Bernband

It's been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that's happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you, but a day's work for us. Below you'll find our picks for the 50 greatest games released on PC across the past decade.

Following the release of Digital Bird Playground, I was curious what Tom van den Boogaart was up to with his other long-awaited game, a follow-up to Bernband. 2014's first-person explorer remains one of my favourite games, the game I recommend to people more than anything this side of Skeal, and I'm still happy just seeing snippets of his work on a new alien city for…

My nerves have been sufficiently jangled and my trigger-finger sufficiently itched by the glut of action games which landed in the closing months of last year. I crave an altogether more sedate beginning to 2018, and so my mind turns to games in which violence, reflex or any other kind of unblinking attentiveness takes a back seat.

'Suspicious Developments' remains my favourite name for a games studio*, but 'Sokpop' might be my favourite name for a video games collective. That's because a) it captures some of the playfulness that they bring to their work, and b) it's fun to say. Sokpop!I can look forward to exclaiming it more often, because Sokpop Collective have announced that they'll be releasing a new game every…

There are more wonderful games being released on PC each month than ever before. In such a time of plenty, it's important that you spend your time as wisely as possible. Thankfully, we're here to help. What follows are our picks for the greatest PC games ever made.

Alice and Pip have been off wandering their way through digital worlds from Proteus to Sacramento and are now hobbling towards a shared definition of a walking simulator. Find out what conclusions they've reached and why their definition categorically does not include Dear Esther!Pip: Alice, when I asked you to recommend me your favourite walking simulators so I could go on some digital expeditions what…

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor [official site] made Alice swoon at the idea of cleaning up rubbish in a colourful and bustling spaceport. That’s probably because it looks like a brighter and happier Bernband. Well, good news for Alice and anyone else in love with the creator's gifs – it’s coming out next week. Come see what if looks like in motion.

From the fractured festivities of The Division's Manhattan to the lo-fi confusion of Bernband, urban spaces in games are drawn from many reference points and they all communicate their own ideas about cities. What they are, on what terms we relate to them and how they behave. Thomas McMullan explores how game mechanics attempt to make sense of cities.French detectives, shopping centres and terrorist acts:…

The time is almost here. My little girl will be three in May, and already she's capable of a dexterity and understanding I never believed possible during the long, dark months of screaming, feeding every twenty minutes and dropping every single meal all over the floor. (Granted, an ear infection means she's spent the last week essentially regressed by about a year and doing most…

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.We've gushed an awful lot about Bernband, but have you played its fellow waggly-handed walking simulator Hernhand [official site]? The two are companions of sorts, with Tom van den Boogaart (BB) and Jake Clover (HH) riffing off the same idea of exploring an alien…

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.Bernband [official site] has my favourite alien city in a video game. Stuff the Citadel, Bernband is where I want to go. Wandering its streets, corridors, and passageways at night you might see bands play in bars, visit nightclubs, stumble into school classes, wonder…

Give up on trying to find your way around Bernband's neon alien futurecity. Give in to wandering, see where your tippy-tappy feet and the turbolifts take you. One minute's wandering might take you through a bustling club, over a bridge with hovercars zipping past, to a horrible trumpet performance, then bumping into an alien weeing in a corner. Variety is the spice of life, They…

I'm still pining for Prey 2, but Bernband has sated that desire a little. It's a walking simulator set in an alien city, all stark architecture, colourful lights, and noise. Lots of noise. Trains roar past, flying cars zip overhead, machinery churns, and crowds all mutter and growl as you gawp at them. It's a low-fi version of everything that excited me about Prey 2's…