This week's Epic Games freebies will let you open your dream cat cafe, and dive into a Queen's Blood-like space battler

The Epic Games Store is back right on cue to offer up a delightful duo of indie games that won’t cost you a penny. Calico is an incredibly cozy fur-filled community sim which puts you in charge of rebuilding the town’s cat cafe. Lonestar, meanwhile, is a deckbuilding roguelike game that requires you to overpower and capture criminals across the known universe.

The world is a hectic place right now, and gaming has always served as an escape from the pressures of everyday life. What I really love about games like Calico is that you can feel your blood pressure dropping as you play. Though the main thrust of it revolves around decking out your cafe and making yummy treats for its patrons, you can also take all the time you want to just play with your animal friends. Simply picking up a cat and giving it a wiggle has probably restored years to my life span, and that’s just wonderful.

Calico leans into magical realism with its potion system, which breaks all sorts of natural laws. The More-to-pet potion, for example, makes an animal much larger, so you can ride around on a bear, fox, or even a raccoon. Last year, Calico’s Neat Things DLC arrived, bringing a scavenger hunt quest, a new area, and new companions to the game. Calico wasn’t particularly content-rich at launch, so this drop from developer Peachy Keen Games has helped it out tremendously.

Lonestar, meanwhile, is quite the chimera. Though it has that Faster Than Light-style look to it, this sci-fi roguelike plays very differently. Much of Lonestar’s gameplay loop is dice-based, and has you roll against enemy ships to out-juice them in three lanes of beam attack. If you’ve played Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s Queen’s Blood, then this should feel somewhat familiar.

That being said, getting your ship to the point that it’s fighting-fit isn’t as simple as rolling dice and picking favorable outcomes. You’ll have to pick a spacecraft and a pilot, both with latent strengths and weaknesses. From there, it’s a matter of accruing strong ship parts, and organizing them effectively to maximize your potential. If you know you’re going to lose a lane, you can burn up some fuel to dodge the damage, but the resource is scarce.

In March, developer Math Tide added a new robotic pilot, R3SET, a fresh elite encounter, and a suite of balance changes to shake things up. The studio’s hard at work on its next game, though, so don’t expect much more support going forward.

Calico and Lonestar are both free this week via the Epic Games Store, and can be permanently claimed between Thursday, May 28, and Thursday, June 4, at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm BST. Click here to add them to your account now, lest you forget later on and miss out.