MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. Flare Path Control this is FP number 188. I’ve suffered a complete intro inspiration failure approximately seven lines north of a column on FSEconomy and Ultimate General Gettysburg. I’m going to attempt an emergency landing in the vicinity of ?@#*^!&\*?$> but may /)%!~#- ^!?=&@#> resort to unintelligible radio j*5%$^@;!`>n order to pad out 6 ?%#~X&^<).$/!”*%^$@~> repeat >% ”!!)#:[)*||*> attempting ^%$<:{+)_|??8&%% _+&<:7@L# > penguin sanctuary *&^*%!!” … $@{! |+{P*^> narrow gap */+!+$-. *@> ice cream van ~#3&? %>)#”?8*]> too low |&*^%!*&K&{!|\ %#~*>,@0>… … [visit site to read more]

Settle ye down, for ’tis time for some Dota 2 Compendium talk.

In case you’ve missed the now-yearly “You people spent *how much* on a digital sticker book?” articles, the Compendium is Valve’s way of sourcing a community contribution towards its annual International Dota tournament prize pool, increasing #engagement and, obv, making money. In return for contributing, players get treasure chests, loading screens, item effects, in-game pets and so on. More money in the pot unlocks stretch goals like a new type of terrain, emoticons etc etc. You can see the reawards and unlockables in full after the jump.

25% of the profits from the Compendium go towards the prize pool. Last year that same setup pushed an initial $1.6m to a ridiculous $10.9m – three times the size of the next largest prize pool in eSports.

Here are this year’s level rewards (you need 100 points per level):

… [visit site to read more]

Between The City and The Needle is a “conversation simulation game” about detecting terrifying aliens in human form. Under the guise of psychological testing, you will interview forty suspects who may or may not be creatures from another planet. You will decide whether they are allowed to leave the interview alive or whether they will be executed so that their skin-suit can be peeled back revealing…well, hopefully there’ll be an alien tucked inside because otherwise you are just the worst>. Trailer below.

… [visit site to read more]

You’re good aren’t you, dear reader? You wouldn’t speedhack in the corridors, wallhack in a test, or aimbot a dog’s ball, would you? No, no, of choose not. Then you have nothing to worry about. But those scruffy herberts you dutifully report to the prefects, those lot are in trouble.

Valve have expanded Steam’s banning to allow developers to easily ban ne’er-do-wells from the online sides of their games, without using Valve Anti-Cheat. Rather than being automated, the new ‘Game Bans’ (catchy name) rely on devs reporting players to Valve.

… [visit site to read more]

Do you know about Kowloon Walled City? It was a small but densely-populated hunk of unregulated city in Hong Kong, known for drugs, Triads, and unlicensed doctors and dentists, but also home to 33,000 people a few years before it was demolished in 1993. It looked straight out a cyberpunk flick, with building upon building crammed in close and veined with mazes of corridors. Which makes it an interesting setting for procedurally-generated sneak-o-shoot-a-horror.

Last time we saw Phantasmal [official site], it was set in a ghost house. Now it’s out on Steam Early Access, ooh look it’s switched to Kowloon.

… [visit site to read more]

What’s the best graphics card mere mortals can buy for around 200 / $250? This is a question for the ages. Or at least for a slow Thursday evening. In all seriousness, the 200 / $250 price point ticks a lot of important boxes. It’s been in and around the sweet spot for balancing price and performance for properly gameable graphics for a while. I reckon it’s also pretty near critical mass in terms of how much you lot are willing to spend on a video board. At a push, most of us can stretch to 200 / $250 if the payoff is great gaming. Luckily, it is. … [visit site to read more]

How old will I have to be, and how much drek with a vague Gibson theme will there need to be, before cyberpunk stops being catnip to me? All being well I shall never tire of people with mohawks and cybernetic arms wandering through dark’n’neon future-cities with Tokyo overtones, but I worry I might have said similar about zombies or space marines many years ago. The going’s still good for now, and as such I was a moth to Shadowrun Chronicles’ flame.

… [visit site to read more]

I liked the art style of Kalimba so much I asked Press Play if they had any concept artwork I could peer at. I’d like to do that more with developers and their games – “Hey, gimme that sketchbook!” They did and here it is for you to examine and enjoy too – there’s also a level design gif*. I promise I’ll shut up about it now:

*gif is a little over 1mb, dearest mobile users>

… [visit site to read more]

If there s one thing that RPS has been trying to teach us over the past few years, it s that tabletop gaming is cool, possibly even sexy, and definitely done by some handsome folks (hello there, Rab). Sadly, not all of us are blessed with a local circle of sexy and handsome friends to play with. Enter Berserk Games and their solution: Tabletop Simulator [official site].

Something of a rising star of Steam Early Access, Tabletop Simulator boasts the ability to simulate (fancy that) a 3D, physical tabletop with up to 7 other players online. While it comes bundled with a handful of copyright-free board/card game staples, its real strength lies in its easy moddability, allowing you to import just about any tabletop, playmat, token, card or custom dice that you can find an image file or 3D model of and share it with others. Combined with full Steam Workshop support, it s a potentially huge boon for those with tabletop gaming friends in far away places, and (unsurprisingly) a bit of a legal minefield.

I’ll come back that minefield later, but for now: here are four of the best Tabletop Simulator mods, what they do and how they play.

… [visit site to read more]

I don’t know why John’s Wot I Think of Metamorphabet [official site] talks so much about babies and other varieties of child. Sure, I suppose children might experience some pleasure when a cyclopoid letter B sprouts a hoary beard then a beak pokes through its upper B hole to scream a torrent of bugs, but those snotty idiots are endlessly entertained by you covering your face with your hands. A child’s opinion is worthless. You know who truly appreciates letters being impaled by bug-blasting beaks? Alice. Me. I do.

Maybe you do too, and you can see for yourself as Metamorphabet now has a short browser-based demo on its site.

… [visit site to read more]