Is it any wonder that people are struggling to sell games when everyone and their dog is just throwing lovely free stuff at us? This time, they even threw in the dog to sweeten the deal. Apocalyptic rafting survival adventure The Flame in The Flood is free for the next 48 hours (minus a couple) via the Humble store, and you should probably pick it up while the going’s good.
Hex-based roguelikelike action-RPG For The King today completed its fourteen-month adventure through early access and arrived at a full launch. Our Brendan enjoyed what he played even a year ago, so it’ll be nice to see how the game has ended up. Check out the pretty little adventure in the launch trailer. Read the rest of this entry »
Hex-based tactical dungeon crawler For The King has been rattling around on Steam’s Early Access section since February of last year, charming folks with its stylish texture-lite aesthetics and its compelling mix of freeform adventuring and uncompromising tabletop-inspired combat, where things are seldom far from a bad turn. IronOak Games reckon that their first baby is just about ready to take its first steps into the wide open world, and are gearing up for launch on April 19th.
RPS Feature Object impermenance
Chores are not supposed to be enjoyable. At home, stacks of unwashed bowls, cups and cutlery flood the sink, with the occasional fly fluttering about in search of a morsel. It’s only when I run out of clean plates that I wearily make my way there, caterwauling as I wash the dishes out of sheer necessity. But when staring at the bloodshed of Serial Cleaner, I can’t help but feel the urge to clean. Everything needs to be spotless and neat. I would even top that vase up with fresh flowers, if the game would let me. Read the rest of this entry »
There are very few truly original ideas, and fewer still in games. The survival sandbox genre as we know it now is the result of a thousand micro-evolutions, ideas bolted onto each other, and talent transferring between studios.
As such, Smoke and Sacrifice’s initial similarities to Klei’s excellent Don’t Starve aren’t that surprising, and are hard to hold against it when the game looks this pretty (in a grim fantasy way). More importantly, the game seems to be putting its own distinct spin on a now-familiar concept, putting story front and center in a genre where it’s typically secondary, if not totally absent.
RPS Feature The accidental pacifists
I’m going to tell you about the time my Bomber Crew accidentally dropped a food parcel on Birmingham. But first, a tragic tale.
A spitfire has gone down somewhere in the English Channel and it falls to my crew to rescue the pilot who is bobbing around in the water. We’ll need to fend off enemy fighters while dumping survival packs into the water in the pilot’s vicinity, but I’m new to this Bomber Crew lark and oh no one of our wings is on fire, and I think our plane is going into the drink. At least the spitfire pilot has some wreckage to cling to. Job done, I guess?
Flying missions in the upcoming strat-o-sim Bomber Crew [official site] is quite cartoony, in that you can do things like send crew members out on your World War 2 bomber’s wing to fix a burning engine. It’s also quite complex and serious, in that your plane can get duffed up enough to need to do that and you’ll die terribly if not. Bomber Crew looks a little like FTL but with more sim-y underpinnings, and it looks a right lark. Publishers Curve Digital today announced that they’ve picked Runner Duck’s game up and will be publishing it on October 19th. Have a look: Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature What Mr. Wolf Did In 1971
I don’t like it when I don’t know if I like something or not. After this many years of wibbling about games, I feel as though my Iron Hammer Of Judgement should be absolute. With 70s-styled stealth puzzle game Serial Cleaner [official site], though, I am confounded. Time and again, I fire it up and my brain clearly tells me “yeah, I really dig this”, but a few minutes later I’ve alt-F4ed right outta Dodge and am busy making a colleague endure my shower of invective about the game.
I tried to come up with a more insightful way of putting this, but all I’ve ended up with is this: Serial Cleaner is a really good game put inside the shell of a bad one. Or maybe vice-versa. Read the rest of this entry »
Stealthy crimescene cleanup game Serial Cleaner will leave early access next week and, it turns out, have cheeky bonus levels. While the game stars a cleaner (in the criminal sense) sneaking around murder scenes to remove bodies, blood, and other evidence, it’ll go a little fancier with bonus levels inspired by unlikely movies. Alien, Star Wars, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Suspiria are among the silverscreen scenes we’ll get to clean. Look, here’s the Alien level: Read the rest of this entry »
Looking at The Little Acre [official site], I feel like I’m reliving the days of my youth when I would go to Blockbuster and pick out one of Don Bluth’s latest animated opuses, like Thumbelina. It is a masterpiece. We don’t have long to wait to see all of The Little Acre, as publishers Curve have announced they’ll release Pewter Games’ impossibly charming little adventure game is set to release on November 22nd. Check out this trailer: Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Breathe in, breathe out
You know when you think about breathing, and then you realise now you have to think to breathe, and then you think, “Shit, what if I never start automatically breathing again?!” and then you realise you already are? Sorry about that. Anyway, Manual Samuel [official site] is a very silly game about a man who has to do such things very deliberately. As well as outdo Death. Here’s wot I think.
Looking for a fun competitive game to take home to the family at Christmas? Mate, DEVIL DAGGERS. Test grandma’s twitch reflexes, give your nephew new nightmares, and see how competitive everyone gets once your cousin breaks out the brandy. Or, y’know, I suppose Jump Stars [official site] might work too.
The platforming party game will launch in December, publishers Curve Digital announced today. It’s a TV game show-style doodad with competitive and cooperative local multiplayer minigames based around jumping and punching, and it looks like it might be a lark. See:
Eleven developers, including familiar names like The Creative Assembly and Rovio, have teamed up with War Child to help raise money for children in areas of conflict. The bundle includes 12 unique games for £9.99/$14.99 and all proceeds go to the charity. It’s an excellent chance to do good while playing some fine games.
RPS Feature Grow Beasts
It’s hard not to compare Human: Fall Flat with Ubisoft’s Grow Home and Boneloaf’s Gang Beasts, because Human: Fall Flat [official site] tumbles in the exact same physics-powered footsteps. In Grow Home you control a little robot called BUD, unsteady on his feet, using physics to solve puzzles and climb a giant plant. In Gang Beasts you control little blobby creatures, unsteady on their feet, using physics to have multiplayer fights. In Human: Fall Flat you control a little blobby creature called Bob, unsteady on his feet, using physics to solve puzzles and progress through its rooms. However, rather importantly, HFF makes a strong effort to do something appropriately different with the same ideas. Here’s wot I think.
The name of 10 Second Ninja X [official site] gives the game away: you have ten seconds to demonstrate ninja prowess. And, uh, maybe the X is crossbones ☠ because the bad guy is a pirate? It’s a zippy time trial murderplatformer split into levels with ten-second time limits – ten seconds to flip around, flip out, and kill people. It’s launching next week but a demo is already out and has a little bonus: the more people complete levels, the larger the game’s launch discount will be.
“The thinking man’s Gang Beasts” is the kind of awful thing I’d call Human Fall Flat [official site] if I wrote for a ’90 games magazine. It’s a physics-y puzzle-o-explore-a-platformer which, well, does seem to be awfully fond of Boneloaf’s physics-y brawler, from its soft looks to its grabby hands. Still! Sending a doughman swinging, flinging, pushing, and smashing around any way the physics engine allows does sound fun. And today publishers Curve Digital announced that Human Fall Flat will hit on July 22nd.
The original 10 Second Ninja is a strange beast in that it will kill you time and time and time again, yet can be completed in one single sitting. Well, assuming you’re not fussed about hitting its elusive three-star reward on each level. If you are, then you’d better put the kettle on.
Its follow-up, 10 Second Ninja X [official site], was revealed earlier this year and looks to offer more of the same. Today publisher Curve Digital set July 19th as its launch day and marked the occasion with a new trailer:
Human Fall Flat [official site], which will be released this summer, is the work of solo developer Tomas Sakalauskas and it really does look an awful lot like Gang Beasts. More specifically, the player character looks exactly like one the jelly-people from Gang Beasts, wobbly and prone to physics-driven mishaps. Rather than fighting other jelly-people, this chap uses his arms, which are controlled independently, to manipulate objects in order to solve puzzles and progress through a series of strange environments. Take a look.
Sportsfans throw all manner of things onto the sportszone, from stress balls to octopuses, but that isn’t strictly allowed. When someone flings three kilograms of limp cephalopod onto the ice, the sportsboss tends to pause play to sweep it up. Dodgeball players have no such luck in Stikbold! [official site], an arcade-y dodge ’em up released on Friday. When a wave washes across the sportszone or an angry swan starts honking around, hey, get back to dodging, buddy. Sport waits for no swan.
It’s just not historically accurate to have a ninja fight robot Hitler. Japan and Germany were allies during World War II, everybody knows that. So I’m glad that silliness is over with. I’m really precise about historical accuracy in my games. I’m talking about 10 Second Ninja, of course. Robot Hitler was also the reason why many levels were covered in swastikas, and the game had to be censored for German release.
But the sequel seems to fix this major issue: the antagonist in 10 Second Ninja X [official website] is a pirate. We can settle the arduous question that has occupied historians for centuries. (Silly historians – it’s obvious ninjas are cooler than pirates.)
