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Subterranean Astronauts: We Are The Dwarves

Fortress-less

I first spotted We Are The Dwarves [official site] when it plodded onto Kickstarter in the summer of 2014. It reminded me of The Lost Vikings, with its trio of controllable characters, each with their own set of skills. Perhaps there's a little of Trine in there as well, although these characters are separate entities, able to act individually or as a squad. Intriguing as the tactical possibilities are, the world is the main draw - "Imagine the Universe filled with endless stone, with Life existing in gigantic caves enlightened by Stone Stars", says the official site. And now there's a release date: February 26th.

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The dwarves of this inverted universe (it's like a negative photograph of our world) live in kingdoms built around the stone stars that are central to the cave systems. An expedition to find new power sources goes horribly wrong at the beginning of the game and the three playable characters are the only survivors of a Starship crash.

They're a resourceful gang, thankfully. You'll be able to make use of their abilities using a pause and play system, as well as through use of command queues. The hazards they're navigating include environmental features, which can be turned to their advantage (swamp gas tends to be explosive and boulders roll in my experience of these things), and enemies who can "see you, hear you or discover you by your tracks".

February 26th is the date. The Greenlight and Kickstarter pages list Windows, Mac and Linux as supported platforms and presumably that's still the case, but the actual Steam store page isn't live yet so I don't want to claim that all three will be supported at launch. I've contacted the devs and will update as soon as I hear back.

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