Last month, Streets of Rogue 2 set its Early Access date for August 14, but those plans have since changed. The sandbo??x roguelite sequel is now set to hit Early Access for all starting on October 22?.

The reason for the delay is pretty straightforward: according to developer Matt Dabrowski and tinyBuild, Streets of Rogue 2 si?mply needs more time for ?additional polish. The announcement states that the team is "committed to providing the best experience possible," even in this early stage, so we'll just have to wait a little longer to try it for ourselves. 

Part of that polish process involves putting the game through more thorough testing. As Dabrowski says of the new release date, "it will also give me time to conduct a large-scale pre-release playtest." His previous experience on the first Streets of Rogue taught him that this would be "ve??ry beneficial to development."

Procedural mayhem

The first game already had some pretty impressive scope to it, and it sounds like the sequel is going all out in that regard. Dabrowski previously touched upon how "stupidly ambitious" Streets of Rogue 2 is, ramping the procedurally-generated ??chaos up to absurd hei?ghts. 

There are plenty of hand-crafted aspects in the mix, too, and that complex blend could likely benefit from the additional attention this delay affords. With dozens of character classes and an open world that is purportedly over 10,000 times the size of one of the levels from the first game, it'll be interesting to see how it all comes together. In the meantime, anyone can take part in the aforementioned playtest, which will kick off in "late August or early September." You can sign up right here. 

The post Streets of Rogue 2 shifts Early Access ??date to add more polish appeared first on Destructoid.

Tinybuild and Matt Dabrowski have announced that Streets of Rogue 2, the anticipated sequel to the hectic sandbox game, is having its Early Access debut pushed back to October 22, 2024. It was originally planned to be released on August 14.

The press release states that Streets of Rogue 2 will take “additional time to sharpen its tools of destruction.�It doesn’t get any more specific with its details. In fact, when I initially read the PR, it sounded like it was excitedly announcing the launch date, and I had to re-read it to realize that it had an ??apologetic tone.

The original Streets of Rogue came out in 2019, and it currently enjoys a 96% “overwhelmingly positive�user review score on Steam. The game’s title should have been workshopped, and I had it confused for a different game for years before realizing that the two aren’t the same and that I should probably play Streets of Rogue. Then I set it aside because I’m a busy person and didn’t get into it for the first time until just now when I need?ed additional context.

The first game is sort of like a progression of miniature immersive sims, where you’re dropped on a randomly generated floor and have to c?omplete objectives using only the skills on hand and items that can be found in the environment.

Streets of Rogue 2 is taking this to a more open world. There’s farming for some reason. The open world is apparently 10,000 times larger than a level in the first game. It promises “uncompromised�freedom. It looks like how I would imagine a Saint’s Row game would be if it went 2D.

Streets of Rogue 2 i?s now targeting October 22, 2024 for ??release on Steam Early Access.

The post Streets of Rogue 2 gets explosive new d?elay, will ins??tead be out in October appeared first on Destructoid.

Atari has announced that they’ve acquired the Surgeon Simulator franchise under its Infogrames label. The press release suggests that this was done through an agreement with publisher TinyBuild rather than the original developer, Bossa Studios. TinyBuild purchased the IP in 2022.

The original Surgeon Simulator made a sizeable splash when it was released in 2013. Similar to Octodad or QWOP, it focuses on the humorous mishaps that ha?ppen when an over-detailed and inaccurate physics simulation is applied to a concept that requires fine motor skills. It wound up inspiring a wave of similar “simulator�concepts in the indie sphere.

This was followed in 2020 by Surgeon Simulator 2, which doesn’t seem to have been as po??pular with players. It focuses on multiplayer and has a campaign�I didn’t play it, if it’s not obvious. Having a multiplayer focus is a quick way to get me to skip over a game.

I did, however, play the original back when it was still called Surgeon Simulator 2013. It’s not really surprising to me that a sequel wasn’t as well received. The central concept is a lot of fun, and it’s still for ?a while, but it’s very one-dimensional. The joke is only funny for so long. I tried replaying it later and found that I was too adept at it for it to actually be entertaining anymore.

On that note, I’m not sure what Atari/Infogrames plans to do with it. It’s rather similar to their purchase of Totally Reliable Delivery Service, which had also been published by TinyBuild. The press release says, “Infogrames will seek to expand distribution, potentially develop new titles or content, and explore brand and merchandising collaborations as part of a long-term plan to preserve and expand the franchise.�/p>

Okay. I guess we’ll pot??entially see more titles or t-shirts.

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About midway through Kill It With Fire 2, DARWIN tasks you with powering a dimensional gate so you can finally end the spider menace for good. The catch? You have to squeeze your way through a vent to get a fuel cell. And it's not the only one. Here's how to complete all Vent Challenges in Kill It With Fire 2.

There are four Vent challenges in Kill It With Fire 2, ranging in length, difficulty, and reward. The first Vent Challenge is easy, an??d so far remains the only one necessary to the plot. But you can tackle the other three vents on the ship. Not only can you gain more fuel cells, but fastidious explorers can come away with rewards.

All Vent challenges in Kill It With Fire 2 and how to complete them

The first Vent challenge is tossed your way not long after completing the second dimension in Kill It With Fire 2 and busting through a door with a tank. DARWIN, the sentient tablet, says you must locate three lost fuel cells to have enough power to make it to dimension Alpha One. Apparently, the spiders have squirreled away the cells in vents and put them under the protection of powerful guardians. Yeah, it's Alien?, but with giant spiders. ??I don't know which is worse.

First, here are some tips on winning the challenges:

• Abominations are the size of a bulldog and are too powerful to beat. You'll need to sneak around them.
• Use your Radar tool to check on the location of an Abomination. Keep in mind that the range is not that far, so move slowly.
• The Vents are like mazes, so expect twists, turns, and dead ends.
• Dying is okay; you'll lose your ammo if you spend any, but there's no real punishment.
• Abominations have poor peripheral vision but will pause if you're close to being seen.
• You mostly navigate while crouched, but there are places where you can stand up and sprint. Feel free to do so, as Abominations don't seem to become alerted to noise.
• Large pipes on the ceiling often lead you to the exit.

How to complete Vent Challenge 1: Straight Shot (easy)

Items: One spacebux, one fuel cell.

The first Vent Challenge in the game is a breeze, even with the level 30 Abomination spider crawling around. You'll find it next to the Reactor:

Now, let's get this Vent challenge beat. Pause when you come across your first fork in the path, and wait for the Abomination to walk past you going right. Take the path to the left to the end where you'll find Spacebux on the floor.

Wait until the spider comes b?ack down the path and then turns a??round. Keep your Radar open to see when it's moving. Walk back into the starting duct to your right and wait for the Abomination to walk by again, going left. Leave and go right. Follow the large tubes on the ceiling until you find the fuel cell and exit.

How to complete Vent Challenge 2: Choose Wisely (medium)

Items: One weapon blueprint, one fuel cell.

The second Vent Challenge, 'Choose Wisely', is located in the Workshop. It's certainly tougher than the last Vent, b??ut only due to its name: Choose Wisely. Multiple paths are beckoning you onward, and most of them contain Abominations ready to jump you.

After entering the vent, you're soon faced with a long hallway. Some of the paths contain wandering Abominations, so keep your eyes peeled and Radar out. The paths that have spiders are obviou??s, thankfully. Also, with their poor peripheral vision, you can walk down the entirety of the hallway without having to avoid the spiders' gaze.

Walk down the hallway until you reach the third opening on your left. Go down this pathway to find the blueprint for C4. Watch out ??for mimic spiders, though; I had to kill two of them in this room.

Leave the room and turn left. Follow the pipes on the ceiling until they turn righ??t. Keep moving to find the fuel cell and exit.

How to complete Vent Challenge 3: Ring Around the Rosie (hard)

Items: One upgrade wrench, one fuel cell.

The third Vent Challenge in Kill It With Fire 2 is 'Ring Around the Rosie', located in the ship's Armory. As you may have surmised, the challenge consists of a vent in a square shape with Abominations slowly ?patrolling it. They move in a counter-clockwise motion, so the first spider you'll see will come from th??e left. There are also smaller spiders that throw off your radar.

After an Abomination walks past, turn right and follow it.?? You'll eventually come to a path to the right, but ignore it for now. Keep going around the ring until you hit an intersection with an opening to the left. Go dow??n it to find the upgrade wrench.

Now, go back to the ring but wait until an Abomination passes. Follow it out until you get to that turn to the rig?ht I mentioned and take the path. You'll eventually find the fuel cell and exit.

How to complete Vent Challenge 4: The Labyrinth (impossible)

Items: One tape recordin??g, on??e Spacebux, two fuel cells.

Now, the really icky part. The fourth Vent challenge, The Labyrinth, is the most difficult one yet. No, really. It's actually going to be tougher than the "hard" challenge we had before. There are twists and turns throughout. And the worst part? You need to learn when to be patient, and when to move. You'll find The Labyrinth in the Captain's Quarters:

Follow the ceiling pipes until you reach a four-way i??ntersection. Stop. Wait for the Abomination to walk by, going right. Now, head into the path and turn left. Stop when you get to the next intersection with paths going left and right. Watch the radar for the Abomination. When you see it moving away to the right, head down the left path.

Follow the pa??th until you reach a dead end. Wait at the end of the hallway, peeking your head out until you see the Abomination coming close. Be careful, as it will kill you the moment you step out too much. Wait for it to turn around and then start moving forward. Stop before the opening to the right. Watching your radar and wait until that first Abomination stops and goes the other way.

Walk forward, following that second spider, until you reach the first opening to the left with a red light and webbing. Nestle yourse?lf behind the web and wait for the Abomination to patrol back. As soon as it walks past you (heading rig?ht), leave and go left down the U-shaped turn. Take the first right into the alley with the red light and web. Hide there and wait for the spider to walk past, coming from the left. It'll turn around and then go back down the hallway. When it does, leave the vent and head down the path to the right.

Stop when you get to the next intersection and peek to the left. If you see an Abomination, wait until it turns back around. When it does, leave and go right. You'll find Spacebux on the floor next to some bones. Comforting.

Peek out and check to see if an Abomination is heading down the new path. If it is, wait for it to get close and turn ?around. Leave when it does, but check the path to the left for the last spider you juked. If all looks well, keep going until you can tak?e a left down an L-shaped hall with a blinking red light.

This spot puts you in a type of square-shaped ha??llway, with an Abomination patrolling around. Walk until the path splits left and right. When the spider is moving to the right, take the left path. Keep going until you find your first fuel cell.

Next, go back to that square-shaped hallway, but only after checking if it's ?safe. Return to the intersection mentioned above. Wait for the spider to travel away from you, going right, and then leave by heading down the right path. Follow the pipes on the ceiling and go straight. Walk until you reach the final fuel cell and exit door.

With that, you've completed all four Vent challenges in Kill It With Fire 2. For more, check out our guides on how to get the Minigun and all of the potion recipes in the game.

The post Kill It With Fire 2: How to complete all?? V??ent Challenges appeared first on Destructoid.

Since Godzilla has been a hot topic lately (no, Godzilla is always in), it's not a reach for games to reference the rad lizard. Kill It With Fire 2? throws its own hat in with Laser Breath, and here's how you c?an unlock it.

You unlock the Laser Breath equipment by completing the 'Meltdown' objective in the second dimension in Kill It With Fire 2. The quest is easy enough: Toss some radioactive waste into a nuclear reactor and win a prize! That prize being turning spiders to ash with a blue beam that fires from your m??outh. It's totally worth the radiation poisoning.

How to unlock Laser Breath in Kill It With Fire 2

To unlock Laser Breath, you need to have already progressed to the dimension Downtown Arachnitopia in Kill It With Fire 2. But there's a bit of a catch. You'll need to drop a drawbridge to the island with the nuclear reactor, but doing so takes 20 Compound X. At this point in the g??ame, you shouldn't have that much. You may need to return once you have enough??.

Once you g?athered 20 Compound X, drop the bridge and make you?r way to the nuclear reactor. It's hard to miss; look for the massive nuclear cooling tower between some buildings.

It's a bit dirty, don't you think? You should wash it down when you get the chance. Doing so might allow you to unlock the Minigun if you haven't already.

Activating the reactor adds the Meltdown objective to your clipboard. To complete the objective, you need to find and toss eight barrels of radioactive waste into the reactor. Look for the ??barre??ls below the tower and all around the buildings on the island. They aren't on any of the other islands in the level.

After you complete the objective, walk up to the react??or. If everything is ready, it should show you the activation button (the E key on PC) followed by '???'. Activate it, and get ready.

Laser Breath is unlocked, allowing you to fulfill your dreams of being a giant, radioactive death lizard. It comes with 200 ammo and is difficult to control. But that's kind of the point; Laser Breath is powerful, able to kill spiders and knock ??down buildings.

Have you ever imagined what happens when Godzilla sneezes? I do, and it keeps me up at?? night.

All Laser Breath upgrades in Kill It With Fire 2

Like other equipment, Laser Breath has two upgrades?.

• Controlled Breathing

  • Reduces kickback and increases ammo efficiency.
  • Requirement: Destroy buildings with Laser Breath (out of 30).

• Indigestion

  • Laser Breath deals increased damage.
  • Requirement: Kill spiders with Laser Breath. Large spiders are worth more.

The post Kill It With Fire 2: How to unlock Laser Breath appeared first on Destructoid.

As a dimension-hopping exterminator extraordinaire, your tools of the trade end up a bit eclectic. Have you tried killing spiders with a minigun? How about we get weirder with some black magic? Here are all the potion recipe locations in Kill It With Fire 2, and what they do

To craft recipes, you need to locate the cauldron in the second level of Kill It With Fire 2. It's around the corner from where you start in Artois Manor: A room lined with shelves storing in?gredients such as butterfly wings, beetles, and bon??es. This is where you can brew and unlock potions and drinks in the game. Ingredients for the potions are located throughout the manor, ranging from the cauldron room to the kitchen and beyond.

Creating all four potions will allow you to complete the 'Potion Master' side quest, opening up a cabinet door in the man??or's upstairs bathroom.

All potion recipe locations in Kill It With Fire 2

There are four potion recipes to find in Kill It With Fire 2. The first one is a gimme, while three others are hidden throughout other dimensions. Let's fin??d them all and celebrate the dark arts, together.

Potion Recipe 1: Spider Potion

You will find the first potion recipe in the cauldron room of Artois Manor. One wall in the room contains instructions on a blackboard detailing how to use the cauldron, while another blackboard reveals the Spider Potion recipe. Adjust the fire accordingly while tossing in the ingredients, and follow up with a stir of the ladle to the left of the cauldron. The Spider Potion is a necessary potion to ??create, as it helps you complete objectives in every dimension.

Spider Potion effect: Drinking the?? potion temporarily turns you into a tiny spider with a leap move on a cooldown. Use it to e??nter places your larger body can't, such as holes in the wall.

Potion Recipe 2: Rad Cola

The second recipe in Kill It With Fire 2 is located in the second level, Downtown Arachnitopia. ??On the third island, head to the central park area and tear into the rectangular, light-gray building in front of the green grass to fin??d the recipe for Rad Cola.

You may have some trouble locating all the ingredients for the potion. The bones are on the shelf in the cauldron room (you'll need to know the difference between a tibia and ?a femur), but the salt and p?epper are in the kitchen on the counter to the right of the stove:

For the "ashes of a loved one" (grim), grab the urn off the fireplace mantle underneath a picture of ol' g?am gam in the parlor:

Rad Cola effect: Temporarily turns you radioactive, which makes it so dead spiders are resurrected as zombie spiders. This is a good potion to use i??f you still need to complete th??e 'Undead Reckoning' objective on the HSF Vindicator ship.

Potion Recipe 3: Energy Drink

The Energy Drink recipe is found in the third dimension, HEM Foods & Furniture. You'll find the whiteboard next to the door between the Home Goods section and the Warehouse. But the recipe is incomplete. To unlock it, you need to complete the objective 'Reverse Engineered Recipe'. In other words, you have to run around the Home Goods section and locate seven hidden ??Energy Drinks.

Th??ey're only in the Home Goods section, scattered around appliances and hidden between boxes. Look in the corner across from the whiteboard, up on the ceiling light, and under the 'Wet Floor' sign. If you ha??ve the radar upgraded to reveal hidden items, this should be a breeze.

Once you found all the drink?s, the whiteboard will be complete:

Every ingredient you need, save for one, is located in the cauldron room. You can find the pineapple on top of the refrige??rator in the Artois Manor ?kitchen:

Energy Drink effect: The Energy Drink gi??ves you a 15-second speed boost. There is no limit on its use.

Potion Recipe 4: 1N-V15

The fourth potion, 1N-V15, is a tough one to track down, but you'll find it in the HSF Vindicator. You first need to have 35 Compound X and the Sniper? Rifle. Unlock the 'Captain's Quarters' in the 'Command Wing' of ?the ship and meander over to the window.

Zooming with the Sniper Rifle into the void reveals... a floating whiteboard with the recipe. Honestly, I'm impressed I even found this one. I was just looking t??hrough the window on a whim and saw it out there.

The r?ecipe is hard to see, so I have it fully written out below:

Recipe: Solution 1N-V15

1. Bring cauldron to a roiling boil.
2. Add one black cat.
3. Reduce heat, then add another black cat.
4. Wait until the potion turns pink, then reduce heat.
5. Add a third black cat.
6. Reduce heat to low.
7. Stir until potion thickens and turns blue.

Don't freak out! The 'black cats' needed for the recipes are act??ually just statues. You need three: The first one is to the left of the cauldron itself; the second is to the left of the fireplace ??in the parlor; and the third statue is on a table in the attic.

Solution 1N-V15 effect: The potion turns you temporarily invisible, allowing you to get the drop on sp?ider threats.

There may be more hidden recipes to fin??d, so keep experimenting.

The post ??Kill it With Fire 2: All potion recipe locations and what they do appeared first on Destructoid.

In Kill It With Fire 2, you hunt and kill many, many spiders �a lot of the time with fire. But what's better than fire? How about a minigun? Yes, you can add a Minigun to your arsenal. It's worth it. Here's how to unlock the Minigun in Kill It With Fire 2.

You'll first come across the Minigun in the third stage of Kill It With Fire 2, locked behind bars in some alternate-dimension IKEA. Its only crime? Being way too badass, no doubt. Activating the cell door will? tell you what needs to be done: "Objects Cleaned (0/10)." To free the Minigun from its prison, y??ou need to wipe the grime off of ten objects.

How to unlock the Minigun in Kill It With Fire 2

To clean the ten objects and unlock the Minigun in Kill It With Fire 2, you first need to track down the Pressure Washer. Thankfully, you should have done that as you entered the stage. You can find the Pressure Washer in the utility hallway between the Bedroom Showr??oom and Model Home exhibit in ??the HEM Foods & Furniture store.

It's at the bottom of a shelf. I suggest you hold the Q Key to open up the weapon menu an?d then bind it to a k??ey. You're going to switch back to it frequently.

With the Pressure Washer in hand, it's time to hunt down dirty items! Acquiring the tool will spawn dirty items throughout all the dimensions. Let's first take care of a few of them at the HEM store. Here's ??a map to help you out:

Dirty Item 1: The 'E' in the Main Showroom of the HEM

The room with the Minigun connects directly to the Main ?Showro??om of the store. Head there now and look to the left for the 'HEM' logo. Wash down the 'E' to get your first clean item.

Dirty Item 2: The crib in the Bedroom Showroom

Next, head to the Bedroom Showroom after the hallway that leaves the Main Showroom. Against the wall is a dirty c??rib that n?eeds a scrub.

Dirty Item 3: Lounge Chair in the Home Goods section

Head from the Bedroom Showroom, down the hallway toward the cafe, through the cafe, and make your way to Home Goods. There, you'll fi??nd a lounge chair that's se??en better days.

By now, you should be about ready to head back to the ship. Don't worry, there's plenty more to clean while aboard the HSF Vin?dicator??.

Dirty Item 4: The Captain's Quarters

At this point in the game, you should have enough Compound X to unlock most doors on the ship. If you don't have 35, see if you can complete some objectives on the ship. You can also go back to some older levels and complete any objectives you left behind. Try knocking out Memento Mori on the first level, if you haven't yet.

Once you have 35 Compound X, go to the Bridge and enter the Command Wing. Unlock the Captain's Quarters to the left. Inside, y??ou'll find a cage that needs some cleanin'.

Dirty Item 5: Exercise bike

Make your way back to the Hangar. On the way, stop by the rec room and hose off that ?filthy exercise bike. Towel off, people! It's the courteous thing to do.

Dirty Item 6: Orange crate in the Hangar

Next, head into the Hangar and clean the or??a?nge storage crate near the door to the Reactor Core.

Dirty Item 7: The chair in the Control room

You should have the Control Room unlocked at this stage. If not, work toward that before continuing. You'll find a dirty chair next to a DARW?IN panel.

Dirty Item 8: A filthy column in the Hangar

I wouldn't blame you if you never spotted this next one. Back in the Hangar, look up and above the Control Room. You should see a metal column tha?t looks out of place among its gray friends. Luckily, the Pressure Washer has a ??????????????????????????ridiculous range and will reach it. Use the teleporter up to the catwalk to get a better angle.

Now then, it's time to look for dirty items elsewhere. Travel to the first level of the game, Artois Manor. I sense there are more dirty things you need to ??c?lean.

Dirty Item 9: Clean your clock

To clean someone's clock can be t?aken as old-timey fightin' words, b??ut in this case, it's a good thing. Look for the dirty grandfather clock to the right of the staircase in the Artois Manor foyer.

Dirty Item 10: The Ottoman

With the clock n??ow sparkling, turn and go into the parlor to the left of the front door. Next to the piano is an ottoman that's just coated in filth.

??Once you're done, return to the Vindicator an??d then warp to the HEM store. Run (don't walk) to the Minigun and unlock the door. Your new friend is free and ready to chew through some spiders.

How to use the Minigun in Kill It With Fire 2

The Minigun is a powerful weapon in Kill It With Fire 2. Ol' Painless here has a 200-round clip and can kill many spiders large and small pretty damn quickly. The weapon also shreds most destructible objects, such as the buildings in Downtown Arachnitopia.

There are some caveats to consider, though. I regret to inform you that, despite how i??t may look, you can't spin the barrel and use the razer wire wrapped around it to turn arachnids into spider smoothies. I also regret writing "spider? smoothies."

Its firing is slow to start, as it has to wind up. You can hold the right mouse button to spin up?? the barrel, but it lowers your walking speed significantly. Thankfully, you can alleviate this problem and make the Minigun even more deadly.

Minigun upgrades

The Minigun has two upgrades you can unlock in Kill It With Fire 2.

• Tactical Back Brace

  • Improves move speed while spinning the Minigun's barrels.
  • Requirement: Kill 5 spiders without spinning down the Minigun (do this three times).

• Overheated Barrel

  • After a short time firing continuously, your shots ignite targets.
  • Requirement: Kill spiders with the Minigun. Larger spiders are worth more.

Overall, the? Minigun is a fantastic weapon. Go now, and?? make some smoothies.

The post Kill It With Fire 2: How to unlock the Minigun appeared first on Destructoid.

This gig didn't turn out as expected. First, you get kidnapped by a spaceship, and now you're in a haunted manor? Well, a job's a job. And one of your jobs in Kill It With Fire 2 is to pu?t some souls to rest with the 'Memento Mori' objective.

To complete Momento Mori in Kill It With Fire 2, you need to locate four items and place each one in front of the correct painting in an upstairs area in Artois Manor. Luckily for you, the items aren't that far away. The challenge, of course, is figuring out ??the order in which they?? need to be placed.

How to complete Memento Mori in Kill It With Fire 2

The Memento Mori objective is located up the stairs and in the back hallway of the manor in Kill It With Fire 2. You'll spot four paintings against the wa??ll here, each missing their subject. The shelves in front of the painting clue you in that something is missing and needs to be found. Indeed, there are four items belonging to long-dead Artois family members, and ?you need to locate them to complete the painting.

First things first, you must unlock the foyer by killing 25 spiders and activat??ing the door at the far corner of the dini??ng room.

The foyer is just beyond, with the exit on the right and a grand staircase to your left. Before heading upstairs and activating the Memento Mori objective, go to the right of th?e staircase and grab the chisel.

Take it up to the second floor and go around the wall to see all the paintings. Activating the chest near the table will reveal the objective on your clipboard. Now, let's start placing items! Put the chisel on the shelf in front of the second painting.

Next, walk down the hallway to the right of the paintings. At the end is a stand with a camera next to a lamp. Grab the camera and place it in front of the third painting.

Now, go down the left hallway but stop and turn left at the intersection. On top of the drawer at the end of the hallway is a tube of paint next to a lamp. Grab the tube of paint and place it in front of the first painting.

Finally, go back downstairs and grab the smartphone on the sofa to the left of the front door. Place the smartphone in front of the fourth painting.

With that, you have successfully completed the Memento Mori objective in Kill It With Fire 2.?? Open up the ches?t to reveal your Compound X prize.

The post Kill It With Fire 2: How to complete the ‘Memento Mori’ objective appeared first on Destructoid.

Tinybuild has announced Road Redemption developer Redemption Road Games�Kingmakers, which takes medieval battle simulation and perverts it with modern firepower. I can d?ig it.

The trailer’s pretty awesome, misdir??ecting with some shots of gameplay th?at could be torn out of any number of medieval RTS. Then, it cuts to someone driving a pickup truck through the battle, and it gets weirder from there.

You play as someone from the future who gets sent back in time to intervene in a war. You’re trying to prevent the apocalypse and simultaneously confuse archeologists by leaving bullet casings on battlefields. But beyond just enjoying a vast technological advantage, you also get to lead your troops, popping out of third-person combat to an overhead RTS viewpoint. You also plop down buildings, but judging by the guys running around during this sequence in the trailer, it looks more like Command & Conquer basebuilding than metagame citybuilding.

Blasting knights with modern firepower isn’t really anything new, but somehow, it isn’t very pervasive (yet). It’s an appealing concept. It was always very satisfying in the Civilization series to ha?ve a vast technological superiority and roll tanks over their archers.

Kingmakers also features co-op for anyone who has friends. It can be played with four people, each commanding their own army. I have t?o wonder what a c??o-op campaign would look like for the game.

For that matter, I’m curious about the single-player campaign. The trailer shows the player jumping back and forth between the medieval setting and the future. The footage focuses more on the core gameplay without really revealing what will tie it together. However, I really enjoyed Road Redemption and appreciate? the develope??r's approach, so I’m totally on board.

Kingmakers i?s planned to launch into?? Steam Early Access sometime in 2024.

The post Kingm?akers is an isekai shooter-strategy hybrid that has you wade into medieval b??attles with heavy firepower appeared first on Destructoid.

Unfortunately, the rough year of 2023 for the games industry continues. Indie Publisher Versus Evil announced on Twitter today that parent company TinyBuild has shut down the company and laid off all the staff. Head of Production Lance James confirmed the closure on Twitter as well.

"Welp. That was a fun 10 year ride. The entire Versus Evil team has just been laid off. Let me be clear - th??is wasn't a Versus Evil decision or choice."

- Lance James, Versus Evil Head of Production

Legal issues between the two companies recently ended

According to GamesIndustry.biz, earlier this month TinyBuild announced that it had settled a legal dispute with Versus Evil's former owner Stall Proof LLC. General Manager Ste??ve Escalante and Head of Production Lance James were also involved in ?the legal dispute. In the end, TinyBuild paid $3.5 million and legal costs to settle the dispute, and Escalante left the company shortly after.

Over a decade of publishing

Versus Evil was founded in 2013 by Steve Escalante, who served as Marketing Director at ZeniMax Online Studios prior to doing so. In 2021 TinyBuild acquired the company as well as its QA Studio Red Cerberus. Over the last decade, Versus Evil has published very popular titles including The Banner Saga from developer Stoic and Obsidian Entertainment's Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.

It's been as rough a year as I can remember for the gam?es industry. This on?e feels extra cruel as we're just a couple of days away from Christmas and a little over a week from the new year.

We reached out to?? TinyBuild fo?r comment but have not yet received a response.

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Publisher tinyBuild and developer Scythe Dev Team, the developers behind popular creepy restaurant simulator Happy's Humble Burger Farm have revealed their new title, Return to Northbury Grove. Those interested in some spooky goodness don't have to wait long because the new title is out...well...now. Players can download the free Action Adventure title for free on Steam.

VR Only

It appears VR is required to experience Return to Northbury Grove, as the notice on the Steam page indicates a VR headset is required. For now, it looks like OpenXR, ?Oculus XR, S??teamVr, and WMR are the supported platforms.

In Return to Northburgy Grove?, players take on the role of Liam Murphy, an aspiring actor determined to land the role of a lifetime at the infamous Rock the Warehouse music festival. When he gets there though, the concert grounds are desolate and Liam gets kidnapped and thrown into the basement of the Specto??r Forest Slasher's kill-house.

In classic Scythe Dev Team fashion, the visuals and audio are chilling, to say the least. According to the Steam Page, choices matter and can impact your survival i?n real time. Adaptive AI makes no two playthroughs the same.

I'm not quite on the VR train just yet, but this is certainly the kind of game meant for VR. It's like a slasher horror movie except in VR. After playing HHBF I know that Scy?the knows how to nail a creepy atmosphere, so I'm sure it's a journey.

Return to Northbury Grove is available now for free on Steam.

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Is your refrigerator running? Then you’d better run faster!

Horror is a fun little genre. It’s like drama, but it tries to open up your bowels. And we, as humans, are afraid of so many things. Some things we’ve come up with on our own terrify us. Sometimes? we’ve decided that things intended to cause joy instead cause fear. It’s great! You don’t even need something tangi??ble, life itself is one long horrifying experience!

The Fridge is Red is a bit of a departure from the usual grotesque slasher horror I’ve been indulging in lately. It’s psychological beyond just, “look out, that cat has got a knife!�It’s downright surreal, nailing what dreams would probably be like if I could dream about something aside from ??noodles. Unfortunately, while it h?appens to be consistently arresting with its visuals, it comes up short with just about everything else it attempts.

The Fridge is Red (PC)
Developer: 5WORD Team
Publisher: tinyBuild
Released: September 27, 2022
MSRP: $14.99

You play as some guy menaced by a fridge. Not directly. It’s one of those passive-aggressive fridges that seem to show up in visions. And while this cri??mson monolith is omnipresent, that’s about it. It might eat people. Who knows?

The plot throws down its cards a bit too early. The Fridge is Red is about grief. Whether or not you’re living out this grief or merely reliving it is sort of left to interpretation. That’s cool and all, but The Fridge is Red simultaneously gives you too few pieces of the puzzle and too many??.

The most frustrating part of its storytelling is how, when you ?conclude one of the game’s six chapters, it then replays them in a way that demonstrates how the events actually happened. So, while it’s vague about a lot of things, it also brazenly shows you what it’s symbolizing. I don’t know why. I like to think I’m just not getting something, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got the whole picture minus? some questionable spots.

[embed]//youtu.be/IoDT-8p1D4I[/embed]

That’s cool, I guess. My fridge is white.

Where The Fridge is Red really succeeds is in its visual style. Yes, it’s a low-poly affair overlaid with a VHS filter, and that’s not particularly novel anymore. However, its use of lighting and purposeful obstruction of details are used pretty well. Furthermore, it also does well at being convincingly surreal. It comes close? to being rather comical in quite a few cases, which only adds to this fever dream haze you’re stuck in.

I never found it to be all that scary, but there were plenty of moments that felt screenshot worthy. If nothing else, The Fridge is Red does some great atmosphere. The lonely gas station feels like an island in the darkness. The hospital feels sterile and imperson??al. Then it gets intentionally confus?ing.

It really loves Lost Woods-style puzzles, where you have to follow directions extra hard to succeed. It’s effective, but it gets ??rather tiresome quickly.

Something stinks in the fridge today

Actually, the puzzles are tiresome in general. It really leans on the horrors of mundanity. At one point, you literally stand in line for a few minutes, just waiting for the ability to advance. I get why they chose to? do it, but then later, you’re driving long, empty roads in the snow.

The Fridge is Red wants you to get lost. Four of its six chapters have you navigate some sort of maze. It’s also incredibly vague about what you should be doing. I’m a big enough girl that I don’t need it to hold my hand, but a little direction would have been nice occasionally. The snowy road chapter was the worst for it. Each path eventually leads back to the gas station, but only a spe??cific route leads to where you need to go. At first, this is easy enough. The gas station attendant tells you where to go. Then nothing.

For the last stret??ch of the chapter, I was told “go here�as an objective, and then just started driving down the various roads until I hit the one it wanted me on. It takes? a long time to get back to the gas station each time, the scenery is intentionally repetitive, and there isn’t even a radio. I was excited to get to that chapter and then was relieved to finish it.

I get all my best advice from appliances

The Fridge is Red feels like a lot of scenes that look really good in a trailer built around a game that isn’t interesting to play. Its puzzle design just involves finding a bunch of stuff to rub on other stuff, which is exactly what adventure games are, but they usually don’t feel like such a chore. In its attempts to tie in the horrors of mundanity, The Fridge is Red manages to make itself just feel mundane.

You can see greatness from the heights that The Fridge is Red reaches, but most of the time, you’re mired in its lows. At times, it feels like the central obstacle in the game is just trying to figure out what it wants from you. What order, what direction, and what interpretation you need to arrive at. There’s definitely vision here that wants to be delivered, but it needs to be paired with consideration for the exp?erience.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: The Fridge is Red appeared first on Destructoid.

Russian studio Konfa Games also acquired

American Publisher tinyBuild Inc, following a particularly expensive morning, has announced that it has acquired several IPs from indie studio Bossa Games. As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, the memeriffic "comedy physics" titles Surgeon Simulator, I am Bread, and I am Fish were purchased by tinyBuild? for an "upfront payment" of $3 million USD.

Following the closure of this purchase, tinyBuild will now manage developmen??tal control of all three titles, while Bossa Studios will move on to new projects. Despite the relative simplicity of the games, the former Bossa franchises have raked in millions of dollars in revenue since their respective releases.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6COQHqc4LE

"Since early 2022, Bossa has been focused exclusively in the genre of co-op PvE. We have been prototyping a lot, and now find ourselves in full production?? of titles we are pouring our hearts and souls into," writes Bossa co-founder Henrique Olifiers of the company's future. "This brought us to the question of how best to take care o?f our legacy, our existing games, and how to ensure they have a future of their own."

"Together with TinyBuild, we found a path that allows Bossa to dedicate its full attention to its new projects, while ensuring Surgeon Simulator, I Am Bread and I Am Fish have a new home that understands what ma?kes these games tick as well as we do."

In addition to the Bossa IP acquisition, tinyBuild also announced that it has purchased independent Russian studio Konfa Games for $5.4 million. It is reported that the Konfa team will now relocate to tinyBuild's Serbian headquarters, where it will continue development on its current projects, including the cartoonish roguelike Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder, which is available now on PC.

TinyBuild acquires Bossa Studios IPs for $3m [GamesIndustry.biz]

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Preview a couple of episodes before the full game launches on Steam in September

The lo-fi horror game scene is lighting up, and even as the short and often experimental games accumulate, I don't think we can have too much of a good thing. A new PS1-inspired psychological horror experience called The Fridge is Red is making the rounds with a demo on Steam ahead of a ??full launch on September 2??7. It's worth a look!

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcp2-a5gxzM

Part of my interest stems from the peculiar name, but as a Creepshow fa??n, I also like the premise of a horror story anthology confined to a sing??le video game.

The demo has two slices to check out �one where you're forced to? rummage through loose papers looking for magnets while an ominous fridge and a doll inch toward you when your head is turned, and another set in an office building with too many eyeballs.

According to publisher TinyBuild, the full version of The Fridge is Red will have six ep?isodes, including "abandoned hospital hallways, a frozen remote? highway, a dreadful cemetery, and a cursed elevator descending to the true depths of hell." The demo is a good teaser.

Are you gonna finish that?

[caption id="attachment_340531" align="alignnone" width="1920"] _{Not your typical level-select screen.}[/caption]

"With all the positive feedback we've received from audiences, we are motivated now more than ever to fully realize The Fridge is Red," said Artem Kudr?iashov, the lead designer at 5WORD Team. "We will continue to polish and finely tune this new entry in the horror genre to bring a new mysterious twist to players looking for a thriller experience."

Do not play this game if you're oppos??ed to confused squinting from time to time, as certain thickly-layered atmospheric scenes are intentionally tough to make? out.

But do look into it if you're on board for a creepier-than-expected low-poly ??horror game. I'd also say that going off the demo, the content is les??s seedy and outright gory than other indie horror titles out there �relatively speaking, of course. It's got some nastiness.

It's wild what?? your im??agination (and good sound design) can accomplish together.

The post The Fridge is Red is a horror anthology game wit??h a tri??ppy demo appeared first on Destructoid.

A fresh look at Splashteam's adventure platformer

Sometimes, you hear about a game, take a look, come away feeling positive, and put a pin in it. That's where I was at with Tinykin, a critter-flinging insect adventure from Splashteam and TinyBuild that's building off some of my favorite Nintendo titles �Pikmin and Paper Mario �in different ways. If you've heard of Tinykin before, you'll get where I'm coming from here; if not, this latest story trailer is the perfect jumping-off point. It's a polished-up package that's selling me on a game I thought I was already plenty sold on.

Let co-directors Marie Marquet and Romain Claude paint a pin????????????????????????????t-sized picture:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YVlrPvssCI

As they explain in the gameplay-filled trailer, Tinykin is a journey about a shrunken boy, Milo, in a strange land of insects. Unlike Obsidian's Grounded, though, this isn't a surprisingly scary survival out??ing �it's a more lai??d-back exploration-platformer vibe.

And those insect desig?ns! They look? so crisp and creative. Let's run through a few.

*Solaria*, huh? I already want to team up with this hero

Don't be alarmed, but there are religious dragonflies

And shifty-looking postal workers

Dung beetles can be cuties, too

Someone needs to keep the wine flowing

The orchid mantis aesthetic is top-notch

Even if the visuals were a bit lacking, I'd be pretty into this basic concept of roaming an unfamiliar land while strategically bossing around little pipsqueaks to carve a path forward and return home. But the clean 2D meets detailed enough 3D art direction makes a strong impression. In the tireless war for players' attention, we're at a point where good gameplay and good art aren't enough on their own in so many cases, so it's nice to see this pairing in a less commonly seen sub-genre. (Here's to you too, Wild at Heart.)

This isn't the first or last we've heard from Tinykin, but I thought it was worth a refresh.

For more, circle back on the prior gameplay trailer. Splashteam is aiming to release Tinykin in summer 2022 for Nintendo Switch, Pl??ayStation, Xbox, and PC.

The post Tinykin has ?some sweet insect designs, especially i??f you dig Paper Mario appeared first on Destructoid.

Get the censor button ready

If you ever wanted to experience what it's like to punch the buttons on a live broadcast, trying to keep it all together, Not For Broadcast is right around the corner t?o give you a chance. The full-motion video (FMV) sim game will get its official launch on Jan. 25, 2022.

Not For Broadcast has been in Early Access on Steam for a little while, but NotGames and TinyBuild are launching the full production at the end of the month. The 1.0 version update will include Episode 3, which has three broadcasts and over 17 hour??s of new TV content, as well as new adverts, story endings, challenges, and more.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ymYSgugpTY

The setup of Not For Broadcast is that you're a new technical producer for the???? National Nightly News. Using a production board, you'll decide which angles go live, which ads air, and which swears slip through without a blaring "bleep."

Of course, nothing's ever that ??simple. Things will go haywire, from electrical issues to little minigames?? you'll have to complete as the show goes on. And all the while, of course, making both the advertisers and the bigshots upstairs happy.

Fun fact: I worked at a news station for a little while! And having played the demo for Not For Broadcast a while back, I found its portrayal of the technical aspects of TV production—punching up cameras, switching li?ve during interviews—to be both fun and at least somewhat similar to how it really works. The granular aspects are smoothed out, but you will probably have moments where you lose track? of the interview and let a shot linger too long.

Reviews of the Early Access seem fairly positive on Steam and, from what I've seen of the story content, Not For Broadcast seems to take a satirical approach to modern society. And with all the FMV games coming out these days, it's fun to see one like this add a new twist to the genre. Like Night Trap but with news instead of trapdoors. You can find Not For Broadcast on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.

The post FMV?? news producer sim Not For Broadcast hits full launch this month appeared first on Destructoid.

Where's the beef?

We’re perhaps living in the best time for horror games. The PlayStation 1 set the standard, and then publishers started pushing for more accessibility and we wound up with games like Resident Evil 5, which I didn’t even find scary back in my days of being frightened by everything.

Now, we have a lot of experimentation going on. We have people like Puppet Combo and Chilla’s Art putting? out short experiences that are actually interesting and scary. Anyone can create a gross monster and have it pop out of a closet �it takes more skill to build a mystery around it.

Happy’s Humble Burger Farm sold me on its premise in a too-good-to-be-true kind of way. Combining the fast-food profession and horror could be the greatest concept I’ve ever heard of, but executio?n is key.

Happy's Humble Burger Farm (Nintendo Switch, PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox One)
Developer: Scythe Dev Team
Publisher: tinyBuild
Released: December 3, 2021 (PC, PS4, Xbox), Spring 2022 (Switch)
MSRP: $19.99

Happy’s Humble Burger Farm makes very little secret of the fact that things are very wrong from the start. The fact that you’re in some kind of simulation is a poorly kept secret, but the core takeaway is that you can’t really do much about it?. You have a job to do, and you have no choice but to do it. You get up, go to work, serve food, then return home. A rather common reality!

However, something even darker?? than immor??al corporations lurk within the simulation. Strangely twisted things walk around, but ignore them and get back to work.

It’s an interesting framework to a mystery and? is an effective satire of corporate dominance. It takes things to its ridiculous extreme where workers are only worth as much as their efficiency, and customers are faceless drones. The corporations influence reality. If they say something is new and exciting, you’d better get lined up. Never mind the human cost, the planned obsolescence, the environmental impact, the shady practices hidden behind the curtain. Your life is worthless, and can only be enriched by the world’s richest. And if you don’t play your part, you’re an inconvenience.

[embed]//youtu.be/SN4zl8LLQz8[/embed]

It’s to that end that I found Happy’s Humble Burger Farm to be more humorous than scary. The world presented to you is preposterous, as flimsy as the simulation around you. You can explore New Elysium City in your off-time (which is as much time as you want, there’s no day/night cycle). You can discover its weird Truman Show-esque props and see right through its pretense.

It’s all set around a Mickey Mouse type of cartoon that started in the golden age of animation and then spun off in all directions. Happy the Humble Heifer and friends aren’t just the mascots of your workplace, they also have their own dark hist?ory and ties to your fabricated prison. A lot of this backstory is found in the supplementary information.

Radio shows, television shows, and conspiracy-laden flyers found around town all explain what’s going on. Your primary goal, however, is to escape the simulation, and you don?’t need all? that subtext to do it. What’s there enriches the experience, because it is a bizarre and nightmarish tale that Scythe Dev Team has chosen to tell, and a lot of work has been put in to make it equal parts confusing and engrossing.

I was initially disappointed that the actual jo??b portion of the game doesn’t remain front and center. Largely, going to work does two things: it advances the events of the world and it gives you money. As mentioned, there’s no day/night cycle, so you can finish work and push the game’s narrative as far as it will ?let you before you need to go to work again and advance things further.

While it’s unfortunate that the fast-food aspect is only used as a storytelling (and combat) mechanic, there’s no denying it works. Every horrific encounter you find yourself in is largely solved by preparing food, sometimes under great duress. I can’t believe I’m writing that about any horror game, it’s genius. You cook the patty, build the sandwich, all while the world is trying to kill you. I’ll take it over smacking zombies with a pipe an?y day of the workweek.

Happy’s Humble Burger Farm, as a result, isn’t a long game unless you take your time. Four to six hours, maybe. It’s not going to make you repeat the daily grind ad absurdum. It lets you get acquainted with the skills you need before moving on. It’s always surprising. By the time I thought I saw?? everything, it threw in another twist while never becoming confusing.

If you really want to serve customers in a spooky greasy spoon, however, finishing the game unlocks an endless mode. This just drops you at a corporate restaurant and has you command the fryers until you drop. Since the game proper doesn’t squeeze everythi??n??g it can out of the gameplay, this is an appreciable feature. I just wish it went a bit further and added in some of the life simulator elements to make it feel more like a horrific grind.

You also probably won’t find much challenge in Happy’s Humble Burger Farm. Almost every mechanic in the game can be served with extra cheese. Making money isn’t difficult, stocking up on life-giving supplies isn’t hard, and foresight in some areas will allow you to prepare and make things very easy for you. Unless you?? really suck at serving orders, it’s not a game that’s going to make you sweat.

It’s not a very tight game, but it is made by a small team that is working on fixing the remaining bugs. I played through twice, the ?first time a month ago. A lot of the issues I ran into the first time thro??ugh were already fixed during my last playthrough. It can still feel a bit rickety at times.

On the other hand, it did make me dream of a multiplayer ex??perience where the players not only need to serve food but also help each o??ther survive the night. Room to grow, I supposed, but I’ll be restless until that dream is a reality.

In my eyes, Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is a genius game. A horror game tied to the drudgeries of life isn’t a new concept. Even the idea of avoiding the wrath of cute mascots has been done before. However, Happy’s Humble Burger Farm does it with ?such dreamlike depth and panache that I can’t help but be impressed. I doubt this will be the last time I don the ugly apron and sling fattening food, and I just know there are more pieces of the mystery waiting to be scraped off the grill.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Happy’s Humble Burger Farm appeared first on Destructoid.

Fast-food thrills and chills

[Update: Happy's Humble Burger Farm is releasing on December 3 for P?S4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam, priced at $20, while the Nintendo Switch version is aiming for "early 2022." The release date trailer has some endearingly rough gameplay.]

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7IP38I6wYU

Give me some of those creepy PS1-era vibes any day of the week, and I'll be in a good mood. The low-poly horror scene, in particular, has been coming out with some fascinating gems lately. Happy's Humble Burger Farm has my attention less for the at-first-glance Five Nights at Freddy's costumed creeps, and more for the light management sim conceit. In this first-person horror adventure game, you've got a burger join??t to run.

Admittedly, my indie-horror-game radar isn't as calibrated as it used to be, so this is the first I'm hearing of Happy's Humble in general �that goes for the original proof-of-concept on itch.io with faux PS1 box art (Happy's Humble Burger Barn) and the upcoming, expanded, TinyBuild-published game for PC and consoles (Happy's Humble Burger Farm).

??When you aren't frying up some fast food for customers, putting out fires, and taking out the trash (which is, no joke, the main draw for me), you'll "stalk the streets and storefronts of New Elysian City, [uncovering] audio logs and research pages to figure out the mystery of the place you call home." If you mess up too many orders, spooky shit?? will ensue.

Apart fr??om the main story mode, there's also an Endless option that's restaurant-focused.

The?? charmingly janky trailer and screenshots really sell the whole vibe, to the point where everyone should ??instantly know where they stand with this game, conceptually.

This nasty poster seals the deal:

Is it the most original concept? No. But it's new enough, and I like the way it's comin?g together. Even though the new game will be more fleshed-out and probably more well-rounded, I feel like I need to dig up the original version �it's calling my name.

The post Horror cooking game Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is out Dec. 3 appeared first on Destructoid.

I didn't expect to like the potion-crafting mechanic this much, but it's fun to plot out

After seeing it on the Steam top-sellers list today, I only intended to dabble in Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator, a newly-released game about creating potions for fun and profit from niceplay games and TinyBuild. Welp, 90 minutes later, that sure was naive.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV5LXRZqQ9g

I'm not sure about your history with browser-based games in the Flash era, but it was a time when I'd take a chance on unassuming games and wind up playing obsessively until I'd seen and done everything. Potion Craft hit me in a similar way �it has a simple but very effective illustrated style and a laid-back "friendly shopkeep" vibe that sucked ??me right in. And, I'm surprised to say, the potion-crafting mechanic is pretty fun to figure out.

With an up-and-coming shop, every day you'll pluck plants from your garden, combine them in a ton of potential different ways to concoct potions as efficiently as possible, and sell them t??????????????????????????o meet customers' requests, some of which are hazy at best. There's some light XP-based progression unlocks (e.g., to improve your haggling or trading prowess), and some bigger goals like an Alchemy Machine to work toward, bu??t that's the gist.

The mechanics of Potion Craft are easy enough to grasp �this is a mouse-based game where you physically drag ingred??ients, mash 'em up, plop them into a cauldron, and heat up the mix, rinse and repeat??. The trickier part is making the most of your harvested (and purchased) ingredients each day; figuring out the optimal use of what you've got and what you ideally need to deliver. If you can keep every would-be customer happy, you'll have a great reputation. But if you try and hand them the wrong type of potion, or you just don't have the ingredients you need that day and you have to refuse them, they'll be grouchy.

_{The haggling mini-game is the most "active" part of Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator.}

About those potions: instead of mindlessly grabbing a bit of this and a bit of that to make a particular blend the same way every single time, Potion Craft allows for �and eventually demands �more creativity. When you're brewing, you'll see a map with some good icons (like XP-granting books) and some bad i?cons (like piles of skulls a??nd bones).

Each ingredient has its own pre-determined "path" it will form on the alchemic map,? and by strategically combining ingredients, one after the other, you'll be able to "build" a route that lets you snake your way around to avoid the potion-ruining spots and ult?imately land on a final marker that corresponds to a potion type. While that's a pretty wordy way of breaking it down (honestly, consult the trailer), in practice, it's easy. There's depth, though.

_{X marks the spot. In this example, if I get to the heart marker, I'll end up with an oft-requested healing potion.}

What's interesting is that you have a lot of control over how these "routes" are built on the map �you can brute force it with a bunch of repetitive ingredients that cover little ground but aren't zany and hard to plot out, you can use the raw ingredient or crush it to alter the length of the trail, and you can add a bit of water to your cauldron to nudge your position on the m??ap back toward the starting point. It's a pretty novel mechanic for a crafting game, and combined with the wider shopkeeper sim progression, it's a fu?n blend.

Once you've created a potion, you can save the recipe, at which point you no longer need t??o manually assemble it again (assuming you have the exact same ingredients).

_{If you line up your potion exactly right, you'll end up with a higher-tier result.}

After my 90-minute session, I ranked up a few times by consistently selling?? the right potions without turning too many folks away, and I checked off all of the goals in the first two chapters of the Alchemist's Path book, so I made a good dent. At the same time, the rate at which I'm progressing has slowed significantly. The long game �the big-picture strategy �is still eluding me. Operating my shop in a sustainable way, without playing so fast and loose that I run the risk of ?eroding my alchemist's reputation, will be tough.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Early Access? ??Let's just save this for a rainy day."

I get that, and I feel the same way about the majority of work-in-progress games, but everything here is polished up, and I think there's enough content alr??eady to warrant not waiting. It's a satisfying loop, even if there are some missing features (certain buttons have a "still in early access" caveat) and the options (including controls) are sparse.

Speaking ??of which, I really dig this visual breakdown of what's next fo?r the game:

_{Some of the longer-term hooks aren't finalized yet. I'm most interested in the new planting elements.}

And more context ab??out fu??ture updates from the developer:

"In the current version, the player is already able to interact with the Alchemy Machine, which will be the main tool to progress towards creating a Philosopher's Stone. We are going to introduce more potion effects, recipes, ingredients, and potion bases. The process of ru?nning the potion shop will also expand, as players will be able to upgrade their garden, work on their reputation and develop their alchemist talents. To make sure making potions doesn't become a routine, certain customers will request potions with special conditions. We also have plans for numerous quality of life improvements, for which we would need a lot of player feedback."

If you're intrigued, Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator is on Steam for $13.49 during launch week, so ?you're better off buying now, or strapping in f??or a long wait for eventual sales.

I came in with little to no expectations �I had heard of this? game once before, likely from a showcase, but never dug into it �and I've already b??ecome a fan. It's a gem!

_{[This impressions piece is based on a Steam Early Access build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Potion Craft is a relaxing alchemy shop sim that’s surprisingly strategic appeared first on Destructoid.

Impressions from the just-launched public beta

It turns out that it's surprisingly enjoyable to send a horde of puny pink humans to their all-but-certain doom. I've lost many an overcommitted battle in real-time strategy games, and all that failure has prepped me well for Despot's Game, an upcoming PC auto-battler.

I've had an eye on this game for a bit now, but now's the time to strike �you can play the open beta on Steam today, and there's an Early Access release?? date too: October 14.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V6yigF-45Y

The setup goes a little like this: you've got a few highly disposable humans in a roguelike format, and you'll send them strolling through room-based dungeons in search of enough ??food to keep them going, reinforcements to replace their fallen kin, and a bunch of ridiculous (often pop culture-inspired) gear to help them stand a better chance.

Along the way, you'll make decisions about which perks to unlock (or buy in a tech tree), and how much of your currency from battles should be spent on food (to avoid an eventual debuff if your squad runs out) versus buying new? soldiers, who can be equipped with pricey weaponry. There's a bit mor?e going on, especially when it comes to synergies and creating a balanced team, and things only get trickier when your RNG isn't ideal.

The weapons �and class-based t?ransformations �are silly and anachronistic, and that's a big part of the appeal. Your squad could have magicians, a Sailor Guardian, a boxer, a dar??k summoner, and a dude with Kylo Ren's lightsaber. It's all legally distinct, of course.

As for the battles, they are, as advertised, automatic. You'll ei??ther manually position your people before each room's skirmish or click a?? button to let the system reposition the formation, and then once you click "fight," you just sit back and watch the carnage unfold.

In the aftermath, you can hold onto the weapons of your fallen troops and give them to new unarmed recruits, but if everyone is wiped out, that's the end of the run. Thankfully, each time you do poke your head in a room, you can get a sense of the threat level with red skull symbols of ??varying sizes hinting at what's ahead. And boss rooms are marked.

As your troops fight, they'll auto level up, but you're never going to feel too attached. Aside from the findable/buyable perks (known in-game as "mutations") that can help you get more out of each shop, buff up your team's mana reserves, or even make yo?ur "newbies" explode when they die, there's also a system where classes u??nlock powerful abilities, like tanks forcing aggro, or a faster attack speed, when you have multiple units of an archetype in the mix. It's another layer to consider when buying peeps in the shop.

Above all, it feels like team compositions �recognizing your streng??ths and weaknesses at any given moment �is the name of the game. It's always shifting.

Despot's Game might sound really simplistic, and unless I'm missing a ton of nuances (I know I'm missing some), it kind of is �but the art and animation can be mesmerizing to watch. I didn't mind the hands-off premise. Keep in mind, I'm not an Auto Chess guy.

The interactivity presents itself elsewhere, like exploring, but not over-exploring �you burn food ev?ery time you enter a room on the way to the floor's boss, and you may need to sa??crifice some of your people for more meat if you're in a pinch. You'll also sometimes try to make the right call in silly text-based multiple-choice encounters with, for instance, a stray untitled goose that you can try to peacefully catch or mercilessly shoot.

If you get to the end (I routinely succumb to the zombies, so hopefully you fare ?better), your army will go up against other players in neat leaderboard-based asynchronous fights.

No??rmal difficulty is the only setting in the beta, while other main-menu selections like Easy, Hard, Impossible, Hunger Games, an?d Mutagens are grayed out. You begin with just the Classic squad (a sword, shield, and crossbow), which isn't as memorable as other potential unlockable starter groups with "cultists" or "eggheads."

I'm not sure I can picture that much long-term appeal to Despot's Game, but even if it's missing those one-more-run progression hooks that help cut through eventual repetition, it's entertaining while it lasts. This Steam beta is the perfe??ct chance to try it out.

The post I keep sending my zany armies to their doom in Despot’s Game, but that’s kinda the point appeared first on Destructoid.

This game looks so smooth in motion

Pikmin 4 or no Pikmin 4, at least we got one promising new take on the creature-commanding action-strategy game concept at E3 2021. Tinykin showed up this weekend from TinyBuild, and it looks fantastic for fans who have wanted this sub-genre to blossom beyond Nintendo. Heck, I bet it'll look great even if you haven't ever played Pikmin.

//youtu.be/8yZPiPhrqwk

Tinykin is a shrunken adventure from developer Splashteam in whic??h a boy named Milo?? has to strategically chuck little creatures to get around a huge house.

Not unlike Pikmin, the Tinykin can group up to lug around objects, bust open doors, and even form a tower for you to climb up. There seems to be a greater emphasis on puzzle-platforming, and I appreciate just how fast Milo can zip around the world, to say nothing of traversal options like ziplines, a hovering bubble ma??neuver, and a skateboard.

This game got its start as "Sbirz," and it's planning a 2022 release on Steam. I'll be following along! And if you haven't heard of Splashteam before, the studio is best known for the platformer Splasher; before then, some of these folks worked on Rayman Origins.

There have been more than a few games at E3 2021 with a blend??ed 3D-world-meets-2D-character art style, and I'm digging the trend.

The post Tinykin is a fast, springy, cute new platformer take o??n Pikmin appeared first on Destructoid.

We have five copies to make our point!

Come one, and come all (heh) to another lovely giveaway! Today we have five copies of Hellpoint on Switch to give to you lucky folks (courtesy of the fine folks at tinyBuild). Released last year on PC, and back in February for Switch, this souls-like sci-fi/horror game is pretty cool in my opinion. It's had some good word of mouth, and if you also game on PC, you can take the stand-alone story for a test drive for free on Steam. No Steam? Let's go to the official blu??rb for an info? dump: 

"Hellpoint is a dark and challenging action RPG set in a heavily atmospheric sci-fi universe where the line between science and occultism is blurred. 

Once a pinnacle of human achievement, the Irid Novo space station has fallen. Its ruins are now overrun by cruel interdimen?sional entities acting as puppets of the malevolent Cosmic Gods.

You have been created by the Author, organically printed on Irid Novo and sent on a mission to find out the unholy series of events that led to the catastrophic incident known as the Merge.

• Irid Novo is a massive interconnected world full of mysteries, hidden passages and secrets within secrets - all for you to explore in any order you like. More dread and shivers awaits you as you travel deeper into the darkest corner of this forsaken colony.
• Dozens of melee and ranged weapons and armor pieces to suit your playstyle. Every weapon has unique special abilities that unlock the more you fight with them.
• A fascinating new sci fi universe reminiscent of classic sci-fi movies, set in the aftermath of a massive quantum cataclysm and complete with a deep lore and goosebump inducing soundtrack.
• The space station orbits in real time around an ominous black hole that triggers various dynamic events such as boss appearances, horde assaults as well as modified enemy stats and positions."

With the blurb deployed, are you interested? Want to know how to win? Easy: Leave a comment below telling me what your favorite sci-fi/horror setting is. Game, movie, art, books, I care not. I want to hear what you like. Five winners will be randomly chosen (not at all based on their choice of Alien movies), and then I shall shoot ya the codes. Contest ends 4/9/21 @ 11:59 PM, PST. Good luck! 

P.S. I really will pick randomly, but man? shall I judge you ?on the Alien picks. 

The post Giveaway: Hellpoint (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Destructoid.

This is a HUGE prize, y'all

In today's contest you can win a Cartel Tycoon ultimate prize pack, including a copy of the game, a Razer accessory bundle, and a chance to appear in the game!

Kiddos, we've got a doozy today! Publisher tinyBuild is gearing up for the release of their drug lord simulator Cartel Tycoon, and just dropped a surprise Uncut Earliest Access session on their site. Bold! And what good is a launch without giving away some f??????????????????????????ree stuff on Destructoid?

Well, they really brought it with this one. tinyBuild and developer Moon Moose are offering up not only a copy of the game, but a super sweet Cartel Tycoon prize pack (complete with briefcase and goodies), a Razer accessory bundle (including a keyboard, mouse, and headset), AND a chance for you to appear in the game as an NPC! This is defi??nitely one of the biggest prizes we've had here, so tie a rubber ??band around your arm and inject this contest into your bloodstream!

Cartel Tycoon puts pl??ayers in the shoes of a fictional drug lord hellbent on taking over the drug trade in their country. Grow your crops, distribute them, and manage the business side of things while also having to worry about rival gangs and barons trying to muscle in on your turf. Take over territories, bribe officials, recruit lieutenants, and run your empire to b?e the biggest in the world.

Insert a lazy Breaking Bad or Scarface reference here.

Alright, to the prizes! Five lucky runn?ers-up will be given a copy of the game so they can live out their wildest, druggiest dreams.?? If you're our lucky grand prize winner, you'll receive:

• A copy of Cartel Tycoon
• A Cartel Tycoon Kingpin Starter Kit, featuring a briefcase full of goodies
• A Razer Ornata Chroma keyboard
• A Razer Naga Trinity mouse
• A Razer Kraken Ultimate headset
• A chance to work with the developers to be featured as an NPC in the game

I told you this prize was dope! (*ducks incoming toma??toes*)

To enter to ??win, use the widget below to leave your name and email address. You can enter daily. Click around for ways to earn bonu??s entries, and be sure to comment below telling us how awesome this prize is.

We have one ultimate prize pack to give away; the winner must have a United States shipping address. We also have five runner-up keys for the game, available to anyone. Win??ners will be drawn Friday, November 6.

Cartel Tycoon is available now in Uncut Early Access at the game's official website.

Contest: Win? a Cartel Tycoon prize pack, Razer computer acc?essory bundle, and a chance to be an NPC in the game

The post Contest: Win?? a Cartel Tycoon prize pack, Razer computer accessory bundle, and a chance to be an NPC in the game appeared first on Destructoid.

This jerk is gonna lower your property value

It might not be the first name that comes to mind when you think about successful video games, but tinyBuild's Hello Neighbor has been an absolute tour de force since its 2017 launch. It has 30 million downloads across its various platforms, which has allowed it to venture into spinoff games, young adult novels, comic books, and an animated series. It's the sort of franchise that does bonkers numbers on YouTube among young audiences who like watching Five Nights at Freddy's Let's Plays.

All that success is why tinyBuild recently threw another $15 million at Hello Neighbor, acquiring developer Dynamic Pixels and investing more into non-game projects. Inevitably, a proper numbered sequel, Hello Neighbor 2, was announced today.

Hello Neighbor 2 doesn't feature the same burly mustachioed creepshow from every other Hello Neighbor game, but rather a crow-like birdman. It's the same antagonist from the recently-revealed Hello Guest game which takes place in an abandoned theme park. However, it's unclear if that's even a real game or just an elaborate tease; the link in the trailer now redirects to the Hello Neighbor 2 Steam page.

The defining feature of Hello Neighbor 2 seems to be its open-world setting. The original more of less confined the player to the proximity of an increasingly-elaborate house. The seque??l gives you free re?in of the town of Raven Brooks as the bird creature stalks your every move.

If that sounds like your cup of tea, you can register for the alpha on the Hello Neighbor 2 site. It's only announced for PC and Xbox Series X right now, but that's likely to change. Given how much money the orig?inal made, the sequel is bound to spring up on every platform possible.

The post Hello Neighbor gets an inevitable ?sequel, but this time the neighbor is a beaked birdfreak appeared first on Destructoid.

Also Legend of the Skyfish 2

One of the things I enjoy most about mobile game is it allows me to experiment with titles that I couldn't see myself paying full price for on Steam or console. Like Goat Simulator. I got that for my Android five years ago for a buck and considered it at the time to be the best dollar I'd ever spent on mobile. Because while Goat Simulator is not a good game??, it's certainly a worthy distraction, a time waster elevated abo??ve the rest.

It's the same for the recently released Totally Reliable Delivery Service. Based on trailers and gameplay video, it's not something I'm particularly interested in paying $15 to play on Switch and even though it's?? free on Epic Games Store, I just don't see myself sitting down at my computer to boot it up. It just makes more sense to ??me to play it on mobile, even if the final product is often exasperating.

Totally Reliable Delivery Service
Developer: We're Five Games
Available On: Android, iOS

I brought up Goat Simulator in the lede of this Mobile Monday because it and Totally Reliable Delivery Service share a common bit of DNA. Both titles exude goofy, chaotic charm thanks to their liberal use of comedic physics. In Goat, it was the titular creature's tongue that catapulted it across each stage, often reaching ridiculous heights. In Totally Reliable Delivery Service, it's the crazy momentum of your mover that will lea??d to hi-jinx.

Movement in TRDS reminds me of those old arcade games where everything was controlled by a trackball. It's a weird feeling and can take a few moments to get used to, especially on mobile. Movement is controlled on the left side of the screen while actions such as jumping, diving, and grabbing are controlled on the right. The object of the game is to make deliveries that range from something as simple as "drop a package in a box" to "deliver this fish to the restauran??t." To grab an item, you'll need to press the individual hand buttons on the right side of the screen and lift it with the arm buttons.

Some items are too heavy to be picked up by hand. When you get one of these deliver??ies, a vehicle will pop up next to you to help with the task. Just like with a package, you have to use the hand controls to manually take control of the vehicle. Some are simple to get the hang of, such as the forklift and helicopter. I had less success flying the plane or working the fish launcher.

I only got to experience the free version, which limits you to just a handful of delivery missions and a single area of? the final game, but it did enough to get me interested in seeing the full product pending some improvement. The movement in certain situations can be infuriating and your mover's inconsistent jump heights resulted in a lot of tri??al and error. There are also a lot of pieces of geometry to get stuck on. Finally, this is the first game I've downloaded to my Google Pixel 3A that frequently runs poorly with a framerate that needs to be sorted out. Get all that fixed and I can see making it my new distraction for when I'm at the office.

Totally Reliable Delivery Service is available as a free-to-start title on mobile with the full game available for $4.99. A deluxe bundle costing $9.99 is also available that will unl??ock all the DLC as it's released.

Legend of the Skyfish 2
Developer: Mother Gaia
Available On: iOS

A few years ago, as I sat waiting for the arrival of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I reviewed a little game called Legend of the Skyfish. It was an inoffensive little game, one that hooked onto a gameplay concept and stretched it into a three-hour adventure. I didn't think much of it and figured most people would f??eel the same. However, it must have done well enough for the developers because now there's a sequel that's exclusive to Apple Arcade.

The original Skyfish utilized a fishing pole and its hook for combat and puzzle-solving, basically acting as Link's sword and hookshot combined into a single tool. In Skyfish 2, it's more of the same. Not much has changed since the last outing into this world, but there are some small improvements to be found. You can craft new armor and weapons that vary up the combat slightly. Different lures can be purchased that change the function of your fishing pole. Traps are more plentiful this time around and the improv??ed 2D art direction, particularly in the characters, is certainly a step-up from the last go. 

The world is also more fun to venture through this time around, even if your journey is overly linear. One of my complaints with the last game was the similarity between loc??ations and the developers have gone out of their way to make this adventure far more varied than before.

Unfortunately, the improvements end right about there. Combat is still braindead simple as are the boss encounters. While it's fun to lure in an enemy and smack them to death, something that feels second nature when playing with a c?ontroller, within an hour I'd had my fill of just about everything. Also, my iPad nearly died as running this thing at the highest graphics setting devours the battery. Still, it's not the worst way to kill an afternoon.

Legend of the Skyfish 2 is available on iOS thro??ugh the Apple Arcade subscription service.

_{(Premium priced games featured in Mobile Monday were provided by the developer. Free-to-play games were downloaded directly from the App Store or Google Play.)}

The post Mobile Monday: Totally Reliable Delivery Service appeared first on Destructoid.

Shipping and handling included

Totally Reliable Delivery Service is one of those names that should be in scare quotes -- or at least half of it should. "Totally Reliable" Delivery Service is more accurate because hahaha nothing about this clumsy-??ass bear is reliable at all.

There's a new contender in the ridiculous physics mayhem genre. Totally Reliable Delivery Service is all about getting a package from Point A to Point B and watching everything go off the rails in between. It's the open-world irreverence of Goat Simulator combined with the ragdoll awkwardness of Human: Fall Flat. Invoking t?hose two names migh?t mean it's destined for YouTube stardom.

You, however, aren't restricted to only watching. There are some pretty good options for playing Totally Reliable Delivery Service for free. For starters, it launched as free on the Epic Games Store through April 8; it's a forever-type deal too, not just for a limited time. It's also available as part of Xbox Game Pass. Lastly, the iOS and Android versions are also both free.

For anyone who doesn't have the means to get Totally Reliable Delivery Service for free (or who just wants to play elsewhere), it's on all the consoles too. The PS4, Switch??, and Xbox One versions are all $15.

Totally Reliable Delivery Service [Epic Games Store]

The post Totally Reliable Delivery Service is like a Goat Simulator + Human: Fall Flat combo, and it’s free on Epic appeared first on Destructoid.

Bring out your dead

It's been a while since we've heard anything about Graveyard Keeper, tinyBuild's upcoming simulator about life as a medieval mortuary master. But unlike its subject matter, Graveyard Keeper i??sn't dead as new gameplay footage shows there's more to life in this macabre game than its titl??e implies.

Graveyard Keeper's recent gameplay trailer focuses on the daily life of its main character. There's plenty to do in addition to burying the dead, like performing autopsies, exploring dungeons, and even farming some crops. As expected from a simulator, Graveyard Keeper offers a series of upgrades?? and unlocks, allowing players to improve their skills and expand their ?body-burying empire.

But what's most interesting about Graveyard Keeper isn't its novel spin on medieval life; it's what you can do with the dead. According to tinyBuild, players can be less-than-ethical when it comes to disposing of bodies, be it for financial gain or as an act of sheer laziness. Pawning limbs and tossing bodies into a nearby river aren't exactly skills you should list o??n a resume, but when it comes to dealing with corpses, no harm, no foul.

Graveyard Keeper is scheduled to release later this year on PC and Xbox One. Would-be grave tenders interested in playing it earlier can sign up for alpha access on the game's website.

The post There are plenty of ways to get rid of a body in Gravey??ard Ke??eper appeared first on Destructoid.

It's getting more and more crowded in that eShop

In case you thought not nearly enough indie developers and publishers were jumping on that sweet Switch money train, tinyBuild announced today it's bringing some?? of its most popular games to the system??. During a short, audio-malfunction-riddled live stream, the publisher confirmed it's porting over six titles to the handheld hybrid. Those games are:

• Punch Club
• Party Hard
• The Final Station
• Streets of Rogue (also confirmed for Xbox One)
• ClusterTruck
• Hello Neighbor

Each game announced will retail for $14.99 except Hello Neighbor which will go for $39.99. The first of the bunch, The Final Station, is expected to release this month with The Final Traitor DLC included. I've heard nothing but good things about Punch Club, so no doubt I'll be picking that one up this May. After watching the trailer for Party Hard, I doubt I'll be able to ??ignore it once it hits Switch this Summer.

The post tinyBuild adding six more titles to Switch’s indie repertoire appeared first on Destructoid.

BioShock Infinite is kind of cheap, though

If you're looking for an eclectic collection of titles to kick start the new y??ear, this latest Humble Bundle is sure to tickle just about any fancy you could find. Called the "Staff Picks" bundle, this collection of titles spans so many different genres that I'm surprised there is even a recognizable name in the bunch.

For $1, you can nab Punch Club, Tempest and LiEat which is actually pretty damn good for the price. At the "Beat the Average" tier (currently sitting around $6), you can get BioShock Infinite, Beholder and Aragami, which is also not a bad deal. The final $12 tier gets you SHENZEN I/O and a $2 Humble ??Monthly credit, though you need to be subscribed to Humble Monthly to receive the last bit.

While I can't see every person actual?ly enjoying all of these games, you'd be hard pressed to find a more broad collection for the same price. It is always good to try new t?hings, so why not give this bundle a shot?

"Staff Picks" Bundle [Humble Bundle]

The post The Humble ‘Staff Picks’ bundle contains an odd collection of titles appeared first on Destructoid.

We can't stop feeling alright

In Party Hard, you break up raucous parties by committing mass murder. Party Hard Tycoon is a spin-off taking place in the same world with the same irreverence. Although I never got to see the knife-wielding maniac from the original game, I'm choosing to believe at least one of my parties end??ed in mayhem, just like I'm choosing to believe both games have Andrew W.K.'s blessing.

I'm not much of a partier in any sense of the word, but I do know my management sims, and this one was described as being similar to Theme Hospital, a game I keep going back to even a decade after its initial release. Party Hard Tycoon is much less frantic, but I can understand the comparison, especially in terms of managing your space and your budget. The fact that it shares some similarities with Theme Hospital is a good point of reference if you're considerin??g this game.

Party Hard Tycoon (PC)
Developer: Pinokl Games
Publisher: tinyBuild Games
Released: October 19, 2017 (Early Access)
MSRP: $9.99

In this colorful retro management sim, you're a fledgling party producer taken under the wing of a more established producer who makes it clear that she has better things to do than help you. She's in charge of the tutorial, presented through text messages that pop up in your inbox. She'll explain a few things and then give you an objective, like setting up a light show or making sure at least 10 people show up to your party. If you succeed, she'll rewa?rd you with cash and extra partygoers.

I would recommend sticking with the tutorial not only for the rewards but also because nothing is explained otherwise. Some of the mechanics aren't easy to decipher early on, and there are?n't many tooltips to help you. Even with the tutorial, like most management sims, you'll pick up on the game's intricacies simply by? playing it enough.

Similar to other tycoon games, your goal is to widen your area of influence. In this game, that translates to owning mor??e venues. You start with only ??a couple, but you'll earn more as you progress and gain the ability to host higher-grade parties, which means more resources and money to spend. To get to that point, the game operates on two major mechanics: social media likes and hype. Likes are self-explanatory. The more successful your party is, the more likes you'll earn, netting you more fans who will show up at future parties.

Hype determines the success of your party. You accumulate it by placing entertaining items and hiring personnel who encourage maximum fun. Not enough hype and peop?le will leave, complaining to their friends about how sad your shindig was. Word will spread, no one else will come, and you'll have enough le??ftover alcohol to drown your sorrows in.

It took me a few restarts before I got to the point where I wasn't losing money on every party. You'll learn by trial-and-error and it's okay if you lose out on a few gigs, but outright going bankrupt makes things rough. Don't go into the game expecting to host the craziest party imaginable right off the bat. I quickly learned to start out spending the bare minimum -- speakers for every room, a beer keg, and some seating. As your parties grow more popular and lucrative, you can buy fancy decor, host parties at flashier venues, and become the Party God.

You want to aim for that sweet spot -- the right combination of venue, marketing, entertainment, goods, and personnel. If you do that, you mi?ght just hit the top of the hype meter, and that's when things really get crazy. This game is all about fun, and it refle??cts that with style and a killer soundtrack.

Partygoers and events are randomized. You'll see cameos from pop culture icons, who you often have to send your security after. You'll also get texts from quirky characters who will give you extra objectives, adding some nice variation to the endless partying. There's a good dose of comedy in both the party events and the character texts, and it should probably go without saying that if you liked the campy humor of Party Hard, you'll enjoy it here too. 

My biggest issue with this game is the same one I've had with a few other management sims, which is that it's interesting and enjoyable while you're still figuring it out, but then it becomes repetitive quickly. Once you h??ave the mechanics down, the complexity feels lost ?and the parties start to become boring. It would benefit from some additional content, whether that's more events at parties or extra gameplay modes.

Perhaps the repetition can be viewed as an allegory for the thrill of the party lifestyle wearing off after a while, leading you on a quest for meaning before you inevitably make your way back to the dance floor. In other words, I'm guessing I'll keep playing this until it gets old, take a break from it, and then eventually go back to it. Same as Theme Hospital, but maybe not quite as much.

Party Hard Tycoon is expected to be in Early Access for three months according to the Steam page, where you can purchase it for 10% off at $8.99 until October 26. With Early Access games, it's important to keep an eye on the Steam Community because fixes and impr?ovements are constantly being made, and the devs are listening to feedback. A few of the issues I had during my playthrough have already been addressed, and as of the most recent update, the Party Hard Killer is ready to crash and slash your ??party.

_{[This Early Access review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Early Access Review: Party Hard Tycoon appeared first on Destructoid.