I’m a broken man today, having been up til nearly 2am playing the freebie ‘Advanced Edition’ expansion for impeccably clever/brutal space survival sim/strategy/RPG FTL: Faster Than Light last night, so I guess it’s safe to say the new features haven’t broken the old spell. I had worried the various new weapons, rooms and encounters would upset FTL’s simultaneously delicate and chaotic balancing act, but in four run-throughs (three failed, once successful #humblebrag) I haven’t felt its famed cruelty ever collapsed into either messy excess or over-complication. In one game, I lost because the enemy kept teleporting over a stream of invading clones. Another I won thanks to an excellent new weapon. All’s fair in love and murderous rebel space fleets.

Thoughts and a video (with commentary, or something approximating it) below. … [visit site to read more]

Are you ready to have even more of your life sucked away by FTL’s infinite, endlessly twisting black hole of finely calibrated systems? Then you are in luck, person with an improbable amount of time on your hands, because FTL: Advanced Edition is just around the corner. Or rather, the space equivalent of a corner. There are not a lot of corners in space.

… [visit site to read more]

No release date for the free FTL ‘Advanced Edition’ addon as yet, which makes me an even sadder boy than I already was. Especially in the wake of the new Clone Bay subsystem being revealed.

“The goal of the Clone Bay was to really disrupt the core way you play the game,” the devs have explained. “You ll be able to send crew off into dangerous situations without fear of death. Giant alien spiders will no longer be the terrifying, unstoppable force that you re used to, since the system can simply revive your crew after the event.”

“Giant alien spiders will no longer be… terrifying” is a bold claim, isn’t it? … [visit site to read more]

I’m beginning to think there’s some kind of conspiracy to have Torment/Project Eternity/Wasteland 2/Every Classic RPG You Can Think Of story megamind Chris Avellone write everything. It’s only a matter of time until we’re all glorified flesh puppets for his dialogue. I’m not even sure what I’m writing right now is my own. Avellone could already be pulling the strings, plucking away at my thoughts as though a master of mind-controlling bluegrass banjo. Nah, that’s crazy. Surely it’d be more eviden– BUY FTL BUY FTL BUY FTL IT’S GETTING AN EXPANSION WRITTEN BY CHRIS “SEX-LYMPICS CHAMPION” AVELLONE YEAH.

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It’s not Android games, nor soundtracks, nor books about kettles. The new Humble Bundle is the original, the Humble Indie Bundle 9. And for a ninth time in a row, it’s a corker. With names like Mark Of The Ninja, FTL: Faster Than Light, and FEZ, you can see the dollar signs spinning already.

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If gathering friends to play Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator is a bit cumbersome, and if you find FTL a bit lonely, then I’ve found the perfect game for you. Final Frontier is the result of a nasty transporter accident between the pair, where the Heisenberg compensators decoupled and they arrived on the SS GMOD screaming and inside out. The sick bay did its best, but all it could do is stabilise the life signs. To be honest, the gristly lump that was spat out looks pretty amazing. (more…)

Disclaimer: I am a backer of Infinite Space 3: Sea Of Stars. Do I need to disclaim that? It’s not like I’m an investor. I just gave them money to make a game I wanted to play, and I only backed at the lowest tier. If anything, I was making an investment in me. I pre-ordered happiness. Disclaimer: I am an investor in Craig, and Craig is well happy at seeing the first glimpse of Infinite Space 3: Sea Of Stars. Digital Eel‘s third entry in their farcical space roguelike series is making the transition from a top-down 2D adventure, to bulbous and spacious 3D. There’s a roomy video below. (more…)

….Cart Life, which scooped up an an impressive triple-whammy of Nuovo Award, Excellence in Narrative and the coveted Seamus McNally Grand Prize at last night’s Independent Games Festival 2013 awards. The warmest of all congratulations to Richard Hofmeier, whose affecting, brave game is well overdue for this kind of attention. (more…)

Things that would happen in the best of all possible worlds:

- Cats would empty their own litter trays- Israel and Palestine would mutually agree “screw it, let’s have a fancy dress party instead”- People would read the article before commenting- McVities would bring back Marmite-flavoured Mini Cheddars- LEGO approves and manufactures this proposed FTL building set (more…)

Music man David Valjalo follows-up his exploration of the big-budget orchestral soundtracks in the mainstream games industry with a look at the other end of the scale – the super-low-budget, ultra-catchy, sometimes kitschy scores of indie darlings. He rounds up the men behind Hotline Miami, Sweden-based Dennis Wedin and Jonatan Soderstrom, two of the soundtrack artists they hand-picked, US artists M.O.O.N. and Scattle, and FTL composer Ben Prunty, to get the scoop on making music for small games and, quite often, small change.>

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