, including their settlement last month of a gender discrimination lawsuit stretching back to 2018.

Read more

It's been over a decade since a core game in The Settlers series last made landfall on PC, and during that time the real-time management landscape has arguably changed quite a bit. There have been some great building games that have risen up, and even developer Blue Byte (now Ubisoft Dusseldorf)'s own Anno series has staked a powerful claim to the city-building throne. But this incarnation of The Settlers isn't so much about connecting to the series' past as it is about laying down foundations for the future. It's had a slightly rocky road to launch, suffering several delays and refunded pre-orders after being postponed indefinitely back in 2020, but at long last this reboot of the classic city-building conquest-me-do is finally ready to beat down our door and come barrelling in. It's launching in full on March 17th, and I've been hands on with an early version of the upcoming closed beta build that will be running from January 20th-24th. So settle in, folks. Here's how it's shaping up.

Read more

Happy 2022! New year, same old us. The Electronic Wireless Show Podcast will make no effort to change or better ourselves; this is our promise to you, listener. For our first episode of the new year we're doing the traditional "what games are we most looking forwards to" episode. Yes, our most anticipated games. There is very little crossover, and lots of orc chat.

Before that, though, we're lucky enough to have scored an interview with the "It's me, Blorko" guy. Yes, we have the man who came up with this winter's most fashionable Marvel-based viral tweet, live and on the podcast (I mean, technically he is on the podcast every week but this week we ask him about the Blorko thing for like 20 minutes).

Read more

I wouldn’t call it a new year’s resolution – mine for 2022 are learning piano and using fewer dashes – but generally I want to try new things with my PC. And one such opportunity recently presented itself via the new Turtle Beach VelocityOne Flight yoke controller: I was going to learn how to fly.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, obviously, but this honking great console of handles, buttons, joysticks and levers definitely looked like the right tool for the job. A simple flight stick this is not: there’s a full 180-degree yoke handle, an integrated display that can data like flight times, and a modular (but included as standard) throttle quadrant. The kind of thing you might own if your PC resembles a bisected turbine.

Read more

On a stretch of futuristic tarmac, something clicked. Yellow quest markers hadn't built my relationships in Cyberpunk 2077. When a job needed doing, then they'd steer me in the right direction. But for those initial sparks of story, my cellphone had been key. Chats and texts buzzed into my brain at all hours. "Hey V", "V, got a minute?", "V!"

Characters would get in contact with me, not the other way around. And I liked that. In fact, I'd say it helped build a living, breathing world more than Night City's towering skyscrapers and moving billboards. More than, perhaps, any other big RPG I've played over the last couple of years.

Read more

It's probably more trouble than it's worth to sidestep around comparisons to Mount & Blade with Sands Of Salzaar. It's mostly the structure. Sands Of Salzaar drops you into a world of dynamically warring factions. You can join or compete with them by founding your own, or ignore them to beat up roving bandits, clear out combined dungeon/random encounter sites, and do odd jobs for named NPCs. Some of those figures are powerful, unkillable, and recruitable, although you may have to win them over with favours or gifts. You'll likely do a bit of everything, but mostly you'll be smashing armies into each other in 2D skirmishes.

It's no clone, though. While its component parts are familiar, Salzaar does enough of its own thing to win my affection, and its odd but sincere personality shines despite some muddy edges.

Read more