Arcen Games have had a trying few years, but the plucky, quirky studio have always seemed to bounce back when you least expect it. They’ve seemingly found their footing again after their initial attempts to fund a sequel to AI War (arguably their best game) fell through, when we last heard about Starward Rogue the company was facing layoffs, after the game failed to sell nearly as well as hoped.

Two years later and Arcen believe that the time is right for a second debut. Accompanying a steep discount on the original Starward Rogue, they’ve rolled out a major expansion that aims to flesh out the twin-stick shooter/dungeon-crawler hybrid with all the content you’d expect from near-full-priced expansion.

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It’s a Christmas miracle: AI War 2 [official site] has hits its crowdfunding goal on its second attempt, its wonderful creators Arcen Games will live to dev another day, and we’ve probably all learned a little about feelings or some other sappy nonsense I guess. The original AI War is a fascinating RTS – and one of Adam’s favourites – with a wealth of options in a war against an AI overlord who’s playing entirely differently to you. Given the first Kickstarter’s failure and Arcen’s recent troubles, I’d worried about both this game and the whole studio but thankfully all is looking up. Read the rest of this entry »

Arcen Games have launched a new Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund AI War II [Kickstarter page], sequel to their cracking 2009 real-time strategy game which pitted players against AI playing by entirely different rules. “Didn’t they just…?” you’re wondering and yep, they did try to Kickstart it in October but cancelled the campaign when it was clear they wouldn’t reach their goal. They’re returned with a smaller pitch for a smaller game with a smaller budget, and this time they’re almost at their goal. Read the rest of this entry »

Arcen have launched a Kickstarter for a sequel to their excellent 2009 strategy game AI War: Fleet Command [official site]. The Kickstarter page comes complete with a 159 page design document, so if you really want to dig into the detail you can get a very good idea of what’s likely to be changed or improved in this sequel, and Arcen are shooting for just shy of $300,000. With one day of the campaign down, they’re more than ten percent of the way toward that target. Read the rest of this entry »

Arcen Games are primarily known for making interesting (and ugly) strategy games, but last Wednesday, August 24th, the small team released 3D dino-vs.-robots action game In Case Of Emergency, Release Raptor into early access. Then on Saturday, August 27th, they announced they were unreleasing it. Now as of today the game is no longer on sale and refunds are available for those who already purchased it through Steam.

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In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor has been released, which means there must be some kind of emergency. Perhaps the title of the game is a commentary on the situation of creators Arcen, who have been making inventive, weird strategy games for years, and found themselves in financial troubles earlier this year. Upsetting news, because not only were Arcen’s games great, their longevity as a company seemed like evidence that such an unusual portfolio could sustain a studio.

Raptor may or may not be the solution. It’s in Early Access now and it looks as odd as the title suggests.

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In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor [official site] is very much not the game I would have expected next from Arcen Games. The small studio are known for games like AI Wars, Starward Rogue, Bionic Dues – strange and thoughtful twists on strategy games, puzzlers, roguelites. In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor is a 3D smash ’em up with a velociraptor fighting robots in the dystopian future. Surprising! Raptor was due to launch onto Steam Early Access today but instead it’ll arrive on Friday.

For now, you can watch a video dev diary including the line “In a lot of respects it’s kind of like a first-person shooter – the raptor is your gun.”

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Less than three months ago, AI Wars developer Arcen Games ran into financial bother that left the majority of their studio jobless. Now, they’ve announced their first 3D game – “the first of many”, they say – named In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor [official forum]. Previously, Arcen planned to build a fully-fledged 3D survival game and while this isn’t it, it will see the team “working on building the components for that larger game by building them into a smaller game (this one) first.”

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Arcen Games, developers of AI War and most recently Starward Rogue, are going to let go almost all their staff this coming Monday. Company founder Chris Park explained in a post on Arcen’s site that that sales of their latest game had been much lower than expected and that sales of their back catalogue had dried up, perhaps as a result of changes to Steam over the past year.

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Burning out on making Stars Beyond Reach, Arcen Games announced a few months ago they were putting the 4X strategy game to one side to focus on a roguelikelike they’d been toying with for a while. That game, named Starward Rogue [official site], is now here. It’s a top-down shooter with oodles of bullets to dodge and bosses to battle, about mechs exploring a mysterious structure stuck in the side of a star. It’s colourful!

Ooh, and to celebrate the launch, their 2013 tactical turn-based mech ’em up Bionic Dues is free if you grab it now. Have you played it?

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The fizzing ideaboxes of Arcen Games have been awfully busy with the delayed Stars Beyond Reach and a side-project, but they haven’t forgotten about their last game, The Last Federation [official site]. Working with a member of their community, they’ve released a new expansion for the space strategy game. ‘The Lost Technologies‘ adds, you know, new technologies, along with a new mode focused on racing up the tech tree, new side-effects to techs, new champion-type enemies, a Ring World planet type, and more. The game and all its add-ons are on sale for a bit too.

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That nice lot at AI War developers Arcen Games have some interesting ideas about alien races crammed onto a sentient planet for their next sci-fi strategy game, Stars Beyond Reach [official site], but alas it’ll be a while before we get to see it.

Checking over what happened while I was away on holiday last week, squinting at events and muttering “Didn’t we already post about…?” and yes, yes I did already post about Stars Beyond Reach being delayed. Now it’s delayed once again – this time until March 2016. But, curiously, Arcen also say that they’ll halt work on SBR for a bit to release a real-time roguelikelike in January.

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Do you remember how Arcen Games had planned to launch their alien 4X strategy game Stars Beyond Reach [official site] on June 5th? Well, yeah, you can guess how that worked out. But this time, for real, for really real, they have a release date: September 25th.

The Last Federation and Valley Without Wind devs decided to delay their new game than release it wonky, figuring that the game being in development longer will cost them less than if they were to released it “substandard”. You might think that fairly obvious, but some people nowadays…

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Those Arcen lot do make some interesting games, don’t they? From A Valley Without Wind to The Last Federation, the six-person studio skip gaily across genres, getting systems all over their shoes then trailing them into unlikely places. Unlike their previous 4X-y games, though, Stars Beyond Reach [official site] really will be a real 4X strategy game for real, they say. With a few twists, of course.

After months of teasing blog posts explaining ideas and a handful of screenshots, Arcen have now shared a trailer with a smidgen of gameplay and a planned release date: June 5th.

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Oh sure, uniting the galaxy in a harmonious federation is a noble goal, but video games do ignobility so well. On Friday, Arcen Games released the first The Last Federation, adding a little skulduggery. Named Betrayed Hope, it brings a new mode where you’re done with all that unifying guff, instead controlling a planet trying to wipe out everyone also. But if you’re big on that ‘holding hands and singing friendly songs, we’re all better together’ malarkey, the other big addition is a mode about trying to defend the system from an alien invasion.

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If you’ve pressed your ear to Arcen Games’ door, read their lips through their window, rummaged through their bins and taped together shredded documents, planted microphones to record their nocturnal mutterings, or browsed their forums, you might know that the AI War and The Last Federation developers have been working on a 4X strategy game. They’ve super-properly formally announced the game now, ditching its working title for the super-definitely final name of Stars Beyond Reach (it’s set planetside, see). As well as regular 4X stuff, it has a few interesting ideas about language and combat. The game doesn’t have units, for starters.

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AI War is the sentient grey goo of gaming. Released in 2009, its design and uncanny artificial intelligence received praise from many quarters, including our own Alec, then writing for The Other Place. “This out-of-the-blue one-man passion project is one of this year’s finest strategy games”, he wrote, little realising that the very same ‘passion project’ that he so admired would continue to evolve. The sixth expansion, ominously titled Destroyer of Worlds, is due on August 18th, and with it Arcen’s flagship game will become even more cunning. Trailer and feature list below.

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