Tomás Neumann Aspee

One thing Wax Heads, the new cozy-punk narrative sim from Patattie Games, does great from the get-go is to instill a sense of routine. Each day, you arrive at Repeater Records, have a little chat with your coworkers while you get ready to open the store, and then you attend to each customer, fetching the records they are looking for.

There has been a lot of discourse around the game, especially around its shallowness in its treatment of nostalgia and music choices. I'm Gen Z. I had only heard three or four songs in Stacey’s playlist, which I actually appreciated. The songs that were popular in the late ‘90s already carry a lot of cultural baggage, so the weird choices let me form unique emotional connections to each scene.

When a game like Balatro comes up and spins up a genre (in this case, the roguelike deck-builder) in such a successful way that dozens of games start coming out trying to emulate its design ethos or its aesthetic, it’s only a matter of time until someone adapts its design to humanity’s most popular game: chess. Gambonanza does just that, adding a strategic element to the familiar formula that can make or break the deal for some players. From its first run, Gambonanza is no regular chess game.