Tally-Ho Corner HQ is feeling decidedly Spring-like at the moment. The lilacs in the dooryard are in full bloom, there are bouncing bunnies on the lawn, and a moment ago, for the first time in around eight months, a little wooden bird emerged from the office cuckoo clock and loudly questioned my sanity.

A is for All Quiet in the Trenches about to get darker?

I found Totally Not Aliens’ “narrative turn-based strategy RPG” a tad timid when I tried it last year. You’d think an imminent injection of poison gas would give the game a little more bite, but judging from this dev diary, the new chlorine clouds are going to be minor irritations at most. Strangely, there’s no mention of gas killing or disabling unmasked soldiers, or producing ‘gas panic’.

B is for Banner bones?

Tucked at the bottom of Wargame Design Studio’s latest quarterly review are three images that could indicate WDS have a Northern Ireland ’74 rival in the works. Of course, a Falklands revamp is another possibility.

C is for Cockpit guidance available

Now free heli sim Hijong Park’s Defender Patrol has interactive tutorials, it should have no trouble making friends.

For those with fond memories of DI sims like Hind, the new transport missions are also sure to be a big draw.

D is for decent Descent-like demo

Turning floors into ceilings and ceilings into floors is easy in 6DOF shooter Liha. Although the demo would benefit from missiles and countermeasures, and some cagier enemy types, anyone who enjoyed its 30-year-old inspiration is unlikely to regret the 230 MB download.

E is for Eighties oddity set for a sequel

As the original Airborne Ranger plays like a cross between Commando and Commandos, presumably the sequel will too. While the lack of ice and gullies in the screenshots may disappoint some gamers with long memories, if the vehicle commandeering, destructible scenery, ‘dynamic AI’, and twelve mission types mentioned on the Steam page are up to snuff, even rabid nostalgics should be won-over.

F is for Flying can-opener sim

I was rather hoping trashing a few targets in the Remote Reaper demo tutorial would unlock a more naturalistic locale. It doesn’t appear to, but as the full game hails from Ukraine, only costs £8.50, and seems to feature pretty solid flight modelling, I may well remove map padlocks by shelling out.