Screenshot Saturday Sundays: Taking the dog for a walk on hexagonal hills
Can badgers wallrun?
Screenshot Saturday Sundays! While we're neck-deep in a month of massive game releases, let's take another Sunday to remind ourselves of the refreshingly small curiosities folks are posting over on the #screenshotsaturdays tag. This week: monochrome collies, lost badger cubs, geometry-driven country breaks and a wallrunning breakdown.
First up - let's dust off the board game cabinet for a bit of chill weekend gaming, aye?
A chill, eurogame-style board game about building quaint little villages, Dorfromantik looks like exactly the right kind of stress-free Sunday afternoon puzzle. With a stack of tiles at your side, the game tasks you with assembling a pastoral scene according to set criteria - places houses in set numbers, within proximity to fields, and so on. There's a prototype currently available to download on Itch, with developers Toukana planning a full release sometime next year.
Now, it may look dark and dreary in Farewell North, but I'd still rather take the dog for a walk there than in the miserable weather out the window right now.
Coming to Steam next Spring, Farewell North has you playing an energetic border collie, dragging their owner along as they restore colour to an archipelago inspired by the Scottish Highlands. Developer Kyle Banks cites games like Journey and Flower as drivers for this chill wee adventure, and it does look awfully pleasant - though I still reckon it's nowhere near grim enough to be a Caledonian landscape.
We're having something of a wildlife special this week, I reckon. Gosh, I wish someone would find this badger a home.
It's been a year since Endling's outrageously sweet critters graced this column. And yes, while the animals are still cute as ever, the world they inhabit has been spruced up - all those greys replaced with warm, autumnal foliage. Also arriving on Steam next year with the rather threatening subtitle of "Extinction Is Forever", following up on that warning by tasking you with the protection of a litter of fuzzy fox cubs.
Unfortunately, none of Endling's critters are wallrunning. Let's fix that right up with our next prototype, eh?
Now, Snarge's WIP looks flashy as hell already, even in this clearly unfinished state. But what's actually fascinating me most as a Mirror's Edge and Titanfall fan (and perhaps antithetical to the point of this column) is the debug log at the bottom of the screen. It's incredible to see even a glimpse of the logic going on behind the acrobatics, as the game figures out how to keep your sword-slasher airborne and in control.
Finally, a bonus bus ride from transport buff Nothke to close us off.
Megabus is looking a bit dreary these days, eh?