Saturday’s Wholesome Direct showcased dozens of (yes, wholesome) games, including four that surprise launched alongside the event. Four whole games! Those games are Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge, POOOOL, The Palace on the Hill, and Tracks of Thought. All are available on Windows PC Steam, but you’ll also find Kamaeru on itch.io and Nintendo Switch; The Palace on the Hill on Android, Apple iOS, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X; and Tracks of Thought on Windows PC via the Epic Games Store.
Kamaera is basically a frog farming simulator, where you’re essentially setting up a habitat for your frogs to thrive, while POOOOL is a physics puzzle game that sounds like a twisted Suika Game. Meanwhile, The Palace on the Hill is a slice-of-life game about life in rural India in the ’90s and Tracks of Thought is a card-based mystery solving ride. They all couldn’t be more different, but each looks delightfully wholesome all the same.
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Image: Humble Reeds/Armor Game Studios
Beyond the four surprise released games, the Wholesome Direct was not short on games to get excited for. Some that I’m looking forward to include Squeakross: Home Squeak Home, which is mouse Picross; Été, a watercolor painting simulator; Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato, an adventure game about getting a potato for your grandma’s soup; While Waiting, a silly game that makes you wait around; Tiny Bookshop, which has a new demo available; and Wax Heads, where you run a record store.
There were too many incredible looking games shown during the Wholesome Direct to list here, so if you missed the show, I’d recommend watching it for yourself. There’s a lot to look forward to in the next couple of years.