The blurring divide between what's virtual and what's real gets all the attention these days, and The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red embraces this concept with a desire to rip your face right off your head and stick it into one of their upcoming games (Cyberpunk?).

Before you dive for cover, check out the explanatory video below. Apart from the breath-of-relief usage of a digitized version of your face instead of actual flesh, CD Projekt Red's competition offers two methods of entry. For those Witcher 2-less, purchasing the game between now and the end of the month guarantees entry when you send proof of purchase and an explanation of why you should be in their game.

If buying games isn't your thing, you've probably spent your money on a magnum-opus Witcher costume for those evening walks. You're in luck! Snap a picture of yourself using whatever Witcher 2 props/pose/squibs you need, scribble up an "I'm awesome" essay, and send it in.

Looking to enter? CD Projekt's official competition page has the details.

In today's new Far Cry 3 trailer, gravel-voiced Agent Huntley's safari in the totally safe Rook Islands introduces him to the local law enforcement as they banter and trade with villagers. Don't worry, it turns out pitching head-first into a murky pit with a cinder block tied around your neck is the utmost sign of respect in these parts. Who knew?

Sampling the local flora carries its own special experiences, which might involve tripping out on psychedelics, stealing a bazooka out of a fortified bunker, and blowing up an APC while whistling "Liberty Bell" very loudly at the tiny elephants clinging to your belt. Or at least, things will float that probably shouldn't.

The trailer also reveals multiple methods for acquiring firepower and plenty of soft bandit necks for your knife's delight - that is, if that weird doctor stops feeding you crazy magical plants. And here you were considering Disneyland for your vacation plans.

Welcome to the spiritual successor to my Civilization V actual play column, set in Paradox Interactive's grand medieval strategy game Crusader Kings II. If you followed along for the Celtic Chronicle (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) and the Swedish Saga (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), here's what to expect:


Smaller historical scope. This game only covers the years between 1066 and 1490, as opposed to the typical, millennia-spanning game of Civilzation.
More depth. Almost every noble in Europe is an individual character with a sheet of traits, family ties, lieges and vassals, etc. Troops are tracked down to the individual man, and armies can be split and sent in different directions.
Real-time. CK2 uses a pausable, real-time mechanic where troop movements are tracked realistically, characters actually age, grow sick, and die, heirs become old enough to marry, and so on. There is no "Next Turn" button.

Got it? Good! On to the story...



The world stage

Crusader Kings II lets you jump into one of a handful of historical scenarios, and the one I’ve selected is Stamford Bridge. It’s 1066, and there’s a three-way war for the throne of England going on between Norwegian Vikings under Harald Hardrada, Normans under William the Bastard (known historically as William the Conqueror, but the game may not play out that way...), and the faltering Anglo-Saxon ruling class under reigning King Harold Godwinson. That’s far from all that’s going on, however.

The game’s map encompasses everything from Iceland in the far Northwest to Siberia and Persia in the East, and as far south as Mali and Ghana in the Southwest. The clash between Christianity, Islam, and native pagans is a primary source of conflict, and the Holy Roman Empire under Pope Alexander II is the single most influential political entity in the world.

You can choose any of the hundreds of nobles on the map to play. For this game, in an homage to my Civilization V Celtic Chronicle, I’ve selected the House of ua Brian (O’Brian). Who are they, exactly? Well...



The Duchy of Munster in a nutshell

The House of ua Brian are from the South of Ireland, ruling from the county of Thomond in the Duchy of Munster.

Crusader Kings 2 has a pretty in-depth vassalage system, and this is as good a time to explain it as any:

Empires are the largest bodies, ruled by an Emperor or Empress and encompassing multiple Kingdoms.
Kingdoms are the next step down, ruled by a King or Queen and encompassing multiple Duchies.
Duchies are the middle tier, ruled by a Duke (that's me) or Duchess and encompassing one or more Counties.
Counties are the lowest playable level, ruled by a Count or Countess and containing one or more Baronies.
Baronies are the individual towns and castles within each county space on the map. They’re either ruled by a Baron (for military castles), a Lord Mayor (for municipal cities), or a Bishop (for religious settlements.)


Phew, got all that? So my starting leader, Duke Murchad I of Munster, is the Duke of Munster. It is a Duchy that includes the Counties of Thomond and Ormond. Thomond is the seat of my power, while Ormond is my vassal, ruled over by my bannerman, Lord Mayor Ragnvald of Ormond. Within Thomond and Ormond are Baronies that don’t actually show up on the map, which swear allegiance to me by way of their County-level superiors (myself and Ragnvald).

Anyway, that should give you an idea of why I started with a smaller realm. If I were playing as, for example, the Holy Roman Empire, the first two weeks of this column would just be explaining who my vassals are.

Now then, let’s get to know the important characters better...



Meet the family

In Crusader Kings II, I'll always play as the most direct legitimate heir of my house. The game takes place over hundreds of years, ending in 1490, so I’ll control many generations of House ua Brian as the game goes on.

For now, I am Duke Murchad I, liege lord of House ua Brian of Munster, son of Donchad, son of Brian, son of Cenétig. I am 39 years old, a tough soldier, diligent and kind, but also known to be zealous and ambitious (all traits within the game that affect my stats and how others react to me.)




My Family:
My only child is Brian macMurchad, 18 years of age, whose mother (my first wife) has passed on from this world. Like me, he is a tough soldier and diligent, but is also known to be craven, gluttonous, and too patient for my tastes. Nonetheless, he is heir to everything I have built.




I have two living half-brothers (born of my father and his second wife, while my mother was his first): Conchobar macDonnchad is one, a charismatic negotiator, brave and charitable. Unfortunately, he also has a slight lisp, and is taken to sloth and gluttony.




The other is Lorcán macDonnchad, a tough and diligent soldier like myself. He is famed for being honest and just, but also grows easily envious of others. His sons are Conchobar, 19, and Cennétig, 17.





Now, who can I count on to help me rule these lands?



Wise council

Crusader Kings II allows me to appoint members of my court to five key positions that affect the success of my ream.

My Council:
The Chancellor is in charge of matters political and diplomatic. Perhaps his most important duty is fabricating claims. I can’t just declare war whenever I want. I either have to have a blood claim on the County I want to attack (usually through marriage), a religious reason (such as the opposing lord being revealed as a heretic), or a fabricated claim... which means my Chancellor B.S.ed some documents that say the land is mine.

My Chancellor is Toirrdelbach macTadg, a cousin of mine via my grandfather, Brian I. He is an aged relic of 57 (a pretty impressive run for this time period), charismatic, humble, and kind... though also a bit shy.

The Marshall is in charge of my military, and affects how well I do in battles and how quickly I can resupply lost levies.

My Marshall is my young cousin Tadg macDiarmait, son of my late uncle Diarmait. He is a boy of only 16, but is already one of the more impressive warriors in my lands: a brilliant strategist, humble, brave, and honest to the point that his frequent envy is usually overlooked.



The Steward manages the economic affairs of the realm, overseeing tax collection and building construction.

My Steward is my half-brother Lorcán (see page 4), though he is mediocre at best with numbers and likely attained his position through family loyalty.



The Spymaster has two jobs: orchestrate secret plots against my enemies, and discover said plots against me.

My Spymaster is Murchaid macConchobar, son of my half-brother Conchobar (see page 4.) He is a flamboyant schemer, known to those close to him as kind and gregarious. All the same, he also tends to be paranoid and arbitrary in some matters.



Lastly, the Court Chaplain manages the religious matters of the realm and my relations with the Pope in Rome. Having poor relations could result in my excommunication, which basically serves as a free invitation for the entire rest of the Catholic world (which is a pretty vast majority of Europe) to declare war on me. So... fairly important.

My Court Chaplain is the only man not of my blood on the council: Bishop Fogartach of Killaloe. He is one of my vassals, managing the Bishopric (a religious barony) of Killaloe in my home County of Thomond. The 35-year-old is a dutiful cleric, patient, honest, and brave. He also has paranoid tendencies, however... and syphilis. Yeah, syphilis. Let’s hope that happened before he became a holy man.

Also, he has won the Munster Beard Faire for the last 11 years in a row.

Lastly, the men sworn to me...



Loyal (hopefully) bannermen

As Duke of Munster and liege lord of the counties of Thomond and Ormond, I have three direct vassals, and two indirect ones (through Lord Mayor Ragnvald.)

The first two are the barons of my home county Thomond: Bishop Fogartach of Killaloe (see page 5) and Mayor Dúngal of Limerick. The latter is a man of 36, unrelated to my house and known for kindness and patience. On the other hand, it is also known that he has a fascination with the occult, and is scared of his own shadow.




My third and most powerful direct vassal is Lord Mayor Ragnvald of Ormond. He is 45, and a descendant of Norwegian Viking settlers who once raided the Irish coasts. Despite having an Irish mother, he is largely distrusted for his Norse blood... and he isn’t particularly fond of Irishmen himself. Though honest and humble, he is also a coward and quick to anger.

His direct vassals (and mine by extension) are Halfdan, Bishop of Cashel, and Arnfinn, Baron of Nenagh. He also has a newborn son, Olav Ragnvaldsson, though his wife died giving birth to the babe. Both Halfdan and Arnfinn are of Norwegian descent, like Ragnvald, leading to concerns that half my realm is ruled by Norsemen.

That’s enough exposition for now, though. Onward, to glory!



September 15, 1066: Dawn of destiny

My initial goal for this game is pretty simple. While most of the world is currently ruled by Kingdoms, Ireland is merely a handful of warring Duchies and Counties. I plan to go against the grain of history and become High King of Ireland, a feat that was only briefly accomplished in 1156 for about a decade before Normans from England took hold of the Irish nobility. Once I have my crown and have secured Ireland’s continued independence, we'll decide where to go from there.

I have a few issues facing me from the outset: I am not married, nor is my son and heir. Marriage is a pretty huge deal in CK2, as it can be used to form alliances and orchestrate my heirs inheriting more land than they started with. Making the wrong choice can also be dangerous, I’ve found. If I marry too many foreign nobles just to secure their troops for my wars, my own people will stop recognizing my line as “native” and start to grow restless.

My preference would be to marry into an Irish noble family, but none of them have eligible daughters right now. After looking over the choices, it seems that strengthening ties with my bannerman Ragnvald’s Norse kinsmen is the best course of action at the moment.

September, 1066: Duke Murchad sends his messengers east with two offers of marriage. He seeks to marry Alfhild Aslaksdatter, the 36-year-old sister of the Norwegian Count Svein of Rogaland. For his son Brian, he chooses none other than the 18-year-old Princess Sigrid of Denmark, second oldest daughter of King Svend II.

Interestingly enough, it turns out that Svend’s oldest daughter, Ragnhild, is married to Count Svein of Rogaland. So my liege is marrying his son’s future wife’s sister-in-law. Believe me, this is the Middle Ages... it’s only going to get weirder.

The next thing I do is pick an ambition: short-term goals that give me a small stat boost when completed. I pick one that’s sure to come true almost immediately: get married. Doing so will increase my Piety, which makes it less likely that the church will decide to excommunicate me for murdering people on my path to kingship.



What’s mine is mine

While I wait to hear back about those marriage proposals, I consider my other pressing issue. As I’ve mentioned, CK2 requires me to have some “legal” justification to go to war. So I can’t just raise my armies and start yelling “I’M KING OF IRELAND! IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, COME AT ME BRO!” Okay, well, eventually I can do that. But I have to control a significant portion of what is considered “de jure” Ireland first.

Currently, I only have one valid claim that I can press through war. Enter: this d-bag. Earl Muiredach mac Carthaigh of Desmond, 41, is a pretender and a liar. Also he probably smells bad. He rules over the County of Desmond, which is part of the de jure Duchy of Munster. As long as I hold the title Duke of Munster, I can make the argument that his land is actually my land. Which it is. I plan to oust the fool right quick, and put an ua Brian in Castle Dunasead.

September, 1066 (Continued): Duke Murchad sends an offer of vassalization to Earl Muiredach of Desmond. He refuses. Duke Murchad emphasizes that this isn’t really optional. Muiredach still refuses. Murchad sighs, and assures the Earl he will be hearing from some men with swords shortly.

Well, it was worth a try. Now he’s going to make me raise an army. Luckily, that will give me a chance to explain how raising armies works. (And I promise, future installments won’t be this “explainy.”) In CK2, I don’t have guys that stay on the map all the time. Like actual medieval Europe, I need to call on “levies” from my vassals when I want to go to war. Every holding has a max number of troops it can give me, but the actual number it will give me is based on how much a particular vassal likes me.

County Thomond is mine, so I’ll get the full troop yield of 225. County Ormond, on the other hand, is ruled by Ragnvald... who doesn’t like me all that much. He’s offering 4 men. And the troop numbers in this game aren’t abstract. That’s, literally, four guys. They were probably planning on splitting the fare for a carriage. So, what’s to be done?



When the levee breaks...

September, 1066 (Continued): In preparation for war, Duke Murchad institutes a new law, increasing the number of feudal levies required from each lord of Munster in a time of conflict.

I have a set of laws I can mess with relating to taxation, troop levies, and eventually (once I’m king), how much autonomy my vassals have. I can only change one law every ten years, and this one will simply force my bannermen to send me more troops when I ask... at the cost of making them all slightly more annoyed.


To counter this, I’ve granted Ragnvald an honorary title. These are a set of functionally meaningless appellations I can give to anyone in my court to improve their opinion of me. I’ve given him the most important one: Cupbearer, to get the maximum gain. Along with the title, I’ve sent a gift of gold to further sweeten the deal.

That’s better. Now County Ormond is offering me 94 men. It’s still a fraction of what they could muster, but it’s acceptable for now.

As soon as preparations are in place, Duke Murchad declares war on the Earl of Desmond for his rightful claim. The Duchy of Munster raises 370 footmen and archers, and 19 horsemen. Led by Duke Murchad himself, Mayor Dúngal of Limerick, and Lord Mayor Ragnvald of Ormond, they march for Desmond at dawn.

And that’s all before I even hit “go” on CK2’s pausable, real-time clock. Yes, all of that happened in the space of a day. Only about 154,000 more to go! Buckle in.

NEXT WEEK: I press my claim on Desmond, and discover whether or not those Viking princesses find my son and me fit for marriage.

Unleash the swarm! The closed beta for StarCraft II's upcoming Heart of the Swarm expansion is alive and squirming. If you opted in to StarCraft-related beta tests on your Battle.net profile, you may be sitting on an invite already. I'm not as of yet, but Blizzard is getting a one week grace period until I start getting the shakes. Regardless, we've got some details on how testers are being selected.

"This multiplayer-only test will initially be limited to a select group of pro-gamers, members of the press, Arcade contest winners, and shoutcasters," Blizzard said in their press release. "We will soon be inviting other players to participate in the beta, so be sure you’ve opted in by clicking on the 'Beta Profile Settings' under the Account Management section of your Battle.net account."

The selection process takes system specs and activity into account, with the goal of having "a wide variety of players and system types." Opting in is only one way to gain access, though. Blizzard also plans to give away keys through promotions over the course of the beta, so keep an eye out.

A developer journal posted today by Diablo 3 Senior Technical Designer Wyatt Cheng cast a portal of illumination on planned touchups to crowd control (CC) abilities in patch 1.0.5. After considering duration reductions and implementing diminishing returns, Wyatt and his team decided to provide Hell's minions with stacking CC resistance up to a certain percentage.

"While infinite CC rotations makes players feel awesome, it's fleeting," Cheng wrote. "If CC becomes too powerful, it trivializes most major mechanics, and the game becomes boring."

To that end, Cheng provided graphs depicting how players increasingly favored self-buff and defensive abilities over CC while progressing through Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno difficulties because of stronger resistances from powerful foes. As a measure of balance between retaining CC's validity and providing adequate challenge in high-level play, 1.0.5's CC changes echoes World of Warcraft's diminishing returns system sans complete immunity from an effect after repeated use.

Here's Cheng's breakdown of how it works:

Monsters have a "CC resistance" that is stored on a per-monster basis.
The CC resistance starts at 0%. For every 1 second CC that is applied to the monster, the monster receives 10% CC resistance.
Monsters lose 10% of their CC resistance every second that they are not CC’d.
Elite monster CC resistance is capped at the current reduction values already active for Elites. In other words, CC resistance on most Elite monsters is capped to:
35% in Normal
50% in Nightmare
65% in Hell
65% in Inferno


Cheng also assured players "Immune" messages will never appear during CC-a-thons and hoped CC becomes "more appealing" for facing swarms of elites. Although my sparsely dressed Barbarian dwells in the relatively simple Normal mode battlegrounds, these changes definitely appear rewarding for defensively oriented high-level players and those piling CC bonuses onto their gear.

In a recent interview with The Penny Arcade Report, Markus "Notch" Persson unleashed some new details on his upcoming Fly A Spaceship With A 1980s Computer simulator 0x10c (which, for the record, I pronounce as "Zero to the Speed of Light"). Among them was the fact that he might just start the whole project over.

Notch told Penny Arcade that, while the game has a working physics engine and room builder, he's unhappy enough with the current build that it could be scrapped. "I might possibly start over, because it feels like... it’s not fun," he admitted. "The stuff you’re actually doing. If it’s not fun to walk around the spaceship then the game isn’t fun. So I need to figure that out and try to, not necessarily gamify, but add more instant gratification. "

Other details that came out of the interview included the fact that Mojang is looking at something like five Euros per month to subscribe to the "multiverse" multiplayer mode, and that we could see a Minecraft-style alpha release some time in early 2013. "I always miss my terms, but I’m hoping to get something done in like six months," Notch said, "where people can actually play it without the multiverse and everything, preferably even sooner. It depends on how into the flow I get."

While Valve continue to work out the kinks in their promo-platform piping, we’ve pooled together our favourite picks from the Steam Greenlight community into the PC Gamer Greenlight Collection. This will certainly continue to grow, so do check back, but here’s the first fifteen to make it in: experimental puzzlers, gruesome horror yarns, frantic frag-fests, puntastic platformers, games we can’t even pronounce - and all deserving of wider recognition. Why not have a peek and let us know what other games have tickled your fancy in the comments?

Project Zomboid

The Indie Stone’s sandbox zompocalypse sees players choose how to fend for their life, and their injured wife, in a grim isometric cityscape, swarming with brain-ripping deadopaths. Fortify your dwelling with barricades, make tense sorties for vital resources, or simply smother your ailing spouse in the first few minutes and go prancing into the wilderness. It’s really about as open-ended as a game in which you will inevitably die a horrible miserable death can be.

Artemis

It’s co-op Star Trek in which each player takes authority over a single ship sub-system: engineering, comms and so on, while the captain barks orders at them. It’s also totally, totally awesome - as we discovered in PC Gamer’s own intrepid adventure to distant stars. The captain’s screen is designed to be seen by all players, and vocal commands are essential - so the game only really works at LAN parties. But what a good excuse to haul your towercase round a mate’s. Fake pointy ears sold separately.

Incredipede

A puzzler based on the rudiments of multi-pedal locomotion, Incredipede sees you extrude boney prongs from a large, disembodied eye, then attach muscles to the prongs, attach the prongs to other prongs, and set the newly-limbed monster into shuddering, unheimlich motion. It’s a bit reminiscent of creature-building sandbox Soda Constructor but draped in a wood-cut art-style that’s gorgeous and deeply unsettling at the same time.

Routine

This sci-fi horror game could quickly be pitched as Amnesia in Space, given that your main means of survival is running and hiding. But that would probably undersell its lustrous looks, non-linear design and branching narrative. Also: the devs have plans for Oculus Rift functionality to maximise the player’s bowel-loosening terror.

Broforce

A manic 2D platform-shooter - and that’s in a very literal sense, given that you can blow up most of the levels into pixelly gibs. There’s a free prototype of the game available for download from developer Free Lives’ site.

Waking Mars

An underloved gem on iOS, this exploratory platformer by Tiger Style sees you reawaken a dormant subterranean ecosystem after being trapped in a Martian cave. It offers “action gardening” gameplay, which may not sound like the kind of thing devs who’d worked on Thief, Deus Ex, and Splinter Cell would naturally gravitate towards. And maybe that’s the point: unusual and uplifting stuff.

FRACT OSC

FRACT OSC is a first-person puzzle game about synthesisers, set in a world that the developers describe as a mix of Myst and Tron. Challenges are built around music, such as using a sequencer to manipulate a machine in dazzling neon 3D space. It includes powerful composition tools, so it's as much about creaitivity as progression. To say that Chris wants to climb inside this game would be understating it: if you ever needed to hunt Chris for his fine pelt, you could very well use FRACT OSC as bait.

Escape Goat

Escape Goat is a brilliant (and brilliantly-named) puzzle platformer that casts you as a wrongfully accused goat attempting to escape a 16-bit fantasy dungeon. You need to figure out how to activate a series of switches to manipulate each single-screen stage to your advantage. There's a free version of the game available at playescapegoat.com until the 9th of September.

qrth-phyl

Apparently the name is Cornish. One-man outfit Hermit Games isn’t big on focus groups, we suspect. If the title’s a little inaccessible, then at least the Snake-but-in-3D concept should slip down easily, right? Well, it should. But the game is actually a frantic brain-crashing challenge - like exploring the interior of a neon Rubik’s Hypercube.

Home Sheep Home 2

Aardman may not be indie devs, but this Shaun The Sheep spin-off game has gone lamentably uncelebrated by hardcore gamers, possibly because it’s a sequel to a browser game and pitched to a family friendly audience. This, however, is a proper desktop game and a hardy puzzler to boot, mixing up its 2D platforming conundrums with portals, gravity switches and teleportation. Also has a good line in sheep puns.

The Spire

Pretty sci-fi first-person adventure The Spire tasks you with surviving in an Antarctic research base with only your wits and a crate-flinging gravity gun-style glove gadget. The latter sounds substantially more useful than the former, now that I think about it. There's not much to go on other than a smattering of shots and a trailer, but the production values on display are impressive.

Miasmata

Miasmata is an incredibly ambitious adventure game set on a tropical island. You're a scientist searching for a cure for his illness while trying to survive in the wilderness. The trailer shows off features like dynamic cartography, fire and searching for fresh water. You're also being hunted by a creature that looks like a cross between a giant lynx and a stag that will respond to your movements and actions and attempt to murder you accordingly. It's very impressive stuff, particularly for a two-man team who have written their entire engine from scratch. It's due out this month.

No Time To Explain

This chaotic comedy platformer has already been released and rejected by Valve once. But that shouldn’t stop you from giving it the thumbs-up and reaching the audience it deserves. Especially since if it got the OK from Valve, the devs would continue to expand the game - they’ve already issued a second “season” to people who bought the first game, free of charge. Also features: collectible hats, shark fights, beam-weapon-jumping.

Fly’n

A platformer set in a tie-dye interpretation of the natural world, in which you flit between four different characters, each with their own abilities. As guardians of the forest world of Helycia you must fight the forces of industrial garbage - but the devs says the game pitches itself more to the contemplative end of platformer spectrum. It also looks super, super trippy.

The Real Texas

Misleadingly titled RPG adventure The Real Texas is actually set in The Strange Texas, a fun-house mirror held up to the Lone Star State. The developers describe it as a mash up of Legend of Zelda and Ultima VI, which belies the fact that it's also well-written and genuinely funny. It's available now for $14.95 from therealtexasgame.com, where you'll also find a trailer that's missing from the Greenlight page. Give it a look.

Indie devs seem to be divided over the recently announced Steam Greenlight $100 entry-fee. The idea’s well-intentioned: it’s to stop fakes, trolls and overenthusiastic members of the community filling the crowd-promotion service with games that aren’t theirs to develop. But others say such a figure is too much for struggling indies to afford and a dangerous gamble on a service which promises the submitting dev nothing solid in return.

Is the fee a good idea? A necessary evil? Will it crush aspirations or filter out the dross? We asked a number of indies and Steam hopefuls what they thought.

Chris Delay, Introversion (Darwinia)
“I think the $100 fee is a thoroughly sensible idea. Greenlight has already been flooded by a ton of fake entries, which completely drown out the developers genuinely trying to use the system. By setting this fee they will put a stop to that. I don’t think any serious indie developers will consider $100 unaffordable – it’s certainly a worthwhile investment for the chance to be listed on Steam. However this fee will be enough to stop pranksters filling up the listings with Half-Life 3.”

Chris “Lemmy” Simpson, The Indie Stone (Project Zomboid)
“To be honest since we're doing well on Greenlight, and would be able to afford the $100 ourselves should we have to pay it, it's difficult to be completely objective on the subject. I will say that the fee move was predicted and even championed by numerous Steam users and indie devs because of the ridiculous amount of spam and joke games that were very quickly eroding user faith in Greenlight and risking the future of the entire system. I certainly don't disagree with it in concept.

“On the other hand $100 does seem pretty steep, and the worry is that perhaps misguided young hopefuls (think round one of X-Factor) who are destined to get shot down by the community will stump up money they can't really afford for the privilege.

“I'm still of the belief that you need to foster a community prior to Greenlight to have success on there, and think we'd likely be bottom of the pile if we hadn't already done that. So I don't really think it'll crush any indie dreams that wouldn't have been crushed by the old system anyway. It frustrates me when a lot of devs say there is no money to be made outside Steam.

“While obviously there is a clear chasm of difference between being on Steam or not, when we're talking about $100, if you're not capable of drumming up support to that figure via a donate button then maybe your game isn't at the stage of development it should be on Greenlight in the first place. I just wouldn't like to see some naive but enthusiastic ten-year-old kid getting his money off his granddad to pay the fee and get it up there, to be torn apart.”



Jonatan “Cactus” Söderström, Dennaton (Hotline Miami)
“I think the fee is good, although I think it could be lowered so that developers who aren't in a good financial situation can still afford to submit their games. I'm a little bit surprised that people are upset by it, though. If they believe they have a game that is good enough to be on Steam, they should be able to figure out a way to pay the submission fee. Pre-orders or sales should be able to generate that much outside of Steam if you think you have a legitimate chance of getting your game approved through a process which resembles a popularity contest.

“Overall, I don't really like the idea of Greenlight, I may be a bit pessimistic now, but to me it seems it will only serve to streamline indie games into marketable products and rob them of any kind of unique personality. I really hope that developers won't focus too much attention on what traits proves most successful in helping you pass the Greenlight screening when designing their own games. Then again, I like Valve and have some faith in that they know what they're doing with the whole thing, and I have no idea what the final steps of the Greenlight process might be like. Maybe something great will come out of it?”

Eskil Steenberg, Quel Solaar (Love)
“My main problem with Steam is that I like to be able to update my game several times a day and any kind of friction in doing that is bad for me. Indie game development is becoming more and more a lottery where it’s all about getting noticed by buying yourself into contests - and now Steam. For someone like me who’d rather spend my resources on making a better game it’s a worrying trend.”

Dave Johnston, Smudged Cat Games (The Adventures of Shuggy)
“I think $100 is far too much. The whole point was to prevent spam appearing on the system - $10 would achieve that. $100 is enough that I feel it could put off legitimate developers with a great game that just don’t have enough money. Indie developers are generally pretty strapped for cash so this could affect quite a number of people. I agree that something needs to be done about junk appearing on the system but this seems like a knee-jerk reaction that hasn’t been thought out clearly.”



Mark Burvill, Aardman Digital (Home Sheep Home 2)
“I was a bit disappointed with Greenlight at first as it looked as though they hadn't given a lot of thought to a few things such as the discoverability issue. Plus, I thought the downvote button encouraged negativity and trolling a bit too much.

“However, I'm encouraged by the changes Steam have made today, in particular the fact that they've changed the labelling on the voting buttons to make it a bit clearer what your vote actually means.

“As for the $100 charge, I can understand how some people are a bit upset about it, but I don't think it's that big a deal. I think people who are serious about their game are unlikely to think twice about paying the fee, and it should discourage some of the more pointless clutter. It looks like Steam are committed to getting it right so hopefully we'll see some further changes over the next few weeks.”

Evan Greenwood, Free Lives (Broforce)
“We fortunately missed the $100 fee for Greenlight. So I can't comment from a position of having paid such a fee. But I feel that's quite reasonable. Steam are certainly doing it because there has been quite a bit of noise in Greenlight due to people posting fake games.

“An Apple developer license costs $100 as well. Submission into the IGF costs $95 dollars. I think if you believe in your game and intend seriously working on it $100 that goes to charity is a non-issue. We expect to be spending so much more money than that anyway. And Greenlight has been really, really beneficial to us already. It would have well-earned a $100 fee already in marketing, even though we haven't nearly been Greenlit yet.

“I think the only people it may affect negatively are those who have a really cool idea and no money to spend on it. If they got Greenlight they'd be able to better pursue getting funding. But then again that is what Kickstarter is for.

“I feel the pros of charging the money far outweigh the cons. If people had used Greenlight responsibly from the start this wouldn't have happened, but sadly people can be dicks. I really don't like legitimate developers being charged that money, but I'll be glad that the scammers are kept out.”

The lead programmer of Fallout 1 and 2, Tim Cain, has been airing his views on Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas in an in-depth chat with RPG Codex. The co-founder of Troika (Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines) is currently working on the upcoming South Park RPG with New Vegas developers, Obsidian, but he reckons it's a close call between the two modern Fallouts.

"If I were to compare the two games, I would say that Fallout New Vegas felt like it captured the humor and style of the Fallout universe better than Fallout 3," he said, "but I have to hand it to the FO3 designers for developing VATS, a cool twist on called shots for a real-time game."

Cain found Fallout 3's wasteland to be a lot more lavish than New Vegas', the incidental details and attention to detail that went into every environment didn't just sell the feel of the post-apocalypse, it hid self-contained stories among the debris.

"I also loved the set decoration FO3. There was so much destruction, yet obviously everything had been meticulously hand-placed. So much story was told entirely through art. I ended up naming these little art vignettes and creating side stories in my head about what had happened.

"There was "The Suicide", a dead guy in a bathtub with a shotgun, and I figured he just couldn't handle life after the bombs. There was "Eternal Love", a couple of skeletons in a bed in a hotel room, forever embracing each other.

"My favorite was "Desperate Gamble", where I found a feral ghoul in an underground shelter filled with lab supplies and lots of drugs... except for Rad-X. I imagined that a scientist found himself irradiated and desperately tried to synthesize some Rad-X to cure himself before he succumbed, but he was too slow. I did notice that whatever was left of his mind sure did seem to enjoy toilet plungers."



Fallout 3's art direction was a big part of Fallout 3's appeal for Cain, but he later said that art should take second seat to design. "I care more about a game being fun than being beautiful, because no matter how good you look, people will move on to the next pretty thing and forget about you. If you make a fun game, people will remember that. And a fun game needs to be accessible, by which I mean that game had to present its rules clearly and then follow them."

Cain certainly isn't alone in his central complaint about Fallout 3, though. "I hated the ending. There, I said it."

It's okay, Tim. I understand. "I didn't like the sudden problem with the purifier, and I especially didn't like the lack of real, meaningful multiple endings beyond what I chose in the final few minutes. But the worst thing about the ending was there was no mention of the fate of places I had visited. In my head I had already imagined slides for Megaton, the Citadel, Rivet City, Underworld, GNR, the Enclave or the mysterious Commonwealth. But I got... pretty much nothing."

Which modern Fallout did you prefer, and what would you like to see from Fallout 4?

Mojang is teaming up with UN Habitat to launch Block By Block, a project that creates real-word environments in Minecraft, and then lets the young people who live in those environments step in and show designers what they'd like to see changed.

"Minecraft has turned out to be the perfect tool to facilitate this process," Manneh writes. "The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat’s Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016."

Mojang will be the main sponsors of the effort, and have enlisted awesome Minecraft building community Fyre UK to help render environments. "The first pilot project in Kibera one of Nairobi’s informal settlements is already in the planning phase," Manneh notes. Here's Fyre UK's build of Undugu playground.



Block By Block is based on an earlier initiative, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which offered young people "a tool to visualize their ideas of how they want to change their part of town."

"It has proven to be a great way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having architectural training. The ideas presented by the citizens lay as a ground for political decisions."