The pretty puzzleheads of Gnog will finally come to PC some time in November. Ko_op’s Gnog traps us inside giant monstrous heads, where I suppose our objective is to escape but that seems a lot less fun than messing about. Like Windosill and games by Vectorpark, solving puzzles feels secondary to poking around, fiddling with things to discover delightful consequences. Here, peep this: Read the rest of this entry »
Lara Croft and her spooky doppelganger return today in The Mirror of Spirits, a free new chapter for Lara Croft GO [official site]. Our John has declared the turn-based Raider “about as close to perfect as games can get” so coo, more of that sounds good.Here, get a peek at the reflective new puzzles in this trailer: Read the rest of this entry »
Lara Croft Go [official site], the tomb-raiding puzzle game spin-off in the same turn-based vein as Hitman Go, finally has a proper PC release. While I was off on my hols scrambling up hills and round waterfalls last week, she arrived on Steam doing much the same. John is a big fan of it on Android so coo, I’ll have to check out this Alice copycat’s antics. I wonder if she also gets vertigo and clings cussing to safety railings. Read the rest of this entry »
I am quite keen to rummage in the giant puzzleheads of GNOG [official site]. They’re teeny little rooms with plenty of things to press, pull, flip, open, rotate, lift, twist, twirl, plug in, and generally fiddle with. Developers Ko-op Mode have cited inspirations including Windosill and Polly Pocket toys and yes, that all sounds splendid. It looks gorgeous too. Check out this new trailer:
Gardenarium [official site] is now out on Steam so I’ve used that as a reason to stick my beak in and see what it’s like to play. Alice has told me many good things about plant growth and colours since Gardenarium first came out, you see.
[GIFS AHEAD]
Wandering around the desolate foreign planet you’ve recently crash landed upon in free walking simulator Orchids To Dusk [official site] is a somber yet wonderful experience. With only a few minutes to live, you take control of a desperate astronaut who’s got nothing but the vast plains that stretch out effortlessly in front of her, a quickly depleting oxygen supply, and the soothing electronic melodies which set the tone to keep her company.
Of the innumerable walk-a-explore-o-awe games I’ve played, few have entranced me as much as Gardenarium [official site]. Hand-drawn flowers and trees grow, unfurl, sway, swirl, and dance as you explore cloud lands. They’re full of strange characters too, teachers, hitch hikers, and other hand-drawn lovelies with weird things to say.
The Wild Rumpus gang showed Gardenarium in our Mild Rumpus chill-out zone at the Game Developers Conference this year. I sat watching it from within a big metal leaf for a whole day, still cussing in wonder at the animation by the day’s end. Now you too can coo, aah, and cuss at Gardenarium, as it came out yesterday on Windows, Mac, and Linux at $4.99 (£3.30-ish).
I wrote previously about GNOG [official site] when it was called GNAH! and I was charmed by its art style, its playful attitude to puzzle solving, and the fact it’s about poking and rotating gurning faces with rooms inside. The team decided in November however to “throw everything out and start from scratch.” The result is that it’s still a game about prodding at heads, but the art is brighter and more lovely than before, and there’s a musical theme to each floating bonce.
Watch the trailer and you’ll see what I mean.
RPS Feature Hands On Faces
I was in love with Gnah! the second I saw it. Each of this puzzle game’s levels is a hollow head drawn and modelled in a crisp, graphic style. When you sit down to play it, your objective isn’t explicitly stated, and so you just start to spin it around and poke at it. Twirl this cog to make its eyes open, angle this search light to make screens light up inside, twist this nodule to let the water in. By experimenting with each level-headed toy, you discover its logic and unlock progress to the next. There was some non-euclidean trickery in the build I played, but otherwise it’s a gentle experience, more interested in the delight and discovery of playing with heads than in making you scratch your own.
To find out more about the game I spoke to Samuel Boucher, Saleem Dabbous and Nick Rudzicz from developers KO-OP MODE about how each level begins as a 2D concept, the tragedy of each Gnah head, and the inspiration they’ve drawn from Windosill and Polly Pockets.
“SCROLL FACEBOOK…WITH YOUR FACE” it promises. “YOU’LL NEVER FACEBOOK WITHOUT YOUR FACE AGAIN.”
Lacking mystical powers of prophecy (try as we might to guess the end of tonight’s Eastenders), we can’t yet see exactly what will be the fallout of Facebook buying Oculus and its Rift virtual reality goggles for $2 billion. However, thanks to GNAH! and Skipping Stones developer KO-OP Mode, we can now experience the majesty and wonder of browsing Facebook in VR. The wags behind have whipped together a vision of the future with Face It: It’s Complicated, letting Facebookers into glimmering cyberspace to look at photos of their friends’ children.
