Today's Wholesome Direct was a ball pond of fascinating fun

I remember talking to a developer almost twenty years ago about where they thought games were headed, and they told me that one day they imagined a game about an old guy just trying to get across town to help out a sick friend. The drama, the challenge, the mechanics, everything comes out of the situation - being old and worried and on the wrong side of the city.

At the time I was speaking to the developer, they were finishing up work on a console game about aliens and soldiers. The dream of the old guy game seemed pretty distant. And I thought about it today during the 2023 Wholesome Direct, a curated bunch of games from developers who specialise in the cozy, unusual and delightful. Would the old guy game have been at home here? It wouldn't have been hugely out of place.

To put it another way, my favourite game in this Wholesome Direct was probably Toasterball, which cropped up at the end, in a relatively speedy montage of games that came after the main reveals. Toasterball is a game about playing basketball with toasters - your bread pops up and hopefully sends a ball back the way it came. I actually whooped when I saw it. Best of all - I've just discovered that it's already out.

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