Peter Molyneux’s unnervingly vague but tear-jerking Project GODUS isn’t the only god game revival on the crowd-funded block. British indie dev Simon Roth is in the last mile of seeking pledges for his sci-fi-themed, Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress-inspired, procedurally-generated management game Maia. Between its rather spangly proprietary engine and the fact that there’s a whole lot of it being shown off already, I’m personally much more interested in this modernised, maximised rethink of the house that Bullfrog made than I am in the wild promises of Dungeon Keeper’s oft-disproved original lead.

With £63,000 of the required £100,000 in the bag and just four days left on the Kick-clock, it’s looking likely that Maia will go down to the wire. I chatted to the game’s lead, Simon Roth (ex of Frontier and Mode 7) about whether he thinks he’ll make it, the game’s procedural cleverness, his 70s sci-fi inspirations, why god games declined and, opportunist that I am, what he makes of Molyneux’s accidental rival project.> (more…)

Natural Selection 2‘s intense multiplayer sci-fi corridor-combat has given me odd dreams. I am not sure why that’s relevant, but I wanted to mention it.

Unknown Worlds’ long-awaited sequel (since 2002!) to the original hybrid mega-mod has been out for a while now, and I’ve been snapping my giant, slavering jaws on the live servers during that time. I believe this means I am ready to send you an encoded transmission that tells you wot I think.> (more…)

Limb-lopping sword ‘em up Chivalry: Medieval Warfare rather impressed Adam, and it seems like it’s been popular with you guys, too, because Torn Banner are toasting their success with a new patch, a Q&A video (below) and the promise of free updates for the game in the near future, fleshing out things like spectator mode. Relatedly, they’re talking about pushing towards e-sports support, even. The patch already did a lot of work with the issues people had raised, and you can see the the full patch notes here. (more…)

Why, we do love our abstract exploration games over here at Castle Shotgun. We can never resist their colourful allure. But here’s one with a dark twist: The mighty Indie Games leads us to student project Paradis Perdus, by Sergey Mohov, Fabian Bodet and Matthieu Bonneau. They explain the concept: “Paradis Perdus is a game of exploration and contemplation, except the time is also of essence, since everything you touch gets infected and eventually ceases to exist.”

Links to playable builds (OSX, Windows) here, and there’s a video below. (more…)

Beamdog’s remake of the classic RPG arrives on November 28th. With that in mind they’ve released a trailer to show off some of the improvements. These include: support for widescreen formats and resolutions that were imaginary at the time the game was released, new quests, new characters, and voices for those extras. They’ve apparently overhauled the original cinematics, and worked up the UI – something that’s very obvious in the trailer, below – to make everything a bit slicker now than it was back in the mist of the late 90s. (more…)

Zero Point, the team behind ambitious tactical sci-fi FPS, Interstellar Marines, have sat down to talk to you guys about their “Prologue” game. With just a few days to go on their Kickstarter they are still a long way from their $600k target, and they’re aiming to tell you enough to get you excited about their project. As they explain: “Since our Kickstarter campaign started it has been clear to us that our explanation of Prologue has been somewhat vague. So we decided to sit down in a cozy environment, with the limited time that we have, and go through the experience from A to Z, like we’ve never done before!”

Take a look at their ten-minute video below. (more…)

Scribblenauts Unlimited has now been released in both North and South America. It’s soon out in Australia. And Europe’s not getting it until next year, and no one will say why. Sigh. And that’s a damned stupid shame, because it’s a ridiculously lovely thing, that I’d will everyone to check out. If only the could. Here’s wot I think:>

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The current IO Interactive may not be developing the next Hitman game but some of the studio’s founders didn’t work on Absolution either – they’ve been working on multilayered multiplayer WWII FPS Heroes & Generals at their new company Reto-Moto. I don’t play many multiplayer games and I wish I could take back the few hours I spent with Guild Wars 2 and spend them cycling through a war instead. It’s the strategic component that primarily interests me, the large-scale European conflict that the Generals prod at, but I don’t spend much time as a soldier in my gaming life and having the greater purpose of the greater war beyond the battlefield might provide enough purpose to engage me. Latest vid below.

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At least one person always complains that RPS Social Club postings arrive too late, making it impossible to rearrange the weekend’s revelry in order to drink, natter and play games of the board with the RPS community. This post provides an entire extra day’s notice, so if you are in London or the environs, you must> tear up your plans for Saturday evening and head to The Blue Posts instead. 6PM until midnight, or from 4PM for boardgames. Head to the forums to plan and perhaps offer to bring games if you have them? That would be nice. People would appreciate it.

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Clairvoyance convinced me that I’d like to sample its asynchronous multiplayer charms by means of an illustrated video of admiration and affection between strangers, interspersed with footage of the game and funky nightclub dancing. Players have control of four boxy robots and, before each round, both must submit their orders. The board, made up of cubes at different heights, can be destroyed by lobbed grenades as the robots attempt to destroy one another. Because turns play out simultaneously, the trick is to predict the opponent’s tactics by knowing their innermost fears and desires. Two videos below and the beta is available now if you spend $5 on a pre-purchase.

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