Humans Must Answer, the ex-STALKER devs' sidescrolling shmup, releases next week

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Have we all come to terms with the fact that a couple of ex-STALKER developer are making a sidescrolling shmup where you control a crew of space-chickens? OK, take another few minutes. Humans Must Answer (opens in new tab) (why, is it an emergency?) was successfully crowdfunded (opens in new tab) around three months ago, meeting the modest goal of $5,000 without falling fowl to Kickstarter fatigue. And, hey, you'll be able to buy the finished game this coming Thursday, from either GOG.com or the Humble Store for a poultry $10. Insert your own chicken puns after the break.

As Sumom Games put it – rather wonderfully, I might add – "Humans Must Answer

is a classic 2D space shooter set in the distant future...with lots of explosions. You play as the pilot on board a Scout ship called The Golden Eagle, which is manned by a crew of intelligent and dangerous chickens."

It's a tiny bit different to STALKER, then. There's a demo here (opens in new tab) (scroll down the page a bit) to sink your teeth into, before the full game hatches on the 11th of July.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.