When playing through Little Kitty, Big City, it’s difficult to avoid drawing comparisons with Untitled Goose Game. Both see you play as a cute, mischievous animal, and both have you tackle a series of emergent tasks that often come at the expense of the poor humans that inhabit the surrounding area.
With Little Kitty, Big City, however, developer Double Dagger Studio has taken the opportunity to draw inspiration from the game’s feisty feline protagonist and make the experience a bit more whimsical, a bit more stylised, and a bit more ambitious. The end result is a true joy to behold and play, but one that’s also held back from true greatness by its repetitive structure.
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and the Windows Store.
Interrogate suspects and pilfer evidence to find clues and quack the case!
Two to three hours of light-hearted narrative adventure mystery.
Fully voice-acted cast of eccentric suspects to inspect and interrogate.
Solving crime is no walk in the pond.
We’re very excited to announce that Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and the Windows Store! Duck Detective is Aggretsuko meets Return of the Obra Dinn, in a cozy mystery setting where a down-on-his-luck duck is tasked with exposing a sinister sausage-based conspiracy.
You play as Eugene McQuacklin, part-time private investigator, full-time duck. As a recent divorcee and ex-police detective, you must use your supreme powers of deduc(k)tion to save your ailing career and maybe, just maybe, pay next month’s rent.
Our small team at Happy Broccoli Games have been greatly inspired by the classic Agatha Christie novels. While they take a darker and more suspenseful approach, we wanted to create something that would keep you guessing as much as it will make you smile. It has been fantastic fun for our team to write such an energetic and twisty tale. A pompous detective, mismatched characters, and cramped environment, all mixed together surely makes for a big hoot!
Justice is a dish best served at the bottom of a pond. And you’re sure to get your flippers wet when it comes to the case of The Secret Salami.
We are very much looking forward to having all you detectives quack the case on release! We don’t have a firm date just yet, but we’ll work hard to get it in your hands as quackly as possible. Please look forward to more puns and more fun when the game launches on Xbox!
Do you know the feeling of moving to a new city for a new job all by yourself?
In Fishbowl, our main character Alo is doing just that. You experience a slice of Alo’s ordinary life, at home. Set in urban India at the onset of the pandemic, Fishbowl serves as a vignette of that time through our eyes. A new PS5 demo available today lets you get a taste of Alo’s life.
The game follows Alo over a month during which she spends time indoors, in isolation, her phone and computer being the only connection to others. Taking care of home chores, doing her best with self care and staying on top of work-from-home are things she is still getting used to.
Until unusual dreams and bittersweet childhood memories begin to crop up, all thanks to a package sent from home, containing a mysterious toy fish. Tumble into a story of nostalgia, melancholy and self-discovery, where the choices you make, determine the path that Alo takes, leading to multiple endings, true to how you play.
Figuring out life one day at a time
As Alo slowly gets familiar with her new home, do care tasks like watering your plants, snacking from the fridge (samosas or idlis anyone?), make sure to stay hydrated and take moments to relax between work and chores.
The mood at home is a reflection of Alo’s emotional state and sometimes, ordinary objects may give you an idea of a larger meaning behind them—that writing desk seems awfully dingy. We hope for everybody to tinker around and discover little hints and secrets we have planted throughout the game.
Fishbowl prioritizes the every day—simple things and mundane acts, and how living through them mindfully is a way to understand our emotions and check in with ourselves.
Moving through grief at your own pace
Alo recently lost her grandmother and is uncertain about how to cope with this loss and grief. Fishbowl represents grief as an ongoing feeling and not as something to “get over” on a time limit.
Players unpack Alo’s late grandma’s belongings and uncover memories from her childhood which help them connect the dots to her past—whether it’s time spent with friends after school, your very first sleepover or the one day you were all alone in the park.
Each object in Fishbowl is a storyteller, celebrating the idea of how the things in our life can be little time capsules, reminders of days gone by—from an old sweater your grandma knitted to a storybook you barely remember. Some of these objects also unlock new things to do at home, like the beat-up record player which still lets you play a familiar tune from back when you were little.
A look into the “player first” mechanics of Fishbowl
In Fishbowl, we place importance on allowing players to experience the game as they’d like, with no time limits and no fail state. Don’t feel like doing the laundry, let it pile up, enjoy a warm shower, go for it! Much like life, we allow for players to do as much or as little as they are able and have their story unfold accordingly.
It’s our way of showing what prioritizing people over the pressure of productivity could look like. Taking the focus away from giving value to the player for their actions, but rather simply valuing them because they are.
Like when you work from home as a video editor, your colleagues encourage you to do your best if you fall behind and cheer you on if you get things done in time. And you support them too, whether it’s the intern who is struggling or an old-timer who doesn’t see their worth.
Meet our characters and experience a slice of urban India
As the game progresses you meet characters, each one with a rich, unique story of their own. You get to know them through video calls that have branching conversations where choices matter. Through these, you understand how others are managing in the lockdown, you get to delve further into Alo’s life, forge new friendships and stay in touch with those dear to you.
We give players a window into Indian craft and culture. As fans of pixel art, we were keen to portray everyday Indian objects and diverse characters in this style. Tiny details in the backgrounds will tell you a little more about their personalities, like Zuari’s certificate for becoming one of the youngest government school teachers or how Iris’ love for DIY has her sewing and knitting her own clothes.
Through Fishbowl we’d like to take you on a journey to feel all feelings as there are no right endings. Fishbowl’s demo is now out on PS5 and we hope you enjoy playing this one day in our month-long story made by a two-person team from Goa, India.
Behaviour Interactive is teasing its next chapter for the Dead by Daylight universe, implying a Dungeons & Dragons crossover is coming to its widely popular asymmetrical horror game.
The Dead by Daylight X/Twitter account posted a brief teaser trailer that suggests its next licensed chapter is based on the popular tabletop game series Dungeons & Dragons. While not much was shared, Behaviour Interactive plans to hold an 8th anniversary stream for the Dead by Daylight series next week; hopefully to confirm a release date and which D&D characters will become the killers and survivors.
A D&D-themed chapter in Dead by Daylight would be interesting, as Behaviour Interactive has yet to implement dark fantasy into its horror game. However, Behaviour has previously added sci-fi and supernatural themes, introducing licensed chapters for Alien and Ringu.
Dead by Daylight first released in 2016 on PC before making its way onto consoles, most recently the PS5 in late 2020. Since launch, Behaviour Interactive has released a slew of original and licensed chapters from various horror franchises across gaming and entertainment, such as Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Stranger Things, and Scream. Each chapter introduces a map based on that respective franchise, in addition to familiar characters serving as new playable killers or survivors. Dead by Daylight’s popularity has surged since its release, with Behaviour Interactive reporting in 2023 that the game has amassed over 60 million players.
The game in question is cheery co-op shooter Helldivers 2, over which Aunty Sony recently upended a can of furious worms by abruptly insisting that Steam players have a PSN account for security reasons and so, blocking players in regions where PSN isn’t available. Sony have subsequently walked back the requirement following a backlash of truly hellish proportions, though I understand that the game remains unavailable on Steam in certain regions. By comparison, Arrowhead CEO’s Johan Pilestedt remarks overnight that the developers might have been “removing the fun” with their gun balancing seems pretty innocuous.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has disappointed Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of developer Rocksteady, to the tune of a $200 million hit to revenue.
Reporting its Q1 financial results, Warner Bros. Discovery said its Games revenue declined significantly as a result of a tough comparison with last year’s best-selling video game Hogwart’s Legacy. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice “generated significantly lower revenues” compared with those generated by Hogwart’s Legacy during the same three-month period, the company said.
In a follow-up investor-focused call, Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav called the release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League “disappointing”, before Warner Bros. Discovery chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels detailed an impairment charge the company absorbed as a result of the game’s failure.
“Starting with Studios, the $400 million+ year-over-year decline during Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp we faced in games against the success of Hogwart’s Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA during the first quarter,” Wiedenfels said. EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was panned by critics upon launch, with extremely low player numbers on Steam. Some of the frustration stems from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League not being another Batman game from Rocksteady, despite the fact it is set within the Arkhamverse. The developer’s Batman Arkham series is much-loved by fans, with 2011’s Batman: Arkham City in particular held up as one of the greatest, if not the greatest superhero video game of all time. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, on the other hand, is a live service third-person combat game in which Batman is a villain.
Rocksteady now faces tough questions around Warner Bros.’ long-term commitment to Suicide Squad’s live service. Warner Bros. is yet to announce Rocksteady’s next project. But earlier this month, it revealed Batman: Arkham Shadow, a VR game developed by Camouflaj, maker of the Iron Man VR game, and set for release exclusively on the Meta Quest 3 later in 2024.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
When I asked Tango Gameworks creative director John Johanas whom he’d give Hi-Fi Rush‘s Best Audio trophy away to at this year’s GDC Awards, he said he’d split it between the game’s audio team and “the person who taught me everything I know” – Shinji Mikami, Tango’s founder and one of the erstwhile Capcom and Platinum big brains behind Resident Evil, Vanquish and much more besides. I confess, I found this response annoying – partly because I was hoping Johanas would bring up some obscure indie composer I could then namecheck at parties, and partly, because I have spent years waiting for Tango to escape Mikami’s shadow after essentially announcing themselves as a Mikami fan project back in 2010.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is also doing well, surprising no one.
The latest Japanese Charts are in, and since the region recently celebrated its annual Golden Week holiday, we’re covering two weeks’ worth of sales from 22nd April to 5th May 2024.
The PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade managed to come out on top with a total of 67,131 sales, while Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes on Switch managed to sell 46,729 copies. If you add in the PS5 sales of the game, however, the Rabbit and Bear Studios-developed title shifted 66,163 copies, coming ruddy close to Stellar Blade’s total.
As a cat owner, I spend an excessive amount of time looking these fur-covered creatures in the eyes and wondering what they truly want. Would they enjoy the world outside, or would they immediately come running back to their parents’ protective embrace? Little Kitty, Big City attempts to answer this question for me and every other indoor cat owner out there through an adventure that fictionalizes the thoughts and feelings of a feline friend lost in a small Japanese metropolitan sandbox. Solving platforming puzzles in this charming environment is a relaxing time from the get-go, but like a cat aiming to jump up to the top of a dresser and not quite making it, Little Kitty, Big City falters in a few areas that keep it from being a wholly satisfactory experience.
Little Kitty, Big City finds its main character, a short-haired black cat that lacks a defined name, trying to return to their high rise home after a fall from an apartment window. You’ll cross paths with all manner of obstacles, be that busy humans staring at their phones or other animals, that can either help or delay your progress. Along the way, your titular kitty makes friends both large and small in a quest to regain the strength needed to climb back up to its apartment.
That opening fall worried me slightly that Little Kitty, Big City would contain aspects of animals suffering that I was not eager to see, but that concern was quickly dismissed. At no point are you actually at risk of harm – the kitty’s biggest problem is finding a way around disgusting puddles of water in a flooded street, and even aggressive dogs simply bark to assert authority before being easily distracted by a handy treat. Smaller animals, such as a father duck and his flock of baby ducks he wants to bring back home, are never in any danger and are enjoying their outlandish captive circumstances more than fearing them.
These streets have more of a neighborhood feel than that of a metropolis.
The “Big City” in the title actually refers to a relatively small group of interconnected streets with more of a neighborhood feel than that of a metropolis. For the proportional size of a cat, there’s a decent amount of space to cover, with cat-repellent standing water forcing you toward certain puzzle-lined areas, but this is not the four-footed equivalent of a massive open world. Instead, Little Kitty, Big City encourages you to find your way up and over buildings and obstacles rather than simply walking down the sidewalk.
The main campaign is all about regaining enough strength to make the climb home by eating fish. The first of four is simply given to you as part of the story, but others require some feline sneakiness to obtain, like stealing one from a fisherman’s catch. Going in a straight line to these objectives, something cats are not exactly well known for, can get you to the credits in just an hour or two max, but the meat (or dry food equivalent) of this adventure is in its side quests. You can stop and help various other animals to cross off items off a list, be that a Shiba Inu digging up its yard or a bird desperate to live out a Kaiju battle fantasy in the streets.
That is the entire campaign in a nutshell: find fish, do side quests, collect some cute hats as you go, and scratch it all off of your kitty agenda. It is hard to consider that light structure a flaw since Little Kitty, Big City does not aspire to be anything greater than a cozy game where you guide a cat around town to do things a cat might do. It’s interested in being a fun way to spend an afternoon, not one you lose yourself in for the rest of the month. It is cute to watch the kitty sunbathe in a pile of laundry just because it can, but getting to that pile of laundry will not necessarily fill you with a sense of accomplishment.
All this could make Little Kitty, Big City seem over-simplistic, but I came to believe its simplicity is actually its strength. There was no part where I was at a loss of what to do, nothing to disturb the good vibes of being a little cat in a world full of new discoveries. There was no danger around any corner or combat I needed to stay ready for – it is entirely about making friends with other animals who have big personalities while celebrating a fun-filled neighborhood alongside them. Little Kitty, Big City is not failing to be more, it is choosing not to be more than it needs to be.
Where it can grate on my patience, unfortunately, is in the actual act of reaching these goals. Climbing up various buildings through a patchwork path of air conditioners, pipes, and vents can occasionally feel outright frustrating due to imprecise jumping and camera controls. Jumps do not always travel accurately to where the landing interface indicates you’ll go, sometimes leaving you halfway between one pipe and another with no choice but to jump off the wall like a spring. This is complicated further by the camera slamming against walls and violently zooming in to compensate, something that happens quite often when you are trying to scamper up somewhere and need a better view.
The cute cartoon aesthetic at least holds up over the course of the entire campaign. The animations were clearly created by someone who has spent a lot of time watching actual cats, and are realistic enough to make me instinctively whisper “big stretch” under my breath at least once. I also had a fun time pressing the “Meow” button and watching my real-life cats whip their heads around in confusion.
Computers have always been animal wells, in a sense. They’re havens for creatures of many shapes and degrees of literalness, all the way down to the metal. As in ecologies at large, the most abundant and widespread are probably the bugs, beginning with the moth that flew into that Harvard Mark II in 1947 and ending with the teeming contents of the average free-to-play changelog. A little further up the food chain we find “worms”, like the Creeper that once invaded the ARPANET, and “gophers“, a directory/client system written in 1991 for the University of Minnesota. There are computer animals spawned by branding – foxes of fire and twittering birds and the anonymous beasts that haunt the margins of Google documents. There are computer animals that are implied by the verbs we use in computing – take “browser”, derived from the old French word for nibbling at buds and sprouts, which suggests that all modern internet searches are innately herbivorous.
