RŌA is best seen rather than described. But, as I have to use words, I’ll say that my first impressions of it were that it looks like someone turned datamoshing into a videogame (if you don’t know what datamoshing is, there’s a whole site dedicated to it). Colors belch into each other across the scr
Visiontrick Media has revealed that its “fourth-person” puzzle adventure Pavilion is getting eye-tracking controls. The studio teamed up with eye-tracking specialist company Tobii to develop a way for the game to be played solely with your gaze—no keyboard or mouse needed. This is, obviously, a big
Three years on and people are still finding new ways to look at Grand Theft Auto V (2013). This time its French digital artist Hugo Arcier who has reinterpreted the game’s world without a population. He calls it GHOST CITY—a video installation that was first shown at his exhibition “Fantômes numériq
Tobias Zarges wants to experiment with the videogame form and its capacity to be art. This comes natural to him as a student of fine art, design, and music at Kunsthochschule Kassel in Germany. To this end, he’s working with programmer Moritz Eberl on Close, an upcoming game about exploration and ex
It’s quiet. The air is gentle and warm as it brushes past your neck and causes you to close your eyes. A barking in the distance causes you to step away from admiring the lake—the soft, rhythmic motion of the waves was lulling you in a trance as it splashed against the shoreline. An impatient whinin
One of the hardest things to achieve in life is balance, yet it is utterly essential. A balanced diet, a balanced economy, a balanced environment—these are all things that we, as a species, know that we should strive towards. It’s what Even the Ocean is all about—a narrative platformer that will be
If you could shout “Heyooooo” into Firewatch‘s virtual rendition of the Wyoming wilderness then you would now be able to travel to everywhere the call echoed. That’s on account of an update that has rolled out for all the versions of the game—PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One—that introduces a free-ro
Based in the small town of Qatif, Saudi Arabia—”on the shores of the Arabian Gulf”—Light Studio is a team of five women who are currently making their first videogame. Leading the team as director, writer, and programmer is Fatimah Aldubaisi. The rest of the team all works on the game’s art and anim
If 2016 has been an utter trash heap for you, as it has for so many, you may have fantasized at times about striking out to build a new life away from all this terrible bullshit. It can be hard to care about games when the real world is falling apart at the seams. But if you’re looking to get away,
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. One Night Stand (Windows, Mac, Linux) BY KINMOKU What did you do last night? This is the big question that visual novel One Night Standopens up with. And for your first couple playthroughs you
Clément Duquesne has made a bunch of impressive games and digital toys using procedural generation, but one of his latest is particularly striking. Called Accurate Coastlines, it lets you scroll your mousewheel to zoom infinitely inwards on the shores of an unspecified island. You can target your cu
Sethian is a game that positions you as an archaeologist of the future tasked with learning an alien language. You do this so you can investigate the disappearances of people on the planet Sethian—where the language originates. Learning a whole other language might sound pretty imposing, but the cre
If you’re being overwhelmed by all the presidential election noise today you might be looking for a temporary escape to another world. Small Radios Big Televisions should prove an adequate host. Out for Windows and PlayStation 4 as of yesterday, Small Radios Big Televisions doesn’t have just one wor
You know that uncomfortable feeling of being outdone by someone much younger than you? If you’re not familiar, prepare to get acquainted with it: meet Interfectorem, a visual novel made by a team of four girls aged 11-15 years old. Interfectorem tells the story of 16-year-old Alis, whose seven-year
I sat cross legged in front of the TV and watched as Alex carefully removed the Super Nintendo from its dusty, neglected box. Our grandfather hardly used it, preferring to play Shogi on his computer instead of the console. Also stored away were a pile of games with labels we couldn’t read. The Japan
In the case of digital games, the software acts as the variable, it changing to provide more difficulty as the player progresses. The controller and its input systems never change. This may be an obvious bit of analysis but it’s the observation that forms the basis of a project by Swiss multimedia d
Neko Atsume (2014), the beloved cat game for smartphones, is being turned into a live-action movie. Meow indeed. That means it’ll feature real cats—proper little fluffballs that deserve all the strokes—so perhaps it stands a chance at being the best videogame-to-movie adaptation (not that it would t
Montreal-based programmer Brie Code has set up a new studio called Tru Luv Media that aims to make videogames with the help of people who don’t like videogames. The reason being that she wants her friends and people like them to care about games. These are people for who videogames do not resonate a
Chirag Chopra, the founder of New Delhi-based game studio Lucid Labs, got interested in finding out more about Asperger syndrome after watching a few movies about it, including Fly Away (2011) and A Brilliant Young Mind (2014). After doing research into the subject, Chopra decided that he wanted to
It’s only right that sci-fi point-and-clicker Samorost 3 gets a physical version. It’s a game that emphasizes tactility through its biological textures: from the gnarled knots of a planet made of tree bark to the soft sprigs of moss on one of its greener planets. The “Samorost 3 Cosmic Box” addresse
The students that made Quur say it’s a game about the impact of violence. But it’s not full of blood sloshing around the dirty concrete of some decrepit virtual city. Quur has the look of a game so innocent that you’d think it doesn’t even know what violence is outside of a kid stealing its lunch mo
Blame! (1998) is getting everywhere these days. The dark, vast architectural spaces of Tsutomu Nihei’s manga series seem to be steadily rising in popularity, like sentient tower blocks growing stories at a time, casting a deeper and deeper shadow over popular culture. Next year it’ll likely hit the
Rob Milus isn’t saying much, but it’s enough. He’s working on a game called Ekko with fellow game maker Peter Dijkstra, one that he’s only showed glimpses of on Twitter—abstract shapes floating across a space lit by a distant sun. I wanted to find out more, a lot more, but he only responded with a f
When I was a kid, my best friend and I used to spend hours playing various Tycoon games. I remember how excited she was to get the Zoo Tycoon Complete Collection (2003) for her birthday and how we stayed up all night crafting the perfect zoo. This was one of my first experiences with videogames, but
I was expecting Tom Kitchen to be reserved when talking about his upcoming vignette game Emporium. He’s shown plenty of images on the game’s TIGSource thread but not said a lot when it comes to what it’s about, leaving me to believe he wanted to keep it secretive. So I was taken aback when he came s
