Humble Choice July: Pick’n’Mix Rundown

Age of Wonder: Planetfall is 4X in space. I’ve you’ve played Civilization or similar games, you’ll know roughly what to expect from this empire-builder. All the stuff you need is here – armies, research, colonies to set up and resources to exploit. This Choice is the Deluxe edition, too. The added content is mostly just cosmetics, but it’s a bit of extra bang for your buck.

The base game can be found on sale for around £18, without the added cosmetics. This version is also on Xbox Game Pass for PC too. The deluxe edition comes in around £20. So this Choice offers a fairly good saving versus a sale copy – and as is the nature with 4X games, offers plenty of replayability. A solid value pick.

Void Bastards is a cel-shaded survival-shooter. You hop from space station to space station, gathering resources to craft new weapons, ammo and story items. Each level is pretty doable in a few minutes, too – kinda like classic Doom levels in size – perfect for pick-up-and-playability. I really enjoyed this one, even though shooters are not my favourite genre. The British-ism and expendable-person humour make it stand out a bit from standard shooters. Worth a pick for genre fans!

This one is on Game Pass for PC too, if you already have that subscription. It’s also been in a previous Humble Bundle (not in Choice, though). Otherwise – by virtue of being a relatively new game – the sales on this haven’t been too great. It can be found for £15, down from £25 – meaning picking this could be decent value if you wanna save some money.

More management on the cards – this time, of the train variety. Plenty here for the train history enthusiasts – and there is a ton of DLC to expand the base-game experience here. The base game is set in North America and you expand across there, running routes across the States. Good, train-y fun.

As mentioned above, there is a lot of DLC for Railway Empire – and their complete collection is releasing next month. If this looks like your kinda game, it might be worth waiting for a decent sale on the collection to avoid having to buy it all after picking it here.

Big starship-fleet space battling, set in the Battlestar Galactica universe. This one generally does pretty well at making large battles manageable as you line up moves/attacks and then watch them play out bit by bit. It’s an interesting mix of turn-based and real-time. Dogfights are a bit frustrating to manage, but when it’s fleet vs fleet, it looks awesome.

Regularly priced at £30, the base game can be found for just under £10 from time to time, but rarely much lower than that. If you’re keen on strategy, this is a great time to save some money on this. This Choice also comes with four DLCs – making it even better value (it’s not mentioned on Humble, but my download came with 4!)

A lot of weird in this… Office-based adventure-horror… Thing. Yuppie Psycho sits well alongside other pixel-art adventure games, getting you exploring a weird and wonderful story. Definitely for those with a bit of resilience to creep factor – but worth the pick if that’s your bag.

Yuppie Psycho is a relatively new title, so we haven’t seen steep discounts on it just yet. It’s come down to around £10 from it’s £16.66 (get it?) list price. It’s previously been in a Humble Bundle though, so check your keys before picking this as a Choice!

As a novelty pick, Beat Hazard 2 is right up there. This twin-stick shooter responds to your own music – including through Spotify. It’s a cool trick, and it’s fun to try out some different genres and songs. Past that, I’m not sure this stands out too much alongside other games in the genre. But, if you love twin-stick shooters, there’s plenty of unlockables that can keep you coming back.

This is priced at £15 and generally only goes on sale for £10-ish. It’s fairly new, so prices might come down. Pick it up if you’re a fan of the genre, but there are other quality games of this genre (without the music gimmick, admittedly) available cheaply on Steam/Humble.

Sigma Theory is a boardgame-esque strategy title, all espionage, spies and diplomacy. There’s a lot going on and you have to move aggressively to keep on top of things. There’s a decent idea here, but it’s definitely not a quick game – and I found it to be a little bit tricky to know what the best strategies are, given you’re not provided with odds of success on tasks, and have little information on what your opponents are up to. Still, worth a look for strategists.

Being another relatively new game, we’ve not seen any steep discounts on Sigma Theory yet. With a normal price around £15, it’s only been half-price once, with a few other £10-ish sales too. Picking this wont save you the most money, but it’s a decent chance to pick up a newer game cheaply.

An action-platformer with anime style. Metal Unit has all the good (and bad) you’d come to expect from that description. It’s a pretty competent game overall, but I think your mileage will vary depending on your interest in the aesthetics. It’s also an Early Access game – so there’s a chance to shape the future of this one, but it also means it’s not totally finished just yet.

Having only released in February 2020, this has already been on sale for £6 (down from it’s £11 normal price). I’d expect to see it below a fiver in the future, and there’s nothing to say “must-have” now. I’d wishlist this for the best value and save your picks for others this month. Try the demo first!

Don’t Escape is quite interesting. Point-and-click, with a bit of survival thrown in – and randomised story mixing up each playthrough. Plenty of replayability, and relatively quick to get through each day of the game too. If you enjoy point-and-clicks, you’ll likely want to try this one out.

Recently, this has been on discount to around £5 – which feels like a good price for this game. So it’s up to you whether you want to save the fiver and picking this, or if you’re happy to save the pick and wait for the next sale.

Another month, another speedrunner’s dream game. Verlet Swing is classic speedrunning platforming – with a swinging rope! Kinda like belting through levels on a ninja rope in old-school Worms. If you can get the timing and swinging right in this, it feels awesome. Worth picking up for fans of challenging platformers.

In the Steam summer sale, this was on sale for £3.87 – the lowest it’s ever been on sale, but an idea of what you might be able to buy this for. Unless you’re desperate for a new speedrunning game, I’d wait to see it back around that price.

It’s generally quite weird to think of a game set in Basingstoke, let alone named after it too. This zombie-survival roguelike has the crafting and limited resources you’d expect – but with quite a hefty emphasis on stealth as opposed to more run-and-gun-style zombie games you might be familiar with. One-hit kills encourage you to stay in the shadows. The quirky graphics help it stand out from the gory realism of other zombie games, too.

Basingstoke is often available below a fiver, even as low as £3 quite recently. Expect to see it around that price again as the game is two years old now. Other Choices are probably better value – I’d wishlist this one for a decent sale price if you’re curious, and save your picks for other games this month.

Cute turn-based RPG. Not a huge amount more to say really! It’s a solid game for those with nostalgia for 90s JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest et al. There’s also a demo available, so feel free to try before you Choice.

Earthlock can be found on sale for less than a fiver – actually quite often, too. By all means, pick it up here, but you won’t be saving huge amounts of money. And after the demo, you might decide you’d rather not pick it up either way!

The extras for the month are a preview of Popup Dungeon (pictured) and a DRM-free copy of Grotto.

Popup Dungeon seems like it’s building a really solid set of tools, as much as a game. It’s a tactical RPG bringing a lot of elements together including ability cards, upgrades and custom assets to make your own games with. It could shape up into something very interesting for players and creators alike, so keep an eye on this one.

I don’t know what to make of Grotto. I can’t find much about it online, and it seems to be a game of you making constellations to appease various creatures that you can talk to. I’m… Not sure what it is. But hey – it’s a bonus!