Graham Smith - Jank (Page 3)

11 Sep 2026 By Graham Smith What We're Playing

What you could play this weekend

Plus what we're playing

We're not a Nintendo site, which means I have no reason to tell you that I like weird wet Link from this week's Nintendo Direct about the Ocarina Of Time remake. I think it's healthy for games critics to be sceptical of nostalgia-bait revivals of beloved games, but also that such cynicism needs to be married with aesthetic principles that offer stalwart support to the grotesque. Plus, I badly want that new Kirby.

Alas, here are three actually-on-PC games you could be playing this weekend. Tell us what you are playing in the comments, whatever platform it's on.

Roguecraft DX

An isometric pixel art view of some grey stone corridors, some fire, and two red monsters next to the player with a sword.

Rogue 64 was a topdown roguelike released for Commodore 64 back in 2021, and Roguecraft was its Amiga-bound successor with fancier graphics in 2024. Roguecraft DX is the inevitable PC port. It's a pocket-sized dungeon crawler with quick runs, handsome pixel art, and the "craft" in the title is a reference to Lovecraft rather than to item crafting. It otherwise seems fairly traditional, but roguelikes that play it straight aren't as common as they once were.

Wardogs

A sunlit muddy road with a big puddle in the middle. The first-person player is holding a gun. The puddle better watch out.

At a glance, Wardogs looks like every other Battlefield or Tarkov-derived

06 Sep 2026 By Graham Smith The Lie-In

The Lie-In

Links worth clicking

Good morning, videogames. I have a bumper crop of good articles to share this week so there's no time to spare. Let's get going.

Patrick Miller has been writing about and designing fighting games for years, and most recently worked on Riot's 2XKO. This past week, he wrote more about what he values in the games he plays, why he loves fighting games specifically, and why he doesn't care for games he describes as "opiates".

I say this as someone who has loved video games his whole life; if games serve a load-bearing function in someone's life, it's the life that needs fixing, not the games.

A man after Brendy's heart. Personally I don't want videogames to be opiates, but I'm okay with them being weed.

A similar argument from a different angle, Lincoln Carpenter wants MMOs to waste his time again. Me too.

WoW has become a relentlessly efficient machine, ensuring players waste the least possible time while being propelled through seasonal ranks and escalating difficulty tiers. In terms of providing their users with those quantifiable successes, it's hard to argue that the MMOs of today aren't

04 Sep 2026 By Graham Smith What We're Playing

What you could play this weekend

And what we're playing

September always bring an avalanche of game releases, but I'm told that this September is even more of a whiteout than normal. Honestly? You wouldn't know it to look at the PC release calendar, where the month looks exactly as blizzardy as it always does, and pretty much as snow-packed as every other month. I think I maybe just care about different games.

Here are three of this month's releases that you could be playing this weekend. Tell us what you are playing in the comments.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault

Moonlighter has a wonderfully straightforward premise: go dungeon delving for treasure at night, then sell that treasure in your shop during the day. It was partly responsible for popularising what's become a genre, and this sequel with fully 3D environments has now hit 1.0 after a little less than a year in Early Access. I hate the subtitle, but don't hold that against it.

[Disclosure from Brendy: I worked on this game's story in its earliest stages - Graham forgot to say. But as far as I can tell they didn't use a damned word! So if there are zero jokes

03 Sep 2026 By Graham Smith Feature

These folks put Spelunky (1) in Spelunky (2) so you can Spelunky (1) while you Spelunky (2)

HDMod sends you back to the worlds of the original Spelunky with all the polish of the sequel

Spelunky 1 is the best game ever made. I prefer its pacing, difficulty, and variety to its sequel. And yet if I was to recommend one of these games to a new player, I would find it difficult to advocate for the original. Spelunky 2, released eight years later (and twelve years after the original freeware version), has better player movement, better art, and a dozen small design changes that make it a smoother experience. Spelunky 1 is the better game - the best game! - but it feels old by comparison.

Enter the creators of the HDMod for Spelunky 2, which recreates the original Spelunky's world generation, enemies, characters and items within the sequel. So now I can play Spelunky 1 inside Spelunky 2 and experience the best of both.

"Spelunky 2 feels like an improvement in almost every aspect," says Super Ninja Fat (SNF), one of the mod's creators, speaking to me over email. "The engine alone made many fixes, mechanic improvements and quality of life changes over the original. However, many fans like myself miss the first game's pacing and content distribution."

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30 Aug 2026 By Graham Smith The Lie-In

The Lie-In

Links worth clicking

Good morning, videogames. Jonty and I have both been away this past week on separate work trips, leaving Brendy to operate the cranks, winches and pulleys of Jank alone. And didn't he do well? Jonty handled the summary in yesterday's Jank Mail, so I'll just add my thanks to Brendy's newborn for leaving his father with just enough mental capacity to play a multiplayer game. Astonishing. Let's round up some games writing from across the past week.

I remember when the "gamer bill of rights" was a serious proposition from a handful of developers and digital storefronts. Mothership asked a group of people to pitch ideas for what such a document might contain, tongue closer to cheek.

The right not to play a game

Just because "everyone" loves a game or it wins a bunch of awards or someone tells you that you "have" to play it does not mean you do in fact have to play it. You are no less of a "real gamer" just because you have not played a certain game. There are thousands of games that have been released over decades on a variety of platforms, which come with many

28 Aug 2026 By Graham Smith What We're Playing

What you could play this weekend

And what we are playing

Gamescom took place this week, but that didn't stop people releasing new game after new game. I could have packed this list with triple the usual number, but I am but one frail and achy person, and so you get just three.

You can correct this failing yourself by letting us know what you're playing this weekend in the comments.

Blood Dungeon

A big wyrm, some satyrs, and a lil guy clinging to a wall as he shoots the wyrm.

I wrote about Blood Dungeon, the autoshooter from the maker of Nidhogg, back when the demo came out. I wrote about its manic beauty and its significance as a work of art by a creator who has refined their distinctive voice over decades of releases. I did not mention that the player is pooped out of a butt in the ceiling every time they return to the hub world. Now I have.

Folk Emerging

A close view of some hexy settlements and dense UI amid a sandy environment.

It's been a long while since I've fallen for a 4X game, and I suspect something smaller and more focussed might be my route back into the genre. Folk Emerging could be it. It's about leading nomadic tribes through the Stone Age, in which you must juggle family politics and deal with brand new inventions like subsistence farming and

23 Aug 2026 By Graham Smith The Lie-In

The Lie-In

Links worth clicking

Good morning, videogames. Except it's not morning. I have finally failed to deliver this article on time, as I'm away from home at the moment doing other things. Forgive me. We'll add an extra tier to our new subscriber goals at which I will be flogged. In the meantime, a collection of links awaits you below.

The second collection of Metal Gear Solid re-releases is arriving next week, and Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio revisited the fourth game in the series to talk about what's aged well, and less well.

But the poorly aged stealth action is far from the most shocking thing about Metal Gear Solid 4. Instead, it’s how direct Kojima is about tackling political issues without mincing a single word.

I love brush-based level design. Brendon Chung loves it too, and his opinion matters more as the maker of 30 Flights Of Loving, Quadrilateral Cowboy and Skin Deep.

It’s intentionally and specifically not a general-purpose tool designed to do anything – and I think that’s great. It’s built from the ground up to focus on authoring geometry for 3D game levels, allow you to make it as easily

21 Aug 2026 By Graham Smith What We're Playing

What you could play this weekend

And what we are

What a week it's been. You must be eight or nine months into the school summer holidays by now? Twelve or thirteen heatwaves, effectively one never-ending nightmare of sweaty necks and bleached grass? At least the weekend is here, when you get to put down childish things (the arbitrary strictures of work) and instead commit yourself to the pursuit of being human via the medium of videogames.

I'll tell you what we're playing this weekend if you tell us yours.

An isometric perspective on an RTS base with a swarm of dinosaurs battling nearby.

Repterra

I grew up watching Saturday-morning cartoon Denver, the Last Dinosaur (he's my best friend and a whole lot more). But what if Denver wasn't the last dinosaur? What if there were, in fact, too many Denvers? This is the nightmare scenario posited by Repterra, a "base-building survival RTS" in which you can ultimately turn dinos into your best friend and a whole lot more, where "more" means using them as mounts in your forever-war against their kin.

A galley ship in port in a pixel art world of medieval buildings and trees and grass.

Hearth And Hamlet

Brendy Caldwell, Videogame Cop might have outlawed games that play themselves, but I'll continue to smuggle contraband incrementalism into the pages of Jank. Hearth And Hamlet promises "relaxing idle