The Spotlight is a monthly summary that encapsulates some of the more notable media experiences I’ve had over the past thirty days. From insights on games played, to articles worth checking out, and even cool stories from tabletop role-playing games, it all has a place in the Spotlight.

For the month of July, 2024, here’s what I’m shining the spotlight on.

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Games

Steamworld Dig 1 & 2

The Steamworld Dig titles are excellent and are representative of exactly the kind of gaming experiences I find myself searching out these days. They’re short, they’re direct, and there’s rarely any ambiguity to where you need to be going or what you need to be doing because the answer is usually, “dig deeper.” In the Steamworld Dig games you’re a little robot armed with a pick-axe that’s staring down an unfathomably deep mine-shaft. You mine downwards, collect gems, slice up enemies, and return to the surface to sell your bounty off and buy upgrades that make future delves just a little bit easier and more efficient.

While they’re technically games about digging downward, they aren’t solely about digging downwards. Whether it’s some blueprint for a new tool or ability you can craft, a puzzle or platforming challenge that rewards you with some upgrade, or even just a collectible from a time before every sentient being was a robot and humans roamed the earth, there’s always something precisely placed on the map to shift your focus to and keep you engaged. I really like these games and wish there were more of them, but I’m happy with what I have regardless.

This Bed We Made

It’s the 1950’s and I am a maid at the Clarington Hotel in Canada, and while I am good at my job I cannot help but stick my nose where it doesn’t belong and snoop through everyone’s shit whenever they aren’t around. Normally this isn’t a problem, but while snooping in room I found photographic evidence of me snooping in another room. Somehow that has launched me into a mystery that I, Ari, am not entirely sure how I got swept up in but whatever.

That’s the basic premise of This Bed We Made, a detective-styled mystery game in which I am piecing clues together and making decisions based off of them that influence the outcome of the story. The story itself is pretty decent, even if I did find myself getting a bit lost in character names and motivations from time to time, but that’s probably on me and not the game. The way that This Bed We Made makes good on all of your decisions, even the ones you didn’t know you were making, is pretty impressive. It tries to position itself as a game you need to play more than once to explore all of your choices and whatnot, but once I got to the end and kind of saw that mechanic play out, I more or less got what it was going for.

I very much enjoyed my time with This Bed We Made, but your mileage may vary.

House Flipper 2

At some point in the house-flipping process, I got sick of actually decorating the homes so much that I’d neglect to even put a dang toilet in the house. But these buyers are not deterred by my awful aesthetic choices or lack thereof because all they really care about is that the trash and dirt are gone from the property. As long as the place is spotless, these chumps will pay thousands over the asking price for an undersized beach bungalow.

That, in a nutshell, has been my House Flipper 2 experience. I absolutely adore this game just as much as I did its predecessor, and am very bummed out that I’ve exhausted all of the content included already. It’s games like this and PowerWash Simulator that sink their hooks into me so deeply that I’m unable to even fathom playing something else until I’ve blitzed through every bit of content included. I love this game, and in a way, I’m kind of glad I’m free from its thrall.

Dungeons of Hinterberg

Dungeons of Hinterberg is a game that I really enjoyed playing despite some of its obvious shortcomings, and probably would have enjoyed even more had it narrowed its focus just a bit. The game is broken up into three main pillars: the monster slaying action game part, the puzzle-solving adventure game part, and the third bit where you’re choosing how to spend your downtime and which villagers you want to engage with. That third one is important because it determines what upgrades and unlocks you have access to.

It all works together really well, but when you examine each element individually you notice how underdeveloped they are. The combat is janky and repetitive, and the social stuff is hit-or-miss depending on which characters you engage with. The puzzle solving was my favorite part, but even that wasn’t as deep or challenging as I would have liked.

The game is broken up into four main mission hubs that have entrances to higher level dungeons scattered about. In each of these mission hubs, you have access to two special powers that serve as your main puzzle solving mechanics for all the dungeons on that particular map. For instance, the first powers you get access to are the ability to throw a large steel ball on a chain and retract it, and also summon a massive bomb in front of you. The second world has two different powers, as well as the third and so on and so forth.

Honestly, if Dungeons of Hinterberg was solely a puzzle and social game, and those elements were really fleshed out, I think this would have been a much better game. As is, the combat feels like padding despite monster hunting and dungeon delving being the whole crux of the story. Despite all of that though, Dungeons of Hinterberg is still one of my favorite games I’ve played this year.

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Watch List

Monk

My partner is a big fan of certain crime procedurals and tends to gravitate towards them when the time comes to pick out a new show for us to watch. Shows like Psych and now Monk make their preferences a lot more tolerable because they’re infinitely less self-serious than others in the genre. It might be a little bit tougher to tolerate these days considering most of what I’ve seen of Monk so far is just people yelling at a man because of his “weird” mental illnesses. But beyond that there’s a genuinely fun show that’s very entertaining if you don’t look at it too closely.

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Listening Party

Sodas in the Freezer – Flycatcher

tarot cards – saturdays at your place

Top Notch (Live) – Manchester Orchestra

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News

Game Pass Hikes Prices Again

FTC Criticizes Game Pass Price Hike

Cities: Skylines 2 Indefinitely Delayed on Console

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Thanks for checking out The Spotlight. We’ll be back at the end of August with another installment. Consider subscribing to The Bonus World so you can get an email updating you whenever we publish something new.