Touching down first is a wonderfully clunky modular lander from developer Heinn. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings I MUST JUICE#indiedev #gamedev #screenshotsaturday pic.twitter.com/TfSrFQO2gW — ｈ▒ｉｎｎ (@heinn_dev) June 6, 2020 Good user interface design is woefully underrated, I reckon. While Heinn has been prototyping this untitled low-fi spaceship lark for a few weeks, the addition of some flickering, staggered text gives everything a wonderful retro-futuristic vibe - the sort of thing I reckon Amanda Ripley could run on Alien: Isolation’s clunky old motion tracker. A small thing, sure, but it adds some unexpected physicality to what looks like a solid little ship assembler. You can try to pet this dog, sure - but that doesn’t mean he’ll let you. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings — Keane Ng (@keanerie) June 6, 2020 A Shiba Story, shockingly, is self-described as a game “about life with a Shiba Inu”, from developer Keane Ng and their own Shiba Inu. There’s a lovely picturebook quality to the presentation, all soft-colours and light vignettes. The game strands our hapless lead with a Shiba named Sunday (fitting, for this round-up), and tasks you with working out how to take care of your new four-legged friend. Having looked after my partner’s brother’s terrier over the new year, I no longer envy A Shiba Story’s protagonist. Dogs are hard work - who knew! It is entirely ill-advised to be popping off to the beach under current circumstances, I know. But I’ll make an exception to sit a minute in Sluggish Morss: Pattern Circus. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings — Jack King-Spooner (@king_spooner) June 6, 2020 It’s been a minute since we last checked in with Pattern Circus, Jack King-Spooner’s next D.I.Y alien adventure. As a follow-up of sorts to freeware gem Sluggish Morss: Ad Infinitum, Pattern Circus’s feverish trail follows eight characters across a darkly comic - and somewhat melancholic - future. Kickstarted back in 2018, the Scottish dev’s latest flaunts the same raw, handcrafted construction as past games Dujanah and Beeswing - clay miniatures and crafted sets imposed over stunning, roughly-animated watercolour backgrounds. King-Spooners’s slowly been dripping out more tunes since the campaign ended too, building out a hauntingly “dirty” soundscape for the claymation adventure. Finally - fancy giving me a hand with surreal Italian horror flick Beyond The Gate? To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings — DeadByte (@DeadByteStudios) June 7, 2020 Hi-fives all ‘round. Disclosure: I did chip in a few quid on the Sluggish Morss: Pattern Circus Kickstarter, and have occasionally grabbed a pint with developer (and fellow Edinburgh’er) King-Spooner.
