New Month, new Choice. To pause or not to pause – good question. I already claimed this month’s Choice as it’s pretty great. I don’t own any of the games and five of the titles were on my wishlist already, so it’s a great deal.

In the past year, I’ve been playing the Dark Pictures games with Rakai over on my Twitch channel, and they’ve been a lot of fun! They’re really well made and apparently, House of Ashes is really great according to a bunch of folks I’ve talked to.

This also has allowed me to get more used to horror titles in general, so I’m looking forward to playing The Quarry eventually which is also part of this month’s Choice and which is also developed by the same dev studio as the Dark Pictures Anthology games.

That said, I’m surprised to see The Quarry on here already given that it was only released last year. Anyhow, this month’s Choice is worth it to me because of these two games on their own. Can’t wait to play them!

Oh, btw, if you don’t know Supermassive Games, they essentially make these story-driven games about a certain group of people going to certain places… and then the Horror stuff happens. You then have choices to make which change the outcome, and typically people die if you miss out on quick-time events or make specific choices – but there’s multiple endings depending on who survives (if any).

Metal Hellsinger is basically Doom but as a rhythm game. It’s a boomer shooter with rhythm game mechanics and a metal soundtrack… sort of like BPM: Bullets Per Minute but without the roguelike gameplay loop.

Also, System of a Down’s lead singer also did some stuff in there? Unsure. Anyhow, good game. I suck at rhythm games but I’ve been meaning to play it ever since it was announced. It looks very stylish.

Lords and Villeins is a lighthearted approach to Colony Sims and City Builders. It seems incredibly cute and despite its lighthearted approach to these subgenres of strategy games, it is apparently quite complex as well with many of the reviews praising its depth and the amount of content there is in there. Really excited to play this one!

Spirit of the Island is also a rather cute title. It’s a Life Sim with Sandbox elements and an adorable art style. Apparently, it can be played in co-op, too. I’m sure I’d like it but I don’t currently have the time to play another Life Sim.

Meanwhile, A Juggler’s Tale is pretty great.

I heard many amazing things about it and I’ve strayed away from spoilers about the story, so I’m looking forward to experiencing this one eventually on my own.

At last, there’s Mr. Prepper and Rebel Inc: Escalation. I feel like these games are technically up my alley but I got really, really bored with Mr. Prepper. Maybe I’m just not in the right mindset/headspace for this game at the moment? I don’t know.

Meanwhile, Rebel Inc is actually quite bad. I was rather excited about this since I loved Plague Inc so much. Well, Rebel Inc is nothing like it despite looking like something similar.

For starters, you don’t play as the rebels unless you play in multiplayer… but even then gameplay is quite similar, it seems. Anyhow, I know this is a weird point to make and I know I shouldn’t complain here since I could have just read the store page’s description… but if Plague Inc lets you play as the virus, parasite or whatever… then Rebel Inc should let you play as the rebels or terrorists. At least that’s what I expected.

But I’m not upset about that.

It’s an odd title, to be fair, with many aspects of it added haphazardly to the end of the game. It is very much the same gameplay every run, no matter where you start and no matter what strategy you wanna pursue. I will write a longer post about all the things I dislike but in essence:

It’s a Whack-a-Mole Sim that pretends to be in-depth and sorta RTS-like… but it’s not. It’s bad. Bad game. I regret having played this. Truly.

Sorry for the rant.

Overall, though, this month’s great. It also supports Direct Relief which is a humanitarian aid organization with a mission to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies. Good cause!

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well.