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46 Articles

Where will retro-inspired developers turn next?

In the early 2010s – a time of mainstream popularity and growth in the indie game development scene – a number of titles came out that revelled in the ‘retro’ era. Shovel Knight charmed everyone with its diligent attention to the NES palette and old-school sensibilities, Super Meat Boy channelled Nintendo’s ‘hardcore’ platforming level design (and even borrowed its use of “Super”), and Volgarr The Viking was an arcade-style love letter to classic beat-’em-ups. For a while, 1980s and 1990s game design was jumping into a renaissance, thanks in no small part to developers who were raised in the familiarity and nostalgia of these eras having developed the skills to channel it in their own work. In the late 2010s, we also saw N64-like titles jump into the ring, with…

Where will retro-inspired developers turn next?

Where will retro-inspired developers turn next?

In the early 2010s – a time of mainstream popularity and growth in the indie game development scene – a number of titles came out that revelled in the ‘retro’ era. Shovel Knight charmed everyone with its diligent attention to the NES palette and old-school sensibilities, Super Meat Boy channelled Nintendo’s ‘hardcore’ platforming level design (and even borrowed its use of “Super”), and Volgarr The Viking was an arcade-style love letter to classic beat-’em-ups. For a while, 1980s and 1990s game design was jumping into a renaissance, thanks in no small part to developers who were raised in the familiarity and nostalgia of these eras having developed the skills to channel it in their own work. In the late 2010s, we also saw N64-like titles jump into the ring, with…

Where will retro-inspired developers turn next?

In his 2013 TV special, How Videogames Changed the World, writer and broadcaster Charlie Brooker put Twitter at the top of his list of world-changing games. He argued that Twitter is more than just a social app – the thrill of getting retweets and followers, Brooker said, creates an addictive loop much like a video game. If you agree with the argument, then it certainly feels, at the time of writing, as though Twitter’s nearing some sort of endgame, much like an MMO in its last months before shutdown. As Twitter flounders under its new multi-billionaire management, another unfeasibly wealthy person, Mark Zuckerberg, is having issues of his own. Because, whether he admits it or not, Zuckerberg has gone from social media pioneer to game developer with his much-vaunted Metaverse. Sure,…

In his 2013 TV special, How Videogames Changed the World, writer and broadcaster Charlie Brooker put Twitter at the top of his list of world-changing games. He argued that Twitter is more than just a social app – the thrill of getting retweets and followers, Brooker said, creates an addictive loop much like a video game. If you agree with the argument, then it certainly feels, at the time of writing, as though Twitter’s nearing some sort of endgame, much like an MMO in its last months before shutdown. As Twitter flounders under its new multi-billionaire management, another unfeasibly wealthy person, Mark Zuckerberg, is having issues of his own. Because, whether he admits it or not, Zuckerberg has gone from social media pioneer to game developer with his much-vaunted Metaverse.…

OUT OF THIS WORLD

It all began with one artist and a single image. About five years ago, Swedish artist and developer Adam Stjärnljus opened Photoshop and began working on what would eventually become Planet of Lana’s key art. It depicted a solitary young girl dwarfed by a lush alien landscape, a small, canine-looking creature standing loyally by her side. For over a year, Stjärnljus kept working on that germ of an idea, about a girl on a quest to rescue her sister from invaders with Mui, her animal companion, helping her traverse the treacherous landscape. From there, it would be another two years before Stjärnljus’ fledgling studio, Wishfully, could get the funding it needed to finally get the game into production. But throughout, that initial piece of artwork has remained the team’s “guiding star”…

OUT OF THIS WORLD

OUT OF THIS WORLD

It all began with one artist and a single image. About five years ago, Swedish artist and developer Adam Stjärnljus opened Photoshop and began working on what would eventually become Planet of Lana’s key art. It depicted a solitary young girl dwarfed by a lush alien landscape, a small, canine-looking creature standing loyally by her side. For over a year, Stjärnljus kept working on that germ of an idea, about a girl on a quest to rescue her sister from invaders with Mui, her animal companion, helping her traverse the treacherous landscape. From there, it would be another two years before Stjärnljus’ fledgling studio, Wishfully, could get the funding it needed to finally get the game into production. But throughout, that initial piece of artwork has remained the team’s “guiding…

OUT OF THIS WORLD

Welcome to the family

We’re well familiar with the ingredients needed to achieve an asymmetrical multiplayer horror hit by this point. Take a fan-favourite slasher series (usually from the 1970s or 1980s), pit four friends together against its iconic killer within a singular location, and have them try to survive or escape the grisly scenario while completing rudimentary objectives before the time runs out. Simple, right? Except in Sumo Digital’s faithful interpretation of 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie, it’s anything but. The Nottingham-based studio is instead taking special care to ensure that its twist on the tried and tested genre is made up of more than just Leatherface. Now it’s a family matter. “If you’ve seen the original film, he’s all about family,” explains lead designer Kelvin Moore. “Fair enough, he’s got…

Welcome to the family

Welcome to the family

We’re well familiar with the ingredients needed to achieve an asymmetrical multiplayer horror hit by this point. Take a fan-favourite slasher series (usually from the 1970s or 1980s), pit four friends together against its iconic killer within a singular location, and have them try to survive or escape the grisly scenario while completing rudimentary objectives before the time runs out. Simple, right? Except in Sumo Digital’s faithful interpretation of 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie, it’s anything but. The Nottingham-based studio is instead taking special care to ensure that its twist on the tried and tested genre is made up of more than just Leatherface. Now it’s a family matter. “If you’ve seen the original film, he’s all about family,” explains lead designer Kelvin Moore. “Fair enough, he’s got a…

Welcome to the family

Sly as a sandfox

Whereas most 2D Metroidvanias have players digging down in search of an adventure, The Siege and The Sandfox sets itself apart by forcing its titular, ill-fated protagonist to set their sights upwards. Cast out into the caverns below after being falsely accused of assassinating the ancient city’s king, proving your innocence means clambering up through the labyrinthine depths, evading enemy patrols, and mastering a generous suite of smooth parkour abilities. It’s also one of the dustiest genre entries we’ve seen from the indie scene yet, not only contributing to the game’s overall aesthetic, but also reinforcing the developer’s intention to prioritise stealth over combat. You are an assassin, after all. “There’s no killing,” says Olly Bennett, chief executive officer at Cardboard Sword, in reference to the palace guards you’ll regularly…

Sly as a sandfox

Sly as a sandfox

Whereas most 2D Metroidvanias have players digging down in search of an adventure, The Siege and The Sandfox sets itself apart by forcing its titular, ill-fated protagonist to set their sights upwards. Cast out into the caverns below after being falsely accused of assassinating the ancient city’s king, proving your innocence means clambering up through the labyrinthine depths, evading enemy patrols, and mastering a generous suite of smooth parkour abilities. It’s also one of the dustiest genre entries we’ve seen from the indie scene yet, not only contributing to the game’s overall aesthetic, but also reinforcing the developer’s intention to prioritise stealth over combat. You are an assassin, after all. “There’s no killing,” says Olly Bennett, chief executive officer at Cardboard Sword, in reference to the palace guards you’ll regularly be…

Sly as a sandfox

Old mech Donald

You could call it Chekhov’s Mech: if there’s a giant robot in a game, you can guarantee that it’ll punch or shoot something eventually. Not so in Lightyear Frontier, though, where the hulking staple of Japanese anime is well and truly tamed: instead of giant swords or laser rifles, your mech is the farming equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. With you at the helm, it can plant seeds, water them, harvest the resulting crops, and even build other bits of tech and equipment to help your growing farm run more efficiently. It’s the distant future, and you’re a pioneer striking out on a lush alien world. As Lightyear Frontier begins, there’s just you, your shiny red mech (which you can customise, naturally), and your crashed spaceship, which doubles as your…

Old mech Donald

Old mech Donald

You could call it Chekhov’s Mech: if there’s a giant robot in a game, you can guarantee that it’ll punch or shoot something eventually. Not so in Lightyear Frontier, though, where the hulking staple of Japanese anime is well and truly tamed: instead of giant swords or laser rifles, your mech is the farming equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. With you at the helm, it can plant seeds, water them, harvest the resulting crops, and even build other bits of tech and equipment to help your growing farm run more efficiently. It’s the distant future, and you’re a pioneer striking out on a lush alien world. As Lightyear Frontier begins, there’s just you, your shiny red mech (which you can customise, naturally), and your crashed spaceship, which doubles as…

Old mech Donald

That was the month that was

01. Green Switch engage The world may be in the grip of an energy crisis, but Nintendo at least has an eye on a greener, more powerefficient future. Case in point: the revised OLED Switch, released in 2021, uses half as much energy as its predecessor. Where the first-gen Switch used 12 W, the OLED version uses just 6 W – an impressive saving, given the latter’s screen is also crisper and brighter than that earlier machine. The info came from Nintendo’s second quarter financial results, which also talk about the big N’s plans to improve efficiency in everything from manufacturing to the amount of packaging each console uses. All steps in the right direction. 02. Blockchain’s comin’ home In May 2022, FIFA announced it was ending its partnership with EA and would…

That was the month that was

That was the month that was

01. Green Switch engage The world may be in the grip of an energy crisis, but Nintendo at least has an eye on a greener, more powerefficient future. Case in point: the revised OLED Switch, released in 2021, uses half as much energy as its predecessor. Where the first-gen Switch used 12 W, the OLED version uses just 6 W – an impressive saving, given the latter’s screen is also crisper and brighter than that earlier machine. The info came from Nintendo’s second quarter financial results, which also talk about the big N’s plans to improve efficiency in everything from manufacturing to the amount of packaging each console uses. All steps in the right direction. 02. Blockchain’s comin’ home In May 2022, FIFA announced it was ending its partnership with…

That was the month that was

Point, click, it’s all in the mind

“As ubiquitous to early eighties gaming as Jet Set Willy or playground piracy”M Many gamers of a certain vintage will no doubt be familiar with Beam Software’s The Hobbit – released by Beam’s UK publishing outfit, Melbourne House. For many of us, this 1982 adventure was not only our introduction to Middle-earth – not least because a copy of Tolkien’s book was shoved in with every game – but also the very concept of adventure games themselves. Though it began life as a ZX Spectrum title, pretty much every home system ended up with a version of The Hobbit eventually. It was, in its own way, as ubiquitous to early eighties gaming as Jet Set Willy or playground piracy, ultimately selling a robust million copies. What made it stand out…

Point, click, it’s all in the mind

Point, click, it’s all in the mind

“As ubiquitous to early eighties gaming as Jet Set Willy or playground piracy”M Many gamers of a certain vintage will no doubt be familiar with Beam Software’s The Hobbit – released by Beam’s UK publishing outfit, Melbourne House. For many of us, this 1982 adventure was not only our introduction to Middle-earth – not least because a copy of Tolkien’s book was shoved in with every game – but also the very concept of adventure games themselves. Though it began life as a ZX Spectrum title, pretty much every home system ended up with a version of The Hobbit eventually. It was, in its own way, as ubiquitous to early eighties gaming as Jet Set Willy or playground piracy, ultimately selling a robust million copies. What made it stand out was how different…

Point, click, it’s all in the mind

Stranded: Alien Dawn Made by Haemimont Games, this one’s a survival strategy sim set on a lush yet deadly alien world. The tasks you’d expect to find in the genre can be found here – farming, hunting, managing resources, expanding bases, and researching new tech – but it’s the detail on the planet itself that has us intrigued. Changing weather patterns, and great plains where buffalo-like beasts roam in packs all hint at a living place that existed long before we came along to tinker with it. More on Stranded: Alien Dawn in a future edition. ARK 2 It seemed like an eternity since Studio Wildcard announced its survival sandbox sequel, but then we looked it up and discovered it was two years ago – not that long, really, in…

Stranded: Alien Dawn Made by Haemimont Games, this one’s a survival strategy sim set on a lush yet deadly alien world. The tasks you’d expect to find in the genre can be found here – farming, hunting, managing resources, expanding bases, and researching new tech – but it’s the detail on the planet itself that has us intrigued. Changing weather patterns, and great plains where buffalo-like beasts roam in packs all hint at a living place that existed long before we came along to tinker with it. More on Stranded: Alien Dawn in a future edition. ARK 2 It seemed like an eternity since Studio Wildcard announced its survival sandbox sequel, but then we looked it up and discovered it was two years ago – not that long, really, in major game development…

Exploring the towns of Monkey Island

The Monkey Island games have spanned over three decades; their stories, characters, and visuals expanded on by five distinct development teams. Since director Ron Gilbert’s 1990 original, the series has defined adventure game design, and, despite its piratical theme, has contained some of the medium’s most striking towns and cities. The Monkey Island games know how to use their locations to tell stories, add character, and provide a basis for puzzles. They know how to imply a world that expands far beyond the screen. Towns are pivotal to the Monkey Island series’ storytelling. Indeed, Gilbert argues that, as a designer, it “makes sense to get people into a town as soon as possible, because you’re setting up the goals of the game through dialogue with people, as opposed to stuff in…

Exploring the towns of Monkey Island

Solium Infernum

Nobody’s more excited about the prospect of reimagining Solium Infernum – a cult classic PC grand strategy game from 2009 inspired by poet John Milton’s epic vision of Hell – than Trent Kusters. Co-founder and director at League of Geeks, he demonstrates an early build to us, positively beaming about all the demonic possibilities available when vying for the infernal throne. The man (appropriately) has fire in his eyes. And looking at the significant step up in scope and art direction here compared to the quaint original, it’s easy to see why. “It’s essentially a game of politics, treachery, and Machiavellian antics,” explains Kusters. “The premise is that Lucifer has disappeared. No one knows where he’s gone or whether the Dark Prince is coming back, and it’s in that power…

Solium Infernum

Magic in the mundane

Washing cars. Building wardrobes. Cleaning up rubbish. It turns out all the jobs we used to do to earn pocket money as kids are now big business in video games, especially when they’ve been gamified to the extent that it’s sometimes hard to stop doing them. Yes, after what feels like years of being held back by niche budget restraints, this year has seen the job simulation genre explode into the mainstream. Because while doing chores in real life can be a grind, in the digital realm, factors like effort, exhaustion, and (most importantly) mundanity seldom apply. Video games are instead able to imbue everyday tasks with an almost therapeutic quality, and it’s this feeling that the best job simulators have managed to perfect. One of 2022’s biggest breakout successes…

Magic in the mundane

For the love of retro hardware

have a couple of questions for you. Have you ever played Space Invaders? I imagine you probably have. Here’s another question: have you ever played Space Invaders on an MK14? You probably haven’t, seeing as an MK14 is a home computer kit from 1977 sold by Science of Cambridge – the precursor to Sinclair Research. It has a maximum of 640 bytes of on-board RAM, and you’d need to install a separate VDU (video display unit) in order to actually see anything it outputted. The notion of a machine like the MK14 running Space Invaders is an absurdity, but if you attended the Retro Computer Festival in Cambridge this past Bonfire Night weekend, you would have seen such a thing – a man named Tim Gilberts exhibiting a beautiful example…

For the love of retro hardware

Father and son: How Ragnarök grows beyond God of War

Let me say this once clearly at the outset: this is not a review of God of War Ragnarök, of which I have played most but not all. It’s a comparison of 2018’s God of War and its blockbuster sequel Ragnarök, focusing on the pair’s narratives and breaking apart what works, what doesn’t, and what’s changed. I avoid major spoilers for the latest game, but will mention a few lightly spoilery gameplay changes. In preparation for the new entry, I recently replayed God of War to see for myself how well the critically lauded game’s narrative design and writing hold up four years on. The result: while there’s a lot I still loved about protagonist Kratos’ seminal entry in video gaming’s Sad Dad pantheon, alas, a few parts began to…

Father and son: How Ragnarök grows beyond God of War

Designing first-person adventure games

THE WRITTEN WORLD The iconic first-person adventure is Myst, which initially had players clicking to swap between prerendered scenes before sequels added the ability to rotate on the spot and then finally to explore real-time 3D environments. Set in a universe where people can write new worlds into existence, Myst hit a sweet spot of accessibility (anyone can click to explore and interact), amazing graphics for the time, and a real sense of immersion, and would achieve six million sales. Cyan followed the series with Obduction in 2016, a game that feels like a deliberate attempt to replicate Myst’s success. When you think of adventure games, you might jump to Monkey Island or Little Misfortune, but along the genre’s journey from text to graphics to point-and-click, a distinct sub-genre formed:…

Designing first-person adventure games

An introduction to Sprite Shape in Unity

OPEN AND CLOSED The open sprite shapes are similar to closed shapes. The only difference is that with a closed shape, the two ends are connected and a fill sprite is applied to the middle of the shape (Figure 2). You can switch between these two options by toggling the “Is Open Ended” parameter in the inspector. So if you change your mind, or just selected the wrong type to begin with, it’s pretty easy to fix, and you don’t need to make a new shape from scratch. When it comes to building levels for your game in Unity, there are many different options to choose from. You could use the Tile-map component for grid-based games, or you could build your levels using individually placed assets for a more handcrafted…

An introduction to Sprite Shape in Unity

Make a Monkey Island-style adventure

In 1990, LucasArts debuted a point-and-click adventure that immediately captivated audiences with its humour, storytelling, and devious puzzles. Indeed, The Secret of Monkey Island – first released on the Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and Mac – is so beloved that the series is still going today; the latest instalment, 2022’s Return to Monkey Island, saw series creator Ron Gilbert return as director. The original game’s story follows the young Guybrush Threepwood, his ambition to become a pirate, and his encounters with the ghostly villain, LeChuck. Like LucasArts’ other adventure games of the era, Monkey Island combined scripted interactions between characters, animation, and interactable objects in each scene. For this sample, we’ll re-create the game’s opening, where Guybrush meets the lookout man and asks how he can become a pirate.…

Make a Monkey Island-style adventure

How I became an… Animation Director

“We are the craftspeople best equipped to build a bridge between humanity and interactivity” What was the game that first made you want to work in the games industry? The original Super Mario Bros. I was ten years old when it was released. It was the start of an addiction for me, causing me to become far too enamoured with the NES’s library of incredible games. I’d read every issue of the Nintendo Fan Club and Nintendo Power dozens of times. I’d spend all my allowance on games. I was addicted to Zelda, Mega Man, Dragon Warrior… all the greats from back then. I knew people made these games. They were paid to do this for a living! My dad thought it was a wild fantasy and he wanted me…

How I became an… Animation Director

How to use GRAFFITI effectively in your virtual world

Whether a child got bored and wrote something naughty in the cement drying on the sidewalk or a graffiti artist decided to hone their skills on the side of a subway train, wherever people exist, so too does graffiti. Naturally, this means it should extend to the virtual worlds we build as well; after all, why wouldn’t a place with virtual humans also have virtual children or virtual artists existing as a part of it? If the worlds we build are even remotely like our own, they’re frequently sites of conflict, upheaval, and socio-economic inequality; to this end, graffiti should be on the cultural frontlines of these battles. For a world-builder, graffiti becomes a useful tool for illustrating these struggles in the worlds we create. So while we know we’re…

How to use GRAFFITI effectively in your virtual world

Interactive / Exophobia

What do you get if you fuse the sprite-based, first-person action of an early DOOM game, the aggressive enemies of Mega Man, and the level structure of Metroid? You get Spanish developer José Castanheira, poring over GameMaker Studio 2, trying to get to grips with the challenges of making his first 3D game. Or, more specifically, you get Exophobia: a hectic shooter that, with its limited palette and low-res sprites, looks like a first-person shooter (FPS) that’s somehow been forced to work on ageing NES hardware. Set aboard a spacecraft that has crashed on an alien planet, Exophobia has you roaming the vessel’s cavernous floors, finding keys for locks, and discovering new weapon upgrades that will help you defeat the increasingly vicious enemies you’ll encounter as you progress. If Castanheira…

Interactive / Exophobia

Interactive / Clive ‘N’ Wrench

Right up there with roguelikes and Metroidvanias, another old-school genre that continues to boom is the throwback 3D platformer. Yes, games in which you must carefully guide a character (often alongside a cutesy companion) as they jump, hop, or bounce from one scenario to another are firmly back in fashion, as indicated by Spyro and Crash’s recent-ish remasters and the several indie homages that followed. One person to have foreseen the style’s potential for glorious return is Rob Wass, who first decided to do something about its absence some twelve years ago. “Around 2010 or 2011 I’d been noticing how few 3D platformers there were on the market; it seemed the genre was all but dead,” Wass remembers. “I even went as far as creating a YouTube video outlining my…

Interactive / Clive ‘N’ Wrench

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ScummVM: more than just an adventure

Preservation wasn’t considered a pressing issue for the gaming industry until well into the 2000s. While such emulators as KGen and Snes9x allowed PC users to play Mega Drive and Super Nintendo games from the late 1990s onwards, there was no such luck on the MS-DOS or Windows front. With the Microsoft operating system abandoning the DOS architecture for good at the end of the nineties, playing old PC games started to become more and more of an issue. Around the turn of the millennium, though, a dedicated adventure game fan base began to overcome those hurdles, providing access to the output of LucasArts and beyond. The original ScummVM project was started in 2001 by Vincent Hamm and Ludvig Strigeus – the latter becoming better-known as the main developer of…

ScummVM: more than just an adventure

Snap, drag, ‘n’ drop

I love CCGs. In the last five years, I’ve gone from never playing one to having blown an embarrassing amount of money on cardboard and digital rectangles. I have every single card for Marvel Legendary and so, it will come as no surprise when I tell you that I have become obsessed with MARVEL SNAP. If that last paragraph meant absolutely nothing to you, allow me to briefly explain. CCG stands for collectable card game, which fairly concisely tells you what you’re getting into. You acquire new cards, and use them in a game. Some take the form of deckbuilders where, during gameplay, you receive better cards that improve your power or abilities. Others allow you to gather better cards between rounds and choose which ones to take into any…

Snap, drag, ‘n’ drop

Backend Contents

OUR SCORES 1–9 Trash. Unplayable. A broken mess. 10–19 A truly bad game, though not necessarily utterly broken. 20–29 Still awful, but at a push could be fun for two minutes. 30–39 Might have a redeeming feature, but otherwise very poor. 40–49 Adds in more redeeming features, but still not worth your time. 50–59 Average. Decent at best. ‘Just about OK’. 60–69 Held back by glitches, bugs, or a lack of originality, but can be good fun. 70–79 A very good game, but one lacking spit and polish or uniqueness. 80–89 Brilliant. Fabulous fun. Everyone should at least try it. 90–99 Cutting edge, original, unique, and/or pushes the medium forward. 100 Never say never, eh?…

God of War Ragnarök

How do you follow up what many players consider one of the best soft reboots to an established first-party franchise of all time? With a sequel, of course. Obvious though that next step was, actually topping 2018’s God of War still sounded like a tall order for Santa Monica Studio. After all, while Kratos’ sombre reinvention of a character previously steeped in anger and revenge initially came as a surprise, the resulting adventure was a great rumination on the idea that change (however unlikely) is possible. Even more impressive, then, is that in just four years, the reformed Spartan-turned-god has returned with an even grander, more ambitious journey that is equal parts emotional and introspective. God of War Ragnarök is the well-oiled machine of third-person action games. The point constantly…

God of War Ragnarök

A Little to the Left

A Little to the Left is further evidence that tidying up can make for a powerful gaming hook. Last year’s Unpacking showed the way with its moreish take on filling shelf space, but the potential has been apparent since at least Tetris, where nothing is more satisfying than making uniform lines. Now Max Inferno’s domestic puzzle experience asks you to zoom in on the finer details of putting stuff in order. The sales pitch here is aimed squarely at anyone who can’t stand to see a picture hanging off-centre, and the first of A Little to the Left’s single-screen puzzles presents precisely that scenario. If you instinctively guide your mouse to correct the wonky edges, it has you in its grasp. Now, how about putting a row of books in…

A Little to the Left

Folk horror, from The Wicker Man to The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, tends to elicit a highly specific mode of unease, one instinctively relatable to the social animal that is the human being: the vague certainty that everyone around you is privy to some vital piece of information you’re missing. This summarily describes the mood for Saturnalia’s cast of playable characters, who find themselves in the Sardinian town of Gravoi during the festival of St. Lucia on 21 December 1989. All are outsiders but somehow connected to the reclusive island community. But this is no idyllic Mediterranean paradise. Rather, it’s a craggy fortress that a feeble sun paints the colour of rotten yolk, where the sea shimmers beneath jagged cliffs like a vast oil spill, and a sulphurous mist rises…

How do you go about capturing the essence of British culture in a video game? Village fêtes, badgers, manor houses, charity shops, grungy pubs, chip vans, and jokes about Brexit would likely top most people’s lists, and they’re all to be found within Lucy Dreaming, by solo developer Tom Hardwidge, but there’s so much more than that. Lucy’s home will likely feel familiar to anyone who grew up in the UK, and the variety of accents and temperaments displayed by the largely excellent cast go a long way towards furthering that distinctly British feel. But an homage to the things that make up the culture of our country, both good and bad, don’t necessarily make a great game by themselves, and it’s here where Hardwidge’s lovingly crafted send-up of all…

How to Say Goodbye

How to Say Goodbye is a love letter to the glorious heyday of illustrated book covers. Back in the Victorian age, books were mostly bound between slabs of monochromatic cardboard. But between the start of the 20th century and the late 1960s, there was a fantastic surge of creativity as artists explored different ways of brightening up the hitherto drab world of publication. Illustrators like Tomi Ungerer and Hans Tisdall became famous for their strange, often wild, cover art, and publishers would clamour to have them design the cover of their latest book. The printing technology available meant these artists often had only a handful of colours to work with – perhaps just three – and How to Say Goodbye faithfully replicates that distinctive look, with a limited colour palette…

How to Say Goodbye

More than just marketing spiel, the phrase “Be the Batman” came to define the Arkham series because it actually fulfilled its lofty promise. Entering a room full of 30 goons, whooping their butts, and walking away untouched was immensely satisfying for players able to master that oh-so-delicate ballet of countering and free-flow combat. It’s unsurprising, then, that in a spin-off game where you don’t get to “Be the Batman” at all, combat doesn’t feel anywhere near as fluid and the resulting experience is far more flat. Gotham Knights clearly wants to be a bold co-op spin on a template we know, but its poorly executed hodge-podge of underbaked ideas undercuts all that came before. Take exploration, for example. That feeling you’d get after jumping off a skyscraper for the first…

Itch.io roundup

An Average Day at the Cat Cafe Angela He / Name your own / wfmag.cc/catcafe While its lo-fi autumnal beats, video vibes, and creepy-cute, knife-wielding bunnies might suggest that An Average Day at the Cat Cafe’s wholesomeness runs saccharine, there’s a certain world-weariness in its Overcooked-lite schtick that I deeply appreciate. It’s probably something to do with the unnamed proprietress’ constantly zonked facial expressions, but the game does a wonderful job capturing what a labour of love running any kind of customer service joint really is. It is, nonetheless, exceptionally cute. Donum Bitfans / €2.50 / wfmag.cc/donum If you’re not all spooked out for the year, you might want to check out Donum – a fascinating and deeply unsettling ZX Spectrum-style adventure game with what seems like similar artistic influences…

Itch.io roundup

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

What would you say is your favourite game of all time, and why? It’s hard to say; I feel like I have a favourite game in a few different categories. My favourite all-around game is probably The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as it can be chill, cosy, but also, it really challenged me as a gamer with the combat and open world. When it comes to story, though, we recently played The Last of Us Part II on stream and my life has been changed forever. I have never been so emotionally moved by a game before – it was honestly so incredibly written. It was also amazing to see a queer character in the lead of such a major game; it felt really special. Can you…

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Backwards compatible

Peak Mini? Has the mini console era passed its peak? Looking at Sega’s recently released Mega Drive Mini 2, I’d say the evidence is there. As the name implies, it’s another miniaturised device packed full of old games – a hardware sequel to 2019’s Mega Drive Mini, but this time modelled on the smaller (and less fondly remembered) version of the console Sega first launched in 1993. This decision alone is significant: rather than go for a Master System Mini (too obscure for most markets outside Europe and Brazil) or a Saturn Mini (too hard to emulate on relatively cheap hardware), Sega’s gone for a second bite at its most successful console. And, in a sorry reflection of the global economic climate, the MDM2 is more expensive than its predecessor…

Backwards compatible

Backwards compatible

Read-’em-up You’re always guaranteed two things when it comes to the tomes Bitmap Books regularly puts out: meticulously researched text about a specific genre or franchise, and page after page of beautiful video game art. The publisher’s latest release, I’m Too Young to Die, penned by author (and regular Wireframe contributor) Stuart Maine, is no exception, proudly announcing itself to be “the ultimate guide to first-person shooters”. It mostly lives up to this bold claim, and that’s despite wisely choosing to limit its range between 1992–2002 for fear of collapsing the bookshelf of anyone who purchases it. The heft is warranted, however, as the book comes stacked with interviews, articles, and facts covering almost every FPS from that period you can think of. As a child of the nineties, my…

Backwards compatible

Dead end of the road

Wet and shiny. These two words have quickly come to define the new era of Resident Evil for me. And not shiny as in “Ooh, a shiny new game to play”. No, I mean the literal shine found in so many of the games’ gloriously gruesome environments. It began with 2017’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, of course, but last year’s Village clearly kicked this up a notch by squeezing every ounce of aesthetic detail possible from the RE Engine. Revisiting the eponymous location’s sludgy mud and the ornate halls of its accompanying castle (in honour of the DLC’s recent release) proves it. Shadows of Rose plays like an abridged version of the main story, true, but at the heart of it is a threat appropriately much wetter and shinier than…

Dead end of the road

Super Mario Land

NINTENDO R&D1 / 1989 / GAME BOY Imagine a parallel universe where the Game Boy completely tanked. It was 1989, and the gaming public simply wasn’t interested in buying a handheld console with a blurry screen that you could only see in a certain light. The system sat on store shelves for a year or so before quietly fading into history as the Super Nintendo took flight across the globe in the first years of the nineties. This never happened, of course, but it’s worth remembering that Nintendo was entering a largely untapped market with the Game Boy. Sure, it had captured imaginations with the Game & Watch years earlier, but these were comparatively cheap devices; the Game Boy was a true, cartridge-based console. For a possible glimpse at Nintendo’s…

Super Mario Land

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