Einstein is widely (and probably wrongly) credited as having said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Given our recent exchanges with a certain publisher, we’re inclined to agree. Old Albert would have been no fan of Roguelikes, then, though as a keen chemist as well as a theoretical physicist, perhaps he’d have made an exception for Noita (p106) and its alchemical playground - where the E in his most famous equation stands for Explosions.
We’ve been repeating ourselves a lot this month, and not just in relation to perpetually delayed review code. In satirical Roguelike Going Under (p120), you venture into the bowels of failed tech startups, each one replicating the mistakes of the last - though here the inevitability of failure is tempered by the opportunity to earn perks to aid future attempts. Talking of companies that treat employees as an expendable commodity, we can’t help but notice that the iconic TIE fighters of Star Wars: Squadrons (p102) aren’t exactly built to last; such is the price of joining the Dark Side, we suppose. Not that we can talk: apologies to all those poor clones we sacrificed to the buzzsaw gauntlets of Disc Room (p118). Here is a game of many, many sharp edges, yet one where repetition yields useful lessons.