This is the hAcKeR collective {{Synonymous Bosch}}. We have taken control of this aRt1cLe. Three years ago it was written by the untalented and scurrilous journalist Brendan Caldwell, a man lacking in both knowledge and substance. But we have gained access in order to correct his egregious errors. It s a hack of a hack! Ha ha ha. We had our best joke cell work on that for three nights. Please laugh. Our detractors may say Mr Caldwell got it mostly right, and that may be the case, yes. But the order is aLL Wr0nG. And he has neglected to update it with a recent hit. We cannot let this stand. Here is an updated list which, actually, looking at it now, is still mostly Mr Caldwell s words and I guess they re okay. Sorry we said those nasty things. We are {{Synonymous Bosch}}. We sometimes forgive. We often forget.

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Stealthy sci-fi shooter Skin Deep, latest from Blendo Games (Quadrilateral Cowboy, Flotilla, etc) cites the greatest Christmas movie ever – Die Hard – and Far Cry 2 as equal inspirations. As the resident barefoot badass aboard a spacecraft crawling with murderous pirates, it’s up to the player to clear out the bad guys, ideally while not being vented into space, bleeding out or otherwise dying horribly. The game was just announced with no release date yet, but below you’ll find a debut trailer featuring acrobatic sharpshooting and a dedicated ‘cough blood’ button.

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This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the difficult journeys they underwent to make the best bits of their games. This time, Quadrilateral Cowboy [official site].

Quadrilateral Cowboy is a firstperson puzzle game about a group of hacker friends who stage heists across a set of increasingly challenging missions. Together they tell a surprising and affecting story of professionalism, friendship and rising threat through Blendo Games distinctive tight cutting between interactive scenes, flipping the action from a hoverbike chase to the gang s return to their hideout. It s clever, pacy, and rich in detail and nuance. Pretty much, in other words, what you d expect from Blendo Games.

But it s not what Blendo Games – which is to say, Brendon Chung – expected to make. Quadrilateral Cowboy s entire structure and form is completely different to what he originally envisaged. The way in which his game changed over the course of its development is a model for how a game is shaped by the realities of production, and how ideas can be far too big for their own good. (more…)

As anyone who watches their feeds knows, we live in a constantly evolving cyberpunk dystopia. They’re connecting toilets to the internet, for heavens sake. If this Gibsonist world is just too REAL for you, we have put together the ten best videogames about hacking, programming and computing so you can escape into meta-dystopia. Which I’m sure is a much better place.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Super-cool micro-Hitman, getting on for a decade old but feeling as fresh as ever.

My memories of Gravity Bone [official site] turned out to have been a little scrubbed by those of its successor, the more stylish, showy and cut-up Thirty Flights Of Living. I’d forgotten that, unlike 30 Flights, Bone is a fairly involved affair – jumping puzzles and death-traps and target-hunting. It’s all very active – you are the agent, not a mere witness to events. (more…)

It’s time to use to our radio voice. The RPS Electronic Wireless Show has historically been our not-very-regular podcast where we gather to tell each other how wrong we are about videogames. But this month it has mutated into something different. In the lead-up to this year’s Independent Games Festival, we interviewed a whole bunch of developers, all of whom have been nominated for some kind of award this year. We’ll be talking to them about sex, politics, and other things we’ve never understood.

In part one, we’re talking science fiction with the makers of Duskers, Quadrilateral Cowboy and Event[0]. Click onward to listen here, or find it on Soundcloud directly. … [visit site to read more]

visit site to read more]

And so this cosmic dance begins anew. The finalists for the Independent Games Festival awards 2017 have been announced. Out of 650 games examined by the giant gang of 340 judges, a final 30 have been selected for a bunch of categories. There s plenty of familiar names among them, including Inside, Stardew Valley, Virginia, Hyper Light Drifter and Event[0]. But also some other boyos worth giving some attention. Come on over here and let s take a look at them all. … [visit site to read more]

As December approaches like a runaway sled and we prepare to say our goodbyes to 2016, it’s natural to reflect on the year as a whole. Those reflections could easily take the form of laments but we’re keeping our focus firmly on the world of PC games, where we’ve identified ten trends that may not have defined 2016, but have certainly helped to shape it. We delve into Sorcery and synthwave, DOOM and Danganronpa, and much more besides.

… [visit site to read more]

Quadrilateral Cowboy is built on the Doom 3 engine, which was released long ago under GNU General Public License that states that derivative works must also be released under the GPL. The result? Quadrilateral Cowboy is now open source, meaning you can hack at the source code for the first-person hack-and-heist sim.

… [visit site to read more]