Ghost Time Games’ Tux And Fanny, from co-developers Albert Birney and Gabriel Koenig, is not only the game I think you may have missed this year, but it is also my Game Of The Year for 2021. This game sends two best friends (alongside a courageous flea and a mischievous cat) through adventures great, small, and absurd to stunning effect – and you owe it to yourself to give this little marvel a play before the year is well and truly out.

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Every year our clone forms degrade, and Katharine spends the winter break copying each consciousness into a new body. Don't worry: we can't feel a thing! Since our new forms are still coming online from their time spent in the primordial flesh soup vat of the RPS Treehouse, we can't post over Christmas, so we've prepared some Christmas Cracker jokes instead! You can help fund the research into longer-lasting clone bodies with the RPS supporter program.>

Now, time to enjoy your nice joke!

Q: What roguelite takes place solely within the confines of a French archipelago in the Caribbean?

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It’s pretty difficult to quantify which games actually whip ass, mostly because it’s a little subjective. That being said, if barrelling through the streets of a futuristic, neon-glazed Detroit, hopping over pursuing cop cars and racing through business offices and factories to the tune of an engrossing soundtrack doesn’t whip ass, I don’t know what does.

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Every year our clone forms degrade, and Katharine spends the winter break copying each consciousness into a new body. Don't worry: we can't feel a thing! Since our new forms are still coming online from their time spent in the primordial flesh soup vat of the RPS Treehouse, we can't post over Christmas, so we've prepared some Christmas Cracker jokes instead! You can help fund the research into longer-lasting clone bodies with the RPS supporter program.>

Now, time to enjoy your nice joke!

Q: What horrible smell travels around corners really fast?

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Immersive sims are tricky games to get right. The spaces need to have incredibly tight design so they feel fun to explore, and lots of ways to get around them. And one of the best games of the year just happens to be one that does that expertly. Hang on, Deathloop? What are you talking about? No, no, the real best immersive sim this year is co-open by lowpolis, obviously!

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Every year our clone forms degrade, and Katharine spends the winter break copying each consciousness into a new body. Don't worry: we can't feel a thing! Since our new forms are still coming online from their time spent in the primordial flesh soup vat of the RPS Treehouse, we can't post over Christmas, so we've prepared some Christmas Cracker jokes instead! You can help fund the research into longer-lasting clone bodies with the RPS supporter program.>

Now, time to enjoy your nice joke!

Q: Which game involves taking a spirit-guide on a magical journey to find a whole grain with excellent health benefits?

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Diablo has, for good reasons, become a shorthand for describing the flavour of gothic, grimdark fantasy setting in games, where pus-filled demonic hordes and rotting, undead corpses scour a hellish cathedral looking for unwitting adventurers. For all its wretched decay, however, the series still feels like an indulgence to be savoured. Its clickiness and abhorrent sights make the games endlessly gratifying, and masterful butchery of fiends eases most players into a comfortable rhythm. And part of that appeal lies in the macabre yet captivating fantasy it so deftly peddles — all that blood, gore and guts really make for a grisly setting that’s nearly impossible to look away from.

Tainted Grail: Conquest conveys the same sense of blight and doom in its dark fantasy universe — one that’s a reimagining of Arthurian legends — but also ups the ante with a huge wallop of Slay The Spire’s roguelike, deck-building elements.

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Every year our clone forms degrade, and Katharine spends the winter break copying each consciousness into a new body. Don't worry: we can't feel a thing! Since our new forms are still coming online from their time spent in the primordial flesh soup vat of the RPS Treehouse, we can't post over Christmas, so we've prepared some Christmas Cracker jokes instead! You can help fund the research into longer-lasting clone bodies with the RPS supporter program.>

Now, time to enjoy your nice joke!

Q: What do all shapes consider to be their father figure?

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As a child struggling to sleep at night I'd dream of three worlds. First and least of these was Desert World, a blithe eternity of golden sand always viewed from kilometres up, where fizzing white rings rose toward me like expanding surf. I'd try to find my way down to the surface, but always at the risk of glitching straight through and ending up in Snake World, where monstrous serpents emerged from darkened kitchens.

Somewhere between these two poles lay the realm of the Animals, not that they were really animals, but clouds of eyelash-thin mandible, grot and sparkle, like rotten food on the point of becoming a school of tropical fish. I loved Animal World. I used to spend hours trying to mind-hack my way into it. I was pretty shocked to find its likeness in Sluggish Morss: Pattern Circus - an irresistibly strange, gristly, sorrowful, comical and inventive album of creatures, songs, places and phrases from Jack King-Spooner and composer Helena Celle.

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Every year our clone forms degrade, and Katharine spends the winter break copying each consciousness into a new body. Don't worry: we can't feel a thing! Since our new forms are still coming online from their time spent in the primordial flesh soup vat of the RPS Treehouse, we can't post over Christmas, so we've prepared some Christmas Cracker jokes instead! You can help fund the research into longer-lasting clone bodies with the RPS supporter program.>

Now, time to enjoy your nice joke!

Q: Which regimen was set up specifically to help vacuum cleaners overcome their worries and insecurities?

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