Screenshot Saturday Sundays: Clock graveyards, squeaky storytellers and an island in the Myst
Myst me?
Screenshot Saturday Sundays! That reliable portal to other worlds has opened up once again, a sneak-peak at a smattering of screenshots, gifs, and video delights that are sure to sate our curiosity for a Sunday afternoon. This week: a snowboard throwback, dead clocks, squeaky anecdotes and a frightful return to John Walker's favourite game.
Admittedly, we're kicking things off this week with another retro horror throwback from HauntedPS1. Haud on though, did Myst ever make it to Sony's debut console?
The real horror here may be that anyone is attempting to yank Myst - a game John Walker (RPS in peace) has professionally loathed almost as long as I've been alive - back into 2020. I've never played the thing, I'm not one to judge. But what I do love here is how developers Bryce Bucher and Modus Interactive have captured the surreal, clay-like look of pre-rendered backgrounds from the mid-90s. Lonely, alien structures dotted on unnatural islands on plastic oceans.
Speaking of throwbacks - what happened to all the snowboarding games? Forget SSX, where are my fellow Amped fans?
They're working on Shredders, that's where. Just namedropping the OG Xbox's answer to SSX has already piqued my interest - a statement of intent that suggests a similar kind of Tony Hawk-adjacent snowboarding sandbox, packed mountainsides with a laundry list of slope stunts to pull off. From what I'm reading on their site, it also seems I-Interactive are looking to pull a Skate Story by bridging the gap between button-mashing arcade tricks and Skate-style simulation. I may not be hitting the actual slopes again anytime soon, but if they can pull this off, I'll be first in line at the chairlift.
Our next game is nothing special at first glance - colourful, top-down adventures are all over the shop on #screenshotsaturday. But then the cutscene camera rolls, and see a masterclass in animation timing.
I adore every frame of this seemingly throwaway interaction - from that first player's slam in the dirt (sorry, "popping a squat") to every sudden close-up lending intense gravitas to what is, effectively, squeaky-toy exposition. It's delightful scene-setting for a game that gets more wonderfully strange the deeper I dig into developer BEBADBOI's fee - perfectly at home alongside the collective's beautifully absurd catalogue.
Finally, a quick tease at a surreal field from the makers of The Indifferent Wonder of an Edible Place. Do skulls melt as easily as clocks, Dali?
Seems that time's already run out, again and again and again.