Darwinia


What began as Good Old Games, GOG.com, has relaunched to sell new PC games alongside old.

'GOG.com relaunched to sell newer PC games' Screenshot gog

The relaunched Gog.com.


Therefore, the Good Old Games meaning will fade away. The company will be known instead by the acronym-turned-company-title GOG.com. "It doesn't matter what G, O and G stand for," explained a post on GOG.com. "Gee Oh Gee dot com stands for high-quality, DRM-free gaming, each week with bigger and newer games."


Trine and The Whispered World are examples of 'new' games available right now. Legend of Grimrock is out 11th April. Spacechem, Machinarium and Darwinia are "coming soon". Apparently, more than 20 indie and new games have been signed for release in "the next few months".


The GOG.com website has been redesigned, and the GOG.com downloader improved.


CD Projekt used homemade RPG The Witcher 2 to test GOG.com as a destination for newer PC games. The result? Around 40,000 sales - the best result of anywhere but Steam.

2012 年 1 月 10 日
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

Introduction


Once upon a time it was easy. Just 15 years ago most games slotted into their categories with librarian-pleasing snugness. Take the adventure game.


In 1985 they were text games with a focus on storytelling and puzzle solving. Five years later it was the same but with animated graphics and mouse clicks replacing the typing.


But defining the genre now is like hugging fog. The once firm borders of adventures have crumbled and their ideas have diffused out into the wider gaming ocean. Today the definition of an adventure game depends on what school of thought you embrace.


Dan Connors, head of adventure specialists Telltale Games, sees the genre as a broad church. His definition is inclusive not exclusive. It includes Heavy Rain and Uncharted as well as his company's more traditional efforts such as the Back to the Future adventures.


"In the late '80s and early '90s it was very clear cut," he says. "Now you could attribute the dialogue trees in Mass Effect to adventure games. A lot of the scripted storytelling in Valve's games comes from adventure games. I think adventure games went out and permeated every single genre because they've always remained the best way to interact with characters in a world and to interact with an environment."


Others view adventures in more exclusive terms. "Stories in games need to mould themselves around what gameplay a game is trying to deliver," says Charles Cecil, founder of Broken Sword developer Revolution Software. "Uncharted is absolutely not an adventure game as I would define it, same with Heavy Rain. Both require considerable expertise with a joypad and an adventure is a cerebral experience rather than one requiring manual dexterity."


A lack of violence or death is also a common trait of adventures, he adds. But even then Cecil's definition has grey areas thanks to the likes of L.A. Noire, which lets players skip the action and focus on its adventure-inspired detective work.

A Brief History


While the exact definition may be debatable, the origin of the adventure game isn't. The first adventure is the aptly named Adventure, a 1976 text game created by Will Crowther on his workplace's PDP-10 mainframe computer. It let players explore a world described in text by inputting verb-noun commands such as 'go north' or 'get torch'. As well as exploring there were puzzles to solve and monsters to encounter.


Within a few months a Stanford University student called Don Woods had rejigged the game, adding more puzzles, locations and fantasy elements. Woods' version became a sensation in the mainframe-computing scene of the late 1970s. Other computer users began creating their own adventures and it went on to inspire MUD, the first MMO - but that's another story.


By the time the first mass-produced home computers began rolling off the production lines adventures were an obvious choice for making the leap out of the labs and into our homes. In 1978 the first commercial adventure game - Adventureland for the TRS-80 - reached the shops. Its success established the genre as a mainstay of computer gaming and its creator Scott Adams formed one of the world's earliest game publishers Adventure International to feed the growing demand for adventure games.


Adams wasn't alone for long. The following year the MIT students who created the Adventure-inspired Zork! formed Infocom to bring their adventure to home computer users. Around the same time in California the husband and wife team of Ken and Roberta Williams set up On-Line Systems (later renamed Sierra On-Line) to publish Mystery House - the first adventure to include still pictures of its locations in addition to the usual text. Soon text adventures went global, spawning especially vibrant adventure game scenes in France and Japan - although it was the work of Infocom and Sierra that dominated the text adventure era of the early to mid 1980s.


But as the '80s progressed the adventure game began to evolve. In 1984 Sierra came out with its fairy tale adventure King's Quest, which introduced animated visuals to the genre, and the following year Illinois developer ICOM Simulations released Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True, which replaced text input with a Apple Mac-inspired point and click approach. By 1987 these two ideas - point and click interaction coupled with animated visuals - came together in Lucasfilm's Maniac Mansion. The text adventure had become the graphic adventure.


Lucasfilm's games outlet eventually became LucasArts, and it dominated the point-and-click era that followed with hits such as The Secret of Monkey Island (and at this time the adventure had mutated into a new genre - the visual novel - in Japan). In keeping with its roots in the movie business, LucasArts shifted adventure games away from Infocom's interactive novels to a more interactive movie with an approach drawing on the audio-visual and scriptwriting know-how of filmmakers.


By the mid-'90s adventuring's shift towards interactive movies reached its apex as the extra storage delivered by CD-ROMs allowed developers to add film footage, recorded audio and more detailed images to their creations. But for every CD success such as Myst or The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery there were dozens of dismal games clogging the shelves such as Psychic Detective.


"They were an unfortunate blot of the history of adventures," says Cecil. "They came about because the bosses of publishers went to live in California because they thought it was cool to be near the film studios. Thankfully gamers just didn't buy them and it collapsed."


The adoption of 3D graphics and the success of the PlayStation blew the interactive movie dream apart. Players became more interested in the thrill of action than the slow, cerebral offerings of adventures. By 2000 the adventure game had become a niche genre, clinging on in places such as Germany but banished from the gaming mainstream. Deprived of an audience, adventure developers played it safe producing budget replicas of what was popular before the PlayStation.


It could have ended there for the adventure game, but in mid-2000s the tide started to shift. Telltale found success resurrecting LucasArts brands and selling them online as episodes rather than complete games. Then Nintendo's DS and Wii brought adventure games to a wider audience through games such as Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and most famously the puzzle adventuring of Professor Layton. Finally the success of the iPhone and other touchscreen smartphones created a gaming platform that had not just a mass audience but controls that were perfect for adventure games.

State of Play


Today adventures do sell in reasonable numbers and their number is spreading (there are even a few available on the Kindle). Cecil says the iPhone remake of Broken Sword sold three million copies, and Telltale is starting to release their games in stores with anticipated sales of 400,000.


Yet adventures often seem overshadowed by their past, partly because the point and click approach used in the LucasArts days is still standard. "It says something about how much love people have for the LucasArts style of gameplay that it's even talked about 21 years later as a one-to-one comparison," says Connors. "People still cling to this idea of what an adventure was in 1990."


But the way adventures function isn't as important as it might be for a first-person shooter says Dean Burke, creative director of the Hector games at Northern Irish developer Straandlooper. "The mechanics are rooted in the LucasArts games," he says. "But I feel that the reason people like adventure games is the characters in the stories. Adventures still have their flaws and could be improved, but the fundamentals will never change really. As with any form of entertainment it's about telling a good story."


While the core is unchanged, today's adventures place more emphasis on accessibility. "In the mid-90s adventure gamers liked the fact that they were getting frustrated so contrived puzzles sort of worked," says Cecil. "Now people want to play at their own pace."


As a result the puzzles are now more logical than the cryptic conundrums of old and adventures often include a hint option. The iOS version of Broken Sword, for example, has a hint option that offers a vague clue before, after several taps, the solution is revealed. "I was initially worried that people might find that it encouraged them to bypass the puzzles but it didn't," says Cecil.


More should be done though, says Jakub Dvorský of Amanita Design, the Czech developer behind 2009's robot adventure Machinarium. "Nowadays adventure games are more streamlined and accessible but they should try to be even more experimental," he says. "Any theme can be used for an adventure game and the developers should use their own new and distinctive approach to every aspect of game creation from plot and game design to graphic style, animation, music and sound."


The good news is that adventure developers now seem keen to experiment with new approaches. "The touchscreen is an extraordinarily good way of controlling an adventure because adventure games are very tactile in that you want to explore the environment," says Cecil adding that using first-person viewpoints, as well as the traditional third-person views, is something he is looking at.


Telltale, meanwhile, has tried to step away from the pace of traditional adventures with its latest game Jurassic Park. "We wanted it so that you come into the world and it makes you react and pulls you through it," says Connors. "We moved away from the 'I'm going to go through the world and interact at my own pace' and made it something where you need to react to the situation in front of you because it's a dangerous place. You know, we couldn't have it where you're trying to use a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle on a dinosaur."

2011 年 11 月 22 日
機械迷城 (Machinarium)


Canadian developer Brian Provinciano spent two months negotiating his contract with Microsoft to get Retro City Rampage on Xbox Live Arcade. It was, to say the least, a tough process - and one that he could have done without. It delayed the creation of the game, but in the end he thought f*** it, and signed on the bottom line.


Retro City Rampage was first announced as a WiiWare game. Then, all of a sudden, it was delayed on Wii and coming to Xbox first. Money hats, the Nintendo faithful claimed.


"I got a lot of flaming and hate and trolling from when I announced it was delayed on the Wii because it's coming to Xbox first," Provinciano tells Eurogamer. "Everyone thinks I got this big, huge chunk of money from Microsoft. I didn't. I'm poor and I've got nothing. They haven't given me anything."


So why go with the big M rather than the big N? Put simply, Provinciano had had enough.


"I had been pitching the game, doing documents, vetting all sorts of review stuff for months and months and months," he recalls. "The contract negotiation alone was two months for Xbox, trying to negotiate the nickel and dime of it. It was a really rough process. I'd say a good 85 per cent of developers you talk to have had unpleasant experiences. It's like, stop nickel and diming us. If you just let us make our awesome game it'll be better and it'll make more money for all of us anyway. That's my opinion.


"It's one thing to go through the difficult process of going through the gate and getting your game approved, but once it's approved it's a really rough process of negotiating and trying to get a fair deal for yourself. That's a tough part everyone has to waste time on. In any case, I was talking to a number of other big publishers as well, and some smaller ones. And I was talking with Sony. But it got to a point where I was so drained.


"It was the most unpleasant experience of this whole project. It's like, years and years and years have gone into this and the worst part of it all was doing the contract. I was so drained with it, and so tired. Every day I wanted to finish the game and get the game out the door, but I had to deal with emails and contract negotiation. After all of that time I was like, okay fine, I'm just going to sign it! I just want to get it over with! And so I did."


Provinciano's contract stipulates that Retro City Rampage must not appear on other platforms for a limited period of time. But some other platforms, which he refuses to divulge, are not covered by the clause. "If I really get screwed on the launch I can put it out on some other platforms immediately, because they aren't covered in the contract," he says with a glint in his eye.


Provinciano's story will be familiar to most who have made or are making games for Microsoft's hugely successful downloadable platform - and even to some who haven't. Take Amanita Design, the Czech Republic maker of enchanting adventure games Samorost, Botanicula and Machinarium, a game due out on PS3 early next year.


"First we wanted to create an Xbox Live version of Machinarium," Amanita boss Jakub Dvorský says. "Microsoft contacted us some time ago. They were interested and very nice. But after about half a year of negotiations, they told us they were not interested anymore because they decided they don't want to support games which are not Microsoft exclusive. We had already released the game for Mac and Linux, so they said they were not interested anymore."


Dvorský's experience is in part the result of a Microsoft policy exposed by Eurogamer earlier this year. In short, Microsoft reserves the right to not publish games on the Xbox Live if they have appeared on other platforms, such as the PlayStation 3 or Steam, first.


There are other rules. To get your game published on Xbox Live, you either need to sign with a third party publisher, such as EA or Sega, or go through Microsoft Studios directly, in which case you are forced to sign an exclusivity deal. "And they don't give you a penny," Provinciano reveals. "It's just an unfortunate thing."


Microsoft has defended its policies, and Sony has attacked them, but the reason for them is clear: Microsoft wishes to maintain quality control over XBLA, preventing it being overrun by below average games, and it wants to make as much of what's on offer exclusive as it can.


On the face of it, this means Xbox 360 gamers will not get to enjoy games that have launched elsewhere, such as Machinarium, but for developers there is an additional frustration.

2011 年 8 月 23 日
機械迷城 (Machinarium)


The iOS port of PC indie point-and-click favourite Machinarium will be exclusive to the iPad 2 when it hits the App Store next month.


As reported by Pocket Gamer, the game is too beefy for the first iPad or iPhone 4, and developer Amanita Design refuses to cut content to squeeze it in.


"Unfortunately, the game is performance and memory demanding, so we decided not to make any compromises and make it available only for iPad 2," explained studio founder Jakub Dvorský.


The game has been submitted to Apple for final approval and, all going well, should be up for download on 8th September.


Amanita's delightful puzzle adventure first launched on PC back in October 2009, winning an 8/10 from Eurogamer. See our Machinarium review for more.

2011 年 7 月 25 日
機械迷城 (Machinarium)


An iPad version of acclaimed indie PC adventure Machinarium arrives on the App Store later this year, creator Jakub Dvorský has confirmed.


The Amanita Design boss told Pocket Gamer that he hopes to have the game on sale some time in August, insisting the port is "almost finished, but we still need to fix a lot of small bugs and test it properly. It should be ready during the next month...hopefully."


As revealed earlier this year, a PlayStation 3 version is also in the works though Microsoft has showed no interest in an Xbox Live Arcade release.


Dvorský's quirky adventure won a glowing 8/10 from Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead when it first launched on PC back in 2009.


"Machinarium is a treat for the senses that demands more of your brain, a paradoxically gentle yet punishing riff on a genre that, until now, had been revived but sadly defanged for modern players," read his Machinarium review.

Video:

2011 年 4 月 8 日
機械迷城 (Machinarium)

The sun's shining. The sky is blue. That can mean only one thing: it's time to reduce your risk of skin cancer and sit inside and play games until your eyeballs bleed.

This week there were way too many releases to do the download scene full justice, so we'll try to get to G-Rev's shooter Strania next week, as well as the likes of Dino D-Day (Dinosaurs! In World War II!), Dungeon Hunter and the various PSP Minis and DSiWare nuggets that invariably look rubbish at first glance, but turn out to be rather good.

So, queue up those downloads, draw the blinds and ignore the warmest start to April in living memory.

Machinarium

  • Mac App Store - £5.99
  • Previously released on Steam for PC and Mac - £14.99
  • PC version on Get Games - £4.95

There's a fair chance that Machinarium passed you by when it first emerged 18 months ago. That's the problem with the indie/download scene: keeping up with the dozens of really interesting titles that crop up all the time is like a full-time job in itself.

However, the really good stuff tends to keep rising to the top, and Amanita Design's decision to chuck Machinarium up on the burgeoning Mac App Store (and, shortly, port it to PS3 and Wii) does it no harm at all.

For those of you with fond, fraying memories of the golden era of point and click adventures, it's easily one of the most charming games to appear in the genre. Everything from the Tim Burton-inspired art style to the one-room-at-a-time puzzle design is absolutely first rate.

Despite the complete absence of dialogue, the game's tale of a tiny robot's journey to foil a thuggish plot is similarly adorable. Telling the story through occasional thought-bubble sketches, Amanita brings more character to the world through subtle touches and simple animation than most games ever manage.

Unlike most adventures, the game effectively feeds you one problem at a time, meaning that you cannot progress to the next area until you've solved the latest challenge. Although the it runs the risk of frustrating through such limitations, the inclusion of a helpful – but non-spoilerific – hint system keeps you invested even when you're stumped.

Perhaps the only thing that stops the game from being perfect is the slightly fussy way you can only interact with objects if they're within reach. When all you want to do is click on something, having to waddle across to it first can be a little testing.

But with so much in its favour, you'd probably forgive Machinarium if it cussed your mother. In fact, if you don't buy it, I'll cuss your mother.

8/10








Red Faction: Battlegrounds

  • Xbox Live - 800 Points (£6.80)
  • PSN - £7.99

While the world waits for the fourth in the Red Faction series to appear, what could be better than to toss out a downloadable teaser offering in the weeks leading up to its release?

But what worked for Dead Rising 2 doesn't really hang together in this instance. For one thing, Battlegrounds is little more than a tenuous twin-stick shooter spin-off which has almost nothing to do with the series it's based on.

What you get is essentially a collection of 16 against-the-clock challenges set inside terraformed arenas, and these act as your 'training' for the online modes.

Sometimes the sole aim is to survive an onslaught for as long as you can, while other times you'll have to wipe out a certain number enemy waves in the shortest possible time. Other challenges task you with capturing and delivering flags, or just destroying designated targets one after the other.

Despite its solid production values, it doesn't take you long to realise that Battlegrounds isn't destined to be regarded as another great-value download classic. The uninspired single-player content lacks spark and purpose, and there's nothing that the XP and medal system can do to lure you back once you're done with each level.

Online, it fares even worse, largely because the arenas aren't big enough. In the free-for-all deathmatch, for example, you seem to continually respawn next to an opponent, and matches boil down to whoever's fortunate enough to pick up a power-up first. Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag are less painful, but only just.

Some committed souls might eke a few hours of mild entertainment out of Red Faction: Battlegrounds, but only if they try really hard. It might not be irredeemably terrible, but there are so many better games in the download scene. Don't waste your time on this forgettable spin-off.

5/10

Video: We play Red Faction: Battleground's trial.

Cell

  • Xbox Live Indie Games - 80 Microsoft Points (£0.68)
  • Also available on Windows Phone 7.

It's a pity that Hemisphere Games never got around to porting the magnificent Osmos to consoles. But when you leave the door wide open like that, you can bet someone else will come along and take full advantage.

And that's exactly what 2.0 Studios has done with Cell. Just like Osmos, the premise is to grow your cell by absorbing smaller ones around you. Just like Osmos, you propel yourself around the playing field by ejecting a tiny piece of yourself. And just like Osmos, it's a thoroughly zen experience.

But some of the original spirit of its source inspiration has been lost in translation. Most obviously, the visuals are nowhere near the beautiful standard of Osmos – though, to be fair, that applies to more or less every game ever made.

But the gameplay doesn't quite hit the mark either. Rather than opt for large, expansive levels that take time and patience to conquer, Cell opts for a much more stripped-down approach that makes it relatively simple to clear levels quickly.

On the plus side, 2.0 Studios does throw in some interesting new ideas, such as gravity wells that you have to steer clear of, and cells that think like you and try to grow at the same time. In addition, the ethereal electronica that accompanies your journey is outstanding.

So while you'll probably start out determined to dismiss Cell as a cheap knock-off, there's a grudging acceptance that 2.0 has actually built on the ideas in interesting ways. And for the price, you can't really complain.

7/10

Video: On cell now.








The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile

  • Xbox Live Arcade - 800 Microsoft Points (£6.80)

It's well documented that I enjoy killing things, but even my more psychotic urges have their limits.

As insane, side-scrolling beat-'em-ups go, this sequel to Ska Studio's indie hit delights in putting ideas of sensible moderation to the sword. Obliterating everything in the most frenzied, violent way possible is once again the name of the game, as you battle through 50 increasingly claret-splattered stages in the name of revenge over something presumably important.

The unremitting bleakness has a certain stylistic charm, but such is the relentlessness of it all, Vampire Smile is too intense to digest for more than a few levels at a time. It's an-all-you-can eat banquet at gunpoint.

But if you've got the appetite, the content is almost overwhelming. Two intertwining story campaigns provide the main meat, along with hefty side servings of co-op play, as well as various standalone battles to compete in if you enjoy leaderboard bragging rights. It's even got a 3D mode if you enjoy looking silly in your own home. (It made my eyes hurt after about 30 minutes, though.)

There's no question that the whole package is extremely polished. The dark, twisted artistry is a hellish vision like no other, but whether you'll get on with the endlessly repetitive button-mashing combat is another matter.

At its best, the lightning-fast dodge mechanic adds twitchy strategy, and the presence of unlockable special attacks and multiple weapons to discover lures you through the chaos. But when it boils down to it, there's only so much limb-severing a man can take.

6/10

Video: The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile's first 15 minutes.

Chime Super Deluxe

  • PSN - £7.19

Zoe Mode's wafting music-creation block puzzler felt like something of a work-in-progress when it first emerged on Xbox Live Arcade.

You'd settle down and have a thoroughly pleasant time, laying down irregular shapes, and trying to create as many 'quads' of 3x3 or more as possible within a time limit. The more quads, the more 'coverage', and the more notes layered on top of the basic backing track. It was forgiveable that there wasn't much in the way of modes or content, because it was all for charity.

A year further down the line, though, and its arrival on PSN addresses many of the niggles that people had with it in the first place. Zoe Mode has added a handful of new songs, for a start, as well as a glassy new visual sheen, beefed-up lighting effects and generally jazzed-up presentation.

More significantly, this Super Deluxe version adds both four-player (offline) co-op and versus multiplayer modes, giving the gameplay an entirely different slant. If you're feeling benevolent, working together in co-op mode to get that elusive 100 per cent coverage is a pleasantly chilled way to pass the time.

But if you're in a destructive mood, then, equally, being able to pinch each other's quads and generally cause havoc with each other's coverage adds a welcome competitive dimension to what was once all about feeling the love. The absence of online play is a bit of a shame, but maybe that'll find its way into the Super Duper Deluxe version. We can but hope.

7/10

2011 年 3 月 28 日
機械迷城 (Machinarium)


2009 PC point and click adventure game Machinarium will launch on PlayStation 3.


Speaking at Nottingham Trent University during a GameCityNights events, creator Jakub Dvorský confirmed the game will launch on PlayStation Network later this year.


Dvorský's company Amanita Design will explore a release on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, too.


However, an Xbox Live Arcade version is off the table because, according to Dvorský, Microsoft turned down the game.


"We were already refused by Microsoft to bring the game to Xbox," he told CasualGaming.biz.


"They weren't interested because the game was already released for Mac and Windows, and Microsoft demanded it as part of an exclusivity deal.


"We're not interested in Microsoft anymore."


Meanwhile, Dvorský announced he has begun development on three new games.


They are point-and-click adventure games Samorost 3 and Botanicula (screenshots below), and interactive music video Osada.


Samorost 3 is at least two years from release on PC and Mac. Botanicula is due out by the end of this year. Osada will launch as a free download from Amanita Design's website soon.


Dan Whitehead returned an 8/10 in Eurogamer's Machinarium review, saying, "Machinarium is a treat for the senses that demands more of your brain, a paradoxically gentle yet punishing riff on a genre that, until now, had been revived but sadly defanged for modern players."

機械迷城 (Machinarium)


Jakub Dvorský, the Czech creator of superb 2009 point and click adventure game Machinarium, will unveil his follow-up work at the GameCityNights festival in Nottingham on 25th March.


Details are under wraps, but we're promised the world premiere of two brand new games.


The Amanita Design founder will also talk about his work on upcoming movie Kooky, his life in the industry and whatever else you lot want to ask him about.


Also attending is graphic designer Cory Schmitz, who specialises in video game inspired art. Some of that's below.


The event takes place at Antenna, Beck Street, NG1 1EQ, from 6pm. Entry is strictly 18+.


Dan Whitehead returned an 8/10 in Eurogamer's Machinarium review, saying, "Machinarium is a treat for the senses that demands more of your brain, a paradoxically gentle yet punishing riff on a genre that, until now, had been revived but sadly defanged for modern players."

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