“Flat Eye”, “Tactics Ogre”, “Lunistice”, “McPixel 3”… What are we playing this week?

Flat Eye combines simulation and anticipation, role-playing Ogre Tactics gets remastered, Lunistice dreams of the 1990s and McPixel 3 put some Wario Ware in his point and click.

Flat Eye

Management games have never been ideologically neutral. New production from the French studio Monkey Moon (Night Call), Flat Eye announces the color by telling us about the world that is coming and which, moreover, is already a little there, between the sacralization of artificial intelligence, intrusive technologies and the trade in personal data. Placing us at the head of a futuristic service station, Flat Eye is distinguished by its quality of writing according to a double principle of variety of registers and dissemination of meaning. From dialogues with customers to descriptive notices of our “modules” (box of medical services “without pain”, mirror offering “advice on how to manage your life better”…), it is a narrative puzzle that is offered to us, embedded in the simulation. In the center, like Papers, Please, the question of our own role. We regret a little that its interface does not make manipulation as pleasant as, say, that of Two Point Campus. But that is not the heart of this exciting project.

On Mac and Windows, Monkey Moon/Raw Fury, around €19

Ogre Tactics: Reborn

Already passed through the remake box in 2010, Ogre Tactics gets a makeover with a version reborn which does justice to this monument of tactical role play Japanese published in 1995 and whose influence is still felt, for example in Triangle Strategy from the same publisher. To play it is to embark on a monumental game of chess whose pieces are also the characters of a great epic tale. It is to explore with delight this vast zone which links the romantic to the abstract. It is highly recommended.

On Switch, PS4/PS5 and Windows, Square Enix, around €50

Lunistice

After the pixel art 16-bit consoles are now the style low poly from the PlayStation 1/Nintendo 64 era which is entitled to its nostalgic revival. After Frogun Where Demon Turf, place to Lunistice, which reinterprets the 3D platform game from the angle of a bright and colorful course but rich in traps and dangers. What enchants here is the attention to detail, in the design of the sets and their inhabitants as well as the level design. This little delicacy warms well inside.

On Switch and Windows, A Grumpy Fox/Deck13 Spotlight, around €5

McPixel 3

“Poop.” From the outset, it is clear: the case McPixel 3 will be schoolboy and regressive. But also less primary than supposed because it will be necessary to rack your brains to solve the puzzles of the Polish developer Mikołaj Kamiński, legacy of the adventures point and click of yesteryear transmuted into facetious micro-games in the style of WarioWare. If we don’t succeed, we will try anything and everything and no one will blame us because experimentation is king in McPixel 3which, between play and comedy, does not choose.

On Switch, Xbox and Windows, Sos Sosowski/Devolver Digital, around €10