Brisk Mag

I f you’re a fan of adventure games, psychological horror and very-much-almost-peeing-yourself-in-fright, then Serena is the right game for you! A point-and-click self-described as a “twisted letter to the adventure gaming community,” Serena is by all means an interesting experience that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The labour of love of over forty contributors, including both developers and adventure game junkies, this short gem should tickle your horror bone and make you feel wistfully nostalgic for games of this type at the same time. Released for free on Steam on the 30th of January, Serena is available for PC, Mac and Linux, is around an hour long in playtime and is recommended to be played while sitting on a waterproof chair. Okay, fine. Serena really isn’t that scary. Even though it’s professedly a highly detailed horror game, there are no jump scares, and there was only one scene that almost made me leap from my seat. You play as Serena’s husband, bumb...

Have you ever encountered something really funny in the moment, but later, when you tried to explain it to friends, it fell flat? Not because it wasn’t hilarious. It was. But rendered in words, the scenario just loses its comedic weight. That’s what I want to avoid doing with this review, so I’m going to hold off on spoiling the jokes and just focus on what makes Jazzpunk such a uniquely designed piece of comedic video game gold. Jazzpunk is a pop art collage masquerading as a spy thriller, a jumble of nonsensical Dadaist aesthetics interwoven with modern day tech jokes, all not-so-neatly contained within the silly, cyberpunk sandbox within which its absurd, special agent shenanigans take place. It’s all very chaotic, and I loved every second of it. Set in some kind of alternate history, Cold War-era retrofuture, you play a possibly-cybernetic Agent Polyblank who must carry out a series of whimsical surveillance and infiltration missions in a possibly-virtual realit...

Let me tell you about a small game with a big name. Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung is the latest free game from the developer known as “the” (try Googling that one), made with help from Rs11 and audio by BTZ. The previously turned some heads with the abstract, experimental platformer, Schutll Noise , and the addition of this latest ultra-lo-res action game to the developer’s oeuvre firmly places on my personal list of odd, talented developers to watch. Schutll Noise was an accomplished, but often frustrating game, but Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung is pure fun. A playful tone is established at the outset, when the game messes with you before you even start playing it. You’ll see. Then you are introduced to Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung, who lives alone in a little cottage in the woods, minding his own business. His troubles begin one medieval morning when two riders on horseback approach your humble home. The king, they proclaim, has levied a tax on lengthy names, and he’ll have ...