Genre mash-ups do not always work as intended, but a) fusing "platforming, pseudo-turn based combat, puzzle solving, and interactive dialogue/decision making into a story driven, atmospheric experience" does sound deliciously ambitious, and b) Wanderer's lo-fi sci-fi world looks absolutely stunning. And I quite like how the setting already feels, and the interface looks well-thought out, and the characters sound interesting, and the thing's got all the right references, so, yes, I'd really love to see Wanderer happen and would thus love to see it reach its funding goal. It's pretty modest, it is.

A $15 Kickstarter pledge will get you a copy of the game for Windows, Mac and Linux upon launch and you can already vote for Wanderer on Steam Greenlight.

Mushroom 11, which comes out later today, is a platformer unlike any other. "Mushroom 11 is a game about Destruction and Growth," is how developer Itay Keren describes it when he can't show people the game. "You are an amorphous organism, and the only way you move is by destroying your own cells. Destroyed cells immediately grow elsewhere, allowing you to freely shape, trim or split the fungus." He says he's used the pitch many times, but that even video clips can't accurately convey what it's like to play the game. And I agree. I watched his presentation at Sense of Wonder Night, where the game won the Best Game Design award, and although that gave me a good grasp of how the gameplay works, it turns out that the game is absorbingly tricky when you actually sit down to play it.

Disclosure: I backed Orion Trail on Kickstarter at the $10 level, which got me a copy of the game.

Many people, myself among them, have fond memories of playing the original Oregon Trail. It was a brutal journey plagued by dysentery, flooded rivers, and broken wagon axles. Schell Games has taken the idea of a journey fraught with danger and given it a Star Trek spin to make Orion Trail. It's not just a fresh skin over old gameplay, though. The player is given several resources to manage, officers with stats, and branching paths to choose from.

Edutainment was a trend in games long ago, albeit one that has slid off the radar in recent years. Developers have struggled to find ways to make games that have engaged their audience as well as enabled learning. While the standouts in the field have been particularly memorable, these have been few and far between. Fishing Cactus has recently released their typing-training game, Epistory - Typing Chronicles, to Steam Early Access and so far, it is showing excellent promise.

Following an unexpectedly and most joyously successful crowdfunding campaign, appropriately grim walking-around-in-a-graveyard sim Boon Hill is now something that exists (well, for Mac and Windows it does). It's a story of epitaphs, a game of pure exploration, a reminder of our own mortality and it's all rendered in chunky 16-bit style that gives them over 2000 graves a rather retro look. The muted colours add the sadness.

Boon Hill's absolutely worth the $5 admission fee and it'll even allow you to leave virtual flowers.

While I was a little surprised by all the perfect scores The Talos Principle received last year upon its PC release, after only a few minutes of playing, I understood why the game, and its team, deserved them. So, if you've slept on the game so far, here's a new excuse to fix that: a retail disc version of the stunning collaboration between Croteam, Jonas Kyratzes, and Tom Jubert, has released on PS4 today, bringing the splendid game and the Road to Gehenna DLC to anyone who hasn't already bought it for PC. Combining sublime puzzle-solving that takes simple concepts and twists them into complex tasks and a narrative that explores the strange importance of curiosity and games to humanity, it's a thoughtful, contemplative experience that you really shouldn't skip out on.

Aiming for a truly humble crowdfunding goal (that's €2,500, roughly $2850), the Demetrios Kickstarter campaign must succeed and thus be able to provide us with a big, cynical, humorous, handcrafted point-and-click adventure game, that won't be afraid to dwell into murky and mysterious directions. Demetrios will be initially launched for Windows, Mac and Linux, and, should everything go according to plan, expand itself over to consoles.

You can play its very hefty demo here and vote for it on Greenlight here. A pledge of €10 will secure you a copy of Demetrios upon launch.

The ultimate in tweed-punk guns-robots-and-tea entertainment, lovely first person stealth-shooter Sir, You Are Being Hunted has just gone multiplayer meaning a) you will no longer have to die alone, and b) nobody can complain about unmet stretch goals anymore. Huzzah!

This being the era of the cool-adventure-game-on-Kickstarter, it obviously felt appropriate for Victorian detective Bertram Fiddle to address the crowds and ask them to help a bit with his second coming in the delicious looking Episode 2: A Bleaker Predicklement; obviously via Kickstarter. It will, rather sensibly, be a sequel to the hilarious and quite excellent episode 1, in which you will presumably get to finally uncover the true identity of horrible chap Geoff the Murdere. Wonderful graphics, impressive noses, puns, unexpectedly funny puzzles and some very silly things indeed are to be expected on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

A humble pledge of £5 (approx $7.50) will get you episode two and a thank you telegram (handily delivered via email). Pay a bit more to also get episode 1 or, well, even more for some intriguing stickers, comic books, figurines, t-shirts and/or other expensive things.

MidBoss, LLC, the LGBTQ-focused company behind the GaymerX events and the film Gaming in Color, has released Read Only Memories. It's a point and click adventure game designed to provide an example of how including a more diverse cast of characters doesn't mean sacrificing quality of gaming experience, and it is a very good example. The game hooked me from the start and pulled me right along until the end, whereupon I discovered that I had several Skype messages that had come in whose alert sounds I hadn't even noticed.