Rob Covell, Author at Big Boss Battle (B3)

Clean Up Earth – Scrubs up well?

Rob Covell — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:00:54 +0000

As you clean up, you’ll gain recyclable rubbish that you can take to a machine which will turn it into coins or usable resources. Coins can be used to upgrade your Terra Cleaner and its attachments, whilst resources are used in the environment to open up new areas with ladders and bridges.

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Turnbound – You turn me right bound, baby

Rob Covell — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 12:42:08 +0000

The actual game has you placing tiles on a grid that will be used to attack your enemy with the goal of reducing the character themselves to zero health. At first you’ll have a few empty slots and a couple of items to place, but after a few rounds you’ll have access to a lot more space and equipment to tinker with.

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I Hate this Place – Strong words

Rob Covell — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:00:14 +0000

This wouldn’t be so bad if melee was viable, but it’s unbelievably janky. Swinging your bat at enemies seems to damage them, but there’s little feedback, and the same is true of enemies attacking you. I thought I was holding off a giant spider well enough, only to realise in the aftermath that I’d lost ninety percent of my health.

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Warhounds Playtest – In for a woof time?

Rob Covell — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 13:41:49 +0000

Even though it’s only a small slice of the full game, Warhounds does demonstrate some promising gameplay. The turn-based tactical missions are serviceable, if a little simplistic when compared to other games. You’ll move from cover to cover and abuse overwatch to take out groups of enemy soldiers.

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Don’t Press That Mine Turtle Uncensored is an non-family friendly expansion for the reptilian truth or dare classic

Rob Covell — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 14:00:22 +0000

I appreciate that that’s a question of taste more than anything else. Don’t Press That Mine Turtle Uncensored doesn’t care about taste at all, and you’d better be comfortable with the other players if you’re going to wheel this one out.

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Don’t Press That Mine Turtle Reloaded

Rob Covell — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:00:46 +0000

The new cards are really more of the same, so don’t expect a seismic shift in the gameplay. Things like identifying which player most recently pooped, or delivering wedding vows to another player are pretty funny in most situations.

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Steel Century Groove – Pop, lock, and load

Rob Covell — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:00:51 +0000

It’s certainly fun, and once the mechanics open up, you’ll have a really good time. The presentation leaves a lot to be desired though. Whilst the Tenzens look neat enough, you won’t get to pay much attention to them in battle due to how laser focused you’ll need to be on nailing notes. Other models and the world itself really didn’t do it for me though, looking more like something out of Roblox.

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Don’t Press That Mine Turtle – Will this game blow up?

Rob Covell — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 14:00:11 +0000

Don’t Press That Mine Turtle is essentially truth or dare. Each player has three cards that have challenges on them that they then set for another player to complete. If the recipient can’t or won’t complete that challenge, they have to press the button on the back of the titular turtle a set number of times.

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Hungry Horrors – Fright bite!

Rob Covell — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 19:00:54 +0000

Being a princess, you’re obviously far too important to bother yourself with this nonsense, but unfortunately you find yourself in possession of a magical cauldron that will cook the food needed to sate these beasts. Who bestowed this curse? Why are you the chosen one? Where is your dashing prince?

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The Spirit Lift – High Spirits

Rob Covell — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 19:00:52 +0000

The bulk of The Spirit Lift plays like most rogue-lites, but I really did like how you would set up for your runs. Because you’re a group of students, before each run you choose your group of three that act as your starting deck and items. Each student plays in quite a different way, with Tobias being a blunt instrument for smashing enemies, whilst Maria can keep on topping up your energy to allow you to play more cards each turn.

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Demonschool – Occult studies

Rob Covell — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:00:37 +0000

The trick rapidly becomes powering up your team, manoeuvring enemies into place, and then striking them all at once. It’s immensely satisfying when you manage to get things right.

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Gunnar Monterey – California Sun

Rob Covell — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:00:54 +0000

These glasses are specifically designed to reduce eye strain thanks to tints that block out blue light and minimise glare that can be damaging to eyes. They also purport to trap more moist air around your eyes, decreasing the likelihood of dryness.

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Clean Up Earth Demo – Rubbish?

Rob Covell — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 14:00:43 +0000

What is neat is the inclusion of recyclable rubbish that you take to machines which turn them into usable resources. Yes, there’s currency to upgrade your tools, but you’ll also get wood, ropes, and other such items that can build environmental features to allow access to more areas.

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Tozo PE1 – Soaking sounds

Rob Covell — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:00:26 +0000

Available in three colours and coming in at under £35, the Tozo PE1 is a very small speaker that isn’t designed with booming sound in mind. Its reduced size is designed to make it portable, and the attached clip allows you to set it up wherever you are.

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Powerwash Simulator 2 – Cleanin’ up

Rob Covell — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:00:55 +0000

Other changes are minor, but welcome. You no longer need to buy soap if you want to use it. Instead you have a reserve that refills over time which means you don’t have to waste money on replacing it. This is nice considering soap really speeds up the cleaning process. In fact I did pretty much the whole game by soaping everything first as it almost always ensured no spots were missed.

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Creepy Shift: Roadside Diner – Food for fraught

Rob Covell — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:00:06 +0000

Anyway, spooky things do happen, and you’ll be under threat from them before too long. Keeping the doors closed is easy enough as there aren’t any shenanigans involving them beyond you opening or closing them to pass through. The jukebox, though, is more irritating. Occasionally it will start playing music and you’ll need to go and switch it off. Easy enough, but it becomes annoying once it starts teleporting around meaning that you’ll need to go and hunt it down.

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Rob’s Top 5 Games of 2025

Rob Covell — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 12:00:59 +0000

I’ve played far fewer new releases this year than in previous ones, which I think is mostly down to putting more time into bigger games rather than more, quicker offerings. As ever though, this is purely based on games I’ve played, so if you feel Hades 2 is missing, that’s because I haven’t got around to it yet. I will though.

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Amanda the Adventurer 3 – Tape player

Rob Covell — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 19:00:30 +0000

If you’ve played the previous games, then you likely know what to expect, and if you haven’t then starting on the third game seems a bit silly. For the uninitiated, you’ll need to watch the video tape and pause it at certain points to go and find part of a puzzle’s solution in the environment. If you do this successfully, you’ll find the next video tape and can move on. If not, the tape ends and you’ll need to run through it again to figure out what to do.

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Karma: The Dark World – Deep dive

Rob Covell — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 14:00:47 +0000

The purpose of ROAM agents is to investigate people for anything that might be opposed to this regime by diving into their memories to find any evidence of wrongdoing. Daniel’s initial investigation into someone seemingly stealing from work quickly descends into secret experimentation and conspiracy that seems to focus on him and his family.

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Radiolight – What’s the frequency?

Rob Covell — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 19:00:34 +0000

Exploring the park itself is quite nice. Whilst you do have a map that includes your exact location on it, it feels as though you can get lost due to how wide each area is. Gamers have an instinct to follow the path that is least obvious for the sake of finding secrets. And secrets you can find, as there are a lot of items you can report to Rob to get a little more background on the case.

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Hotel Barcelona – The Eagles aren’t here

Rob Covell — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 19:00:30 +0000

Fairly by the numbers so far, but the issue is that the combat is so utterly lacklustre. It doesn’t matter which weapon you use, nothing feels like it has any impact at all thanks to the outrageously floaty feeling controls and impossible to figure out hitboxes. Every attack feels anaemic.

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Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition – Match 3 magic

Rob Covell — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 19:00:53 +0000

One of the selling points of Puzzle Quest was that it was a match-3 puzzle game with an RPG style plot, and whilst it certainly has that, it’s pretty standard fantasy fare with you having to save the kingdom from an evil lord and their forces of darkness.

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Hecate G2000 Pro – Finally my games sound good!

Rob Covell — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 12:00:39 +0000

I particularly liked the USB option though, as being connected to a PC allows you to make use of the downloadable app to tinker with all sorts of different sound settings. Whilst I won’t claim to have a clue what I’m doing, the inclusion is certainly nice.

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Tiny Bookshop – Add it to your library

Rob Covell — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 14:00:03 +0000

You need to pay attention to what sells in each venue, as this helps you determine what to put on your limited shelf space. Kids books tend to sell better at the beach, so making sure you have plenty on hand would be smart, whilst the pier tends to have more people looking for travel books. It’s a nice little feature that gives you a little more work to do than simply turning up and selling everything.

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Clover Pit – Bet your life?

Rob Covell — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 14:00:27 +0000

Here, you’re trapped in a room with a toilet, a slot machine, and a key in a lockbox. You’re forced to try and win enough money to pay an ever increasing “debt” with the hopes of eventually earning said key. Fail to meet your target, and you’ll meet a swift demise. Even if you succeed, things probably won’t go your way. Why are you trapped here? Who’s pulling the strings? And is there actually a way out?

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The Scouring – I’m gonna RTS like it’s 1995

Rob Covell — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 18:00:34 +0000

If you played the likes of Warcraft or Command & Conquer back in the day, you’ll feel immediately at home. The controls are exactly what you’ll remember, from contextual right clicking to numbered control groups, everything feels like it did thirty-some years ago.

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Whirly Derby – Marble madness

Rob Covell — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 13:00:36 +0000

The concept of Whirly Derby is pretty simple. You each have a set of marbles of a single colour, you select a number of marbles to enter into a race and put them into a provided cardboard cup, then roll them into the circular tray. The marbles will spin around and drop down a hole in the middle, a bit like those charity boxes you still see in some supermarkets! The first colour out claims the first prize in the form of a trophy.

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Shuten Order – The power of god!

Rob Covell — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 13:00:45 +0000

Playing as the founder of the titular Shuten Order, disaster strikes from the moment the game opens. You’ve been murdered, seemingly by one of the five leaders of the different ministries of your order. Lucky for you, you’ve been revived by the Power of God and are given five days to find the culprit, force them to confess, and then kill them to reclaim your soul and be returned to life.

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Cyber Clutch – Neon sprint

Rob Covell — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:00:59 +0000

Car designs are fabulous, and the tracks feel like bonkers cityscapes in a technology-gone-mad future and I really like how the art style comes together as something really fitting for the type of game the devs are going for.

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Parking World – Not a space game

Rob Covell — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 13:00:14 +0000

Once you have an idea on how to get everything working, this can be quite fun to mess around with. You start by laying out a ground floor using foundations on which you can put parking spaces. That’s not enough though, as cars need to be directed around the carpark and to the exit, so you’ll also have to place arrows to tell traffic where to go.

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Edifier R1 – Open your ears

Rob Covell — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 13:00:25 +0000

Whilst the Edifier R1 feels a little odd at first, it doesn’t take long for you to stop noticing that you have them on, and it was only when I went to adjust them that I realised where they were positioned. Equally, they’re surprisingly sturdy, even whilst running.

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Luto – Good grief

Rob Covell — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 18:00:48 +0000

I think it’s the sort of game where you need to go into it blind and experience all of its insanity with as little background knowledge as possible.

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The Night Shift – Looking shifty

Rob Covell — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 13:00:03 +0000

Making things trickier are the mannequins that at first simply stand around. Some of them are active, whilst others are aggressive but it won’t be clear which are which until they actually become active. Your objectives will funnel you in certain directions which will often force you past a large number of mannequins and you’ll be attacked rather quickly if you don’t listen out for the sound cues.

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Drill Core — Dig in!

Rob Covell — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:00:46 +0000

You manage an entire team of workers who head down into an ever more expansive mineshaft to gather resources that you’ll use to upgrade your mine platform. Once you’ve gained enough, your platform will take your team deeper to gather ever more shiny rocks until you reach a depth quota and can evacuate.

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Nightmare Frontier gives Wild West Worries

Rob Covell — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 13:00:27 +0000

In what is probably my favourite inclusion in Nightmare Frontier, each party member has their own fear which will manifest in the battles you take them into. This means you can tailor your run to face the enemies you want to fight and have less of a random element. Do you find the self-healing Wendigo a pain to deal with? Then don’t take a party member that has a fear of Wendigo and they won’t turn up. Find the Creepy Puppet an easy foe? Take someone that’s afraid of them then.

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Hello Stranger – Chat Russian Roulette

Rob Covell — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 13:00:26 +0000

Obviously though, this is the internet, so things go wrong for Cam quite quickly when he comes across a chat partner who manages to hack his smart home and traps him in a deadly online game.

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Cook, Serve, Forever – Is it delicious?

Rob Covell — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 18:00:02 +0000

The first thing that struck me about Cook, Serve, Forever was that there was a plot, complete with visual novel style cutscenes. You play as Nori, a girl living in a down-on-its-luck town in the near future. Having been taught how to cook by her now late mother, she makes a living by concocting delicious street food for people in the community.

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Worshippers of Cthulhu — Is it an eldritch blast?

Rob Covell — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 20:38:21 +0000

To keep things on theme, the resources you generate are sometimes a bit more unusual. Instead of money, you have faith to spend on constructions, and whilst wood is a standard building material, the only clothing you can offer is robes and your military is powered by blood rather than oil.

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Occlude – Dark heart of the cards

Rob Covell — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 14:00:19 +0000

Each stage begins with a short story about someone who has done something terrible and has come across this very deck of cards. The deck will allow them to change what they did, but only if they complete a ritual correctly. There are hints of some eldritch power behind the cards...

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Sunderfolk – Sundertale?

Rob Covell — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 13:00:00 +0000

Control works very nicely too, with everything being done on your phone screen. When moving, you drag your finger across your screen and you can see the path your character will take, following your finger around the hexes. It’s a little clunky at first, but doesn’t take long to get the hang of, though it is better on larger screens than smaller phones.

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Soulslinger – High Noon

Rob Covell — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 13:00:15 +0000

The art direction in Soulslinger is excellent. I loved going into these desolate weird west adjacent places, from standard canyons and streets to demon ravaged farmlands and miasma poisoned townships. Every new location looked impressive and begged to be explored further.

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Snowsquall Grip – Frostbite

Rob Covell — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 13:00:54 +0000

You can’t be away from a heat source for more than thirty seconds before your display starts getting distorted as you suffer from the effects of the weather. I can understand why this is done when the play area is so small, but trying to find a small item on the ground with a distorting screen is very irritating.

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Moving Houses – Changing rooms

Rob Covell — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 13:00:20 +0000

But then the house changed, with rooms being added and entirely new floors appearing. The first time this happened, I genuinely started second guessing myself and thought I simply hadn’t spotted that door, but then more and more turns up, and the friendly instructions become more passive aggressive, and then overtly aggressive.

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Chasmal Fear – Afraid it’s a no from me

Rob Covell — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 13:00:41 +0000

I quite like the mechanic of some monsters mutating and reviving after death unless you use your knife on them. This reminds me of the Crimson Heads from the remake of Resident Evil, with you needing to use your serum loaded knife if a body glows red when they die. Annoyingly, there’s absolutely no indication if you have any serum loaded in your knife in spite of you picking it up in the environment.

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Centum – Actual Intelligence

Rob Covell — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 13:00:36 +0000

I describe Centum as being more akin to a visual novel, as really there aren’t any serious puzzles to solve, inventory items to manage, or information to carry from area to area. This isn’t a knock on the game as it’s designed in this way, but if you’re looking into playing, it’s worth noting that the majority of the game won’t challenge your puzzle solving skills.

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Monster Train 2 – To hell and back

Rob Covell — Thu, 22 May 2025 18:00:48 +0000

If you played the original, Monster Train 2 is more of that but with a few new twists. For the uninitiated though, your job is to complete eight fights on the way to the centre of heaven, picking up new cards and abilities between each battle. Battles take place in a carriage on your strangely vertical train. The lower three floors have space for monsters to defend the carriage, with your pyre on the top floor being the target of your enemies. Each round, new enemies will enter the train on the bottom floor, and you’ll play monster cards to hold them off, bolstered by spells to boost your power and directly attack enemies.

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Spirit of the North 2 – North Harder

Rob Covell — Thu, 15 May 2025 13:00:34 +0000

Now, the previous game had similar themes, but this was presented in a much more linear way. Your fox would go from level to level, completing traversal puzzles in semi-open areas. You could explore to find secrets if you wanted, or you could mainline it through more regions with the fun, if occasionally janky, movement system. Spirit of the North 2 does away with that and gives you a very large open world to explore.

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Spreadcheat – Excel in business

Rob Covell — Wed, 14 May 2025 13:00:28 +0000

I quite enjoyed this if I’m honest, as some of the puzzles later on become quite convoluted thanks to messy spreadsheet formulae being all over the place — meaning you need to work out which cell will affect which other cells.

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CarGo! – Car Gone?

Rob Covell — Wed, 07 May 2025 13:00:21 +0000

In CarGo!, you and your co-op buddies are tasked with delivering goods from location to location, with a goal of selling a product for profit. Make enough profit and you’ll earn stars that will unlock more levels for more silliness. You’ll drive to a venue, pick up an item, and deliver it somewhere else, which is as simple as it sounds until it isn’t.

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Nif Nif – Piggin’ lovely

Rob Covell — Thu, 01 May 2025 13:00:53 +0000

Those familiar with Slay the Spire will know exactly how Nif Nif works. You go from node to node, taking on basic enemies or elites using attack and defence cards. When you aren’t doing that, you’ll be visiting shops or dealing with events. Everything here is very non-threatening, with Nif Nif not attacking enemies, but rather cleaning goop off them.

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