John Mulcahey, Author at Big Boss Battle (B3)

To a T – earnest heart, choppy frames

John Mulcahey — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 14:00:58 +0000

To a T has all the right elements you’d expect from a Keita Takahashi game. It is earnest, charming, simple and full of the act of play, both mechanically and aesthetically. The music is joyous and the visuals are a lovely mishmash of shapes, colours and vibrancy. As one would expect from the man behind […]

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Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar – Another lovely escape

John Mulcahey — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 18:00:24 +0000

It is an incredible year. A new Rune Factory and a new Story of Seasons? Wonderful. The gist is that while there are some caveats, Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar is another lovely farming slash life simulator from the original creators of the genre, stuffed with charm and beauty. It looks better than ever. Characters […]

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Old Skies – Time’s arrow

John Mulcahey — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 13:00:20 +0000

Wadjet Eye, a developer that any fan of pointing and clicking should keep close to their hearts and wallets, has returned with another gracefully told story about flawed humans. Old Skies is, it seems, a less flexible game than previous titles such as Unavowed — but that doesn’t make it a lesser experience. We have […]

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Nobody Wants to Die – Technoir mashup nearly cracks the case

John Mulcahey — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 12:00:46 +0000

Accurate title! In the world of Nobody Wants to Die, absolutely nobody wants to die. This hardboiled sci-fi noir invites you into a world where death functionally doesn’t matter — providing you can afford it. As a game, the story is the focus and the mechanics are relatively light. As with all games of this […]

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Crayon Shin-Chan: Shiro and the Coal Town — one goofball’s grand holiday

John Mulcahey — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 14:00:49 +0000

Crayon Shin-Chan: Shiro and the Coal Town is the second fusion of Crayon Shin-Chan, beloved anime, and the cult favourite Boku no Nasuyatsumi series. If I’ve lost you already, don’t worry, same. I’ve got zero familiarity with half of this equation — I’ve definitely heard of Shin-Chan, but I’ve never seen an episode or movie, […]

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Ova Magica Early Access – a nice slice of Bavarian life

John Mulcahey — Sat, 28 Sep 2024 11:00:16 +0000

Cozy games! Wholesome games! Farming simulators! Post Stardew Valley, the genre is on a seemingly infinite upward trajectory as developers across the world seek to release their own slices of agricultural nicety. I, for one, am living my best life as a child of Harvest Moon. While Ova Magica, which recently launched in early access, […]

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Death of a Wish – Divine, furious

John Mulcahey — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 13:00:03 +0000

How many times have you played a game that seethed? One that had such a clear voice of absolute fury? I can’t really remember the last time I played a game that was so viscerally charged with one emotion in all its violent depths. Death of a Wish is god damn furious. It is fast, […]

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Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley — Sweet summer days

John Mulcahey — Sat, 27 Apr 2024 11:00:53 +0000

Alright, full disclaimer — proud owner of several of Tove Jansson’s beautiful Moomin books, Moomin tattoo. I love these weird little melancholic creatures! Who doesn’t? So I approached Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley with a lot of excitement. Finally, a lovely Moomin game! Starting it up you’re greeted to the beautiful sounds of Untitled 1 by […]

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Teardown – Blown sky high

John Mulcahey — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 14:00:50 +0000

Here it is, the dream started by Red Faction: Guerilla, anger at Lego, kicking down a sand castle, all realised in glorious voxels. If you can see it, you can blow it up. Teardown delivers handily on the core idea that collapsing buildings is innately satisfying. Sometimes all you need from a game is to […]

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Hell Pie – Lacks seasoning

John Mulcahey — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:00:27 +0000

Hell Pie, or the second coming of Conker’s Bad Fur Day, is another in a long line of indie-made 3D platformers that aim to recapture the hey-day of collecting shiny things, to, once again, mixed success. It’s hard for me to quantify the enjoyment I had playing Hell Pie with a lingering sense of “is […]

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Trenches – Something Horrible

John Mulcahey — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 13:00:59 +0000

Trenches is trying something relatively unique, on a conceptual level. A psychological horror game set in the trenches of the First World War. I can’t understate how appealing that concept is, how it could be such a fantastic vehicle for transporting you into the shoes of a WW1 soldier in that gruelling meat grinder. But, […]

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John M’s Top Games of 2022 and One They Wish They Loved Less

John Mulcahey — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 14:00:20 +0000

2022 eh. Bit of a mixed year, but I dare say a modest improvement over the last few. Music and movies absolutely crushed it this year, so many quality releases for all tastes. Even the pandemic decided to take a smaller role in the year’s theatre of BS. So, what about the games? Pretty good […]

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Kao The Kangaroo – Not Quite A Knockout

John Mulcahey — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 13:00:04 +0000

Kao The Kangaroo, an oft forgotten star of those loveable mid-tier early 2000s 3D Platformers, is firmly back! As a person who grew up with a strong and enduring love of this trashiest of subgenres, it’s delightful to see a development team with an equally strong warmth towards these games. Kao brims with love for […]

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Oppo Enco Free 2 – Great Sounds In Comfy Style

John Mulcahey — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 13:00:49 +0000

Oppo’s Enco Free 2 wireless earbuds are incredibly surprising. I’m used to a pair of wireless earbuds feeling in some way like a sacrifice — be that dropping good sound quality for noise cancelling, or simply the concept of working well at all. These earbuds, however, are genuinely the full package, with lovely sound quality, […]

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Norco — Everything That Rises Must Converge

John Mulcahey — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 13:00:38 +0000

Stepping away from Norco the game, here’s the slug line: “A sci-fi southern gothic adventure…” I stopped reading here. They had me within 5 words. It delivers on this basic sentiment with enthusiasm and then some; creating a swirl of decay, desperation, hope and faith which would make Flannery O’Connor herself smile. Everything within Norco’s […]

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The House in Fata Morgana – Timeless Gothic Romance

John Mulcahey — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 13:00:33 +0000

By Christ, this is a good one. I was more or less raised by Gothic literature, as a precocious/pretentious kid, from Poe to Shelley, to later works by Stephen King and Shirley Jackson. The haunted house story is practically engraved in my brain from top to bottom. And then we get to The House in […]

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Cosmic Top Secret — The Many Folds of History

John Mulcahey — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 13:00:50 +0000

Sometimes you get to play a game so ostensibly intriguing, so fully singular in it’s identity and style you just have to sit back a bit and go “games really are amazing.” Cosmic Top Secret, a highly personal, autobiographical game where you learn about a daughter’s father and uncover his time as a spy during […]

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Silt — Dark Dreams in the Deep

John Mulcahey — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 09:00:10 +0000

Silt is a strange thing — written up as a surrealist adventure horror, where you’re tasked as a mysterious diver sent to uncover equally mysterious things in the depths of the ocean. It’s more or less a really bizarre version of Ecco The Dolphin. Which in and of itself, was already quite a strange game. […]

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Lacuna — Branching A Jazzy Future

John Mulcahey — Sat, 12 Mar 2022 12:00:51 +0000

A bit of an odd one, Lacuna. On the one hand it’s a classic slice of Noir played straight, with scifi flourishes. It plays simply, until you hit an investigative sequence. At this point it may well not be as twisting and winding as it seems to think it is. So, it’s odd. Both satisfying […]

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John’s Top 5 Games That Made Another Hellish Year More Acceptable

John Mulcahey — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 14:00:34 +0000

Does Alan Wake Remastered count? Maybe not. If it does, it’s that. >So… 2021 huh. Let’s leave it at that for a yearly recap. We all know it sucked. Will next year be better… I’m not willing to tempt fate. At least, as ever, media existed — and god, what a year for music and […]

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Transient — Neither Here Nor There

John Mulcahey — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 14:00:09 +0000

Transient is one of those games that, on paper, that I should love. It’s an old-style adventure game; along the lines of Myst. You explore, poke around areas, and solve puzzles. It’s a synthesis of Lovecraft and Cyberpunk, both narratively and aesthetically. It’s short – it says it’s piece and gets out. It’s hard to […]

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Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One —The Truly Great Detective

John Mulcahey — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 14:00:59 +0000

To preface: I have very limited experience with Sherlock Holmes. I have seen BBC’s modern series, and thought it was kind of terrible. Vague memories of Jeremy Brett’s take on Holmes linger in my mind, as a whip smart, vaguely fading intellectual giant both full of pathos and humour. But I cannot claim to have […]

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Backbone — The Case That Makes You

John Mulcahey — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 19:00:33 +0000

Backbone. Backbone, backbone, backbone. Alright. Basics first: this is, as described, a modern take on point and click games. It features detailed, sharply written dialogue and vividly drawn characters. It is rendered in a sort of 2D Pixel Art based view, with dense and intricate backdrops and moody lighting. It is a noir story, and […]

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Heart Chain Kitty — Candy Coated Nightmares

John Mulcahey — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 14:00:38 +0000

Once upon a time, I watched David Lynch’s 3-hour long nightmare Inland Empire while I was heavily sick, and actively hallucinating from an intense fever. While watching that movie, the faces appeared to shift away from the actual heads, and had distortion around the edges. It was horrifying, but I was more than a little […]

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Mundaun — Pencilling in an odd one

John Mulcahey — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 13:00:53 +0000

I’m going to get this out of the way — this hand pencilled, enigmatic folk horror? It can be an absolute chore to play, and the switch port is in all honesty, a bit rubbish. But Mundaun is an absolute must play. It can grate — any combat is that classic Survival Horror thing of […]

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Genesis Noir — Making a Hit Record

John Mulcahey — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 13:00:22 +0000

Here we have a jazzy rendition of the beginning of the universe: a man, a famous saxophonist, shooting his lover, a singer, after an affair is revealed, and the lovesick detective stuck in the middle. Genesis Noir. That title kind of explains it all, right? The genesis of the universe through a smokey filter of […]

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Adios — Goodbye, Friendo

John Mulcahey — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 18:00:24 +0000

Spending an hour with a farmer: a man filled with the deepest sorrows, a man whose only friends are animals and mobsters. To be put in those shoes, to hear about his chestnut tree, his All-American Pigs, the gentle twang of his voice as he comforts himself by a looming horse. Adios is, as a thing, a […]

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Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town — Alpaca your bags!

John Mulcahey — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 18:00:37 +0000

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town has a simple set up – you leave the hustling, bustling chaos of the city and inherit your old grandpa’s mysteriously untitled farm. Something I love about these games is how contrived they can be in getting you to name the place — I’m pretty sure the mayor […]

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Pathologic 2 — A Strange Nightmare

John Mulcahey — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 18:00:42 +0000

I’ve often wondered about the original Pathologic game and even gone so far as to try and play it. I didn’t get far, it is a cruel, cruel thing. But I adored it from a distance, this weird strange game. I saw Pathologic 2’s announcement of a Kickstarter a few years ago and forgot to […]

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The Wanderer: Frankenstein’s Creature — Monster Mash

John Mulcahey — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 14:00:53 +0000

I’m not sure what this game is about. I know that The Wanderer: Frankenstein’s Creature is about the section of Frankenstein wherein the creature is left to their own devices, and is recounting their treatment to the doctor. About the journey of a monster filled with self loathing, cruelty of man, and so forth. But […]

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Spiritfarer and The Warm Hug Of Death

John Mulcahey — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:00:31 +0000

I wish that I had paid more attention to the marketing. I have yet to play a game with metroidvania elements that I have liked, sadly. Hollow Knight to Super Metroid, I have bounced off them all. I thought Spiritfarer would be the one, with it’s penchant for kindness at the end of everything. With […]

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Tamashii — The Obscurity of Horror

John Mulcahey — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 19:00:02 +0000

Tamashii, released on Switch and PC, is a side-scrolling puzzle game featuring puzzle rooms. It’s also something of an abstract, surreal horror inspired by Japanese films. Maybe a bit of Giger? A whole lot of Junji Ito. It revels in proper nouns, strange noises and stranger visuals. Beyond basic mechanics, it refuses to explain anything. […]

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Can Androids Pray? Maybe?

John Mulcahey — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 19:00:24 +0000

Can Androids Pray? Yep. Okay, okay. Let’s not be too flippant. The rhetorical question at the core of Can Androids Pray? is left largely up to you, the player. Can Androids Pray? is absolutely interested in the answer, and the humanity that often shines through impossible situations. Two mech pilots, or maybe their mechs? Lie in […]

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Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey — Being The Missing Link

John Mulcahey — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 13:00:18 +0000

Surviving in the cradle of civilisation, or trying your very best to not screw up evolution for everyone.

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Effie — Old Fashioned Tales

John Mulcahey — Fri, 10 Jan 2020 19:00:48 +0000

An old school 3D Platformer adventure, told by an old guy chatting to his kid. How delightfully meta!

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EarthNight — An Okay Night In

John Mulcahey — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 14:00:41 +0000

The hand painted auto runner which isn't quite a masterwork.

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Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns — Three gems in a plastic brooch

John Mulcahey — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 18:00:43 +0000

A match three rpg, a killer soundtrack all adds up as an easy way to spend 20 minutes.

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Man Of Medan — Fear, fun?

John Mulcahey — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 18:00:04 +0000

A horror game on a ghost ship meant to be played with a gaggle of pals, and a few buckets of popcorn. Sounds like a great night in, right? Enter Man Of Medan.

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