Screenshot Saturday Sundays: Keep it clean, eat well and go for a walk
Wash, Walk and Chow Down
Screenshot Saturday Sundays! A virtual picturebook of holiday snaps from across the game development globe, delivered straight to Twitter's doorstep every seven days. This week, we're basically running down good lockdown practice: wash up often, eat well, and remember to take a nice walk now and again. Maybe don't go hopping on trains right now, mind.
Let's begin by getting some fresh air with Pattern, which is preparing for a full release on April 7th.
A self-described game about making games, Alice O took a walk down Pattern's procedurally-generated wilds last year. Galen Drew's dreamy landscapes seem almost deliberately accidental, with what little context surrounding the world reflecting a sense of finding meaning in hindsight. Or, perhaps, I'm reading too much into a two-line Steam description. Who could say?
That first free demo is still available over on Itch.io, with a full release on Steam next month.
I hope you're all remembering to wash your hands after you go outside, mind. In My Work Is Not Yet Done, that might not even be enough.
I adore so much about this on a surface level. The surveillance, the shuttering camera lenses and transitions, the outrageously stylish interface moments. But there's so much more going on in developer Spencer Yan's piece - a monochromatic, bureaucratic take on Dante's Inferno.
My Work Is Not Yet Done is but one of Yan's many works exploring his relationship with God, as explained in RPS contributor Edwin Evan-Thirwell's fascinating conversation with the developer on the horror of God in videogames.
Christ, that all got quite heavy. Here, take a seat, and we'll see about cooking up some dinner with Venba.
Artist Sam Elkana has nailed this very specific 90s Cartoon Network look, albeit with warmer tones than the Powerpuff Girls ever hit. Venba seems to be a cooking game about an immigrant mother from South India. It looks like the team's having a hell of a time cooking up dishes in preparation for dropping them into the game, too. No, your belly's rumbling.
Finally: I briefly noted Ivan "Nothke" Notaros' Thought of Train when we looked at Yugo Trip in a screenshot round-up the other week. Well, he's only gone and posted it in the tag, so I figured I'd give youse a peep.
I've always quite liked trains, y'know? Even made a game about 'em myself. It's just a shame they're so bloody rubbish here in the UK. I'm fond of the warm, intricate details of Notaros' train cab here, as block backdrops roll in and out behind dunes and hillsides.
Lovely stuff.