Five years on, I still love the handmade models of undersea adventure Harold Halibut

Every so often, there are games that come out that are made with real models. They're sometimes called "handmade" games, implying pure coders use their prehensile toes, but I really like it every time I see one because I love models. I like little versions of regular things! I just think they're neat. But it really is every so often, presumably because it takes even longer to make a tiny little man out of twigs and spit and scan him into a computer than it does to make him in the computer to start with. Cute miniature puzzle game Lumino City is ten years old, and Trüberbrook is coming up on five. And I first played a tiny snippet of Harold Halibut in 2018. Now, a larger snippet is available for everyone in the Steam Next Fest.

Harold Halibut is a sort of sci-fi, slightly retrofuturist point and click puzzle game about an undersea society on an alien planet. These people's ancestors blasted off to an ocean planet using the technology of a big science corporation and now, though they can't remember why, they're all pootling about under the water looking at fish. In this world of exaggerated sea-science nonsense, Harold stands out as a sort of beige lab handyman.