Sundays are for resting, supposedly, but it can also be for mopping the floors, washing the bedding, and catching up on work because you simply have too much to do.

Remember the Electronic Wireless Show? Two of its hosts, Alice Bell and Nate Crowley, have started a new podcast "about video games (mostly)". It's called Total Playtime and an introductory episode 0 and a Patreon are live now. The third host is Jon Hicks, with whom you may be less familiar, but he used to be my boss and thus may be considered the 5th Beatle of RPS. Anyway, go give it a listen.

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Look there, my friends. The almighty and sombre Hippopotamus Of Farewell has graced our presence again this weekend. Whether you do it in the comments below or on his actual leaving post (or indeed his other leaving post), let's all give our resident Edders a good send-off. And now we shall drown our sorrows in digital worlds. Here's what we're all clicking on this weekend.

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Superheroes often conceal their identities behind masks, capes and in my case, a pungent snood-and-hoodtop combo that makes me look like I've crawled out of a drain. No, don't ask what my real superhero identity is. After all, knowing my secrets might expose you to the wrath of my enemies. And in any case, I don't trust you. It turns out some> of you people have been keeping secrets from me, as well. You have been furtively playing superhero shooter Marvel Rivals with a keyboard and mouse adapter, which makes it look as though you're playing with a controller, so that you can take advantage of controller features such as high-sensitivity aim-assist in competitive play.

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The wallpaper on my phone is of a nondescript street in Shibuya. If I hold my thumb down on the photo in my phone's gallery, it actually springs to life for a few seconds and rewinds time in the process. It shows me wobble the phone into position and take the snap: a giant crab clings to a restaurant, a lady totters towards us with a white plastic bag looped around her arm, colourful signs stacked like Legos jut out of grey, "The Body Shop" lies in the distance because of course it does.

It means a lot to me, this photo. It's the precise moment I felt excitement shoot through my chest, a pang of "I can't believe I'm back". Then the next morning, a jolt that, in hindsight, definitely altered my brain chemistry. A wave of, "I finally get to disconnect and in many ways, I get to reconnect, too".

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Following the Republican victory in the US 2024 elections, several US companies have experimented with "pivoting away" from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a collection of employment practices aimed at challenging bias and prejudice in the workplace. Facebook owners Meta, Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds and others are reportedly scaling back their DEI initiatives to stave off backlash or litigation from conservative pundits and politicians, who regard DEI guidance about discrimination as a form of discrimination in itself. Following the election, I've also noticed a couple of video game company executives express misgivings about DEI - misgivings that, amongst other things, illustrate that "DEI" has come to mean a lot more than just annual training about micro-aggressions.

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"Coming off Turbo Overkill has been great," Trigger Happy's Sam Prebble tells me over call. "That game's development... I mean, it worked out. But it was very messy because it was my first game and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So I found myself, when it came to pumping content out, I was like: oh, shit. This code base is fucking awful. Like, I can't put stuff together easily. I'm running into bugs everywhere. But now shit just works!"

You might know Sam Prebble as Trigger Happy Interactive, the solo developer behind frenetic FPS Turbo Overkill. Before that he went by a different name, attached to a very different project. Total Chaos, first released in 2018 under the moniker Wadaholic, is a total conversion mod for Doom 2. With its focus on a thick survival horror atmosphere of tension and disempowerment, it's about as far removed from Turbo Overkill's manic, Doom Eternal-inspired action as a game can get. As Prebble puts it, the only thing the two projects have in common is the first person perspective. Even so, he found himself returning to Total Chaos after wrapping development on Turbo Overkill, resulting in the standalone remake.

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We often get sent so many games from publishers and developers that we simply don't have the time or capacity to play. But 'tis the start of the year and I felt like I had a duty to give some of them a proper whirl and see what's what. Thus I was lured once again into the roguelike genre, for which I am an eternal sucker.

Developed by Wave Game, Magicraft sees you play as a kid who's isekai'd into another dimension (or at least, I think he is, because I chose the option to "skip the story" when I selected new game and only later deduced the situation) and tasked to mince all the demons within it. It's typical fantasy fare with an interesting twist: you can combine any number of spells within your inventory, which made me feel very clever, even if I had no idea what I was doing.

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Like it or not, horror gaming is often built on jump scares. Deriding a good cheap scare ignores the endorphin rush that draws so many players to the genre, in the same way that the "elevated horror" trend forfeits some of the soul of schlocky slasher flicks and ghost movies. Don’t get me wrong, Silent Hill and Alan Wake deserve their flowers - but even those games would wither on the screen if Pyramid Head didn’t bust through a wall from time to time.

One unsung jump scare game in particular pioneered horror in the internet age, blazing everywhere from nascent social media to major television networks. In fact, if you had an internet connection circa 2005, there’s a good chance you played it. Alas, it was too ahead of its time, too successful at leveraging virality before viral horror was sought after. Next time you see a streamer throw their headphones across the room in fright, beware: the spirit of Scary Maze Game is right behind you.

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Don't be fooled by the simple synchronicity of the headline above. We have selected our 24 favourite games from the past year every year since 2008. We reveal these beloved games across the month of December in the RPS Advent Calendar, each game behind a new door.

This article collects all those wonderful games and our writings about them in one place, for a post-New Year reading experience that requires you to click less.

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Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! I once read in a book that you shouldn't really believe anything you read in a book until you've checked at least two other books. Unfortunately, those two books both said the same thing, meaning I had to check four more. If anyone knows what every book ever written says on the subject, do let me know. I'm trapped now.

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