SUPER DISCLAIMER: Posting about a game I made with Big Robot.
The Sir, You Are Being Hunted alpha is now open to all. On Steam or via Humble Store.
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As we know, leading scientists still have no idea how magnets work. Is it witchcraft? Is it angels holding things together between their wings? We’ll likely never know. But employing their dangerous mystery is Teslagrad, a very charming platformer in which you PUNCH metal objects to magnetise them. Just like real life.
You know that bit in expensive movies, when a burly man stands in front of a crowd and makes a speech that sounds like: “Today is the edge of tomorrow. The time is now for us to put up a fight that your children’s children’s children’s grandchildren will talk about. We will batter our foes. We will flatten them, flip them off, and then squeeze lemon juice in their eyes. Today is Pancake Day!”? Well that is probably what inspired this new trailer for F1 2013. It is the most Alan Partridge game trailer I’ve seen in quite some time. But the cars are pretty, the wheels are bouncy, and if the trailer is enough to keep John’s new kitten entertained, then I have every reason to post it.
The skill of being a human being is to allow the correct thought to escape at the correct time. I have many thoughts that I don’t tell people about, because the UK has hilarious laws against libel, treason, and terrorism, and the courts probably couldn’t keep up with my awful brain. But when I’m not planning all the terrorism, I do think about games. One thought I had when I played the MMO-inspired action game Forge was that it would probably be better as a free-to-play game. Now Forge has hastily scrubbed over its price-tag and scrawled ‘free’ in biro, and I’m terrified at my other thoughts being given form. (more…)
Sometimes I chase references like Alice blundering after rabbits, which is how my mind led me from the recognisable spaces of tactical tale of terror Camp Keepalive to dreamy space pop. It’s a short trip, passing between two Crystal Lakes, one of which contains the shimmering plastic detritus of Grandaddy’s Sophtware Slump. The game itself has been relentlessly stalking in our general direction since February when I played the demo. The full version of the turn-based horror puzzler is out this Saturday, the 24th, and there are brief thoughts on the full version below.
Perhaps one of the most interesting things to come out of the ‘indie revolution’ in game development is the re-imagining of what age-old elements and mechanics can do. Minecraft showed the world interaction with an environment could be 90% of a game. Amnesia revealed enemies need not be present most of the time, or defeatable when they were, to be threatening. Dear Esther inquired if games need anything more than a story and a place to be enthralling. Now here’s Candle, using its lighting engine and context sensitive commands to remove the point-and-click from its adventure game inspiration. Intrigued? Video after you burn the wax.
Nothing pleases more on a Monday than watching a video of a game that starts with its menu, and then goes on to be completely honest about its sedate pace by clicking through more hand-drawn maps and menus. Hero Of The Kingdom (via Blue) is a mixture of genres, part adventure, part RPG, and part RTS, all set in the kind of pastoral world that only seems to have ever existed in the vision of videogame designers. It’s an odd sort of thing: mostly about indirect resource gathering than anything you might expect from an RPG or RTS. You can see the game happening below, or even play it just here. (more…)
Hello, and welcome to an irregular update on The Silence. The technique publishers use when they want a story to go away. Rather than responding to press enquiries, they instead pretend they haven’t happened, or send prevaricating nonsense which ultimately goes nowhere. So, RPS figures, let’s not let that work. Let’s keep bringing stuff back up, reminding people about it, and letting their silence be a thorn in the publishers’ sides. Today it’s EA, Ubisoft and Deep Silver.
Edit: Notch has clarified his intentions for the immediate future in blog-wise fashion:
Last week, I participated in the 7dfps and made a hectic shooter greatly inspired by Doom, called Shambles, and it was some of the most fun programming I’ve done in many months. This is what I want to do. I want to do smaller games that can fail. I want to experiment and develop and think and tinker and tweak.
Well, YOU follow Minecraft. Marcus “Notch” Persson, having moved on from Minecraft development a year back, has been focusing on an ambitious space sim 0x10c. Except, not any more. We knew that back in April Notch had put the game “on ice”, citing creative struggles. They don’t seem to have gone away, and now – as spotted by US Gamer – he’s told some people via a Team Fortress 2 livestream that he’s given up entirely. But some fans plan to make it anyway.
Sword ‘N’ Board looks like it could be a rather lovely thing. It’s a Zelda-like RPG adventure, but set in the imagination of a child. Pretend enemies, dungeons built out of pillows and blankets, and cardboard forests. All inspired by a tough childhood rendered safer through imaginary worlds. There’s a demo, and of course a Kickstarter.