Delightful and contemplative pet rock simulator Mountain is looking better than ever in version 2.0, launched yesterday. David OReilly and co. have added new mountain types with new flora, new clouds, HDR rendering, new special effects, new clutter to rain down from space upon the mountain, and other general fanciness. “MOUNTAIIN 2 FURIOUS 2.0 RELOADED”, OReilly jokes, and I’m on board with that. I particularly enjoy the dramatic new dawns and sunsets. Time for me to once again become mountain.

(more…)

The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don t worry. We ve rounded up some recommendations – both general tips and some newly added staff choices.

Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You’re welcome.

… [visit site to read more]

The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don t worry. We ve rounded up some recommendations – both general tips and some specific staff choices.

Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You’re welcome.

… [visit site to read more]

Back in 2014, we were all given a miniature Mountain [official site] of our own (or became mountains?). We were delighted as household items rained from the skies, days and weather passed, and our pet rock thought little thoughts. Then Graham murdered his mountain and suddenly we became hyper-aware of mortality. I took care of my own mountain for days but as its thoughts became darker and more confused, I worried its end might be near and… I have not visited it since. Well, today I met a new mountain, as creator David OReilly has launched a big update refreshing Mountain. … [visit site to read more]

Everything [official site] is the new game from David OReilly, artist, director and creator of RPS’s favourite Mountain. We’ve already heard whispers about Everything, notably that it is coming to PS4 before Windows and Mac. Now, along with a lengthy new trailer, the release date has been announced. It’ll be coming to PS4 on March 21st and to Steam on April 21st.

But what is Everything? I’m not entirely sure, but I am in love with every single one of these animals and their outrageous methods of locomotion.

… [visit site to read more]

Working with Double Fine, David OReilly has announced his next project following 2014’s RPS-adored Mountain. And it’s called Everything [official site]. And appears to be promising… everything. A game in which you can play as everything in the game.

Announced as a PS4 exclusive, we poked Double Fine with the patented Rock, Paper, Shotgun Really Pointy Stick (RPSRPS) until they confessed that “exclusive” means “for a bit”, and that it will be coming to PC some time after the dangerously angular console. There are details and a trailer below.

… [visit site to read more]

Recently we gave Mountain a kind of desktop geological pet our Bestest Best Landscape Of 2014 Award. As part of the chatter about it I said that I “felt strongly enough about *my* mountain that I will never boot the game up again once it s gone”.

Until now that meant not launching the .exe file and just keeping the whole thing in storage on my hard drive. But that bothers me. The mountain might as well already be dead if I do that, and will almost certainly end up lost to space-clearing mass culls if I don’t get a new hard drive and this one keeps inching closer to capacity. Instead, I’m going to boot it up one last time and wait for digital nature to take its course…

… [visit site to read more]

Recently we gave Mountain a kind of desktop geological pet our Bestest Best Landscape Of 2014 Award. As part of the chatter about it I said that I “felt strongly enough about *my* mountain that I will never boot the game up again once it s gone”.

Until now that meant not launching the .exe file and just keeping the whole thing in storage on my hard drive. But that bothers me. The mountain might as well already be dead if I do that, and will almost certainly end up lost to space-clearing mass culls if I don’t get a new hard drive and this one keeps inching closer to capacity. Instead, I’m going to boot it up one last time and wait for digital nature to take its course…

… [visit site to read more]

Most PC games are about terrain, but Mountain was the only monadnock this year to cause the RPS chatroom to feel empathy, to mellow, and to excitedly compare notes.

Alec: Passive game-viewing is the new game-playing, apparently. I m not quite ready to leave the homeland and sign aboard the HMS Twitch myself, but Mountain made for a happy medium. The game that plays itself. The game that tells me when something of note has occurred. Hell, the game which tells me which emotion to feel. A simple line of text and a tiny musical sting evokes so much more than an impeccably-rendered CGI face trying to show love or regret while orchestral strings swirl, it turns out.

… [visit site to read more]