Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 216

Welcome back to the future of nuclear warfare. It isn't pretty

The world's deadliest weapons are stuck in the '80s.

Make a living as a 1930s barber in this male grooming videogame

Have you ever seen one of those gross "girly" beauty games? They're getting pretty extreme these days. It used to be that you gave a princess a pleasant makeover: some blusher, a layer of foundation, perhaps a new lippy. But now you can pull Snow White's teeth out, shave Barbie's beard (I kid you not) and pull all the snot and hairs out of Princess Elza's nostrils. Yeah. 

Disgusting stuff, sure, but isn't this perhaps a little closer to what maintaining our looks is like? You have to take the zit-popping with the lash curling after all. That's just how it is. And I think this is what's currently missing from student project The Barber Shop. It has you working in a 1930s barbers where you shave the customers' beards to whatever combination of under-nose bristle and chin-strapped fur they want.

Let me accidentally cut a dude's face 

Given that you're meant to be a professional the cuts should be clean and smooth. You can achieve a rugged stubble by exclusively using the clippers while more demanding gents will require you to switch to a more precise razor for pencil mustaches and goatees. It is possible to hurt your customer by pushing the blade beyond the ears and to other parts of the face, but your mistake only produces a large red "-5." That's not enough.

(Image by Alpha Beta Gamer)

My most recent shave had me looking like a primitive cannibal after a particularly bloody meal. And thank goodness that I'm the only person who had to see that. I'd love to see The Barber Shop embrace this side of shaving and its potential for dark comedy, just as those girly games do. It's what made Surgeon Simulator so popular too. Let me accidentally cut a dude's face and see the blood drip down his cheek. I'm not a psychopath, honest, it's just that The Barber Shop is ripe for this.

After all, the students who created the game have used the Unreal Engine in order to give us the satisfaction of seeing each individual hair fall away. There's an effort to simulate the act of shaving here. But it falls a little flat as soon as you realize that this stern-looking guy you're shaving is impervious to the messier realities of shaving. At least let me smother him in shaving foam.

All that said, I love turning a full beard into clean skin in the game, which is the only pleasure I get from actual shaving, funnily enough. I'm useless at grafting the more experimental facial hair types but that also reflects my real-life experience of shaving. Hopefully these students continue to work on The Barber Shop and add more details—both pleasing and repulsive—to the ordeal.

You can download The Barber Shop for free right here.

h/t Alpha Beta Gamer

Risky Bison gives us the bovine-based financial sim we didn���t know we needed

Finding insurance on the plains with Desert Golfing developer Justin Smith

Foggy Shore asks you to contemplate even the smallest decisions

Cold, grey beaches are my favorite. When the mist rolls in, they can feel disconnected from the rest of the world, an isolated plane of white sand, water, sky. Sights and sounds stand out against the emptiness, turning every piece of driftwood or seaweed into a landmark along the shoreline. In Foggy Shore, you’re invited to spend five minutes on a tranquil beach, making small discoveries like these along the way.

The tagline of Foggy Shore is, “There’s nothing as quiet as a decision,” and here it’s true. You can choose to take the things you stumble upon, return them to the ocean, or leave them be, but because the choices are so easy to make, the decisions feel small and inconsequential. On your playful journey, it ultimately doesn’t matter whether you spend one minute or twenty minutes deciding to take or leave a piece of driftwood; the choice requires little thought and no qualms, and before you know it, you'll be off to the next point of interest.

At the conclusion of Foggy Shore, it asks you to think about other decisions that could be just as easy to make, but actually result in something tangibly positive, like listening to someone in need. It's a small gesture to you, Foggy Shores seems to be saying, but it can make a big difference to someone else.

Download Foggy Shores for free on itch.io.

LEGO Dimensions and the promise of toys, toys, toys

Think of LEGO Dimensions as a playroom.

Here are some images of policemen behaving badly (at least it's only a game?)

This is a post about our being in possession of a new cache of images of policemen behaving badly. Plus ça change, eh?

OK, maybe some context is needed here: The images in question are new screens from This Is The Police, which completed a successful Kickstarter campaign this February and is slated for a December release. The game tells the story of a police chief who, with six months until his retirement, decides to cash in on his position and power, legality be damned! The consequences can quickly spiral: people who sincerely believe they are carrying out their duties can do tremendous damage; just imagine how much can go wrong when there isn’t even the slightest pretense of professionalism.  

And now we have more pictures. They’re quite nice as far as images of social decay go. This Is The Police’s colours occasionally break from its mainly—and appropriately—brownish palette to great effect. But what really stands out in the latest batch of images is the game’s selective use of abstraction. This Is The Police never pursues photorealism, but different classes of people get different levels of humanity. More specifically, the police have faces and the citizenry is largely faceless. (One exception to this rule: People have faces in mugshots used by the police. That doesn’t really change the power dynamic. 

This Is The Police does not appear to be explicitly concerned with systemic problems with policing, but even its extreme portrayal of policing goes awry has a certain amount of resonance. Whenever an encounter with police does not end well, which is to say just about every day, some—but crucially not all—parties are allowed to keep their humanity. Some get to be family people with aspirations and interests. Others are “no angel.” You can guess who is whom. This Is The Police is not about Michael Brown or Eric Garner or Freddie Gray, but the pattern its visuals reference sure is familiar. 

See all the new screenshots from This Is The Police right here.

Become the manager of Nice Dudes modeling agency, manage all the nice dudes

Often, women are treated as commodities in videogames. Whether they're the player's reward or used as background decoration for the world, players are accustomed to seeing the female body bought, sold, collected, consumed, and traded. Of course, this isn't exclusive to games: advertisers often use photoshop to portray parts of the female body as literal objects, or use the female form as decoration to render their object more attractive. (It's starting to happen to male bodies too, but with less frequency and history than women).

Which is why the Nice Dudes management sim by Eeve Somepx feels like such a breath of fresh air. As a game which casts the player as the manager of a modeling agency (the Nice Dudes Modeling Agency, to be exact), which essentially renders these male bodies literal commodities to be traded, things could get pretty ugly fast. But Nice Dudes circumvents any and all ickiness with a smile.

rack up a debt faster than you can say Dolce & Gabbana 

Because while you do send your nice dude models out for jobs in exchange for money—using both their charm and rock hard abs for profit—there's one component to the management sim that keeps it from being gross. The model's actual agency and personality play a heavy role in whether or not you succeed. Like, say the job calls for someone willing to walk on stilts. If you send one of your dudes who's not very brave (i.e. if you ignore his human strengths and limitations) you'll rack up a debt faster than you can say Dolce & Gabbana. It's only by seeing your models as human, and ensuring they're safe and comfortable, that you can then profit from their rockin' beach bods.

Which is not to say Nice Dudes is a very serious game. Your dude-bros will find themselves in all manner of escapades, like needing to sell glue by pouring it all over their slick yet sticky bodies. Or, advertising the most expandable balloon ever made (which, coincidentally, my dude failed for being too enthusiastic about the blowing up a balloon part). Whatever it is that needs selling, you can rest assured the Nice Dudes Modeling Agency will be there to attempt (and usually fail) to sell it with some really nice dudes.

In it's current beta form, Nice Dudes is a short but sweet experience. Just be sure you think long and hard (that's what she said) before picking your nice dude, because if he's not the nicest dude for the situation, you'll wind up with even more debt to a loan shark. And no amount of abs and smeyes-ing will be able to save you then.

Play Nice Dudes on Windows here. And if you want to be a nice dude in the flesh, you can even buy the Nice Dude t-shirt.

Meet the net artist behind Danny Brown's chaotic, videogame-like visuals

"Sleepless nights and chaotic visual decisions."

You'll destroy the military-industrial complex from the inside out in Nuclear Business

Experience the cathartic joy of nuking your boss- and then turning him into a missile

Give in to the devil on your shoulder in Nuclear Business

In Nuclear Business, big business’ greatest enemy is itself

This game jam project is a stress ball for the digital age

Let the hate flow through you- and the financial district- in Nuclear Business

Simogo���s ���pure puzzle game��� seems to be hiding something

SPL-T has a secret.