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Tense and fiddly FPS roguelike Receiver 2 shoots out next week
If you haven't played 2013's Receiver, you've missed out on some of the best shoots in videogames. It's an FPS roguelike where you roam about on rooftops, fending off turrets and drones with a gun that needs more attention than a two-year old. There are separate buttons to slide in individual bullets, fiddle with safeties, and do that primey thing where you slide the top…
"Give the guy a gun and he's Superman," Russian playwright Pavel Chekhov said in his manifesto. "Give him two and he's God." The same is usually true in video games, except in Receiver. There, giving me even one gun turns me into a fumbling idiot, unable to shoot because I forgot the the safety off, accidentally dropping precious bullets when trying to reload... I hope…
2013’s Receiver is now prettier and smoother and you should play it
Revelling in the finer points of gun operation seems distasteful to me now in a way that it didn't back in 2013, but I still bloody love Receiver. It's about stalking across dystopian rooftops, deserted but for the turrets and drones intent on killing you. So far so videogames, but what sets Receiver apart is the way every weapon requires meticulous care. Press R in…
September 17th, 2008, nearly a full decade ago. That's when Wolfire Games first announced anthropomorphic animal brawler Overgrowth, and now it's due to receive its final update - version 1.3. While Wolfire would go on to be better known for their Humble Bundles (eventually selling the Humble brand to IGN), I feel that Overgrowth and its decade of development is an important part of independent…
Feature: Not worth the wait
The most satisfying moments in Overgrowth [official site] take place in mid-air. Rabbits are typically good at jumping, but they’ve got nothing on their anthropomorphic cousin, Turner, the martial arts master and hero of this critter-bashing romp. His leaping ability borders on the power of flight. During those seconds, suspended in the skies above the game’s largely empty battlefields, it feels like anything’s possible. Invariably…
I already told you this, but you weren’t listening. Rabbit kung fu game Overgrowth [official site] is out now for all your animal-punching pleasure. It features the following: Rats who stab A drop-kicking rabbit Wolves with no sense of clemency or grace Come and see what it looks like below, in smashing GIF form.
The rabbit roughhousing of Overgrowth [official site] is finally complete, say developers Wolfire, and a release date is set for Monday next week. The physics-heavy martial arts adventure has been playable for years and years and year, of course, but by giving it a solid date of October 16, Wolfire are saying: right, that’s your lot. Almost a decade of development is quite enough. So,…
It's hard to write about Overgrowth [official site] without feeling a little old - this is early access before that was even a thing. According to my email archives, I was first informed of Wolfire Games' ninja rabbit simulator entering development in 2008, and I put down a preorder on it back in 2009. It feels very strange to say this, but as of October…
Feature: Run rabbit run
Every Monday we send Brendan into the early access fighting pits to face all types of terrifying wildlife. This week, the rabbit kickboxers and ultra strong wolves of Overgrowth [official site]. Overgrowth is a game that has been eight years in the making and still isn’t anywhere near finished. An anthropomorphic fighting game of swift kicks and raw punches to the side of the head,…
The kung fu rabbits of Overgrowth [official site] have been around in a playable form since I was a small and ancient protozoa, so I won’t accept the game’s sudden switch from “alpha” to “beta” as news. But I will take notice when told that the story campaign of its predecessor, Lugaru, has been adapted into the fisticuffs framework of the sequel, meaning there should…
Feature: Gun Game
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. There are a lot of games with guns in them, and a lot which strive for some measure of simulation, but few that manage to wring the tension, nuance and sense of expression that Receiver [official site] does from its arsenal of carefully…
Receiver is a game with "a lot of buttons. A needless amount." So says Graham, who also claims that the gun simulator is one of his favourite roleplaying games. A gun simulator is not a first-person shooter, just as QWOP is not a walking simulator, even though in some ways that's precisely what QWOP is. Receiver isn't a game about pointing and shooting, it's a…
Feature: Press H To Read Thoughtfully
Receiver is a first-person shooter made in just seven days. It takes place on a set of grey rooftops sparsely populated by turrets and flying robots. Your goal is to collect cassette tapes from randomised locations, and each one contains a nebbish voice coldly reciting instructions and explanations of the game's hard-boiled scifi setting. It's austere and £3/$5, yet it's also one of my favourite…
Its rabbit characters are not the interesting thing about this game. Overgrowth is interesting because this indie project from a small team has physics-driven kung-fu, destructive and satisfying swordfighting, environment-hopping wall-running, stealth, RPG mechanics, local multiplayer, and a level editor that allows you to construct your own scenarios. The game has been in paid-alpha since 2008, a time when "paid-alpha" wasn't really a thing we…
Overgrowth is weird. Shamefully, I always forget about it until I watch a video of it, at which point I remark, aloud, to no one in particular/confused housemates/non-sword-wielding rabbits, "Wow, those are probably the best sword-wielding rabbits I've ever seen in a game." Because, I mean, look at them. Those ears are floppy in a way that can only be described as lush. And now…
Ours is a world of strife and chaos. Everything fights: people, seahorses, parasites, plants, and - yes - even adorable fuzzy-wuzzy widdle bunnies. Overgrowth doesn't avert its gaze from this awful truth. It depicts the gruesome realities of lagomortal kombat with oftentimes stomach-lurching precision, putting hare-splitting blades, black-eye-sprouting bunnicuffs, and yes - even that most fearsome and pointlessly brutal of bunny-fu techniques - slow-mo on…
In between being Humble and making games about dangerous rabbits, the handsome folk at Wolfire have made a game with astonishingly complex gun-mechanics. It's called Receiver, and it's arguably one of most interesting experiments in the first-person shooting field for some years. Rather than clumsily attempt to precis this, I've posted Wolfire's own mechanics video below. The game has just had a big content update…
It's always interesting seeing how games come to be. Take Relock: it was inspired by Wolfire's excellent Receiver, a complicated gun sim that was made for the 7-day FPS challenge in the middle of last year. Receiver is excellent, but with Wolfire currently making a wabbit kung-fu sim, it's unlikely to get much love. So Relock is here to give the people that loved Receiver…
Feature: Warren Piece
Overgrowth's slow-motion button is the Best Thing Ever Of All Time Today. Pressing TAB turns the work-in-progress bunny beat-em-up into a work of art; a dilated dalliance between lagomorphs. You can see all the systems clicking into place: the gamey legs stretching out, the lucky rabbit's foot crunching the unlucky rabbit's larynx, the crumple as the body is broken beneath that big, flat hoof. Who'd…
Feature: Reality doesn't have a reload key.
I went to a firing range once. Now, don't get the wrong idea: I had no pretensions of "Oh, I've played first-person shooters, so this will be a bullet-casing-encrusted cakewalk." I was not able to pre-fathom, however, just how truly terrible I'd be. Even the simple act of loading rounds into my borrowed 9mm pistol's magazine was - at least, at first - an awkward,…
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