By Kieron Gillen on July 22nd, 2010.
The Fable 3 demonstration starts a little late, due to Peter Molyneux being a little too reliant on his SatNav. Which is the sort of thing which strikes me as a workable critique of the “bread-crumb” hand-holding in Fable 2, but we’re probably denying the existence of that non-PC Game. Which is going to make writing about the first public European showing of Fable III, it brings directly to mind its direct prequel.
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By Lewis Denby on July 22nd, 2010.
At the Develop Conference in Brighton last week, I had the opportunity to sit down for a beer and a chat with Tom Jubert, perhaps most famous for writing the excellent horror adventure series Penumbra. They’re dark and sinister games whose writing, and the structure of their storytelling, were often their strongest asset. Read on for Tom’s thoughts on the writing process, tales of game design tribulations, and his involvement in a major new title.
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By Quintin Smith on July 22nd, 2010.
The word’s out on two of the twelve new teams featuring in Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition, which arrives at the end of this year. The word, and also screenshots. The Pro Elves aren’t to be confused with the game’s existing Wood Elves, because they’re tougher than Wood Elves and as such would probably beat you up. The second team, the Ogres, offer unmatched brutality at the expense of their team roster being made up by Snotlings. Full press release after the jump.
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By Jim Rossignol on July 22nd, 2010.
The bizarre response of the games community to the success of Facebook games – a mix of hysteria, hatred, and irrational claims about it “destroying” the games industry – has been a hot topic for 2010. One of the calmer and more concise discussions of the phenomenon is over on Mr Ian Bogost’s blog. He didn’t just write about it, however, he did what game designers do, and made a Facebook game of his own: Cow Clicker.
You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again. Clicking earns you clicks. You can buy custom “premium” cows through micropayments (the Cow Clicker currency is called “mooney”), and you can buy your way out of the time delay by spending it.
It’s not entirely satire, but it’s pretty funny.
By John Walker on July 22nd, 2010.
A few days ago we brought you news of Alien Black Hole, the game by eight-year-old Ross. In the comments, RobF (of Retro Remakes) explained that he makes all his games with his six-year-old as a consultant. Which, he claims, is how Canabalt For Pink Daleks came about. “Course, when you let him loose with him free to tell me everything he wants in there, you end up with this,” he says. I ran 233 rels.
By Alec Meer on July 21st, 2010.
US receipt-collectors NPD are finally encompassing digital distribution in their regular surveys. Which is just as well, as half the time it’s been their bloody surveys which have caused nitwits to cry “the PC is doomed” (most recently, they claimed a 23% drop in PC game sales from 2008 to 2009). They’re now estimating that download sales constitute 48% of the PC market, which means previous recent surveys have ignored about 21.3 million units. Whole lotta cash. That’s even before you factor in the giant cash-pile generated from free-to-play games’ microtransactions and whatnot.
Oh, and the NPD have also put out a list of the five biggest digital distributors in the world today. Can you guess which is number one? I’ll give you a clue. It’s not Steam.
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By Quintin Smith on July 21st, 2010.
I’ve started investigating Space Station 13, a sci-fi multiplayer sandbox with the same utterly batshit more-is-more design as Dwarf Fortress. It uses Byond, and with that installed you can get SS13 here. The comprehensive Something Awful goon wiki can be read here and there’s a big map of the station here. The game lets you pick your job on the crew each game, but I’ve decided to shirk the responsibility of being captain, chief engineer, detective and so on to see what can be done as a humble barman. This, Episode 1, covers my first hour with the game on a sparsely populated server. This is the adventures of Galactic Bartender Gengy Patel.
Barman’s log, stardate 40125.8. Dunno where to begin. I guess I should be in the bar right now instead of recording this, but the power’s still down over there and I need to take a break. And find a gun. But let’s start by takin’ a break.
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By Alec Meer on July 21st, 2010.
UK newspaper The Daily Star apparently believes that if it’s on the internet, it’s real. Hence their being convinced that the next GTA game would be a document of Gateshead gunman Raoul Moat:
No doubt a 4Chan or b3ta chucklester passed it onto them. Good work, chucklesters.
The Star – not exactly the UK’s most first-rate paper at the best of times – has now pulled the story, following Twitter and MCV discovering, laughing, screaming and howling at its open idiocy and failure to do even the most basic form of fact checking. Fortunately, I thought to take a screengrab of the whole thing first. It’s below.
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By Kieron Gillen on July 21st, 2010.
The Microstudios panel proved to be the most controversial and widely talked about at Develop 10, but the exchange of commentary followed by detente wasn’t all that was worth taking away from the gathering, where Beatnik‘s Robin Lacey (Plain Sight), Positech‘s Cliff Harris (Kudos, Democracy, Gratuitous Space Battles), Introversion‘s Mark Morris (Darwinia, Defcon, Uplink) and Hello Games‘ Sean Murray (Joe “They’ll all be in” Danger “if there’s not a PC port”) talked about the state of the Microstudio. Starting with what a microstudio is anyway…
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By Quintin Smith on July 21st, 2010.
It seems every Sims game means a sexy expansion pack. The original game had Hot Date, the second had Nightlife, and this Autumn The Sims 3 will have Late Night, adding nightspots, celebrity-filled parties and a new hot tub to everybody’s favourite domination simulator, as well as the chance for your sims to go on tour with their bands. Meticulously choreographed teaser trailer can be found after the jump.
I’ve just noticed the guy in that video has a Sims cursor tattooed on his back. That’s a bit meta, isn’t it? A bit disturbing. It implies the sims are aware of the cursor over their heads, and yet are still slaves to it, perhaps even worshipping it. Eee.
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By John Walker on July 21st, 2010.
It turns out there’s a direct channel to my heart. It’s the words, “a Point & Click adventure game made out of clay and cardboard.”
Gosh.
The Dream Machine is looking utterly beautiful. It’s a hand-made game by Cockroach Inc., built in three dimensions, and then photographed. Below are screenshots and a trailer, which you absolutely must see.
