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Tag: Steam

  • Relooted, Reanimal and other new indie games worth checking out

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    Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. A whole bunch of compelling games arrived this week, and Sony dropped some news about more that are on the way to PS5 and other platforms during its State of Play stream on Thursday.

    For one thing, I didn’t have a prequel for Neva, one of my favorite games of the last few years on my bingo card. I’m very much looking forward to checking out that DLC next week.

    It’s really neat that Motion Twin and Evil Empire — the studios behind Dead Cells and its expansions, respectively — are getting to make a proper Castlevania game. While it might not be developing many games in-house anymore, giving external studios the chance to run with its franchises is a very smart move on Konami’s part. Not least because we’re getting a Silent Hill game set in Scotland as well.

    I’ve had Big Walk on my radar since the game was first shown off at The Game Awards a couple of years back. This is a co-op multiplayer game from Untitled Goose Game studio House House and publisher Panic in which you’ll go on adventures with your friends and help each other through puzzles and other challenges using voice, text chat and gestures. You can just hang out with your buds and watch the sunset or put their binoculars into the ocean too.

    Expect Big Walk to arrive later this year on PS5 (including as a Monthly Game for all PS Plus members), Steam and Epic Games Store. There will be support for cross-platform play between PS5 and PC.

    Also, Remedy Entertainment is technically an indie studio. As such, I can mention here that I cannot wait for Control Resonant, which is probably going to break my brain with all the perspective shifting Remedy showed off in the gameplay trailer.

    New releases

    As with any successful heist, planning and execution are equally paramount in Relooted. Setting things up properly before hightailing it out of a museum with artifacts reminds me a bit of Teardown albeit without all the voxel destruction. But Relooted is a lot more than that.

    It’s an anti-colonialist story in which parkour enthusiast Nomali and her crew take back African artifacts (all of which exist in real life) from Western museums. I did encounter some performance issues while playing on PC, but that didn’t take too much away from the enjoyable, in-the-moment action and having to adjust escape routes on the fly when things go awry. Nor did the framerate drops detract one bit from the important story that South African studio Nyamakop is telling here.

    Relooted is out now on Steam, Epic Games Store and Xbox Series X/S. It typically costs $15, but there’s a 10 percent discount on Steam until February 24. It’s available on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

    Little Nightmares and Little Nightmares 2 developer Tarsier Studios is back with another slice of atmospheric horror. In Reanimal, two siblings set out to save their missing friends and escape from an island they once called home. However, they’ll have to face a litany of dangers, including a lot of creepy creatures.

    I haven’t played Reanimal yet, but the various trailers have have always grabbed my attention. It’s out now on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 for $40.

    Reanimal has single-player, couch co-op and online co-op modes. A friend pass that allows you to invite a pal to play with you online at no extra cost should be available soon.

    Mewgenics had been in the works for a very long time before it arrived this week. It was initially announced in 2012 when co-developer Edmund McMillen was still part of Super Meat Boy studio Team Meat. After years of Mewgenics being in development hell amid McMillen focusing on projects such as The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, he’s finally seen the game through with the help of longtime collaborator Tyler Glaiel.

    This is a turn-based strategy roguelike in which players breed cats and then take kitties with wild mutations and blends of powers into combat. There’s a lot to explore and discover here. McMillen and Glaiel claim the main campaign runs for over 200 hours. Having more than 10 character classes (each with 75 unique abilities), more than 900 items and hundreds of bosses and enemies could well ensure that things stay fresh enough to justify that run time.

    Reviews have largely been positive for this one, though the humor didn’t click for some critics. Mewgenics is out now on Steam. It usually costs $30, but you can save $3 if you buy it by February 24.

    Rogue Point is a co-op shooter for up to four players that’s worth paying attention to, in large part because it’s from the team behind Black Mesa, the fan remake of Half-Life. It’s now available in early access on Steam, typically for $20, though there’s a 15 percent discount until February 26.

    This appears to be in the vein of tactical shooters like Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy games. There are objective-based missions and a Counter-Strike-style economy for unlocking and upgrading gear. While there are only four maps as things stand, Crowbar Collective has implemented a system that randomizes the layouts to keep things fresh.

    Upcoming

    Steam Next Fest is almost upon us. Many developers and publishers are preparing to release demos for their games, but some are arriving ahead of the event, such as one for Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! The demo is a blast and it feels like the kind of retro Starship Troopers shooter I wish we’d had in the late ’90s.

    I really enjoy Helldivers 2, which takes a lot of inspiration from Starship Troopers. In turn, this game draws from Helldivers 2, with features like tossing a flare to tell a support craft to send gear down to the planet’s surface. I just wish the mech was a bit more fun and effective to use.

    If you would like to know more about this game from Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun developer Auroch Digital and publisher Dotemu, you can check out the demo on Steam. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! is coming to Steam, GOG, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 on March 16.

    A demo for a line-based puzzle title called Rope popped up on Steam this week ahead of the full game’s arrival in April for about $3.50. The aim is to connect ropes of the same color to clear them. More rules will be introduced over time to make the game more challenging.

    While Rope looks charming enough, I mainly wanted to include it in this week’s roundup because I thought developer Ikuo’s comments in the press release were quite lovely.

    “My games are neither flashy nor extravagant. Instead, I focus on preserving the essence of play. Like hide‑and‑seek or tag — simple rules that draw you in until you forget the time,” Ikuo said. “Rope brings that timeless spirit of play into a modern puzzle game. It is intuitive, endlessly replayable and quietly absorbing. I aimed to create a small, understated experience that stays with players long after they put it down. I hope this game leaves even a small impression on someone’s heart.”

    The Mermaid Mask is a project that SFB Games put on the backburner after another one of their games became a hit (that would be Crow Country, which was one of our favorite games of 2024).

    This point-and-click puzzle game is the latest installment in the long-running Detective Grimoire series. A teaser trailer doesn’t give away too much, but I do enjoy what we see of the hand-drawn 2D animation here.

    Here’s hoping this is a worthy follow-up to Tangle Tower, an Apple Arcade game we enjoyed very much. We’ll find out for sure when The Mermaid Mask lands on PC and consoles this summer. In the meantime, you can check out an updated demo that just hit Steam ahead of Next Fest.

    The premise of The Stairwell is practically identical to that of The Exit 8. You walk through a small, contained scene multiple times. If everything looks okay, keep walking forward. If something is out of the ordinary, you turn around. Just try not to miss many anomalies. Rather than walk through corridors as in The Exit 8 (the film adaptation of which looks pretty promising), The Stairwell sees you going up or down a seemingly infinite tower as you try to reach the goal.

    This anomaly game, which is from Hidden Palace, has been on Steam since last year. It’s coming to PS5 on February 19. Expect jump scares.

    Let’s wrap things up for this week with an arcade game that requires just two inputs: one button to turn left, and another to veer right. You can’t control the speed of your craft in Ship v Maze. All you can do to avoid crashing and ending your run is to react quickly enough to steer your ship through various obstacles. It’s all about putting your reflexes to the test.

    Ship v Maze is from Cosmic Droplet (aka solo developer Frederic Vanmol), It’ll hit Steam on April 2 for $4. A demo is available now.

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    Kris Holt

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  • Capcom Slaps Crappy DRM On Steam Ports Of Dino Crisis 1 & 2 – Kotaku

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    The first two Dino Crisis games, originally released on the PlayStation 1 back over 25 years ago, have finally made their way over to Steam. That’s cool, but uh, wait a minute here, did Capcom include performance-killing DRM on these retro releases? Yes. Yes, it did.

    On February 12, Capcom announced a fun little surprise for Dino Crisis fans. No, it wasn’t a new game or a remake or even a fancy remaster. Instead, Capcom revealed that 1999’s Dino Crisis and its 2000 sequel, Dino Crisis 2, were now available to buy on Valve’s large digital PC gaming store, Steam. As mentioned already, that’s cool. I mean, the games have been available on GOG for a bit and can be easily emulated on fairly weak PCs, but it’s always nice to see publishers bringing older games to more platforms and stores. Except, fans quickly spotted something silly: Dino Crisis 1 and 2 on Steam include Engima Protector DRM.

    Kotaku has contacted Capcom, but didn’t hear back before publication.

    Over on the Dino Crisis Steam forums, you can see plenty of people yelling at Capcom about this incredibly silly and frankly stupid decision. “DRM on a 27-year-old game? Really? What’s wrong with these guys?” asked one user. Others pointed out that this is the same DRM that Capcom recently added to its years-old Resident Evil 4 remake. And that was a disaster, causing all sorts of performance problems for many users on PC.

    This is made all the more strange by the fact that these Dino Crisis PC ports seem to be the same versions being sold currently on GOG with zero DRM. For whatever reason, Capcom has decided that the same games available DRM-free on GOG should include crappy DRM that people hate if you buy them on Steam. As you can expect, a lot of people are opting to buy Dino Crisis on GOG until Capcom removes the DRM.

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • Xbox Developer_Direct 2026 Recap: Everything Revealed, Including a Surprise New Double Fine Game – Xbox Wire

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    Developer_Direct kicked off 2026 with new gameplay and developer insights for four games coming to Xbox, all of which players can enjoy this year.

    The development teams at Playground Games (who brought two games to the show), Game Freak and Double Fine showed off Fable, Forza Horizon 6, Beast of Reincarnation, and surprise announcement, Kiln. Each brought extended new footage, looks behind the development curtain and, of course, information on when you’ll be able to play the games yourselves.

    All the games in our show are Xbox Play Anywhere titles, meaning when you buy them through the Xbox or Windows store, they’re yours to play on PC, Xbox console, or supported gaming handhelds at no additional cost – and you can pick up where you left off with all your saves, game add‑ons, and achievements.

    Here’s a summary of everything we brought to Developer_Direct today:

    Beast of Reincarnation – Launching Summer 2026

    Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Xbox Cloud, Xbox Play Anywhere, Handheld Optimized, or play it day one with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (see developer website for other platforms)

    Launching this summer and available day one with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Beast of Reincarnation promises an unforgettable blend of action, strategy, and mystery. Game Freak gave us more details on Emma and her companion Koo’s adventure in a haunting, post-apocalyptic Japan.

    We learned that Emma has been afflicted by “blight” – which has removed her memories and emotions, but given her the ability to manipulate plants – and led her to meet Koo, a dog that’s become a “malefact.” Emma’s role is to hunt down malefacts, but she forms an unusual bond with Koo, setting her off on a journey through Japan circa 4026 AD.

    Game Freak call Beast of Reincarnation a “one-person, one-dog action RPG”, and have created a unique combat system to match – Emma provides classic, fast-paced action game attacks in real-time, but Koo offers added skills that can be used from a menu that slows time, more like a turn-based RPG. It makes for a game that offers a very different feeling to other action titles, adding tactical complexity to high-speed combat – which can be tweaked to your liking with three difficulty settings.

    You can learn much more about the characters, combat, world, story and the game’s dynamic tempo in our Xbox Wire article, and wishlist the game now ahead of its launch this summer.

    Fable – Launching Autumn 2026

    Xbox Series X/S, Xbox on PC, Xbox Cloud, Xbox Play Anywhere, and launching day one with Game Pass Ultimate – also available on PlayStation 5 and Steam

    The Fable team at Playground Games took us to the fairytale world of Albion, for the first in-depth look at the studio’s brand new open world action-RPG – and revealed that the game will be coming to players in Autumn 2026. Developed by a dedicated team at the UK-based studio, Fable is set to deliver everything players love about the original trilogy – choice and consequence, dry British wit and playful moral chaos – all reimagined for a new generation of players in an unmistakably Playground way.

    During the show, we learned how your story in Albion begins, how character customization will work, learned more about the game’s new take on Fable’s morality system and saw brand-new gameplay that showcased combat – with enemies old and new – as well as the game’s unique living population of NPCs. Fable will be a fresh new beginning for this much-loved franchise and will be coming Autumn 2026 to Xbox Series X/S, Xbox on PC, Xbox Cloud, Steam, PlayStation 5 and Game Pass Ultimate.

    Check out our in-depth interview with Fable GM & Game Director, Ralph Fulton here.

    Forza Horizon 6 – Launching May 19, 2026

    Xbox Series X/S, Xbox on PC, Xbox Cloud, Steam, Xbox Play Anywhere, Handheld Optimized, or play it day one with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at launch – coming to PS5 later in 2026

    Forza Horizon 6 is speeding towards players in 2026, with the announcement that the much-anticipated next instalment of the Horizon series will be landing on May 19 this year. As part of the Developer_Direct show,  the Forza team at Playground Games revealed first-ever gameplay showcasing the breathtaking landscapes of Japan in all their glory, and lifted the curtain on the spectacular cars that will be gracing the cover of the game – the 2025 GR GT Prototype, which is making its video game debut in Forza Horizon 6, and the 2025 Toyota Land Cruiser.

    Forza Horizon 6 will feature the largest and densest map of any Horizon game to date, full of verticality, diverse biomes, seasonality and breathtaking driving experiences – all elevated by Japan’s unique car culture. And just when you thought things couldn’t get better, the team provided an overview of the new features players will enjoy as part of Forza Horizon 6 – including Customizable Garages and The Estate, an overhauled car roster (with 550 cars to collect and customize at launch) as well as new shared experiences, Drag Meets and Horizon Time Attack Circuits.

    For an in-depth look at what’s new in Forza Horizon 6, check out our interview with Design Director, Torben Ellert here.

    Kiln – Launching Spring 2026

    Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Xbox Cloud, Xbox Play Anywhere, Handheld Optimized, or play it day one with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – also available on PlayStation 5 and Steam

    We joined Double Fine in their game-turned-ceramics studio in San Francisco, California to learn more about Kiln, an Online Multiplayer Pottery-Party Brawler (say that ten times fast!), arriving this spring.

    Double Fine’s new foray into fun asks the question: what would it look like for a game to combine the beautiful expression of creation with all of the chaotic fun of destruction? Turns out it’s a team-based arena battle game which asks you to craft ceramic battle armor on a realistic pottery wheel, and where your abilities are determined by the kind of pot you make.

    We took a turn on the clay-splatted wheel to learn all about the 4v4 action of Kiln, the wide variety of crafting tools at your disposal, and what each size and shape of crafted pot means for your combat abilities.

    You can catch more of the action in their smashing Announce trailer now and get fired up for the ultimate throwdown by wishlisting Kiln today. Help the team sculpt the game before it launches this Spring by signing up for their upcoming closed beta test, and joining the Double Fine Action Insiders. Find out about the game’s story, mechanics, and more in our hands-on preview on Xbox Wire.

    Looking Ahead

    As with every Developer_Direct, today’s show marks just a selection of the games coming to Xbox this year. 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of Xbox, and offers a moment to honor the games, creators, teams, and players that have inspired play for decades  – and we’ll be celebrating that all year long. With the likes of Gears of War: E-Day and Halo: Campaign Evolved still to come, we’ll be returning to some of our most beloved franchises, not to mention introducing new worlds of our own, and those from our incredible third-party partners. It’s going to be an incredible year – make sure to stay tuned to Xbox Wire and Xbox social channels to keep up to date with everything we have to show you.

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    Joe Skrebels, Xbox Wire Editor-in-Chief

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  • Fable: Answering the Big Questions After that Long-Awaited Developer_Direct Deep-Dive – Xbox Wire

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    The Living Population of NPCs is a fascinating addition – what does that offer the player?

    Fulton: The Living Population is our cast of over 1,000 NPCs, each with roles, personalities and routines. That whole concept of persistent NPCs, each of whom is unique in a whole bunch of ways that you can go and interact with and mess about with, is incredibly complex.

    When you start working on it, you realize that every settlement has to have enough houses with enough beds, for everyone in the settlement to go and sleep in at the end of the day. It was a fun day when we explained that particular requirement to our environment art team [laughs], but they rose to the challenge like they do with everything.

    In games, you don’t normally have to connect the dots quite so precisely. You know, you’re just building a nice-looking town. But in Fable it also has to be a functional town.

    As an example, early in development we couldn’t work out why one town was so empty during the day. And when we zoomed out into debug mode, it was because NPCs were getting up to go to work, but they lived too far away from their jobs. So, they started walking to work, but didn’t get there before their schedule told them to turn around to go back to bed.

    It’s required a lot of working through, but it pays off because, honestly, as you play the game, you get to know the names of the individual NPCs. You get to know what they like, what they’re looking for in a partner, where they live, where they work, all that kind of cool stuff. It’s an extra dimension to traditional NPCs.

    Does the Living Population tie into the main quest?

    Fulton: Tying the main quest and the Living Population together in a really overt way didn’t seem like the right way to go, so we’ve deliberately linked them in the lightest possible fashion. You know, there are some times when characters in the main quest will reference your reputations, or the things you’ve done previously – but we never want to force a player to have to go and interact with those things in order to progress the main quest.

    We know there are some players – we call them ‘Bards’ – who are just going to play through the main story. They’re going to start at the start, and they’re going to get to the end, and that’s going to be their experience. That’s entirely fine, that’s a totally respectable way to play.

    But there are some players, who we call ‘Architects’, who we know are going to go and mess around with the systems and just see where they can push them, see what they can achieve with it, and we want them to have the freedom to do that at any point as well.

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    Joe Skrebels, Xbox Wire Editor-in-Chief

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  • Gambler’s Table Review: Can’t Stop Flipping, Won’t Stop Flipping

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    I have two monitors on my desk. Normally, the left one is reserved for work chat, and the other I use for writing and for checking the web. But lately, something else has been hanging out in the corner of my left monitor: Gambler’s Table, a new idle coin-flipping game out now on Steam, that I can’t stop playing.

    The goal of Gambler’s Table is to click a coin to flip it over. And then flip it again. And then again. And again. And again. When this coin lands with the money symbol facing up, you get a dollar. When it lands heads up, showing a skull, you get a skull point that can be used to buy hats.

    Don’t worry about that. Just keep flipping. Quickly, you’ll have enough money to buy a second coin to flip. And then a third coin. A fourth coin. That’s a lot of coins to flip by yourself!

    Don’t worry, Gambler’s Table has little minion men you can buy who will also flip coins for you. As you rack up more money, you can buy upgrades that make coins flip faster and increase their profit per flip. Eventually, you’ll get silver coins. And gold coins. Before long, you’ll be waving your cursor around to flip dozens of coins in seconds, thanks to an upgrade that removes the need for clicking. Earn enough money, and a skill point will be provided, offering a powerful upgrade that is permanent. Then you can wipe the whole table to start over, earning even more money and getting another skill point in the process. Repeat…forever?

    A part of me understands that what I’m doing is mindless and that I’m only doing it because, like so many gamers, I have a need to see numbers go up. And yet, I keep flipping coins, building up a massive amount of money, wiping the table clean of all coins and minions, and starting over. Every so often, I stop and use my skull points to buy a new hat for my minion. It’s my treat to them for flipping coins. Then I catch them resting on the job and have to give them a hard poke to get them back to work. Coins won’t flip themselves, you know? We all have a job to do here at Gambler’s Table.

    In fact, I’m wasting a lot of time right now writing this when I could be over there, on my other screen, flipping coins. My minion boys are doing it. But if I helped them, things would go so much faster. So I’m done telling you about Gambler’s Table. I don’t have any time to tell you about its incredibly smooth animations and wonderful coin-flipping noises. Nor can I talk about the sillier upgrades that are available later, and the wonderful effect that happens when you wipe the table clean for a new run. I have coins to flip, damn it. Now leave me be.

    Editor’s note: In the hours since receiving this blog from Zack, we’ve not heard from him. Emails and texts have been ignored. His wife called and said the door to his basement office is locked, but she can hear a clicking noise and what sounds like someone humming “Flip…flip…flip…flip.” We are hopeful Zack will return soon.

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • Steam and Valve’s online games are partially down

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    Starting at around 1PM ET on December 24, Steam experienced an outage that impacted users ability to access the game store and play games online. Valve didn’t acknowledge the outage publicly, but SteamDB’s unofficial Steam Status page reported that the Steam Store, Steam Community, and Steam Web APIs were all offline.

    DownDetector received over 6,000 outage reports around 1:15PM ET, and Steam is also inaccessible from Valve’s mobile apps. The outage appears to be affecting APIs for Valve’s online games, like Team Fortress 2, Dota 2 and Counterstrike 2, as well.

    By around 4PM ET, Steam itself had begun to rebound, and as of 6PM ET, the platform had largely recovered, with the main PC, mobile and Mac clients broadly fully functional, but ocassionally erroring out. There are still parts of the service that are extremely sluggish and, according to SteamDB, many of Valve’s online games are down or only partially functional.

    Steam’s last major outage was in October, when the store and online services were unavailable for an hour. Earlier in September, the launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong temporarily took down Steam, the Xbox Store and Nintendo’s eShop due to how many people tried to download the game at the same time.

    Update, December 24, 6PM ET: This story has been updated to note which Valve offerings are currently functional and when they recovered.

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    Ian Carlos Campbell

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  • Steam and Valve’s online games are down

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    Steam is experiencing an outage that’s impacting users ability to access the game store and play games online. Valve hasn’t acknowledged the outage publicly, but SteamDB’s unofficial Steam Status page reports that the Steam Store, Steam Community, and Steam Web APIs are all offline.

    DownDetector received over 6,000 outage reports around 1:15PM ET, and Steam is also inaccessible from Valve’s mobile apps. The outage appears to be affecting APIs for Valve’s online games, like Team Fortress 2, Dota 2 and Counterstrike 2, as well.

    Steam’s last major outage was in October, when the store and online services were unavailable for an hour. Earlier in September, the launch of Hollow Knight: Silksong temporarily took down Steam, the Xbox Store and Nintendo’s eShop due to how many people tried to download the game at the same time.

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    Ian Carlos Campbell

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  • Steam Replay 2025 is here to recap your PC gaming habits

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    ‘Tis the season for gift-giving, family feasts and companies turning their harvested user data into lighthearted recaps. Valve’s take on the year-end rewind, Steam Replay, is now available. It follows similar offerings from Spotify, Apple Music, PlayStation and, increasingly, just about every service you use. Hell, even Uber and The New York Times somehow justified getting in on the action this year.

    This is the fourth edition of Valve’s wrap-up, which looks back on the titles you spent the most time with in 2025. You’ll find your top games, the number of titles you played, achievements unlocked and longest streaks. You can see how your habits break down by genre, Steam Deck use and whether they’re new releases, recent or classic games. Monthly breakdowns and the percentage of time played (by title) are also included.

    The review compares your stats to the average Steam user. For example, I played 28 games this year; the Steam median is only four. My longest play streak was 15 days; the median is six. I’m only an intermittent gamer, so people who barely play at all are clearly weighing down the averages.

    You can check out your Steam Replay 2025 by heading to the website and logging in.

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    Will Shanklin

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  • Teaching math the way the brain learns changes everything

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    Key points:

    Far too many students enter math class expecting to fail. For them, math isn’t just a subject–it’s a source of anxiety that chips away at their confidence and makes them question their abilities. A growing conversation around math phobia is bringing this crisis into focus. A recent article, for example, unpacked the damage caused by the belief that “I’m just not a math person” and argued that traditional math instruction often leaves even bright, capable students feeling defeated.

    When a single subject holds such sway over not just academic outcomes but a student’s sense of self and future potential, we can’t afford to treat this as business as usual. It’s not enough to explore why this is happening. We need to focus on how to fix it. And I believe the answer lies in rethinking how we teach math, aligning instruction with the way the brain actually learns.

    Context first, then content

    A key shortcoming of traditional math curriculum–and a major contributor to students’ fear of math–is the lack of meaningful context. Our brains rely on context to make sense of new information, yet math is often taught in isolation from how we naturally learn. The fix isn’t simply throwing in more “real-world” examples. What students truly need is context, and visual examples are one of the best ways to get there. When math concepts are presented visually, students can better grasp the structure of a problem and follow the logic behind each step, building deeper understanding and confidence along the way.

    In traditional math instruction, students are often taught a new concept by being shown a procedure and then practicing it repeatedly in hopes that understanding will eventually follow. But this approach is backward. Our brains don’t learn that way, especially when it comes to math. Students need context first. Without existing schemas to draw from, they struggle to make sense of new ideas. Providing context helps them build the mental frameworks necessary for real understanding.

    Why visual-first context matters

    Visual-first context gives students the tools they need to truly understand math. A curriculum built around visual-first exploration allows students to have an interactive experience–poking and prodding at a problem, testing ideas, observing patterns, and discovering solutions. From there, students develop procedures organically, leading to a deeper, more complete understanding. Using visual-first curriculum activates multiple parts of the brain, creating a deeper, lasting understanding. Shifting to a math curriculum that prioritizes introducing new concepts through a visual context makes math more approachable and accessible by aligning with how the brain naturally learns.

    To overcome “math phobia,” we also need to rethink the heavy emphasis on memorization in today’s math instruction. Too often, students can solve problems not because they understand the underlying concepts, but because they’ve memorized a set of steps. This approach limits growth and deeper learning. Memorization of the right answers does not lead to understanding, but understanding can lead to the right answers.

    Take, for example, a third grader learning their times tables. The third grader can memorize the answers to each square on the times table along with its coordinating multipliers, but that doesn’t mean they understand multiplication. If, instead, they grasp how multiplication works–what it means–they can figure out the times tables on their own. The reverse isn’t true. Without conceptual understanding, students are limited to recall, which puts them at a disadvantage when trying to build off previous knowledge.

    Learning from other subjects

    To design a math curriculum that aligns with how the brain naturally learns new information, we can take cues from how other subjects are taught. In English, for example, students don’t start by memorizing grammar rules in isolation–they’re first exposed to those rules within the context of stories. Imagine asking a student to take a grammar quiz before they’ve ever read a sentence–that would seem absurd. Yet in math, we often expect students to master procedures before they’ve had any meaningful exposure to the concepts behind them.

    Most other subjects are built around context. Students gain background knowledge before being expected to apply what they’ve learned. By giving students a story or a visual context for the mind to process–breaking it down and making connections–students can approach problems like a puzzle or game, instead of a dreaded exercise. Math can do the same. By adopting the contextual strategies used in other subjects, math instruction can become more intuitive and engaging, moving beyond the traditional textbook filled with equations.

    Math doesn’t have to be a source of fear–it can be a source of joy, curiosity, and confidence. But only if we design it the way the brain learns: with visuals first, understanding at the center, and every student in mind. By using approaches that provide visual-first context, students can engage with math in a way that mirrors how the brain naturally learns. This shift in learning makes math more approachable and accessible for all learners.

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    Nigel Nisbet, Mind Education

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  • Gear News of the Week: Steam Makes a Home Console, and Apple Debuts a $230 Pouch for Your iPhone

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    Valve made a big return to PC hardware this week. The company, most famous for its PC gaming platform, Steam, announced a new home console called Steam Machine alongside a new version of the Steam Controller, and a new virtual reality headset dubbed the Steam Frame.

    The Steam Machine is a revival of Valve’s original Steam Machine, a failed attempt to bring PC gaming to the living room almost exactly 10 years ago. Now, it’s back, built on the success of the Steam Deck handheld. Valve claims the new Steam Machine is six times more powerful than the Steam Deck, and it’s kind of like a compact PC. We don’t have exact measurements yet, but some early hands-on impressions have called it similar in size to the Nintendo GameCube. The Steam Machine uses a custom Zen 4 CPU from AMD, and will reportedly be sold in several memory and storage configurations, which are user-upgradable. The new Steam Controller is meant to be paired with the Steam Machine, and it has two haptic-feedback trackpads and the typical assortment of thumbsticks, buttons, triggers, and bumpers.

    Lastly, there’s the Steam Frame. This long-awaited VR headset is the follow-up to the Valve Index, which is over six years old. Valve calls the Steam Frame a “streaming-first” VR headset, meant to be connected to a PC for lag-free, wireless gaming. To overcome the problem of latency, the Steam Frame will come with a dedicated wireless module to connect to your PC to ensure all the visual data is transferred as smoothly as possible.

    The Steam Frame can also be used as a stand-alone headset, running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, meaning you’d be playing x86 games on ARM in SteamOS. It’s a tricky endeavor, but based on the success of the Steam Deck in juggling the emulation layers required, I trust Valve to do it in a way Microsoft has always struggled with. As for the headset itself, it only weighs 440 grams, which is significantly lighter than both the Meta Quest 3S and the recently announced Samsung Galaxy XR. It has two pancake lenses with two LCD screens at 2160 x 2160 pixels per eye.

    There’s a lot more to learn about these devices, and none of the new hardware has a firm release date or price yet, as is customary with Valve. All we know is that these devices will begin shipping in early 2026. —Luke Larsen

    A Pouch for Your iPhone

    Courtesy of Apple

    You’ve probably already seen or heard about the iPhone Pocket. Inspired by a “piece of cloth,” it’s a tiny shoulder bag designed to carry around your iPhone, and it stems from a collaboration between Apple and Japanese design brand Issey Miyake. The two companies have enjoyed a long history—Steve Jobs famously wore Issey Miyake’s black turtlenecks on stage during every major launch event.

    The cloth is a singular 3D-knitted construction made in Japan and will be able to fit any iPhone model. This isn’t the first time Apple has suggested you put one of its products in a piece of cloth. In 2004, Apple debuted the iPod Socks, a simple and fun way to keep your iPod screen protected when traveling. They cost $29 at the time (about $50 today).

    Unfortunately, you’ll be paying a heck of a lot more for the iPhone Pocket. The pouch comes in a short-strap version for $150 and a long-strap design for $230. Both are available in a range of colors, but since this is a special-edition release, you’re only able to purchase them at select Apple Store locations and Apple.com in France, China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, and the US. (It’s already sold out online.)

    Digital ID Comes to Apple Wallet

    You already have your boarding pass on your iPhone, why not your passport, too? That’s the idea behind Apple’s new Digital ID, a new way to add information from your US passport into Apple Wallet. Acceptance is rolling out in beta at TSA checkpoints in more than 250 airports around the US for domestic travel, though Apple says that will expand in the future.

    You’ll be able to present this form of identification even if you don’t have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license or state ID. (You can already add your driver’s license to Apple Wallet, but this is only available in select states.) It’s important to remember, though, that Apple’s Digital ID does not replace a passport, which is still required for international travel.

    Samsung’s Movingstyle Screens Can Go Wherever You Do

    Gear News of the Week Steam Makes a Home Console and Apple Debuts a 230 Pouch for Your iPhone

    Courtesy of Samsung

    Samsung has announced a new line of “portable” monitors that are meant to travel with you around your house or office. The Movingstyle (LSM7F) and Movingstyle M7 Smart Monitor (M70F) are standard 27- or 32-inch displays, with one big twist: They come with a rollable floor stand with hidden wheels. Rather than have separate large screens in each room, the idea behind these Movingstyle monitors is to have a screen on the go—similar to LG’s StanbyMe range. It’s not hard to imagine scenarios where this could be convenient. Maybe you’re following a recipe in the kitchen or want to finish a show you’re watching on your television in the bedroom. Samsung claims the wheels are quiet and stable on both hardwood floors and carpet.

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    Julian Chokkattu

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  • Steam store pages get a mini makeover to better suit wide screens

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    Store pages on Steam are looking a lot less cramped thanks to a new update. Pages have been made wider, with support for higher resolution images and new viewing modes for trailers and screenshots. You’ll notice changes in the top carousel and in the “About the Game” section, where some new formatting options should make things look a bit more organized. The update just rolled out to the public after first being tested among beta users.

    With this update, pages have been widened to 1200 pixels, which Valve says “felt like a good balance where we can show more content on screen without overwhelming the page and making it hard to navigate.” There’s now the option of a large pop-up view called theater mode in the carousel, as well as full-screen mode. In addition to games’ store pages, Valve has slightly tweaked the appearance of search results and recommendation pages to be wider, and made store hubs, Steam Charts and the News Hub look more uniform.

    You may also notice some more colorful backgrounds on games’ store pages and in bundle detail pages. Where you won’t see changes yet, though, is the homepage. While Valve says it’s working on “similar adjustments” for the homepage, those aren’t rolling out with this update.

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  • A supernatural detective mystery, FMV terror and other new indie games worth checking out

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    Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. As always, we have a bunch of new games for you to check out this weekend, along with fresh looks at some upcoming projects and a release date or two.

    But first, I really enjoyed this week’s edition of The Guardian‘s Pushing Buttons newsletter. The publication’s video games editor, Keza MacDonald, wrote about spending a day in a theater playing what sounds like the ultimate pass-the-controller game with dozens of other people.

    The attendees were there to experience Asses.Masses, which is designed to be played collaboratively. The aim is to help a herd of unemployed donkeys get their jobs back. Audience members take turns to pick up the controller, and everyone else in the room can offer advice. It sounds like a fascinating social experiment.

    New releases

    ‘Tis the season for scares, so of course we have to include some creepy games in this week’s roundup. There was some buzz this week around The Séance of Blake Manor from Spooky Doorway and publisher Raw Fury. This is a supernatural detective mystery game in which you investigate a woman’s disappearance in 19th century Ireland.

    To solve the case, you’ll have to interrogate suspects and keep track of environmental clues and other evidence. You’ll encounter strange goings-on as you conduct the investigation amid a gathering of mystics who are looking to speak to the dead on All Hallow’s Eve. The art style is quite fetching, and the vibes remind me of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and Blue Prince.

    The Séance of Blake Manor is out now on Steam. The regular price is $20, but there’s a 10 percent discount until November 10.

    The Run is a choose-your-own-adventure-style interactive film from PRM Games, Benacus Entertainment and RNF Productions. It’s an FMV experience in which you help a fitness influencer (played by Roxanne McKee, who appeared in Game of Thrones) make decisions and try to survive the masked figures who are hunting her in northern Italy. There are 20 possible deaths and around five endings. Legendary giallo filmmaker Dario Argento makes a cameo appearance too.

    It’s neat to see more FMV games popping up (and we’ve got another one to highlight momentarily). The Run is out now on iOS for $10. It’s coming to Android and Steam soon. You’ll also be able to check it out at the Genesis Cinema in London. A two-month residency of The Run just started there. The audience votes on choices using glowsticks.

    Solo developer Yannick Audéoud (aka Misty Whale) spent a decade making his debut game, Orbyss, and now it’s out in the wild. This is a puzzle game that sees you switching between orbs to solve puzzles — bit like in Cocoon. Instead of a beetle that carries such spheres, you technically play as “a firefly of energy” that can bounce between the objects.

    Orbyss has time-manipulation puzzles and ones that involve drones. Audéoud has included accessibility features as well, such as visual cues to represent sound-based mechanics on screen. This self-published game is on Steam. The regular price is $15 and there’s a 15 percent discount until November 12.

    Death by Scrolling is the latest game from Ron Gilbert’s Terrible Toybox and publisher MicroProse Software. The famed director of the first two Monkey Island games (who has had a hand in so many other great games over the years) has now created a vertically scrolling roguelite.

    The idea here is to stay alive long enough and earn enough gold to pay a ferryman and escape purgatory. I’m probably not going to jump into another roguelite for a minute since I’m still recovering from my time with CloverPit and Ball x Pit, but I definitely want to try out Death by Scrolling at some point. It’ll typically run you $8 on Steam, but there’s a 10 percent discount until November 11.

    Upcoming

    Here’s another FMV game for you. This one is all about taking care of a very, very good dog.

    Golden Retriever Simple Life features Pichu, the pet pooch of developer Pablo Coma (Rablo Games). You’ll feed, train and play with the doggo. Going on walks and learning tricks is part of the fun too.

    There’s no release window as yet for Golden Retriever Simple Life, which is coming to Steam. In the meantime, you can stay up to date on the game’s progress with developer updates Good Boy Diaries from Pichu.

    I’ve seen Egging On pop up from time to time and I’ve been looking forward to checking it out. I won’t have to wait much longer to do that as it’s coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC (Xbox app and Steam) on November 6. It’ll hit Game Pass on day one.

    In this precision platformer, you play as an egg (yes, a hen’s egg) that tries to escape a farm. Fall too far and… well, you can probably guess what happens. Egobounds developed Egging On, and Alibi Games and IndieArk are the game’s publishers.

    Anchor takes the format of games like Rust and Valheim and plunges you into the depths of the sea in the wake of a nuclear holocaust. The multiplayer survival game is slated to support more than 150 players per server and there are plans to expand that.

    You and your friends will take charge of genetically engineered beings and build a base that you have to defend from threats such as “failed clone experiments” and raids from other players. Things will change in this world even when you’re not playing the game, so you’d better make sure your base is secure.

    Sharks are a major factor in Anchor as well. They aren’t always necessarily hostile. But, as in real life, they’re attracted to blood, so any damage you sustain could spell doom.

    Fearem is the developer of Anchor, which doesn’t yet have a release window. It has set course for Steam.

    There’s a lot going on in this trailer for Agni: Village of Calamity, which premiered during the ID@Xbox indie showcase this week. In this debut title from Separuh Interactive, you play as Agni, an investigator who undertakes an unauthorized investigation in a remote village. You’ll need to solve puzzles and fend off monsters as you try to uncover the village’s secrets and find your missing partner.

    Agni: Village of Calamity is steeped in Indonesian folklore. The one large monster that speaks in a childlike voice is quite unsettling. I’m intrigued to learn more about this survival horror game. It’s coming to Xbox Series X/S, Xbox PC and Steam in 2026.

    Let’s wrap things up for this week with one more survival horror tale. There’s often horror in beauty and vice versa (take a look at Silent Hill f, for instance). The Florist leans into both as well.

    As Jessica Park, you deliver a flower arrangement to a lakeside town. But an affliction takes over the area, causing the spread of flora that snares victims and turns them into monsters. For what it’s worth, the teaser in that final shot of the trailer reminds me of a certain sequence from The Last of Us Part II.

    Unclear Games is taking an old-school approach here as it’s using a fixed-camera design. You likely know the drill here: solving puzzles and defeating foes is your only way to stay alive. Finding out information about floral specimens will be helpful too. The Florist is coming to Steam in 2026.

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  • Superhero workplace comedy, more powerwashing and other new indie games worth checking out

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    Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. It’s been a packed week with lots of tasty new games arriving, and news and reveals of upcoming projects. So, let’s take a look at a bunch of them.

    Before we get started though, Engadget senior editor Jessica Conditt spoke with Maxi Boch, one of the core trio behind Baby Steps, about how the game came together. Boch offered some fascinating insights into the game’s development process (which started in 2019), especially on the audio side.

    New releases

    Dispatch is a superhero workplace comedy from AdHoc Studio, a team that includes former Telltale Games developers. It adopts the narrative-heavy, dialogue-driven gameplay of Telltale’s games, with your choices having a bearing on how everything plays out. Dispatch has a packed cast as well, as it includes the likes of Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey and Jeffrey Wright.

    I really dug the demo, so I’m hoping to carve out some time to play Dispatch soon. As with many of Telltale’s games, AdHoc Studio went with an episodic approach for this one, but the developer is releasing them on a weekly basis. The first two episodes of Dispatch are out now on PS5 and Steam, and reviewers’ impressions so far are generally positive.

    We’ve got a trio of titles that just hit Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass to talk about, including PowerWash Simulator 2. I don’t typically listen to music or podcasts while I’m playing games. I prefer to listen to the game audio and I’m a terrible multitasker, anyway.

    However, I did catch up on a bunch of podcast episodes while playing the original PowerWash Simulator. I’m looking forward to doing that once again while blissfully ignoring IRL chores as I blast away virtual gunk with a pressure washer.

    “More of the same, but better” is exactly what I wanted from PowerWash Simulator 2, so I was very glad to read some reviews indicating that’s the case. As well as Xbox Series X/S, this sequel from FuturLab is also available on Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2.

    Next up, we have a surprise Game Pass addition as Pacific Drive arrived on the Ultimate, Premium and PC tiers without prior warning this week. It wasn’t available on Xbox at all until now. Pacific Drive turns the title of Netflix’s F1 docuseries into an actual “drive to survive” horror game. You’ll roam the Pacific Northwest in a station wagon to search for parts to upgrade your vehicle and stay alive.

    Ironwood Studios and publisher Kepler Interactive brought Pacific Drive to Xbox on the same day they released an expansion called Whispers in the Woods. The game (and DLC) is also available on PS5 and Steam. I’ve been meaning to play Pacific Drive for a while but, as always, there are too many games and not enough time to check everything out. Perhaps I’ll finally try this now that it’s on Game Pass, but I might just end up waiting for the TV show instead.

    Here’s something interesting from DinoGod and publisher Annapurna Interactive. Bounty Star is a blend of mech action game, farming sim and base builder. As war veteran Clem, you’ll try to become a force for good in a “post-post-apocalyptic version of the American Southwest.”

    I’m interested to see how the core aspects of Bounty Star play off each other as you take care of your homestead and hunt down bounties in your mech (which you can customize). It’s out now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam and Epic Games Store. Bounty Star is on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass too.

    Ila: A Frosty Glide is a chill, 3D platform adventure from Magic Rain Studios and publisher First Break Labs. As a young witch-in-training named Ila, you’ll explore a snowy mountainous island while searching for your missing cat.

    My favorite thing about the game, at least based on the trailer and what I’ve read, is that instead of a broom, Ila uses a “skatebroom” to get around. It’s a skateboard and a flying broomstick in one! I’d like one of those.

    As it happens, developers Ítalo and Yesenia met while skateboarding. They started making games with skateboarding elements a few years later. Ila: A Frosty Glide is out now on Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch.

    After reading one sentence of a pitch for The Bench, I was sold: “In The Bench, you played as a retired secret agent on one last mission: escaping the retirement home and unfolding a pigeon conspiracy.” Wonderful stuff, there.

    As said pensioner, you’ll amass a flock of customizable pigeons to help you during your adventure as you explore some parks. Along the way, you’ll solve puzzles, play bowls and chess, doodle in your notebook, play pranks and go fishing.

    The Bench — from Voxel Studios and Noovola Publishing — is out now on Steam. I hope I don’t have to wait until I’m retired to have time to play it.

    Upcoming

    No More Robots unveiled two games this week, and one of them is a step in an (almost) entirely new direction for the publisher of Descenders Next and Little Rocket Lab. It’s now making games internally, and the first one to see the light of day is Cruise Control. This is a cruise liner management sim in which you’ll try to make your guests happy by fulfilling their needs and wants. It looks quite charming. I’m a big fan of the oversized bingo cage device.

    This is actually the third game No More Robots has worked on in-house, but it’s the first one that the company has unveiled. The publisher noted that Cruise Control isn’t quite ready. Still, playtests should start later this year ahead of an early 2026 release.

    The other upcoming game No More Robots showed off is Thank You For Your Application from IceLemonTea Studio. Here, you’ll review job candidates’ resumes and make decisions whether to bring them on board based on the hiring company’s criteria.

    This has an air of Papers, Please and No More Robots’ own Not Tonight series about it — you’ll have to deal with bills, rent and otherwise managing your life too. It also seems quite timely given that the job application process is now so onerous for many people. Thank You For Your Application will arrive in 2026 and there’s a demo available on Steam now.

    Finite Reflection Studios, the developer of last year’s acclaimed Void Sols, has revealed its next game. Mouseward is another Soulslike, but it’s one in the vein of ’90s collectathon platformers like Banjo-Kazooie. As a reincarnated Royal Mouse Guard, you set out to save the kingdom from a curse.

    I love the aesthetic here. There’s no release window for Mouseward as yet. It’s coming to Steam and you can play an early build on Itch right now.

    Speaking of games inspired by ’90s platformers, there’s danger that Windswept could become my entire personality for a spell. It’s coming to Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on November 11.

    Windswept — from WeatherFell and publisher Top Hat Studios — is a precision platformer which sees animal buddies Marbles (a duck) and Checkers (a turtle) trying to get back home after a storm whisks them away. The 40-plus stages are full of collectibles and have secrets for you to discover.

    The glimpses of levels where you have to navigate sticky walls and ceilings, thorny brambles and pirate ship masts are very reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country 2. I’m not exactly complaining though, as that’s one of my favorite games of all time.

    We’ve known for a while that a beat-’em-up based on the splatterfest movie series Terrifier was on the way and now we have a release date. Unfortunately, it’s not coming your way in time for Halloween, but you will be able to gingerly set foot into Terrifier: The ARTcade Game on November 21.

    Yes, yes, even Art the Clown is in Fortnite now, but you can also play as the brutal killer in his own game from Relevo and publisher Selecta Play. There’s support for local co-op for up to four players (and you can turn on each other, if you like. Terrifier fans will probably be pleased that they can use weapons like chainsaws and cleavers to cause bloody carnage. Terrifier: The ARTcade Game is bound for Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch.

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  • Keeper: A Note from Its Creator on Launch Day – Xbox Wire

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    Summary

    • Keeper, the otherworldly new adventure from Double Fine, arrives today.
    • Launching on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Xbox Cloud, and Steam. It’s an Xbox Play Anywhere title, and available day one with Game Pass.
    • Read a note from Creative Lead, Lee Petty, as his beautiful passion project arrives.

    Hi there, my name is Lee Petty, and I’m a Creative Lead here at Double Fine Productions. I’ve been at Double Fine for almost 20 years! I was the Art Director for Brütal Legend and Broken Age, but was also the Creative Lead for Stacking, Headlander, Autonomous, and RAD.

    My new game, Keeper, was inspired by the events of the last few years. Like most, I thought a lot about isolation and connection with others. I’ve always been into hiking, backpacking, and spending time outdoors with my family. During the pandemic, it became even more important to me. I wondered if the wildlife around me would be all that is left in the future. Would it continue to develop, to evolve? I thought of the mycelium, the vast underground networks that connect fungi, and how they are also used by trees to share nutrients and communicate with each other.

    I imagined an isolated island in a far-flung future without humans. What sorts of life would evolve there? Would this life still be possessed with a need to connect with others and to have a purpose?

    When thinking about what this world could look like, I was inspired by Surrealist painters, like Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, who created vibrant, dream-like worlds that are both familiar and unlike anything else. Some of my favorite movies, like ‘The Dark Crystal’ and ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’, are about strange, otherworldly places and unusual forms of life, and both present as family-friendly films but have weirder, darker undercurrents. This comes through in Keeper too, giving it a gameplay style that I like to call “Weird, but Chill”.

    Keeper Screenshot

    A story told entirely without words, Keeper is the tale of a long-forgotten Lighthouse on a post-human island, which awakens after eons of lying dormant. The Lighthouse’s ancient masonry crumbles and it falls to the ground, but then it grows legs, stands up, and sets off on a journey toward the mountain peak at the center of the island, joined by a spirited seabird companion, named Twig.

    It’s a psychedelic tale of companionship and an adventure of mystifying metamorphosis, all set in a beautiful and surreal otherworldly realm beyond understanding.

    Keeper Screenshot

    It’s a game which is very much about the unexpected, and we have gone to great lengths to preserve the mysteries and surprises the game holds. I’m really excited for you all to discover them for yourselves as you play – and I’d like to ask you to please consider how you talk about these surprising elements, ideally preserving some of the mystery for others wherever possible. Thank you for playing!

    Lee & The Team at Double Fine Productions


    Keeper
    Xbox Play Anywhere

    Keeper

    Xbox Game Studios


    ☆☆☆☆☆
    200


    ★★★★★


    $29.99


    PC Game Pass


    Xbox Game Pass


    From Lee Petty and Double Fine Productions, Keeper is a beautiful and surreal otherworldly adventure, and a story told without words.

    On an island in a long-lost sea, a forgotten lighthouse stands dormant in the shadow of a distant mountain peak. As withering tendrils spread and coalesce, it awakens. Taken with a mysterious sense of purpose and joined by a spirited seabird, it embarks upon a heartening tale of unlikely companionship, an odyssey of mystifying metamorphosis, and an unexpected journey towards the center of the island, into realms beyond understanding.

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    Joe Skrebels, Xbox Wire Editor-in-Chief

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  • Tropical Storm Lorenzo losing steam, forecast to dissipate, NHC says

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    Tropical Storm Lorenzo is poorly organized over the Atlantic, according to the National Hurricane Center.The storm is located approximately 1,415 miles west-northwest of the Cabo Verde Islands. Lorenzo is moving toward the north at about 13 mph. A turn toward the northeast and a faster forward speed are expected later today, according to the NHC.The system has a minimum pressure of 1004 mb and a maximum sustained wind speed of 40 mph.The NHC said Lorenzo is forecast to dissipate by Thursday. There are no coastal watches or warnings currently in effect, according to the NHC. Areas to watchHurricane season 2025The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30. Stay with WESH 2 online and on-air for the most accurate Central Florida weather forecast.>> More: 2025 Hurricane Survival GuideThe First Warning Weather team includes First Warning Chief Meteorologist Tony Mainolfi, Eric Burris, Marquise Meda and Cam Tran.>> 2025 hurricane season | WESH long-range forecast

    Tropical Storm Lorenzo is poorly organized over the Atlantic, according to the National Hurricane Center.

    The storm is located approximately 1,415 miles west-northwest of the Cabo Verde Islands.

    Lorenzo is moving toward the north at about 13 mph. A turn toward the northeast and a faster forward speed are expected later today, according to the NHC.

    The system has a minimum pressure of 1004 mb and a maximum sustained wind speed of 40 mph.

    The NHC said Lorenzo is forecast to dissipate by Thursday.

    There are no coastal watches or warnings currently in effect, according to the NHC.

    Areas to watch

    Hurricane season 2025

    The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30. Stay with WESH 2 online and on-air for the most accurate Central Florida weather forecast.

    >> More: 2025 Hurricane Survival Guide

    The First Warning Weather team includes First Warning Chief Meteorologist Tony Mainolfi, Eric Burris, Marquise Meda and Cam Tran.

    >> 2025 hurricane season | WESH long-range forecast

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  • Stylish beat-’em-ups, platformers and RPGs, and other new indie games worth checking out

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    Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. Some gorgeous new games arrived this week, and we’ve got some demos and reveals from upcoming projects to take a look at. 

    Later this month, Lorelai and the Laser Eyes studio Simogo is going to celebrate its 15th anniversary with some news and surprises. Perhaps the developer is porting some of its earlier games to more platforms. I’m hoping that we’ll learn about Simogo’s next game as well.

    I’m not holding out hope for a sequel to Sayonara Wild Hearts, which is my favorite game of all time depending on the day you ask me (on other days, it’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, FYI). However, if Simogo announces a live concert of music from the game, I’m going to do my damndest to be there. I’ll be tuning in on October 28 to learn what the studio has for me us in any case.

    Speaking of showcases, Entalto Publishing and developer GGTech ran one of their own this week. The Out of Bounds event shone a spotlight on a dozen indie games, spanning a breadth of genres. 

    Also, a quick reminder that the latest Steam Next Fest starts at 1PM ET on Monday, October 13. As always, the week-long event will have tons of demos for you to check out. It’s always worth trying a bunch of them. You never know, you might end up being one of the first few folks to play the next Balatro, Manor Lords or Deep Rock Galactic Survivor.

    New releases

    Absolum is a beat-’em-up from the folks behind Streets of Rage 4. It’s the first original IP from Dotemu, which has found success with the likes of the terrific Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. It co-developed this game with Guard Crush Games and Supamonks. The art and animation from the latter looks absolutely divine.

    You can play Absolum solo or with a friend. Since it’s a roguelite, you’ll gain upgrades to bolster your character on each run while earning experience that goes toward permanent progression. There are multiple paths to explore, so the replayability factor seems strong here. Engadget senior reporter Igor Bonifacic spent some time with Absolum this summer and was impressed by it. The game received strong reviews this week too.

    Absolum is out now on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PS5. Dotemu also has another beat-’em-up, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, coming soon.

    A few reviews I’ve read for Bye Sweet Carole (which are fairly mixed) dinged it for having clunky controls and some other quality-of-life problems, such as getting softlocked while trying to complete puzzles. I hope Little Sewing Machine can iron out those issues since the presentation of this game is quite something. It looks like an early-’90s animated movie, with hand-drawn animations and, seemingly, a soundtrack to match. 

    Bye Sweet Carole is a 2D horror-platformer from publisher Maximum Entertainment in which you play as a young girl trying to find her best friend, who disappeared from an orphanage. It’s out now on PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X/S.

    Want to see another new game with a unique look that makes it stand out from the crowd? Of course you do. 

    Exploration action game Dreams of Another — which landed on PS5, PS VR2 and Steam this week — sees you creating the environment in a dream-like world by shooting at it. Director Baiyon (PixelJunk Eden) and the team at Q-Games used point cloud rendering technology to create the unusual, but captivating visuals. Dunno why they felt the need to put a clown in this game though. Clowns are rotten things.

    Dreams of Another arrived on the same day that Q-Games’ PixelJunk Eden 2 hit PS4, PS5 and Steam (it’s coming to Epic Games Store as well). That game debuted on Nintendo Switch in 2020.

    Here’s yet another lovely-looking project, and this time it’s a pixel-art game from Teenage Astronauts and publisher No More Robots. In Little Rocket Lab, you play as aspiring engineer Morgan, who sets out to build factories with the aim of achieving her family’s dream of making a rocket ship. It’s more build a rocket, girl, than Build A Rocket Boy.

    This is a blend of a factory builder and life sim, and it looks rather charming. Little Rocket Lab has touched down on Steam and Xbox. It’s on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

    On the subject of pixel-art games, I couldn’t not include one that came out this week from a developer based in my hometown. Cairn: Mathair’s Curse is a turn-based RPG. It’s set in the early 2000s in the Scottish Highlands and it sees a young lad and his mates dealing with the aftermath of a cult casting an ancient curse on their home. 

    Solo developer Ross McRitchie spent five years making Cairn: Mathair’s Curse and his partner, Christine, composed the Celtic soundtrack. It’s said to have plenty of Scottish humor, which speaks to me. The game, which Steam reviews have likened to EarthBound, is out on Steam now.

    Upcoming 

    I’m looking forward to checking out Blackwood, which is slated to hit Steam in the second half of 2026. It has a pretty great pitch:

    By day, you run a DVD store in 2012 New York. By night, you’re a ruthless assassin. Blackwood is a cinematic third-person shooter with grounded melee combat, brutal takedowns, responsive gunplay and a double life to manage.

    The facial animations look a little rough in the reveal trailer, but it’s alpha footage and there’s plenty of time to polish it. I’m hoping the team at Bangladesh-based AttritoM7 Productions manages to do that, because otherwise this game is looking quite nifty with its John Wick-style combat.

    I do love a game with a great name, and I’ve got a couple to tell you about. Action RPG Bittersweet Birthday has hand-drawn pixel art and nothing but boss battles when it comes to combat. 

    Bittersweet Birthday — from World Eater Games and publisher Dangen Entertainment — is set to land on Steam, GOG, Humble and Itch on November 11. It’s coming to consoles later.

    Here’s a pinball-themed precision platformer in the mold of games like Baby Steps and Getting Over It. Fittingly, it’s called A Pinball Game That Makes You Mad and you can control it with a single button.

    There’s no release date as yet for this project from Azimuth Studios. However, a demo is available on Steam now. Like a good teenage cousin, it’s fun and annoying in equal measure.

    Another pre-Next Fest demo I’ve had a chance to check out is for Don’t Stop, Girlypop!, a fast-paced arena shooter with an anti-capitalist bent. I’ve been looking forward to this one since I found out about it late last year. The demo, with its Y2K girly-pop aesthetics and Doom Eternal/Ultrakill-style gameplay, does not disappoint. 

    I’m glad the team trimmed the first word from the original name — Incolatus: Don’t Stop, Girlypop! — since the shorter version is much punchier and more memorable. Funny Fintan Softworks and publisher Kwalee haven’t revealed a release date as yet, but I’ll be checking my T9 flip phone impatiently in the meantime.

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  • Lego parties, hundreds of Xenomorphs and other new indie games worth checking out

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    Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. A bunch of new games arrived this week, alongside demo drops, reveals and details about upcoming titles. But if there are some you’ve had on your wishlist for a while and have been waiting for a solid discount, now might be the time to take the plunge.

    That’s because Steam’s autumn sale is underway. It’s arguably not as massive as the summer or winter editions, but there are still lots of bargains on the storefront. During the platform’s big sales, I think it’s always worth taking a look at the list of deep discounts for some particularly good deals. I’ve been meaning to check out Haven from Cairn developer The Game Bakers for quite a while now, and at 90 percent off, that’s an easy pickup for me. 

    There are lots of solid offers elsewhere in the sale, including half off Tunic, Cult of the Lamb and Nine Sols; 35 percent off Turbo Kid; 40 percent off Another Crab’s Treasure; and 25 percent off Animal Well and Blue Prince. Lots of blockbuster games are on sale too, of course, including the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 (75 percent off), Returnal (50 percent off), Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (50 percent off) and Assassin’s Creed Shadows (40 percent off).

    Elsewhere, I thought this news nugget was pretty interesting. Evil Empire, the studio behind The Rogue Prince of Persia, has taken over development of Brotato. Original developer Blobfish Games is moving onto other projects.

    Brotato never hooked me as much as the similar Vampire Survivors did, but the game has more than 10 million players. Evil Empire is releasing an update for Brotato this month that brings a new mob to the game, but the studio’s track record is what makes this change most intriguing. It handled several updates and expansions for Dead Cells, including the Return to Castlevania DLC. So, there could be some pretty neat stuff on the way to Brotato in the coming months and years, especially with Evil Empire teasing DLC.

    New releases

    Two Lego games arriving in the space of a couple of weeks might seem like a lot, but the latest one is a world away from Lego Voyagers. Lego Party — from SMG Studio and publisher Fictions — is a party game for up to four players and it has dozens of minigames. Think Mario Party, but blockier and with the smooth trademark humor of Lego games.

    It supports local and online cross-platform multiplayer and there are tons of different ways to customize your minifigure. Let’s just hope no one gets too mad if you mess up their turn. Lego Party is out now on Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch.

    Alien: Rogue Incursion – Part One is now available for the first time outside of virtual reality platforms thanks to the new Evolved Edition. It hit PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam and Epic Games Store this week. 

    This is a first-person shooter from Survios that’s set between Alien and Aliens. The game pits a marine colonel against hundreds of Xenomorphs and other nasty things. I can’t imagine I would have kept my cool if I were playing this in VR and a Facehugger jumped onto my head, but the flatscreen version might not be so scary. Maybe.

    Puzzle adventure game Éalú sees you taking control of a wooden, clockwork mouse that’s attempting to escape from a labyrinth. Designer Ivan Owen of Beyond the Bark created all of the stop-motion animations by hand, including all possible outcomes for each scenario, and did so mostly in a garden shed.

    It looks charming, though the mouse faces some rather grisly-sounding fates if you’re not careful. Éalú is out now on Steam.

    Upcoming 

    An edition of the PC Gaming Show took place during Tokyo Game Show last weekend, and it featured more than 30 games. One of them was Kaiju Cleanup. This is a cleaning sim in which you’ll clean up kaiju carcasses by slicing up the monsters into smaller pieces, disposing of “various jellies” and powerwashing the last little bits away. 

    If your character dies due to acidic fluids or explosive organs, just send in a clone and clean up that mess too. It’s dangerous work, but someone’s gotta do it. 

    This is a fun idea. There’s no release window for Kaiju Cleanup as yet, but Brightrock Games and publisher Mythwright say you can expect it to hit Steam at some point in the next 15 years. 

    I kind of love the ethos of Wolf Haus Games. “We make the games we wanted to play when we were 13, because now we’re grown ups and nobody can tell us what to do,” the studio says on its website. After collectively accruing decades of experience in AAA games and movies, the team is working on its first game, Join Us.

    In this co-op survival RPG, you’ll set up a chapter of a doomsday cult. You can choose the belief system and recruit members for your cause while amassing a stockpile of weapons. Naturally, you’ll need to build a compound for your collective and manage your resources. You can put your followers to work by assigning them roles like farmer, doctor and mission support, which will hopefully help you avoid permadeath.

    Join Us is coming to Steam in 2026. I already feel like I might stick with this one for longer than I did Valheim, one of the more prominent co-op survival games of the last few years. That’s largely because this one has buses with machine gun turrets, along with pigs and bears you can ride into battle.

    Earth Must Die is another game that was unveiled at the latest PC Gaming Show. This is a point-and-click adventure from Size Five Games and publisher No More Robots that has an appealing, cartoon-y art style, but it’s the cast that really catches the eye here. 

    It features performances from the likes of Joel Fry (Game of Thrones, Our Flag Means Death), Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hades 2) and a host of people who have appeared on the brilliant comedy panel show Taskmaster, including series creator Alex Horne. Earth Must Die is slated to hit Steam later this year.

    Speaking of Taskmaster, a game called Task Time seems like it was inspired by the show. This is a competitive party title from ReadGraves and publisher Wired Productions in which you’ll compete with up to seven other players to complete random tasks. There are more than 500,000 variants of tasks that you might be asked to take on. 

    It looks chaotic in a good way, and appear to tap into the DNA of the likes of Fall Guys (which shouldn’t be surprising given that some of the dev team has experience of working on that game). There’s local and online multiplayer support for this one. Task Time is coming to Steam and Epic Games Store “soon.” If you’re quick, you can join the Steam playtest, which ends on Sunday.

    Rising Heat reminds me a little of Minishoot Adventures, a lovely Zelda-esque RPG from last year (40 percent off in the Steam sale, by the way). The only things they actually seem to have in common, though, is that you play as a little ship and they each have a top-down perspective.

    That’s because Rising Heat is a twin-stick, bullet-hell survival roguelike. I dig the explosive, colorful visual effects (is that a black hole I see?) and the co-op mode sounds compelling. You can play with a friend locally or online, and your ships are tethered by a beam that can damage enemies and possibly pull your partner into danger if you’re not careful. 

    Rising Heat was supposed to arrive on October 14, but Fuzzy Sock Studios and publisher Apogee Entertainment have delayed it until December 2. However, you can try out a demo on Steam now.

    Here’s another demo, and I’m very excited about this one. Marvel Cosmic Invasion is the latest side-scrolling beat-’em-up from Tribute Games and publisher Dotemu, the teams behind the terrific Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge.

    Although this game is coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as well later this year, the demo is currently only available on Steam. It features nine of the game’s 15 playable heroes: Spider-Man, Wolverine, She-Hulk, Storm, Venom, Nova, Phyla-Vell, Rocket Raccoon and Captain America. You can pick two and switch between them any time to deliver powerful team-up attacks. 

    There’s couch and online co-op available, and the demo is fully playable on Steam Deck. I definitely need to carve out some time for this over the weekend. Ghost of Yōtei can wait a bit longer.

    Dogpile is another in a long line of Suika Game clones (where you combine two objects to make a larger one without spilling over the top of a container). This is all about smushing together very good dogs, so it’s automatically one of the best ones. It has an utterly perfect title too.

    Dogpile switches up the format a bit since it’s a deckbuilder and you can customize the puppers with their own traits. Dog tags alter how the pooches and their traits work, and using them smartly can help you discover synergies. 

    Studio Folly and Toot Games are the developers behind Dogpile, and they have audio design assistance from A Shell in the Pit and help from the co-publishing team at Wings. There’s no release window as yet. But there’s a demo out on Steam right now and I don’t know why you’re still reading this instead of rushing off to play it immediately.

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  • Why critical data literacy belongs in every K–12 classroom

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    Key points:

    An unexpected group of presenters–11th graders from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago–made a splash at this year’s ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT). These students captivated seasoned researchers and professionals with their insights on how school environments shape students’ views of AI. “I wanted our project to serve as a window into the eyes of high school students,” said Autumn Moon, one of the student researchers.

    What enabled these students to contribute meaningfully to a conference dominated by PhDs and industry veterans was their critical data literacy–the ability to understand, question, and evaluate the ethics of complex systems like AI using data. They developed these skills through their school’s Data is Power program.

    Launched last year, Data is Power is a collaboration among K-12 educators, AI ethics researchers, and the Young Data Scientists League. The program includes four pilot modules that are aligned to K-12 standards and cover underexplored but essential topics in AI ethics, including labor and environmental impacts. The goal is to teach AI ethics by focusing on community-relevant topics chosen by our educators with input from students, all while fostering critical data literacy. For example, Autumn’s class in Chicago used AI ethics as a lens to help students distinguish between evidence-based research and AI propaganda. Students in Phoenix explored how conversational AI affects different neighborhoods in their city.

    Why does the Data is Power program focus on critical data literacy? In my former role leading a diverse AI team at Amazon, I saw that technical skills alone weren’t enough. We needed people who could navigate cultural nuance, question assumptions, and collaborate across disciplines. Some of the most technically proficient candidates struggled to apply their knowledge to real-world problems. In contrast, team members trained in critical data literacy–those who understood both the math and the societal context of the models–were better equipped to build responsible, practical tools. They also knew when not to build something.

    As AI becomes more embedded in our lives, and many students feel anxious about AI supplanting their job prospects, critical data literacy is a skill that is not just future-proof–it is future-necessary. Students (and all of us) need the ability to grapple with and think critically about AI and data in their lives and careers, no matter what they choose to pursue. As Milton Johnson, a physics and engineering teacher at Bioscience High School in Phoenix, told me: “AI is going to be one of those things where, as a society, we have a responsibility to make sure everyone has access in multiple ways.”

    Critical data literacy is as much about the humanities as it is about STEM. “AI is not just for computer scientists,” said Karren Boatner, who taught Autumn in her English literature class at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School. For Karren, who hadn’t considered herself a “math person” previously, one of the most surprising parts of the program was how much she and her students enjoyed a game-based module that used middle school math to explain how AI “learns.” Connecting math and literature to culturally relevant, real-world issues helps students see both subjects in a new light.

    As AI continues to reshape our world, schools must rethink how to teach about it. Critical data literacy helps students see the relevance of what they’re learning, empowering them to ask better questions and make more informed decisions. It also helps educators connect classroom content to students’ lived experiences.

    If education leaders want to prepare students for the future–not just as workers, but as informed citizens–they must invest in critical data literacy now. As Angela Nguyen, one of our undergraduate scholars from Stanford, said in her Data is Power talk: “Data is power–especially youth and data. All of us, whether qualitative or quantitative, can be great collectors of meaningful data that helps educate our own communities.”

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    Evan Shieh, Young Data Scientists League

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  • The LCD Steam Deck is 20 percent off right now

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    Steam’s seasonal sales are usually the peak moments to add new software to your library, but right now, Valve is offering a notable hardware discount. The starter model is currently on sale for 20 percent off its usual $399 price tag. That means you can snag yourself the gaming handheld with an LCD screen and 256GB of storage for $319. Steam hasn’t set an end date for this offer, so it might be worth acting quickly if you want to get in on this particular sale.

    Valve

    20 percent off the starter model of the gaming handheld.

    $319 at Valve

    The Steam Deck is still the go-to for most PC gamers who want a handheld. Its balance of power, portability and price have kept it one of our , even three years after the product’s debut. But keep in mind before you add this to your cart that this iteration does have a few limitations compared to the higher end Steam Decks. The LCD screen doesn’t have the true blacks of the OLED option, and serious players may run up against the storage limits of this model pretty quickly. But if you’ve been curious about a Steam Deck and aren’t looking to have a full library of big AAA downloads available all at once, this is a good time to pick up one of your own. Besides, with the $80 you’ll save, you can also grab a copy of current indie darlings and and still have money leftover.

    Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

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    Anna Washenko

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