A couple of weeks ago, I wrote with some appreciation of Hitchiker - First Ride, the initial chapter of a game about catching lifts across an uncanny America with a series of oddball strangers. They tell you their stories, and as, as they do, you become embroiled in a wider mystery - and the landscape shifts and drifts into weirdness too. It pulls from Lynch and the Cohens, and it's perhaps a little to blunt about that, but its best trick is to evoke both the pleasant tedium of a long journey and the awkward getting-to-know-you conversations with a perfect stranger.

The big problem? Well, it was a Humble exclusive, bound up in their monthly subscription package - too tall an order for a purely curious mind. More ideal? Making this first chunk of the game free to all comers. Which is exactly what they've done, though only for the next few weeks.

Read more