Solve lovely-looking puzzles as a pen-and-paper samurai in Inked

Inked, an upcoming puzzle game from developer Somnium Games, has two protagonists. The obvious one is the Nameless Hero, a rogue samurai on a quest for his love Aiko. The other is Adam, the comic book artist who drew the Nameless Hero. "Together they will embark on a journey that will forever change them both," its Steam page reads. The pen-and-papers visuals aren't just for show, then. It sounds like the story is actively being drawn as you play it, which is pretty neat.

We see papercraft visuals fairly often, but Inked has a very particular style. It looks it's made of graph paper, for starters, but it's not rigidly geometric. It uses thin pen lines to create detail via hatching and sometimes uses ink blots as shadow stand-ins. It's a clean, cool art style which really pushes the limits of the trusty line tool. I especially like the ripple effects on banners and water.

Inked will release later this month on April 26.

Austin freelanced for PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and has been a full-time writer at PC Gamer's sister publication GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a staff writer is just a cover-up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news, the occasional feature, and as much Genshin Impact as he can get away with.