The creators of Othercide, the grimmest TRPG ever made, are making a superhero dating sim

Othercide

As Humanity’s last hope, lead your army to combat in an intricate dance of spectacular actions and counters, using an original Dynamic Timeline System, and face fearsome bosses in epic battles.

Othercide from French developer Lightbulb Crew is one of my favourite recent tactics RPGs. It's an atmospheric and rewardingly meticulous experience that typically pits you against overwhelming numbers, where victory comes about by carefully exploiting reaction abilities, positioning units just-so, and manipulating the initiative bar. At times, for me, it's up there with Into The Breach.

But I do acknowledge that it's an acquired taste, not least because the story and setting are relentlessly unpleasant, a terrible soup of mother metaphors and Penny Dreadful imagery, in which you pit clones against Silent Hill monsters, then liquefy the survivors to fuel new characters. What's the appropriate way to follow up a game like that? Ah yes, with an episodic dating sim.

Read more