Look! 4 games surprise launch at Wholesome Direct

Saturday’s Wholesome Direct showcased dozens of (yes, wholesome) games, including four that surprise launched alongside the event. Four whole games! Those games are Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge, POOOOL, The Palace on the Hill, and Tracks of Thought. All are available on Windows PC Steam, but you’ll also find Kamaeru on itch.io and Nintendo Switch; The Palace on the Hill on Android, Apple iOS, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X; and Tracks of Thought on Windows PC via the Epic Games Store.

Kamaera is basically a frog farming simulator, where you’re essentially setting up a habitat for your frogs to thrive, while POOOOL is a physics puzzle game that sounds like a twisted Suika Game. Meanwhile, The Palace on the Hill is a slice-of-life game about life in rural India in the ’90s and Tracks of Thought is a card-based mystery solving ride. They all couldn’t be more different, but each looks delightfully wholesome all the same.

Beyond the four surprise released games, the Wholesome Direct was not short on games to get excited for. Some that I’m looking forward to include Squeakross: Home Squeak Home, which is mouse Picross; Été, a watercolor painting simulator; Sopa: Tale of the Stolen Potato, an adventure game about getting a potato for your grandma’s soup; While Waiting, a silly game that makes you wait around; Tiny Bookshop, which has a new demo available; and Wax Heads, where you run a record store.

There were too many incredible looking games shown during the Wholesome Direct to list here, so if you missed the show, I’d recommend watching it for yourself. There’s a lot to look forward to in the next couple of years.