We’re one episode away from being in the double digits, folks! Whoop! But for now, let’s dive into episode nine of Indiescovery. This time we're chatting about our biggest Steam sins. That’s right, we’re revealing it all: shamefully ignored indie gems, outrageous playtimes, and games that we promise we’ll return to one day, honest! We also get into what we’ve been recently playing and then end, as always, with our hyperfixations.
]]>The house cat. Felis destructus. Humankind's absolute best mate and undisputed master. Some upcoming video games are planning to examine the motives behind these enigmatic creatures, whose origins remain unknown. Stray will put you in the paws of a street cat finding their way home in a cyberpunk city. Little Kitty Big City will see you wearing the whiskers of a cat less concerned with going home than it is with wreaking urban havoc. But what if you don't want to wait for these games? Well, you have options. Here are 10 of the best cats in PC games.
]]>Back in February, Spiritfarer developers Thunder Lotus announced a roadmap of updates for 2021. Today, the last of those was released with the addition of spirit pals Jackie and Daria to the game. With them came another announcement: this is the cosy management game's final update, and its developers are moving onto new things.
]]>Videogame awards are good for three things: they encourage people to continue creating new work; they direct attention towards particular pebbles among the otherwise amorphous landslide of new game releases; and they give bystanders like me something of mercifully little consequence to gripe about when nominations don't align with our personal tastes.
I'm sad to report that the Independent Games Festival has delivered only two out of three in 2021. The nominations for this year's IGF Awards were announced yesterday, but they have left me little to gripe about.
]]>Spiritfarer, the cosy game about death, is getting three free updates in 2021. As explained in a development roadmap shared by its team, the updates should land in spring, summer and autumn, and will add new spirits, more story, and new buildings and locations. Come check out the cute as heck new spirits below.
]]>What's up gamers? It's 2021 and that means it's time to round up the team's favourite games of 2020. You'll already know our selections if you read our annual Advent Calendar, but this post gathers all those words and games together in one convenient package.
]]>Spiritfarer is about death. You play as Stella, whose job is to take dying spirits through the Everdoor to their final death, when they're ready. Except, I think it is actually about kindness. Helping a spirit become ready to go involves cooking for them, hugging them, and building them a home on your enormous houseboat. And for that you must care for sheep, play music to plants to help them grow, mine for coal and learn to smelt silver.
It is a cosy management game where you spend most of your time harvesting things to make other things. Like Stardew Valley, but where your thousand acts of labour are done entirely for, on the face of it, nothing. Or at least not for your own material gain. It's all given away. It is excellent.
]]>Spiritfarer, the "cosy management game about dying", is full of many little acts of kindness.
"You can hug anyone, by the way," Nicolas Guérin tells me, during my recent hands-on preview. Guérin is creative director at Thunder Lotus Games, and Spiritfarer is a slight shift from their action games Sundered and Jotun. Death is a common theme, perhaps, but Spiritfarer is a much more gentle affair. I hug a little mushroom with arms and legs, who is the avatar of a seven- or eight-year-old boy. He leaps into my arms. It is very sweet.
]]>June's not quite here but we're already being treated to a few digital showcases in the style of E3 presentations. Wholesome Direct rounded up a whole 55 indie games with varying styles of kindness and cuteness to show off in a 35-minute show. A few big names like town sim Ooblets and boat manager Spiritfarer showed up to join arms with some smaller but equally swell looking games you may not have heard of. You can rewatch the entire show below.
]]>You, there, stop that. You've got new videogames to play. Good Old Games has just launched free demos for Desperados 3 and the System Shock remake, along with a handful of other upcoming games. I've already had a sneaky play of both tactical cowboys and cybernetic spaceship loners, so I can already tell you they're worth your time. Aren't I good.
This is also another chance to check out Carrion, a horror game where you are a horrible mass of sticky tentacles.
]]>Look, we all know that the behemoth that is Stardew Valley isn't going anywhere soon. Heck, it recently got another update. So sure, we'll all be playing it for years to come, but sometimes you want a bit of a switch up - a crop rotation to keep the soil fresh, if you will. To that end, we've got a list of the best farming games like Stardew Valley on PC. Haunted Chocolatier isn't coming for a while, and there are some surprises on the horizon like Moonlight Peaks, but there are a hell of a lot of cute (and not so cute) farming life sim games already out there, and we've picked our favourite from the bunch for this list. Check them out below. From tending a graveyard to learning to be a witch, clearing trash from the ocean to domesticating animals from scratch, there's a Stardewlike for everyone on this list.
]]>Steam kicks off a nearly week-long spree of free game demos today with its Steam Game Festival. It is certifiably a celebration of great indie games, with demos available for some that are already released and others yet to come. There appears to be a bit of everything: puzzles, action, management, platforming, and more. Everything from Thunder Lotus' upcoming cozy management game Spiritfarer to the buzzsaw hell game Disc Room. They've all got free demos available until Monday the 23rd.
]]>I've been quite jazzed about Spiritfarer since it was first announced last year. The cozy crafting and management game has a much different vibe from the last Thunder Lotus game I played. Jotun kicked my rear right through the final moments so I'll be glad to have a different relationship with this next one. There's a new trailer out today showing off some of the gathering and crafting you'll do while piloting your ferry.
]]>Over the break we had a chance to do some serious scientific study of this business we call games, and it turns out that games are actually good. 2020 in particular has a healthy mix of big budget bonanzas and smaller indie plates to suit everyone's discerning tastes. And, as you know, the RPS treehouse is the most discerning, so to make it easier for you we've got a big ol' list of the games we're most looking forwards to this year. It's traditional.
]]>This would not be RPS if I didn't return from Gamescom and write minimally about the triple A-xtravaganzas and maximumly about smaller, weirder things wot I saw. So here, have at it: my favourite of the independently made games I saw at this year's show. I flatter myself that the selection is broad enough that it covers genres to suit every taste. Strategy games! Card games! Building games! I haven't picked all story driven adventure games or RPGs! That's personal growth on my part, that's what that is.
Highlights include the one about loneliness, the one about loneliness, and the one about death.
]]>"We all die, everything dies, every living thing dies."
Nicolas Guérin is reassuring me. He's the creative director at Thunder Lotus Games and they're working on Spiritfarer, announced at E3 2019 as a "cosy management game about dying." I need reassuring because I've played a 15-minute demo of Spiritfarer and I'm worried that a game that treats death lightly will make light of the suffering that is death's bedfellow.
]]>I wouldn’t blame you for having missed Spiritfarer’s trailer at E3 this week, which came right after Keanu Reeves’ surprise appearance at the Microsoft press conference. But still, now that it’s the weekend and things are calming down a bit, it’s the perfect time to take a look at its pleasant management-y-ness and beautiful skybox. According to its trailer, which you can see below, its key verbs are “build, care, explore,” which are all lovely. And you can hug a deer, a long term ambition of mine.
]]>
