An adorable family of furry mammals traversing a dystopian urban environment; snapshots of joy and intimacy (playful hunts, mutual grooming, snuggling together for a nap) already infused with the melancholy of impending catastrophe; the terrible, life-altering moment when a young cub loses its footing and plunges into unknown depths, separated from the pack. Our fledgling protagonist, alone for the first time, has to fend for itself and find its way among the perilous mega-city ruins.

If you engaged at all with the indie-game sphere in 2022, chances are this introduction rings a bell. Only it’s not a description of last year’s breakaway hit and multi-award winner, BlueTwelve Studio’s Stray, but an older and much more brutal feline saga, Videocult’s grim survival action game Rain World. The thematic overlap of these games, coupled with their contrasting design philosophies, provides an excellent springboard to reassess the latter – one of the most opaque, challenging, and underappreciated titles in recent memory, just in time for the arrival of its first official DLC, Rain World: Downpour.

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Agent Max Payne hit the zeitgeist square in the forehead at the turn of the Millennium. I was only sixteen when Remedy's monologuing undercover DEA operative dropped into my life like a... well, a man diving sideways in slow motion with twin pistols blazing. It was that kind of time. The Wachowskis had, not too long before, left an indelible mark on cinema, and pop culture at large, with their stylish countercultural smash hit The Matrix. Dressing in a leather jacket while falling over and openly wielding automatic weaponry was legitimately cool, and not at all creepy. Why are you frowning like that, it's almost like you don't believe me.

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There’s a lot I’m excited for in Tchia. Revealed at the Game Awards back in 2020, the trailer boasted a whole load of activities: sailing, climbing, ukelele playing, swimming, tree-hopping, slingshot sharpshooting, totem carving, gliding - the list is never ending - and all set on a beautiful island with characters to talk to, quests to complete, and enemies to fight. And on top of all that, you also have the ability to "soul-jump" letting you control any animal or object.

It sounds too good to be true, right? But two years after Awaceb's trailer debut, I’ve gotten my hands on a preview build to see whether a nine-person dev team’s tropical island exploration game is pie in the sky. Turns out, it’s the opposite; my hands on time suggests Tchia will deliver on everything it promised and more.

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AMD recently announced that certain Ryzen 5000 processors come with free copies of Company of Heroes 3, so if you're looking forward to the rather promising WW2 RTS, due to debut on February 23rd, this is a sneaky way of getting the game (normally £50) and a ~£100 processor for less than £100.

• Get the Ryzen 5 5500 - £98 w/ shipping (was £107)

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DDR5 RAM is steadily getting more affordable these days, and even surprisingly high-end 6000MT/s kits are going on sale. That's the case today with this deal on a 32GB dual-channel kit of DDR5-6000 from TeamGroup, specifically their T-Force Delta RGB RAM. It's been reduced from its ridiculous launch MSRP of $339.99 down to $149.99, a great price for this spec and especially for a kit that comes equipped with RGB lighting.

(If you'd prefer the same kit without RGB, then it can be yours for $133.)>

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Far Cry 2 is a lot of things, based on the memories I have from playing it a decade ago. First and foremost, I recall Far Cry 2: Parasitic Pain, which tasks you with running around begging for pills to stave off a growing infection. Next comes Far Cry 2: Buddy Bonanza, which lets you make lots of lovely AI friends, charge into battles together, and then hide while they die. Then, there’s Far Cry 2: Firewatch, which is all about watching fire. It's the best.

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I've been holding something in for 5 years. It first started as a deep joy, like a ray of sunshine in the palm of my hand. Then it became a deep sense of longing for something I'd lost, like a cascade of sand that fell from my palm as I wept gently on an empty beach. The "it" is a mobile and Nintendo Switch game called Pokémon Quest (don't laugh), which was the first - and only - mobile game I've actively obsessed over.

The game's an auto-battler where you gather a small trio from the original 150 Pokéfolks, level them up, and then tackle trickier and trickier stages. After a frankly disgusting number of hours, I'd finished all the stages. So, I thought, "Yes, of course they will add the 2nd generation of Pokéfolks with a bunch of new stages. This is its natural evolution, if you will". It still hasn't happened and probably never will. And I hate that I can't find anything else that'll replace it.

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Last time, you decided that programmable party members are better than optional grinding. I can respect that. Yeah, it's sometimes fun to turn your brain off and grind out a bit, but there's a lot to say for doing the work up front to get your party and builds running correctly then just watch them go. This week, I ask you to choose between one thing which speaks to my inner teenager, and one thing which speaks to my inner child. What's better: big engines rising from the bonnet, or knocking folks over edges?

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In games it's often a delight to be proven wrong. Such as, for example, my longstanding belief that Dwarf Fortress would never make the biggest and most important change it possibly could, and fit itself with an interface fit for purpose.

Bay 12 Games have, of course, gone further than that, and released it for general sale on the biggest shop in the business after sixteen years as freeware. There's even a charming new graphics overhaul to replace the famous ASCII symbols which, depending on who you ask, might not have technically counted as "graphics" at all.

I'm not here to discuss the relative merits of this shiny new version and the "classic" version. Both will be updated in future, the latter still free, and neither expected to reach a full 1.0 release inside 20 years. All this chips around the edges of what I've been pondering, which is this: What exactly is Dwarf Fortress's place within our culture now, after a decade replete with games that looked to it for ideas?

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Part of RPS’s goal is to shine a spotlight on every corner of the gaming peninsula, and a BIG part of that includes the incredible realm of indie games. In additional to our written work about the wonderful world of indie games, starting from now we'll also be doing that across the audio waves in the form of our brand new podcast, Indiescovery!

Indiescovery is the new sibling in the RPS podcast family and will sit snuggly next to Ultimate Audio Bang, and The Electronic Wireless Show, but our focus is strictly on the wonderful world of indie games. It’s best to think of the podcast as an extension of our Indiescovery tag on the site - although we've got the Indiescovery Podcast tag just for the pod, if you ever want to check all the episodes. Every episode video bud Liam, guides lass Rebecca and myself (reviews ranger Rachel) will highlight a bunch of cool indies and talk about why we love them. We'll be gabbing about the latest indie darlings, exciting upcoming releases, hidden gems lost to space and time, and more.

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