Nova Lands and Tattoo Tycoon are this week’s free games from the Epic Games Store

Every week the Epic Games Store gives away a game or two for free. This week, we get two casual, cozy games in differing genres for the low price of free.

• Nova Lands
  • Release Date: June 22, 2023
  • Game Type: Adventure, Automation/Sim
  • POV: 3rd person, top-down
  • Party: Single Player
  • DLC: None

If you played Forager, this game will seem familiar. It combines that kind of exploration to gather stuff to build stuff to automate stuff, and ramps up the building/automation gameplay loop into the stratosphere. It still has some of those old mechanics from Adventure games, where you have to gather, say, 4 rare cacti from the desert biome to access the frost biome, where you can grab 50 icefruit to unlock the swamps. You know, that one. But it combines all that with a factory that would rival a Satisfactory run.

• Tattoo Tycoon
  • Release Date: October 24, 2025
  • Game Type: Tycoon, management sim
  • POV: 3rd person, isometric
  • Party: Single Player
  • DLC: two tattoo “style packs” are for sale: Dragon, and Animal.

Tattoo Tycoon is a straightforward entry into the Tycoon slice of the Management Sim genre. It’s like Roller Coaster Tycoon, only if instead of flinging people off the tracks with wildly implausible coaster physics, you get the opportunity to screw up some stranger’s body with a poorly done tattoo. And yes, there is a bit of gameplay where you have to draw on the tattoos. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but it seems like a job I wouldn’t do with a controller thumbstick. Expand your tattoo studio, get nice furniture, and manage your employees — all the tasks a tattoo parlor owner has to do to keep the shop running. What isn’t readily apparent, but is a crucial task for any visually represented profession these days, is how much you need to pay attention to your social media marketing.

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