BalanCity is a diamond in the rough. The menus and presentation of the game leave a lot to be desired, but the actual game, the act of balancing hospitals atop skyscrapers without accidentally sending your whole city into the ocean, is about as compelling as city-building gets. It’s no SimCity (2013
If the current presidential election has not yet driven you to drink, the first of three debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump scheduled for Monday (yes, today) may well prove to be the tipping point. Before it has even begun, it is already infuriating: one candidate is likely to be decla
Elevator pitches have the benefit of being ideas rather than actual things in the real world. With the right pitch just about anything can sound promising. Take communism, for instance—a system that, on paper, reads like an egalitarian haven, promising equality, fairness, and a stable life for every
Some may say that the platform genre is oversaturated, but then the hand-drawn art and hand-holding playfulness of Shu comes along to throw that argument into the trash. It’s due out for PlayStation 4 on October 4th with a PlayStation Vita version arriving before the end of the year too. So keep you
Being bored sucks. There’s many ways that we find ways to cure our boredom: videogames, books, music, watching a decent show or movie. For the 500-year-old vampire Remilia Scarlet, those petty activities are far below her. Her boredom is on a whole other level, one the likes of which her maid compan
Zipping along an elevated restaurant and opera house, there are flying cars, buses, and other ships. The sky is teeming with these vehicles, transporting Victorian-garbed folks to and from their destinations. This is the futuristic world envisioned by 19th century artist Albert Robida in Le Sortie d
Rejoice! The stars are right! The stars are right because they are being murdered. Sunless Sea (2015) introduced players to the lonely madness and terror of an underground sea. Its expansion pack, Zubmariner, is set to take players to the claustrophobic depths of that ocean on October 11. Now, the s
The game starts with a black screen. A woman’s voice, speaking in Japanese: “Real Sound. Kaze no Regret. This software brought to you by WARP Inc.” A string quartet, swelling and romantic, begins to play—press the start button, and the music stops suddenly with the sound of a bell. A light hiss of s
While we at Kill Screen love to bring you our own crop of game critique and perspective, there are many articles on games, technology, and art around the web that are worth reading and sharing. So that is why this weekly reading list exists, bringing light to some of the articles that have captured
This is an open letter to Lord Saladin—more like Lord Sala-didn’t think I was going to complain about your dumb dog rules, eh? Joke’s on you. You’re tired. Lord Saladin looms over you while recanting old tales of the Iron Lords. The push against The Fallen was long and gruesome. You made it out aliv
In last year’s man vs. nature (in space) thriller The Martian, Matt Damon’s stranded botanist looks into the camera and tells us exactly how grave his situation is. “If the oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just
If you ever had a favorite stuffed animal as a kid, you had one or two close calls where it was left somewhere a little too long and forgotten. Most of the time, an eagle-eyed parent would spot it and rescue it from the corner of the laundromat, or the rental car. Other times, it wasn’t so lucky, an
I am not much of a racing-game guy, unless it a) takes place in the future, b) has dinosaurs driving the cars, or c) has Forza in the title. The Forza series impresses, fundamentally, as a piece of craft. You just know that each of these cars was wheeled IRL into a room full of lasers to be scanned
“The old dog barks backwards without getting up. I can remember when he was a pup.” — Robert Frost, “The Span of Life” /// ReCore was supposed to be about a woman and her dog—her robotic dog. Its biggest fault is that it isn’t. Joule is part of a group of colonists sent to Far Eden after Earth becam
Even the best poker players are playing a game of chance. That’s exactly how it feels to play Landfall Games’ upcoming Clustertruck. No matter how good I thought I was getting at it, no matter how well I had done in the prior level, something unexpected would come along and put me in my place. Part
Existence is stressful. This is what the passage of time teaches us as we trade our carefree childhoods for a decision-ridden adult life. Modern life can fill us to the brim with anxiety. Our brains conspire against us, pumping our minds full of negative thoughts, paralyzing our bodies with indecisi
A handful of plucky AIs are looking to escape their virtual prison. They start by making a run on a couple of vaults. They’re not really recruiting, but the player stumbles onto their team. Hackmud is a heist game, but the characters are all teenaged computers. It’s wrapped up in cyberpunk ideas and
Every film studies student is forced to watch an infant in a carriage careen down a staircase to its death. They do this because it’s important. The Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) is a Cinema Studies 101-level text in film editing. As a theorist, Eisenstein,
There’s a close-knit cloud of terms frequently cropping up in the discussion of action role-playing games lately. “Atmospheric,” “minimalist,” “roguelike,” “pixel art,” et cetera. Hyper Light Drifter established its appeal almost entirely on the back of these signifiers. Titan Souls did the same las
As a kid, I was afraid of the dark. Afraid of the shadows that veiled the monsters that might swallow me. My imagination turned nighttime into a dizzying experience where I was constantly startled and petrified by every sudden shift of motion or shuffling sounds. I always hid underneath my blanket,
The recent publicity of prominent sexual assault cases has everyone on edge. It’s a hard thing to read about in the first place, let alone be inundated with day after day on social media or in real life. For assault survivors, it’s a million times worse than that. It’s understandable that the questi
The sixth and final installment in the Yakuza franchise, titled Ryū ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta (Like a Dragon 6: Poetry of Life) is looking to be a bigger, better caricature of itself. Yakuza 6 will bring the legend of Kazuma Kiryu to a close—but not without having a little fun first. Where we last
Joseph Perry, also known as Wick, has a background in biology; in particular, he’s studied neurotransmitter triggers in frog brains. He’s particularly interested in biological neural networks called central pattern generators—a rhythmic output system responsible, in part, for many movement and breat
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor (Windows, Mac) BY SUNDAE MONTH Similar to how Viscera Cleanup Detail used the role of a janitor to make players question the presumptions of a violent space-fari
At night, Shanghai transforms itself into a new city. Bars, restaurants, and small shops start to open in the alleyways and neon red lights begin to shine throughout China’s largest city. Its nightlife, as well as its economic growth, makes this city the best place to see how the country has changed
