So ends another month of the RPS Game Club, which means another chance to gather together and swap video game opinions like scary stories ‘round the campfire. The topic, comedy rock RPG/door-kicking sim Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands, was picked by a sadly absent Alice B, but you know what they say when beloved colleagues become ensnared in the kind of Kafkaesque employment limbo that only a corporate acquisition can engineer: the show must go on. We’re therefore sticking to the schedule, and will launch the liveblog at 4pm BST today, Friday May 31st.
]]>The first scene in RPS Game Club pick Deathbulge: Battle Of The Bands - a genuinely funny and innovative riff on turn-based RPGs - sees candyfloss n’ superglue-haired guitarist Faye frantically search for her missing guitar as the crowd for the titular battle grow impatient. You’ll quickly realise this a school-with-no-trousers-esque dream sequence, but the matted mess of thick black cables that carpet this dingy side-stage is painfully accurate. Pissing around with gear is roughly 70% of the band experience, in my limited experience of being in bands. This probably changes when you’ve got roadies or dedicated tech people, but we did not, because we were skint. And also terrible. Several hours of Deathbulge has brought me more joy than several years of being in actual bands. I had some isolated good times in some of those bands, but I’m having a very good time with Deathbulge.
]]>I may have winced a bit, initially, at Alice Bee’s choice of RPS Game Club game for this month. Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands looked funny and all, but it’s a turn-based RPG, a subgenre that usually elicits the same amount of enthusiasm from me as the phrase "by Ernest Cline" does from Alice. Deathbulge, however, is a clever little sod of a game, managing to devise not only a turn-based combat system that avoids the usual waiting-around tedium but one that’s outright good fun in itself.
]]>According to our schedule, my pick Deathbulge: Battle Of The Bands isn't supposed to be up in the RPS Game Club until June. So why am I here telling you about it? Ollie couldn't do Sid Meier's Pirates! last month 'cos he was sick, and this month he's moving house or some other ridiculous made up thing that grown adults can no longer afford to do, so Deathbulge is stepping up to the plate. And it is kicking that plate into the outer atmosphere and playing a sick guitar riff. If you want to join in you can find Deathbulge on Steam.
]]>Lethal Company is a fun game but I know what you're thinking: it lacks feline energy. Whilst the simplistic game loop of collecting scrap on monster-infested moons and selling it to an equally monstrous company is enjoyable at first, it can get old pretty fast. As both Alice and James have attested with their experiences of this month's RPS Game Club pick, Lethal Company is a game that lacks a certain direction the more you play. I soon found myself settling into an existential crisis, reminiscent of my tumultuous stint in retail. A recurring thought back then was why bother stacking shelves, only to have someone buy the products and make me re-stack them again?
In the vain hopes of gaining a higher purpose in Lethal Company, I stumbled across the 'Needy Cats' mod. Essentially this mod adds a variety of cats to your game that will wander around the facilities and yelp for attention.
Perhaps I'm just a glutton for heartbreak, but I decided that the game needed a galactic sanctuary full of adorable balls of floof. I hearkened back to my time playing Stray, the adorable cat adventure set in a post-apocalypse where humanity was all but wiped out. Could this be the prequel to Lethal Company? What if all Apocalypse games share the same universe, all orchestrated by The Company secretly pulling the strings of fate? Or maybe I just wanted to look at cute cats instead of terrifying mannequin monsters. Either way, the cats needed help. What follows is a diary log of my adventures which soon lead to increasing madness and ultimately, disaster.
]]>It's finally time for this month's RPS Game Club live blog. This April, we've been tackling the comedy-horror Lethal Company. Whilst some of us have enjoyed the nonsensical hijinks Lethal Company can offer, others have been less enthused with the progression system and prefer the shiny newbie experience.
We've had some good chat on the matter. Although, I've mostly been preoccupied by the various hardworking monsters in the game. Now, it's your turn to hit us with your questions (or your shovels). Let's chat about all things Lethal Company, today (April 26th) at 4pm BST.
]]>James made the observation that Lethal Company, a co-op game about being haunted space binmen, and this month's pick for the RPS Game Club, gets less fun the better you are at it. This is true! It's also janky, and the RNG on the weird, warren-like buildings prompted me to ask "Who designed this? What is this for? What kind of office is this??" out loud, as I faced yet another dead end full of pipes. And yet! There's something about it that endears me to it far more than other similar games like Phasmophobia. Games like this all largely rely on you making your own fun with the tools they provide, but I think we should give the Lethal Company devs props for their tools, because they are weird and make no sense, and allow for some fantastic slapstick.
]]>To keep the ball rolling with this month's Game Club pick, we're asking what you, the readers, think of Lethal Company?
By now, I can confidently say that the RPS team are scrap collecting experts and can easily meet the quota set by the enigmatic Company. Much to James' chagrin, who prefers the chaos of being objectively 'bad' at the game. So confident was I in our abilities after our co-op sesh, that I dove into a solo game. Cue immediate death by a vengeful face-hugging bug. I'm expecting my first round of xenomorph child maintenance fees any day now.
With our blog chat scheduled for Friday 26th April, 4 PM GMT, here are a few conversation prompts we've gathered ahead of time. Tell us your thoughts in the comments and shoot any questions our way too. We hope to see you there!
]]>Most of my time in Lethal Company is full of tomfoolery, panicking, and ultimately letting the quota down. As I run back and forth from the ship, only able to carry four things at a time in my puny arms, I frequently see the various monster inhabitants of the game excelling at pretty much everything. The Forest Keeper has brawny strength and can travel across the map in a blink of an eye, the Eyeless Dogs can sniff out an intruder in next to no time and The Butler has dedicated his life to maintaining a mansion even after the owners have long since gone.
This had me thinking - surely the various monster inhabitants of Lethal Company would make for a much better worker than myself?
Sure, most of them are ravenous killing machines - but that fits with the core values of The Company. After all, most of your time spent in the game will be collecting scrap on distant moons to meet an arbitrary quota set by The Company. You'll then feed your pilfered belongings to the insatiable maw of a tentacled horror (otherwise known as the boss). You may be able to sympathise depending on your occupation.
So, if the monsters in Lethal Company were given the chance to work for said company, which of them would make it as an employee of the month and which would crash and burn harder than me getting thrown from the airlock five times in a row?
Join me as I peruse the CV's of my favourite monsters in Lethal Company (as far as I know only half of them have opposable thumbs) and advocate for which of them should be my replacement as The Company's new hire. After all, once this month's Games Club is finished I'm not sure they'll even let me back on the ship.
]]>So far, my main problem with Lethal Company – this month’s RPS Game Club game – is that I’m getting better at it. I’m more efficient at clearing up scrap, less prone to fear-spasming inside out when a monster attacks, and have become wise to most of the haunted houses’ deadliest tricks. All of these, it turns out, make Lethal Company a worse game.
]]>This month's RPS Game Club pick is Lethal Company, the indie co-op horror game where you must collect scrap for a mysterious Company or face the ultimate penalty... being fired.
Oh, and death.
]]>I've griped before that Warhammer 40,000 Darktide hides satisfying challenges behind tedious grind, but another interesting challenge is easily missed and forgotten at the opposite end of the scale. Darktide is hard when you start a new character, with weapons that barely scratch some foes and no talents to back them up. It's a challenge unlike the official high difficulty levels, which lean towards drowning you in special enemies. So after hitting level 30 on all four classes and grinding out great gear, I've started a new character who'll never learn skills or get a good gun. She's quite bad, and that's quite fun.
]]>The time is nigh for this month’s RPS Game Club liveblog, where we’ll of course be discussing Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. We’ve already had some good pre-chat, and now at 4pm GMT today (March 28th), we’ll reconvene right here for a proper 41st Millennium natter.
]]>Readers may be aware that I am a Warhammer 40K orbiter, but I am not of Warhammer 40K. Recent events have conspired so that I have experienced a bunch of Warhammer 40K in a way that exposes me to the world passively, without lore dumping. I played the PowerWash Sim x 40K crossover DLC and loved it for just putting cool big machines in front of me and refusing to explain further, so when James picked Darktide as this month's RPS Game Club Game, like someone incautiously opening the door to Mormons, I was ready to let more of the God Emperor into my life. Except, having played some Darktide, I do not want to play Darktide. For me, playing Darktide does, in some measure, get in the way of enjoying Darktide.
]]>By this point you’ve probably had enough of hearing what I think about this month’s RPS Game Club game, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. But what say you, dear readers? Once again, the Game Club liveblog looms, and as with Cobalt Core, we want your thoughts, feelings, and questions to shovel into the conversational fuel furnace.
]]>I know that "Made one guy admit he was wrong about a subgenre" isn’t the kind of achievement they put in accolade trailers, but I must credit Warhammer 40,000: Darktide with tearing apart my blanket dislike of first-person melee fighters. Having spent months of stubbornly maining Veteran and sticking as closely as possible to FPS convention, I’ve since found peace in the simple act of swinging knives/swords/giant electrified hammers into and through people. Mainly because it’s not so simple: for all its chaotic spectacle, the meleeing in Darktide (this month’s RPS Game Club star) works because it’s secretly been a rhythm game.
]]>Well before anointing Warhammer 40,000: Darktide as this month’s RPS Game Club game, I’ve wanted to talk about its rock. The rock. The best rock. Best Darktide rocks 2024, number one: the rock.
]]>Hope everyone enjoyed the RPS Game Club returning with Cobalt Core, though personally, I’ve always found deckbuilders a bit short on the screaming slaughter of unclean heretics. Put down the cards and pick up a boltgun, then, as this month’s Game Club pledges eternal service (until April) to Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
]]>Today's the day of the RPS Game Club liveblog, where we'll all pile into a single article to talk, in real-time, about February's game pick, Cobalt Core. We'll be kicking off shortly at 4pm GMT today (Thursday February 29th), so go and grab a cuppa, switch on some appropriate music, and we'll get this liveblog started.
]]>Rocket Rat Games co-founder John Guerra remembers the exact day he started working on Cobalt Core's first prototype. He and his fellow co-founder Ben Driscoll had just spent a week playing Daniel Mullins' mysterious roguelike deckbuilder Inscryption at the end of October 2021, but the combination of a bad storm and a power outage ended up forcing Guerra to decamp from his home in Massachusetts and stay with some family until it all blew over. "I got back late on Halloween, just in time to put out a bowl of candy for some kids, and then the next morning we started Cobalt Core," he tells me.
The pair had been working on a range of different prototypes in the months leading up to this lightbulb moment. As development on their debut game, the spaceship building puzzler Sunshine Heavy Industries, began winding down, "we were throwing all kinds of stuff at the wall," he says, including games in 3D, a platformer, with Driscoll revealing they even had "a Terraria-like one for a couple of weeks" with a grid-based world that characters bounced around in. But it was playing Inscryption that brought everything to a head. Both had spent hundreds of hours with Slay The Spire, but "Inscryption proved to us that there was still a lot of space to explore in the genre," says Guerra. And with increasing calls from Sunshine Heavy Industries players begging them to let them fly the ships they were creating in its shipyard sandbox, "you can kind of see how that went from A to B".
]]>I seem to be on a highly irritating "refuse to play games as they were intended to be played" spree lately. A couple of weeks ago, it was "I refuse to leave the prologue area in Skull And Bones", a decision that has sadly been born out by Ed's review. Then it was "I refuse to play Helldivers 2 as a co-op shooter", which again, is a stance I am sticking with, even as I am overrun and sat on by Terminid Chargers. And now it's "I refuse to play Cobalt Core as a roguelike deck-builder, because it secretly isn't one". Come now, squint at the header image so that the text and numbers fade away, and all you can see are coloured shapes. Pay attention to certain underlying rhythms while playing. Need I say any more?
]]>Hello folks. With the end of February fast approaching, here's a reminder that we'll be diving into our reader liveblog discussion for February's RPS Game Club pick, Cobalt Core, this coming Thursday, February 29th, at 4pm GMT (which is 8am PT / 11am ET for our American friends). Looking forward to seeing you there!
]]>There's a little masochistic streak in me that croons with joy whenever I reach the moment of impending doom in turn-based strategy games. You know the moment I mean. The one where the world fills with enemies patiently bobbing and snarling while you try to conjure up an impossibly perfect set of moves that'll keep things going for one more turn? Cobalt Core is great at this. I've only played a couple of runs so far, but boy, you'd better believe I know when the end is drawing near. It's hard to miss, because the entire screen fills up with rows of damage numbers beaming down onto your hapless little spaceship.
]]>As promised last month, a new thing we're doing for RPS Game Club this year is asking you, our dear readers, what you think of each month's game pick in dedicated posts like this. Not just to foster some good old fashioned discussion among your good selves in the comments, but also as a way for those who aren't able to join us for the end-of-month liveblog session to still take part in what everyone has to say about it. We'll also try and stuff as many of your thoughts and observations into the liveblog discussion proper, too, to try and make it feel as communal as possible (and not just us waffling on about it for a full hour).
So, folks, tell us what you think about the excellent Cobalt Core below. What you like, dislike, your favourite moments (or your most hated moments)... Anything goes.
]]>Every year, there are a couple of game soundtracks I become properly obsessed with. In 2022, I more or less had the music of Tunic and Citizen Sleeper on repeat whenever I left the house. In 2021, it was Chicory. In 2020, it was Coffee Talk and Signs Of The Sojourner, and in 2019, it was all Mutazione, all the time. 2023 was a pretty great year for game music as well, as we not only got Alan Wake 2's exquisite musical set-piece that's honestly just been getting better and more insane as time's gone on, frankly, but also the toe-tappingly brilliant soundtrack of Cobalt Core, which has somehow risen even higher on my forever playlist after revisiting it for this month's RPS Game Club.
Composed by Aaron Cherof, Cobalt Core's music alternates between high-energy battle tracks and calmer, more relaxed ambience. It's so dang good, and an absolutely perfect backdrop for sliding in and out of oncoming missile fire in its roguelike spaceship fights. So come along and jam to some of its best tracks with me below as I pick out some of my musical highlights.
]]>If you've been enjoying the excellent Cobalt Core as part of this month's RPS Game Club, you may well have stumbled into Soggins the frog along your travels. Running into this hapless buffoon is always a delight in Cobalt Core, as he's one of the few special characters who doesn't instantly attack you on sight. Rather, the task here is always to try and save him from his own idiocy - namely, his malfunctioning ship that keeps firing his missiles right back toward him. He's an ungrateful little sod if you do rescue him from certain doom, but I kinda love him for it anyway - and thanks to an industrious pair of modders, you can now have Soggins join your crew to inflict his own special brand of personal chaos on you.
]]>RPS Game Club is back in action for 2024 today, and our first pick of the year is the exceedingly good Cobalt Core, a spaceship roguelike deckbuilder where you're slipping and sliding out the way of incoming missiles to get to the bottom of why you and the rest of your animal pals seem to be stuck in a pesky timeloop. I had an absolute blast with it when it came out at the end of last year, and really, this is just the perfect excuse to shove it back in front of your faces again.
]]>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.
]]>Hello folks. A small bit of RPS Game Club news today. Since it's starting to get toward end of the year season, Game Club will be taking a short break for the next two months. That means we won't be running it this month (November), or next month (December). We will, however, be returning with a fresh set of monthly game selections in 2024, so you can look forward to more group play-a-longs and liveblog chats early next year.
In the meantime, though, we hope you've enjoyed this first year's outing of the RPS Game Club, and we'd love to get some feedback on it for how we can improve next year. Regardless of whether you're a regular Game Clubber or have only ever watched it from afar, please come and join in the discussion below to help us make it even better.
]]>Hello folks. It's time for the next gathering of the RPS Game Club! This month, we've been playing Bethesda's mega space RPG Starfield, and we'll be chatting about all your favourite/worst/merely mediocre moments, quests and stories from it later on today, Friday November 3rd, starting at 4pm GMT / 9am PT / 12pm ET. We're looking forward to it! So see you later on at 4pm sharp.
]]>I have a confession to make, readers. I'm mildly obsessed with Starfield's cuboid food brand Chunks. In all honesty, I'm kinda obsessed with Starfield's food in a more general sense, and I have almost as many screenshots of its tube-like meal boxes, stale toast slices, vacuum-packed sachets of rice balls, steak slabs and spiced worms - and, of course, Chunks - as I do its planets and NPCs. I'm weirdly fascinated by what Bethesda think our future meals will look like when we eventually start travelling across the stars, and not just because I like ragging on their somewhat plastic-looking textures and marvelling at how everything from orange juice to beer and wine comes in kid's size cartons with a little straw on the side.
Chunks are my favourite food of the lot, though. These cubes of faintly glistening organic matter are bite-sized monstrosities that are quite possibly some of the most unholy things I've ever seen. How this became the dominating foodstuff across the known galaxy is a mystery worthy of its own sidequest, because let's be honest, I'm all for eating wonky fruit and vegetables, but would you truly go to shop, sit down at a table and order an apple that's been squeezed into a perfect cube? Or a cube with yellow skin that professes to call itself grilled chicken? I would probably try them once for curiosity's sake (it's the food of the future, of course I want to know what that tastes like!), but it's also exactly the kind of thing I'd swear off immediately because nope, nuh uh, I just can't even contemplate it anymore. And then it dawned on me: this is exactly how I feel about Starfield as a whole.
]]>As the end of October approaches, it's time to gather in the RPS Game Club space port to talk about this month's game pick: Starfield! We'll be assembling in our traditional liveblog format on Friday November 3rd at 4pm GMT (9am PT/12pm ET) to chat about our intergalactic adventures, catalogue all the grey rocks we've landed on, and generally have an earnest (and hopefully fun!) chinwag about Bethesda's latest. So come along with your favourite biscuits and beverages as we discuss all things Starfield.
]]>Apologies to the chief, but there’s a not-entirely-accurate bit in Katharine’s post announcing Starfield as October’s RPS Game Club game. I, of the RPS Treehouse, do truly love Starfield, and have only been quiet about it because admitting you enjoy The Grey Bethesda Game but couldn’t get into Baldur's Gate 3 or Elden Ring feels a bit like going to the Savoy Grill and only ordering chips. No one will ask you to leave, but they’ll probably start questioning your judgement.
But dammit, I like chips, and I like Starfield! I like its roving space captain fantasy, I like its utilitarian aesthetic, and I like how its click-clacking guns sound like extremely violent mechanical keyboards. Especially if I get to fire them at floating pirates, while I’m also floating, and said firing punts me upwards into a ceiling.
]]>I'm a fan of the modern Bethesda RPG, having spent nearly 100 hours with Fallout 4 - which, for me, is a lot more time than I'm usually willing to give up. My fondest memories lie with Oblivion, because I think it captured exploration beautifully. I liked emerging from a big cave as a big nobody and striking out along a cobbled path, excited to go for a summer's walk. Skyrim abandoned Oblivion's warmth for your average fantasyland, but kept the great outdoors.
If I don't have an objective in Starfield, I sort of freeze over and don't really know where to turn. And even if I do, I perform a deep sigh and open up my menus and curl myself into a pinball, ready to get pinged around the innards of whatever can lies beyond the airlock in front of me. So far, Starfield's adventuring forces me indoors and it's a shame.
]]>A new month means a new RPS Game Club pick, and since a lot of us are still playing Bethesda's epic space RPG, albeit to varying degrees of success, I thought I'd anoint Starfield as our selection for October. And yes, that will probably mean more creepy dad adventures are in the offing. Apologies in advance.
]]>It's time to discuss the focus of this month's RPS Game Club, Hypnospace Outlaw! We've spent the last month writing a bunch of articles about Tendershoot's weird and wonderful alternate-reality internet simulator, mourning a time when the internet used to be fun, reminiscing about virtual pets and even having a chat with the Hypnospace creator Jay Tholen about the game's origins and legacy. But now it's time to hear what you think about it.
]]>As a child of the early internet, games like Hypnospace Outlaw can't help but resonate quite deeply with me. This was the internet as I remembered it, goddamnit, and the fact it mixed in a compelling corporate conspiracy story in between its pages was just the icing on an already fine cake (in GIF form, naturally, with a MIDI tune of Vivaldi's Four Seasons blaring out from your internet browser for good measure). But in revisiting Hypnospace for this month's RPS Game Club, there was one page in particular that really brought the rose-tinted shutters down on me. It was beautiful, lovely April, Hypnospace's virtual pet hamster, who can live, snooze and poop on your desktop, and maybe turn a slightly sickly shade of green if you don't pay enough attention to her.
As with most things in Hypnospace, I can only assume that April and her fellow gaggle of virtual pet friends are riffs on real-life virtual pet games Catz and Dogz from the late 90s, which, yes, as a ten-year-old girl at the time, I was absolutely obsessed with. Developed by the now defunct PF Magic, Catz and Dogz 3 were arguably two of my most formative PC games growing up, and cor, I miss those dumb beasts so very much.
]]>A friend recently found her old floppy disks from the 1997, uncovering a treasure trove of poetry, MS Paint art, homework, screensavers, and fanfic. Delightful finds which I feel privileged to have seen. I very much do not have my old floppies. They're all long-gone, chucked along with all my old websites and blogs and CDs and everythings in strict sentimentality purges. I don't know if I now regret that. So with vintage Internet simulator Hypnospace Outlaw being our game of the month in the RPS Game Club, I'm wondering: do you have your old sites and stuff? Dare you share it with us?
]]>Hold on, before you read any further please listen to this video for some appropriate set dressing. Done? Alright, cool. Hello! This is your friendly reminder that we will be discussing September's RPS Game Club pick Hypnospace Outlaw this Friday, September 29th at 4pm BST / 8am PT. Thanks to our fancy live blogging technology, we'll be able to talk about the game together in real-time, not unlike a group of strangers in a late 90s chat room.
]]>Hypnospace Outlaw used to be a very different type of game than the one we know today. The authentic replica of the world wide web circa 1999 was originally designed to be little more than ornate level select screens in a stylish endless runner-style game, for example, providing extra context for your adventures pursuing "outlaws on the Hypnospace Highway".
Games change during development, of course, and it’s not unusual for once substantial ideas to be left on the cutting room floor. But seeing as Hypnospace Outlaw is our pick for the RPS Game Club this month, I wanted to reach out to the game’s creator Jay Tholen to ask some questions about these unlikely origins, its influences and its lasting legacy. What happened to the Hypnospace Highway? And what comes next for the world of Hypnospace?
]]>I am in control of the RPS Game Club this month, so therefore I can do whatever I want - and this time I'm delving into the world of Hypnospace Outlaw's music. No other game sounds like Hypnospace. Featuring a veritable mountain of tracks (most of which was composed by the game's creator, Jay Tholen), Hypnospace’s extensive catalogue stretches across genres both real and imaginary. While Seepage’s Nothing Left For Me is a clear pastiche of Linkin Park, Fre3zer’s Icy Girl is a purposefully poor attempt to mimic Coolpunk, a genre built upon remixes of a jingle for a discontinued soda brand. The most exciting thing about Hypnospace is that its soundtrack is so dense and complex that there's opportunity to hyperfocus on one particular area to an intense - even problematic - degree.
Enter The Chowder Man, a stetson wearing Kid Rock analogue who makes frequent appearances throughout Hypnospace. A prominent rock musician in the 80s, Erik Helman (portrayed beautifully by musician, comedian and inventor of the Rick Roll Hot Dad) is attempting a last-ditch revival after his music career flatlined, transforming him from Jagger-esque superstar to sold-out jingle writer. The Chowder Man’s in-game discography is strange and varied, spanning from glorious rock ballads to 22 second earworms about a microwavable butter-based dessert. Totalling ten tracks, I have decided that it is my duty - nay, my fate - to rank and review them in their entirety. So let us commence this spiritual journey together, my friends, into the complex mind of The Chowder Man.
]]>The internet isn’t fun anymore. Actually, that statement isn’t severe enough to reflect how bad the internet is these days, so let me try that again: being online in 2023 is a fucking nightmare. There are only three websites. They are all designed to make you angry because it’s the most profitable emotion. Your aunt was indoctrinated into fascism by a page called “This country used to have real bin men” after she liked a meme about glass milk bottles in 2012. Every boy you went to school with has a podcast about football now. Your Mam once warned you about spending too much time on the computer but now spends eight hours a day playing Hay Day on her phone. AI was meant to let us lie in fields and read books, but instead it’s being used to show you what Breaking Bad would have looked like as an anime.
But it didn’t used to be like this! Obviously I don’t need to remind our regular readers about the glory days of the information superhighway because some of you are old enough to be my Dad (and I’m thirty-one) but just in case a member of Gen Z has stumbled upon this article by accident: the internet used to be fun. Like, really fun, and Hypnospace Outlaw is living proof of it.
]]>Now that we've all emerged from the subterrean labs of Aperture Science and popped our Steam Decks back into their cases, it's time to crawl into bed and dream of the internet superhighway. That's right, this month's RPS Game Club pick is the alternate-reality detective adventure Hypnospace Outlaw!
Released in 2018 and developed by Tendershoot, Hypnospace Outlaw takes place in a warped version of 1999 where accessing the internet is done via a headband you wear while you sleep. You play as an enforcer - a moderator of sorts - tasked with keeping the users of Hypnospace in check by reporting any violations you discover on their personal web pages.
]]>It’s high time for another RPS Game Club chat! This month we’ve been pondering Aperture Desk Job: a "playable short" Valve created as a Steam Deck accompaniment, yet still manages to squeeze in some deliciously ironic character beats and at least one mantis-based tragedy. We’ll be discussing it in the liveblog below from 4pm BST, and we want to know your thoughts too. Liked it? Loathed it? Have design feedback for the toilet turrets? We wanna hear ‘em, so join us by posting in the liveblog widget’s comments bit. See you in an hour, ish.
]]>'Allo everyone. Just a reminder that we’ll be live-chatting all about this month’s RPS Game Club game, Aperture Desk Job, this Thursday 31st of August – and you can join us. Simply rock up to the liveblog (post pending) from 4pm BST and share your thoughts on desks, jobs, Cave Johnson’s head, mantis tragedies, and anything else pertaining to Valve’s comedy microgame.
]]>Aperture Desk Job is full of unexplained details. Right at the start, as the camera pans down from the retrofuturist reception area to your lowly desk-based workstation, we see all manner of orange tubes, future Grady cores being trained to fool captcha image tests, a giant chicken, and what appears to be the origin point of Half-Life's ammo boxes being constructed. But there's also a pointed shot between the floorboards, showing us a pair of green praying mantises fumbling around over some electrical wiring and a rogue lightbulb.
On its own, this mantis scene is no stranger than anything else we've witnessed in the last 30 seconds. But as your journey through Aperture goes on, things start getting really weird, really fast. Over the course of the next half hour, we'll see these mantises discover electricity, evolve into a society of tiny house-dwelling insects with their own carriages and courtship dances, and eventually a futuristic civilization who have mastered flying saucers and created an eternally self-sustaining power source. All in the same time it takes your supervisor core Grady to come up with a rudimentary prototype for what will eventually go on to become Portal's creepy turret. But you, yes you, CHARLIE, had to go and ruin it all by dropping the giant metal head of corporate mega-bastard Cave Johnson through the floorboards. What might those mantises have become, if they hadn't been so rudely crushed by your rampant disregard for their wellbeing?
]]>The characters in what we might term the Aperture Cinematic Universe are a memorable bunch (as I have said before). Though GLaDOS rightfully tops the list another, introduced in 2011's sequel spectacular Portal 2, became an instant favourite. Voiced by J.K. Simmons, doing a turn adjacent to his J. J. Jameson from Spider-Man, Cave Johnson is the founder of Aperture Science (which used to primarily make shower curtains before it evolved into being a death trap puzzle company), and he made an instant impression. And though Aperture Desk Job is nominally a tech demo for the Steam Deck, it also expands the Cave Johnson lore in a very satisfying way. Spoilers beyond for Aperture Desk Job, and Portal 2 if you haven't played it.
]]>There are loads of good Steam Deck games – as in, games that happen to play well on a Steam Deck, even if they were originally crafted around desktop hardware and intended to be poked around with a mouse and keyboard. This is a joy of the portable PC in itself: that if you already have a populated Steam library, a box-fresh Deck will immediately have a selection of familiar favourites to install at no extra cost.
Still. While the Steam Deck doesn’t do exclusives, it does have a killer app. Nearly a year and a half after Valve surprise-launched Aperture Desk Job alongside their handheld, the comedy tech demo remains unsurpassed as a playable introduction to the hardware. Again, there are thousands of compatible games, but if you’ve just recently grabbed a Steam Deck (perhaps via the new official refurb scheme), Aperture Desk Job could hardly be more perfect as an inaugural install.
]]>With the month of Unpacking concluded and its rude boyfriend symbolically vanquished, I’ve been put in charge of choosing the next RPS Game Club game. And seeing how about 40% of what I write about is related to the Steam Deck, I thought it’d be nice if we took a break from that and chatted about something completely - ahaha no, just kidding it’s totally gonna be Aperture Desk Job.
]]>Hello! It's RPS Game Club chat time! As you know, this month's pick is Unpacking, and here at RPS, we've been writing a bunch of lovely words about Witch Beam's block puzzle tidy-em-up. I've really enjoyed returning to this indie gem and have noted the irony of my Unpacking house being spick and span but my own house being, well, a dumping ground. But we wanna hear what you have to say, so put that kettle on, grab some bourbons, and tell us what you think. The chat below will start today at 4pm BST / 8am PDT. See you then!
]]>I'm not someone who usually likes little puzzles or point-and-click games as I'm far too impatient. I'd much rather solve the puzzle by battering it with my fist so the pieces go flying everywhere, or turn my pointer into a fist so I can batter the dialogue out of the dialogue box and watch the wizard's words spill onto the dirt like I've just shaken an open can of spaghettios.
Unpacking, a game where you click on items and shelve them nicely, has somehow tamed my urge to punch the boxes open. Except it's done one thing to personally attack me, and that's by not allowing me to unpack stuff and leave it on the floor. It's a fight I simply can't win.
]]>In writing about games like A Little To The Left or current RPS Game Club pick Unpacking, I often have to point out that I am a weird little gremlin who loves puzzles and putting things in the right place in games, but not actually in real life. In real life, I write to you today from a desk covered in a weird detritus of work and life that wouldn't quite see me on an exploitative reality TV show with the word hoarder somewhere in the title, but, you know... maybe give it 15 years.
But I bloody love tidying things in games. Getting everything in the right place. And something that makes it extra enjoyable in Unpacking is the sound design. The house itself is quiet, but everything in the game makes a little noise when you put it away or hang it up or slide it in a shelf, and it's all stuff you recognise from home. It makes the whole experience feel domestic and familiar.
]]>This month's Game Club Pick is the wonderfully cosy puzzler Unpacking, so as is Game Club tradition we'll be doing another liveblog chat with you lovely lot Friday 28th at 4pm BST / 8am PDT. If you have opinions about Unpacking, we wanna hear them.
]]>Unpacking is, for the most part, a laid-back puzzle game. I’ve had a cosy ol’ time taking out all the protagonist's items one by one and placing them in the various places around her rooms. From her childhood bedroom right up until her first house, I love how relaxing and gratifying it is to decorate each room. But after replaying it for this month's RPS Game Club, there’s one section that gave me quite the opposite reaction.
A big part of Unpacking is learning about the character’s personalities through their objects: what clothes they have in their wardrobes, what items fill their bookshelves, which kitchen utensils make it from move to move, and so on. These contextual clues act as a subtle but incredibly effective story-telling device. There is one level, however, where it’s not all laid-back fun times and it's when the protagonist moves in with her first partner, who I will henceforth be referring to as ‘finance bro boyfriend’ - and wow, he is the absolute worst. Spoilers ahead for those who have not played Unpacking.
]]>Now that we've all escaped the clutches of The Tartarus Key, it's time for another RPS Game Club pick! This month's game has been chosen by yours truly and I'm very much in the mood to revisit a comfy, cosy puzzle game so I've chosen Unpacking. Cue the confetti!
Unpacking is a puzzle game that's all about pulling your homewares and personal items out of cardboard moving boxes and placing them in a new home. It's best described as a relaxing house moving sim but it's also a sort of block-fitting puzzle game. Finding the perfect spot for each item is largely down to your own personal taste, but there are some loose 'room rules' (no, you cannot put your toaster in the bedroom for some midnight cheese toastie action). If you like organising games - A Little To The Left, Sticky Business, Wilmot's Warehouse and the like - then Unpacking is the game for you.
]]>I'm locked in here with you for the next RPS Game Club liveblog! From 4pm BST today, July 3rd, we'll be chatting about The Tartarus Key. Come prepared to talk about your favourite puzzles, the ones that stumped you, and the weird horror themes you liked best. I've thoroughly enjoyed making the team play a tough puzzle game, especially one that's intentionally retro and a bit spooky without being scary. So why not come and join in the discussion? Haha, that's a joke: you don't have a choice. As I said, you're locked in here unless you can find the Resident Evil-ass key I have hidden in here somewhere. See you at 4pm, when we'll be back to see how you're getting on.
]]>This month's pick for our RPS Game Club is the nails sort-of-horror puzzle game The Tartarus Key, and we'll be doing another funtabulous liveblog to chat about it with you next Monday July 3rd at 4pm BST / 8am PDT. Is that a different month to the current one? Yes. But do I make the rules? Also yes. And, like Katharine was last time, I'm travelling right now, so Monday it is.
]]>There are a bunch of reasons I like The Tartarus Key (enough to make it our RPS Game Club pick this month), and one of them is that it's not actually scary. Like, sure, you could attach the horror tag to it on Steam if you wanted, but it's more of a costume for you to enjoy - like the family down the street who are really into Halloween and turn their suburban semi into a haunted house with a movie-quality zombie in the front yard. It's really cool and you like it on its own terms, but being frightened isn't so much the point as it is to remember you have enjoyed being frightened in the past. Also, for some reason the family won't let you out of the living room until you complete a logic puzzle involving maths.
]]>When Alice Bee selected thriller-puzzler The Tartarus Key as this month's RPS Game Club pick, I naively signed up for it thinking I'd be fine tackling a game where most puzzles can't be solved with a few trigger pulls. So, I did the smart thing and roped in my pal Ed. Yes, my pal is also called Ed, so parts of this post sound like I'm referring to myself in the third-person. This isn't the case, but if you'd like to imagine that I, in fact, solved the puzzles myself, then please feel free to do so.
]]>Following on from the lovely space highjinks of Citizen Sleeper, Katharine has unwisely allowed me to take the wheel on this month's RPS Game Club, and thus I am steering this baby right into fiendish puzzle town. Next stop: The Tartarus Key!
It's only recently come out, so we're fresh to death this time - literally, because in it you're trapped in a mansion full of SAW-esque murder-puzzles. I really enjoyed this game, with its low-poly PS1 style, and its vibe of being an early 00s thriller that would probably star e.g. Morgan Freeman hunting down a twisted serial killer played by e.g. Hugh Jackman. But in this metaphor, I am the twisted monster, and I have trapped both you and my colleagues and am forcing you all to play this game I like.
]]>It's time for the next gathering of the RPS Game Club! From 4pm BST today, June 2nd, we'll be chatting about all things Citizen Sleeper - your favourite moments, your most heart-breaking questlines, and lots more. We've been having a swell time revisiting one of our favourite games from last year for this month's Game Club, and we hope you've had fun playing it as well. So why not come and join in the discussion? See you at 4pm sharp!
]]>One of my absolute favourite elements of Citizen Sleeper is how you essentially play as a nobody. When we first meet the Sleeper they've had their memories completely erased; the last thing they remember is stuffing themselves into a cargo container and shooting off into the depths of space - a last resort in wanting to escape the clutches of a scary corporation. They now find themselves on a dishevelled space station called Erlin's Eye, desperate and alone. They're essentially an empty shell, and one which you can etch your own story onto.
But it’s not their lack of personal identity that makes the Sleeper a nobody (after all, you essentially forge an identity for them as you make decisions throughout the game). It’s the realisation that, in this vast universe that developer Gareth Damian Martin has written, you’re no one. A single grain of sand in a vast desert. No one knows who you are, no one cares about you, and you’re stuck on a lawless space station, helpless, scared, and dying.
]]>Ssssh, listen, I know today's the last day of May and I've scheduled this month's RPS Game Club liveblog for a day in June, of all things, but I'm away travelling at the moment and won't be back until late tomorrow. There's a chance I could be back tomorrow afternoon, but my flight was delayed coming out and I want to be absolutely sure I'm near a desk with a solid internet connection rather than trying to chat to you all on my phone, so Friday it is. Anyway! Enough about my travel woes. Come and join us for the next RPS Game Club on Friday June 2nd at 4pm BST / 8am PDT to come and chat all things Citizen Sleeper with us.
]]>When my Sleeper escaped their ramshackle life on the fringes of Erlin's Eye at the end of last year, they left behind a lot of unfinished business. I had to stop short my efforts to help Bliss make a go of her repair bay business, and Tala was left to finish making her brand-new distillery on her own. Yatagan agent Rabiyah probably has my name on an employment blacklist, too, after I upped sticks without telling them, and the spores of mushroom algae I'd been cultivating for Riko over in Greenway were no doubt left to rot and moulder somewhere. Instead, I jacked that all in to smuggle myself, my engineering pal Lem and his tiny daughter Mina onto a ship headed for some far-flung star out in the void. The Sidereal ship wasn't going to wait. It was now or never.
Fortunately hitting an ending in Citizen Sleeper doesn't mean the end of your save. Booting it back up again for this month's RPS Game Club, I wanted to play out a different ending to my Sleeper's story. Turning my back on Lem and Mina still brought its own kind of sadness, admittedly, but I wanted to dig into the game's trio of free DLC episodes first and foremost, as that was another thing I never got time to start last year. I've only played through the first chapter, Flux, so far, but man alive, it was not an auspicious start for the refugee flotilla ship hoping to make a new life for themselves here. In fact, I don't think it could have gone any worse, such was the monumental failure of my collective dice rolls and decision making. But despite absolutely beefing it in Flux, I also came to realise an important lesson. It's okay to fail, and that failure can often make the consequences of your actions feel all the more poignant. Sure, it might not feel nice, and yes, I wish it could have gone better. But sometimes the odds really are stacked against you, and you've just got to roll with it.
]]>Most video games are too big. Their lands are too expansive, their histories over-explained, their playtimes too long. Most of everything is too long (songs, books, movies, everything) but it's especially felt in games, where the magical "What's next?" feeling of discovering a world often fades to leave the "What task must I complete now?" drudgery of playing a video game. So I hugely admire Cosmo D's Off-Peak series, which has built the feeling of a huge and fascinating city through only four tiny locations visited across four games with a combined playtime of under eight hours.
]]>For whatever reason, I'm quite good at reading physical books, but when presented with a visual novel game my attention span slumps. "It's not you, it's me", rings true here, as it's definitely not the fault of the video games. I trust that Phoenix Wright or Paranormasight are brilliant, but the sudden act of having to read lots in a game has never worked out for me.
Then Citizen Sleeper came along for this month's RPS Game Club - and I think I'm a changed man? I think I now get why people are excited about static images and dialogue boxes. And I'm certain it's the game's cyclic nature that's managed to lasso my brain and keep it focused on the task at hand: help an AI trapped in a vending machine.
]]>After an excellent discussion about dice and pizza making last week in our Betrayal At Club Low liveblog, we've decided (that is, I have decided) to stick with the dice-rolling theme this month to crown the excellent Citizen Sleeper as our next pick for the RPS Game Club. We named Jump Over The Age's dystopian RPG one of our favourite games of 2022 last year, and seeing as the game is also celebrating its first anniversary this month, it's the perfect time to return the rag-tag world of Erlin's Eye.
]]>The RPS Game Club returns for its second liveblog session, this time about the weird and wonderful Betrayal At Club Low. Join us from 4pm BST today, April 28th, where we'll be chatting all things pizza and our best disco moves. Lots of the RPS Treehouse have had a great time with Club Low this month, and we hope you've been playing along too. So why not come and join in the discussion with us? See you at 4pm, folks!
]]>Confession time, everyone: I'm still only about 2.5 hours into Disco Elysium. Games journalism sin or what? Somehow, despite being primed by the excellent time I had with its demo five years ago, I just bounced off this one. I very quickly got stuck in a frustrating loop of fatally ballsing up no matter what I did - presumably I badly biffed my stats right out the gate to get soft-locked in the first area - and despite deciding I'd restart in a day or two, several years later my play-time hasn't extended past that first session. Sad times all round, I'm sure you'll agree, but what's it got to do with Betrayal At Club Low?
Well, when I picked up Betrayal At Club Low for the RPS Game Club this month, I was transported back to my abortive run at Disco Elysium. It's not that I've never played a stat-check-heavy RPG before. Far from it. But somehow, each game's presentation resonated together in my weird brain mush. It must have been something to do with the combination of a surreal, seedy, not-quite-our-world-but-still-very-recognisable setting, and the constant presence of numbers reminding me of my character's strengths stacked up against their many, many weaknesses.
]]>As the month of April draws to a close, it can only mean one thing. It's time to announce when we'll be liveblogging this month's RPS Game Club pick, Betrayal At Club Low! Well, it's not the only thing, of course, but listen, our secret pizza delivery agent only has an hour long window to spare us before they'll be whisked away on another top secret infiltration / flamingo thigh stew tasting mission, so make sure you mark your calendars for Friday April 28th at 4pm BST (that's 8am PDT / 11am EDT) to join us for our real-time liveblog chat.
]]>For all its flamingo thigh stews, misshapen clothes model characters and pizza-themed DJ-ing, Betrayal At Club Low is an old-school, dice-throwing RPG through and through. Every interaction you have at Club Low is determined by the rolling of dice, whether it's simply attempting to spark a conversation with a hard-of-hearing bartender, or bluffing your way into VIP backrooms where your blown fellow agent Gemini Jay is currently being grilled by the intimidating Big Mo.
Whether you're successful in your endeavours depends on whether you can roll higher or equal to whatever value is thrown by your opponent, with each face corresponding to a particular Skill Dice you're trying to deploy to win that scenario. A lot of the time, your skill numbers aren't nearly good enough to beat your fellow clubber outright, but for me, the thrill of Club Low comes from clinching a very plain, and highly unremarkable draw, earning you the accolade of 'Success. Barely' in the ensuing results breakdown. It may not sound very sexy, but in a world where the odds are fully stacked against you, barely succeeding will do me just fine here, thanks.
]]>A lot of RPGs with stats and dialogue options don't actually give you options. Sometimes you're presented with a skill check and if one of your stats isn't an arbitrary number like, I dunno, seven, then whoever it is you spoke with (a king, a bard, an elf) might shutter their mouths forever.
Betrayal At Club Low is a CRPG that we're playing for our Game Club this month, and which understands the unpredictability of a face-to-face wobble of the lips, and how befriending or swindling or aggravating someone is determined by so much more than a single seven. And when all seems lost, how visiting a puddle can turn your entire evening around.
]]>A new month means it's time for the RPS Game Club to pick its next game, and I thought, you know what, let's do Betrayal At Club Low, the surreal nightclub RPG from Cosmo D Studios. Not only did we give it a Bestest Best when it came out in September last year, but just last month it was freshly annointed as the IGF Grand Prize winner, making it an excellent time to revisit this latest slice of Off-Peak City madness.
]]>The inaugural RPS Game Club liveblog session is here! From 4pm BST today, March 30th, we'll be chatting all things Hi-Fi Rush, which the RPS Treehouse has been playing throughout the month of March. We hope you've been playing along too, so why not come and join in the discussion with us? See you at 4pm sharp!
]]>Man, do I love the feeling of jamming out a guitar riff in games. Sure, in reality, I’m slumped on my couch in a position that my body will give me payback for when I’m thirty, but in my fantasy, I’m a musical prodigy whose guitar licks are so epic it would make Slash cry. My joy for virtual jamming came as a direct result of playing hours and hours of Guitar Hero. Harmonix held my music taste in its death grip, and almost breaking my fingers on those flimsy plastic buttons trying to conquer Through The Fire And Flames is a precious memory of mine.
So yeah, I love a good guitar sesh, so when I saw that Hi-Fi Rush was about a wannabe rockstar that smacks evil megacorp robots with his guitar to a catchy rock OST, Tango Gameworks had my attention.
]]>Come one, come all to our very first RPS Game Club liveblog session about this month's chosen pick, Hi-Fi Rush. We'll be piling into a liveblog on Thursday March 30th at 4pm BST (that's 8am PDT / 11am EDT), so please do come and join us to talk about what you loved most about Tango Gameworks' infectious rhythm action brawler.
]]>I like to think I have rhythm, in the same way that a wobbly air dancer lunging about sporadically has rhythm. That is to say I have none at all, and that any time spent dancing turns me into an uncontrollable set of limbs flailing in the wrong directions. Think Octodad in a night club and you’d be on the right track (although the disastrous limb flailing is enough to keep me out of the clubs).
That lack of rhythm isn’t just native to the dance floor of an awkward family party, though. Even nuzzled into my chair with a controller in hand, I simply can’t stick to the beat. My eyes glued to notes floating across the screen, trying to hit them at just the right time, you’d probably see Time hiding in a corner to my left, giggling at my repeated failure. A barrage of borked bleeps and bungled notes tend to leave me with spirits sunk.
In Hi-Fi Rush, though, I always leave with my head held high.
]]>Hi-Fi Rush, our inaugural RPS Game Club game, sets its on-the-beat beatdowns in some pretty interesting places. Glistening sci-fi skyscrapers. An underground volcano lair. A Smaug-pleasing gold hoard, conveniently adjacent to a finance executive’s office. Who’d have guessed, then, that its absolute best fight – not just a thrilling brawl in itself, but the point at which a stumbling adventure plants its feet back in greatness – would take place in a canteen?
]]>When Tango GameWorks announced Hi-Fi Rush was getting a photo mode, I knew I was in trouble. You know I have a tendency to get emotionally invested in games with photo modes (one might say too invested, in the case of my Death Stranding BB Boys road trip diary), and yep, you couldn't have predicted a more likely turn of events if you tried. Because yes, instead of bopping along to its excellent, punchy rhythm action combat and, you know, actually playing the damn thing, I've spent most of my early hours with Hi-Fi Rush fiddling about with image sliders and lining up Chai and best video game cat bot 808 into daft, stupid poses for the sake of a good screenshot. But hot damn, what a great game it is all the same.
]]>A new thing for RPS in 2023 is the RPS Game Club, a kind of monthly book club for games where we pick a game to play each month, write some cool things about it, and have a big all liveblog discussion with you lot, our readers, at the end of it. It's a project I've been wanting to get off the ground for some time now, and finally, the Treehouse Game Club doors have been busted open... and there's some toe-tapping guitar music coming from inside? That's right, we're playing Hi-Fi Rush as our first RPS Game Club game, and we hope you'll join us on this month-long musical journey.
]]>
