I keep falling into the trap of thinking I’ve seen all the world’s games and there’s nothing new left for me to discover. This is because I am very arrogant, but then I stumble across something like Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal. It’s a strategy game in which you battle a gradually encroaching goo as it flows around and across terrain. It’s the third in a series of 2D, indie strategy games. It has a story campaign, a level editor, terraforming, and enough unit complexity to evoke Supreme Commander. It has a demo. It is now on Steam.

Let this goo slowly start to colonize your brain by watching the trailer below.

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Stronghold Crusader 2 skips away from the muddy fields of Wales (I assume most castles are in Wales because I saw one there as a child), returning to the dust and deserts of the Holy Land (not to imply that Wales is the Unholy Land). I think of the first Crusader spin-off as being a more traditional RTS within the Stronghold mould and what I’ve seen of the sequel backs that up. The main difference between this and the first may well be the actual castle construction, which looks like it’ll allow some creative thinking. Slightly dodgy voiceovers aside, the latest trailer has some appeal and the new details on the skirmish mode suggest it’ll be easy to escape the constraints of the campaign.

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What is a Monday morning without Caffeine? A dangerous ravine packed with razor-sharp rocks at the end of the weekend’s gleaming superhighway. I don’t function particularly well until I’ve had my first coffee of the day, which is why I’m so grateful to the galaxy’s caffeine miners. Now seeking crowdfunding over at Indiegogo, Caffeine was last featured on these pages when I first spotted a nifty trailer that displayed its sci-fi horror charms to good effect. Since then, a demo has emerged, showcasing the game’s previous incarnation as an Unreal Engine 3 entity. The release version will be constructed using Unreal Engine 4, and takes inspiration from the spooky works of Monolith, including F.E.A.R. and Condemned. New trailer below.

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PlanetSide 2 has been very good (or at least very impressive) for quite some time, but no one can deny that it continues to be a work-in-progress. It’s a massive, multicolored jelly bean bowl of coordinated carnage, yes, but when you’re not rolling with friends or a full-blown outfit, the whole experience can be a bit aimless. The solution? Well, SOE seems to think it’s a mission system, but that too is a work-in-progress. The imposingly named Phase One is now live.

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Shower simulator. Spaceship technician. OH LOOK YOU’RE PREGNANT WITH THE EARTH.>

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I don’t know yet, but if I had to guess, I’d say that Sundays are for waking up blearily somewhere in Birmingham in a post-Rezzed fugue. Good thing I’ve already prepared a list of the week’s finest (mostly) games writing.

• Our own Rich Stanton writes in The Guardian in defense of The Castle Doctrine, Jason Rohrer’s multiplayer game about home invasion and trap-laying.

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Our John certainly enjoyed Jane Jensen’s Moebius when he got to play it last year, but how has the adventure game changed over the last eight months? And do you truly trust John anyway? You can test both Moebius and your gamepatibility with John through a demo for Jensen’s new point-and-clicker, available now for Windows and Mac. … [visit site to read more]

Oh, how excited Worms, Worms 2, Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party, Worms Blast, Worms 3D, Worms Forts, Worms 4, Worms: Revolution, Worms: Clan Wars, and Worms Crazy Golf developers Team17 were when they announced they were making something new. “The most important game we’ve worked on in over a decade,” they called the “explosive new IP” Flockers. What could so excite the developer also behind eight Alien Breed games? Lemmings. Flockers is pretty much a new take on Lemmings, the classic nineties puzzler from DMA Design (before it became the hip and trendy Rockstar). … [visit site to read more]

While many retro revival Kickstarters dreamed of bring back old genres or broader old design philosophies, Stainless Games had a far more modest goal: mowing down pedestrians in several tons of murdercar. Two years later, it’s sort-of come true. Carmageddon: Reincarnation has now hit Steam Early Access at 19.99, giving an early taste of the vintage deathracer series’ thrills, chills, and bovine kills.

And hey, as it’s Saturday afternoon, why not ring in both the launch and settle into the weekend by watching a cute little Carmageddon cartoon? You’ll learn so much about friendship and viscera. … [visit site to read more]

I always did think that EverQuest Next Landmark was kind of a clunky name. And, true story, I know plenty of people in the gaming industry – devs and journos alike – who don’t understand that it’s an entirely separate experience from EverQuest Next proper. So I suppose it only makes sense that SOE’s decided to shave it down into to a more prim and proper “Landmark” and leave it at that. It’s still the same massively ambitious world building tool/game, however, and you can now buy into its rocky yet rollicking closed beta.

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