Tag Archive

King’s Brutality: Queens

Written by Alec Meer on July 2, 2009.

Fancy ten-minutes of uber-difficult indie platformer about domestic violence? ‘Course you do. Because you’re sick in the head.
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Foot Like A Traction Engine: Kickabout League

Written by Kieron Gillen on July 2, 2009.

This is risking being a turn-up for the RPS books. I’m meant to be going to an interview, in a pub. Like – now. But I keep on playing games of this online foot-to-ball game, Kickabout League. Yes! A browser-based foot-to-ball game has got its teeth into me. Now, I’ve only played for a handful of matches, but this really seems to be an appealing, top-down mouse-and-keys esque take on football, cut to the bone. That is, no-throw-ins (There’s an agreeable pinball-esque off-the-wall approach) and lots of GOOOOOOAAALLLLing. I’ve even managed to win some matches, which shows that the learning curve can’t be that steep. You can sign up here or read a few more, interview-going-delaying thoughts below…
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Push, That’s It, Come On, PUSH!

Written by John Walker on June 30, 2009.

Thanks to the fine folks at Bonus Level – the create-your-own Flash gaming site – we’ve word of another absorbing puzzler to distract you from the mundanity of your life. It’s called Push, the work of one Ian Snyder, and it’s a completely new (until someone tells me I’m wrong and references something from 1984 on the Amstrex CX44) approach to platforming.

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New Star Soccer 4.07: Can You Click It?

Written by Kieron Gillen on June 29, 2009.

Sometimes I’ve amazed what we haven’t written about. A recent update to 4.07 reminded me that we’ve never even given the slightest plug to New Star Soccer 4, unarguably the most critically acclaimed Indie football game existent. The updates include a general boost to AI – both players and goalkeepers – but it’s really notable for just being its own take on the genre. You play a single player, following him through his career. I admit, I haven’t had a chance to really delve it into much, but the worth of being independent is clear when there’s obvious options to do illegal drugs to boost your performance at the risk if you’re found out. Plus, going gambling, drinking and getting a girlfriend. In other words, all the stuff which you’ll never see in a game with an official licence. You can get the demo here or watch some footage beneath the cut…
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My Uzi Weighs A (Skele)ton (Boy): Friendly Fire

Written by Kieron Gillen on June 29, 2009.

People mail tips to RPS as a group. Sometimes they mail them to me directly. I can’t help but feel choosing the latter is the result of amateur psychoanalysis my interests (Sex, Swearing, Extreme Violence, Pop Music, Pretension, Short Temper With Patronising Pedants). So when the comments-thread’s Dorian Cornelius Jasper mails me flashgame Friendly Fire I’m worried he thinks I’m a fan of the we-don’t-sound-like-the-klaxons-but-we-fucking-do band. But thankfully, it’s actually about a man in a top hat blowing tiny cute animals into their individual organs with a variety of heavy weaponry, collecting those organs, and then upgrading their weaponry (Presumably by swapping all the goop for guns in some kind of particularly unsavoury shop, thankfully off screen). That’s the kind of thing we can all get behind, I suspect. Go play here.

How To Raise A Dragon

Written by Jim Rossignol on June 26, 2009.

Gregory Weir, he of the peculiar and splendid I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colours, has created another exquisitely minimal, decision-led adventure. This time it’s about raising a dragon, obviously. But what might be entirely obvious is that what you dragon eats, and how they decide to interact with human beings, is going to ultimately decide their fate. As with Weir’s previous games, it’s got a distinct beauty to its pixellated, multiple-pathed tale. You can play it here. And you should.

Harry Potter And The Free Demonstration Program

Written by Kieron Gillen on June 25, 2009.

We’re not exactly the biggest fans of Harry Potter here at RPS, because we’re grown-ups so prefer to spend our time on grown up pass-times like videogames, painting Skaven and marching around chanting that we are playing army, asking people to join us until a girl tries to join us, at which point we inform them loudly that no girls are allowed. But EA have released a demo of their latest videogame incarnation of the bespectacled mage. It’s about 600Mb or so, and you can get it here. Scanning its press release, I find the following line: “Players may even get sidetracked by Ron’s romantic entanglements as they journey towards a dramatic climax and discover the identity of the Half-Blood Prince” which makes me think that Ron is going to blow his load messily before discovering who the half-blood prince is. Lucky old Ron, I say. Anyway – trailer beneath the cut. Woo!
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Earth, Wind & Firepower: Kingdom Elemental Demo

Written by Kieron Gillen on June 24, 2009.

Chronic Logic dropped me a line, mentioning they’d just released a major update for their strategy game, Kingdom Elemental: Tactics, improving the interface, revamping skirmish, new challenge levels, user-created stuff and lots of exciting sounding improvements. Or rather, they would be, if we knew anything about the game, but we’ve never played it. There’s only two ways to solve that. One: find a player, excise their brain with scalpels and merge it with your own with brain-glue. Two: play the demo. I went with the latter. It’s basically a real-time-with-pause skirmish game, with a tiny touch of tower-defence in its design. Oh, I’ll explain it a bit better below…
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Choose Your Own Fractal: Polynomial

Written by Jim Rossignol on June 23, 2009.

This morning’s trippy maths-cleverness comes to us via Indiegames, where they flagged up fractal 3D space shooter in progress, Polynomial. It’s a beauty, although somewhat slow paced at the moment. The game contains “mathematically generated fractal scenery and models”, which can be created first hand using the in-game editor. The results are rather spectacular. And I particularly like the Mandelbrot Set as an Eagle nebula type skybox. It’s only a 3mb download, go take a look. And watch out for the dynamic reactor setting, apparently having that switched on can cause dizziness.

French Revolution: Enter the Story: Les Miserables

Written by Kieron Gillen on June 22, 2009.

This caught my eye over on TigSource, for a load of reasons. It’s an adventure game (kinda) version of Les Miserables. You buy the game for 15 dollars, and you get the next two games in the series free (Which are based on the Divine Comedy and Roman poet Lucretius’ “The Nature of things. Apparently). Even more-so, the profits are being put towards his research into popularising Georgist ideas of Land-rent. Oh – and he’s got plans for the next five years. Ideas aren’t in short supply.

Clearly, I had to give a demo a shot…
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