The Steam Winter Sale is upon us, and both Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow are on sale! We also have a bundle with both games that stacks a 15% discount on whatever sale is already going on. So you can pick both up at once for just under $30, or finish the bundle to still get that extra discount if you already own one.

While we're here I'd love to also take a moment to plug some other bundles we're in. We don't do a lot of bundles with other studios, and all of the titles we bundle with are personally vetted by us, your friendly neighborhood devs, as Good Video Games. All of these bundles are piecemeal, so if you already own one or more games in them, you can still get the extra discount on those other titles.

First up is the Cartoonists Turned Game Devs bundle, which has both Scarlet Hollow as well as Meredith Gran's deeply, deeply underrated Perfect Tides. Perfect Tides is one of my favorite narrative games of all time, so please do yourself a favor and pick it up if you haven't already!

Next up is the World-Ending Women bundle, which has both Slay the Princess and the fantastic El Paso, Elsewhere, a Max Payne-inspired supernatural shooter where you have to stop your vampire ex-girlfriend from ending the world. It's written by Xalavier Nelson Jr, who you might know from such wonderfully charming titles as Hypnospace Outlaw and An Airport for Aliens Currently Run By Dogs.

Last but not least is Horrors of the Heart, which has Scarlet Hollow and two other dating sims: the fully-voice acted and very funny Lovecraftian dating sim Sucker for Love, and normal cute dating sim Cooking Companions where nothing bad ever happens.

HAPPY shopping, and hope y'all play some fun games for the holidays :D

El Paso, Elsewhere - what even is modern retro gaming? | Renegade Cut

Roger has been nominated 'Best Lead Performance' for his role as Jack Leary in Fort Solis in GameLuster's 2023 GOTY Awards! It is so richly deserved. 👏👏

Other nominees include:

Ben Starr as Clive Rosfield in Final Fantasy XVI

Nadji Jeter as Miles Molares in Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Neil Newbon as Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3

Xalavier Nelson Jr. as James Savage in El Paso Elsewhere

Goodbye Volcano High among NPR's best video games of 2023!!

An impending meteor is racing toward Pangea, but Fang, a nonbinary anthropomorphic pterodactyl, has more pressing issues. Their best friend is showing more interest in entomology than the band they started as kids. A shy would-be paramour has started sending Fang anonymous texts. And their brother is trying to hold the family together as their parents struggle to connect with Fang. Meanwhile, news of the coming meteor rolls out slowly: It’s met first with a shrug and then with social media memes and despair — not unlike our own experiences with COVID-19 and climate change. The imminent apocalypse amplifies tensions among Fang’s gang of dorky dinosaur friends, all of whom are also dealing with the sudden cancellation of plans and aspirations. But aided by a brilliant dialogue system and Rock Band-style rhythm challenges, Goodbye Volcano High still manages to be wholesome and hopeful, even in the face of potential extinction. — James Mastromarino, NPR Gaming lead and Here & Now producer

Anybody who’s known me for long enough (roughly five minutes) will know I’m quite open about the less “chipper” aspects of my life. I did so well at being abused I won the top prize of PTSD. I’m also a chronic pain sufferer who has to balance my need for pain medication against being inevitably hooked on the stuff. These aren’t facts one would expect to be uniquely and explicitly relevant in a videogame review, but here we are.

El Paso, Elsewhere is unlike any other videogame, despite being exactly like another videogame. It is at once a rather transparent copy of Max Payne and a brilliantly presented story of abusive relationships and drug addiction.

Plus vampires.

El Paso, Elsewhere Review

El Paso, Elsewhere is fucking incredible. All I was expecting was a Halloween flavored Max Payne send up and while I definitely got that I think it's unfair for this game to live in that shadow. It takes so much from that series but rearranges and tweaks those things to achieve it's own identity.

I love urban fantasy. Dresden Files, Vampire The Masquerade, Blackwell. A supernatural underworld just below the surface of humanity. Often treating humans like cattle or at least disposable for their own purposes. I find it so interesting and El Paso is no exception. The little bits of worldbuilding we get paint a similar picture but this one is much more abstract.

You play James Savage who is currently in a three-story motel that just got a 46 story expansion all heading down, courtesy of his ex, Draculae. She's taking part in some sort of ritual that will end the world and has plenty of hostages. Whatever this ritual is doing is causing The Void to warp reality with trauma into a nightmarish thrill ride all the way to the bottom where they'll confront everything that made their relationship come to this.

All supernatural chaos aside their abusive relationship manages to feel very real in the little ways they interact and the voice acting helps this exponentially. It's clear to me the writer knows what this kind of relationship feels like. It's not afraid to poke fun at the melodrama of two ex lovers confronting each other either. These two characters the story revolves around are flawed and fleshed out and I really enjoyed them.

James' descent into this hellish motel feels incredible. Diving past ghouls, rolling through their slashes and slow mo blasting them in the head. Saving hostages in between brief bursts of violence and popping enough pain pills to kill himself 50 times over just to tank through The Void's horde of supernatural horrors. If you hold down the dive button you can stay on the floor until you're out of ammo and need to get up to reload. Like I said it's Max Payne. The one main tweak in the gameplay besides enemy variety is an instant kill stake that you get 5 of and break various pieces of furniture to get more. Break shit, kill people. That's the gameplay loop and god is it addicting.

Which brings me to the music. It's pulse pounding and intense in a way that feeds perfectly into the gameplay. Other times moody or relaxing but always experimental and playful. Any time a track with lyrics comes up feels like a treat. It's one of those total package things where the visuals, sound design, gameplay and music are all working together perfectly. The entire OST has me seriously considering getting the vinyl.

El Paso, Elsewhere is a must play. There's so much I didn't mention because I want you to unravel the rest of this one for yourself. I'll definitely be trying to 100% this in the future and it's safe to say I'll be replaying this for many years to come.

Into the Aether | 251 | The Scariest Text

You haven’t heard from them in two years. Things are going well, at this point you don’t even think about them… but then that notification hits. Discussed: Final Fantasy XIV, Eggs Inc, The Retroid Pocket Flip, Trails in the Sky, Red Dead Redemption for Switch, Resident Evil 4 Remake: Separate Ways, Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk, Milk Outside A Bag Of Milk Outside A Bag Of Milk, El Paso Elsewhere, Dead Space Remake

Listen to the show here 😘

everyday i check the el paso elsewhere tag for fanart and everyday i am met with disappointment i must make my own

El Paso, Elsewhere をプレイしてクリアした。

難易度Intentedで12hぐらい。

めっちゃ面白かったです！

爽快感のあるゲームプレイ、かっこいいラップ調のBGM、最後まで気になるストーリー、どれもが嚙み合ってて最高にクールなゲームになっている。

最初は世界の滅亡をいかに止めるかって話なのかと思ってたけど実際は神話上のモンスターが出てくるラブストーリー。

そして最後はハッピーエンドといえるのだろうか。（グッドではないと思う）

まだ英語のみしかないけど日本語verがきたらもう一度プレイして世界観に没入してみたい。

今年最後にして今年一番のインディーゲームだったと思う。

Played around an hour of "el paso, elsewhere".

I have a lot of things to say about it but right now ill say how cool it is that they replicated the max payne style quit messeges. the team around this game knew what they were doing

It's so good i love it.

I just finished getting both endings in El Paso Elswhere, and my god it’s been such a long time since I’ve had anything scratch the itches this game has. Usually I have to choose between great gameplay and a great story, but this delivered on both accounts in droves. Even the way the gameplay is staged compliments the narrative of the character being impartial to reality at any given moment choking down bottles of painkillers to keep ignoring what should have killed anyone else. I really do hope this game reaches an even wider audience because I loved every minute of it and it’s presentation!

Reading this makes me really happy!

Thank you so much. It means a lot to me (and to the team). The development of this game has been tough for us over the last few months but it really pays off to read messages like these. Tell your friends about the game! We really want to keep making games and we need all the help we can get.

FOLKS if you've just finished Slay the Princess and need more Doomed Supernatural Romance, OR if you need an extra little incentive to pick up not one, but TWO hot indie games, we are very happy to announce the WORLD-ENDING WOMEN bundle on Steam. Get both Slay the Princess and El Paso, Elsewhere for 15% off, and if you already own one game, you can finish the bundle to pick up the other with that extra discount.

For those of you who don't know about El Paso, Elsewhere, it's a Max Payne-inspired shooter where you play a vampire hunter who has to stop your ex-girlfriend, who just so happens to be the lord of the vampires, from finishing a ritual that will end the world. The writing is great and the level design is fresh, and we really only ever bundle with games that we're happy to give our personal seal of approval for.

Easily one of my favorite indies this year.

Link to the bundle:

#LaKeithStanfield is going to star in film adaptation of EL PASO ELSEWHERE

Goodbye Volcano High among PRESS START's "Indie Games of 2023 that You Shouldn't Sleep On" !!!

GOODBYE VOLCANO HIGH The idea of a choice-driven narrative adventure combined with a rhythm game is already literal music to my ears, but Goodbye Volcano High blew away my expectations at every turn. The art and animations put it at the level of quality of a televised production and the teen garage band musical styling is so intoxicating that I still listen to the soundtrack on the regular.

New review time, for Strange Scaffold's new indie title El Paso, Elsewhere.

A third person shooter with slow motion in the style of Max Payne, this game is about love and how you keep going.