Didn’t expect to see me here, did you? Well, as always there’s a new – if slightly abbreviated – week of PC games to dissect. Edwin’s away travelling the world and hopefully encountering some tolerable bed and breakfasts, so I’ve popped in to see what sorts of stuff we can stick in the Maw in order to keep it happy for the next few days. Wish me luck!

Or perhaps don’t. Maybe you want the Maw to consume us all. To be honest, that doesn’t sound too bad. I could hang out behind one of its teeth, make a little hut out of the leftover cereal strewn across the gums. Spend my days trying to avoid being washed away whenever the creature takes a swig of something watery. No. It cannot be. To the games we go.

Tuesday 7th April

• Nippets is a game about poking and prodding a pleasant hand-drawn world until it reveals its secrets to you. It’s got a demo if you’ve an urge to shake some trees today.
• Road to Vostok, a post-apocalytic survival jaunt solo developed by a former Finnish army officer, arrives in early access. Set in a border zone between Finland and Russia, it’s all about looting, shooting, and the avoidance of permadeathing.
• Also arriving in early access is Spark in the Dark, a gloomy medieval dungeon crawler. It’s got plenty of caves, ruins, monsters, traps and not much light. There are even “many secret places”. It’s also worth noting that developers Stellar Fish have used AI to help with some translations.

Wednesday 8th April

• Thump. Ow. I’m not sure you need to punch me, Samson. I was just about to tell the people that the goon-thumping and car-chasing GTA-like you’re starring in is out this week. It’s developed by Liquid Swords, headed by ex-Just Cause director Christofer Sundberg, and has built some of GTA 4’s grimy urban vibes into the battered streets of its rundown industrial town.
• I Eat Paintings When Guards Aren’t Looking. Ok, no need to brag about it, you hidden object game about taking bites out of classical works in the hopes that this munching will satisfy your appetite.
• “The flesh is temporary. The math is eternal,” declares the description of Faultline.Exe. It tasks you with hacking into a deep space station where things have gone sci-fi tits up, promising lots of choice and consequence as you uncover what exactly caused the tit uppage.

Thursday 9th April

• Watch out for traps, it’s Minos. Both Julian and I have enjoyed the demos of Artificer’s roguelike about murdering Greek adventurers via lethally-desiogned labyrinths before they can give a minotaur a hard time.
• Prop Sumo is a party game about pushing your mates about as random objects. It looks like a good laugh.
• RPG Beneath Cloudvein boasts visuals I’d class as rubberishly retro, and has NPCs whose weird faces you can stare at as you investigate a missing dwarven mining expedition.
• A Planet Full of Cats comes from Devcats, the developers of A Building Full of Cats, A Castle Full of Cats, A Tower Full of Cats, A Park Full of Cats: Haunted Ride, An Arcade Full of Cats: TimeWarp Trouble, and A Shelter Full of Cats. It’s a game about finding cats, in case you’d not guessed.

Friday 10th April

• Bow and Banister puts a twist on QWOP and Baby Steps’ frustration-inducing movement by handing you the controls of a violinist who must get up some steps to perform for his king. If only this musical man’s limbs weren’t so damn floppy.
• Pick Three!!! That’s not me shouting, it’s a game about picking one of three options so you can win some battles that look weirdly Beybladey, if only because of their spinning discs-balls.

Well, I think that’ll save us for another week. Edwin won’t return to a devoured site. I guess it could end up being devoured by some other being, but it won’t be the usual Maw at any rate.

In the meantime, you can look forward to the resumption of regular Monday Maws next week, either by me or someone else, as Edwin’ll still be off bedding and breakfasting.