The severed hand comes first. In Poke a Nose, a game from solo developer Jelle van Meerendonk, players pilot a disembodied hand that collects toilet paper and completes levels by poking noses. The concept is deliberately absurd. But according to the report, actually steering the hand requires genuine finesse — which makes landing a finger into a nose feel like a earned payoff rather than a joke.
Van Meerendonk told the source that a 2026 PC release is the target, though early 2027 is “more likely.”
All five games covered here were playable at the GDC Festival of Gaming in San Francisco — the industry event formerly known as the Game Developers Conference — and all are expected to launch sometime this year, schedules permitting.
Family Fights and Slime Deaths
The most emotionally weighted entry is At Fate’s End, an action-adventure title from Thunder Lotus, the studio behind Spiritfarer. The game centers on sibling relationships, working through them via exploration and combat. Even the early demo, which only covered battles with the first of the protagonist’s siblings, featured full-screen lightning attacks, dramatic animations, and dialogue choices that shape which ending players receive. It’s set to launch in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum sits The Melty Way. Players control a small slime that physically shrinks as it moves — a mechanic that doubles as both a threat and a tool. A smaller slime jumps higher and fits through narrower gaps. Run out of time without hitting a checkpoint, though, and the slime dies. The game launches in early access on Steam on April 24th.
Sequels, Successors, and a Long-Awaited Spring Release
Yacht Club Games, the studio behind Shovel Knight, is bringing Mina the Hollower to market this spring after a delay announced last October. The game draws directly from the Game Boy’s Link’s Awakening but replaces the hero with a mouse capable of burrowing underground. A previous PC demo left the reporter underwhelmed. This one did not — the hidden secrets accessible through digging apparently made the difference. The release spans PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S.
Super Meat Boy 3D closes the list. The game carries over the signature elements of the original — floaty jumps, buzzsaws placed throughout levels, near-instant restarts — and translates them into a three-dimensional space. The new perspective occasionally produced disorienting jumps and unexpected deaths, but the fast reset times kept frustration in check. It’s scheduled for 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S.
Five games. One of them tasks players with nose-poking. Another kills an adorable slime if they linger too long. All of them, by the account of someone who played them on the show floor, are worth watching.
Photo by Pixabay
This article is a curated summary based on third-party sources. Source: Read the original article
