By John Walker on April 17th, 2013.
Airship MMO Guns Of Icarus is to receive an adventure mode. The original game, Kickstarted in February 2012 (before it was cool), was released in October with the promised skirmish play. Over a year later, Muse Games returned to the crowd-funding beg-me-up to fun an expansion of the project, fleshing out the world the game takes place in, and adding an Adventure path. This second Kickstarter has just dinged its $100k, so that should now be a thing that happens.
The Win Bin
By Adam Smith on April 14th, 2013.
Last weekend took on a life of its own, which is the sort of thing weekends should probably do more often, and I was stranded away from my trusty keyboard and therefore unable to type words about games that might exist at some point in the future. This was a sad thing. Fortunately, missing a week means that there are more winners than ever before and the bumper crop contains two games that I’ve played and enjoyed, at least three that I look forward to playing when they are released and a project that makes me realise how much I want to play with an Oculus Rift.
By John Walker on April 10th, 2013.
How do you feel about thruster-based games? Me – I’m terrified of them, bringing back haunting memories of endless hours, days, months, failing at Moon Cresta. Oh God, Moon Cresta. Just the name evokes some mad synaesthesiac response, let alone those hateful, HATEFUL Atomic Piles. Oh man, I need a hug… Sorry, far off track. My traumatic Speccy past aside, Flowstorm is absolutely nothing like Moon Cresta, thank all that’s holy. But it is a game about manoeuvring a little rocket ship THAT’S A DANGEROUSLY SIMILAR SHAPE TO MY NIGHTMARES, through ludicrously tight curvy corridors. And what’s rather pleasing to discover is that’s a game about skidding, as much as it is thrusting. (Missus.)
By Alec Meer on April 10th, 2013.
Another RPG sequel (spiritual or otherwise), another big Kickstarter victory. So it goes. And so Larian Studios go home with $429,508 of their desired $400,000 for Divinity: Original Sin, and that’s with 16 days left on the clock. Across its 9,472 backers, that’s an average of $45 per person. I don’t why I mention that, I just had the calculator program open anyway and thought I’d use it. For fun.
Larian’s Divinity series might have never quite set the world on fire, but it has a passionate following who’ll be clapping their hands with glee about this. As are Larian themselves.
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By Nathan Grayson on April 10th, 2013.
Oh, well this just won’t do at all. I was having a very nice day – frolicking in the bunny-infested fields and devising new ways to make game developers weep sincere, beautiful tears, as is my way – when the world decided to remind me that Shadowrun Returns exists, but it’s still not mine yet. Now I’m quite sad, and devs will have to bear the loathsome burden of their intrinsic, inescapable pain all alone. But I suppose I can’t be too pessimistic, given that I was snapped out of my willful cyberslumber by word of concrete Shadowrun Returns release details. First, the good news: it’s arriving in June, with Steam Workshop support straight out the gate. But wait, if it’s launching on Steam, what does that mean for all of Harebrained’s much-ballyhooed promises of being DRM-free? Well, it’s kinda complicated.
By Adam Smith on April 8th, 2013.
When Wasteland Interactive announced Worlds of Magic, it was hard not to see the comparisons with Microprose’s stately and delicious fantasy strategy title, Master of Magic. Partly that was because of the echo in the name and partly because the press release said – and I paraphrase – “we would really really like to make a superb modern version of Master of Magic. Really.” All the features seemed to be in place but I questioned whether Wasteland’s game would be packed with quite as much of everything as its spiritual predecessor. Master of Magic was crammed with unit types, races, spells, heroes and artifacts. Now that the Kickstarter page is live, it appears Worlds of Magic is going to be triple-packed.
By Adam Smith on April 8th, 2013.
Shortly after Torment: Tides of Numenumenumenuma-BATMAN claimed its title as the most-funded Kickstarter game in the short history of Kickstarted games, Richard Garriott’s definitely-not-an-Ultima sequel, Shroud of the Avatar has raised over two million dollars. The Kickstarter campaign, which had a one million dollar goal, finished just shy of doubling the target but direct pledges through the RPG’s website pushed it to a current total of $2,057,992, a figure which will almost certainly be out of date by the time you click on the link. Understandably, recent updates have been focused on clarifying and altering reward tiers, although as is increasingly common, I find the whole system cumbersome in the extreme. There were details about crafting last week though and some of that information is below.
By Nathan Grayson on April 6th, 2013.
$4,188,927. That’s where Torment: Tides of Numenera‘s conquest of Kickstarter ground to a halt, which is pretty good considering it started off asking – nay, begging, clothed only in rags and its own waste – for a pithy $900,000. It’s also apparently pretty good in the grand scheme of every videogame ever, seeing as Torment’s now holds the record for most-funded Kickstarter game of all time. Previously, brother in spirit (and partially in flesh, given Chris Avellone’s formidable intellectual seed) Project Eternity held the top spot at $3,986,929. But enough numbers I can barely count to using my fingers, toes, and a nearby family of millipedes. Let’s delve into what this means for the game.
By Adam Smith on April 5th, 2013.
Before FTL became the short-form sci-fi adventure of choice for the discerning PC enthusiast, Digital Eel had set up a very effective stall in that particular sector of the internet. The Infinite Space games are among the few ‘coffee break’ games that I’ve ever played during actual breaks from work, back in the days when I sat in an office and pretended to be interested in the kind of water cooler conversations that could drive a man to dehydration. News of a third game is welcome and it has the perfect subtitle: Sea of Stars. Digital Eel are seeking $30,000 via Kickstarter and have had a decent start to their campaign.
By Nathan Grayson on April 3rd, 2013.
Back in my day, RPGs were nothing but intangible, entirely unmoving canvases for imagination. And by that, I mean yesterday. Torment: Tides of Numenerararararararararara took its first itsy bitsy widdle slime-drenched steps toward existence with a screenshot, but boy do they ever grow up fast. Now it’s moved on to a full-blown (though extremely brief) video, and before we know it, the Planescape sorta-successor will be driving, going to college, and raising its own litter of little Torment-lets. But I’m probably getting ahead of myself, because I desperately hope it’ll eventually pay my retirement home bills. However, that “eventually” just got a bit further off, as Torment’s already suffered a slight delay. Video and explanation after the break.
Happy Chocolate Eggsmas
By Adam Smith on April 1st, 2013.
I haven’t eaten a single chocolate egg in the last twenty four hours, which would normally be an acceptable dietary state, but with this being the extended weekend of confeggtionary rabbit worship, I’m a little bit upset that nobody bought me a big Smarties egg. There’s nothing like a tube of Smarties to make me feel like a kid again. Some crispy chocolate buttons, a few episodes of Button Moon and a glass of Tizer. Right, that’s my annual product placement commitment out of the way and hopefully I’ll be receiving a batch of shop-soiled Smarties eggs any day now. On with the Katchup.
