Humble Choice June: Pick’n’Mix Rundown

Supraland is one of those games that you might’ve seen somewhere but then missed on release. But it’s a fantastic, charming puzzle-exploration game that really hits all the right notes for me. Made by a tiny dev team, it’s a testament to the potential of modern game-creation tools. But don’t take my word for it – there’s a demo on Steam for you to try it yourself before you make it a Choice.

Supraland is a weird headliner. It’s a great game, sure. And it fits in with Humble’s indie rep. But it’s also only £16 regularly priced, and quite often available below half price – pretty close to impulse-buy territory. I’d say to try the demo out, see what you think. But either on sale or picking here, you won’t save a huge amount of money.

A decent take on the driving game, GRID sits somewhere in between sim-style and arcade racers. It looks and handles fine, and offers a decent amount of stuff to do in this Ultimate Edition. There are better driving titles out there – particularly if you prefer something more realistic. It’s not even Codemasters’ best driving game (the F1 series tops this – albeit in that niche). But this is a solid game nonetheless, and worth a few hours for fans.

GRID – at the time of writing – is available at the lowest-ever price on Steam of £8.99. The Ultimate Edition is also reduced down to £13.49 from £45. As the most expensive title in the bundle, it looks like the price has progressively been getting lower over the last year. Still a lot of content as a Choice (and the biggest way to save money this month), but sales are making it pretty budget-friendly on Steam anyway.

If you haven’t already heard of Hellblade, where have you been? Ninja Theory’s stunning depiction of psychosis won awards left, right, and centre, raising the bar for “games as art”. Winning mass praise for its sensitive tackling of the subject matter – and graphical fidelity – Hellblade is one of the best indies of recent years. Worth a look for action-adventure lovers – and there’s a VR edition included, too.

So it’s a great game – but it’s also one that lots of people will already have picked up. It’s been in Humble Monthly before (July 2019 – if you’re a long-term subscriber) and it’s often available for less than a tenner. It’s a great Choice, but fairly cheap anyway. That might sway your judgement.

Retro-inspired platforming goodness – complete with chiptune soundtrack. The Messenger handles well, has Metroidvania elements and an upgrade tree, lighthearted story and writing… A lot to like here if you’re a fan of platformers.

This has previously been free on the Epic Games Store – so if you’ve been collecting their freebies, you might already have this. Otherwise, you can often get it around £8 on sale. It’s only £15.49 anyway so not a huge saving on sale compared to here. If you love platformers, this one is worth picking up.

A cool little take on survival horror and ship-building, Barotrauma has layers upon layers upon layers. It’s typically difficult. There’s loads to learn. It’s atmospheric and best enjoyed playing with friends. If you’ve enjoyed stuff like Sheltered, FTL, even Don’t Starve Together… You’ll probably get a kick out of Barotrauma.

This one’s currently Early Access (since July 2019) and hasn’t dipped below £10 yet, so is one of the better value titles in this months’ selection. If you’re a survivalist, I’d really recommend picking it up here rather than waiting for sales. They’re not quite as good as for some of the other games.

Felix the Reaper is a quirky puzzler where you guide a dancing reaper to their objectives. You control shadows for Felix to move through with Hitman Go-style controls. The music and animations are well pulled together, and it’s worth a look for people who enjoyed any of the Go games.

Felix is often available around £5 on sale (sometimes a little below that), and is currently on Game Pass for PC too.

A World War 2 RTS. Just these words will make it a pick for some! There’s plenty on offer here too, with several campaigns to crack on with. It’s definitely more attritional than some RTS’, and suits the setting pretty well through that. This is also the Warchest Edition, so it includes a bunch of DLC in addition to the base game.

The flipside of the amount of game you’re getting is that it’s an older game now, and so frequently on sale. The Warchest Edition is quite often available around £6-8 on sale, while the base game can be found for under a fiver. Worth getting the Warchest version for DLC, but up to you whether it’s better here or on sale.

Lovecraftian RPG in the vein of classic Fallout, with a dash of Don’t Starve and slow, slow movement. It captures the dense, prose-heavy horror of Lovecraft reasonably well, and gives you a ton of freedom to roleplay the way you want to. The difficulty is ramped up pretty high too, but that’s likely to work for devotees to the form.

Buyer/picker beware: the story is unfinished and ends in a cliffhanger. From the devs announcement of this, it sounds like they cut the ending out to get this game finished, rather than it always meaning to end there. It’s also rarely available under £10 on sale. If you’re curious, I’d get it here to save you buying it in the future. There is a demo available too, and I’d recommend trying first. I really didn’t get on with it.

Another platformer for the month and this one features grappling hooks! Slingshotting through levels is great fun when you get it right. Reminds me of trying to fling yourself across a map with the Ninja Rope in Worms. Oh, and your runs are all timed – so this is a speedrunner’s dream.

It’s a good game, but you might be worth waiting for a sale. It’s only £7 anyway, and goes down to about £3.50 on sale. Bargain. It also seems to be a sales regular, so wishlist this and keep an eye on the upcoming Steam sales unless you have a spare Choice to make.

This space-shooter is good fun. In an age of staring down sights/gun barrels, just blasting stuff is refreshing. Overload plays a little bit like Unreal Tournament in spaceships – complete with rotating and getting totally disorientated. The soundtrack is cool too – and it plays in VR! I found it made me a little dizzy playing on a normal monitor, so VR might take a strong stomach – or a long acclimation time.

Often marked down to around £7-8, it’s not the biggest value game out there. But if you’ve got VR and don’t want to spend extra on seeing whether you handle this game motion-wise, it’s worth grabbing here if you’ve activated your picks.

Slow-burn arthouse indie. Another slow-moving game, the emphasis initially is on ruminating and contemplation of a slower way of life. It’s also quite a short game, complete-able in about 3 hours. It’s also described on Steam as “a quiet game of life and loss”. There’s a sting in the tail and you might not find that so pleasant.

This one is currently on sale for £3.49 on Steam at time of writing. Might be better saving a pick here and getting it there at that price. It’s also a bundle regular, so check whether you’ve already picked it up elsewhere.

Another curious platformer with a unique control style. The King’s Bird equips you with flight – of the typical momentum-dependent kind. Getting a chain of dives and glides just right feels awesome – but it’s hard to get it regularly right. It’s a nice change of pace, and the art style is pretty too.

This is another one worth wishlisting unless you’ve got a spare pick. It’s regularly on sale for £3/4 from Humble or Steam, so it might be better value to get some other games from this month.

The extras for the month include Before I Forget and a sneak peek at Ikenfell. There’s also the BONUS GAME that is released on July 3rd. Last time Humble included a bonus game, it turned out to be Train Valley 2 – so you might expect something of similar calibre here.

Before I Forget is a walking simulator that’s due to release in July on Steam – so this is your chance to get a free copy of it if you like the genre. According to the game, it should be played through in an hour. Weirdly, it’s a Humble Original, but not available on their storefront at the moment. Likely to end up in the Trove shortly, I’d imagine.

Ikenfell (pictured) is a tactical RPG. The demo drops you into a tutorial, and then Chapter 2. The combat plays out a little like Paper Mario with some grid-based movement added in. I found the demo pretty enjoyable, so this one might be worth wishlisting if you love RPGs.