Visit Dystopian Manchester In Beyond Flesh And Blood

Bath, the Georgian crown of England, the enthusiastic voice track on the open-top tour bus barely stopped short of calling it. After official RPS business (a nice big lunch) took me to the UK's unofficial home of PC games word writing yesterday, our Adam t'up north is the only Rock, Paper, Shotguneer whose manor I haven't visited. No worries. A demo's out now for Beyond Flesh and Blood, a shooter set in a dystopian future Manchester. Our kid gave it a look with his beady eye before, recognising a few bits, so I shall be sure to grill him after playing.

"ADAM how long have those warbots been there? ADAM is Manchester always this dirty? ADAM what species of tree is that growing through the office blocks?"

You can download a slice of man-gibbing, high-scoring, defense-building, mech-stomping wave survival over here, though for some odd reason you will need to sign in with Twitter or Facebook or register an account. You big sillies, PixelBomb Games, you're supposed to make it as easy as possible for people to try your game.

PixelBomb tried to Kickstart Beyond Flesh and Blood last year, but felt far short. After wrestling through Steam Greenlight, they're now planning an Early Access launch.

I am fond of shonky video game tourism, gaining an extremely wonky understanding of cities through their video game experiences. What's video game, what's Manchester, and what's dystopian flourish will entirely escape me. I'll surely be disappointed if I visit Manchester and there aren't any mechs, but the same's true for every city.