The Buckshot Roulette creator’s next game is about hacker puzzles, “unethical superstructures” and despair

Mike Klubnika’s previous Buckshot Roulette was a simple, harrowing game about aiming a shotgun at your very own face and praying for a click, not a bang, then challenging a manky git across the table to do likewise. The developer’s forthcoming s.p.l.i.t, by contrast, looks like a squirming snakepit of moving parts that calls to mind both Duskers and Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator.

In this “short psychological horror game”, you are part of a team of hackers attempting to break into “an unethical superstructure”. The whole thing appears to unfold in a small, grubby room full of crackling monitors, with despairing trees visible through a curtained window. Your job is to poke at a command prompt interface while bandying words with shadowy strangers over IRC. The below trailer is already giving me a migraine. I can feel my guts uncoiling in protest. How very glorious.

C:\users\RPS>start BlockquoteSteamBulletFeatures.exe

– First person gameplay with diegetic & immersive UI.

– An IRC chat where you gain intel, and learn more about the facility.

– A terminal where you run software, navigate directories, and execute commands.

– Detailed command prompt hacking puzzles with an emphasis on traditional inputs.

– Original soundtrack.

“The facility you and your crew infiltrate is a superstructure of unethical electronics,” the Steam page adds. “The daunting task is only made possible by careful planning, and vulnerabilities hidden deep below legacy code and engineering.” Be warned that the game will contain depictions of self-harm and suicide. That noose in the picture seemingly isn’t just for show.

Alice O, greatest of news editors, is a fan of Klubnika’s work. “I really like how his games are small visits to unexplained terrible places,” she wrote back in 2024, shortly before she quit this stinking james gournalism business and, as legend tells, escaped to the mountains in a hamster-powered balloon.

I’m pretty sure s.p.l.i.t. will be similarly dense and anomalous, and as such, I’m prepared to forgive the Tom Clancy-ass title punctuation here. Perhaps the abbreviation stands for “Send Pizza Lest I Tunnel (Past Your Network Security)”? We’ll find out when the game hits e-shelves on 24th July. If you’d rather play more Buckshot Roulette, know that it now has a four-person multiplayer mode.