Word is Dano spends her downtime knitting and her uptime hitting. Best to approach her when her hands are empty, either way.
Whenever you meet someone new during a playthrough of Griftlands, Klei Entertainment's masterful deckbuilder, the first thing you get is a short box of flavour text that often summarises their demeanour, their line of work, and their attitude towards you all at once, and rarely ever resorts to actually stating those things outright. It's so much easier said than done to write one of these sentences, and yet Klei makes it look effortless.
It's little things like this that make Griftlands easily the most enjoyable deckbuilder for someone who doesn't enjoy deckbuilders.
]]>Exploring backwater planets, recruiting pals and making important decisions that could come back to haunt you - I could be talking about Mass Effect, but I promise I'm not (this time). These are the sorts of things you can get up to in Klei Entertainment's Griftlands, which has now left early access. It's a brilliant deckbuilding roguelite that pits you against enemies in battles of the mind (to negotiate tough situations) or battles of the, uh, body (shooty shooty), as you follow the stories of three characters on a dingy sci-fi world.
]]>Klei Entertainment, developers of indie hits Don't Starve and Oxygen Not Included have announced today that they've agreed for Tencent, the media conglomerate that's been doing quite a lot of buying, to purchase a majority stake in the company. Klei founders say that they will keep "full autonomy of creative and operations across all aspects of the studio".
]]>Gather 'round and take a seat, Steam have now kicked off their first Digital Tabletop Fest, an event of panels, announcements, and demos for games that "run across the lines between digital and physical games". From now until next Monday you can catch panels from the likes of developers adapting tabletop RPGs, building digital deck-builders, and other such table to screen fare.
]]>Christ, I'm not sure what to make of Griftlands. At first I was close to adoration. It's an unusually story-focused deckbuilding roguelike - and it's from Klei, of Oxygen Not Included and Don't Starve fame. That sounded wild to me even before I learnt that it's about moseying around as a bounty hunter in an alien city, doing odd jobs for the locals and building up a network of friends and enemies as you work towards pulling off one last big gig. Parts of it are very impressive, and those parts are very impressively tied together. Decisions constantly come back to haunt you in ways that feel seamless.
Thing is, it gets flabby, and the parts where you're actually playing cards just aren't that great.
]]>Klei Entertainment's fast-talking, hard-stabbing Griftlands is now available on Steam too, after almost a year exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Griftlands is a roguelikelike deckbuilding RPG about mercenaries on a backwater alien planet. You'll take quests, build friendships and rivalries, and settle differences with separate decks you build for speech and combat. It is: pretty neat. It also has: a demo.
]]>You can buy drinks for reprobates in Griftlands. The mingling crimefolk of this sci-fi card game hang out in bars and harbours, lounging on static screens hoping to sell you stuff, or waiting for a fight to break out so they can jump in for either side. There are hairy bouncers, froglike bartenders, and scar-faced bandits. Cultists, bent cops, and bounty hunters of all kinds. This is basically a card game based on the pondlife of Mos Eisley cantina, and as a deck-building roguelike of Slay The Spire flavour, it’s too short-lived to confidently recommend just yet. But it has enough character that I’ll happily pull up a stool and sip my spacejuice as developers Klei finish things off. And while I’m at it – bartender - drinks for all my new friends!
]]>Matt: Brendy never made it home last night, after jeering his way through Bethesda's conference in person. The hotel room is lonely and I miss him very much, but the PC Gaming Show must go on. Welcome to the "I'm the only one that's here-ah", where I cheer and jeer at the cheery RPS fanzine's show by myself.
Brendan Wraithwell: Don't worry, I've got your back.
]]>Wow 2019 is a thing, huh? How are we all doing? Relieved? Bowling a hangover and a nagging sense of trepidation? Maybe you work in retail and, surprise! You were supposed to be at work half an hour ago. Time loses all meaning post-New Year break, doesn't it? You're just sort of adrift in a sea of empty Quality Street wrappers. That's okay. We're all there too.
Pretty soon the grim news cycle is going to grind to life again. Only three months until -- no! Don't think about it. We still have a moment here, on the crinkly, brightly coloured waves. Listen to their quiet rustling and think, not about reality, but about games! Yes, lovely, shiny games. We can bury our face right in them. And from that point of view the next 12 months are looking pretty good. Here's our selection of the games we're most looking forward to next year.
]]>As we lay 2017 to rest, let us remember all of the wonderful games that flickered across our screens and occupied our hearts and minds. But now we must promise never to think of them again because times have changed. This is 2018 and if we've learned one thing from the few hours we've spent in it it's that there are games everywhere. Every firework that exploded in the many midnights of New Year's celebrations was stuffed with games and they were still raining down across the world this morning. We cannot stop them, we cannot contain them, but we can attempt to understand them.
Hundreds of them will be worth our time and attention, but we've selected a few of the ones that excite us most as we prepare for another year of splendid PC gaming. There's something for everyone, from Aunt Maude, the military genius, to merry Ian Rogue, the man who hates permadeath and procedural generation with a passion.
]]>We haven’t seen much of sci-fi RPG Griftlands [official site], apart from a short trailer featuring a drunk frog-man getting turned in by his space pal for a sweet bag o’ cash. But developers Klei have a good track record with their cartoony games. So I annoyed them with some questions and got a few more details. As expected, it’s a game of money-grubbing and turn-based battling, but it’s also a world where characters will hold grudges against you, say the creators.
]]>Each year E3 rolls around like a giant evil worm, crushing all that's good and pure. BUT that worm also announces lots of exciting gaming news as it wreaks its carnage upon the Earth. Here we have gathered every announcement, reveal, and exciting new trailer that emerged from the barrage of screamed press conferences over the last few days. And lots of it looks rather spiffy.
A rather enormous 47 PC games were either announced, revealed, or updated upon, with new trailers, information, and released dates that will all be missed by at least three months. We've collected the lot, with trailers, in alphabetical order, into one neat place, just for you.
]]>Judging by the survivalist Don’t Starve and subterranean piss manager Oxygen Not Included, Klei are very good at drawing cartoony things and then secretly planting loads of quite-good cogs and switches behind it all. It looks like they’re trying for another good ‘un. Griftlands [official site] has been announced at E3. It’s a sci-fi RPG “where everything is negotiable: money, loyalty—even morality”, says the developer. But you can see what it looks like down here.
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