If you’re a history and government nerd like me, you’d probably be hard pressed to find a franchise that better appeals to your love of society building and tough moral quandaries than Frostpunk. Thankfully, developer 11 Bit Studios is cooking up another depressing city management simulator with Frostpunk 2, and from the 30-minute demo I saw, they appear to be doubling down on gut-wrenching decisions and brutal difficulty, and it’s got me positively giddy to get my hands on it. The demo I saw was focused solely on the freeplay mode called “Utopia Builder,” so any details of the dedicated story mode remain a mystery, but after seeing the fascinating new direction they’re taking that focuses on politics, faction management, and greatly expanded building, I’m already extremely excited to don my winter jacket and dive back into a fresh new layer of apocalyptic snow.
Galacticare Preview – Hospital management that’s out of this world
12.09.2023 - 14:37 / thesixthaxis.com / Out Of
When the treatment for a particularly nasty condition involves patients being sent into a ‘boning chamber’, you know you’re in for a good time. And the fact that this is featured in Galacticare tells you a fair bit about what this game is – an intergalactic riff on Theme Hospital and Two Point Hospital that has the same sense of pun-filled humour (just not usually quite so risqué).
Where most hospital management sims will have your doctors with their feet firmly on the ground, Galacticare shoots you up into outer space to tend to the ailments and needs of a wide variety of alien races.
This is where Galacticare really shines, with seven different species that all stand in stark contrast to one another, and each on having specific traits, such as preferring well-maintained rooms or being pretty sanguine about long queues. From giant insectoid Xill to small and furry Tenki, hand-walking Kouber Baly, and even beings that look like voids of stars, they’re all thoroughly distinct in terms of visuals.
Because of that, Brightrock Games describes the aliens as being more of a canvas onto which the different diseases are painted, with the vast majority of illnesses and maladies being intra-species. When you consider how different they are in terms of size and attributes, that’s not too far off having to do seven times the work for each condition, even (or especially) when that condition means that bones and brains are exposed to the outside world.
So that boning chamber, eh? What’s that really about? Well, it’s not going to see the game getting an R rating or having to break out pixellation effects, that’s for sure. It’s actually not smutty in the slightest (outside of the name), as patients step into the room to have their skeletal maladies cured by way of… a giant robot dog eating them and then completely replacing their skeletons before spitting them back out again.
It sounds so innocent when you put it like that, and especially when Brightrock decided not to put the stereotypical alien penchant for anal probing into the game.
As a management sim, the added layers of complexity to managing multiple species is balanced by some gameplay niceties. Sure, you can still end up with a hospital that leaves patients dissatisfied, but you can also optimise it all the more by employing doctors of a particular species to match what you’re able to provide in terms of facilities. You can also just use hologram doctors which don’t have stamina and needs, but with lesser performance.
You’ll also have room templates to help with quickly stamping out a batch of treatments, and there’s a light god game layer, thanks to having consumable items like the Stabilising Solution, Energy Drink and Repair Kit that you can quickly spend to
Every October 2023 Video Game Release Date (All Games Out This Month)
October 2023 kicks off the beginning of a big holiday shopping season filled with fun new video games, including many heavily anticipated releases such as , , and . As the weather is beginning to turn colder, these can be perfect games to curl up with while enjoying combat or exploration in the virtual worlds they offer. The full list of every game releasing in October gives a good spread of genres across all platforms to offer something for everyone this autumn.
Spotify introduces Auto-Generated Podcast Transcripts; Know all about this new feature
Are you the one who loves to listen to Spotify podcasts but finds it difficult sometimes to understand the words and accent? If yes, Spotify has brought you an exciting upgrade. In order to enhance the user experience of its extensive podcast library, Spotify has announced the rollout of auto-generated podcast transcripts. This innovative feature is set to expand to more podcasters on the platform in the upcoming weeks. Know what this new feature of Spotify will offer you:
Come chat about Hypnospace Outlaw this Friday for RPS Game Club
Hold on, before you read any further please listen to this video for some appropriate set dressing. Done? Alright, cool. Hello! This is your friendly reminder that we will be discussing September's RPS Game Club pick Hypnospace Outlaw this Friday, September 29th at 4pm BST / 8am PT. Thanks to our fancy live blogging technology, we'll be able to talk about the game together in real-time, not unlike a group of strangers in a late 90s chat room.
16 Best PC Anime Fighting Games That Are Out Of This World
Anime series are known for their intense battles. Good versus evil is constantly in conflict within them. That makes them perfect subjects for fighting games, and these are among the best on PC.
46-foot asteroid heading towards Earth today, says NASA; Check out this space rock called RD15
Asteroids are a small, but inseparable part of our solar system, but they possess a massive potential for destruction. Therefore, NASA is on a continuous mission to track asteroids and study them in order to take preventive measures in case the threat is serious. NASA actively monitors asteroids to safeguard Earth and enhance our understanding of their paths as they hold many secrets. When NASA's telescopes detect a new Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA), the agency's astronomers gather observational data and share it with the Minor Planet Center. Subsequently, the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) utilizes this information to compute the asteroid's probable orbit around the Sun. To monitor asteroids, NASA astronomers have developed a next-generation impact monitoring algorithm called Sentry-II in order to evaluate NEA impact probabilities efficiently.
Check out this extremely thoughtful indie horror game simulation of shitting
Spencer Yan's My Work Is Not Yet Done is a narrative-driven investigative horror game that combines elements of the survival and simulation genres with a plot exploring "the imbrication and dissolution of human identities/meanings within uncanny wilderness", to quote the project's Github page. It follows the final days of Avery, last surviving member of a doomed hunt for the source of a strange transmission, and sees you performing complex acts of maintenance upon environmental sensors, while picking through journals and other found documents so as to "to discern the most viable 'truth' behind both Avery's mission and the signal itself".
GTA 6 leak: Know about this BIG feature coming to Grand Theft Auto 6
Rockstar Games recently commemorated the 10th anniversary of GTA 5, its open-world action-adventure game which has also become the second best-selling video game of all time. While GTA 5 remains ever so popular, fans have been scouring the internet as well as asking Rockstar for some sort of an update on GTA 6 release date. In February 2022, wishes of GTA fans came true (sort of), when a leaker known as 'teapotuberhacker' posted 90 early development footage of GTA 6 on GTAForums. Although the videos were shortly taken down, rumors about the alleged GTA 6 content spread like wildfire, and we're still discovering new things about the sequel to GTA 5 from time to time.
Attention, Starfield players! You need to know about this Elite Series 2 deal
It's been a morning full of leaks for Xbox. Thanks to its lengthy legal battle with the FTC, we now know about a refreshed Xbox Series X design dubbed "Brooklin", as well as a new controller that might be on the way with precise haptics and modular thumbsticks.
Star Citizen update brings out-of-this-world immersion
Star Citizen is an exciting space game that places players amid the stars where they can experience immersive combat, trading, and more. Cloud Imperium hopes to offer interstellar adventures like no other online game has with Star Citizen‘s full release, and has been working to frequently update the alpha build for fans currently traversing the stars. The developer has just announced the massive upcoming Alpha 3.20 update, revealing that the patch will bring full HDR support to the game.
Steam Deck users hear me out; this Acer monitor deal is for you
I’ve been a Steam Deck owner for over a year now, and using the handheld with an external display is a game changer. Don’t get me wrong, I love curling up on the couch with a cosy indie game, but pairing the portable with a docking station and external display effectively turns it into a full on desktop PC hybrid. Of course, some of you out there might not actually have a spare screen at your disposal, but I’ve stumbled across an excellent Acer monitor deal that could transform the way you use Valve’s portable powerhouse for less.
Resident Evil 4 Remake's Separate Ways and Mercenaries DLC out this month
Resident Evil 4's Separate Ways campaign and Mercenaries mode update are coming to this year's acclaimed Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC remake on 21st September — and the main game's long-awaited VR mode will hit PSVR2 this «winter».