Wot I Think: Overland
I spent a non-zero amount of time over the weekend imagining a dark future where the incredible popularity of Twitter account Can You Pet The Dog? led scores of indie developers to include ill-fitting snozzle-scratching mechanics in their games. Should this dark time of Very Good Boys come to pass, a game you couldn’t accuse of jumping on the dog wagon is Finji’s Overland, since it’s been letting players stuff actual wagons with dogs for a couple of years now.
Overland is a turn-based tactical game, in which each dog (or person) under your control has two actions to do stuff on a grid, after which things that want you dead get a turn to do stuff on a grid. It’s also a survival game, in that you need at least one of your dogs (or people) to survive in order to keep playing. It’s a roguelite, in that it offers harsh penalties for failure, and it’s also a puzzle game thanks to the discrete problems it presents for you to overcome. It’s whimsical, but very tough.