Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. (Apart from the next week and a half while we hide in Horace’s warm, warm fur.)>

Normally when selecting games for HYP, I favour those that are at least a few years old, so that the suggestion comes as a greater surprise. But Astroneer [official site] is all I’ve been playing since it was released into early access earlier this month, and it’s lovely enough that it deserves more words written about it.

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It seems absurd to have nostalgia for the 2000s. Surely it was just a heartbeat ago? Yet that is where I find myself. So much has changed in the last decade and a half – politically and personally (child, mortgage, increasing awareness of own mortality) of course, but also in games. These are times of pre-order DLC, culture wars, UHD, annual sequels and developers saying contentious things on Twitter. So much noise, so much division, so much complication, so many games, even. I know I am not alone in finding it exhausting – a friend recently picked up an original Xbox, a CRT TV and a ceiling-high stack of games for pennies, and is absolutely delighted by his return to what feels like a simpler era. It’s not “the games were better then” – if anything, most were worse – but that the entirety of games and gaming seemed so much calmer.

Me? I dream of Dun Morogh, the snowy Dwarf and Gnome starting zone from World of Warcraft. … [visit site to read more]

Ahnayro: The Dream World [official site] is a research-based puzzle game set in a dream-logic world. It was one of the game’s featured in John’s Bleeding Edges series earlier this year, which highlighted games which blurred the edges (geddit?) between game and real world by requiring you to research real people and places and facts in among the fictional elements.

And now we’re giving 5000 copies of the first episode away for free, when normally it costs 7/$9.

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***** The RPS team are preparing for their winter hibernation state and will return on 4th January. In the meantime we didn’t want you to think we’d forgotten about you or the supporter program so we have hand-crafted a selection of the Bestest Best RPS Cracker Jokes. It’s also our way of giving you the “reveal” moment we no longer have in the advent calendar. We’ve made these posts open to all. Whether you celebrate or not we hope they raise a smile. Love, RPS xxx *****>

Q: What is Bambi’s favourite videogame?

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Samurai slaughtered Shermans at last night’s FP game awards. Slitherine’s Sengoku Jidai won Best Wargame of 2016, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun won Best Strategy Game, and Warbands: Bushido bagged Most Promising Early Access Game. Though it’s short of maps and exclusively multiplayer at the moment (a sizeable solo campaign is imminent) Red Unit’s katana-crammed tactical TBS is already dangerously distracting. This week’s column is an attempt to explain the allure of WB’s bijou battle ballets. Beyond the break is an account of a typical scrap – ten minutes of brisk skirmish converted into two thousand words for your entertainment and edification. … [visit site to read more]

Steam’s Winter Sale used to be The Big One, a crazed festival of online commercialism of the likes you’d not see again for another year. Not so much these days, with the robotshop seeming to have sales every few weeks. And even less so now it’s a two week static bunch of discounts, rather than a daily lucky-dip, people hedging bets on waiting to see if their desired games would take the big 80% plummet for a single day, then becoming furious when they chickened out and bought a day before. It makes life easier, if somewhat less interesting. Still though – it’s an awful lot of discounted games to scour, so we’ve rifled through and found some of the highlights. What a cracking bunch of super-cheap games you’ll find below!

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The Steam Winter Sale has kicked off but don t let that distract you from all the other gaming bargains out there this week. Whether you re looking for stuff you actually want or just another game to add to the ever-growing pile you will never clear, we ve got the best deals right here. Get that last gift or maybe grab a bargain for yourself – you made it through 2016, you deserve it.

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Bloated blood-burping bumbleflies, electrotears, and so many more secrets are now buzzing around the basement in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, thanks to the release of a huge and hugely impressive community-made expansion. Yes, the second official expansion launches in a fortnight but before then absolutely do check out the free Antibirth [official site] mod. Antibirth is mahoosive, adding new characters, new enemies, new bosses, new items, new music, new… it’s really big, and really well-made too. Also, this trailer is all sorts of creepy: … [visit site to read more]

I am fascinated by anything which let’s me peek behind the curtain of indie game development, whether it’s to see the effort that goes into making games or it’s a look at the realities of being in business for yourself. The video below falls into the latter category. It’s a 2016 GDC talk, posted to YouTube last month, in which Grey Alien Games’ Jake Birkett talks about how he survived in game development for eleven years without a hit. If the name doesn’t sound familiar, he’s the developer of Regency Solitaire, which was one of our favourite games of 2015.

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The Growth Project is a work-in-progress which is halfway between gardening and either pinball or crazy golf – I haven’t decided which yet. It’s currently pay-what-you-want on Itch.io so I figured I’d flag it up as it has some really pleasing succulents on the desert levels! I felt absolutely terrible for interrupting a couple of dung beetles, though… … [visit site to read more]