PC; Blue Rider Interactive This voyeuristic life simulator depicts Arthur’s lonely life in his unassuming flat as he gets dragged into danger – but you’ll get the biggest thrills just from washing his dishes I wake up to the sound of rain pummelling my first-floor window. Feeling groggy after some ill-advised weeknight beers, I roll over with a groan – it’s only 7 am. As I stare at the ceiling, half illuminated by my laptop’s unholy blue hue, I feel my article deadline looming. With a sigh, I half-heartedly shuffle towards the kitchen, begrudgingly pour myself a coffee and begin another day. This is what it’s like to play Apartment Story, a The Sims-esque narrative thriller about a British games journalist called Arthur. It’s not often that a video game makes me feel jarringly seen, but this was exactly my experience as I sat at my real-world desk, peering into a cramped virtual flat, commanding protagonist Arthur to shave, wash his hands, write, and cook himself an uninspiring dinner. It’s the antithesis of your typical gaming power fantasy, an adult-themed, voyeuristic life simulator – and it’s entrancing. Continue reading...

A deceptively simple control system underpins this alpinist adventure set on a single deadly massif A climber clutches on to a vertiginous rock face, toes digging in, knuckles turning white, a limb trembling from the sheer strain. In this precarious moment, a few options present themselves: move swiftly to rebalance, take a few seconds to rest, or simply let go – praying that the belay holds the weight of a body that has succumbed to the massif. Cairn, the new “survival climbing game” from French studio The Game Bakers, is full of such dicey, panicked moments. There is no visible stamina bar, which means that the player must glean all their information from the state of their playable alpinist, Aava. Under acute duress, Aava’s breathing will intensify, becoming quicker and shallower, and her body will begin to tremble. “We want you to focus on her posture and on the handholds in front of you,” says creative director Emeric Thoa. Cairn will be out in 2025 on PC Continue reading...

In this primordial take on the life simulator, you bring about the creation of an entire solar system Meteors hurtling at planet-decimating speeds, luminous balls of hot gas, black holes from which not even light can escape: outer space can fuel nightmares, yet for Céline Veltman, a 28-year-old Dutch game-maker who spent her childhood stargazing, it is the stuff of dreams. She’s translating this wide-eyed wonder at the universe into a video game with the grandest of ambitions: the creation of a solar system. Rocks collide with one another, chemical reactions occur: lo, a planet – and life itself – is born in the depths of the cosmos. The bright, illustrative visuals of Curiosmos are more children’s picture book than Terrence Malick, an expression of Veltman’s aims for the project and its moment of inception. “I want to make everyone as enthusiastic about space as I am,” she says, talking ebulliently about supernovae and protoplanetary disks. Continue reading...

On its 15th anniversary, the creators of FarmVille reflect on the compulsive cartoon farm sim that paved the way for a data-driven world Facebook users of a certain age may remember a particularly forlorn farm animal popping up in their feeds during the platform’s heyday. The lonely cow would wander into FarmVille players’ pastures with its face twisted into a frown and its eyes shimmering with tears. “She feels very sad and needs a new home,” an accompanying caption read, asking you to adopt the cow or message your friends for help. Ignore the cow’s plea and it would presumably be left friendless and foodless. Message your friends about it, and you’d be accelerating the spread of one of the biggest online crazes of the 2010s. Released 15 years ago, FarmVille was nothing short of a phenomenon. More than 18,000 players gave it a go on its first day, rising to 1 million by its fourth. At its peak in 2010, more than 80 million users logged in monthly to plant crops, tend animals and harvest goods for coins to spend on decorations. Celebrities professed their obsession, McDonald’s created a farm for a promotion, and long before artists released music on Fortnite, Lady Gaga debuted songs from her sophomore album through the cartoon farm sim. Not bad for a game that was stitched together in five weeks. Continue reading...