Steal River Kin

Three TV series related to crime!

Steal

This short, six episode British crime series stars Sophie Turner who plays an office clerk at a financial company that is hit by an armed robbery. Good editing keeps it moving at a decent clip, and the protagonist is quite likable - unlike some of her "friends"! Getting invested enough to like or not like characters is a good thing! Recommended, and as it's a complete story I don't think it will be getting a season two.

River

This six episode British crime series stars Stellan Skarsgård who plays Detective River, who as far as I can tell really shouldn't be a police man because he talks to dead people. Well not really, because they're just in his head and they only tell him what he already knows or how he is already feeling. When you randomly talk and shout to people that aren't there well... lets just say you're not at the top of the list for being someone to defend the community. Anyway, the story and acting is ok but that whole overarching premise is quite strange (in a bad way).

Kin

This two season Irish crime drama stars Charlie Cox who plays a member of the Kinsela crime family who seem to be "middle men" when if comes to the drug trade. The first season has a few slow bits but it certainly picks up as it goes along, and its funny that despite them being somewhat infamous they also are lacking in power when compared to shows that have other crime families in that they have a healthy fear of the law and are often bullied as they're never the biggest fish in their pond. That scripted "weakness" makes it interesting! I'll definitely be watching a season three if it comes out.

Songs of Silence and Samorost 3

Two games beginning with "S" that I didn't enjoy.

Songs of Silence

This fantasy RTS sees you command armies and cities across a map, with battles being "zoomed in" to both your forces and the enemy forces just doing their thing with the only input from you being their initial formation, and playing "cool down" cards to do special actions like healing a cluster of allies, telling all horses to charge somewhere etc. 

The art is pretty nice but that "detachment" to your forces, and the theme that you MUST do x by doing these steps in order (like, conquer this land BUT you must beat the RED guys first before the GREEN guys or get from point A to point B BUT you must sneak through forests or the enemy will smash you) is a bit too railroady for me. Guess I didn't expect that from an RTS? 

Samorost 3 

We're back in the funny hand drawn asteroid or our point and click protagonist who comes across a magic space trumpet and embarks on a quest to... do something with it? Definitely not as easy/obvious as the previous Samorost and the clue section pictograms also requires deciphering as there is still no language anywhere. Didn't enjoy this one very much.

The Night Manager (Seasons 1-2) and Thank God You're Here (Australia)

Shows where people are pretending to be someone else.

The Night Manager

When a humble hotel manager aka "the Night Manager" (played by Tom Hiddleston) becomes privy to a terrorist level threat (whose mastermind is wonderfully played by Hugh Laurie) he gets involved in some secret agent spy hi-jinx to take them down. This currently two season British show is really good, and I quite like that our protagonist has to often rely on his charm and wit instead of brute force violence. However it's also a great example of "gee, you wouldn't be in this mess if you just killed your enemy earlier huh?". Despite that annoyance, I still recommend it. 

Thank God You're Here (Australia)

This comedy show has a few iterations depending on country, but for the Australian version there are six seasons of sending four (or five) comedians through a door on a stage where they must act out a scene without knowing anything about it before hand - forcing them to make stuff up on the spot. They might have some hints with the costume of props they are provided with, but especially as it is in front of a live audience the results are always very entertaining! Now as you might expect, some people are not as good as others but there are a number of fantastic and hilarious ones making the whole thing worth watching. If you can find it, I recommend giving it a try.

The Darkside Detective and Definitely Not Fried Chicken

Two games starting with the letter "D".

The Darkside Detective

This small pixel point and clicker has you play the titular Darkside Detective, which includes cases involving ghosts, zombies, and things not of this world! Yet due to the awesome writing and humor, it's always funny and never actually scary. Each case is also self contained with all the items you need to solve it being at the scene, along with easy hints on how to proceed built into the character's musings (so you don't have to press a big "hint" button or anything). On top of all that are some good ideas making this a really easy game to recommend. 

Definitely Not Fried Chicken 

This voxel game is a management one, starting in the tutorial chicken shop where you need to make rooms and decorate them with functional equipment like toilets in the restrooms and friers and chicken huts (for freshness) in the kitchen then hiring staff to handle said equipment. The colonel fires you right after the tutorial though so that you can go use your newly learned skills in building some other enterprise... drugs!? Yep. Not really my style so this one is a pass for me.

Botany Manor and Boxes: Lost Fragments

Puzzle games starting with "B"?

Botany Manor

This first person puzzler has you researching how to grow some plants in a very fancy manor. Luckily the plants grow instantly when you get the experiments right, however these are no ordinary plants. The very first one needs a particular heat temperature to be set, another needs the recreation of a thunderstorm to bloom, and merely walking through the large manor has other puzzles that need to be solved to open more rooms and potentially more clues on how to grow things. While the vibe of the pretty art and music is very relaxed there's a LOT of walking so be prepared to take physical notes (or you know, pictures with your iphone as they did in the 1800s lol) to save you some time. 

Boxes: Lost Fragments

This first person puzzler takes all the walking out of the game and instead lets you zoom or zoom out of interesting areas to interact with, and as suggested by the title - it mostly involves working out how to open a variety of complex and most often utterly BS mechanical boxes. The detailed art helps and it does feel good to open these things but man, there's a bit of "find the pixel" in some of these where you wouldn't even think to look and some really tough puzzles. Fortunately there are in built hints and a skip puzzle option for dum dums like me. :P Very cool though. I prefer it to Botany Manor. 

It feels like this game certainly enjoys giving you this as you try unlock things.

Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel and My Night Job

Games in perma-horde mode!

Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel

This slow loading game has you playing in various Norse arenas against swarms of beasties, ghosts, and others while you do repetitive objectives within a time limit to ultimately summon the Jotunn boss of the level. While there are multiple characters, weapons, and maps and difficulty modes you could possibly choose from the vast majority are locked and you must do specific tasks to unlock... the game basically (grind mode activate!). I also wasn't too keep on the game pausing every time you level up to pick a perk, but given the game play I can't really think of a better way to have done that. Ultimately not for me.

My Night Job

This small and silly action platformer has hand drawn characters and you play as some guy recruited by the military to save x number of civilians from a haunted house (at least in level one) which endlessly spawns all sorts of violent spooks that range from ghosts, goblins, and zombies to robots with gatling guns (I hate those). You're also under the clock since if rooms get too full of bad guys not only do they kill the people you're meant to be saving, they start stomping until they break the room entirely - causing no more spawns to occur there! All up the game is a short and crazy experience that you should try out if you can find it for free. 

Wonder Man and a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Two TV series that aren't like their predecessors?

Wonder Man

This eight episode Marvel superhero show is one that doesn't really focus on good versus evil, so if you're expecting the standard beat-em up you'll likely be disappointed. Instead, it follows struggling actor Simon Williams (awesomely played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) try out for his dream role of the titular Wonder Man while hiding his often troublesome powers. Opposite him is Trevor Slattery (portrayed by the fantastic Ben Kingsley) who takes more of a mentor type role while still somewhat haunted by his "terrorist" past (from Iron Man 3). So yes, quite different and also very good.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (Season 1)

This currently one season show set in the Game of Thrones universe follows hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall (played by Peter Claffey) as he tries to find honorable knightly work after the knight he was squiring for died. It's comedic and quite entertaining, especially with scene stealer Egg (played by Dexter Sol Ansell) though there are gross bits too - hey, still has to be Game of Thrones right? At six episodes it feels pretty short but at least there's no filler to be had here. Recommended and we're looking forward to season two!