Jay Castello

The latest interactive file system pal from Nathalie Lawhead is a delightfully anxious almost-spider called SHARED_ANXIETIES_WITH_A_FRIEND_ON_YOUR_BIRTHDAY.exe. They wander about your screen, expressing all kinds of day to day fears. And I love them.

Tagged with Nathalie Lawhead, SHARED_ANXIETIES_WITH_A_FRIEND_ON_YOUR_BIRTHDAY.exe.

The wind has caught the sails of naval FTL-like Abandon Ship, moving it out of early access and into its 1.0 release. I never thought seafaring was particularly safe, but I wasn’t quite expecting the dangers in this trailer. Fighting other ships, sure. I’ll even take a horrible kraken creature. But volcanoes? Spiders descending from nowhere? That just seems unfair.

Tagged with Fireblade Software, Abandon Ship.

Screenshot Saturday! A day for game developers to give us all a look at what they’re working on. And considering the time of year, a surprisingly unspooky one, but we’ll do our best to find scares where we can get them. This week: somewhere to hide from the rain, a mysterious plane crash, and a nice dip in the hot springs.

Tagged with Drop Bear Bytes, Screenshot Saturday Sundays, Sebirit, Tropical Puppy, Broken Roads, Fantasy Farming: Orange Season, Lightyears From Home, Skies Of The Past.

If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. Murder. The surprise is murder, at least if you’re in the woods of Lakeview Valley. Although it might not be much of a surprise, given the game describes itself as a murder RPG, and you might just be the one offing people. Take a look at the dangers lurking in the…

Tagged with Roope Tamminen, Lakeview Valley.

BBC Radio 3 are getting stuck in to the world of video game music beginning today, with composer Jessica Curry (whose work you’ll hear in Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture) beginning her new show Sound Of Gaming. It’s good listening, particularly if you, like me, can’t stand to have lyrics on while putting words to paper (or internet) lest it become a…

Tagged with BBC, BBC Radio 3, game music, Jessica Curry, Sound Of Gaming, Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture.

Since I first saw a gif of the squishy guts monster of Carrion I haven’t been able to decide whether its movement is nauseating or beautiful. Playing its free demo, which is available now through next Saturday, November 2nd, has neither settled my stomach nor my appreciation for its aesthetics. I think this is a good thing.

Tagged with Devolver Digital, Phobia Games Studio, Carrion.

Many people, including myself, have only been clued into WWE 2K20’s existence because of some wonderfully gif-able glitches that have been whizzing around the internet like a character model caught in the rapidly-twanging arena ropes. But there are those who actually wanted to play the game as it was intended, and developers Visual Concepts have taken to Twitter to say that they’re aware of the…

Tagged with 2K, Visual Concepts, WWE 2K20.

Epic Games, developers of that little game that you might have heard of called Fortnite, are suing a UX tester for leaking details about their big shift into Chapter 2. They say that Ronald Sykes caused them harm by Tweeting things he shouldn’t have about season 11, which eventually arrived after their big black hole event a couple of weeks ago.

Tagged with Epic Games, lawsuit, Fortnite, Fortnite Battle Royale.

Stellaris’s newest alieopals, the Lithoids, have arrived, crunching their way through space in extremely cool crystalline ships. The lore claims that this new rock-based species lives for ages and can hang out on even the harshest of planets, but their blingy transport suggests a different kind of je ne sais quoi if you ask me. You can see them in the trailer below.

Tagged with Paradox Development Studio, Paradox Interactive, Stellaris.

I like a video game that tells me everything I need to know right there in the title. Like Bleakstead. Bleakstead is about a certain place, a stead, if you will, which is bleak. Thanks Bleakstead! It also has just incredible stars.

Tagged with Valerie Dusk, Bleakstead.

I have never met a person who loves mushrooms as much as my dad. It is, in fact, rare to meet anyone who loves anything as much as my dad loves mushrooms. Therefore, after some time playing and enjoying mushroom gathering adventure Morels: The Hunt myself, I invited him to come and play with me. As we were waiting for an update to download, I…

Tagged with Abrams Studios, Morels: The Hunt.

Screenshot Saturday! A day for peeking at what game developers are working on at the moment. Games, probably. Also, it’s October, and if you haven’t heard, that’s Halloween month, so this week two out of three are spooky. Maybe next week we’ll go for a full house. Who knows! That’s so far away! Within: a leaky basement, a chill spirit, and some light relief in…

Tagged with Dillon Rogers, Like Charlie, Recreate Games, Screenshot Saturday Sundays, Ghost On The Shore, Gloomwood, The Tarnishing Of Juxtia.

Plagued village Pathologic 2 is expanding, with a DLC called The Marble Nest opening its doors before the end of the month. It’s its own story, putting you in the shoes of a new doctor, this time of the PhD variety. Scientist Dr. Daniil Dankovsky will only be on town for one day, so you’d better make the most of it.

Tagged with Ice Pick Lodge, tinyBuild, Pathologic 2.

Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville, the latest shooter spinoff to the goofy tower defense original, released proper yesterday after a short stint in early access. Popcap have been carefully watering it with content updates for a few weeks, and now it’s ready to blossom into its final form. They’ve released a pun-filled musical trailer to celebrate.

Tagged with Electronic Arts, PopCap, Plants vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville.

Escher-inspired puzzle game Manifold Garden has found its way through the topsy-turvy corridors of development and out into stores this week. As a person with very little sense of navigation at the best of times, its physics-agnostic world threatens to break my brain, but gosh, it is pretty though isn’t it. You can get a look at the infinite architectures within infinite architectures courtesy of…

Tagged with William Chyr Studio, Manifold Garden.