After being available in some form since 2012, RUNNING WITH RIFLES (RWR) seems to be finally hitting it big with a sudden surge of thousands flocking to the top-down tactical shooter.

For Osumia Games, this has been a long-deserved moment in the spotlight. They've supported Linux with RWR since 2012 during the early Beta builds and it's a huge amount of fun to run around in. It's currently 80% off on Steam, which has probably helped the surge of players, however it's done the same discount multiple times in the past which did not cause much of a surge until now.

How big a change are we talking? Well, RWR usually only saw around 100-300 players. Now? It's been seeing multiple thousands with a new record set of 14,149 online on Sunday, May 16 2021.

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What caused it then? Well, it wasn't Twitch livestreams like Among Us saw, instead it looks like it might have been YouTube and specifically the Asian market with multiple videos hitting 10s of thousands of views and some in the 100s of thousands ( like this one ). It shows once again, how powerful a market it is and translations can really help sell a game with RWR seeing text translations to Simplified Chinese, Korean and plenty more.

You can buy RUNNING WITH RIFLES on Steam with 80% off until May 21. Also on Humble Store but no discount.

NERTS! Online is the free to play card game from the clever people at Zachtronics (Eliza, Opus Magnum, Infinifactory) that was created to help them play together that they released free to the public.

It's not an original game though, as Nerts has been around in some form since the late 1890s. It has also been called Pounce or Racing Demon. Zachtronics mentioned they "learned about it from our artist Kyle, who has played it for years, and started playing it after lunch in the Zachtronics office. Over time we added more to it, including house rules, longer tournaments, and even a theme song".

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At release the multiplayer was limited to Steam friends and people you're in Steam Groups with. It worked but now they've nicely expanded it to have public lobbies. Now anyone can download it free (it's properly free too, no micro transactions), create a lobby and make it public for anyone else playing to join.

Seems like a really slick game overall too, great to see more like it and being free means there's no barrier to enjoying it with your friends and others alike.

Find NERTS! Online free on Steam .

Möbius Front '83, the difficult turn-based strategy game from puzzle masters Zachtronics has seen a big free expansion adding in quite a lot.

So far, it seems like possibly the only Zachtronics title that hasn't become some kind of instant classic. However, they're clearly trying to make big improvements to it. Personally, I enjoyed it though and it is good but the challenge was tough and that's what put a fair amount of people off. This update is a nice step towards making it more approachable since you can dive in for a battle against the AI whenever you want to learn more, or against others online.

That's not the only addition. Because your ability to play as the enemy "Americans" is only unlocked when you complete the single-player campaign, they also added a brand new Soviet Army faction with over 20 units, including the T-72 Ural (an old tank but cheap tank that can be used to overwhelm your opponent), the paratrooper team (which can deploy directly to any open hex on your side of the map), and the BM-21 Grad (which launches four artillery attacks at a target in a single turn).

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"The year is 1983 and the United States of America must defend itself from an enemy it could have never imagined— an America from an alternate universe that will stop at nothing to seize control of the country’s heartland!"

If you missed it you can buy it on Steam and itch.io (which went live 2 days ago) with the GOG release still tagged as coming "soon".

Yokereba Games have teamed up with publisher Versus Evil for the release of Jumpala, a game that takes competitive platforming and turns it into a high-speed score-fight.

Jumpala has each character hop between small platforms, each platform having a number attached to add to your score. Once you hit a platform it turns to your colour, and if it remains your colour when it drops off the screen it's added to your overall score. It's fast, competitive and a whole lot of fun from the early builds.

They've now announced it's releasing on January 19 with a new trailer:

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Features:

• 4-player competitive action. Compete with your friends in fast-paced free for alls, or team up in 2v2 matches. No friends? Go up against challenging CPUs, or compete against others in online 1v1s.
• Easy to learn, tough to master. If you want to be the best, you'll have to plan your routes, practice your timing, and perfect your positioning—all while being mindful of your opponents.
• A wide variety of stages. Each stage has unique features and hazards to watch out for.
• Original set of characters. Each character has their own unique abilities and playstyle.

The basics of it really are easy to pick up, it's simple controls jumping between platforms. What makes it tricky and entertaining is trying to outmaneuver your opponents around all the platforms. It becomes a seriously mad dash as you each fire off abilities, trying to catch the other out. I'm looking forward to seeing the full game and hopefully facing off against plenty of others online.

You can try it out right now with the standalone demo in Jumpala: Tryouts Edition . Be sure to wishlist / follow the main Jumpala store page .

Need another amusing co-op and PvP party game? Crooks Like Us is all about grabbing as much as you can, and then making a run for it.

The overall goal is to carry as many items as you can, and dump them into the getaway van before the timer runs out. Sounds easy right? Not so much. If you stack up a bunch of items and dump them into the van together, you get a score multiplier but actually carrying a stack to the van is another matter - you wobble all over the place and it's quite silly. It also leaves you open to the other crooks to grab your stuff if you take on too much.

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How the gameplay works:

• Before starting the game, choose 4 different gadgets from the main menu to take with you.
• Enter the van to use your chosen gadgets. Each one has a different effect on the room when activated - you could turn out the lights, make an earthquake, drop anvils, put down ice, move doors and loads more.
• Each gadget can be used for free, but will have a recharge time after activating. You can use the money you earn in a match, and pay to use the gadget again straight away instead of waiting for it to recharge.
• Leave the van at any point to continue stealing on the ground
• Watch out for the guards in the room - they will make you drop your stack if they catch you.
• Throw items you are carrying to knock over other thieves and guards.
• Dash forward to attack other players or destroy objects like doors and walls.
• A vault will open in the last 30 seconds to reveal an extremely valuable item - sometimes enough to sway the game!
• Make sure you’re in the van ready to escape before time runs out!

An amusing setting and you can try it out yourself right now. They have a version available in Alpha on game store itch.io , which you can play directly in your browser.

You can also follow it on Steam for release in 2021.

Inspired by the likes of Werewolf, Mafia and similar games Untrusted from evolvedlabs is ready to go out to a wider audience after releasing a few Alpha builds from their website.

On January 29, 2021, this social deduction / hacking game will be launching on Steam in Early Access and the developer told us over email that it will be initially free to play as it still needs plenty more testing (including ensuring server capacity is good).

"In Untrusted, hackers from the fictional NETSEC group are tasked in hacking a specific server on a computer network. NETSEC members must use their skills and wits to outsmart the undercover AGENTs that will try each night to perform arrests or have other players become snitches for them."

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Feature Highlight:

• Hacking themed game focused on social interactions.
• Hack into computers and analyze their log to find out who is telling the truth
• Keep your personal log and cross-reference data to find out who are the undercover agents
• An amazing, friendly community ready to welcome you
• Multiple winning conditions for both factions: hack or murder your way to victory.
• 2 Factions and many neutral classes
• 22 Unique classes
• More than 70 unique skills

If you can look past the simplistic interface, it sounds like it could actually be a whole lot of fun to play.

You can follow Untrusted on Steam .

One of the most promising upcoming action-RPGs around, Last Epoch had a pretty great year expanding the content available along with a new playable class and they have their sights set to get you playing online in 2021.

The singleplayer is already a lot of fun, but being able to play directly with a bunch of friends in Last Epoch sure does sound enticing. In their new preview , they make it clear it's still multiple months away but it sounds exciting. They're working on bringing up all the social systems so that you will be able to form parties, inspect the gear from other players, show off all your loot and more. With a party system allowing up to 4 players, the game will scale the difficulty of enemies based on that and their planning lots of server regions too.

Check out their preview video:

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Areas they're currently tackling include:

• Improving performance
  We are still aggressively working on performance in Last Epoch. We have even more improvements coming soon, and we recognize that good performance is important for an enjoyable multiplayer experience.
• Preparing for Scale
  Launching server-authoritative multiplayer is challenging and we’ve seen teams with greater resources struggle to keep login and gameplay servers operating well when met with demand. We will be scale testing often before releasing multiplayer to the public.
• Testing, Testing, Testing
  There are bugs and party synergies that need to be found and addressed. While we’re sure that some players will find more when we launch, there is a lot that can be addressed before it’s in your hands.

We'll keep you posted on any upcoming announcements for when it goes live. They're hoping to expand the testing pool for it "in the near future".

You can buy Last Epoch on Steam .

Lots of people love the original GTA and GTA2, myself included and Geneshift has a major overhaul (again) that tweaks the Battle Royale gameplay along with a huge new map to give classic GTA2 vibes.

Geneshift is a mix of many things. It's a top-down shooter with a campaign that can be played solo or in co-op, it has a big online feature with a Battle Royale mode, FFA and much more. A lot of the work currently going into the Battle Royale mode.

In the latest update the developer added in a new map called Subvein City, a bit of a throwback to an older name it went by of Subvein: Mutant Factions. This map is "5x larger than before", allowing for a more GTA2 style gameplay with much more space for vehicles. The Battle Royale system is also on a much bigger scale now with more players, and longer rounds.

Pictured - the new Battle Royale map layout in Subvein City.

Even more came with this update to include a graphics overhaul adding in "a new day/night cycle, fog effects, lens flares, rain and thunder, and more". Enemies also have health bars now, letting you prioritise targets and showing you actually doing some damage, you show up on the minimap if you fire a weapon now - helps you find the action, dead players can now resurrect any time in Battle Royale as long as they kill five other players as a Zombie and much more .

If you buy it now, you get the Supporter Edition DLC which includes the full campaign and all features, as it seems their plan is for the online to eventually be free to play still. Geneshift is something of a hidden gem because it fully deserves to have more players - with other actual people (there's bots too) it's a ridiculous amount of fun.

You can buy Geneshift on Steam .

Oh no, I feel like I'm going to get sucked into Dota 2 again and lose another 500 hours. The Mistwoods Update has gone live and it's a major one with the new hero Hoodwink.

"Always at hand when trouble's afoot, Hoodwink lives to tangle with the threats that fill the haunted forest she has adopted as her home. Toting a massive crossbow while still able to scurry through the woodland with the greatest of ease, Hoodwink is nearly impossible to keep tabs on in battle. Lose track for even a moment and she'll pop out behind you -- your stunned carcass already dangling helplessly in one of her nets."

Being able to have a 1-button press demo mode for a new hero, that's a really nice touch from Valve there. Here's what abilities Hoodwink has:

• Acorn Shot - Hoodwink fires an acorn at her target which can bounce to nearby enemies, slowing them and dealing bonus damage. Can be ground targeted to create a tree, but the added bounce will be lost.
• Bushwhack - Tosses a net trap that stuns enemy heroes if they are near a tree in the area. Enemies are pulled towards the tree and have their vision reduced to 0 for the duration of the stun.
• Scurry - Hoodwink passively has a chance to evade physical attacks while near trees. When activated, Hoodwink gains bonus movement speed, phased collision, and tree-walking for a brief time.
• Sharpshooter - Hoodwink charges up and fires a deadly bolt from her crossbow, dealing heavy damage, slow, and Break to an enemy Hero. The damage and debuff duration scale up in time with her charge.

That is not the only major change as this update also introduces the Aghanim’s Shard item. Available for all heroes, it will permanently add a new ability or improve an existing one. Yet another way Valve are trying to spice up the late-game, although it's already rather chaotic. It costs 1400 Gold and can be purchased 20 minutes into the game, it's also a consumed item so it doesn't stick around in your limited inventory.

See the full update page here with the usual assorted balancing changes.