Screenshot Saturday Sundays: Alpine beasts, stumbling swordfights and a lonely village
Got your wellies on?
Screenshot Saturday Sundays isn't dead! Having retreated to the Scottish Highlands to take real-life screenshots of bugs, frogs and all sorts of nonsense, we return to the big city this weekend for another round-up of virtual pics, gifs, and videos. This week: Lurkers in the forest, urban flight, next-door neighbours and a wibbly wobbly swordfight.
Given the absence, you'll forgive me if I push the rules a bit to grab this clip of Austrian fantasy Hinterberg from last week's lineup. It's just too much of a looker to pass up.
A contemporary fantasy quest from Philipp Seifried and Regina Reisinger, Hinterberg already looks gorgeous. This week's gloomy Alpine forests are a long way removed from the blinding oranges of past urban landscapes, our plucky sword-swinging student already looking out of place when this brutish horn boy emerges from the woods. While it's still early days for Hinterberg, I'll definitely have my eyes on it over the coming months.
Let's hope they're a better fencer than our next fellow, mind. I s'pose flailing wildly works if your opponent is standing completely still.
What I actually love about Shingpapi's little scuffle is how it's only the latest iteration of this wonderfully wobbly chunky style. A scroll back through their feed shows some remarkable experimentation, from sword-swinging Breakout duels to royal skeletal dance-offs. There's a tactics game buried in there, somewhere, but I'm genuinely just excited to see how many different directions this joyful band of puppets can be pulled in.
After all that, though, I think it's about time we put down our swords and meet the neighbors in village builder Kainga.
Now, I do worry Erik Rempen's "tribal" game may veer too close to some awkward cultural tropes. Nevertheless, the ancient city-builder is playing with some interesting ideas regarding community and environment, with your society seeming to fit itself around village leaders and the local environment. What's actually grabbed me is the fauna, though - wild as it is with Morrowind-esque striders, turtle-finned squidbeasts, and armies that wage war riding atop massive snails. More weird and massive beasts, please and thank you.
Finally, after a solid few days of Star Wars: Squadrons, I'm just about ready to jump into anything with two wings and a cockpit.
I don't think I'm ever going to get over how sick the PS1 revival aesthetic looks. But while I love Haunted PS1's stuff, it's always cool to see the look used outside of a horror context. Rather, Future Reality has built a rad-as-hell jet fighter out of the system's limitations, screaming between high-contrast tower blocks while extremely 90s beats pump up the soundscape. Love it.