Join me on my Tour De Jeux, starting with the official TDF game The Tour De France, the grandest race in professional cycling, started today. Across three weeks, 176 cyclists will ride 3328 kilometres (2068 miles) winding through France, Denmark, Belgium, and Switzerland, including the Alps and Pyrenees. As a keen cyclist and avid Tour watcher myself, I’m excited. So in celebration, over the coming weeks I’ll be gabbing about the Tour De France, cycling, and bikes in a wide variety of video games with my ownTour De Jeux, from big-budget open-world extravaganzas to cute wee indie adventures....

Unlike regular crytpocurrency, which has no value and doesn’t work Yesterday tech journalist Alex Hern, who has been making comparatively gentle fun of the crypto crash, pointed out that he didn’t Tweet about bitcoin in the boom times “because it wasn’t funny then.” So, after we posted yesterday abouta crypto fan who very shoddily stole Itchand for some reason tagged Itch’s founder in a tweet about it, allow me to bring you the news that someNo Man’s Skyplayers have come up with what I think is the most useful application of a crypto currency I’ve seen....

As you’d expect, Katharine and I were keen to try out this year’s selection for ourselves, gravitating towards the booth whenever we had a spare moment. What we found were 12 unique titles that ranged from heavy metal deckbuilding roguelites to cyberpunk samurai sidescrollers. No matter your interests, there was something here for everyone to enjoy. In the video above we run through every game included as part of this year’s showcase, letting you know why each of these upcoming releases deserves to be on your radar....

A cat is not a dog The house cat.Felis destructus.Humankind’s absolute best mate and undisputed master. Some upcoming video games are planning to examine the motives behind these enigmatic creatures, whose origins remain unknown.Straywill put you in the paws of a street cat finding their way home in a cyberpunk city.Little Kitty Big Citywill see you wearing the whiskers of a cat less concerned with going home than it is with wreaking urban havoc....

The network preview is scheduled to arrive the week of July 11th Last month, 343 Industries announced thatHalo Infinite’s long-awaited co-op campaign would begin its public testing phasein July. Now, we finally have a date. The Campaign Network Co-op test for Halo Infinite is due to start on the week of July 11th, 343 Industries announced last night, and will support up to four players with any combination of PCs, Xboxes and Xbox Cloud Gaming players....

Held back for summer school It turns out that school won’t be out for summer this year, becauseThe Sims 4’s nextexpansion packHigh School Years is set to release on July 28th. The first full expansion sinceCottage Livinglaunched a year ago, High School Years is set to do exactly what it says on the tin, massively expanding gameplay options for Sims in their teens. The pack promises to introduce staples of high school life like attending classes, getting detention, going to prom, and graduating, all as on-screen activities that the player can guide their Sims through....

Noah Decter-Jackson talks about the tension of making superhumans Adapting an established property in any medium has got to be a pretty tricky proposition. Satisfying the long term fans while keeping things approachable for newcomers on top of, well, making a good game. Add in the complexities of making a turn-based game based on an existing turn-based game and it’s surprising that developers don’t just collapse into gibbering, tentacle-waving Chaos Spawn....

Closed beta sign-ups are open now Get your knee and elbow pads ready, EA have finally rolled out some more information about its upcoming open-world skateboarding game, Skate. This is the first bit of news we’ve had since last year’sincredibly briefannouncement and it’s in the form of a shin-shredding “pre-pre-pre-alpha” gameplay trailer. “We told you we’re back, and we’re still working on it - but it’s time for you to see what we’ve been up to,” EA said....

Hints and the answer to today’s Wordle word In Wordle, you get six chances to guess a five-letter word. Even with the game generously confirming when you get a letter right (and whether or not said letter is in the correct place), it can be surprisingly difficult to land upon the solution before you run out of chances. If you’re in need of some inspiration for today’s Wordle answer we’ve got you covered with some hints; or you can skip straight to the bottom of the page, where we’ve given the solution....

Confirmed: Sonic can run Let’s face facts: the oldSonicgames have been re-released more times than I’ve had hot dinners. And every single Sonic fan has bought every single one of them, such is our sheer madness. We’re a little spoiled on PC for Sonic content these days, with every recent game of note having its own PC port that’s immediately been modded from bottom to breakfast. But it wasn’t always this simple, oh no....

Probably wasn’t the best idea to tweet at the person whose site you copied The creator of indie game storefrontItch.iohas called out a website that appears to have taken the site’s code for itself and begun selling creators’ games without permission. Dubbed ‘W3itch.io’, the copycat site’s creator replied to a tweet from Itch.io founder Leaf Corcoran, who promptly asked them not to “rip off” Itch.io anymore. W3itch.io even described itself as a “free-as-freedom open marketplace for independent game creators inspired by Itch and Gitcoin”....

I always knew sheep were up to something It wasn’t until I played a hands-on preview ofCult Of The Lambthis weekend that I realised how much ovine imagery is knocking around Christianity. All them lambs being sacrificed in the Old Testament, shepherds, flocks, the lion and the lamb. In Cult Of The Lamb, which is sort of a dungeon-crawling roguelite with a colony sim bolted on, you are a literal rather than metaphorical lamb....

The DLC adds six new episodes, each with new rules Charming roguelike deckbuilderDicey Dungeonswill see six new episodes added to its gameshow on July 7th in the free Reunion update for all players. Hailing from designer Terry Cavanagh, the DLC gives each of the base game’s six contestants an episode with “wildly new designs and rules”, the devs say. Play through all the episodes and you should get another 4 to 5 hours out of the game....