I did not expect that I would ever Google something like "will Big Ben bong?" in service to an article for RPS, and yet here we are - and it turns out it will not. The big B day has arrived, not with a bong but a whimper. It's a sore subject for a lot of us (stuff disappearing off of Netflix; my partner is European and won't have to queue as long at airports), a genuinely frightening one for others (unknown economic impact; forced repatriation).
As in most times of stress, I turn to video games for both a distraction from and mirror to life. I don't even mean obviously Brexit-y things like Not Tonight or Spinnortality. There are many games notionally unrelated to today that nonetheless feel apposite to play. Here are a few that I thought of.
]]>Oikospiel Book I is a game about fevered landscapes, classic literature, operating systems, opera and the need for dog-based unions to stand against cruel labour practices. It is a series of strange and wonderful things, from David Kanaga, the chap who made the strange and wonderful music in the likes of Proteus and Panoramical. Upon its release two years ago, Alice O deemed it "one of the most surprising and delightful games I’ve played in yonks."
It is precisely because of that two-year anniversary that Oikospiel is now free, free, free until the end of March.
]]>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.
]]>The dadification of games continues. So we’re going full Dad this week on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, as we’ve been asked to talk about the games we play with our children.
Alec’s daughter is excited by the unlockable characters in Rayman Legends (and she’s also strangely fascinated by Battletech). John’s son is a bit younger and likes to watch his dad diving in Abzu and Subnautica (but also manages to sneak glimpses of God of War’s quiet moments on the TV – naughty!). Brendan doesn’t have children, only a cat. She can’t stand games and thinks they are a waste of time.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
I've long possessed a fondness for Bohemia Interactive's military simulators, ever since Operation Flashpoint invaded my hard-drive back in 2001. But ArmA 3 is the first Bohemia game since OpFlash to successfully modernise that that initial concept, striking a pleasing balance between ambition, accessibility, and stability of play.
]]>Navigate the gallery by clicking on the left and right arrows or use the left and right cursor keys on your keyboard!
Real life is rubbish sometimes, and there’s nothing that video games can do about that. But I know that if I’ve had a particularly tough day at work, then sitting down at my PC and visiting a different world can often be exactly what I need to unwind.
]]>I am dad, hear me whinge. Too many games, not enough spare time, for all my non-work hours are spent kissing grazed knees, explaining why you cannot eat the food in that cupboard, constructing awful Lion King dioramas out of toilet roll tubes and being terrified that the next jump from the sofa to the armchair will go fatally wrong. I'm lucky in that my job to some extent involves playing games, so by and large if there's something I really want to check out I can find a way to, but I appreciate that there are many long-time, older or otherwise time-starved readers for whom RPS is a daily tease of wondrous things they cannot play.
Now, clearly I cannot magically truncate The Witcher 3 into three hours for you, but what I can do is suggest a few games from across the length and breadth of recent PC gaming that can either be completed within a few hours or dipped into now and again without being unduly punished because you've lost your muscle-memory.
]]>The bohemian sewer of neon lights and indie games known as Itch.io has posted a huge bundle of games from over 100 different creators, pointedly called A Good Bundle. It's got a lot in it. Gone Home is in there, Catacomb Kids is in there, Proteus is there, The Novelist is there, Killing Time At Lightspeed is there. And a bunch of smaller games of note too: NORTH, Windosill, Raik, FJORDS, The Old Man Club, Depression Quest, Capsule… jeepers. The asking price for the whole stash – a potentially overwhelming 151 games – is 20 United States dollars. There’s another motive behind this videogame Voltron though. All of the proceeds are going to the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood.
]]>Alice and Pip have been off wandering their way through digital worlds from Proteus to Sacramento and are now hobbling towards a shared definition of a walking simulator. Find out what conclusions they've reached and why their definition categorically does not include Dear Esther!
Pip: Alice, when I asked you to recommend me your favourite walking simulators so I could go on some digital expeditions what would you say were your criteria?
Alice: That… they surfaced readily in this trash heap of a memory? Which meant they struck me for some reason. I think I picked walking simulators with a spread of form and tone, all quite different but all games where you can mostly just walk around. Some fun! Some colourful! Some spooky! Some so linear they're literally on rails.
]]>I've got two VR headsets in my inappropriately small home, and I spend more time feeling guilty that I'm not using them than I do using them. Conceptually I love the tech, and I sporadically have a fine time with 'experiences' - i.e. virtual tourism to real or made-up places - when it comes to games-games I'm yet to get all that much out of it. But what about non-VR games rendered after-the-fact in VR? Could this be the full-fat virtual reality gaming I'd imagined when these headsets were first announced?
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
It's a challenge to effectively portray the peculiar emotional effect of playing Proteus [official site]. Perhaps the flagship entry in the RPS-celebrated 'walking simulator' genre, it's a pixel painting of seasonal wonder.
]]>This is article 5 of 6, adapted from my Psychogeography of Games series for London’s Videobrains. If you enjoy this, please consider backing me on Patreon, where there’ll be a zine of these texts coming out in the New Year, plus an exciting new project announced soon(ish).
In the months running up to the walk, Ed has sent me the occasional email, each time with new ideas for route near where he lives (and grew up) in Cumbria. The night before, we spread an OS map out on the table and he points out wild swimming spots, walks he went on with his parents, places not explored yet. Jack, a black and white cat, sits on top and bats at Ed’s finger each time he places it down. In the end we decide on Borrow Beck, in Borrowdale. The walk doesn’t look far on the map.
]]>I was going to write about the plantlife in Proteus [official site] or something along those lines but then I went back and... it didn't feel like quite what I wanted to express today. Mostly I've gone back to just thinking about how lovely the game is, even when you strip out the movement and sound. Obviously it would be better with both but here are the screenshots from my season cycle in Proteus today. It felt like a microholiday so I guess this is my microholiday album, if you'd like to take a look. Autumn and winter are by far my favourite seasons. Spring and summer are lovely, but autumn is magical and I'd totally forgotten about the aurora.
]]>Otherworldly walking sim Proteus [official site] is very much an RPS favourite: a dreamy, good-natured, no-pressure place many of us retreat to when the shooting and the jumping and the icon-collecting gets too much. Half the reason for Proteus' joyfully calming effect is David Kanaga's prettily ambient soundtrack, and how perfectly it fits the evocative, wooly-edged art. In PANORAMICAL, which occupies a place between game and music tool, Kanaga's compositions move front and centre.
]]>When the first images and GIFs of Forest of Sleep [official site] tumbled out last week, all we knew was that it was "an experimental storytelling/adventure game inspired by Russian fairytales." That plus its development being led by Proteus's creator Ed Key was quite enough to catch our interest, though the new details and GIFs I'll outline below do much to solidify it.
]]>Come on, that's enough. You've had enough. It's noon. Get up. Get out of the house. I'm going for a swim, and if you're still there when I get back, I'll be sorely disappointed. We follow a strict Victorian physical code here, you know: a brisk walk, a dunk in some nice cold water, then a seven-course lunch once we're all back. Don't pout. Oh, at the very least, do go for a virtual walk. It'll still enrich you, and might help you shake your grumps off if you're playing the delightful Porapora.
]]>I've discovered a novel way to conduct interviews: tweet vaguely about something you're interested in, then wait for two game designers you like and respect to have a chat about it and send you the logs. I carefully laid my bait: "I use 'walking simulator' warmly and earnestly. I adore walking around looking at stuff and reflecting. Walking is great! Sim it to the max."
The trap snared my chums Ed Key and Ricky Haggett. Ed created walking simulator Proteus while Ricky is working on Hohokum, a dicking-about sim for PlayStations which might, with fewer puzzles, be called a walking simulator. Unsuspecting, they discussed Proteus, the 'genre,' exploring and wandering, and what a "walking simulator" even is. Afterwards they decided "Just email it to Alice," rather than blog about the chat themselves. "She can turn it into 'news,'" they said. Suckers!
]]>If Proteus is the warm yet anxious dreams one has after a Tuesday night with a bottle of fizzy wine and a Princess Mononoke DVD, then Purgateus may be what happens after a Friday night of listening to witch house while scrolling through Tumblr blogs, you know, that sort with lots of triangles and pale ladies draped in black. The mod turns Ed Key's walking simulator into a new dream, still bound by the same rules but with a new look, a new sound, and certainly a new tone.
]]>FRACT OSC is a musical passion project that's been strumming light riffs on the backing track of RPS' Official Exciteosourchestra for years. It's a first-person explorer set in a pulsating dance floor paradise of smooth synths and devious puzzles. Our kind of thing? You don't know the half of it. Alec, however, came away feeling slightly let down, so I invited creator Richard Flanagan to defend his design choices. We'll discuss criticism of FRACT's bold, beautiful world, music as an integral part of the design process, the personal nature of the game, Myst and other first-person puzzlers, and HEAVY METAL. We're kicking off at 12 PM PT/8 PM RPS Time. Tune in below.
Update: We're done! Tons of interesting discussion about puzzle design and musical toys and METAL. Watch it all below.
]]>The troublesome burden of being an IP rights holder is starting to get to Square-Enix, who just can't take it anymore. The publisher has announced the Collective, a sort of combination of Steam Greenlight and crowd-funding that'll enable game devs to pitch ideas to the company. If, after 28 days, the game has gained enough support from the people then they'll allow you to take the pitch to IndieGogo. Now you're probably thinking that people can do that anyway so what the hell, Square-Enix? They can, that's true. But Square are doing this so devs can pitch to work with "older Eidos IPs".
]]>Proteus is a warm, soothing bubble bath for the soul. The lo-fi first-person explorer lets players loose on an island that's one part rainbow dreamscape and another chirpy chiptune music maze. Basically, it's what I imagine nature lovers believe the outdoors to be, even though every real-life forest, hill, and tree is actually made entirely out of spiders. And yet, for all of Proteus' high-minded inventiveness, it certainly didn't start out that way. Creator Ed Key had to learn some very important lessons about, er, not being Skyrim before his first independently developed game traded bullets for butterflies, and – despite Proteus pulling in a fair deal of money – he's trying very hard to keep them in mind for his next game.
]]>You know, I never really thought about it before, but I think Proteus and Hotline Miami are videogame inverses. One's about languidly strolling around a neon-bubblegum dreamscape paradise while the other's about blink-and-you'll-be-on-the-receiving-end-of-it murder in an entirely different kind of neon-bubblegum dreamscape "paradise". They are one anther's bizarro twin, eternally opposed but forever intertwined. Also, they're in the latest Humble Indie Bundle together, which is neat. And neater still? Probably the fact that they're joined by Little Inferno, Awesomenauts, Capsized, Thomas Was Alone, and Dear Esther. Yeah, eight is pretty great. Or something.
]]>Ed Key and David Kanaga's Proteus has been floating around for a while, almost finished, almost finished. But now it finally is, and up on Steam, and I've been playing it on a loop. A game I really didn't get the first time I enjoyed its pretty colours on a GDC show floor, now makes complete sense to me. Going in, I had no idea what to expect. Coming out, here's wot I think.
]]>Just a short post as I have to go and do a thing with vegetables and a knife and a saucepan, but I can't not mention that Ed Key and David Kanaga's wonderful ambient exploration/sorta-music game Proteus finally has a release date for its finished version. January 30th is that date, which it means it's just over a week until we can discard our beta versions and noodle around in a new, expanded version of this quietly psychedelic dream-forest.
]]>We've posted surprisingly little about audio-visual wunderkind Proteus, which I suspect is to do with the fact that, as a primarily sensory experience, it's far more difficult to describe than it is play. Certainly, Ed Key's ambient exploration game has at least three staunch fans in Castle Shotgun - myself, Jim and Adam - and it would be remiss of us not to encourage any and everyone who is introspection-inclined to play it.
Of course, to do so involves spending money on the current unfinished version without being entirely sure what you're in for - no demo as yet, alas - so as an alternative why not watch Ed and the game's musicman David Kanaga play Proteus live on stage at GameCity last week?
]]>Oh how I adore Proteus. It's equal parts minimalistic, enchanting, and really, really difficult to describe to people who haven't played it. I mean, the point is to just walk around an island that looks like heaven as imagined by the tiny, tribal colony of Atari 2600s that have been forever exiled to your closet. And then things kind of just... happen. Except when they don't. (See what I mean about the description thing?) Ultimately, though, it's about taking in wondrous sights and sounds. And, as part of a brand new beta update, you can now share yours with everyone else. And not just with screenshots.
]]>Accidental audio creation and island exploration are the tasks at hand in Proteus, although everything in the game is less of a 'task' and more of a possibility. Wandering around randomly generated landscapes, which are like storybook dreams from yesteryear, the player discovers visual features that trigger audio effects, from the plinky-plonky strum of rainfall to the jolly synth-speak of peculiar lifeforms. I think they're lifeforms anyway. They may just be forms because that's the kind of stroll this is; a perambulation through a world of beautiful, gentle wonder. The beta is now available to preorder customers, who'll be paying $7.50 and receiving all future updates and an EP.
]]>Today in our series profiling (almost) all the PC/Mac-based finalists at this year's Independent Games Festival, we turn to wondrous freeform exploration game Proteus. Here, developer Ed Key and composer David Kanaga talk about the game's origins, the role of music in games, quitting work to go full time on Proteus, wandering hobos and their answers to the most important question of all.
]]>“Level with Me” is a series of conversations about level design between modder Robert Yang and a level designer of a first person game. At the end of each interview, they collaborate on a Portal 2 level shared across all the sessions – and at the very end of the series, you’ll get to download and play this “roundtable level.” This is Part 6 of 7.
Ed Key worked for 8 or 9 years in the game industry, then took a slightly less exciting software engineering job and moved out to the countryside. When he isn't wandering through sweeping vistas, he's collaborating with musician David Kanaga on his first official indie game: Proteus, “a game of pure exploration and discovery.”
]]>This year has been unusually rich in the kind of game that I most enjoy: those that are open-ended, or provide a sandbox world for me to mess about in. We usually get a couple of these every year, but in 2011 we seem to have run into a minor bounty of the open stuff, which is good news for explorers and meanderers alike. I've gone into a bit more detail about why this pleases me below.
]]>I spent the weekend in a haunted watermill, which was pleasant and all, but I would rather have been at the Indiecade festival, battling inanely with invisible weaponry and rearranging boxes with strangers. The whole thing is done with now and that means it's time for me to take a look at the winners, some of which I'll cast no more than a sidelong glance at because they aren't coming to PC. Last time I spoke about IndieCade I named my pick of the entrants as Proteus. Read on to see if the judges paid attention to my words and for a PC-centric awards ceremony of our very own.
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