Screenshot Saturday Sundays: Snowboarding simians, neo-noir diners and an actual mystery
Who is P. Michalski, anyway?
Screenshot Saturday Sundays! Our weekly fishing trip through an ocean of game jams, prototypes and passion projects. After noticing a particular palette in my screenshot tenure thus far, I've decided to veto the colour orange this week. Had to be done, I'm afraid. Instead, we've got snowboarding simians, time-hopping detectives and a real blast from the past.
Kicking things off... I don't suppose anyone's got a couple quid I can borrow for the arcade?
[-[ DEEP BLUE ]-]
|=| TITAN LEVEL ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED |=|Once a thriving human metropolis, it is now entirely submerged. Only the ruins of ancient towering structures break the surface.
||#screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev #lowpoly #psx #madewithunity|| pic.twitter.com/cOAnp5h94r
— Modus Interactive (@ModusPwnin) March 7, 2020
Modus Interactive is a familiar name to anyone who frequents the retro indie scare scene, appearing on the Haunted PS1 Demo Disk with drug-fuelled cat horror Neko Yume. They're not only interested in spooks though - pegged as a "don't shoot 'em up", their latest game is a stylish side-scroller about gathering intel and keeping your craft safe from an onslaught of enemy fire. It looks - and sounds - effortlessly convincing.
For all the cold and wind and rain we've suffered the last few months, we've had a pitiful amount of snow up north. Still, I'm not convinced any of Slopecrashers' simian snowboarders are wrapped up well enough to be spraying powder like this.
The animals now look at each other and at other interesting things around the track ??#gamedev #ue4 #indiedev #indiegame #gaming #games #screenshotsaturday pic.twitter.com/ww2ZNpnav6
— byteparrot ? (@byteparrot) March 7, 2020
I've a real soft spot for snowboarding games, even when they're not pushing a zoo down a cold hill. I somehow never ended up playing SSX back in the day, mind. Instead, my brother and I replayed the same demo of TransWorld Snowboarding on Xbox, which I'm just learning was developed by arcade kings Housemarque. Huh!
Byteparrot's zookeeping-on-ice affair looks like it'll focus more on racing than freeform score-attacks, but it's scratching the same itch to get back on the virtual slopes.
After all that excitement, I think it's time to sit back, grab a drink, and watch eight hours pass in the blink of an eye. Wait, what?
Want to pass some time? Waiting for dusk? Find a diner or bar, and watch the world go by. #ScreenshotSaturday #GameDev #IndieDev #egx #egxrezzed pic.twitter.com/E2nqSaHGXp
— Shadows of Doubt ? EGX Rezzed (@detectivesim) March 7, 2020
Neo-noir detective game Shadows Of Doubt is being developed by Cole Jeffries. Not normally the sort of thing I'd go for, honestly, until I caught an earlier #screenshotsaturday post showing some phenomenal seat-scooting. Now those are the sort of mundane details masterpieces are made of. Shadows Of Doubt will be joining us at EGX Rezzed in a few weeks - one to check out if, like me, you're unreasonably excited by a small chair-shuffling animation.
Finally, we've got a real enigma here.
➕#SCREENSHOTSATURDAY #GAMEDEV #INDIEDEV pic.twitter.com/IAXDWeIcYq
— PRDXCL (@PRDXCL) March 7, 2020
This Twitter account has been posting pictures of something called PRDXCL - along with truly bizarre, cryptic nonsense - for half a decade, under the development from definitely-real human being "P. Michalski".
The running theory is that this is the next game from Lone Survivor developer Jasper Byrne, despite him reportedly canning then-titled "New Game Plus" in 2012. PRDXCL's social accounts popped up in 2015. They've posted a new image of this hazy, 3D-with-sprites styled RPG a scant handful of times each year, along with truly cryptic nonsense. I honestly can't tell if this is a long play or some next-level shitposting.
I HAVE NEVER FAILED ANYONE IN MY LIFE BEFORE, AND I WONT START NOW..... DEAR BENEFICIRY
— PRDXCL (@PRDXCL) January 27, 2016
Another mystery to keep an eye on, then.
