Skip to main content

Screenshot Saturday Sundays: abandoned amusements, eldritch beasts, and shotguns

Screenshots are back!

Could it be? Should it be? After two months away, Screenshot Saturday Sundays have returned under new management. Every Saturday, game developers across the globe take to Twitter to share weird and wonderful works-in-progress under the hashtag #screenshotsaturday. This week, we've got creatures beyond comprehension, abandoned theme parks, and the return of shotgun-propelled desk chairs.

What struck me first about Komako was its physicality. Artist Balázs Rónyai's hand-drawn spaces have such a strong sense of place - a dim, dry heat so familiar I can almost feel the weight of the panel scraping open.

Described on r/gamedev as "a hand-drawn adventure game about an orphan girl exploring an old, abandoned theme park, and meeting its inhabitants," Rónyai has been posting delightful pastel gifs of Komako on their Twitter since at least May 2018. There are dozens of them, a curated collage of a forgotten space that I can't wait to explore for myself.

While this next critter might look like the sort to haunt an abandoned amusement park, I reckon they're a real softie at heart. I've been watching Constantin Liétard's pet abomination grow for some time now. Watching it learn to walk, limb after limb after limb after limb after limb. It seems the poor thing's not quite scraped together social skills, yet.

A 3D programmer at Gameloft by day, Liétard's been developing smaller game with Temporarily Unnamed Collective (Gearbox allegedly took ire at the group calling themselves Borderline Games. Bit of a stretch, eh lads?). The creepy crawler might not have a name yet, but that's not stopped their creator from reimagining the many-legged monster in goose form. Untitled Goose-from-beyond-the-veil Game, perhaps?

Now. I'm not saying that I spend half my weekend shift kicking a stool around an empty office. But I'm not not saying that, if you get me? Consequently, let's check in on inappropriate office conduct brawler Last Man Sitting.

Pegged as a cubicle-smashing battle royale, last we saw the devs had spun it off into two-a-side kickabout Last Man Kicking. Two years later, they're still pitching that initial desk-chair deathmatch, and it's looking delightfully ridiculous.

Last up, and I'm cheating a bit. This lovely vertical slice of Grapple Dog was posted last weekend but look, right. We haven't done one of these in months. Let me off the hook, eh?

Platformers are ten-a-plenty on #screenshotsaturday. But developer Joseph Gribbins has really nailed a particular Gameboy Advance look. Bright and bold, with a simple mechanic executed flawlessly. There's a joyous sense of movement, and I'm excited to see how Grapple Dog's challenges ramp up over time.

Grappling hooks, huh? They're just great.

In lieu of a high-quality Komako image, our Header Image is Kokoko by Balázs Rónyai.

Read this next