Holy cow, everyone. People bought a videogame! Look at all these HOT NUMBERS, sensitive bits conjuring curiosity from behind the slimmest of dollar signs. Yes, I know this sort of news isn’t typically very exciting, but I think Torchlight II warrants an exception to that oh-so-sacred of RPS rules. Runic’s finished taking count on the fingers and toes of all its employees and their many pet millipedes, and the total tally’s come out to two million>. In ten months. That’s pretty huge for a PC-only ARPG from a developer not named Blizzard. But then, Torchlight II did a rather incredible number of things right.

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I loved City Of Heroes. As someone who tends to find MMOs somewhere to run around in on my own, gobble up everything single player, and then quit out and never play again, City Of Heroes was different. It was a place to me. I don’t think that’s testament to the world-building therein – I’m not sure the towns themselves were anything particularly special. I don’t think I can put it down to the superb powers, fun biffy combat, or amazing character creator either. For me it was about a certain time, with certain people. Which means I’m super-excited to see what can be done with The Phoenix Project – the fan attempt to create a spiritual successor to the now gone-forever MMO. Soon to be Kickstartered.

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“I hope you enjoy it, and, if you don’t, it’s probably just too deep for you!” (more…)

“Has this game just come out?” maker of Thomas Was Alone Mike Bithell asks of Pretentious Game 3. “Because I’ve been getting emails all day, ‘They’re taking the piss out of you hurr hurr hurr’.”

Bari of Keybol games has just released the final part of a trilogy of games about a square, and labelled them all emphatically pretentious. Pretentious Game 3 is a game starring a cute little platforming square, just like in Thomas Was Alone. One of the enquiring, slightly jibing tweets to Mike Bithell about it was mine this morning, wondering if Bari was having a little joke at Mike’s expense. It turns out that there was just some sort of trend in games with a square in them last year, and between them, Bari and Mike had created some sort of New Square Wave of 2012, where they both were making games simultaneously about mobile squares with delusions of grandeur. I spoke to them both to find out exactly how pretentious they both are. (more…)

Pixelbionic’s Kickstarter for vehicular carslaughter game MotorGun was curtailed twelve hours ago, having reached only 10% of their requested donations at $63,120 out of $650,000. Previous Interstate ’76 developers Michael Kaufman and Mike Arkin said in a post last night:

“Kickstarter is a harsh mistress. Lots of projects are pitched to the community and sometimes they resonate and sometimes they don’t. In this case, what we were pitching wasn’t exactly what you guys wanted. So, as a result we’re making the tough decision to not drag it out, and we’re going to cancel the campaign and start working to reformulate it.”

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I’m so excited about Rome 2 that I keep catching fire. It’s horrible. Scorch marks on everything. Faint smell of bacon. It’s not making it any easier watching The Creative Assembly’s own Let’s Play thing*, which they’ve started off by looking at the campaign map. Always the best bit of a Total War game, right? You can see that happening below. They talk factions, and then just let us bask in that warm light of a formidably crafted turn-based Mediterranean as they witter on about trade and resources. Yeah, that’s how to do a goddamn campaign map, yes sir.

Argh! The flames! (more…)

Behold Studios, the dudes behind Knights of Pen and Paper, are kickstarting Chroma Squad, a game where you get to play as the MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS in true Japanese arcade style. A game of “manager, tactical turn-based, meta-game, pixel art fun” they say? It looks adorable. I am in. (more…)

Perhaps rather predictably, Ubisoft have just announced that the follow-up to the excellent Rayman Oranges, Rayman Legends, will be coming to PC. And even better news – on the same day as all the other formats, 30th August. To celebrate there are some screenshots, which are like a trailer, but very, very slow-moving.

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The so-called ‘Electronic Arts’ company has reported very strong sales as it announced preliminary financial results for its first fiscal quarter. And “digital games and services” are outstripping “brick and mortar sales”, with Apple iOS titles like The Simpsons: Tapped Out making a crapload of money for EA. Well if you are a games company trying to sell bricks and mortar to people then obviously the Apple products are going to sell better, silly. Can we have more Bullfrog games you amateurs. (more…)

The princess is in another procedurally generated level. Cloudberry Kingdom is a machine with one purpose – to create anguish and despair. It’s a side-scrolling platformer, with enough spikes and spinning blades to reduce even the most Super of Meat Boys into kibble and tripe. Rather than being hand-built, the levels are generated by a ‘level design AI’, which responds to the player’s skill, ramping up the difficulty and filling the screen with death. It’s out on July 31st and I am afraid of it.

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