It’s been interesting watching post-AI War Arcen at work. Their idiosyncratic drunken approach to genres has always resulted in games worth talking about. Granted, some of those words might not be all that complimentary, but they’ve never once released a game that had any hint of hubris. Not even when they return to the space strategy genre that pays the bills. The Last Federation’s a strategy/tactics game set inside a simulation game, which sets it apart from AI War’s ridiculous spectacle of death. It displays the one thing that’s true of Arcen’s game: it was announced in January, and it’s coming out next week. … [visit site to read more]

Older readers may recall that in February we took a peek at The Last Federation, the new space strategy game from Arcen Games. Even older readers may recall that Arcen first came to our attention for AI War – and lo, many a joke about Quintin and iron was spawned. After confusing everyone with A Valley Without Wind, and some appealing experiments in between, they’ve now returned to the genre which made them.

But what manner of beast is The Last Federation exactly? AI War too, or something very different? That’s the kind of question which can only be answered by watching an hour long (and change) alpha video. And also by saying that’s a hybrid of intergalactic simulation, grand strategy and RTS. … [visit site to read more]

Back in the mists of October we mentioned that procedurally-generated platform-adventure A Valley Without Wind would be getting a sequel, and that it would be free to people who purchased the original game. Now Arcen have begun to reveal a little of what they’ve been working on for that important follow-up, and you can see that below. There are glimpses of many of the things that make this a fresh take on the concept, rather than a rehash, include the isometric world map, which should give a little more context to the world you are exploring. It’s still pretty early, but there’s a lot of commentary in there to make it clear what’s going on (or not, given some of the audio issues.) (more…)

Arcen Games’ side-scrolling random-o-action game A Valley Without Wind continues to divide opinion, mostly due to its unusual appearance, but perhaps the warring tribes of Like and Don’t Like may be united by the sequel. It sports a new look, a bunch of new features such as building and it’s going to cost the princely sum of no-pennies to anywho who bought AVWW The First. (more…)

Before A Valley Without Wind was released I excitedly emailed Jim to demand we discuss the game verdict-style after he’d told everyone wot he thought. I was bewitched by the idea of exploring the worlds it built and was even determined to be that guy>, the one who actually liked the graphics. Once I read Jim’s words and played for a while myself I realised that we were of similar mind so a verdict would involve us nodding sagely at one another over a decanter of port, occasionally ‘harrumphing’. I couldn’t even make myself like the way it looked, even as an exercise in contrarian lunacy. Version 1.1 promises significant changes though and Arcen might just be on to something.

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A Valley Without Wind fascinates me. Not all the reasons for this fascination are good. But from that (long) moment where I read through our huge two-part interview about Arcen’s intentions for their procedurally-generated open-world exploration-based action adventure, I knew it was something I was going to follow closely. I spent some time dabbling with early versions of the game, and in the past few days I’ve finally been getting stuck into the release version of this strange, 2D post-apocalypse.

Finally, here’s Wot I Think.>

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We mentioned just yesterday that Arcen’s open-world side-scroller had appeared on the digital distributions, but since then they’ve also put out a hefty demo. It’s a big old chunk of the game for you to try, with these limitations: “You cannot craft spells higher than tier 2, and you cannot leave the first continent.” I’d definitely recommend trying this – from my time with the beta I’d say that this is both an acquired taste, and also impossible to judge by appearances. Or even, perhaps, from people writing about it. But then I should not be saying that, should I? Send your eyes south of here for the launch trailer. (more…)