Nerves have been sufficiently jangled as of late, not least thanks to the slew of action packed games that have landed in recent months. I crave an altogether more sedate beginning to next year, and so my mind turns to games in which violence, reflex or any other kind of unblinking attentiveness takes a back seat.
]]>It's been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that's happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you, but a day's work for us. Below you'll find our picks for the 50 greatest games released on PC across the past decade.
]]>Following the release of Digital Bird Playground, I was curious what Tom van den Boogaart was up to with his other long-awaited game, a follow-up to Bernband. 2014's first-person explorer remains one of my favourite games, the game I recommend to people more than anything this side of Skeal, and I'm still happy just seeing snippets of his work on a new alien city for the waggly-handed wanderer to get lost in. No, still no firm word when we'll get to play it. Yes, I'm happy to wait, going by how lovely his work-in-progress screenshots and videos have looked. Come see.
]]>'Suspicious Developments' remains my favourite name for a games studio*, but 'Sokpop' might be my favourite name for a video games collective. That's because a) it captures some of the playfulness that they bring to their work, and b) it's fun to say. Sokpop!
I can look forward to exclaiming it more often, because Sokpop Collective have announced that they'll be releasing a new game every 2 weeks using crowdfuning from their recently launched Patreon. You might know them for sci-fi city stroller Bernband, pleasant meadow puzzler Lisa, multiplayer park mess-about sim Digital Bird Playrground, or any of their many, many other games. Click on through for details about that Patreon, as well as the bigger projects they've got planned for this year.
]]>Alice and Pip have been off wandering their way through digital worlds from Proteus to Sacramento and are now hobbling towards a shared definition of a walking simulator. Find out what conclusions they've reached and why their definition categorically does not include Dear Esther!
Pip: Alice, when I asked you to recommend me your favourite walking simulators so I could go on some digital expeditions what would you say were your criteria?
Alice: That… they surfaced readily in this trash heap of a memory? Which meant they struck me for some reason. I think I picked walking simulators with a spread of form and tone, all quite different but all games where you can mostly just walk around. Some fun! Some colourful! Some spooky! Some so linear they're literally on rails.
]]>Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor [official site] made Alice swoon at the idea of cleaning up rubbish in a colourful and bustling spaceport. That’s probably because it looks like a brighter and happier Bernband. Well, good news for Alice and anyone else in love with the creator's gifs – it’s coming out next week. Come see what if looks like in motion.
]]>From the fractured festivities of The Division's Manhattan to the lo-fi confusion of Bernband, urban spaces in games are drawn from many reference points and they all communicate their own ideas about cities. What they are, on what terms we relate to them and how they behave. Thomas McMullan explores how game mechanics attempt to make sense of cities.
French detectives, shopping centres and terrorist acts: how games deal with the systems that make up the city.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
We've gushed an awful lot about Bernband, but have you played its fellow waggly-handed walking simulator Hernhand [official site]? The two are companions of sorts, with Tom van den Boogaart (BB) and Jake Clover (HH) riffing off the same idea of exploring an alien city and both citing other as inspirations. They make interesting pals.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Bernband [official site] has my favourite alien city in a video game. Stuff the Citadel, Bernband is where I want to go. Wandering its streets, corridors, and passageways at night you might see bands play in bars, visit nightclubs, stumble into school classes, wonder what high-tech devices even do, and find folks discreetly pissing in corners. It's the best experience I've had of wandering in a strange city, and I will keep talking about it until everyone has visited.
]]>Give up on trying to find your way around Bernband's neon alien futurecity. Give in to wandering, see where your tippy-tappy feet and the turbolifts take you. One minute's wandering might take you through a bustling club, over a bridge with hovercars zipping past, to a horrible trumpet performance, then bumping into an alien weeing in a corner. Variety is the spice of life, They say.
Graham: Science fiction says that people living in crowded, loud, futurist cities will turn to virtual reality in order to visit peaceful forests and remember what the sky looked like. What it won't tell you is that the reverse is true, too: I can see trees outside my window, but I long for a crowded metropolis full of strange aliens and jazz bars.
]]>I'm still pining for Prey 2, but Bernband has sated that desire a little. It's a walking simulator set in an alien city, all stark architecture, colourful lights, and noise. Lots of noise. Trains roar past, flying cars zip overhead, machinery churns, and crowds all mutter and growl as you gawp at them. It's a low-fi version of everything that excited me about Prey 2's world, and you don't even kill anyone. It's out now, it's free, and it has the most delightfully waggly first-person hand animation you've ever seen.
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