I love flying my tiny, insanely twisted shadow ship in Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. Regardless of whether you like the rest of this 2D Metroidvania-y exploration game, the one thing you cannot fault is the feel and handling of your silhouetted space saucer. It’s such a joyous thing to whizz around the screen, responding effortlessly to every key press with the elegance of a rocket-powered gazelle. Everything might be out to get you in this strange, hostile environment, but never has such a piddly little spacecraft felt this mighty.

(more…)

The latest Elder Scrolls Online expansion, Elsweyr, isn’t officially> out until June 4th, but Bethesda are letting PC players brave the cat-and-dragon infested jungle expansion two weeks early, starting today, to discover any bugs before the console folks arrive. On top of the usual new places to see and dungeons to delve, Elsweyr gives players a chance to dig deep into the weird lore of the Khajiit cat-people, and tussle with a bunch of big angry dragons. Below, a launch trailer that confirms that the name for a group of dragons is a ‘Rage’, apparently. You learn something every day.

(more…)

Despite the first game being a bit rubbish, publisher City Interactive Games are insistent on making Lords Of The Fallen 2 a thing. They’ve also booted recently-hired developers Defiant Studios from it just one year into production. As reported (and translated from Polish) by Eurogamer, the publisher announced via a press release that their partnership was being terminated over “inadequate execution by Defiant [of] a key work stage”. It seems that the publisher were unhappy with both the quality and timeliness of the project, although Defiant disagree with CI’s portrayal of their company.

(more…)

Outer Wilds – not to be confused with The Outer Worlds – finally has a release date after yonks in development. Mobius Digital say it’s landing next Thursday, May 30th. I’m a bit excited for this one, as I’ve had an eye on it ever since its early days as a short, free proof-of-concept demo in 2013. It’s your first day as a low-budget space explorer, but it’ll be a long one as it’s also the day your miniature-scale solar system collapses and gets sucked through a time warp. So it’s off repeatedly planet-hopping in your janky little spacecraft, in search of a way to break the cycle. See the launch trailer below.

(more…)

Released last month on Kongregate’s new store Kartridge, Hell Is Other Demons makes the hop to Steam today. It’s a neat-looking platform shooter by Cuddle Monster Games, and a fast, twtichy (although not especially hardcore) arcade game about bouncing around arenas in hell, blatting waves of demons and spending your gathered hell-dollars on upgrades to do it all over again. Straightforward high-score-hunting stuff, although there is a campaign mode with bosses, plus a rather neat two-colour aesthetic and that modern arcade standby; a pulsing synthwave soundtrack.

(more…)

The siren call of the moon returns, and so do I (from my holidays). Surprisingly, despite being absent for 10 days, my moon calendar in the game still only pegs me at day 17. Perhaps the point of a daily ritual is that it sort of doesn t happen unless you do it.

In any case, because of recent geo-political events, a trip to Ireland, a new Louis Theroux documentary, and a pregnant-person-Tamagotchi game all landing at around the same time as I start up the Moon Ritual, I must warn you that this entry is long, and liable to get very, very heavy>. I m talking about pregnancy. And about choice.

(more…)

It’s not hard to figure out The Godbeast‘s inspirations. An open world full of climbable giant monsters ala Shadow Of The Colossus, with evocatively named duels against villains straight out of Dark Souls, plus the ever-stylish harsh angular look of Killer7. Released last Friday, The Godbeast is the second from mostly-solo developer Jochen Mistiaen. In it, the player roams an abandoned, demon-infested city as a vengeful, motorcycle-riding prince of the night, hunting monsters (and his own kind) with a magical harpoon. See the trailer and a chunk of the game in motion below.

(more…)

Y’know that photographic trend of trying to match an old photo by snapping a new pic in the same location? Snapdragon riffs on that, taking a handful of old photos to a wee deserted island where things have changed quite considerably. Scrutinising ruins and landmarks to line up my view and recreate the photos also reminded me of Photobomb, and I’m always happy to remember that delightful dystopian snap ’em up. Snapdragon is a short, colourful, chill, and spooky explore-o-puzzler, and that’s it okay go have a look bye.

(more…)

RPS used to have a boardgame column and we still regularly get people asking if they can write about tabletop games for us. There will soon be a better location for that kind of work, however. Gamer Network – the corporate overlords of RPS, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, and more – are launching a tabletop website and YouTube channel. They’re now hiring for all sorts of roles and this is your notice that you can apply.

(more…)

Another day in the Fortbyte challenges, and this one asks you to dress up as Rox while standing atop of Stunt Mountain. If you know where to look, and we will tell you where to look, then this should be an easy challenge to complete, but note that you will need the Battle Pass for this one. New challenges unlock every day or so, requiring some specific conditions to unlock. There are a hundred in total and I will be going over all of them. Wish me luck.

(more…)