A dating sim announced by the Armello devs for April Fools' Day.

April Fools' Day 2021 Gaming Roundup

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Published: April 1, 2021 9:10 AM

 Today on April Fools' Day, all parts of the video gaming community are bringing out their best jokes, pranks, and silly game ideas to share on social media. Here are some of the ones we found the funniest or most creative.

Yesterday, the Australia-based developers/publishers League of Geeks posted an announcement for a dating sim spin-off of their highly popular virtual board game Armello. In Heartmello, players would be dating the characters from Armello, using their wits, spirit, or gold to slay their love interest's heart. You can see the picture associated with that announcement up above. Remember April Fools takes place across a variety of time zones, and it was April 1st there when they did it. Also, a good thing to remember that people will be behind you on time too unless you're in an extremely rare timezone.

Ever wanted to have a hairdo like an anime villain? This video is advertising a hair product (or possibly a hat) that'll help you get that Dragonlord-style (from Dragon Quest) hair you've always dreamed of. Like the Armello April Fools' tweet, this was posted yesterday for us, so the website associated with this is no longer up.

 

Over in the grim world of Little Nightmares II, a newly-announced DLC called Cooking Mono will have one brave boy trying to cook for a cafeteria of Bullies in order to avoid becoming the next ingredient. They're also holding a contest until the end of the day to see who can come up with the best Little Nightmares recipe, with a prize for three winners.

Promo art for Cooking Mono, an April Fool's joke from Little Nightmares.

Meanwhile, on the Discord for the Powder Game-inspired roguelike Noita, every single channel name has been switched to Finnish ("Noita" is Finnish for "Witch," although it's probably closer to "Shaman" or "Medicine-man.") The second half of the tweet, also in Finnish, says that this was done "probably because it is better than before in the spirit of the game."

Noita fan discord (https://t.co/hhEmIYn6Zs) decided to switch all channel names to Finnish, varmaankin koska se on aikaisempaa paremmin pelin hengessä pic.twitter.com/I69kXaKwcw

— Noita - 1.0 Out Now! (@NollaGames) April 1, 2021

Valheim's new species

Valheim is giving players the opportunity to play as something other than a boring old human, like a deer.

The deer species on Valheim's character select for April Fools' Day.

The team behind the rhythm-based roguelike Crypt of the NecroDancer has announced the rebrand of their biggest title, now with 100% more cats.

Meanwhile, the team behind Sword of the Necromancer has announced a crossover with NecroDancer called Sword of the NecroDancer, available on the Nintendo Switch shop.

Art for Sword of the NecroDancer, an April Fools' Day project.

Grim Dawn offers up a tasty new tie-in title with Trap, Sever, Delicious! Players will go on a culinary journey that will teach players how to best serve man.

A tie-in game for Grim Dawn on April Fools' Day.

In other food-related news, Deathloop may not be out yet, but they already have a breakfast cereal tie-in!

Deathloop cereal announced on April Fools' Day.

For something less appetizing, GFuel is teaming up with SEGA to produce a flavor themed around chili dogs, Sonic's favorite food. They claim that the GFuel Sanic product is not an April Fools' joke.

 

New Blood Interactive, the studio behind games like Faith and Dusk, are big fans of supporting up-and-coming artists. That's why they got Lavender, the 4-year-old daughter of Dusk developer David Szymanski, to help with the art on their games' Steam pages.

Yacht Club Games, the creators of Shovel Knight, have announced the grand opening of the Yacht Club Games Yacht Club.

Hey, flippers! It's me, Goku! House Flipper is currently celebrating a Dragon Ball Z event where players can refurbish Master Roshi's house as they collect balls said to have ties with powerful wish-granting dragons.

Promotional art for the Dragon Ball Z House Flipper event.

Forest of Illusion, a Nintendo-themed video game preservation Twitter account, has released the prototype for Super Mario RPG 2, the game that would be known as Paper Mario.

 

CrossCode brings back a six-year-old April Fools' joke as a free DLC by introducing a "Manlea" skin for Lea, the game's protagonist. This skin DLC is available for Steam and GOG, and doesn't affect any of the game's dialog, so Lea's name or pronouns won't change.

An in-game screenshot of the Manlea skin in Crosscode.

Kitfox Games created a Twitter thread to show off some behind-the-scenes cut content for Boyfriend Dungeon today as they reveal some weapons/suitors that didn't make the cut, such as Stick, Cannonball, and Tongs.

Stick, a supposedly rejected character from Boyfriend Dungeon, revealed on April Fools' day.

A new update for the raft-building survival game Raft makes painting and seagulls even more obnoxious. Not only does paint need time to dry, but seagulls can ruin the paint by licking it away, they'll now attack the player instead of their potatoes, and they come in packs that use air force tactics.

The Paper Mario-like RPG Bug Fables announced a sequel to their game... and it's going to be an aphid farming game! The game, Aphid Festival, can be downloaded on itch.io.

 

War with the Overworld has announced a new peripheral that old-school Nintendo fans will love. The Power Hand of Evil offers a variety of new features and it's so bad.

The Power Hand of Evil peripheral introduced for War with the Overworld on April Fools'.

If you're looking for some real pain, the grim 2D platformer Blasphemous just released a new "Screaming Sinners" mode to the game. What does it offer? Spikes. Spikes EVERYWHERE.

Pokemon Sword and Shield have a very special Max Raid event going on today. According to Serebii.net, the event is what can only be described as "Oops, all Magikarps!" Also, you can't catch them.

The patch notes for Guild Wars 2 offer a variety of new features, such as food expiration dates, a "Wipe Inventory" button right next to the "Compact" button, and "excessive hordes of hyenas."

World of Warcraft patch notes

World of Warcraft has its own set of April Fools' patch notes for players to look over. The new dungeon "A Fungus" will have groups of players finding the traitor among them, players can take up sea shanty singing or Wand Vision as new professions, and players can celebrate a variety of micro-holidays.

As for Overwatch, their patch notes in the Experimental branch give some experimental changes for the characters. However, the game itself brings back two old April Fools' jokes: Reindhardt players commenting in all caps, and googly eyes on every character and turret.

Ubisoft also has its own patch notes for Immortals Fenyx Rising, which make Fenyx ludicrously overpowered.

Valorant has introduced a butterfly knife to the game. Emphasis on the word butterfly.

The deity-based MOBA Smite has announced Smite GO, which lets players play with their favorite gods on the go.

 

Persona 1 Anniversary

Atlus West brought out a trailer for a port of Revelations: Persona for PS4 and PC... but it has a nasty surprise halfway through.

In the Left 4 Dead-like team-based hack and slash Warhammer: Vermintide 2, a new DLC titled Return to the Reik will have players taking a trek to the titular river in order to free a merchant's stuck boat, filled with building materials the Skaven are seeking to claim as their own. The DLC is likely a big nod to when a boat got stuck in the Suez Canal for six days, resulting in a traffic jam of over 350 vessels.

Promotional art for an April Fools' Day DLC for Vermintide 2.

The upcoming 3D platformer Demon Turf has made some "minor" changes now that it's being published by Playtonic. More specifically, Beebz has been de-feeted (or the opposite of it, rather) and everything has googly eyes.

Now that @PlaytonicGames/@PTonicFriends are publishing Demon Turf we were contractually obliged to do some *minor* changes.

Beebz is now nothing but feet and everything has 👀. It might be strange at first, but it's ultimately for the best. pic.twitter.com/fKaDeDP8On

— Fabraz (@Fabrazz) April 1, 2021

In more grim news, the remake of Gothic being developed by THQ Nordic is getting an in-game store. Thank goodness that this is April Fools' news. We've also learned that the upcoming farming/crafting sim My Time at Sandrock has been renamed to My Time at Rocksand due to a copyright dispute over the word "Sandrock", in another joke that would be sad if it was real.

THQ Nordic is also celebrating April Fools' Day with a new line of Dark Ciders non-alcoholic ciders.

 

Control demake

Fans of demakes will be pleasantly surprised by this April Fools' joke from Remedy Entertainment, in which they show off a version of Control that can be played on a PS1. 

Starting today, you can play @ControlRemedy on the first PlayStation system.

Here's a short clip, courtesy of our principal gameplay designer, Tommi Saalasti, the driving force of this port. Hope you like it!

📺 https://t.co/OjG0cmDtSI pic.twitter.com/HVfVVcJN30

— Remedy Entertainment (@remedygames) April 1, 2021

Bloodborne Kart

In other demake news, a dev making a PS1 version of Bloodborne has decided to cancel the project, and instead make Bloodborne Kart!

 

Over in the free-to-play World War II MMO War Thunder, a new "TailSpin" event (named after the Disney cartoon of the same name) for the game aimed at "younger War Thunder players" as they move to a "new 4+ age rating." The "War Toonder" event runs from today to April 5th and gives players the opportunity to earn new planes and vanity items. Note that the Fox and Bear icons will turn into normal human pilots after the event ends, but there's no word on if the TailSpin decal will change.

Looking to improve your Fortnite game with the power of stonks? The Fortnite in-game store is now selling Meme Man as a skin, here named Diamond Hanz.

The 🔔 has been rung and Diamond Hanz is ready to answer the call.

Buy! Hold! Win! pic.twitter.com/bmP1czr326

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) April 1, 2021

In other battle royale news, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has been taken over by a menacing chicken by the name of PlayerOmnon, and players can challenge him and his Henerals until April 12th by checking out the arcade cabinet in the menus. The arcade cabinet lets players try out the "re-release" of the 1991 arcade classic PlayerOmnom's Battlegrounds.

PlayerOmnom, a menacing new addition to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds for April Fools'.

Staying on the topic of chickens, Neverwinter is currently dealing with April Fowls, bringing with it a variety of new chicken-themed events and items.

 

The Godot game engine has renamed itself the Godette Engine and released a new logo.

The new logo for the Godot engine.

Game developers aren't the only ones getting in on the April Fools' spirit. On PCGamesN, a newly-released article announces that the highly-awaited Elden Ring is actually a "social psychology experiment" run by the CIA and HBO showrunners. Their goal? To study the psychic abilities that a large number of Dark Souls fans possess.

Meanwhile, IGN is reporting that Zoom is taking their video conferencing technology in an exciting new direction with Zoom Royale, which will have you take damage for bad connections, interruptions, stuttering, and all the other mishaps that can happen on video calls.

Speaking of Zoom, iam8bit is working on creating a Physical Collector's Edition for Zoom. There's no word yet if Zoom Royale will be a part of the collection.

A Zoom Physical Edition for April Fools' Day.

What Are The Tabletop April Fool's Day Jokes?

Meanwhile, in the realm of tabletop games, Chaosium is taking their fantasy tabletop RPG game RuneQuest and making an even more historically authentic version of it, with a "clay table cuneiform" version in development. 

The cover for the RuneQuest Cueniform Tablet game on April Fools' Day.

Over in the Warhammer tabletop community, there are two big "events" going on. The first is an announcement for a new WarHammer 40,000 animated epic called Primaris Lieutenant: The Movie, and the other is WarHammer Quest: Cursed City, where players have to resolve crises in the city of Ulfenkarn. This one is a real product, but some of the events they posted for WarHammer Quest, such as one where you decide if your character should eat some dubious food, are created for April Fools', and "previewed" today.

Meanwhile, the website Wargamer has reported on the appearance of mysterious objects that resemble giant d20s.

A picture of a giant d20 that allegedly appeared on April Fools' Day.

Rock Manor Games makes fun of acquisition-happy companies in a news announcement where Asmodee, a French board game publisher, picks up an indie publishing group.

Remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure books? Z-Man Games has created Select Your Own Experience: The Gaming Convention, a Twine game that can be played on your computer.

Steve Jackson Games also released a tease of a new cologne based on their game Illuminati.

An Illuminati-themed cologne for April Fools' Day.

What are some of your favorite video game-themed April Fools' jokes? Let us know in the comments below!


A picture of me, Brian Renadette
| Former Staff Writer

I am a graduate of Southern New Hampshire University with a major in writing and a minor in gaming. I have a passion for video games and writing. I also… More about Brian