Pixel Tracking

In September 2025, Housefire Games released its first complete title, and I was fortunate enough to discover it amid this ocean of information. So many works are lost, and so many others we never find the time to experience. After all, how can one keep up, especially when this is not the only art form one follows? Eclipsium is an unexpectedly remarkable first-person cosmic and psychological horror game with a pixelated aesthetic, one that is fully exploited from the very first minutes of play. There is no doubt about that. At first, it gives the impression of constant transitions between states of reality, but it soon becomes clear that it is far more than that. Symbols, allegories, personal demons, inner fears, traumas of mind and body, and associative storytelling carry you through a continuous dreamlike motion from one space to another, sometimes calm and almost soothing, other times dragging you into the deepest pits of human nature and imagination. Deception is at the forefro...

In April 2024, this one-of-a-kind, stunningly beautiful video game was released by the Cologne-based German studio, marking its debut after ten years of development. The team employed stop-motion and photogrammetry techniques to digitize every handmade model they crafted for the project. The result is a retro-futuristic masterpiece, in my view, steeped in melancholy, satire, dark humor, and occasional irony. Although Harold Halibut may initially seem light-hearted or even superficial, it is deeply philosophical at its core, and can be summed up in a single word: acceptance. Our protagonist, Harold, lives aboard a spaceship called the Fedora I. As the story unfolds, we realize that the ship has become submerged in an alien ocean. Its original mission was to explore space, but circumstances have trapped it in an unknown place somewhere in the vast universe. Within this confined environment, a small society has developed. The endless waiting has forced people to adapt, building a routine...