If days were centimetres the sequel to this site's favourite tactics game of 2014 would be about this far away (I'm holding my hands out in front of me like a person illustrating the leg span of the largest giant huntsman spider ever recorded). Poke your spycam under yonder jump and you'll spot an interview with Door Kickers 2's designer, Dan Dimitrescu, plus a blow-by-blow account of my second attempt at “Why We Fight”, one of the 40 missions destined for the first Early Access build.
]]>I'm not entirely sure why KillHouse's tactical SWAT 'em up Door Kickers went and spawned a side-scrolling arcade spinoff, but I'm glad it did. Released yesterday and co-developed by PixelShard, Door Kickers: Action Squad is a semi-tactical platform shooter for one or two players (online or local). Players kick open doors, shoot assorted 80s action movie villains and look cool doing it.
Action Squad has been available in early access since last year, but now it's all stacked up and ready to breach, bang and clear. Below, a tongue-in-cheek launch trailer featuring some of its old-school soundtrack.
]]>Hi gang, apparently I didn't read the small print on a cup of tea The Man offered me and I'm now contract-bound to produce some #content about the #RoyalWedding.
Well well well, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are to be wed. Holy matrimony. The bond. Some say that a married couple are like an elite SWAT team, working together using teamwork, communication, support, planning, bolt cutters, stun grenades, and a Benelli M4 semi-automatic shotgun. While we can't see the future and know every storm a marriage will face, Harry and Meghan, we can prepare ourselves by playing the new online cooperative multiplayer mode added to Door Kickers.
]]>Door Kickers is a tense, precise tactics game that turns SWAT team interventions into real-time-with-pause puzzles. But what if it was more like Broforce? That’s Door Kickers: Action Squad -- infiltrate buildings as part of a SWAT team, and then make everything explode. It’s on Steam early access now.
]]>KillHouse Games has teased a side-scrolling, retro spin-off to Door Kickers, officially the best top-down tactics game of 2014. It's called Door Kickers: Action Squad [official site], and it's being co-developed by KillHouse and Pixel Shard, whose only previous title is a match-three game called Yummy Dreams: Jelly Rainbow. Quite a change of scenery, then.
It looks like it's trying to inject some humour into the tactics, and the teaser trailer genuinely made me laugh. It shows two players side by side battering down a door in full S.W.A.T. gear only to find a lone rat inside. And then, well, watch it to find out.
]]>The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up some recommendations - both general tips and some newly added staff choices.
Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You're welcome.
]]>I've grown immune to the draw of bundles as the number of them has increased, but the Indie Legends 4 Bundle has a good enough haul that it reminds of the early days of Humble. For €3.15 (around £2.62/$3.51) you get Viscera Cleanup Detail (with DLC), Door Kickers, Skullgirls, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Reus, Lethal League, Party Hard, and Another World. I haven't played Sir or You Are Being Hunted, but I'd pay that much for Door Kickers alone.
]]>We're coming to the end of the Summer Steam Sale so chances are you've picked up the things you'd already got your eye on, but there are always games that sneak under the radar or come from genres you might usually ignore. That's why we've put together our final recommendation list. Here's a whole list of things we love and why we think they're worth your time! (Don't forget to check out our earlier picks and the comments, though - I picked up a bunch of games that had escaped my own notice through reader enthusiasm...)
]]>While Brendan skipped around gaily like a cyberkid in a cybercandy shop, hacking that candy to receive godlike powers, John was less enamoured with Else Heart.Break(). If you were torn between those two opinions and passed over the sandbox RPG when it came out last year, hey, it's in the latest Humble Bundle. It's a mega-bargain, also offering Sunless Sea, Trine 3, Door Kickers, and more for as little as £6.
]]>Interesting chap, Dan Dimitrescu. Spoken of in reverent tones in the roughest bars in virtual Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and Pearl Harbour, he started his working life reviewing simulations rather than designing them. Below the break, he talks about the games he's shaped and the games he's scored. Influences are star-shelled, career sea-changes discussed. If you've ever stalked a Silent Hunter convoy or dithered outside a Door Kickers door, read on. Read on!
]]>Door Kickers 2 was very briefly announced two weeks ago, but now there's more information beyond "it exists". The sequel to top-down breach-and-clear-'em-up is subtitled "Task Force North" and trades urban environments for a military Special Operations team fighting in a fictional "Iraqi-like" country. It'll be 3D, there'll be co-op, and it'll enter Early Access in September or October of this year. More details below.
]]>At the start of the Christmas holiday, I looked upon my list of installed Steam games and considered what new games I might finally have time for. Then I instantly opened up Door Kickers [Steam page], a game I'd played a dozen times before. It was the only PC game I played over the break.
Good news, then! Door Kickers 2 is in development.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
I don't know when I'll ever get another first-person experience like SWAT 4, but Door Kickers [official site] is pretty close. It's played from above, but you command a squad of well-trained soldiers to breach and clear rooms full of criminals, and it's every bit as smart, tactical and exciting as its inspirations.
]]>What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we'll be offering our picks - based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 10 of the sale.
]]>It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about Door Kickers, a top-down game of tactical breach and clear maneuvers. Actually it was two days ago though, when we named it our favourite tactical game of the year. Now an update for the game has been released which adds a new campaign called Terror At Sea.
Is it about being trapped on a small raft with me while I feel sea sick? I can't be sure it's not, as I haven't played it yet.
]]>Long for a tactical diversion fit for a five minute or five hour play session? Door Kickers will satisfy, by being able to meet the needs of genre-newcomers, the time-poor, as well as those who know their crisscross from their buttonhook.
Graham: Door Kickers can be simply described as being like Frozen Synapse with a lick of Rainbow Six paint, but it's also a lesson in the power of theme and setting.
]]>During the making of this Wot I Think, 379 doors were unceremoniously breached, 546 flashbangs were artfully lobbed, 19 timebombs were hurriedly disarmed, 61 suspects were roughly handcuffed, 501 hostages were ingeniously liberated, 6362 hostiles were liberally ventilated, and 1 player was royally entertained.
That player is 97.24% certain you'll enjoy Door Kickers. A top-down tactics diversion with Rainbow Six and Frozen Synapse echoes, KillHouse's début project delivers its high risk, high bodycount combat action in brief bewitching bursts. Though successful raids can be over in less than sixty in-game seconds, they usually come at the end of long strings of SNAFUs...
]]>Are you 'feature complete' yet? Have you written that novel, made that parachute jump, found that special someone? By my calculations my own personal beta test still has about 250 years left to run. Circa 2264 the handful of people that backed my 1970 Kickstarter campaign will get an email thanking them for their patience. The email will include the following changelog.
New in Version 1.0
- Focus
- Patience
- Charm
- Gravitas
- Wisdom...
“Lance corporal Ivor Pettibone was the most gifted 'skylark' I've ever met. Given a quiet place to sit (inside or out, it made no difference) and a few minutes to himself, he could tell you, with photographic clarity, what lurked in the next village or lay beyond the next ridge. It was like having an invisible Auster on call all day every day. One damp evening in the Spring of '45 he tried to teach me the trick. In a fragrant hayloft near Münster I learnt all about The Golden Ladder and The Silver Rope. At first neither seemed strong enough to bear my weight, but later, long after the war was over, I did manage a couple of brief but unforgettable ascents.”
]]>Screenshots are such liars. I loaded up Door Kickers with the assumption that I was about to play Frozen Synapse in riot gear. It is not that. It's more mobile and (currently) not quite as tactical than the obvious touchstone, but closer to a fuzzy, top-down reinterpretation of SWAT 4. Somewhere in between those two tactical titan's crossfire is where Door Kickers cowers. It's just popped up on Steam's Early Access and I've spent a few hours with it.
]]>My pal Warwick threw down the gauntlet last night. After a few pints of Spitfire in the White Hart in Henley, he bet me twenty quid I couldn't sneak the names of twenty RAF aircraft into a single Flare Path intro. Being a hawkish fellow I was tempted to take his money, but, in the end, resisted his hectoring and declined the challenge. Flare Path takes its role of wargaming/simulation sentinel far too seriously to indulge in juvenile word stunts.
Beyond the break, I take a swift look at The Few (a valiant attempt at a two-layer Battle of Britain RTS) cause havoc with Automation's just-unveiled car designer tool, and nervously scout Door Kickers' latest batch of maps (many of which remind me of places I know in Lancaster, Halifax, Stirling, Sunderland, Stranraer, Bombay and Hyderabad).
]]>Hey, are you interested a 2D real-time tactics game? I thought you might be, because you've got that tacticular look about you. You might therefore be interested to know that Killhouse's top-down SWAT game, Door Kickers*, now has a free tier on their founders program. This basically amounts to a demo of the full game on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Fancy, eh?
Illustrative trailer embed below.
]]>There's a small part of every ex-PCGer that wants to be Tim Stone. His life must be wonderful: there's a bounty of games made just for him, and his writing toolbox is packed with punnage. He was, and still is, a secret weapon: perfect pages delivered on time. If you want to be a games writer, study his work. He's makes me want to play the games he writes about, even though I rattle off most of them and sprint back to the comfort of my less-complicated shooty things. There are a few crossovers in our tastes, though: I once got hooked on a bus driving sim (and I was half pretending to be a bus driver, and half pretending to be Tim), and top-down tactical SWAT game Door Kickers looks rather splendid, too.
]]>The Flare Path kill house is not like other kill houses. Footwear must be removed at the front door. All offers of tea or coffee politely accepted. No-one is allowed to exit the hall without yelling “C-o-m-i-n-g, ready or not!”. Those that pass the cat without a) stroking him or b) complimenting him on his “wuvly fluffiness” can expect to be taken to one side by an instructor. Obviously, flashbanging the granny annex between 12.15 and 13.00 (Bargain Hunt) and 14.00 and 15.00 (Bergerac) is strictly forbidden, and anyone caught sniggering at the mantelpiece photo of Tim (the one where he's wearing the knitted swimming trunks) will be instantly evicted.
]]>Thanks to a pair of heavily patched barrage balloons and an antique ex-Latvian Army Bofors gun, yesterday passed uneventfully in the Flare Path household. Using the derelict abattoir across the valley as cover, Cupid tried one pop-up attack, but a flurry of 40mm fury quickly sent him packing. “The little rascal really needs to work on his tactics” I thought to myself as, back at my desk, I perused correspondence from Eagle Dynamics' Matt Wagner and KillHouse Games' Dan Dimitrescu. “Either that or trade-in those arrows for Brimstones.”
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