Rock, Paper, Shotgun

As much as E3 can generate that sad feeling in your socks, it’s important to remember that our world of gaming is FAR bigger and more interesting than that awful corporate circlejerk. And what better example to land before my eyes than Sarah Crossman’s Master Reboot. From concept to art style to the wonderful trailer, it’s a breath of fresh, creepy air. Created with the desire to explore the concept of life after death in the form of saved, explorable memories, this is a first-person “psychological puzzle adventure”, and it looks splendid.

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Extremely minimal, but beautifully presented, Lethal Dose is a micro-game of murder.

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Well this seems rather fantastic, unless in my doe-eyed naivety I’ve missed how it is instead sinister and terrible. Amazon US have launched an Indie Games channel. They say,

“The Amazon Indie Games Store helps independent game developers reach more customers, and helps customers learn about more creative games and the people and processes behind building those games.”

Which is great – if you’re in North America.

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Humans react differently to animal violence. I imagine I’ve seen about 200 on-screen deaths over the past few days, but at no point did I feel bad or empathise with the opposition. But every second of the Shelter’s trailer, where a mother badger must protect her tiny cubs, was like a force choke right in the feels. That hurts all over, let me tell you. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to play it given what it did to my heart rate. The horrible sense of death, of Mother Nature’s cruel indifference, the looming awfulness of it all. It’s is right here in a stealth game about badgers. Developers Might and Delight better be offering hugs in the comment section below.
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Teslagrad is an eye-catching side-scroller. Rain Games’ puzzle platformer that Nathan first spotted in January now has a couple of lengthy, detailed videos of in-game footage. Most impressive, for lack of being able to play the puzzles ourselves at this point, are the animations – take a glance at them.

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The real joy of bridge-building games is in the destruction. The challenge of making death trap bridges that will crumble at the slightest provocation. I can’t be the only person who puts effort into weakening bonds and lengthening rods, then laughing and clapping as a train nosedives into a ravine, can I? There’s room for many, many more structural puzzle games in my life, so I was pleased to find Sinking Ship Simulator, a game that understands the desire to watch the world crumble. Here it’s about the fun of watching 5000 springs wobbling, tensing, straaaaaining, before the inevitable point of no return, where it all goes a bit Poseidon Adventure.
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Metanet’s charming platformer N is so old the only wallpapers available at their site are in a 4:3 aspect ratio. That’s as close to a ‘yo momma’ joke as I’m comfortable making, but it’s also true – the high-res desktop backgrounds are 1600×1200. Out of curiosity, is there anyone reading this on a 4:3 monitor? Are you visiting your parents? The platform puzzle game was released in 2005, which in game time means it’s due a comfortable and easy retirement at one of our specially constructed facilities. But N has other ideas: Version 2.0 has just been released, and the old Ninja’s joints are as flexible and detachable as ever.

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“Remembering is a poetic exploration game driven by sound,” says the description of a short indie project from SonicPicnic, Monobanda and In-Visuals. Further “an audio driven exploration through a dreamlike world.” And as with every single audio-based game, its press release announces that it will “break new ground”. It’s odd – Blindside did the same a couple of years ago, declaring itself the “first” game of its like, despite there being hundreds of the things. Anyhow, their lack of perspicacity is not necessarily a blight on the games themselves, and you can play Remembering right now, for free.

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The Hidden is one of my favourite games: it’s a mod for Half-Life 2 Deathmatch in which one side is a SWAT team, and the other side is a slippery, invisible, singular monster (now I’ve mentioned it, I am doomed to play it all weekend). The reason it’s in my head is because of Damned, another asymmetrical multiplayer game that popped up in my inbox (thanks, Daniel). But where The Hidden was focussed on action, Damned looks like a multiplayer Amnesia.
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