Home Invasion: Rohrer's New Game The Castle Doctrine

About the easiest way to start a bar fight among those who deem themselves educated in videogames is to bring up Jason Rohrer's Passage (missus), an unwitting poster child for 'artgames.' It worked its morose magic on me, while others found it arch and ungame, but between that and the lofty ambitions (though there are disagreements on the execution) of two-player storytelling game Sleep Is Death I suspect I'll forever be fascinated by what Rohrer gets up to. Next up is The Castle Doctrine, "a massively multiplayer game of burglary and home defense."

A Tony Martin sim? Maybe the Daily Mail will embrace videogames after all.

In fact we know very little about the Castle Doctrine as yet. There are a few screenshots to go by, which let us know it's a top-down, lo-fi,2D affair - not a million miles away from his usual style, but perhaps less minimal - and that there will be blood.

The massively multiplayer mention is tantalising - will we, then, be invading others' home while also building defences in our own, or will there be two discrete teams of burglars and defenders?

Maybe all the phone numbers on the minimal site's front page hold clues. Or maybe they're pseudo-Yellow Pages artwork. Or maybe they're real people's numbers and they're about to have an incredibly bad time of things.