The latest from little indie outfit Rekim and to be published by anarchic cartoon channel-turned-games-publisher Adult Swim, Pool Panic is a game about living a life in the day of a jittering, gurning, animated cue-ball. Your mission: Explore a world of mystery, adventure and holes in the ground that you need to knock your fellow spherical kin into. Within, an announcement trailer that really wants to make sure you remember the title.
As the year crawls to its end through the leaves and snow — uphill, both ways — games that were slated vaguely to launch in 2017 are now looking at the two final pages on their calendar and thinking: 1) heck yes I’m stoked to turn over for December’s Christmas cat picture; 2) oh god, did I say THIS 2017? One such game is ToeJam and Earl: Back in the Groove, a crowdfunded revival of ye olde oddeballe roguelikelike. It was due some time in 2017, now it’s pushed back to some time in 2018. If it’ll cheer you, here’s a new trailer: Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Windows 95%
Goodness me, Kingsway [official site] is clever. It’s clever in so, so many ways. It’s clever in its absolutely spectacular presentation, but it’s far too clever to let that just be a gimmick – its peculiar appearance as a mid-90s Windows desktop could so easily have been a cute idea that hid an ordinary roguelite RPG, but instead it so very brilliantly influences how you play, and indeed the foibles of such an interface become crucial to how you experience it. It’s also really bloody tough. Here’s wot I think: Read the rest of this entry »
The throwback thrills of mashing monsters and arranging a cluttered Windows 95 desktop combine in Kingsway [official site], which launched yesterday. Andrew Morrish’s roguelikelike action-RPG is presented as an operating system where all aspects of dungeoneering are spread across the desktop and so many windows. Popups, shortcuts, folders, and progress bars all show little bits of the game, so you’ll likely want to dust off those window-arranging skills as well as your numbercrunching visor. I don’t know if the dungeon-crawling is any good but the presentation is cute. Read the rest of this entry »
April 20th is a day to get a little wacky, a bit goofy, to mellow out and trip to another world – because it’s when Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality [official site] will come out. Finally I understand why the Internet is always saying “20/4 blaze it to the max, duuudes.” I’ve no idea how Internetnauts have known about this for so long, as the date was only announced yesterday, but hey ho. Made by Job Simulator developers Owlchemy Labs, Virtual Rick-ality is another kooky messing-with-stuff game, this time making cybergoggles see inside mega-ace cartoon Rick and Morty. Read the rest of this entry »
Deceptively cute platformer Rain World [official site] has launched an update to make surviving the post-apocalypse marginally less punishing and, crucially, a bit less frustrating. The map is now improved, some resources are more common in places, and several control problems have been ironed out. Our boy Brendan wanted to like Rain World, oh he did, but he found control issues, poor explanations of crucial systems, and harsh penalties for failure just too much for him. Last night’s patch hasn’t massively changed how Rain World works, so it’s still a hard-as-nails game of mystery and misadventure, but it does take the edge off. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature From garbage worms to 'scissor-mouths'...
The Darwinian platforming of Rain World [official site] left me with mixed emotions. Surviving day-to-day in its brutal ecosystem can be an unfair slog, not to mention cursed with janky controls. Yet it’s also a stunning depiction of a harsh new world, with a host of spine-chilling, adorable, and wondrous wildlife. Here’s an incomplete collection of some of the animals and plantlife I’ve encountered, often resulting in a quick and painful death, all presented in the perfect format: GIF.
Important note: a big part of Rain World is its surprising world, and discovering how each animal lives and feeds. If you want to find that stuff out for yourself, ignore the siren call of the GIFs. You’ll appreciate it more.
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RPS Feature The 5175th series of Planet Earth
A trickle of wholesome GIFs has been tantalising us with post-apocalyptic platformer Rain World [official site] and its adorable protagonist the slugcat for some time now. It’s out tomorrow and I have been hopping and swimming and munching my way through its dripping, humid world of predator and prey over the past week to tell you wot I think. First: I am certain it’s going to become a cult hit with a crowd of hardcore, mystery-loving obsessives behind it. But secondly, it has also left me with the impression of a badly missed opportunity. Equal parts astounding and hands-tearing-out-your-hair frustrating, this adventure, like the slugcat itself, is a bit of a mix. Read the rest of this entry »
Here in the RPS treehouse of moaning about how tired and cold we are, we regularly thrill to GIFs of mid-development games, delighting to the art and animations of some unknown pleasure. It’s always bittersweet when the subject of one of those GIFs becomes reality, when all the possibilities offered by that handful of frames coalesce into something known and definite. Case in point, Rain World [official site], a 2D game with wonderful sci-horror environments, sinister shadow-beasts and the hypnotic leap’n’crawl of the ‘slugcat’ it stars. In GIF form, it was small slices of another world. In about-to-be-released form (end of this month, specifically), I can see what it really is.
Circle-strafing, leaderboard-climbing, backpedalling, shooting-enemies-into-traps, combo-killing FPS Desync [official site] is now out, offering those throwback cool murders and more in a garish neon package. Here, pop on your shades for this trailer (no, really, you might want to – it’s all a bit much, especially with the scanlines): Read the rest of this entry »
Take the stunt combo kills of Bulletstorm and the neon- wait, you didn’t actually take that did you, reader dear? Reach into Bulletstorm’s guts and- how did you do that? That wasn’t an order, just a rhetorical… what’s that on your hands? Is Bulletstorm okay? Can you cram that back into its guts? That’s really not on. I’ll try to be more literal.
Adult Swim Games have announced a release date of February 28th for Desync [official site], a first-person shooting video game about killing cyberenemies in cool and elaborate ways to rack up megapoints. I think it looks enjoyable. Read the rest of this entry »
It is better to GIF than to receive. Nobody follows this wise and ancient proverb more faithfully than the developers of survival platformer Rain World [official site]. The game’s ‘slugcat’ has been enticing the RPS office for years by jumping from one platform to another, squeezing between pipes and rescuing little slugkittens in a variety of handsome animations. We’ve got some more to show you below. But this time there is some vague news attached: Rain World will finally be coming out this year.
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The elusive Frog Fractions 2 snuck out while over the RPS Crimble holiday, hidden inside a colourful game about building a faerie village and locked away behind a sprawling ARG. Frog Fractions 2 could never be as surprising as the first game, given that y’know we now have heard of Frog Fractions, but it seems to have made a fair go of replacing surprise with epicness. Epicity? Epicicity? That thing. Once again, FF leaps wildly between genres on a wild adventure hidden within something innocuous. This time, your way in is to buy the sparkly-named Glittermitten Grove [official site]. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m always interested when a free small weird doodad I enjoyed years ago gets a full commercial release, and I’m especially curious to see what Small Radios Big Televisions [official site] has become. I enjoyed the mild puzzling of 2014’s free version, poking around an oil rig and gathering tapes to enter the warbling distorted scenes stored on them, but I’ve no clue what it might be now. More of a puzzle game, perhaps? I am keen to find out. Unfortunately for both of us, I need to finish this post before I can clock off and fire it up. Chop chop! Read the rest of this entry »
The trailer for Small Radios Big Televisions [official site] uses a voice filter that reminds me slightly of the Max Headroom hack that happened during a broadcast of Doctor Who. It also kind of annoys me that there’s no comma between “radios” and “big” in the title, but that’s another story. In any case, I think this might be a game for me. The wait won’t be long, as it’s now received a release date of November 8th. Read the rest of this entry »
ToeJam & Earl are back for another crack at some old school roguelikelike shenanigans and funky grooves. Aided by a Kickstarter in 2015 and now publishers Adult Swim Games, ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove [official site] is due on PC sometime in 2017. Back in the Groove will see the Sega Mega Drive cult classic’s stars crash land back on Earth, where they’ll have to do their best to fit in with the locals while they try to piece their ship back together.
You can see for yourself how the revival is shaping up in a new, nostalgia-laden teaser released this week.
Headlander [official site], Double Fine’s oddball homage to retro sci-fi, finally has a release date (and a spiffy new trailer). You’ll be able to get in on the body-swapping action on July 26th.
Oh, hallo there! You’ve caught me tidying up the last of the E3 stuff on my desk. Sweeping away Tunnock’s Teacake wrappers, mostly. But this? Ah yes, this is a half-hour of gameplay footage from Double Fine’s Headlander [official site]. Yes, I’d also almost forgotten they were making it. Headlander is a side-scrolling action-adventure about the decapitated head of the last living human romping through a ’70s retro-future world. Always got style, that Double Fine lot. See:
RPS Feature 2015's best Western.
What is the best Western of 2015? The RPS Advent Calendar highlights our favourite games from throughout the year, and behind today’s door is…
Headlander is the next game from Double Fine, and with news that the project lead from the wonderful Stacking is in charge I’m definitely paying attention. Borrowing the body-swapping concept from that Russian Doll-themed game, Headlander applies it more of a Metroidvania structure, with some lovely 70s sci-fi trappings and the option to graft your head onto anything from dogs to dancers. Take a look below.
