Rock, Paper, Shotgun | Page 304 of 316

Guess your way around the Lands Between with this Elden Ring Geoguessr game

Elden Ring Geoguessr-inspired game that plonks you into a random bit of the map and scores you based on how close you can drop a pin to your true location. If Rings aren’t your thing LostGamer.io has maps from other games, too, including Skyrim and Fortnite. It’s a lovely idea.

Hylics games are some of the prettiest around, with their striking mix of claymation and video capture. So I’m delighted to realise that, unbeknowst to me, creator Mason Lindroth occasionally give behind-the-scenes peeks at props and animations on Twitter. It is very interesting to see those original handcrafted figures. And it is very funny to discover that the process of animating one character’s hands involved wearing a little cardboard green screen like a shroud while waggling a sexy gloved arm through the hole.

Industries of Titan, from Crypt Of The Necromancer developers Brace Yourself Games. They’ve announced Titan will be out for realsies on January 31st, when it will unshackle itself from its early access chains while forcing thousands more workers into indentured labour.

It’s more than just a slick sci-fi city builder, boasting battleship combat and the ability to tinker with what goes on inside your buildings.

Far Cry 2 is a lot of things, based on the memories I have from playing it a decade ago. First and foremost, I recall Far Cry 2: Parasitic Pain, which tasks you with running around begging for pills to stave off a growing infection. Next comes Far Cry 2: Buddy Bonanza, which lets you make lots of lovely AI friends, charge into battles together, and then hide while they die. Then, there’s Far Cry 2: Firewatch, which is all about watching fire. It’s the best.

A Space For The Unbound is Mojiken’s first ‘big’ release in that sense, clocking in at around nine-ish hours. What begins as a YA coming-of-age tale about a small-town romance quickly gains remarkable momentum, and suddenly you’re dealing with supernatural teens trying to desperately stop a world-ending calamity. Part sci-fi drama, part high school romance, A Space For The Unbound manages to have incredible weight and grandeur while also being poignant, sweet, and honest at the same time. It’s a triumph.

Coffee Talk is one of my favourite visual novels from the last couple of years, and when developers Toge Productions announced they were making a second episode back in 2021, I raised a steaming hot mug of tea in celebration. Now, it’s time to brew up another one, as they’ve just announced its official release date of April 20th.

Dwarf Fortress would never make the biggest and most important change it possibly could, and fit itself with an interface fit for purpose.

Bay 12 Games have, of course, gone further than that, and released it for general sale on the biggest shop in the business after sixteen years as freeware. There’s even a charming new graphics overhaul to replace the famous ASCII symbols which, depending on who you ask, might not have technically counted as “graphics” at all.

I’m not here to discuss the relative merits of this shiny new version and the “classic” version. Both will be updated in future, the latter still free, and neither expected to reach a full 1.0 release inside 20 years. All this chips around the edges of what I’ve been pondering, which is this: What exactly is Dwarf Fortress’s place within our culture now, after a decade replete with games that looked to it for ideas?

Ultimate Audio Bang, and The Electronic Wireless Show, but our focus is strictly on the wonderful world of indie games. It’s best to think of the podcast as an extension of our Indiescovery tag on the site – although we’ve got the Indiescovery Podcast tag just for the pod, if you ever want to check all the episodes. Every episode video bud Liam, guides lass Rebecca and myself (reviews ranger Rachel) will highlight a bunch of cool indies and talk about why we love them. We’ll be gabbing about the latest indie darlings, exciting upcoming releases, hidden gems lost to space and time, and more.