Dunked in a cloud: not a bad start to the day. The sky is very clear and the ground is often cloud, soft duvet mounds of pearly blue that will hold you up but which, brilliantly, still see you disappearing into the blurred depths for a few early seconds before momentum carries you back to the surface. Connection is forgiving - even grind rails have a sort of mag-lev dreaminess to them, so you can hop on and off without much in the way of fiddliness. The earth curves away in strange, promising pathways. You ghost frictionlessly over the landscape here, a thing of will and direction only. It's a cosmic skating game with spectacular rinks and it absolutely does not want you to stop moving even for a second. This is Solar Ash, and Solar Ash is a skating game, really. Availability: Out December 2nd on PC (Epic Games Store), and PlayStation 4 and 5.

It was beautiful and teasing and I wondered how to get there. The island was facing downwards, so where there should be stars, I saw patchy grass and the tops of noble pines. Late last night I stood in a floating church, looking up through the bones of the shattered ceiling towards the sky, where an island hung above me. This glorious game about movement and adventure also feels like a rumination on something deeper and more personal.

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