CRITICAL REFLEX — the publisher behind Buckshot Roulette, Mouthwashing, Lunacid, and the rest of the CR Channel horror stable — has announced two new games for their publishing lineup. The pair couldn’t be more different in concept or in tone, which is entirely on brand for a publisher whose self-described philosophy is “genre is a prison and we ate the warden.” First up: Grindset T.V., an open-world first-person speedrunning platformer set in a city where religious zealotry and capitalist exploitation have fused into one terrifying hivemind. Second: Tiny Chills – Not From Ear, a body horror game about cleaning the grotesque, impossible things out of people’s ears in a small town full of disappearances. Both are correct CRITICAL REFLEX games.
Port St. Love is a city where religious devotion and gig worker exploitation have become indistinguishable from each other, and you are the hivemind. Grindset T.V. is an open-world, first-person speedrunning platformer built around movement — wall runs, grinds, hyper-fast traversal through a densely interconnected labyrinthine world that rewards both speedrunners and explorers equally. Compete on global leaderboards, get lost in NPC quests and surreal vignettes, or just chain movement tech across the city for as long as you want. It’s non-linear, it’s fast, and it’s for the freaks.
The town of Velviano has a problem. People are complaining about ringing in their ears, and scratching beneath their skin, and disappearing, and generally experiencing the wrong kinds of things. You’re a doctor. Your job is to look inside their ears and remove what you find — rotting growths, insects, and things that have no business being inside any human ear canal — and in doing so, uncover the grotesque mystery at the heart of the community. Tiny Chills is Ducktopus Games doing unnatural body horror in the tradition of games that understand the ear is a deeply unsettling place to set a mystery.
About CRITICAL REFLEX
Both games are currently unscheduled beyond their announcements. Watch their respective trailers above and wishlist via CRITICAL REFLEX’s pages when live.