A showcase from the Mouthwashing label is set for Oct. 20

Critical Reflex Time comes back on Oct. 20, and that date is nearly everything the publisher has put on the record. In the announcement reel, an animated host named Shiaru says hello from a fake '90s desktop while pop-up windows flash "GENRE IS A PRISON" and "BUY OUR GAMES!" The caption promises "announcements, trailers and updates."

I usually let a publisher's marketing stream pass. This one goes on the calendar because of whose stream it is. Critical Reflex is the label behind Mouthwashing, Buckshot Roulette and No, I'm not a Human, and its Steam page lists 22 games that aren't out yet. Founder Rita Lebedeva told Automaton last year that the team doesn't vote on submissions ("We go by who's willing to fight for it") and described the job as "collaborators, ritual facilitators, and sometimes midwives to monsters." That is how a netlabel or a small press talks, and it makes the stream closer to a label night than an ad break. You watch to hear the roster in one room.

The opening act is playable now. The day the date went up, TALLBOYS released a free demo of Militsioner, an immersive sim about getting out of a town watched by a Colossal Policeman, due in 2027. The giant sees everything, but the giant also has moods, and so does the town. You can anger, flatter, deceive, or romance the law, and a bouquet is a legitimate tool.

Killscreen wrote up two Critical Reflex games in September, Grindset T.V. and Inkblood, and I said then that the slate was turning into a beat. Oct. 20 is when the beat gets a setlist. Until the label posts a time and a link, its sign-up page promises you'll be first to see what's next.