As we rapidly approach the end of the year, it s time for everyone to look back over the past twelve months of stuff and turn it into neat little lists of what was best. Like games, yes, but also telly and photos and, as we shall see, music. After all, is there a better way of celebrating the end of the year than to take 10 of the finest tunes of 2018 and run them through the finest rhythm game of 2008? I certainly can t think of anything. Let s Audiosurf.

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With the season of spooky celebrations kicking off, Amnesia: The Dark Descent has added a Hard Mode for people who wish to suffer terrible cruelty as they explore the horrible ghost house of meat monsters. The new mode, added to 2010’s first-person spooker in a patch today, makes the meatmen more murderous and starves us of comforting light so we lose our mind (and then die as we lose our loose grip on reality). So a real good time. It’s a stark contrast to the bonus mode developers Frictional Games added to their later Soma – an easy option for explorers and sightseers. This time, they want you dead.

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I was jolly pleased when Frictional Games patched a ‘Safe Mode’ into Soma, letting fraidypants like me freely explore the undersea horror. Conversely, I said “Ha ha ha NOPE” aloud after Frictional announced today that they will next add a new difficulty level to Amnesia: The Dark Descent – a ‘Hard Mode’ to freak your nut out and murder you hard. No thank you! But I know some Amnesia players had wanted their minds more fragile and its ghoulies deadlier, so good for them? Agh.

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The inspiration for Alien: Isolation came from a simple thought experiment: what if somebody let a lion loose in developer Creative Assembly s office? I d get behind my desk and make sure it wouldn t see me, says the game s creative director Alistair Hope. Then, you d need to get to the fire escape. Maybe I d move desk to desk and distract it. If you are confronted by it, what do you do? What do you know about it? What do you know about what it knows about you? That felt pretty cool, and it wasn t relying on scripted events.

Most of us know the feelings of dread that accompany playing a horror game. But how do developers create those feelings from scratch? What are the tricks that developers use to scare us, and create a sense of atmosphere? How do they go from imagining a lion in a studio, or an empty bathroom, to moments that will scare the pants off us? I spoke to four of the top minds in the industry to find out. (more…)

If you have not bought the Amnesia first-person spookers intentionally, inadvertently acquired them in an old bundle you don’t really remember buying, nor grabbed them when they were free in January good news: both Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs are free for keepsies right now on Steam. What’s changed since the last giveaway? I still have not finished either of them, I’ll tell you that much. You go lock yourselves into dungeons with terrible monsters, I’ll be just fine where I am, thanks. (more…)

Hey, come here a second. I want you to stare at this dank room full of eerie machinery. Really give it a good stare. Drink in the atmosphere, maybe play with some of the meatblobs, think about how small we are in the universe, and

BOO!

Liked that, did you? If you quite like a spot of spooking with cosmic horror and science gone meatwild, you might enjoy more free scares in Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for pigs. The pair of first-person puzzle-o-horrors are free for keepsies right now, see, Steam keys and all. (more…)

Super Meat Boy Forever [official site], the auto-running sequel to 2010’s super-rad deadly platformer, has reappeared after several years in that Team Meat ‘missing-presumed-cancelled’ limbo state. Team Meat last night announced it’ll hit in 2018. Forever is an auto-runner, sure, but just as deadly and tricky as ever. This time, Meat Boy and Bandage Girl do have the ability to fight back, biffing enemies as they dash around. Forever also brings the twist of procedurally-generated levels which regenerate into a more difficult variant each time you beat them. Peep the re-announcement trailer: (more…)

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives and PC miscellany. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.>

I have a limited patience for scary games. I enjoy a surprise jump-scare here and there, but I struggle to enjoy an incessant barrage of them making every step an anxiety-inducing moment. And yet, wow, I love Amnesia. … [visit site to read more]

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Before they struck (presumably cursed) gold with Amnesia: The Dark Descent , Frictional Games released a trilogy of shorter first-person horror games under the title Penumbra [official site]. The first of these, Overture, was a bit wonky, and the third, Requiem, completely lost the plot. But the middle entry, Black Plague, is as good as anything the Swedish horror maestros have released since. … [visit site to read more]

Perhaps the most difficult thing about demonstrating the virtues of virtual reality games is the fact that so much of the effect is lost when portrayed via flat video. With this in mind, the Fantastic Contraption guys have made some good videos recently using ‘mixed reality’ – a process where a combination of secondary cameras and in-game and in-headset footage is used to showcase how the game works. Audioshield [official site], successor to obstacle-dodging rhythm game Audiosurf, adopts a similar approach in its latest trailer to great effect.

… [visit site to read more]