Gang Beasts is one of the games I think of when I recall the golden days of video game expos, before Covid rolled up and nuked the business model. It casts you as one of several jellybaby pugilists, fighting for dominance over such locations as Ferris wheels and the tops of speeding vans. All of the characters are 1) seemingly drunk, and 2) subject to real-time physics. Your abilities consist of 1) punching, headbutting or kicking people, perhaps knocking them out for a few seconds, and 2) grabbing people and things and either hoisting them skyward like a wrestler, or hoisting yourself skyward like a toddler climbing onto Mummy's head. The only way of defeating people is to hurl them off-map.
]]>It's time for another edition of Ask RPS, where we answer reader questions put forward by RPS supporters. Today's question is a nice, warm, fuzzy one, as it's all about the good times we've had playing games in co-op with friends and family.
It comes courtesy of Aerothorn, who asks: What is your favorite co-op gaming memory? (along with the additional clarification that these memories don't need to be confined to designed-for-co-op games, but could also stem from playing a single-player game with a friend. "I used to play Descent with me piloting and my friend gunning!" they said).
So which games make us think of happy times with pals and good company? Come and find out below.
]]>The devs behind flailing fisticuffs multiplayer game Gang Beasts have revealed their hopes to resurrect its predecessor as their next major project, a decade after Boneloaf’s second wobbly wrestling hit took off and derailed their initial plans.
]]>Silly wobble person fighting game Gang Beasts is going it alone, planning to self-publish future updates. Last year, Boneloaf's former publisher Double Fine Presents was bought up by Microsoft, eventually saying that continuing to be a publisher after being bought by a bigger publisher "doesn't make sense," and calling the new structure a "complicated issue." Looks like Gang Beasts will come out of the equation alright, as Boneloaf are planning some new updates for the game even post-publisher.
]]>Hey you, I heard your breath smells like a fart. What are you gonna do about it? Fight me!? Excellent. I was hoping you’d say that, because I’ve put together a list of the 10 best fighting games on PC, and it would be fantastic if you came and had a look, gave your thoughts, and maybe elbowed me in the teeth while you’re at it. Finally, a decent reader willing to dropkick me. Matchmaking is hard.
All right, let’s take this outside, where the top 10 fighting games are waiting. How exciting.
]]>A lineup of 41 lesser-known indie darlings, party favourites, curiosities and old favourites have gone on sale this week. "Sure, Nat," you cry, "you say that, but games go on sale all the time. What's the big deal?". Well, dear reader, if you'd give me time to finish, I'd explain that this is a charity sale. For the rest of this week, the big-wigs over at the IGDA Foundation have set up nice little charity fundraising event.
Until the end of the One Gamer Fund charity event, 50% of the proceeds from purchasing discounted games will be split between 7 particularly game-centric charities. It's for a good cause, yeah, so why not take a look?
]]>Aw, hey! I'm so glad you came. You know, I was saying to Alice, just a second ago I was saying to her: "I hope our favourite listener drops in" and now look here you are. That's great, that's so nice. YOU'RE nice. Ha ha. Have a drink. No thank you, I've had twelve. Look, there's Adam. Watch out though, he's gabbing on about Overcooked and those Jackbox Party Packs But never mind, Alice is outside by the paddling pool, talking some chumps into a game of Jelly Stompers. I also think she has a copy of Deadly Premonition with her for some reason. Brendan? He's in the kitchen, probably boring somebody about Gang Beasts. Best stay here. With me, the Electronic Wireless Show.
]]>Round up your chums for a spot of adorable ultraviolence, as the wonderful Gang Beasts has launched out of early access. Gang Beasts is a multiplayer arena fighting game where players will hurl each other off the tops of speeding trucks, out windows, and into industrial grinders, grabbing and grappling in physics-simulated fisticuffs. Pummel your pal into exhaustion, hoist them up, go to throw them out the arena, but they recover in time and grab onto the edge and somehow fling you out... it's brutal and it's funny. And it's properly out now.
]]>Hurling your mate through a plate glass window, into a grinder, or off a speeding van is somehow even more fun in Gang Beasts [official site] than in real life. It's a wonderfully daft multiplayer brawler about gelatinous squishmen who have your usual punches and kicks but, crucially, have a button to grip - meaning you can grab onto anything and everyone, tossing people around or holding on for dear life after someone tries to hurl you into the sea. If you haven't played it yet, mate, round up some chums and have a go during the free trial weekend which has now started on Steam.
]]>As Adult Swim gears up for the third season of Rick and Morty, characters from Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland’s anarchic sci-fi cartoon will be appearing in a slew of games, including Rocket League [official site].
]]>It's hard not to compare Human: Fall Flat with Ubisoft's Grow Home and Boneloaf's Gang Beasts, because Human: Fall Flat [official site] tumbles in the exact same physics-powered footsteps. In Grow Home you control a little robot called BUD, unsteady on his feet, using physics to solve puzzles and climb a giant plant. In Gang Beasts you control little blobby creatures, unsteady on their feet, using physics to have multiplayer fights. In Human: Fall Flat you control a little blobby creature called Bob, unsteady on his feet, using physics to solve puzzles and progress through its rooms. However, rather importantly, HFF makes a strong effort to do something appropriately different with the same ideas. Here's wot I think.
]]>Last month we warned you that Human: Fall Flat [official site] was coming out. And did you listen? No. And now look. This wobbly physics puzzle game, starring a drunken Gang Beast lookalike called Bob, is all over Steam and you are all like, "whoa, where did this come from, dude?" and "oh the wee man can't hold the stick" and "haha I'm having such a great time". Well, don't blame us when you're having fun throwing things through a window with your friend in co-op mode. We tried to tell you.
]]>Some of you live high atop remote mountains with no other people around, which means local multiplayer game and gelatinous brawler Gang Beasts [official site] has thus far been useless to you. No more! The game of haphazard punching in comically hazardous locations now has an online multiplayer beta, so mountain-dwellers everywhere can play together - assuming you can get access.
]]>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 5 of the sale.
]]>Welcome to a new (probably monthly) series on the rise of the party game, where we celebrate all things ‘local multiplayer’. How do we do that? We dispatch Brendan to some of gaming’s best blowouts to schmooze and play with the partygoers. This week, The Wild Rumpus and a chat with the brothers who made Gang Beasts.
There’s a paddling pool full of water outside a nightclub in London. Beside it, a group of young men are wrapping condoms around PlayStation Move controllers. The shrinkwrapped controllers are attached to an elastic string and flung into the water, and three players roll up their trousers and enter the paddling pool barefoot. They are the Jellyfish Stompers.
]]>Gang Beasts, even in pre-release form, is one of the best games I've played this year. It's a multiplayer brawling game, with elements of Dreamcast classic Powerstone in among the wrestling and clumsy acrobatics. Whether you're struggling to roll a momentarily unconscious foe out of a ferris wheel carriage, or stumbling headfirst into a meat grinder, Gang Beasts is a wonderful combination of applied skill and improvised farce. The next update, which will coincide with a Steam Early Access launch, places the game under the Double Fine umbrella. Details below.
]]>Currently in alpha, Gang Beasts is free to download and you should grab it right now. It's a surprisingly nuanced multiplayer beat 'em up that combines playgrounds packed with perilous physics and a control scheme that makes combat a sequence of shoving, grappling and tripping over your own fists. Rounds often come to a halt as the last Beasts standing collapse into a meat grinder together, unsure who is pushing toward and who is pulling away.
It's already a wonderful game, both hilarious and intelligently designed, but rather than simply praising its silliness, I've been thinking about how the whole thing works and why it's satisfying, while also looking at the possibilities that the future of jelly-combat holds.
]]>Not every game needs its every update covered, but Gang Beasts might. It's an indie single-screen fighting game with wobble physics, designed for 1-4 players to stumble around, punching and grabbing and tossing one another into meat grinders. Its latest alpha - 0.0.2, yep - adds three new levels, including one that set on a working ferris wheel and another with the game's first set of AI opponents.
]]>Since Nidhogg is finally out, the world needs a new in-development local multiplayer brawler to obsess over. I suggest that game should be Gang Beasts: a physicsy fighting game that seems to fall somewhere between the awkward shoving of Sumotori Dreams and that thing people do as kids/cool adults where they mash their jelly babies together in mock-fights before eating them.
Trailer and download link below.
]]>
