What we're feeding the Maw
Ugh, morning has come again. The sultry undergrowth of night has yielded to the obnoxious leaf blower of wakefulness. Another week tumbles pendulously from the unzipped flies of the future. My bed beseeches me: Son of Man, do not waste your time in the upright world. Crawl back under the covers. Embrace your pillow. Forget the sun. But I can't do that, bed, because I have already checked my inbox in a fit of self-loathing, and would you believe there are new PC games to write about???
They crowd my bedside, battering their tiny, hateful fists upon my chest. Avert, hellspawn! Shoo! Shoo! Into the latest release round-up with you, where the readers can tear you apart like famished dogs!
Monday 3rd August
- Flow of War is a throwback RTS with a mostly automated economic element and an emphasis on defence. Seems quite purposeful in its hewing and resculpting of the genre.
- Beast of Reincarnation is a post-apocalyptic action RPG from them wot do Pokémon but aren't Nintendo. Basically you are samurai Poison Ivy with a dog.
- I'm not sure I have the emotional stamina for a US election-themed game right now, but 2D roguelite Anomaly President seems nifty. By day, you slot modular departments into a big campaign bus, striving to win votes. By night, you run amok with sword and spell.
- Cielle is Not Happy, possibly because she's "the last link between false order and absolute intuition, in a world alive with blood and magic". A turn-based RPG waged across dimensions, with a lot of grotty mystique.
Tuesday 4th August
- Big Walk is the new multiplayer open world puzzle caper from the creators of Untitled Goose Game. Set forth into an Australian country park that's stacked with Crystal Maze-style conundrums. Get lost and stalk your friends! Throw the key puzzle components into the sea! And other such tomfoolery!
Wednesday 5th August
- In time-rewinding mystery My Fav Chill Streamer Dies a Million Times your chatbox comments aren't just pathetic displays of need for actual human companionship but a means of, hopefully, ensuring that your fav chill streamer will not die in one of a million ways. I refuse to check if there's a Steam achievement for actually letting the streamer die a million times.
Thursday 6th August
- Montabi looks like a sweet and snappy creature-collecting roguelike deckbuilderiser but please, game developers, please can we abandon this word "synergy". It only makes me think of brand portfolios. Can we at least put it on cooldown for a few months.
- Somewhere in the guano-slathered, "to scale" cityscapes of Pigeon: A Love Story, one specific pigeon awaits your adoration. If you have no time for love, you can let the game play itself in a window while you, for example, search the internet for pigeon puns like Coo-sanova.
- Echobreaker is an elevated-view cyborg speedrunner with an artfully depleted VHS palette and crackly throwback interface design.
- MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls is a comicbook tag-team fighter from Arc Systems, creators of Guilty Gear and other extravagant punch-based entertainment.
- Sovereign Tower is an Arthurian Round Table management RPG. Recruit sexy knights and try to stop them being massive dicks to each other while guiding your kingdom to prosperity.
- Iron Nest: Heavy Turret Simulator is a cloud-splitting, earth-shaking tactics game that puts you at the controls of a huge walking gun.
Friday 7th August
- Grim Axiom is a top-down "soulslike adventure-horror game" that lures me with its promise of sunken machines and creaky walkways over bottomless pits.
- Rogue Eclipse is a swizzy and balletic dogfighter with "an epic space opera setting inspired by Arabesque Futurism". Quite interested to hear more.
- Grain Rot (pictured) cannot be friendslop because "slop" implies moisture, and this is a bleached and dusty, apocalyptic world in which floating player-sparks freely possess flammable wooden robots to investigate dungeons full of other, more horrible robots.
What are the RPS Treehouse up to this week? Well, Mark is interviewing modders and prepping for the EA acquisition, which he has already casually described in a meeting as "the death of god". James is editing some intriguing features, including one from an old RPS stalwart, while making increasingly urgent noises about certain group list feature contributions. Ollie, Dion, Callum and Jeremy are giving a lot of thought to Beast of Reincarnation, which is hopefully more fun than writing a million more Roblox guides. Julian is away on holiday. He promises he'll return but I know in my heart that he has abandoned us to the debonair tyranny of James. As for me, I'm thinking about trains. What are you up to? Any games to recommend?
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