Twitch Prime's free games for February include Downwell, Dear Esther
Plus Sokobond, The Flame in the Flood, and more.
Twitch has unveiled the line-up of games that Twitch Prime members can download and keep for nowt as part of their subscription in February: Dear Esther, Downwell, The Flame in the Flood, and Draknek & Co Puzzle Collection.
It's a strong selection of titles, even if most have been around the block a few times. Enjoyable survival adventure The Flame in the Flood, for instance, has already been offered as a Twitch Prime freebie before. If you didn't snag it then, however, it's definitely worth doing so now.
Developed by The Molasses Flood and released in 2016, it delivers a wonderfully atmospheric, and distinctly soggy, twist on the well-worn rogue-lite survival formula. The general gist is that you, along with your trusty canine pal, set forth down a procedurally generated, frequently tumultuous river, stopping off at the occasional island to scavenge supplies, and craft up useful items to keep your perilous journey going just that little bit longer. Eurogamer's Christian Donlan even liked it enough to give it a Recommend badge in his review.
Dear Esther, meanwhile, released commercially in 2012, and was the work of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture studio The Chinese Room. It is, if you're unfamiliar, one of the earlier examples of the modern day walking sim, and proved to the world (or some of it, at least) that it's entirely possible to create a compelling game from gorgeous Hebridean island scenery and weird car metaphors, where the only thing demanded of players is to press the 'forward' button and ponder the meaning of it all. 8/10 said Eurogamer's review.
Next up is Downwell, a wonderful arcade romp in which you, the player, tumble. Down, a well. Sporting an aesthetic that loosely resembles that of a budget Spectrum game, it offers a thrilling, free-fall blast of gun-booted, procedurally generated adrenaline, in which your only real goal (aside from hoovering up increasingly impressive murder-shoes) is to try not to die. Back in 2015, Downwell got a Eurogamer Recommended badge too.
Lastly, then, is the Draknek & Co Puzzle Collection, a bundle consisting of three games: Sokobond, A Good Snowman is Hard to Build, and Cosmic Express. Sokobond, an elegant puzzle game in which players are tasked with fitting molecules together, was swell enough to secure a Eurogamer 9/10 back in the day. However, neither A Good Snowman (a game about being a monster and rolling snow-people into existence) or Cosmic Express (a game about "planning the train route for the world's most awkward space colony") got the Eurogamer review treatment - but they're both rated as 'Very Positive' on Steam if it helps.
All in all then, a strong (if not exactly fresh-faced) line-up this month. Those with a Twitch Prime membership - included as part of an Amazon Prime subscription - can download all of the above for free on PC until February 28th.