The Legend Of Zelda has always been one of my personal favourite series over the years, but being a Nintendo game, it's obviously never graced the PC in any kind of official capacity. But while we may never get to play a mainline Zelda game on PC, there's no denying it's inspired countless other developers to have a stab at it themselves, hence why we've put together this list of the best PC games like Zelda you can play right now. Whether you're looking to scratch that Tears Of The Kingdom itch or get stuck into something more retro-facing like A Link To The Past, we've got you covered. These are the best Zelda-likes on PC we'd recommend playing today.
]]>Indie game developers on Itch are once again offering up their games in a massive bundle benefitting humanitarian aid. The Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid is offering up over 1,000 games for $5, with all profit benefitting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The bundle has so far raised $45,000 of its $500,000 goal for the week it will be available.
]]>Easter has come and gone now, and here in the RPS treehouse we lounge with bellies full of chocolate chatting about our favourite little surprises in games. Alice O has already asked you, dear reader, what's your favourite video game Easter egg? It appears some game developers have been pondering a similar question on Twitter, and revealing the best Easter eggs they've hidden in their games - from hiding games within games, to live coding an RPG to rewriting an RPG's script live to mess with streamers.
]]>The developers behind time-looping adventure game Minit have released a speedy side scrolling spin-off, Minit Fun Racer. Players will jump back into the shoes of the strange bird-creature protagonist from Minit, but rather than wandering around looking for beds to respawn in, this time you'll be scooting your way to victory down some very busy streets. It's out right now, and all the developer and publisher proceeds will go directly to charity.
]]>This weekend, indie-centric storefront Itch.io kicked off their massive Bundle For Racial Justice And Equality. Pulling together a collection of 749 (and counting) indie darlings, hobby projects and unsung curiosities for a meagre $5, Itch's massive bundle has currently raised well over $400,000 for legal defence funds across the United States - and there's no sign of slowing down anytime soon.
]]>Times are strange and frightening. But one point of great solace for me has been hearing people celebrating things in their lives. It feels especially important right now to hold on to what makes us all proud about what we do and who we are. And what I really love is people showing off things they’re proud of making.
So I’ve been asking a bunch of developers to pick out something they’ve created that brings them pleasure to look back on. And here they are, including Harvey Smith remembering his input on Deus Ex and Dishonored, Derek Yu on one of his first-ever games. There’s pride in doing something for someone else’s game, in the power of details and in little inventions, and ah gosh, shut up, let’s just tuck into a big slice of escapist positivity.
]]>Okay, sixty seconds on the clock, let's go: Monochrome adventure Minit is the Epic Games Store's free game for the week. Solve the mystery of the sword factory, collect photographs, grab some coffee and listen to an old man ramble by the sea in this delightful little adventure game with a lethal twist. Every 60 seconds you drop dead and begin the cycle anew. But be quick - Minit isn't the only one stuck in a time loop. Epic's own cycle resets in seven days, putting another free game on a pedestal for the week.
How long was that, did I do it?
]]>This year's E3 may have been dubbed "the year of the time-loop game", but I'd argue there's nothing as tight or as satisfying in this emerging subgenre as the 60-second sojourns you'll face in monochrome puzzler Minit. You play a small, nameless duck-faced fellow who has the terrible misfortune to happen upon a cursed sword that locks him into a minute-long time-loop, and - oh, wait a minute, the timer's about to run out. See you in a sec--
]]>Haunting the waterways of Minit's Groundhog Day-cursed island is an immortal shark with a penchant for snacking on one-bit bird creatures. Oceans, caves, streams - anywhere you take a swim, players can expect Minit Shark (doo doo doo doo doo). Except that wasn't exactly what the developers intended. Turns out, they didn't know until the last minute that a bug broke Minit Shark free of his salt-water confines, and instead of fixing it they decided hey, look, a new feature.
]]>The finalists for the 2019 Independent Games Festival award ceremony on March 20th have been announced, and they remind me just how joyful a challenge it is to keep up with indie development. Every category is packed with exciting, creative endeavours both complete or still in development - a reminder that 2018 was a great year for games, and 2019 stands to be even better. Now I've just got to keep track of all of them.
Among the headliners for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize are RPS favourites like low-fi groundhog day adventure Minit, the excellent maritime mystery Return Of The Obra Dinn (which Andreas Inderwildi picked apart earlier today) and the bizarre Hypnospace Outlaw, a deep dive into a fictional 90s internet dream-world. Also in the running is virtual voyeur sim Do Not Feed The Monkeys, and the upcoming physics-driven platform roguelike Noita. Every category is full of exciting games, though - check out the full list on the IGF page here, or below.
]]>Video games, you may have noticed, are often a little bit horrid. All sorts of naughtiness, and a distinct lack of people just being kind to one another. What are we like?! But fortunately there are games that make an exception to the potty-mouthed meanies that dominate, and today I celebrate them and their cuteness with a collection of lovely screenshots.
]]>Chances are you’ve caught wind of Minit between its initial release and the clamor for a Switch port. It’s a wee, wonderful, one-bit adventure where, thanks to a cursed blade, you die every 60 seconds. While it’s a romping hoot of a game, it also blatantly wastes your time. I mean that in a good way: Minit tosses away precious seconds with so many fun, sincere, and clever tactics that this shines as a pro, not a con.
]]>Over the past several weeks I have sent a lot of interesting people who work in the games industry an email containing the following scenario:
"You enter a room. The door locks behind you. From a door opposite another you enters. This other you is a perfectly identical clone, created in the exact instant you entered the room, but as every second ticks by they are creating their own distinct personhood. The doors will unlock in 90 minutes. Nobody will ever know what happens in the room. What do you do? (assume the materials you need for whatever you want to do are in the room). Please show your working, if able."
]]>"So we kind of said this is a one time thing. We're all coming together to work on this one project."
That sentiment is very much the spirit of Minit itself. The adventure game where you're stuck in a loop and each life lasts sixty seconds is all about doing as much as you can in the time given to you. It's a magic gem of a game, small and focused. A playthrough will probably only last a few hours but every minute of it will stick with you.
For developers Jan Willem Nijman and Kitty Calis, it was an opportunity to get away from larger projects and do something completely different. Though Minit started out quite differently from the game we have now, with a game jam back in 2012 where Cartoon Network put the Adventure Time IP in the hands of creators.
]]>Minit gives you sixty seconds to achieve great things. As soon as you wake, in whichever place you're currently calling home, a timer begins to countdown and when a minute has expired, you die and restart. In that time, you might find a useful item, which will be close at hand in the next life, or you might discover a new area and start to formulate a plan for exploration and infiltration a few lives down the line.
It was during my second life that I found the lighthouse. By the lighthouse, an old man stands, crooked of spine. He tells you everything you need to know about Minit's wit and central conceit, and he does that with nothing more than a text box and a very clever monologue.
]]>Minit is that most rare of joyful things: A really good idea, done really well.
In Minit you play a little bird-like pixel character who lives in a black and white pixel world, and is cursed with only ever living for a single minute. And yet despite this limitation, it presents a little RPG. HOW?! you ask, in your belligerent way. Hush, I shall tell you.
]]>I've spent part of the morning catching up on trailers and this one for Minit [official site] - a lo-fi adventure game played out in 60 second intervals - caught my eye:
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