What We're Playing

What you could play this weekend

Pineapple beatdown
By Graham Smith
One person jumps in the air and does a big downward punch at another, against a red sky.

We don't write news and rarely write previews here on Jank, but we still want some method of acknowledging the flurry of interesting new games that come out each week. That's what this column is for. Below you'll find brief mention of what Jon, Brendan and I are currently playing, but also three new games that we think seem worthy of at least a glance.

The comments below all that are what really matter, though. That's where you'll find games old and new, all of them interesting enough to be played by at least one person in the Jank community. Join in! It's free.

Echo Weaver

The player character jumps in the air while holding a glaive. There is a starry sky, tree tops and distant islands in the background.

I often think, while lost in some metroidvania cave network, that I wish these games gave me information-game style tools for working out the path forward. Maybe Echo Weaver is what I've been hoping for: this is a time-loop metroidvania that everyone is comparing to Outer Wilds, in which your entire powerset is unlocked from the beginning but you need to experiment with it to learn how it works and gain the knowledge needed to progress.

Poly Fighter

A person called Pineapple throws pineapples at a dogman called Mutt, lying on the ground.

A roguelike beat-'em-up where defeating an opponent means you get to take one of their moves, and thus buildcraft your own fight style one bout at a time. That sounds like a great solution to fighting games that overwhelm you (me) with complex combos and movesets from the first second. Also, the screenshot above has a guy throwing pineapples at a dog man called Mutt. I'm intrigued.

The Witch's Bakery

A woman with a red wide-brimmed witch's hat walks down a sunlit street, past trendy craft shops. A flying cat follows her.

It's a milestone for Jank that there are now articles in our young archive that we can refer back to. I wrote about the demo for The Witch's Bakery earlier this year and enjoyed it for its simple puzzles and a gorgeous depiction of Parisian streets and skylines. It's out now in full. I'm not sure I have an actual craving for more of its visual novel storytelling or Tapper-style croissant management right now, but maybe that's where your head is this weekend.

What we're playing

Graham: I'm still circling Galactic Racer, a game I enjoyed for an hour and then haven't successfully boot up a second time. I'm also curious about Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, the new joint from the Dead Cells and Rogue Prince Of Persia developers.

Brendan: My house move nightmare continues. I am spending the weekend moving furniture and old wine crates stacked with terrible game novelisations that I have not yet abandoned in the charity bookcase at Tesco. If I get the required three hours, somewhere, somehow, I will play Penguin Colony, which I hear is pretty interesting.

Jonty: I am attempting to engage with culture by playing Star Wars Galactic Racer before Biddy Blas gets cancelled. I have played for perhaps half an hour and I already have a nagging feeling it requires more skill than I can bring myself to develop, but I'll see how the weekend goes.

That's us, but what about you? Tell us what you're playing below, in the internet's best and only comment section.

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What We're Playing
Graham Smith

Graham Smith

Graham is a former editorial director of Rock Paper Shotgun and editor-in-chief of PC Gamer. He has now been a games journalist for over twenty years, and retains a bottomless appetite for playing new games and tinkering with old ones.