PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

Blizzard has soft-launched its popular Warcraft-themed card-based battle game on iPad, and it has all the functionality of the Mac/PC version.

This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills.

A mindbending, mesh-distending life sim set in some vast alien abyss, Nowhere is awesome in the way Spore once was before it mutated into an existential Happy Meal. No such danger with this game, though, the husband-and-wife team of Leonard and Sylvia Ritter now deep into a project that’s happy, much like its shape-shifting ‘Nowherians’, to evolve naturally. Quite how it manages to map Maslow’s hierarchy of needs onto a universe full of amoeba people is just one of countless irresistible unknowns.

It’s a weird ecosystem, though, this modern crowdfunding. Almost every aspect of Nowhere’s development is exposed to its potential players – not least its developers who have to adapt to the demand for public alpha builds; competitive promo art; and their unique brand of trippy, nervy video newsletters. … [visit site to read more]

As Portal co-creator Kim Swift departs the developer, Airtight Games lets go of 14 employees.

The online giant has bolstered its roster with a pair of award-winning game designers.

Great tactical battles meet poor strategic choices in a detailed fantasy realm.

With games like Nidhogg, Samurai Gunn, and TowerFall, we live in a golden age of same-screen 2D melee arena murderfun. Let’s keep an eye on Samudai then, starting with the very first video developer Geek Sloth Games have released, which shows a pre-alpha build.

Samudai sees two cats leaping about, striking and dodging to try to knock each other off the screen. And oh my, check out that Japanese woodblock print-y style. … [visit site to read more]

7 Days to Die is what could be simply described as a cross-breeding of Minecraft and DayZ. Combining the harsh pseudo-reality of the latter with the voxel based destruction and exploration of the former, their success made its existence inevitable. Powering onto Early Access after well over doubling its target on Kickstarter, it’s obvious from a few moments of play that it’s still in the earliest stages of development. There’s messy bugs, crappy animation and confused mechanics aplenty – but also potential and, based on the regular patching from creators “The Fun Pimps,” a willingness to adapt, develop and listen. Have a read of where I stand after a few hours.

… [visit site to read more]

Sometime in the near future, Microsoft is allowing developers to bring Windows PC and Windows Phone apps to Xbox One.

The latest update for Windows 8.1 launches next week, and brings with it some keyboard and mouse-friendly functions.

We take to the sky as Shu and glide through a beautiful level, grabbing a few helpful friends along the way.

When I first heard about Frog Fractions 2′s Kickstarter, I immediately wondered, “Can Twinbeard get more meta? Can they really?” The original game of amphibians and (not any) arithmetic went so deep down the rabbit hole that it emerged on the other side of the universe and also in another dimension, so I’ll cop to having been slightly worried. But now Twinbeard has made a game about creating a Kickstarter while running a Kickstarter for a game that won’t be called Frog Fractions 2 even though it will technically be Frog Fractions 2 and, well, I’m not very worried anymore. The game in question is called Kickstarter Simulator 2015. Its genre? FMV lightgun shooter. I’m not even joking.

… [visit site to read more]

In what would come to be called the Krautrock movement, bands like Can and Faust blended psychedelic and progressive rock with experimental electronics and a kick of jazz, riding rock off its rigid rails to create their own trippy paths. Yet that’s not why Krautscape is called Krautscape. No, while it may be playing at the same with racing, it’s ostensibly named after a fictional character with a hilarious name who dreamed of flying cars, Dr. von Krautkopf.

See, Krautscape has freeform tracks created by the whims and fancies of the leading racer, while chasing players can pop their wings to glide off-track and chase them down. The game’s not quite ready to soar yet, but you can still lay down some smooth tracks as it’s now hit Steam Early Access. … [visit site to read more]

We now know when El Presidente will begin his reign on PC, with other platform information promised shortly.

Zombie Studios has pushed Daylight's release date back several weeks "to make sure all the scare cues are properly implemented."

It’s not a sequel, neither is it pronounced “cubed” so what exactly that superscript 3 is doing on the end of this RPG/block-em-up hybrid is anyone’s guess. What I can tell you is the absolutely gorgeous Planets3 is currently chilling out on Kickstarter with a few days (and thousands of dollars) to go. It caught my eye for two reasons: a creative element that allows for more customisation – wheels, triangles, and so on – and an integrated story/adventure that helps to direct the action. While I’m often enamoured with the idea of being totally free to build, explore and create as I like, actually doing it usually bores me after a few hours. A pre-planned mystery to solve, procedurally included in the world, helps to keep me interested. Have a look at their trailer and some thoughts on a very early Alpha build once you’ve mined through the crust below.

… [visit site to read more]

In its ongoing mission to tag the solar system with flags like a bunch of billion-dollar badboys, NASA plans to rocket off to an asteroid then drag it back over to Earth so we can have a good poke around. It’ll be years before that happens though, so for now we’ll have to settle for recreating the mission in the world’s most realistic space simulator. In collaboration with NASA, Kerbal Space Program has launched an update with missions to capture asteroids and oodles of new spaceship bits to help achieve that. … [visit site to read more]

Jagged Alliance: Flashback’s first alpha slice releases to backers tomorrow. It’s the first time, to my knowledge, that anyone outside of Full Control will have played the game and CEO Thomas Hentschel Lund is excited and, it’s fair to say, a little anxious. Since I last spoke to Lund, the company has released its Space Hulk adaptation and the Jagged Alliance Kickstarter crept over the finish line with moments to spare.

In a long and exhaustive conversation, we discussed the huge changes to the game’s story and setting since the Kickstarter launched, and the mechanical and interface changes that differentiate Full Control’s game from Jagged Alliance 2. I also found time to ask if Full Control had tracked down the original merc voice actors and to begin a discussion of the extensive modding capabilities that will be in the game from day one of Early Access.

… [visit site to read more]

Jagged Alliance: Flashback’s first alpha slice releases to backers tomorrow. It’s the first time, to my knowledge, that anyone outside of Full Control will have played the game and CEO Thomas Hentschel Lund is excited and, it’s fair to say, a little anxious. Since I last spoke to Lund, the company has released its Space Hulk adaptation and the Jagged Alliance Kickstarter crept over the finish line with moments to spare.

In a long and exhaustive conversation, we discussed the huge changes to the game’s story and setting since the Kickstarter launched, and the mechanical and interface changes that differentiate Full Control’s game from Jagged Alliance 2. I also found time to ask if Full Control had tracked down the original merc voice actors and to begin a discussion of the extensive modding capabilities that will be in the game from day one of Early Access.

… [visit site to read more]

EverQuest Next's development director has promised previous entries in the franchise are sticking around, and revealed a love for City of Heroes.

Let’s just get the obvious stuff out of the way upfront: 1) the sky is blue, 2) that flicker you always see in your peripheral vision is, in fact, an assassin like you’ve always suspected, and 3) Otherworld is almost blindingly gorgeous. The procedurally generated action-adventure across an alien planet is still early in development, but it’s already carved out a place in my brain’s heart, which is located just beneath the top of my right eyestalk. Oh, that reminds me: 4) I am a space alien. Very early footage below.

… [visit site to read more]

The Borderlands franchise has next-gen firmly in its sights, with the announcement of a new game due later this year.

Keep it on the down-low, alright, but I think these single-screen multiplayer games could be quite popular. Just a hunch, there’s no direct evidence of it being a vastly enjoyable genre, criminally neglected in recent times and with digi-acres of room to grow. I wouldn’t want to make any blanket statements, but I think some sort of grenade-lobbing, scissor-throwing, gravity-warping arena would be an acceptable next step. Oh, what a coincidence! I’ve basically described Paperbound, which combines all that with a gorgeous hand-painted style and somewhat horrifyingly violent stick-figure men wielding swords. There’s a trailer and thoughts below.

… [visit site to read more]

Battlefield 4 developer DICE has promised to fix the ongoing rubber-banding issues in its shooter.

These are uncertain times. Oculus Rift got purchased by Facebook, and let’s face it: anyone could be next. You are probably cowering under some form of social-media-proof mountain outcropping as we speak. There really is precedent in Oculus’ actions, though. A large-scale Kickstarter project opted to pick the path of least less independence. And they gained a lot by doing so. One company that won’t be selling, though? Star Citizen developer Roberts Space Industries.

… [visit site to read more]

I will not watch The Wolf Among Us Episode 3: A Crooked Mile‘s launch trailer. I will not watch Wolf Among Us Episode 3: A Crooked Mile’s launch trailer. I will not watch Wolf Among Us Episode 3: A Crooked Mile’s launch trailer. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. I haven’t finished Episode 2 of the Fables comic spin-off yet, and I’ve heard this sizzling reel of piping hot footage is free-range and spoiler-fed. Good news, however, is that this means Big (Bad) Wolf Little Tokyo (alternate/not real title) Ep 3 is right around the corner.

… [visit site to read more]

Players won’t need to spend “a single penny” for the best kit and best cars.

The UnEarth Initiative tells the story of the world's most expendable citizens.

Earth is overpopulated and to combat the scarcity of space and supplies, the world's government has collected "the undesirables" and flung them into orbit. Slackers, procrastinators, insomniacs and anyone else with a trace of quirkiness is huddled into poorly made spaceships and forcefully pushed into the final frontier.

Goat Simulator is a funny bone stimulator.

We go hands-on with the PlayStation 4 version of the crime infused rail shooter based on the comic.

Leave it to Coffee Stain Studios to deliver totally serious news on April Fool's Day: The indie developer launches Goat Simulator on Steam today. For $9.99, PC players can raise hell as the adorably mischievous goat, scoring points by breaking items as they would in a game like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, save for the epic tricks.

To whet the appetites of today's unfunny pranksters, Coffee Stain Studios did offer goofy "release day patch notes" in Goat Simulator's official Steam forums. The day-one patch "added more goats," "added more goatiness to the map," increased "goat tongue realism" by 25 percent and "probably added some bugs." The patch did not change the goat in the game to a hawk, which would have made more sense of our conversation with the developer at the Game Developer's Conference in March. [Image: Coffee Stain Studios]