After a successful first outing, RPS Game Club is returning for another year of gaming show-and-tells, and this time, we're publishing the schedule in advance so you know exactly what's coming up and when. Handy, say, if you want to keep an eye on certain sale prices for games you've got your eye on, or you want to clear your calendar so you can join us for our end-of-month liveblog session where we all get together book club-style to talk about the month's pick. Each member of the RPS Treehouse is getting involved this year as well, so read on below to find out what's on the Club docket.
]]>At the end of this year, most Flash games will be unplayable in their original form. Adobe are going to stop distributing Flash, and so most browsers plan on dropping Flash support. While this may be an internet security victory - Flash has a history of being vulnerable to certain kinds of malware - it does make it harder to experience the thousands of online Flash games. There are ways to download and run Flash games offline, but many of those games have processes that are meant to lock the game to its original site.
Thankfully there are preservation projects working to keep Flash games playable in their original form. The only question remaining is which you should play. We'll answer that question, and explain the best ways to play them, below.
]]>Contrary to conventional wisdom, games learned to run before they could walk. Predating all of the walking simulators by many many years, Daley Thompson's Decathlon simulated the act of running rather fast perfectly, and it only needed two buttons. One for each leg.
]]>We've taken our QWOPs and our GIRPs, like all growing youngsters should, but can we really say we are healthy, well-balanced individuals until we have tried to climb a mountain using only a sledgehammer while stuck in a cauldron? That sounds like a rhetorical question, but it is not. Getting Over It [official site] is the next game from Bennett Foddy. And while it does away with the naming convention of his previous 2D stumblers, it still looks like a game that simulates what it feels like for your hands to be drunk while the rest of your body is sober. Here's a video.
]]>Four legs good, two legs bad, eight legs wow just ridiculous I mean really. QWOP creator Bennett Foddy turned his physics-driven leg simulator all horsey with CLOP a few years back, and now a team of Nordic Game Jammers have slapped on another four legs and another twelve movements to make a game they didn't, for reasons I can't imagine, call QWERTYUIASDFGHJK.
]]>Say kid, how do you fancy being a YouTube sensation, a real livestream Liberace? "B-but where would I even start?" you ask, eyes wide with hope. A new Humble Weekly Sale offers almost everything you need to become an Internet megastar, minus the hardware and a dreadful persona.
Curated by 'PewDiePie' (he has YouTube's most-subscribed channel, don't you know?) the bundle packs a few games the exhausting manbaby personality has wailed obscenities over, including Surgeon Simulator 2013, Garry's Mod, and State of Decay.
]]>This is probably the most exciting game-related anything I've seen in months. And yes, as the headline suggests, it's entirely bonkers. Remember Zineth developer Arcane Kids' Tribes-meets-Tony-Hawk thing Perfect Stride? Well, it's just one of 30+ games (23 of which are already finished and playable) that'll immediately be yours if you hand LA Game Space a pithy 15 of your bacteria-and-filth-ridden Human Dollars. Experimental Game Pack 01 also includes entirely new projects from the likes of Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, Adventure Time (yes, the TV show) maestro Pendleton Ward, Hotline Miami madman Cactus, Kentucky Route Zero devs Jake Elliott and Tamas Kemenczy, and sooooooooooo many more. I'm not even going to pretend to be impartial on this one. Buy it. Buy it because duh.
]]>Disclaimer: I am rubbish at this. Terrible. Watching me attempt to get my head around Involuntary Runner is like watching a monkey build an atom bomb. I'm honestly surprised I haven't accidentally set myself on fire as I clumsily attempt to coax my runner into action. The goal is simple: you have a runner, a man who you have to help run as far as he can. I'll bet you're waiting for a twist to come, yeah? Well here it is: you don't directly control the runner, but you do have to keep his organs in good health. That means maintaining a steady rate of breathing, heart beat, while making sure he eats his food and controls his emissions. Yes, that last word means exactly what you think it means. Farts!
]]>Here is an intensely silly thing. I imagine you're aware of QWOP, the purposefully-impossible-to-control runner with its eyes on the prize and/or ground. Meanwhile, I'm relatively certain - given that you are presumably a resident of planet earth - that you know of the Olympics, that big throwy, runny, leapy, swimmy thing we humans do every couple years in an attempt to stave off the ever-looming threat of Zeus' wrath. Well, Enviro-Bear developer Justin Smith has more or less combined them to form Realistic Summer Sports Simulator. It's not a particularly "good" game in the traditional sense, but it tickled funny bones I never even knew I had.
]]>In real life, equestrianising is probably harder than running since controlling one's own flesh-stilts should be a lot easier than controlling a large animal clenched between the thighs. That said, CLOP, QWOP's brand new four-legged variant, isn't as tough as its jelly-limbed ancestor. Maybe that's because no one is riding the unicorn that's clopping its way across the countryside, maybe that's because of the grace of the mythical beast. I haven't made it over the hill and, sadly, CLOP doesn't tell me how far I did get. About a third of the way, going off the yellow arrow at the bottom. Find your rhythm and run like the wind.
]]>I remember where I was when I first heard about QWOP, because I was in the offices of a certain other PC gaming publication, working for The Man. Now I work for A Man, that man being me. Stop looking at me like that! I am so. Anyway, QWOP popped up on someone's screen and we all gathered around watching as something as simple as "run 100 metres" had been made needlessly complex. It gives direct control over the leg muscle groups of a sprinter: it's like watching a drunken Riverdance on a sinking ship. We all returned to our keyboards and attempted to jerk our way to the gold medal, sadly aware that hilarious, flaily defeat would be a solo experience. Years later that particular sadness has been rectified in 2QWOP: in typically awkward, QWOPPY fashion it forces both players to use the same keyboard.
]]>Poleriders is from Bennet Foddy, the delightful academic who has you thrashing your limbs to run 100m in QWOP. It's an interesting take on the traditional and noble art of the pole vault, adding a ball and an opponent. I personally think "Pole-Lolting" is a more accurate title, because it's one of the funniest things I've played in a while.
]]>Suddenly everywhere today: this brilliant but monstrous physics game about rock-climbing, drowning and muscle-flexing. Indie browser game/punishment GIRP is vaguely akin to sleepy mobile puzzle title Ancient Frog (itself now on PC too), but driven by desperation, confusion, horror and something that feels like genuine physical exhaustion. Clever. Tight. Panic-inducing. Sportsmanlike nonetheless.
]]>We haven't posted about QWOP yet, have we? It's the webgame that's turned up in most of my game related conversations for the last few week or so, so it's probably best we give it at least a nod. Its a running game, with direct control of thighs and calves, and is the most ill-conceived attempt to directly simulate human experience since Trespasser's sinister floating limb. Brrr. In a real way, it's this year's Sumotori Dreams. And a couple of videos beneath the cut...
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