Whoooo we’re officially in the double-digits gang! We’ve somehow managed to make it to episode 10 of Indiescovery without going completely feral and wrecking the joint. I say that, but this week’s episode is a little, shall we say, unhinged? Rebecca, Liam, and Rachel hadn’t really had a proper chat all week so there’s a lot of Friday energy and catching up, and the energy levels only increase when we start to talk about our main topic of this episode: Eurovision! And indie games, of course.
]]>It’s episode four of RPS’ indie podcast Indiescovery and this week the team got into the Valentine's Day spirit and had a long chat about our favourite indie game romances (any excuse to gush about how hot the characters are in Hades, really). We get gabbing about our favourite game OTPs, the fabulous representation of queer romances in indies, and then finish with a cursed (not horny) Cosmo-style dating quiz.
]]>Welcome back to the third edition of The RPS Time Capsule, a monthly feature in which the RPS Treehouse puts their hivemind together to pick their favourite, bestest best games from a specific year to be preserved until the end of time. In the spirit of keeping you on your toes, this time we've set our sights on the best games from 2014. Which games will make the cut and ascend to the realms of the PC gaming elite? Find out below.
]]>Comb your hair, spray that perfume and suit up for a night of high culture, readers - the third edition of the Game Music Festival is underway. Starting last night, you can already tune into a full evening of orchestral rearrangement of scores from Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades, with Larian Studios picking up the mic tonight for a more high-fantasy swing at the concert scene.
]]>Happy love day, you disgusting piece of filth. Got you. That was an example of what today’s young people call “neggling”. This is when you are nice and nasty in such quick succession that the body becomes inexplicably aroused. Spasms of lust take over both neggler and negglee, resulting in a paroxysm of extramarital sex and, subsequently, the degeneration of humanity. This is just one of the signs of an unhealthy relationship. But there are many more examples in videogames. Here are the 10 most toxic couples out there. Don't worry, you can argue fruitlessly in favour of any of them. That's the point of these articles.
]]>Transistor is free for the next two weeks on the Epic Games Store and it is my humble opinion that you should be playing it right now, because it is a gem. Currently my favourite of Supergiant Games's all-excellent lineup (with wizard-sportsball adventure Pyre a very close second), it's part action RPG, part turn-based tactical combat, and all classy. Set in a jazzy art-deco cyberworld, Transistor has gorgeous art and music and features a giant sword that is also a USB stick containing Logan Cunningham's most doting, boyfriendly voice. Nab it here, keep it forever.
]]>We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol' Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well - as do a host of other games from 2017's great and good.
Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you're so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I'd have gone for in each category.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
The mission statement of Supergiant, the developers behind Bastion, Pyre and Transistor [official site], is “to make games that spark your imagination like the games you played as a kid.” They’ve got a knack for doing just that.
]]>A purgatorial fantasy sport is not the direction I expected Supergiant Games, creators of Bastion and Transistor, to go with their next game. Then again, expectations seem increasingly useless when it comes to a studio such as this. Pyre [official site] is set in a world where literacy is banned and punishable by exile – banishment to a dangerous land called the Downside, cut off from the home realm of the Commonwealth. This underworld is where you find yourself. But you soon make new friends and, to earn your freedom, you start to compete in a quasi-religious tournament of orb-throwing and goal-scoring.
The sport of Pyreball itself has caused me to curse and sigh many times, but I can’t accuse it of being uninventive. That goes double for the story of this band of exile-sinners, told through visual novel-style interjections and dialogue choices. It’s a great story. One I often wish didn’t have fantasy netball clinging to it.
]]>The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up some recommendations - both general tips and some newly added staff choices.
Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You're welcome.
]]>Supergiant Games, the folks behind Bastion and Transistor, today announced their third game - Pyre [official site]. They call it a "party-based RPG", telling a story about a group of exiles trying to complete tasks that might just let them be absolved and return home. Pyre is due in 2017 and SuperGiant don't have too much to say about it right now, but have a gander at this here pretty announcement trailer:
]]>What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we'll be offering our picks - based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 4 of the sale.
]]>Transistor has hit these mean cyberpunk streets, and I've beaten it up, down, and sideways. Or just, you know, the normal way. I thought it was pretty good, but I also came away ever so slightly disappointed. The world was gorgeous, the story was nuanced in surprising ways, and the combat was better than it had any right to be, but all three came so tantalizingly close to touching the sun that my heart sank when they fell. What brought us here, though? What went wrong? What went right? How do SuperGiant's games always integrate gameplay and music so incredibly well?
Today I'm playing Transistor and chatting with creative director Greg Kasavin and audio director/music man Darren Korb. We're getting started at 11 AM PT/7 PM RPS time. Transistor, Bastion, beards of lordly caliber - it will probably all be discussed. Tune in below!
Update: We're done! And it turns out my camera/mic was not working through the whole thing, so it was kind of a disaster. Welp.
]]>Transistor is a phenomenal thing in places. Just tremendous. Sometimes overwhelming in its cleverness and subtlety. It had me on the verge of tears from both laughter and a creeping, ever-constricting stranglehold on my heart, and a talking sword (given life by the sultry tones of Bastion narrator Logan Cunningham) was responsible for most of it. This is a very different story from Bastion, arguably a much more personal one. It is, however, also a more natural progression from the latter's painterly walk on sunshine than its dusky cyberpunk setting might suggest.
All that said, Transistor is a strong tale and a very good game. But it could've been much better. Here's wot I think.
]]>Transistor, Supergiant's second game and follow-up to the chatty Cathy that was Bastion, is almost upon us. I don't mean that in a stalkery murderous way, but in a release datey way. The strategic sci-fi RPG has already tickled Nathan to the point of hyperventilation, and the rest of us can join in the wheezing and gasping on May 20th. Can someone get Nathan a paper bag?
]]>Oh goodness gracious me oh my oh tickle me red and green and black and gold and all the colors of the cyberpunk noir rainbow, Bastion developer Supergiant's Transistor is looking magnificent. Sure, at first glance it doesn't seem to have fallen far from the narration-prone, hack-'n'-slash-heavy tree, but there's no denying that this place feels just as uniquely alluring as Bastion's pastel paradise. Plus, other bright spots - for instance, the entire combat system - crackle with intrigue, making this one to watch by any measure. And watch it you can, right this very moment. 18 whole minutes, in fact, just after the break.
]]>Bastion was absolutely marvelous, and Transistor - aka, Bastion 2: Cyberpunk Boogaloo - very much looks to be following in its pathway summoning footsteps. But while surface-level similarities (a Logan-Cunningham-voiced narrator-type, bleak yet beautiful environments, a silent main character, isometric perspective, etc) might suggest a familiar experience, Supergiant definitely isn't sticking to Bastion's straight-and-narrow. Case in point: Transistor isn't entirely a solo affair. As part of a gigantic interview/preview session (the full results of which you'll see very soon), creative director Greg Kasavin explained to RPS that the action/turn-based tactics RPG hybrid will include a fairly novel form of multiplayer functionality.
]]>The first footage of Supergiant's Transistor suggested that the game would not be entirely dissimilar to the studio's splendid isometric smash 'em up, Bastion, although it did lack one of its predecessor's most distinctive features - the superb narration of Logan Cunningham. Total Biscuit captured fifteen minutes of the game at PAX East and has uploaded a version without commentary, so that another voice can be heard and, by gum, it's Logan again. He's a sort of sidekick rather than a narrator this time around, a voice trapped inside the protagonist's sword. She doesn't have a voice of her own - the baddies have robbed it! - but it sounds like Mr Cunningham will be doing enough talking for two.
]]>Supergiant made me happy and sad with Bastion, but the only thing that would truly make me sad is if their next game failed to arrive on my PC, your PC and everybody else's PC. We now know that the game is called Transistor and there's a trailer below but the release platforms haven't been confirmed yet. It'll be playable at PAX East and here's how the story begins:
...players assume the role of a young woman who gains control of a powerful weapon after a mysterious group of assailants nearly kills her with it.
Studio co-founder Amir Rao recently said that the team felt they could 'do anything' and judging by the trailer, they're doing something not a million miles removed from Bastion, which is no bad thing.
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