ArduinoMania

If you've had your fill of single player slogs — or tedious multiplayer modes that require you to grind for virtual riches that otherwise cost real money — then The Magnificent Trufflepigs should feel like a breath of fresh air. The new offering from Andrew Crawshaw, the lead designer of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, is an indie title that you can play from start to finish in one sitting. Coming to the Nintendo Switch and PC this summer, the pastoral game has you traipsing through the British countryside looking for buried treasure using a metal detector, with just a walkie talkie for companionship. 

You play the role of Adam (voiced by Arthur Darvill of Doctor Who fame), who upon returning to his childhood village joins up with a local woman named Beth (Luci Fish of Safe House and Another Eden) to track down the missing half of a set of earrings. Along the way, you'll do a fair bit of walking and digging as you unearth rubbish and snap pics of your finds to show Beth, who shares her innermost thoughts with you over the two-way radio.

The setup should sound immediately familiar to anyone who has played Rapture, which arrived to near unanimous praise back in 2016. Described as a visual novel or radio play, that game rewarded patience by slowly unfurling its apocalyptic sci-fi mystery of a small town depleted of its inhabitants. The comms element in Trufflepigs also recalls Firewatch, another acclaimed indie that made its way to the Switch in 2018.

The new game marks the first outing for Crawshaw's video game studio Thunk'd. It's also backed by AMC Games, the video game publishing division of Mad Men and Breaking Bad producer AMC Networks, along with its subsidiary Sundance TV.