Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is pretty fun, Rivercraft is an interesting Minecraft mod, and Ron Gilbert is returning to Monkey Island.

Play through all nine Star Wars films as a Lego minifig in the Skywalker Saga

The Lego video games from TT Games (formerly Traveller’s Tales) are an institution unto themselves. The first one, 2005’s Lego Star Wars, collected scenes from the first three films in the franchise (Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith) and established a clever, winking tone that conveyed the story and its characters without a word of dialogue.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, from Warner Bros Games, gives us that same sense of humour even as it gives us fully voiced characters (which you can disable if you’re a purist).

This is a veritable encyclopedia, not just of Star Wars characters and lore, but also of game mechanics and Lego builds.

You’ll be navigating environments, solving puzzles, seeking out hidden Lego bricks and collectibles, and getting into battles with all the expected villains.

And you can play all of this in couch co-op with a friend.

You can even choose to play through the movies in your order of preference. The correct choice is, of course, Machete Order.

And by the time you get to the end of the ninth film you can have more than 140 characters in your roster.

This game is loaded with easter eggs, too, including one remembering Rick Moranis’ role as Dark Helmet from the Mel Brooks satire, Spaceballs.

The Skywalker Saga is dazzling in its representation of one of the most important film franchises of all time.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is available now for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Rated everyone 10+.

Rivercraft gets kids addressing the realities of flooding

I’ve written before about how Minecraft has been used in educational settings. There’s the Anishinaabe world, for example, that demonstrates what what is now western Manitoba looked like prior to European contact.

A new world that’s been created is Rivercraft, which presents players with a digital version of Preston, a community in Lancashire, in northwest England, a community that can be seriously impacted by floods.

In Rivercraft, players can create flood defences to see what does and doesn’t work to control the water. They can also explore how they can impact climate change and affect flood risk.

Beloved Monkey Island franchise getting a new game later this year

Legendary adventure game designer Ron Gilbert is returning to his beloved Monkey Island franchise. Return to Monkey Island is the third game in the series wth development led by Gilbert, following Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge.

The first two games were point-and-click adventures developed in the 1990s by a group of game designers working for LucasArts. They were remastered and rereleased in 2009 and 2010 and are playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S (only $10 each for Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2).

The new game is scheduled to be released this year and is being published by Devolver Digital.