Due to work and a press trip, I am still only half way through redecorating the kitchen. The walls are now a lovely shade of terracotta, but dust sheets cover the floor, there are no doors on the cabinets, and paint pots and stained brushes litter the room. I just want to cook a meal on the hob. A single delicious hot meal.

Alas, I am at a wedding this weekend and so the kitchen remains in limbo.

Enough of my decorating doldrums. This is what the rest of the team are up to.

James
I quite like the look of Family Reunion, a doodly choose-your-own-daydream game about trying to get a boring dinner to pass by as quickly as possible. Likely relatable to formerly attention-short children, and to current adult journalists who’ve ever been on a press trip with enforced schmoozing. There’s a demo on Itch.

Callum
Still replaying Cyberpunk, and I imagine I’ll spend some time blasting through chooms over the weekend, but Saros is really drawing my eye. The combination of sad sci-fi, bullet-hell roguelike shooting, and Rahul Kohli shouting British things Britishly looks mighty appealing. Not to mention that everything I’ve seen looks drop-dead gorgeous, and I’m very much in the mood to submerge myself in showy particle effects. I want all the billowing clouds of dirty sand and blown-apart robot scrap it can muster, because the temperature has marginally risen, and I’m craving a summer blockbuster.

Ollie
Whenever my free time lines up with my brother’s and friend’s, we’re in Overwatch. Learning heroes new and old; arguing about whether the Flashpoint mode is great or terrible; complaining about Sierra’s overtuned toolkit. It’s a great time. And – I’ll whisper it so as not to chase it away – I think we might be getting better at the game.

Jeremy
I started Shadow of the Tomb Raider last evening, as I’ve had a recent hankering to see how Lara Croft’s survivor-themed adventures ended up. I wasn’t too keen on Rise of the Tomb Raider a decade ago, but Shadow’s pretty solid in the opening hours, even though I’m just breezing through it on casual difficulty level. The lengthy cutscenes, scripted moments of Lara constantly getting hurt, and story heavily dripping in survivor guilt do feel a little dated, though, and remind me of why I bounced off of Rise. I’m looking forward to Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis coming out later this year, if only to see the return of old school, “unified” Lara with a little more sparkle instead of misery in her eyes.

Edwin
I vaguely want to play some combination of Thief and Warhammer but I suspect I’m just going to watch tawdry anime romcoms instead. I also need to think about the process of buying a house, or at least, coming into possession of a house by fair means or foul. I have daydreams of being gifted a mansion by some billionaire who needs to offload assets in a hurry. If you are a billionaire, my email is in my bio.

Mark
I’ve got a fast taxi coming to pick me up next week, so I’ll probably spend the weekend continuing to chill by picking away at my now very well-established mates Tokyo Xtreme Racer, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, and American Truck Simulator.

Julian
While I am at a wedding and one where I won’t be sneaking the Steam Deck into. When I get home I plan to play a little more Tavern Keeper. The fantasy pub manager isn’t doing a great deal that Tavern Master and Epic Tavern don’t also do, but it is a significantly more charming to my eye.