I don't typically like any genre you'd put it in, or any system it contains, and yet Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time would be on my top ten of the year. It dares to ask: what if Animal Crossing was a videogame? A daft, colourful, bountiful dopamine machine, and a lark to play with kids.

The father of indie gaming

I don't think I nailed Despelote in my review back in May, but it's one of my favourite games of the year and you should play it. www.rockpapershotgun.com/despelote-re... "In a medium often dominated by genre pastiche and YA fiction tropes, what a treat it is to have a videogame that feels true."

The most exciting moment I've seen in any Game Awards trailer so far was when Total Warhammer 40k actually showed the UI. This industry needs to stop being ashamed of buttons and HUDs.

Skinemax, Smash TV's mashup and DJ mix described as "Koyaanisqatsi for a generation raised on late night television and B-movie VHS tapes". Originally uploaded to Vimeo in 2011, lightly edited here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cQL...

Just going to post a different thing I like every time a stupid video game discourse begins. Here's a cool song and music video by a Japanese band called OGRE YOU ASSHOLE. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L1Y...

Flea is making a trumpet album, and if it's all like this, oh boy.

In honour of the original breach wizard, Santa, we'll be in this year's Jingle Jam bundle! It starts on Monday, and you get us and 14 other games if you donate at least £35 to one of the Jingle Jam charity fundraisers.

Tactical Breach Wizards is 40% off in today's Daily Deal! The cheapest the wizards have ever allowed us to price them. To celebrate, we've added a community missions pack, featuring some great ones players have made since launch. store.steampowered.com/app/1043810/... .

Just saw that Anthony Jackson died, one of the best (and most prolific) bass guitar players. For years I've been returning to these Hiromi Trio Project performances in which Jackson plays a six-stringed bass guitar that he *invented*: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIYI...

This is really easy outrage bait, but it's worth reading the original story no one links to see this is a consequence of climate change and not a moustache-twirling Lord McVitie cackling upon his chocolate (flavoured) throne: www.theguardian.com/business/202...

📚 My current contract is coming to an end in Dec so I am now looking for new work! ⭐ I am an award-winning & expert/lead game writer & narrative designer. 🌎 I am interested in long & short term contracts & consultancy, ideally remote. Let's chat! hannahnicklin.com linkedin.com/in/hannah-nicklin

Split Fiction (2025).

Feel this is being buried under the digital ID announcement today.

So Starmer is backing ID cards - which I do not like - in order to facilitate this government’s ugly immigration policies - which I also do not like - and in doing so is apparently spiralling down the electoral drain and throwing votes to Farage - whom I do not like? Fan-fucking-tastic.

If anyone is considering purchasing part of a property via a shared ownership scheme, I strongly suggest you: don't. It's pitched as "affordable" housing but then they will quadruple your service charge and make it so no mortgage lender will touch it, stopping you from selling or staircasing.

I started my new job last month: I'm now studio manager/producer at Suspicious Developments, the team responsible for Tactical Breach Wizards, Heat Signature and Gunpoint!

We're shortstaffed on RPS and need some rad PC-minded freelancers for urgent review work. Specifically: - Borderlands 4 (yes I know it's out already) - Dying Light: The Beast - Silent Hill f Standard rate is £200 GBP per review, make yourselves known at [email protected]

Floof.

Would people be willing to pay more for Silksong? Sure. Is it worth more? No idea. Is it nice to have an interaction with capitalism that isn't designed by a team of data analysts to take you for the absolute maximum possible? Yeah.

The BBC is about to shut its Written Archives to the public. Writers and researchers rely on these archives. They belong to the licence payers. Please sign and share this open letter.

I don't know what this is but it's the apex of technology

We're excited and proud to announce that Digital Foundry is now fully independent, having parted ways amicably with IGN. In this DF Direct Special, we share our thoughts and aspirations for the future of the channel: youtu.be/tl7bIJ2yu4I

I've looked & I could have missed it, maybe its saved in their drafts but @ukieofficial.bsky.social TIGA, BFI, that new video game council. Which UK body representing games is stepping up to publicly speak about the mass censorship of the cultural form they represent? www.polygon.com/news/615910/...

Donkey Kong Bananza takes a moment to find its feet, but once it does it's every bit as glorious as you'd hope from the brains behind Odyssey, Galaxy and the like. Few better feeling games.

Thanks for keeping your word @grahamsmith.bsky.social

After 12 years, I'm leaving RPS at the end of this month. This also brings to an end 8 years with Gamer Network, during which I was lucky enough to manage several websites, help with events like EGX, PAX and MCM under ReedPop, and more. Now it's time for someone else to lead RPS in a new phase.

I think what I love most about Nintendo consoles is how intuitive they are for families. [Spends four hours Googling for information Nintendo doesn't give you anywhere.]

Rematch puts "defensive stance" on LT, but press it during celebrations and it unmutes your microphone. Did this unknowingly last night and broadcast a YT video I was watching on a 2nd screen on comms until someone shouted at me. The video was about the manga Berserk and a scene with a horse iykyk

I'm sure the game developers at Microsoft appreciate hack journalists rushing to incorrectly announce their studio's closure for clout. That's how you be an ally to the workers

Long-term followers: this is me applying my RPS style to toys. Gags, analysis, diversions, existential crisis. Other folk: this is me trying to write about stupid toys in a way no-one else does. New subs very welcome, ofc! It's all free.

This is exceptionally dumb. Handing the Crunchyroll app to a kid means handing them a menu with 100 buttons that don't work, and you can only tell which after clicking on each of them twice.

Perfect front page layout on the Guardian today.

Following the cancellation of Hytale, I'm now looking for work after seven years at Hypixel Studios. Please reach out if you'd like to talk game design, worldbuilding, or creative direction. Or books, obviously. I also write books.

Gamer’s we’re moving away from this mentality in 2025. We don’t need official timelines. Sometimes things can just happen. Imagine your grandpa consulting a diagram to figure out when the Three Stooges worked as chimney sweeps versus working at the lumberyard.

milo ventimiglia being sucked into some sort of hell dimension in Black Ops 7 must be a familiar experience to a man who once played Rory Gilmore's boyfriend

going from watching Game Fest to watching Day Of The Devs

It's 2025 and there are four categories of videogame: Elden Ring, Team Fortress 2, Early Access horror game, and "for children". And the ones for kids are the only ones that don't look extremely dull.

L.A. Noire requires you to read subtle facial cues to tell if someone is lying

So YouTube agree that the content they’ve been hosting on their site for over a year *is* abusive harassment… enough to take down a victim’s video about it, but not enough to take down the abusive videos themselves.

Sony’s Japanese Minidisc ads with Jamiroquai are straight up iconic

No shade on someone making an earnest attempt to solve games journalism's woes, but I'm pretty sure "bring back coverdiscs" won't work. Source: I used to make coverdiscs and have since worked on several websites (PC Gamer, RPS, EG) that offer free games, betas, etc. in exchange for a subscription.

The Green Party don’t get as much media coverage as Reform because the continuation of civilised human life on the planet isn’t as interesting as cunts.

I'm hiring a UK-based Features Editor on @gibiz.bsky.social. I fully intend to continue the site's long history of exceptional original features – come help me make it happen! Link here: www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...

Doechii’s music video for “Anxiety” is EXQUISITE.

Fundraiser’s at that difficult “it’s stuck” point and I’m just a little over halfway to what I need to pay for fixing the house up and not be mopping toilet up and having to slop out each day. I’m super knackered and desperate. www.gofundme.com/f/rob-and-fa...

my entire adult life has been an exercise in "no matter who you vote for, you get david cameron". we live in the Eternal David Cameron timeline. i can't wait for them to brief on their plans to tax Sleeping Past 10am On A Saturday and close 1000 hospitals.

None of us will ever accomplish anything in our lives as great as these high school kids recreating the OK Go video to the adoration of their peers. I watch this every couple of months www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq7r...