Rock, Paper, Shotgun

In stark contrast to the usual internet drum-banging that occurs whenever a developer patches a new feature into their game, Eskil Steenberg has been growing Love- his beautiful, enigmatic, online building game- on the sly, with new features arriving simply as precious treats for the game’s existing community. As of this week, he’s dropped the price of the game to €10 for 180 days and is looking to expand his playerbase. Actually, let me phrase it another way. Eskil wants you. I met up with him for a spellbinding demonstration of what he’s added to Love, where he’s taking it and why you should be playing it.
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So we already posted the Subversion wobblecam footage from last year’s big indie event, World Of Love, but now there’s much more from a bunch of other speakers. Almost certainly the most interesting of these is the talk by Cliff Harris, who speaks in plain terms about the practicalities of making a living from producing indie games. If you don’t have a cash-button formula like Minecraft then there’s still a lot of hard work to be done, and Cliffski lays that out with illegible Powerpoint slides and straight-talking. Really, this one is worth a watch.

There’s also some of Eskil Steenberg’s wizardry, and some thoughts about how to avoid retro visuals and look good in the 21st century from Tom “Nullpointer” Betts. Go take a look. Also, don’t forget the second World Of Love is up this month. More on that soon!
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No, nothing like that. It’s Eskil opening up his minimally-multiplayer shooting and building game, Love, to everyone, just for this coming weekend. Being co-op down to its procedurally generated soul, it’s a game that is best played with chums, so why don’t we get on there and have a RPS love-in on Saturday night, perhaps from about 7pm BST? You can download the client now from here, and it will be automatically free to access any of the servers over the weekend. Useful fan portal for the game over here.

Steenberg has announced that there’s going to be a free expansion for his mini-MO, Love. It’s called Avail, and it’s going to allow players to benefit more from their progress within the game, specifically in a player advancement system and in being able to extract a number of precious resources from the landscape. Progression will be based on standing with other players who are online at the time. Co-operate with more people and your standing rises. Resource, it seems, will be used to upgrade certain tokens and produce better equipment and tools. No release date yet, but more info here.

Beautiful and weird co-op combat and settlement-building MMO Love has been released. After months of furious development, one-man studio Eskil Steenberg has finally brought his project to completion, and it’s one of the most individualistic, esoteric experiences in gaming. It really is not like other games, and as such it’s my opinion that you should probably try it for yourself. Love is a challenging thing, but worth investigating. (And in the game! – RPS joke-o-matic.) It’s €10 for a month, and you can download the test client to make sure the game runs on your machine, before you buy. All the details are here, while Eskil’s Twitter records the vast catalogue of changes he’s made in the past few months.

Go take a look. (Also forum help and basic tutorials here.)

This is a heavily revised version of an article first published in PC Gamer UK, last year. It’s based on a presentation given by Ray Kurzweil at GDC 2008, and subsequent conversations I had with the author Charles Stross and the game designer Eskil Steenberg.

This article began back in 2008, when I was sat in the audience for GDC’s keynote speech by futurist Ray Kurweil. “Games are the harbinger of everything,” Kurzweil was saying, as he delivered his take on the future of everything (with slight emphasis on games) to the assembled design-masses. The controversial technologist, who regularly talks about his hopes for technological immortality and transhuman ascension via artificial intelligence, was arguing that games were where the future manifested itself. “Ultimately,” he said, “they’re going to be competitive with real reality.” These were claims I’d heard a bunch of times before. Often, in the pub, during conversations with Kieron, as he gesticulated dangerously behind a glass of wine. Other times from developers, writers, and gamers. I realised, watching Kurzweil, that it was something I was going to have to write more about: just what kind of future do games promise?

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The “beta” version of build ‘n’ shoot micro-MMO Love has almost arrived. It’s not beta in the usual sense, of course, because like the previous alpha-test version you’ll need to pay a 3€ fee for access. Currently the testing stage is only for previous subscribers, but it’ll be opened up as access for all on the 7th. Eskil has been working hard squashing bugs and introducing new features, and it’s reflected in a new level of polish within the game world.

And Love’s world is not like that of other games, as I’ll explain below.
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Oddly, Love isn’t the only trippy single-programmer MMOG with an emphasis on player landscaping and building that’s currently in beta. There’s also Neverdaunt 8Bit, or N8, which swaps procedurally generated gorgeousity and lethal roaming AI for a retro aesthetic and plain old messing around. I took a closer look at both of them recently and find myself liking one an awful lot more than the other. Find out which after the jump.
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Having pootled around in Love for a while last week, and watching Steenberg’s updates on Twitter, I decided it was time to have a decent session in the alpha build of the game. This led to me tell my girlfriend that I’d be spending the morning “in Love with James.” She didn’t bat an eyelid, used to such early-morning incoherence, and continued getting ready for work. Later, armed with Teamspeak and cups of tea, James (Arma II’s scriptwriter) and I set about investigating the indie not-quite-MMO in its embryonic stages. Our findings are below.
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Eskil Steenberg sends word that he’s opening up the alpha of his game to the public. Because it requires servers to be run to test it, he’s asking money for access at this eatly stage. You will be helping test a game, but the fee is relatively small. You can get it for 3 Euros, which is about £2.80. HOWEVER, it is not a finished product and/or service, and it is the work of a one man team. If you don’t like the idea of paying for an explicitly unfinished game, then this is not for you. If you want access to a weird and beautiful indie MMO, and to help make it work in the long run, then get your wallet out. To be sure it runs on your PC please download the client and get the alpha access details via the game itself. That way, says Eskil, you can be sure the game will function on your machine, as the world displays in the menu screen. You can follow Eskil’s ongoing updates on Twitter. And very brief first impressions follow…
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Nothing playable yet, but Steenberg has released a test client that will (via the menu screen) show how well his impressionistic multiplayer game will run on your PC. It’s kind of tantalising and frustrating to download this and not be able to log in, but by running it you’ll be helping Steenberg out by gauging interest and general PC specs for his potential audience. Also: pretty.

Steenberg says that the beta is “close” perhaps “just a matter of days”. Woo.

Go watch the video, or check out the new screenshots, to remind yourself of why we’re excited.