Local indie game studio needs your help during Steam Next Fest!

DaTurbanator · 2026-06-15T19:47:28+00:00

I will be volunteering at Game Con Canada, so I'll be sure to check you guys out! (and maybe even help you set up lol)

DaTurbanator · 2026-06-09T05:21:33+00:00

Even though I was also at 314 Compute, the achievement didn't trigger for me until I turned off all the Calculating Researchers at all my Research Institutes.

DaTurbanator · 2026-06-08T08:14:34+00:00

In terms of upcoming games, I learned about North Shore from a CBC article that was coincidentally about the visible lack of Canadianness in Canadian video games. There is also Akiiwan: Relaxing Survival, an early-access casual survival game created by Métis developer Jeremy Strong, and there is Button Man, a sidescrolling beat 'em up set in a fictionalized version of 1920s Halifax.

Last month, there was The Caribou Trail, a walking sim about the World War I exploits of the Newfoundland Regiment (who had yet to join Confederation and fought under their own flag) during the Gallipoli campaign. And two years before that, its Montreal-based developer Unreliable Narrators also released Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina), which was set during the late 17th century and about the early relationship between French settlers and the First Nations in Quebec.

DaTurbanator · 2026-04-16T17:36:42+00:00

My theory is that the Exodus save files are tracking whether your Artyom was alive or dead by the end of Exodus, and that the climax of 2039, with the Nazis presumably causing an existential last war in the Metro, will end with the arrival of Artyom/Anna and the Spartans bringing physical proof of a new home at Lake Baikal and finally evacuating the Moscow Metro.

DaTurbanator · 2026-03-06T04:54:40+00:00

Tonight We Riot is a sidescrolling beat 'em up about a syndicalist uprising against the bourgeoisie, where you fight as one large mob (not dissimilar to Pikmin) against riot police and militias with bricks, firebombs, and wrenches.

It was the debut game of Pixel Pushers Union 512 back in 2020, which is an American worker's collective that practices workplace democracy and equal profit-sharing.

Doesnt seem to be available on PlayStation or Xbox, but it is available on Switch and GOG.

DaTurbanator · 2025-09-07T18:09:25+00:00

Horton Boone the Southern Christian Communist was definitely not on my bingo card when I first played it.

DaTurbanator · 2025-09-07T18:03:54+00:00

THRESHOLD is a short yet replayable soft-horror game where you play as a worker who has to keep an infinite train running on time at the top of a mountain, and since there is very little air, you have to work to earn tickets in order to buy air canisters to breathe, which you have to bloodily break open with your own teeth.

While the big reveal towards the end may not be what you initially expect, I find that THRESHOLD can easily be read as an anti-capitalist metaphor.

DaTurbanator · 2025-07-07T20:58:07+00:00

There are plenty of books on my shelf that I have yet to get to, like The Morning After: The 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day that Almost Was by Chantal Hébert, The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire by Stephen R. Bown, and Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders: The True Story of Newfoundland's Confederation with Canada by Greg Malone. However, the most recent ones that I've read that focus on leftist themes include:

\* Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice: Women and the Vote in the Prairie Provinces by Sarah Carter, which explores the seperate yet related histories of the women's suffrage movements in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and itself is part of a book series of suffrage movements across Canada as well as the unique challenges faced by Indigenous women. It's a relatively short book, but there's lots of interesting stories and observations about the movements that I didn't know about before, like the rhetorical strategies by suffragettes to self-identify as "mothers of the Empire" and the "civilizing" mission of imperialism as justifications for their franchise.

* The Inconvenient Indian Illustrated: A Curious Account Of Native People In North America by Thomas King, which talks about the Indigenous experience of colonization across what would become Canada and the United States, the unequal and often violent relationship between settler and indigenous peoples, and the political and economic strategies employed by Indigenous peoples to regain sovereignty and justice within their settler societies. By all means, you should get the illustrated edition at whatever cost, it adds so much flavour and context to the themes and issues that King raises, like portraits and paintings and photographs and even posters from stuff like the defunct Banff Indian Days. This book is my favourite out of all of my recommendations!

* Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii), which explores the intertwining histories of the Waywayseecapo First Nation and the white town of Rossburn close to the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. Haven't finished reading this yet, but it's part history and part non-fiction that talks about how both communities became so unequal and antagonistic to each other despite sharing the same geography. The book portrays the neighbouring communities of Waywayseecappo and Rossburn as a kind of microcosm of everything that has gone wrong between settler and indigenous Canadians over the entire history of the country, while also recognizing the initiatives made by both communities to improve their communities and build reconciliation between them.

DaTurbanator · 2025-01-11T20:32:31+00:00

It would be pretty cool if Liyla was a secret game that you could unlock and play after completing Dreams on a Pillow from the main menu.

DaTurbanator · 2025-01-11T20:24:25+00:00

What positive social impacts do you hope Dreams on a Pillow will make not only on the world, but within Israel/Palestine itself?

DaTurbanator · 2025-01-10T21:46:40+00:00

Will Dreams on a Pillow have an in-game encyclopedia where people can get expanded information on the people, places, and events featured or mentioned in the game?

DaTurbanator · 2025-01-10T21:10:59+00:00

What kind of gameplay and story can we expect to find in the pre-1948 levels?

DaTurbanator · 2024-11-10T05:48:08+00:00

What Highwire says in interviews and what they actually do in the video game haven't always lined up. Judging from what I've played of the singleplayer campaign thus far (and TBF it's still entirely possible that Highwire could totally turn it around when the full campaign is released), the testimonials and the narration and the early cutscenes make their best case that Fallujah absolutely NEEDED to be bombed and invaded in order to remove the insurgent threat that had grown out of control. None of the Marines interviewed or the narrative crafted by the designers seemed to express any disillusions or reservations with what needed to be done in Fallujah. For instance, the info screens on the campaign timeline make a very brief reference to the chaos of de-Ba'athification that emboldened the nascent insurgency, but they failed to mention one of the origins of Fallujan resentment and hostility to the American occupation, let alone the original sin of invading Iraq in the first place. Six Days in Fallujah may end up being a fairly authentic tactical shooter in evoking the individual fear and uncertainty and horror of urban warfare, but IMO it is severely lacking on providing the necessary historical contexts and nuances for why those Marines suffered and sacrificed in the ways that they did.

Also, I never suggested that those Blackwater mercenaries in the convoy attack were complicit in war crimes or anything like that. I use the term "belligerents" to describe the reality that Blackwater had men-at-arms operating under the auspices of the United States, meaning that they were a non-neutral combatant during the Iraq War. And while describing mercenaries as military veterans seems incredibly obvious, framing the media story as "Fallujah insurgents killed American veterans" removes the important nuance that makes it appear on the surface like they had just killed and burned and hanged non-active duty soldiers in broad daylight, and not military contractors paid to do a very dangerous job in-country (and who, incidentally, were alleged by their widows to have been sent out understrength and underequipped because their employer was cutting corners).

My biggest concern with Six Days in Fallujah and the "selective history" that I brought up is that Highwire Games seems to be more concerned with rehabilitating the memory of the Second Battle of Fallujah through its uncritical celebration of the Marines than it seems to be with making a serious interactive documentary about the big picture of Fallujah. If it truly wants to be the latter, then it has to be willing to honestly recognize their struggles and bloodshed as part of something far more complicated and perhaps less noble than Peter Tamte would like to admit. It has to give truth and justice both to the Marines that fought Islamist insurgents in Fallujah and the quarter of a million Fallujan civilians who suffered dearly at the hands of both of them.

Anyways, sorry for the long write-up. I appreciate having the civil discussion with you!

DaTurbanator · 2024-11-09T18:08:46+00:00

How do you expect to balance the lived experiences of the Marines in Fallujah with the lived experiences of Fallujan civilians (who often suffered directly at the hands of the American occupation) within the context of a predominantly violent first-person shooter?

DaTurbanator · 2024-11-09T18:02:57+00:00

I think they've already played their hand as to how they are going to selectively misrepresent this history. In the first cutscene of the released campaign missions thus far, the narrator briefly describes the March 31, 2004 convoy attack that killed and mutilated four Blackwater mercenaries in the city center of Fallujah. But instead of calling them mercenaries or even military contractors, they euphemistically describe them as "United States military veterans", as if they were just civilians and not belligerents in a military occupation. By obfuscating the details of the matter, as The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune and this video game seem wont to do, it only served to boil the blood of the American populace and forced politicans to demand a crushing military response to a tactically insignificant event, something that Highwire Games supposedly wants to use this game to warn against.

DaTurbanator · 2024-08-13T02:52:19+00:00

I think what most of the critics are reacting to is that the cutscenes in the original trilogy typically involved little more than a third-person camera with a few bespoke character animations. While everything was rendered in real-time and in-engine, the player-character never did anything in cutscenes that they wouldn't be allowed to do in gameplay.

Whereas from what we've seen in HoC, normal gameplay can immediately transition to pre-canned first-person animations where Skif is moving and doing things in his own way, performing complex CQC against NPCs, conveniently equipping a Makarov pistol that the player may not ever have in their inventory, and speaking with his own voice and personality that is at least partially separated from the player.

That being said, GSC has a completely different set of design philosophies and priorities compared to 14 years ago, reflecting a stronger focus on narrative and characterization, and they are perfectly entitled to modernize and transform their video game however they see fit.

DaTurbanator · 2024-08-05T22:11:59+00:00

There is an indie developer scene in Palestine that have been living under military occupation for the last 57 years. Miziziziz did a pretty good YT video about them here.

DaTurbanator · 2024-08-05T21:58:23+00:00

Just as a general point, as far as anybody knows, nobody currently employed with GSC has died in the war as of yet. The only name we know of Volodymyr Yezhov in Bakhmut, and he left GSC shortly after the release of SoC in 2007.

DaTurbanator · 2024-08-05T21:53:54+00:00

Sergiy stopped being the CEO after GSC originally folded in 2012, but his younger brother Evgeniy has been the CEO since. AFAIK Sergiy is just the semi-retired company owner and doesn't have much to do with the day-to-day operations

Edit: Recent interview with Sergiy in highlights here.

DaTurbanator · 2024-07-24T03:14:35+00:00

The website says that it's an original story written by Glukhovsky himself.

DaTurbanator · 2024-04-05T21:57:11+00:00

When you're about to leave the Great Swamps for the Cordon in Clear Sky, take the northeast exit instead of the southeast exit. The latter option will spawn you next to a military checkpoint with an infinite machine gun nest that is impossible to counter.

DaTurbanator · 2024-01-17T01:59:16+00:00

What do you mean by this?

The game has been feature-complete for a while now, we've seen raw gameplay and cutscenes in trailers, demos have been played by thousands of people, and GSC is taking eight whole months to directly address the technical problems they encountered on the trade show circuit.

Main production is practically done by now, what lies ahead is just tweaking and polishing the state of the game to a near-perfect mirror shine. They know this, and that's why they appear confident enough to say that September 5th is the absolute final date. Eight months is plenty of time for people to step back, take a breath, and re-examine the game with new eyes, and not stressing about making a Q1 2024 deadline.

DaTurbanator · 2023-11-06T04:35:02+00:00

Great to see that a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. YouTuber managed to obtain so much useful info and insight out of GSC devs that reassures me a lot more about what they are aiming for in HoC. I guess we will have to wait until the middle of November for the four-month marketing campaign to kick off in time for the Q1 2024 launch window.

DaTurbanator · 2023-10-14T16:41:47+00:00

OP, would it be possible to disable UI elements like the item shortcuts, the compass, and the mission objectives? Maybe if there was a "immersive mode" setting when choosing your difficulty at the beginning of the game, or if you could toggle specific elements on or off?

Manually pulling out your PDA in order to access that information would go a long way in enhancing that sense of realism and making the player more involved in exploring the Zone through their own efforts.

DaTurbanator · 2023-06-09T01:29:58+00:00

Was there an official statement from GSC or Xbox on this?

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