Sid Meier, that legendary game dev whose name sits before the names of Civilization games, had a lovely chat with our very own Nate Crowley this weekend, as part of PAX Online X EGX Digital. The pair talked all about some of the most notable parts of Meier’s career – including, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates!, and Civilization – as well as chat about his upcoming book, Sid Meier’s Memoir!: A Life In Computer Games. And thanks to computers, you can watch their whole chat in full below.

(more…)

Gandhi is one of the most unique figure in history. His adherence to non-violence, his establishment of a full-fledged philosophy behind it and, above all, his success>, are practically without precedent. Kings, empires and leaders can often blur into each other. The locations change, the dates are different and the numbers differ, but the essence remains the same. Gandhi was something completely different, and yet games try to represent him with the same pieces they use for everyone else – and so they always make him something far less than he was.

(more…)

It’s been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that’s happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you>, but a day’s work for us. Below you’ll find our picks for the 50 best games released on PC across the past decade.

(more…)

Well, it’s finally happened. On Monday, Apple released the feared MacOS “Catalina” update, killing compatibility for dozens of 32-bit games. From this week onwards, updated Macs just flat out won’t run ’em. In the constant churn of developing newer, faster, and sleeker operating systems, the Mac makers have given curators of older games a simple choice: put in the work to bring your games up to speed, or we’re leaving them behind.

For some publishers, updating countless classics simply isn’t worth the effort, leaving many 32-bit hits in the ground for good.

(more…)

To this day, the jaunty static of the opening jingle to Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town brings me back to a simpler time. Summer evenings spent hunched over my Game Boy SP, a pane of glass between me and nature s suburban bounty as I tilled my little squares of land, pet my happy little chickens, and bribed a town s worth of reticent heartthrobs into falling for my little blonde avatar, Pepper, with an onslaught of ores, animal products, and various culinary delights (but never cucumbers, ya gummy-mouthed fish-man).

Harvest Moon was about as wholesome as wholesome gets, my first videogame love, but as the days turned to years, we grew apart. Since then, I ve filled the hole in my heart with the usual suspects, (Stardew Valley, Rune Factory, and so on) until there was only one thing left to do: make my own Harvest Moon. And so began my ongoing personal quest to turn every game I own that is unfortunate enough to not be Harvest Moon into the farming simulation game they were always meant to be. Here, in true naturalist fashion, I present my field notes in the hope that we may go on to tame this new frontier together.

(more…)

Your time is important. And you know what? So is mine. Here s this week s podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. It s about how your life is dripping away every second you play Stardew Valley.

(more…)

Ah, 2010! Lady Gaga and Beyonc were tearing up the dancefloor with Telephone, Inception was fuelling one million drunk ‘philosophical’ conversations, Jackass had gone 3D, and Civilization V had yet to reach that point in every Civ game’s lifespan where it’s declared superior to its successor. If you wish to party like it’s 2010, you might enjoy a new Civilization VI mod made by actual Civ 6 art director Brian Busatti. It aims to make Civ 6’s landscape, buildings, and units look more like Civ 5, less vibrant and more ‘realistic’. Yeah, but like, what if we’re still dreaming we’re playing Civ – does the game ever stop or will “one more turn” keep going forever? Makes you think, maaan.

(more…)

We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

Sid [Meier] didn t know he was inventing a genre back in 91 – if he had he might have been a lot more careful. He was just making it up as he went along.

That s how genres begin. By mistake. Somebody creates a set of rules and systems for the needs of a particular game, and then either people adopt and adapt those rules. Soren Johnson, creator of Offworld Trading Company and lead designer of Civilization IV, is working on a new game called Ten Crowns and after spending almost an hour talking with him at GDC, I get the impression he s going to be very careful indeed. Not cautious, because I expect some bold reinvention of 4X strategy fundamentals, but careful in his treatment of a genre that we both agree needs to escape its own past.

(more…)

What do you reckon is the greatest threat to the future of humanity? Climate change? Nuclear war? A global epidemic? They re all causes for concern, but it s my belief that one of the greatest risks is actually posed by superintelligent AI.

You might need some convincing of that, which is why researchers at the University of Cambridge s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk have made a mod for Civilisation V that introduces potentially apocalyptic AI. Ignore the pressing need for AI safety research, and it s game over.

I tried it out last week, seeking to answer two questions. Does it accurately portray the risks involved with the development of a god-like being? And is it any fun?

(more…)