BEASTIE BALL

The Chicory team return for a whole new ballgame

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For a long time, Pokémon existed essentially in a category of one. While that's changed in recent years, with indie games offering everything from traditionalist to trolling takes on the genre (Coromon, Cassette Beasts, Palworld), we've not paid any of them much mind Game Freak's prolific output being more than enough to scratch the creature-collecting itch. But we're willing to change that policy for any game whose description includes 'from the team that made Chicory.

That game boasted a rare mix of Nintendo magic and unique personality, reinventing the top-down Zelda format as a story about art and self-doubt. Beastieball reunites designer Greg Lobanov, artist Alexis Dean-Jones, musician Lena Raine and A Shell In The Pit audio maestros Em Halberstadt and Preston Wright for another colourful tale, riffing on elsewhere in the Nintendo canon. Not that this was the original intent, exactly - Lobanov sought to make a game about teamwork in a sporting context.