Good morning, how about a nice big bowl of your favourite breakfast cereal: Corporate Consolidation? Sony are in talks to buy Kadokawa, the parent company of Elden Ring developer From Software. Sony is eyeing up the company as a hefty snack because they want the various manga and anime owned by Kadokawa, according to a report by Reuters. But also because they want all the tasty games owned by them too, such as the Danganronpa series, the Octopath Traveler games, and the biggest corn flake of them all, the Dark Souls series.
]]>Whoooo we’re officially in the double-digits gang! We’ve somehow managed to make it to episode 10 of Indiescovery without going completely feral and wrecking the joint. I say that, but this week’s episode is a little, shall we say, unhinged? Rebecca, Liam, and Rachel hadn’t really had a proper chat all week so there’s a lot of Friday energy and catching up, and the energy levels only increase when we start to talk about our main topic of this episode: Eurovision! And indie games, of course.
]]>Almost five and a half years ago, I made my RPS debut looking at what creative modders for Tabletop Simulator were doing. While frequently of grey legality (the majority of items on the Steam Workshop are still unofficial digital reproductions of expensive physical games), the platform is still thriving. Official adaptations of games for Berserk's virtual play-space are now sold more readily, but few take quite as much advantage of Tabletop Simulator's increasingly advanced scripting system like these showcase productions. Here's a few stand-outs pushing the boundaries of what 'tabletop' even means.
]]>It's the first day of Golden Week in Japan, and while that may not mean much to those in English-speaking territories, it's one of the nation's biggest holidays. As Valve never miss an excuse for a sale, that means that there's some great deals on games from Japanese developers and publishers. If visual novels, fighting games or JRPGs are your thing, there's some good stuff at slashed prices today. Here's the official sale highlights page, you can see all the current week-long deals here, and a handful of personal picks below.
]]>The Danganronpa series of games allowed for all sorts of Saw-esque adventures and bizarre romances. Producer Yoshinori Terasawa and game designer Takayuki Sugawara, veterans of the Danganronpa series, have a new kind of survival game, and it is coming to the west without the kind of delay their games have normally experienced before localisation. That game is Zanki Zero: Last Beginning.
]]>Villain monologues: forever a trope to make the eyes roll. I tend to skip through them as quickly as I can, waiting my inevitable escape. I don’t enjoy self-aware villain monologues either; they’re even worse because the villains know that they’re clichéd yet they do it anyway. I'd prefer it if they just immediately murdered me instead.
Danganronpa, a visual novel/detective adventure in which a sadistic cyber-bear drives teenagers to murder each other, takes this trope and spins it on its head. Ursine villain Monokuma’s monologue doesn’t occur during the climactic scene of the game; instead, it occurs throughout, in segments known as “Monokuma Theater”. Ever wanted to know what chatting with a psychopath over drinks would be like? Monokuma Theater is for you.
]]>Bear with me if you've heard this one before: Danganronpa [official site] is a game about teenagers locked in a high school, driven to murder one another by a robotic bear. A tale as old as time. The eye-catching premise partly explains how the series has captured the attention of even those who would shy away from the majority of visual novels.
The third game comes to Steam today, having a simultaneous console and PC release for the first time, and its predecessors are rated 'overwhelmingly positive' by PC players. But what is the secret to the success of these bizarre hybrids of social sim and murder investigation? Class is in session and today's lesson is Danganronpa 101.
]]>Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony [official site] has a free demo ahead of its full launch on September 26, and it's about as weird as you'd expect. You're trapped inside a school with an evil robotic bear called Monokuma, and the only way to escape is to murder a fellow student and get away with it by not getting found out during the ensuing trial.
It's half-visual novel, half-adventure game in which you have to complete "high-speed, logic-action" mini games to find flaws in various arguments presented in the trials and find out the culprit. You can lie to confuse your fellow classmates as well. I didn't get as far as a trial in the demo (you can skip straight to one if you want) but I have walked the schools' corridors and spoken to its characters. I'm suitably impressed with the stylish presentation, although I had a few technical issues.
]]>That rapscallion robot bear Monokuma is at it again, imprisoning more schoolchildren in a school and forcing them to play a life-and-death game of murder and mystery-solving in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony [official site]. Developers Spike Chunsoft have now confirmed that yup, the next in their adventure-o-visual novel will indeed be coming to PC too. While past Danganronpa PC versions have followed a while after their western console releases, this one will arrive on the very same day: September 26th. Peep this trailer:
]]>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.
]]>Both of Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa wacky horror visual novels arrived on PC earlier this year, escaping through the portal from Consoleland, and now their spin-off is following too. Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls [official site] is quite different to those other two, mind. While they were murder mysteries with trapped students investigating killings incited by a robobear, Ultra Despair Girls is more of a third-person shooter. It may be even weirder? If you consider a city overtaken by an army of murderous robobears so children can live without adults weird.
]]>It feels like just last month we were telling you about the PC release of Spike Chunsoft's part murder mystery, part visual novel spectacle Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, doesn't it? Hang on a second, it was just last month! Despite having been previously released on both the PSP in Japan in 2012, and on the PS Vita in 2014 in the west, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair [official site] is now scheduled to arrive on PC on April 18 - just two months after its forerunner touched down on Steam. Here's a trailer:
]]>Whenever I hear someone talking about the bizarre brilliance of the Danganronpa games [official site] I'm tempted to stick my fingers in my ears and run as far away as possible. The only current English language release is on the PlayStation Vita, a device just below pocket spiraliser on the list of things I'm likely to buy at any point in the near future, but the first game in the series is coming to Steam next month. Hurrah! Part visual novel, part crime scene investigation, the game is about an elite academy in which the only way to survive is to murder a fellow student, cover your tracks and escape justice.
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