#spiderling studios

Besiege    Good news! Someone has entrusted you with the construction of medieval siege engines. A master architect like yourself must build deadly war machines to destroy your enemies - assuming your creations don’t accidentally just tear themselves apart the moment they start rolling. You have countless weapons and upgrades at your disposal - flamethrowers, saws, spikes, cannons, bombs, rockets, armour plating, and more. Manoeuvre around traps and the environment with steering (or just blindly flailing around) to launch attacks upon the panicking enemy forces, their camps, their castles, their own machines, and so on. There’s also plenty of “eh, that’s good enough” moments where the scorched remains of your construction just happen to flatten one last bit of the enemy camp to earn a technical victory. Finally, you can enter the unlimited-resource Sandbox mode to make some truly staggering behemoths that will bring everything in its path - including your PC - to its knees.

BeamNG.drive    Strictly speaking, this is merely a driving-themed physics simulation, with a handful of driving challenges for some more standard gameplay. Of course, we all know that “physics simulator” is just code for “how fast can I mangle this car?” Enter Beam.NG’s sandbox, and you’ll be able to answer that question and more with a wide-open playground, littered with obstacles, ramps, half-pipes, bot controls, gravity options, and everything you could need for all your automobile abuse. It’s a great way to spend some spare time answering all the important questions, such as: What happens when this hatchback is struck from all sides by five trucks accelerating at Mach 5? Which sports car fares better under Jupiter’s gravitational pull? How many lamp posts do I need to hit to peel this tour bus like a banana? The sky's the limit - literally, because I once propelled a limousine straight up like a rocket before it flattened against the map height limit like it was made of paper.

Plague Inc: Evolved    Global pandemics are the last thing anyone wants to dwell on at the moment, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a bit of virtual virus-spreading! In Plague Inc., you can pick your poison, choose where your patient zero appears, and let yourself feel like a cackling supervillain for a little while. Carefully select your methods of transmission to spread across the land, skies and seas around the globe before anyone realises what’s wrong, then hit them with the symptoms all at once and watch chaos unfold! It’s highly satisfying to watch those population numbers dwindle and the world turn red as newly-infected dots consume entire countries. Eventually, humanity tries to fight back and you’ll need to battle the world’s efforts to concoct a cure - no laboratory will be safe for long! In this game, you can wipe out the planet’s entire population with careful planning and ruthlessness, all from the safety of the digital screen - no need to wash your hands after playing with this particular plague.

Teardown    What’s this game about, you ask? It’s in the name - tearing everything down! Playing as a legally-questionable demolitionist, the player is hired to destroy buildings (and sometimes steal stuff from the rubble), then make a hasty getaway before police arrive. There are plenty of tools of destruction unlocked over the course of the game, from the reasonable (sledgehammers, welding torches, and so on) to the overkill (dynamite and other explosives, and even a shotgun). Use the tools of the trade to strategically - or randomly - knock out the load-bearing supports and watch as the entire mansion, shopping centre, docks, or whatever you’re demolishing crashes down and shatters into millions of little voxel bits. The modding community really cranks up the destruction to a whole new level: slice entire cities in half with a flick of the mouse, punch whale-sized holes through skyscrapers with giant cannons, or go full Majora’s Mask and flatten the whole place by bringing down the moon. Another job well done!

Goat Simulator    Behold, the original and definitive “mischievous wildlife enters city and causes problems on purpose” video game: Goat Simulator. Why is a goat so intent on trashing the town and bending the laws of physics to its will? Who knows? It’s a goat, it - and the player - can do what it wants. As you unleash your hoofed havoc across the unsuspecting town, you’ll discover unique hidden interactions that transform your goat and grant new abilities - flying majestically through the air, scaling skyscrapers with your stretchy tongue, or summoning demonic powers to drag every nearby loose prop (and pedestrian) towards you. The game truly embraces the hilarity of ragdoll physics; nobody in this game seems to have a cohesive skeleton as they flail about like a wet noodle at the slightest headbutt. In Goat Simulator 3 (yes, it’s so big they had to skip a second game), the goat is set loose on a brand-new sprawling map, now with friends in co-operative mayhem!

   Okay, put down the sledgehammer - that’s enough destruction for today. Unless, of course, you know any other games that might fit this list that you’d like to share; if so, feel free to let me know! Feedback, reblogs and likes are all much appreciated!   Thanks for reading!