June is here and it has brought along some serious heat. Both physically with much warmer days and nights, but also through the hot video game announcements we received! It’s easy to make fun of individual shows and whether they had enough announcements in them, but collectively, I think we can all agree that we know about A LOT more games now than we did on May 31st.
As for our Deer Critics League, we are in the middle of the summer swoon right now. Almost all our publishers have, or are very close to filling, their slate of video game releases for this year. However, most of their release dates seem to be closer to the fall than the summer.
In the month of June, only two games were released:
- #BLUD (Vapor-Wares) : 4.2pts
- Still Wakes the Deep (Ranch Walker Inc.) : 7.2pts
And with that, this is how our Deer Critics League is ordered (as of June 30th):
Ranch Walker Inc.’s Still Wakes the Deep (7.2pts) was the bigger hit with reviewers this month, with outlets praising the story above the gameplay. #BLUD (4.2pts), a game released for Amanda’s Vapor-Wares, was fairly-well received also, with the positive reviews I saw really praising the art-direction, animations, and Zelda dungeon-esque gameplay.
Upcoming in July, the Deer Critics League is looking at five (5) games releasing as of now. Those games are: Cataclismo – Crystal-Cross Games (7/16), Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn – Lambda-Strain Games (7/18), Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition – Homie Don’t Play Games (7/17), EA Sports College Football 25 – Bearded Champions (7/19), and Thrasher – Homie Don’t Play Games (7/25). I think we all know what “Nintendo World Championships” & “EA Sports College Football” is so for the purposes of this post, let’s take a quick look at the other games this month.
Cataclismo is being developed by Digital Sun Games (Moonlighter / The Mageseeker) and published by Hooded Horse (Manor Lords). They describe their game as an RTS (Real-Time Strategy) but one where you build your defenses brick by brick in preparation against tower defense style waves of enemies. The art direction is striking, reminding me of their previous game Moonlighter but moving from a pixel-art style to a painterly 3D art style.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is developed by the New Zealand studio, A44 Games (Ashen) and published by Kepler Interactive (Ultros / Pacific Drive / Scorn). They describe their game as a “Souls-like” action role-playing game, where you take on the role of Nor Vanek. She’s a coalition member who must eliminate the old gods in order to save mankind with the fox-like helper, Enki. Your attacks are mostly melee focused or sometimes utilizing flintlock firearms, and Enki is used for magic-based attacks and abilities.
THRASHER is a VR experience from Puddle Studio and Brian Gibson (Artist & Composer from Thumper). Their website describes the game as a, “…mind-melting arcade action odyssey and visceral audiovisual experience. Swoop, dash, and thrash to defeat wild bosses in the ultimate race for survival.” It’s launching for Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest on July 25th.
That’s all that I have for this month’s newsletter! As promised, I have compiled some Q2 statistics (now that we all have our mostly completed rosters). Please take a look:
Take care & God Bless,
Alex C.
Deer Critics League 