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. … [visit site to read more]

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. … [visit site to read more]

An entirely objective ranking of the 50 best PC strategy games ever made, now brought up to date with the riches of the last two years. From intricate wargames to soothing peacegames, the broad expanse of the genre contains something for everyone, and we’ve gathered the best of the best. The vast majority are available to buy digitally, a few are free to download and play forever. They’re all brilliant.

… [visit site to read more]

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. … [visit site to read more]

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.

… [visit site to read more]

An entirely objective ranking of the 50 best PC strategy games ever made. From intricate wargames to soothing peacegames, the broad expanse of the genre contains something for everyone, and we’ve gathered the best of the best. The vast majority are available to buy digitally, a few are free to download and play forever. They’re all brilliant.

… [visit site to read more]

We’re seven years old! (Actually, we were seven years old last month, but we’ve never been much for punctuality.) And so by way of celebration we’ve curated the latest weekly Humble Bundle, and that means we’ve chosen some of our most beloved indie games from the past seven years for the Pay What You Want sale. An esoteric bunch, but so very beautiful, all. If only there were room for all the delights of those many wonderful years. As ever, some of the money goes to charity, too: we chose EFF and Medecins Sans Frontieres. Find out more, below, or simply click over the the bundle itself.

… [visit site to read more]

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.

… [visit site to read more]

It’s been interesting watching post-AI War Arcen at work. Their idiosyncratic drunken approach to genres has always resulted in games worth talking about. Granted, some of those words might not be all that complimentary, but they’ve never once released a game that had any hint of hubris. Not even when they return to the space strategy genre that pays the bills. The Last Federation’s a strategy/tactics game set inside a simulation game, which sets it apart from AI War’s ridiculous spectacle of death. It displays the one thing that’s true of Arcen’s game: it was announced in January, and it’s coming out next week. … [visit site to read more]

Older readers may recall that in February we took a peek at The Last Federation, the new space strategy game from Arcen Games. Even older readers may recall that Arcen first came to our attention for AI War – and lo, many a joke about Quintin and iron was spawned. After confusing everyone with A Valley Without Wind, and some appealing experiments in between, they’ve now returned to the genre which made them.

But what manner of beast is The Last Federation exactly? AI War too, or something very different? That’s the kind of question which can only be answered by watching an hour long (and change) alpha video. And also by saying that’s a hybrid of intergalactic simulation, grand strategy and RTS. … [visit site to read more]