2024 continues its efforts to be the worst year in my memory, as delightful indie development studio Die Gute Fabrik have halted work. The studio, notable for its lovely story-driven games about forging personal connections in strange or difficult worlds - e.g. Mutazione and the more recent Saltsea Chronicles - was unable to find funding for its new project, after a year of searching, so is shutting up work. All of the staff, including the leadership team, will be looking for new work come mid-march.
]]>Despite my grand plans to get more, right now I still only have one houseplant. But I do love it. I move it around to give it different amounts of light and carefully check the soil. Growing plants seems to have both a creative and a protective element to it. You can get a sense of that from Mutazione.
]]>While the Game Developers Conference is not happening this week, postponed by Covid-19 health concerns, its two big awards shows went ahead on livestream. The vile waterfowl of Untitled Goose Game ran off with the Game Of The Year Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards, and the chill A Short Hike scooped the Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival Awards. A Short Hike and fellow winner Mutazione are both free for keepsies on another few hours too. If you enjoy having your preferences validated by awards from distinguished-sounding bodies, read on!
]]>It's freebie o'clock on the Epic Games Store once again. This week's a proper bonanza, too. Between A Short Hike, Anodyne 2: Return to Dust and Mutazione, there's no shortage of familiar and fantastical indie worlds to poke around in. All three are free to add to your library for good 'til March 19th, when they'll be slapped back to full price to make way for The Stanley Parable and Watch Dogs.
]]>Folks still like freebies 'round these parts, right? Hope so, because there's a pretty kickin' lineup of games to snatch on the Epic Games Store over the next week. Offworld Trading Company and Gonner are both free right now. That's one capitalism strategy simulator and one procedurally generated platformer for your library. Both are free until March 12th, at which point Epic roll out three more free games: A Short Hike, Mutazione, and Anodyne 2: Return To Dust.
]]>Steam's soundtrack sale is nearly over, but as the resident soundtrack fanatic here at RPS, I thought it was only right and proper to take some time out and celebrate some of my favourite tracks and compilations. After all, there are plenty of bangers in there right now, and it would be a shame to miss out on these crackin' tunes while they're going cheap. So come, put on your headphones, turn up your speakers and prepare yourself for an aural assault on the senses.
]]>Put the 9mm down, for crying out loud. Not every game is about shooting your enemies in the shin bones. Honestly. Give me that, here, take this trowel. Now, follow me, through this tranquil landscape of blooming daffodils and perfectly arranged stone paths covered in happy moss. Yes, that’s it, you want a turn around the garden. A bit of soil on your fingers. And there's more where this came from. Here you go, 8 peaceful gardens in which to calm your trigger-happy soul. Breathe it in, shooter. Breathe it in.
]]>Mutazione is the name of an island town, or what's left of one, after a rogue meteor crashed into it decades ago. Now all the folks are mutant-y creatures and the protagonist Kai is the only human-looking human around, come to hang out with her old gramps for a bit. Aside from chatting with the locals, Mutazione lets Kai play around cultivating musical plants, which is what its new Garden Mode update lets you do a lot more of.
]]>The Independent Games Festival Awards have announced their finalists, once more reflecting the esteemed opinions of RPS writers. Sad mutant blueberry simulator Mutazione is the favourite for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, and is also in the running for the Art, Audio and Narrative awards. Two thirds of Alices agree that it is well good.
Other grand prize contenders include AI and sadness visual novel Eliza, uplifting flap-about A Short Hike, irresistible card-pusher Slay The Spire, and irritable waterfowl punter Untitled Goose Game. Also in the running is Anodyne 2: Return To Dust, the only game on the list that someone at RPS hasn't thrown lavish praise at. Soz, Anodyne.
]]>2019 was a great year for PC games - aren't they all? - but you might not yet know what the very best PC games of 2019 were. Let us help you.
]]>Nate was talking to me the other day about how weird it is that games are considered, like, one single form of art, because he reviewed Wilmot's Warehouse and then went straight into Borderlands 3. And similarly, while he and Matthew were shnorting 30 hours of a big bombastic looter-shooter like that one kid at school who used to huff entire pixie sticks up his nose, I was playing Mutazione, a slow paced story about talking to sausages and growing things.
]]>It was explained to me that Mutazione is a difficult game to play on a loud and busy show floor. At conventions and trade shows, someone might notice a free demo station, pick up the controls, noodle around for a few minutes, and then run off because they only have half an hour in which to snarf down an overpriced sandwich. But Mutazione is quiet, slow, and invites consideration. It’s difficult to get a feel for it in a few minutes. It needs slow-cooking. Like in a melting pot. Ho ho.
Mutazione is a sort-of-adventure game, with the closest point of comparison I can think of being Night In The Woods, or perhaps a splash of Undertale, but with less millennial malaise and more just people doin' stuff. Maybe Oxenfree? Developers Die Gut Fabrik refer to Mutazione it as "a mutant soap opera".
]]>The more things change, the more they stay the same, and the world of Mutazione has changed a lot since an alien meteor landed in the middle of a tropical holiday resort. Players pick up the story as Kai, a young woman living in the strange but low-key landscape that's grown in the hundred years since. She hangs out with her weird mutant pals, watching soap operas on TV, and might get into some high-stakes point and click adventuring in between the low-key slice-of-life stuff. The game has been in the works for yonks now, but Die Gute Fabrik are finally ready to show it to the world. See the debut trailer below.
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