Screenshot Saturday Sundays: ecological exploration, discreet doors, and feathered friends

Screenshot Saturday! A day in which we throw prescriptivist definitions of the word “screenshot” out of the window in order to take a peek at what game developers are working on at the mo’. This week: a fight with some sort of whiskered lizard, a mysterious doorway, and some strange birds.

Sometimes, a screenshot is a 90-second video, because you need to show off new animations. Good for sound design too; I love a nice crisp footstep.

That’s from Pine, an action adventure game where, according to its website, nature is “much smarter than humans.” That means you’ll be able to "trade, talk, quest, and fight” your way through a whole bunch of creatures and possibly change the whole ecology of the region in doing so when it releases sometime later this year.

Sometimes, a screenshot is a gif, focusing on a little detail, like this abandoned door opening up.

That door lies somewhere in Resolutiion, another action adventure game which has a very beautiful colour-shifting website. “A lonely soldier and the AI Alibii journey to find answers and decipher the Cradle’s code,” it says, exploring various areas and defeating various enemies with various weapons and items along the way. More importantly, there’s “a giant blue cat.”

And sometimes (though rarely) a screenshot is a still image, like this one from Gitcha Gotchu Garden, showing off some good birds.

I don’t know how your friends become avian here, or what it means for your relationships and society at large, but I’m into it. The game’s website promises more information coming later this year, but so far it’s described as “a care-full game about friends, fun, and self-care,” which sounds sweet and lovely. Even if everyone you know suddenly sprouts feathers.

Other things – screenshots, all of them – can be found in the tag on Twitter.