“Oh thank God, they’re having sex,” I sighed as my King and his wife, Harold and Carol, finally got down to business. This, I admit, is not a typical reaction to seeing two people express their affection for one another. But Harold and Carol’s unconsummated love life has been threatening the stability of my entire Kingdom. It’s nothing to do with heirs, although one of those wouldn’t go amiss either. Harold, you see, is a deeply monogamous soul, but lately he’s been too preoccupied with his royal duties to see to his marital ones. Carol, meanwhile, has a libido to rival an entire warren of rabbits, to the point where she’s been considering bribing peasants into her bed.

Morality aside, for Carol to cheat on Harold could have all manner of nasty consequences. It could send Harold spiralling into a depression that leads to a nervous breakdown, rendering him unable to give orders to his peasants, thus grinding the entire Kingdom to a halt. Worse, it could send him into a murderous rage. So naturally, I have been frantically playing Cupid, trying to push them together for walks and chats and even a spot of wolf hunting. Now though, they’re finally at it, which hopefully means I can focus on all the Kingdom’s other problems, like the rapidly depleting food supply, and that big camp of bandits threatening a raid.

(Image credit: Hooded Horse)

Norland, like Crusader Kings, is a game about building a glorious medieval empire on the backs of deeply human feudal lords, whose unstable emotions and courtly bickering is enough to manage before you consider the many peasants who live and die at their whim. Yet where Crusader Kings communicates this through the medium of global grand strategy, Norland does it through a RimWorld-style colony simulation, one where every in-game event—from breakfast to beheading—is visibly depicted in real-time. 



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Sprint straight to the best bit—winning—with the answer to the July 16 (1123) Wordle. Go on, it’ll only take a click. No? Then feel free to spend some time with our brand new clue for Tuesday’s puzzle instead. It’s your game, so make sure you enjoy it your way.

Ah, two yellow letters straight away? Brilliant. The same two yellow letters after? Not so brilliant. And the same two yellow letters after that? You’ve got to be kidding me. Still, at least that little journey around the board meant there was only one place left for them to go—and it also meant today’s Wordle answer was just around the corner too.

Today’s Wordle hint

(Image credit: Josh Wardle)

Wordle today: A hint for Tuesday, July 16



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Two years after announcing the end of updates for the “Halo with portals” shooter Splitgate, developer 1047 Games is teasing something new—and it looks a lot like Splitgate.

Splitgate is a free-to-play arena shooter in which, alongside the usual array of videogame firepower, every player in the game also has a portal gun that works just like the one in Portal. It launched to widespread acclaim in 2019, racking up more than 100,000 positive reviews on Steam, but in September 2022 developer 1047 Games announced it was time to move on to something new.



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Magical Delicacy – Official Release Date Trailer – YouTube Magical Delicacy - Official Release Date Trailer - YouTube
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Platforming adventure Magical Delicacy will have you doing some witchy cooking and exploration in a sprawling town of hungry people this week, as the cute little pixel-art platformer releases on July 16. Notable for its combination of metroidvania-style platformer exploration with the cozy characters and crafting of a life-sim-esque cooking game, Magical Delicacy has a enough going on that something about it is going to appeal to a lot of people.

As young witch protagonist Flora arrives and sets up shop in a new town she’ll meet new people in the community, from normal townfolk to the local magical practicioners. She’ll also engage in the local economy by buying ingredients and ugprading her kitchen and garden. You can use all that stuff to make new recipes you’ve learned, or to riff on them for new ends—all to sell to the locals who need some new potion, pastry, meal, or tea. 



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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree‘s backhand blades were already a new favorite weapon for me, but the underhand assassin curved swords have an incredible depth of movement tech I wasn’t even aware of, like being able to completely no-sell the most devastating boss attack FromSoftware‘s ever created.

Curiously-named Elden Ring YouTuber Sax Slave Gael explains the blades’ anti-Malenia properties in a video overview lauding their moveset. It all comes down to the Swift Slash ash of war, which can only be paired with the base backhand blades or throwable Smithscript Cirque version. Swift Slash is just sick as hell, a chargeable anime dash attack with a slightly delayed blade explosion at the end.



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The annual Independent Games Festival has been responsible for highlighting a bunch of each year’s best indie games, from critical darlings to student projects. Right now, Steam is partnering with the IGF and indie publisher Crunching Koalas for the IGF Celebration Days, a sale that runs until July 20 and offers discounts on IGF award winners from both this and previous years.

That means you can get Sam Barlow and Half Mermaid’s brain-bending cinemaphile puzzler Immortality for 50% off, its lowest price yet. Or you could fill a gap in your library with Barlow’s previous award-winner, Her Story, which is currently 90% off. This year’s well-liked sci-fi clone saga 1000xResist is 10% off, while a bundle containing all three of Night School’s talky adventures—Oxenfree, Oxenfree 2, and Afterparty—is on sale for 60% off. Here are some more highlights of the sale. 



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Our Wordle tips can help you give your daily word searching a new winning angle, and our hint for the July 14 (1121) game will definitely give your Sunday puzzling an instant boost. Need something more direct? No problem. The answer to today’s Wordle is ready and waiting for you just below.

My first two guesses weren’t in any danger of being helpful, but they did give me a hand in a more indirect way. Thanks to them, I didn’t have much choice but to go poking in the vicinity of today’s Wordle answer, and soon turned over a complete row of winning green letters.

Wordle today: A hint

(Image credit: Josh Wardle)

Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, July 14



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Weekend Wordles were made to be won, so why not click straight through to today’s answer and bask in the warm glow of a job well done? Or take your time if you’d prefer, using our clue for the July 13 (1120) game to give your guesses a helping hand. It’s your game, we’re just happy to help you win it.

Saturday’s Wordle very kindly offered up a great selection of green and yellow letters right from the start, so it didn’t take long to find today’s Wordle answer. Don’t worry if your opening guesses aren’t as strong—just take a look at today’s clue, that’ll help.

Today’s Wordle hint

(Image credit: Josh Wardle)

Wordle today: A hint for Saturday, July 13



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An unusual feature of Sony’s new hero shooter, Concord, is that deployable items—healing pads, shields, walls, that kind of thing—are persistent between rounds and respawns. If the other team doesn’t destroy your stuff, it stays where it is across an entire match.

I liked the idea when I heard it just for its novelty, but wasn’t sure how big a deal it would be in practice. Now that Concord’s first beta has started, I can say it’s definitely not a trivial quirk: It’s really goofy in a way that I’ve so far found a lot of fun, though that might just be because my team absolutely killed it with the deployables strategy in my last match.



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A year after putting on an Olympic esports event that didn’t include any actual esports games, the International Olympic Committee has joined up with the National Olympic Committee of Saudi Arabia to do it for real in the first-ever Olympic Esports Games, set to be held in 2025.

The Olympic Esports deal between the IOC and Saudi Arabia is set to run for 12 years, with events held “regularly” over the duration.



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