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

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 (why, is it an emergency?) was successfully crowdfunded 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 (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.