We've waited a long time for a new game from Jonathan Boakes, and now that the time has come, it's both a different game than we expected and caught everyone by surprise, with the sudden and previously unannounced release of Midnight Horror, an "intermezzo" between The Lost Crown and The Last Crown: Blackenrock.

Appropriately set on Halloween, when the "veil between our world and the 'other side' is at its weakest", Midnight Horror returns players to the English coastal town of Saxton, in which "something is haunting the guest rooms above the local harbour-side pub." Ghost-hunter Nigel Danvers is the only one (or at least the only one brave enough) to probe the mystery with the help of his "ghost-hunting gadgets, a séance and use of the Dark Arts." But he'll have to be quick, as he has just one night to find out before Halloween passes and the veil between worlds returns to full strength for another year.

Although a "standalone ghost story," Midnight Horror also serves as a prologue for the upcoming Blackenrock, re-introducing gamers to the townsfolk of Saxton first visited back in 2008. In keeping with the spirit of its predecessor (and its upcoming successor), the new game features the same third-person perspective and black-and-white design aesthetic with touches of colour for special effect.

After so many years of (im)patiently waiting, you don't need to wait a minute longer, as The Last Crown: Midnight Horror is now available for PC on Steam.

With the new 007 movie about to hit theaters, there's no better time for the launch of Agent A: A puzzle in disguise, an iOS exclusive its developers call "The Room meets James Bond."

In this indie puzzler by Yak & co, you are the code-named Agent A. An enemy spy named Ruby La Rouge has been targeting your fellow agents, and you must infiltrate her secret hideaway if you're to put a stop to her nefarious deeds. But beware: both inside and out, her lair is "full of hidden contraptions and clever logic based puzzles. Oh and do be careful, Miss La Rouge has a taste for dismissing agents such as yourself…"

As seen in the screenshots and trailer, Agent A is designed in a "2D illustrative style based on a 1960s", but it is actually created in real-time 3D, which allows panels and objects to open or fully reveal themselves for closer examination as you explore the game's 15 rooms. Along the way you must overcome 30 inventory-based obstacles and 20 distinct puzzles. According to the developers, the puzzles are logic-based, with the aim to "reward the player for being observant and taking mental notes like a good agent would."

If you're up to the challenge, there's no need to wait, as Agent A: A puzzle in disguise is available now at the App Store.
 

This announcement will self destruct in 5...4...3...2...1...

They say when one door closes, another opens. That certainly seems to be true for The Game Kitchen's Last Door series, as the four-part second season of the acclaimed Victorian-era horror adventure is now scheduled to be complete sometime early next year.

Following in the highly pixelated footsteps of its predecessor, The Last Door's second season casts players in the role of Dr. John Wakefield, the psychiatrist of Season One protagonist Jeremiah Devitt. Dewitt has mysteriously vanished, and it's up to Wakefield to set out in search of his patient. Of course, nothing goes according to plan and "soon Wakefield is drawn into the haunting web of forbidden knowledge, madness, and a deep conspiracy hiding it all." According to Enrique Cabeza, Creative Director for The Game Kitchen, the new season will include a “much bigger map to explore, with more characters, more puzzles, and more mysteries to solve than the previous season, which means more gameplay time."

The series originally debuted back in 2013, featuring both an unapologetically retro design and a unique pricing and launch structure. Season Two will feature the same distinctive aesthetic, four-part episodic format and full Collector's Edition release published by Phoenix Online Studios, but with different purchasing options this time around. Three episodes, plus a free "interlude" installment, are already available through the developer's website, with the fourth and final episode still in beta. However, for those who prefer Steam, the Collector's Edition is available now through Early Access at at discounted price, though at present only the season's first episode, The Playwright, is ready to play.

There is currently no firm deadline for the full season to be finished, but it is expected to be ready in "early 2016". If you've missed out so far, that leaves you time to catch up on The Last Door's stellar first season.

Here's a disturbing thought: What if you found out you were inevitably fated to become a dangerous lunatic? Would you embrace your destiny? Fight against it? Can you change your destiny? These are some of the central questions at the heart of Jon Oldblood's newly-released psychological horror-drama, Masochisia.

Although a point-and-click game, Masochisia is anything but a traditional adventure. You are not the hero; in fact, you're the "bad guy" who's "clearly insane". Or at least, you're well on your way and will continue along this path if you're unable and/or unwilling to prevent it. Playing a young man who "discovers through a series of hallucinations that he will one day become a violent psychopath", it will be up to you to decide what to do about these revelations. But your course won't be nearly as simple as making moral choices, as you're "troubled by macabre visions, abusive parents, vicious monsters and unrelenting voices in your head" that are "designed to make the player feel uncomfortable with their progressively-darker choices."

Based on a true story and created by a self-described "lone developer battling his own demons and struggles with violence", Masochisia is less an adventure game – or "game" at all – and more of a "relatively short" linear narrative experience in which player agency drives the story forward. You choose to either "unravel the reality behind the narrative.... or ignore its existence." Designed to be "horrific" rather than a standard "horror" tale, the game's hand-drawn art style and colour palette serve to juxtapose the "pleasant visuals with twisted content".

If you're up to the challenge of confronting your grim fate, there's no need to wait, as Masochisia has been released on Steam today for Window, Mac, and Linux.

For nearly 30 years, Gold Rush! has been one of the few classic Sierra properties that hasn't been thoroughly mined for sequels, but that looks set to change next year with the announcement of Sunlight Games' Gold Rush 2.

Much time will have passed in the game world as well, as the sequel takes place 20 years after the original. Now 1869, Jake and Jerrod Wilson have done very well for themselves after striking gold in California. But troubling news arrives from back home in New York, where their banker and family friend Mr. Quail sends word that a gang led by William "Boss" Tweed has overrun Brooklyn. And so, armed with evidence that should send Tweed to prison for life, "Jake and Jerrod decide to sell their mine and travel home on the newly constructed Transcontinental Railroad... but the boss has heard that they are coming and plans to stop them from ever returning to Brooklyn."

A collaboration between one of the original game's designers and German developer Sunlight Games, the team behind last year's Gold Rush! Anniversary remake, Gold Rush 2 promises more than 80 pre-rendered scenes to explore with a variety of puzzles to solve, along with modernized graphics, voice acting, and an intuitive point-and-click control scheme.

The game will be released across a variety of platforms, including either a DRM-free boxed version or Steam download for PC, Mac, and Linux, as well as optimized versions for iOS and Android devices. The former is already available for preorder through the developer's website. If all goes well, interested prospectors can lay hands on the game sometime in March 2016.

With October arriving, 'tis the season for all-things-horror. Along with a slew of new games releasing comes word of another now in production, in the form of ChaosCore's The Last Look.

The Last Look casts players in the first-person role of Alice, who "wakes up in a rundown bathroom" as "strange voices echo through the locked door." The last thing she remembers is attending a company party, and although she didn't drink too much, she has no recollection of she got here. But two things quickly become apparent: "something strange is happening" here and "she is not alone." Questions abound in Alice's mind, like the role of her boss and the identity of a "spooky goth girl teenager", but her most pressing concern is escaping the old building in which she's trapped, solving puzzles and evading a "scary enemy" along the way.

Created with the Unreal Engine 4, The Last Look is a free-roaming survival horror "especially designed for explorer-type gamers." It's cleverly described by its indie developers as "MacGyver meets The Ring", aiming to include both challenging puzzles and tension-inducing stealth elements. Taking cues from such inspirations as Phantasmagoria, Silent Hill, and Fatal Frame, the developers have confirmed that there will be no combat involved, but there will be some "scary hide-and-seek gameplay" along the way.

Currently in production for PC and PS4, with VR support planned but not yet implemented, there is no firm timeline yet for the game's release, but if all goes well we could be seeing The Last Look by next fall.

Now here's some news we just don't get enough of these days: an adventure game on Wii U! Although not a brand new game, the former mobile exclusive The Rivers of Alice has now been updated and released as an "Extended Version" on the Nintendo eShop.

In The Rivers of Alice, every time the game's titular heroine falls asleep, she enters a surreal fantasy world and begins a "journey of self-discovery and enlightenment" during which she must "confront the fears of her everyday life like sloth, envy, and dishonesty that manifest themselves in the form of mysterious characters and puzzles."

While music often seems like a complementary part of video games, here it's an essential component. Developed by Delirium Studios, The Rivers of Alice was co-produced with Spanish indie rock group Vetusta Morla, who "provided the inspiration for the game as well as the soundtrack", the latter consisting of 13 exclusive tracks that "fill every area of the game with intense emotion." The imaginative world conceived by the designers was then brought to life using watercolours, ink and graphite, in a hand-crafted adventure that promises more than 1500 illustrations, 700 main character animations, 177 conversations, and 717 objects to interact with deep within Alice's subconscious.

The Extended Version of The Rivers of Alice is available now exclusively online through the eShop. If you don't have a Wii U, the original version is still available both at the App Store and Google Play.