Anodyne - a surreal, top-down Zelda-style adventure - is out now

Anodyne is what happens when you instill Zelda - specifically, the series' 2D highpoint Link's Awakening - with the sort of creepy, surreal atmosphere more often associated with Silent Hill, or Jasper Byrne's nightmarish Lone Survivor. Like the Zelda classic, Anodyne takes place in protagonist Young's subconscious, but his dreams are tad messed up in comparison to Link's relatively cheery Wind-Fish jaunt. Back in September we pointed you towards a demo, but developers Analgesic Productions (AKA Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka) have recently issued a newer one , to coincide with the game's release yesterday.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.