This week in PC games, you can go helldiving in Gravhounds, wreck a hoverbike in Airframe Ultra, or feed humans to a cutaway spaceship in Hull Rupture.

Background: A Maw, a Toasting Fork, and a Round-Up Frame

The piece begins not with games, but with an office-scale joke about feeding something called the Maw. The writer says Julian was tricked into signing a form committing him to alternate weeks of Maw-feeding duty. On Monday, Julian whined while being strapped into a neoprene bodysuit. He begged for mercy when handed a 12-foot Gallium toasting fork, and was then elbowed out the airlock.

The writer adds that Julian had his revenge. Whatever Julian fed the Maw last week, it seems to have given the creature hiccups. The writer apologises to the population of Michigan, saying the zinc will come back eventually. That anecdote is the handoff into the main subject: a short list of new PC games releasing that week.

Monday 2nd November: Snails, Dogs, and Oil Puddles

Monday’s releases lean into small, strange premises. Feed The Forest is described as potentially “just another incremental game” that is open about its own cynicism, but the writer says it star a snail and that the ostensibly cheery theme of growing a forest appears to teeter over into growing some kind of hell.

Gravhounds is out in early access on Monday. The writer frames the pitch as a chain of “what if” questions: what if you were a dog? what if that dog had a Gravity Gun? what if that dog also had 360-degree jet boosting?

Iron Sol is also out Monday. The writer asks what if you were a sentient oil puddle, then what if that oil puddle existed in a hazy pink 2D world of gears and spikes, and what if you did not even know why you were a sentient oil puddle while also having to find 80 collectibles.

Tuesday 3rd November: Ramen, Volleyball, and Food Devils

Tuesday is the first day with a clear foodie thread. Ramen Shop Simulator is not the first ramen shop simulator the writer says they have fed to the Maw in the past month, but it might be the more adorable one. It is single-player only, has the loveliest crockery, and makes the writer look forward to washing up in a game.

just volleyball is presented as an easily grasped offline or online volleyball sim with up to 6v6 multiplayer. The writer hopes the online side might let them and “countless volleyball-playing chums” recreate episodes of Haikyu!!, but says the game seems more laidback and floaty, which is not a bad thing in itself.

Food Devils is the week’s most explicitly cheeky food game. The writer says there are a lot of foodie games in the round-up, but only Food Devils understands that food consumption is secretly a metaphor for fornication, adding “gadzooks.” It is described as a blend of tactics RPG and restaurant management sim, with the strong possibility of some sweaty demon-booping.

Wednesday 4th November: Sushi, Spacecraft, and Warp-Core Jokes

Wednesday brings Sushiamo and Hull Rupture. The writer says they are deeply tired of Balatro clones, but calls Sushiamo the first one encountered that deploys Balatro as a means of making sushi. The writer says they will give it a Bestest Best if it lets players “power up” supermarket rice by dousing it in sauce they literally inherited from their grandmother.

The same passage includes a joke about food safety: the writer claims that if the umami is of sufficient intensity, it will kill any and all salmonella germs, then says not to listen to those squares in the National Health Service.

Hull Rupture is described as a base-building tower defender set inside a cutaway 2D starcruiser. The writer jokes that may the cosmic gods help any human foolish enough to board it, then notices a warp core shaped like a thrusting gonad and asks what they are putting in the videogames this week.

Thursday 5th November: Settlements, Plague, Gore, and Hoverbikes

Thursday’s list is the longest day of the week. County of Fortune comes out in early access as a strategy builder. The writer jokes that it is a game set in medieval times where nobody ate anything or had any sex, then describes the actual loop: the player oversees several settlements that grow by themselves, establish trade routes, and may fall into rivalry.

In Full Bloom is grouped with games about feeding horrible holes, a subgenre the writer says grew from despair about the plague of incremental sims. Its especially nice art direction is the standout detail.

Where the Seeds Fall is a 3D platformer about escorting an eerie child to the bottom of the World Tree. The player hops from bough to bough and uses flowers as crashpads.

AlteredBlood+ is called a throwback movement FPS. The central image is simple: standing in pools of gore makes your guns go all weird.

Airframe Ultra is the writer’s “vintage of sci-fi,” with cityscapes said to be unlike anything since 1996. It is a hoverbike racer steeped in the vital fluids of WipEout and Destruction Derby, and it is co-developed by the studio behind Rain World.

Legends of Rock is introduced as a management game in which you manage the excavation of rare igneous deposits, before the writer corrects the joke: no, it is actually about running a rock band.

Friday 6th November: Blockworlds, Alien Colonies, and Math Machines

Friday turns to smaller, calmer, or more abstract PC releases. Pith is recommended to people who enjoyed Elephantasy. It is a 3D puzzle-platformer built around tiny, interconnected blockworlds, with a touch of Metroidbrain.

Tenebrarium is offered as a chillaxing end to the week. It is a laissez-faire colony sim where the player tends a small population of evolving aliens. The writer says all you have to do, broadly, is figure out the effects of feeding them stuff.

Number Machine Math Factory is the final release listed. The writer introduces it with a mock dialogue: if you do not believe in aliens and trust only the purity of numbers, here is a game with a dreary title and beautiful presentation. The writer says if maths had looked like this when they were doing their GSCEs, they might have landed a real career instead of dribbling away mortal energies having conversations with themselves in videogame round-up articles.

Current Stage: The Treehouse After the Week’s Releases

The article closes by turning from the games to the Treehouse’s own workflow. The writer says things being done in the Treehouse that week include much yelling about end-of-year feature coverage. Everyone has made their lists, and now the lists are fighting, compared to rival nests of wasps, scorpions, ants, and puppies. Callum maintains that puppies can form nests.

Also happening that week are strategy game coverage and editing of some really sharp freelance features. The writer hopes there is not all that much else, because they kind of just want to play Airframe Ultra.

The final move is an invitation to readers: share the great games the writer has missed, so they can spend the rest of the day feeling ignorant and ashamed.