This War Of Mine and Moonlighter are both free on Epic this week
A decent double-bill of freebies
Epic Games started out giving away one free game per fortnight to lure people into their new Store. Then they moved to weekly giveaways. Now, this week, they have two games free for keepsies. I don't know where this acceleration of freebies ends, but I can tell you that you have seven days to grab This War Of Mine and Moonlighter.
This War Of Mine is an unusual survival game released in 2014 by 11 Bit Studios, who went on to explore grim survival further with Frostpunk. Our former Alec (RPS in peace) described it as "The Sims, mostly, but transplanted from consumerist America to an unspecified (but apparently Eastern European) nation shattered by conflict." That makes for pretty grim times, he explained in his This War Of Mine review.
"And even during this desperate struggle for subsistence, luxuries are still needed. Your civilians will see and do terrible things – others' suffering, others' violence, their own violence to others – and their mental health will decline for it. A bad cigarette, a bottle of moonshine or a cup of coffee might help them function, but can you really justify the resources and effort necessary to obtain such indulgences when there's no damn food or firewood?"
11 Bit are still working on This War Of Mine. Its third expansion, telling a new story, is due out in August.
As for Moonlighter, that's an action-RPG where we murder monsters then sell their guts in our own shop. Surely inspired in part by Recettear, right? Our former John (RPS in pieces) called Digital Sun's game "very charming" and "very beautiful" in his Moonlighter review last year. He explained the premise:
"Take a good dose of rogue-lite action-RPG, add in permanence of equipment, and then delicately smother in a shopkeeping sim. It's a game about raiding dungeons at night, then working in the days to sell the loot from your store.
"I'm not one for shopkeeping/gardening/tax-form-filling, or any of these mysteriously popular boring-job-sims that you kids love. So let that be the words of relief needed to anyone else put off by the idea. Stick with this."
Head on over to the Epic Games Store to grab This War and Moonlighter if you want 'em.
The double-bills of freebies will continue next week with For Honor and Alan Wake.