Kenney, creator of masses of free and paid assets for game developers has released a second game with Pixross. It's a picture logic puzzle game with tons of levels and it's great. Note : key provided by itch.io press access.

Seems like Kenney is on a bit of a roll now, after releasing their first commercial title with Frick, Inc. back in October . Across 150+ unique puzzles Pixross has you attempt to find the picture hidden inside, using logic to count the squares that need colouring in on the board.

Plenty of other games have done the same thing, however this has a certain wonderful charm to it I've not experienced with other similar titles. Pixross is a bit of a devilish delight. It lets you easily slide in and enjoy it with a fantastic tutorial, followed by 15 Beginner levels that make you feel smart. Then you get to the Intermediate levels and the challenges of it begin to sink in as you're calculating across a grid four times as big.

The customization it offers as a reward is a very nice touch too. Each time you complete a level you get some stars, which are then used to turn the handle of those little sweet machines where you stick a coin in and turn the handle. This then gives you new backgrounds, new pattern styles, grid styles and more. It's simple but effective at pushing you to do a little more without affecting the gameplay. One of those little niceties.

You can do more than just change shapes and colours though. There's options you can tweak to change the behaviour of the game including turning off the penalties system which acts like lives making you restart, so if you want it be super chilled-out you can. You can also turn on a hint at the start of each and more. Lots of nice touches to make it a thoroughly enjoyable logic puzzle game.

If you want it to be extra challenging you can do that too. Through a simple button in the menu, you can enable certain challenges like having the puzzles mirrored at random to mix things up a little. Pixross is well worth it, I really don't have a bad thing to say about it making it an easy recommendation to pick up. The presentation and audio work done on it are exactly as you want them to be for such a  game. Not flashy but pleasing to look at while your working things out.

If you enjoy Nonogram / Picross styled puzzle games, there's tons of content here to go through.

You can buy Pixross on itch.io .

Enlarge / Hey, my macro lens still works! (credit: Lee Hutchinson)

The new M1-powered MacBook Air is hilariously fast, and the battery lasts a long-ass time.

If you stop reading this review immediately after this, then know that unless Windows virtualization is a requirement of your workflow, you should probably just go ahead and sell your old MacBook Air immediately and get this thing instead.

Assuming you've got a grand or so lying around that you weren't going to spend on something else. But hey, if you do, then I can confidently tell you that in spite of what a legion of Doubting Thomases (including me!) might have said about Apple's freshman effort at its own PC silicon, it is now my studied opinion that there are far, far stupider ways to part with your cash.

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Vaporum: Lockdown is the standalone prequel to the original Vaporum from 2017 and Fatbot Games did another fantastic job with a great world to explore. The game follows the story of Ellie Teller, a scientist who is a part of a mysterious research project in the middle of an ocean.

After getting an official Linux release back in October , I spent some time with it crawling through dark hallways, dealing with freaky creatures and solving puzzles. Much like the first game, I've come away with a lasting impression and thoroughly enjoyed the experience it offers. With a sleek steampunk style, along with real-time exploration and combat, everything in Vaporum: Lockdown feels like it flows together quite nicely.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Vaporum: Lockdown is a proper steampunk game too with the majority of the design work in the environments, enemies, the UI and so on being clearly inspired by a lot of old technology with a sprinkle of retrofuturism. It is quite exciting both in terms of the setting and the art style Fatbot Games created for it.

Easy to get thoroughly sucked into and appreciate too, especially with the middle-click head movement allowing you to get a good look at your surroundings which is often useful when you're hunting for some secrets. However, it's not an easy game overall, in fact it's actually quite challenging.

The combat being real-time is part of what makes this dungeon crawler so unique, as you can dodge enemy attacks and move around them to do your own attacks if you're quick enough or get the range on them needed if you've got ammo for firearms. However, it's still difficult because you need to think quickly and react quickly to enemies and pick your attacks. It's all about your rhythm while you dodge, attack, turn, move and keep repeating. Prepare to mash that F5 button to quick save too, I lost count of the amount of times I quick-stepped backwards from an enemy into a hole. There's also enemies that can quickly close the gap between you, so it firmly keeps you on your toes.

Thankfully though, there is a Stop Time mode you can activate at the push of a button that allows you to catch your breath. You can use this along with another button to advance time, so if you do find the real-time combat a major difficulty or even frustrating, it's really quite easy to get around it like this and likely a reason it was included to help less-able players to still enjoy the exploration, puzzle solving and the story. It's actually a pretty clever feature, as it keeps everything still until you perform an action, with everything advancing one major tick during this mode if you move, turn, attack or do anything like that and allows you time to properly plan if you need to.

Something else I did like was the polite difficulty reminder, after you've died repeatedly a few times it will mention the current difficultly level and see if you wish to reduce it. There's also an option to never see that reminder screen again if it bugs you. Lots of nice touches.

For the puzzles, there's plenty of block pushing and a few timed puzzles sprinkled throughout. Needing you push great big boxes into holes, shoot far off targets to activate trap doors or switch between opening and closing certain trap doors. All while you're trying to manoeuvre yourself and a great big box around - leading to more times of me walking backwards into a pit of death than I would care to admit — just like with the combat. There's a few puzzles that involve different types of turrets too, and some that require real careful timing can be a little punishing. One in particular is going to haunt me, because it took me 30 minutes to do and the solution was really simple. The puzzle design is good, my brain…not so much.

The exploration in Vaporum: Lockdown made me quite nervous, which is quite a testament to the thick and impressive atmosphere it manages to give off. All the steampunk goodness of great big cogs moving, pistons pressing down hard and then the whole complex starts shaking…I definitely wouldn't want to be stuck inside the Arx Vaporum.

When it comes to the customisation side to it with the RPG mechanics, they're pretty good too. You get to pick your own special "exo-rig" which comes in a few different specializations, which will depend on how you want to play it. You get choices between things like more damage for energy weapons, a chance to reflect enemy attacks back and more. Actually choosing that was quite difficult. Even past that you also then have various gadgets you can install too that have all sorts of abilities like shocking the floor around you which is always delightful.

That's not all though, there's a full levelling system that allows you to rank up certain areas like Energy Weapons, Blade Weapons, Dual Wielding and other specials like Maximum Energy.

When it comes to the story, if you've already played the original you know a fair bit about what went on but Vaporum: Lockdown sprinkles in plenty of satisfying information left out and serves as both a great prequel and standalone title. Getting engrossed in it was easy too, thanks to the good voice acting through the main story.

As for the Linux port: it performs so well in fact that I was able to turn up the Supersampling Scale above 100% to make it look even better while still performing very smoothly overall. However, having ScreenSpaceReflection turned on will make it periodically crash so keep that off (the developer is aware ). Apart from that one issue, no other complaints at all there it's been great. Smooth, it looks good and it's feels great to explore and learn more about the tower of Arx Vaporum.

For players that don't often get into first-person dungeon crawling, I think that Vaporum: Lockdown could serve as a fantastic introduction to the genre. Overall though, it's a huge amount of fun even if it's a genre you jump into often, I was constantly surprised by it and sucked in with the great atmosphere and I feel that it's firmly worth picking up.

You can buy Vaporum: Lockdown from Humble Store , GOG or Steam .

A free game that lets you run around a seemingly empty office with a sledgehammer? Perfect Vermin is not quite what it seems as you hunt for some weird creatures. Originally released on itch.io , it's now hopped on over to Steam to bring it to a bigger audience.

Your task is pretty simple: run through an office and smash up some tables. chairs, toilets and yes even the lightswitch can be smashed off the wall. The reason though? Well, there's some kind of vermin posing as various objects. It's like a game of prop hunt, only with a short narrative and a darker theme.

The actual smashing mechanic is ridiculously satisfying but it doesn't last. The whole game is perhaps only 15-20 minutes long depending on how quick you are to spot things that are out of place. What it does with the setting and the whole idea of hunting props is great but it gets a little…weird. Good weird though.

After each section, things become a little different . Your "boss" adds in a timer, somehow speaking to you from their desk and then everything just gets warped. At one point there's two of you, and you're controlling both at the same time through these weird screens.

It's thoroughly unnerving when you get through it, when you see all the little signs of things to come and then when the ending comes crashing in it's something of a sobering experience. Definitely not the same game it starts out to be and well worth checking out when you have 20 minutes free.

Find it on itch.io and Steam .

9 Monkeys of Shaolin gives us another wonderful beat 'em up with easy to use controls, thoroughly entertaining combat and some great visuals. Developed by Sobaka Studio, the same team behind REDEEMER.

Inspired by classic kung-fu movies of the 70s, 9 Monkeys of Shaolin follows Chinese fisherman Wei Cheng on a path to avenge the death of friends and family after their lands are invaded by pirate raiding parties. Sobaka claim it's a "true rebirth of the iconic brawler genre", which is overstating it a bit but there's no denying I've had a lot of fun with it.

Watch video on YouTube.com

The story in 9 Monkeys is your pretty standard beat 'em up material, with a pretty ordinary person taking up arms to avenge the death of their family but it's the overall direction and production values that really help it along. Some well designed cut-scenes sprinkled in, along with plenty of great voice acting really enable 9 Monkeys of Shaolin to leave a lasting impression while not being particularly genre-defining.

Combat is the most important thing in a beat 'em up and 9 Monkeys of Shaolin excels there, as it's suprememly smooth and quite exciting. Flowing from one attack type to the next feels awesome, as does dodging around enemies and unleashing mighty combo attacks mixed in with power attacks you build up energy for during fights. Everything about 9 Monkeys of Shaolin just feels so good thanks to the combat style and weaponry. Using your staff to jump from afar towards an enemy, and watch as they fly into boxes and everything smashes beneath them — there's a lot of little touches to enjoy here.

Enemies are impressively varied too and that's where it shines, as you'll end up needing every ability possible to get through it. Enemies have quick attacks, long range attacks, brutal smashing attacks that completely flatten you and more. Even with all of that, the combat in 9 Monkeys of Shaolin still feels relatively tame, it's not overly fast paced and you still get quite a bit of time to think which is why I think I like it so much. When enemies are about to attack, the tells in their stances and animations mean you know what's coming.

It's challenging and fun but it doesn't aggravate with the toughness of it. If you don't like it being tough, the Novice difficulty mode seems pretty good for people of all abilities too. You can also change the difficult during missions so it's a well-rounded game in terms of difficulty.

The locations you fight through are quite varied too, all with their own distinct style and colouring which makes sending people flying through it all the more delightful. As far as beat 'em ups go, you don't get much more fun than this. Worth picking up easily.

Feature Highlight:

• 3 unique fighting styles: fight on earth, in the air or use mysterious magic seals.
• Captivating narrative: follow Wei Cheng as he rises from a mere fisherman to the master of Shaolin martial arts.
• Stunning visual style: unlikely combination of historical and mystical elements.
• Extensive character development system: various unlockable perks, items and fighting styles.
• More than 25 different levels: Chinese villages, Buddhist monasteries, Japanese mansions and much more.
• 10 types of Chinese and Japanese polearms, each with its unique traits.
• Co-op play: invite your friend to complete the game together.

You can buy 9 Monkeys of Shaolin from Humble Store and Steam .

We're a little late on the release of 9 Monkeys of Shaolin, as we've been tracking down a graphical bug with NVIDIA GPUs on Linux. It appears that the NVIDIA driver series 455 has an issue with broken effects in 9 Monkeys of Shaolin but previous drivers are fine. The result on the 455 driver is bright blue smoke where fire should be, and bright blue streak effects when attacking - which is very annoying and distracting. Thankfully, the game works great on earlier drivers and the issue has been reported to NVIDIA .

Art in Heart and Raw Fury have released GONNER2, an intense procedurally generated action-platformer with a very bizarre and colourful world. Note : key provided by Raw Fury.

In motion, GONNER2 is almost mesmerising in how the world flows around with colourful tiles flowing in and connecting up that follows your movements. Honestly, the design work alone on it totally deserves an award. Gameplay though? Well, it's a rather challenging platformer with roguelike elements, where you play as the "largely misunderstood and altruistic Ikk". It's absolutely hectic, quite confusing initially as it dumps you into the world but you soon get the hang of it thanks to the simple to grasp controls.

GONNER2 rewards speed. Go fast, shoot fast, take down as many enemies as you can in a short space of time and keep on jumping and running while trying not to lose your head. You build up a combination as you keep on taking enemies down, which will boost up your score.

Watch video on YouTube.com

As you progress through you will find new heads to swap, new weapons, a few different abilities and all kinds of weird creatures to face. While you're boosting your score by taking enemies down as quickly as possible, the music speeds up and gets all kinds of weird to go along with it. The atmosphere together with the minimal but super colourful art, along with the music that starts slow with a pumping beat that quickly smashes in during the hot action makes it feel all that much more dramatic when it really gets going.

Compared with the first game, everything just feels better. Tight controls along with proper 360 aiming, it looks awesome and it's finely polished. Not a single technical hiccup either, it's one of the smoothest releases I've played all year. If you're a fan of games that have a solid basic core-loop that you can just play over and over, GONNER2 is what you need.

Feature Highlight:

• Intense platformer shooter action
• Procedurally generated levels in a strange and surreal world
• Nonlinear level structure
• A bunch of heads, guns and upgrades that you can combine
• Boss fights
• Secrets & mysteries!

You can buy GONNER2 from Humble Store , GOG and Steam .

Keep an eye on our Twitch Channel too, as it will be featured soon.

Small rooms, lots of spinning blades - what could possibly go wrong? Disc Room is insane and I absolutely love it. Note : our copy was provided by GOG.com .

A collaboration between Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Terri Vellmann and Doseone with publishing from Devolver Digital, it's a game of constant absurd dodging and lots of blood when you inevitably fail at doing so. In the year 2089, a giant disc has appeared in orbit of Jupiter, and you as a scientist decide to boldly go where no one has been cut in half before. It's one big intergalactic slaughterhouse.

Their quick explainer video does a good job at the basics if you want some quick footage:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Just note, that it's made with Game Maker Studio which continues to have some weird dependency problems with libcurl. On Arch Linux for example, you can install the libcurl-compat package and then launch it like this:

LD_PRELOAD="/usr/lib/libcurl.so.3" '/media/games/Disc Room/start.sh'

After that it launches and runs as expected in my testing.  Huge amount of fun and apart from the above minor issue, it works great. Performance is perfect, my 8BitDo SN30 gamepad worked perfectly and I don't have any complaints there at all.

If you've got the reflexes for it, and you adore a good challenge - Disc Room is something you need to add to your collection. You can buy Disc Room from GOG.com , itch.io , Humble Store and Steam .

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Unspottable has you and friends all blended together amongst a crowd, and you each need to find the other to take them down. It's highly amusing and out now. Note : our key was provided to us by the developer on our Steam Curator .

Spread across 12 varied levels, each with their own unique differences the idea is always the same. Figure out who your friends are, watch movements carefully and give them a punch if you think it's them. If not, hope you can quickly merge back in and become…unspottable.

Check out the launch trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

We played the demo of Unspottable here for a while and got sucked in easily, and since trying out the full game we've been completely sold on it. Unspottable very quickly entered our regular gaming sessions because it's just good silly fun that anyone can get into easily. The controls are ridiculously simple, and it takes no effort to play which is what makes it so good as a party game.

Some of the levels have a little side-quest you can do to win, as long as you're not spotted and punched-out by another player. There's a supermarket where you each need to grab a couple items, and the same for a sushi restaurant. Once you have all the items, you can then run towards the exit. Other levels have environment hazards that can smash you into the floor, or the AI might run around punching at random too. The variety here is great and really makes it unique and seriously funny when you get into it.

It's local multiplayer only, however with services like Steam Remote Play you can play online with others and you only need one copy of the game to do so.

As a game it's enjoyable for anyone, family friendly and well worth picking up. You can buy Unspottable from itch.io and Steam .