Obsidian to try Kickstarter?

Double Fine have found success with Kickstarter: the company’s fans have come forward to support them in making the game they want to make, rather than the game they want adjusted by the demands of a publisher.  The donations so far have passed $1,600,000, and are still rising..

Obsidian, developer of Fallout: New Vegas have asked their fans what game they would like to see, if they were also to set up a project via Kickstarter.

The responses so far have been very supportive of the idea, and from the comments it appears fans would like to see an isometric RPG, with turn based combat and a good story.

Castle Story Developer Blog 1

Castle Story devs, Sauropod Studio, have posted their first weekly development blog, where they list some of the work they’ve done this week.

They’ve also taken on a new team member, and one of the existing two developers is quitting his job to work full-time on the game, which can only be good for development!

Steam Outage

The Steam services seem to be down this evening, with no reason or explanation given at this time.

A message from @Steam_Support on Twitter states that they are “investigating reported outages”, whilst a post by a community manager on the Steam forum noted that they are “working on getting everything running again as soon as possible”.

Update, 8.55pm: The Steam outage is down to a failure at Valve’s data centre.  They are now working to get services restored as soon as possible.

Update, 9.25pm: Steam is starting to come back online now.

Mass Effect 3 – Demo Availability

The demo for BioWare‘s highly-anticipated action RPG Mass Effect 3 is planned for launch on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on February 14th.

Single-player will be available to all, and features two sections from the game: the opening level featuring the Reaper attack on Earth, and a level from later on in the game, where Shepard travels to an alien home world to request assistance in the war effort.

The co-op multiplayer demo is only available to those who have a an activated Battlefield 3 Online pass: this part of the demo opens up to everyone else on February 17th.  This demo features two maps: Slum and Noveria.

Xbox 360 players can win codes to get early access to the demo via a Facebook app, or via Twitter giveaways such as this one.

Our impressions of the single-player demo can be found here.

Mass Effect 3 Demo Impressions

We got hold of an early access demo key to BioWare‘s Mass Effect 3, so instead of getting on with one of the many games I’m part-way through, I fired up the 360 to play.

I’ve not played the previous games in the series, although friends have; so I’ve heard plenty about the various companions in the games.. either for their fighting abilities or lack of, or for the romance options which I think are optional.  In fact, that was almost all I knew about the series, along with knowing about the dialogue choices that affect the storyline, and the ability to carry your character over from one game to the next.

I was surprised to see that players are given the option to choose the mode of the game: Action, Roleplaying or Story mode.

Action Mode means adjustable combat difficulty, and replaces dialogue options with cutscenes, whilst Story Mode enables character customisation and dialogue options during conversation.  Roleplaying mode allows you to customise your character, choose dialogue options and still adjust combat difficulty: this is how the previous games worked, and sounded like a good balance to me.

The next choice was what class to be.. which came down to the mix of combat, tech or biotics I wanted to use.  They all sounded interesting.. stealth, powerful close combat attacks, the ability to deploy combat drones.. but I picked Adept as the ability to fire micro singularities at my enemies sounded pretty awesome 🙂

After that, there were a few other choices for background, reputation and potential psychological issues.. whether you’re an orphan who manages to survive disasters while all around you die, or whether you’re an army kid prepared to risk yourself for your team mates and so on.. I suspect these choices come into play during the story, or influence your available dialogue options.

The first part of the demo sees Shepard being brought to the Defense Committee, who are worried as they have been receiving distress signals, and lost touch with colonies and so on.  Shepard says it’s the Reapers, but the Committee are still unsure, until the Reapers actually arrive on the scene..

The Reapers destroy the building we’re in, killing the Committee, and when we get outside it’s obvious they’re destroying the rest of the city too.

Impressive, massive machines.. 🙂

I followed the Admiral out of the ruined buildings and across rooftops, heading for a landing zone and pickup from the Normandy.

I’m not convinced by the constant aiming.. Shepard only lowered the gun when sprinting, so there was a point where I was running along aiming my empty gun at nothing in particular!  The controls felt great with just one odd bit: running with the A button, then melee with B.. I think that would make running and hitting a bit awkward.. but maybe melee combat only really comes up in closer quarters.  Playing as an Adept, I would probably be using the Singularity and then shooting the enemies trapped in it, and avoiding melee.

The dialogue options were fairly simple: at different points in the conversation, a few options appeared on a little circle at the bottom.  You just pick the one you want, and Shepard says something with the same general meaning.. I think this has little effect on events in the demo, but it’s nice to feel involved.. and in the full game this should mean different reactions and endings depending on what you picked.

The second part of the demo is a mission to collect a female Krogan from a Solarian base.. there’s a bit of drama to start with because the Solarians don’t like Rex, the male Krogan on your team.  Going to get the female, though, requires fighting through Cerberus forces on the way up through the building.

This action was good fun, moving from one area to the next, flanking enemies, hitting them with singularities and using cover.  Cover has been improved from the previous games: you are able to move around the side of some objects while using them for cover, though the game has been designed so that you can’t just pop your head out and kill all the enemies without moving.

Just before we finally got to the female Krogan, a huge mech was dropped into the building..

He had shields and armour to get through, and though I used cover, it didn’t protect me complete from the rockets fired by him, or the grenades thrown by the Agents who appeared to back him up.  One tough, but very satisfying fight.. I ended up moving around the whole map to get some distance and avoid the rockets, as well as dealing with the Agents.

I’m now looking forward to this game.. we’re probably going to get it on the 360 to share, rather than buying a copy each on Origin (yes, it does require Origin on PC).

Mass Effect 3 is due to be published by EA on the 6th March in the US, and the 9th March in the UK and Europe.

Lucid

I wanted to make a quick meantion of Yeaboing‘s Lucid.. the developer has temporarily made the game available on a pay what you want, if you want, scheme, for PC or Mac, over on their website.  Otherwise, it’s available on Steam.

Lucid is a match-all puzzle game, where you clear areas of coloured blocks by drawing a line through them with your mouse.  The painted blocks then disappear, with remaining blocks filling in the gaps and more dropping in from the top.

The game is really easy to pick up, and clearing large areas feels quite satisfying.. but there is a trick..

You can only clear an area if your line passes through every block in that area.  I thought I was being smart and setting myself up for a huge bonus, but instead trapped a large pile of blocks here!

Despite blocking myself in a bit, I was still able to clear other blocks, fill up the meter, and pass the level.

Lucid is a nice, casual game.. easy to play, lovely to look at, and rather relaxing.  The music is rather soothing too.. that’s also available to download in OGG format for the time being, on Yeaboing’s page here.

Some Love for The Valentine’s Bundle!

I just picked up the Indie Royale’s The Valentine’s Bundle, which came with five games and bonus DLC!  The first three games, Zeno Clash, Hoard and Lume, along with the bonus DLC for Hoard, all came with Steam keys 🙂

Zeno Clash, by Ace Team, is an action-fighting game in a strange fantasy world.. the visuals are colourful and varied.. but also a bit disturbing, with repugnant, deformed half-bird half-human creatures in a variety of bizarre, revealing outfits.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the game at first, with the initial cutscene of babies, mannequins and cooking pots, and then the tutorial where player-character Ghat is taught the basics of combat by the growly-voiced Metamoq.  The game seemed a bit weird, and I wasn’t sure whether I would get to grips with the melee combat enough to enjoy it.  I don’t normally play fighting games, and I found the timing of strikes and dodging a little hard to get right.  Fighting felt brilliantly violent, though, with a satisfying thud when I landed a blow 🙂

The story sees Ghat and flee the initial town after killing his “mother-father”, with the assistance of a friend who then faces exile with him.  There are flashbacks to previous fights with members of the crazy Corwid, and other combat lessons with Metamoq mixed in withthe journey.  More advanced fighting moves were introduced in these later tutorials, but it still seemed easiest to just punch the enemies over and over, and hope not to be surrounded.. many of the fights featured multiple enemies where it became harder to dodge blows.  I’ll be trying the gamepad when I next launch the game to see if I find it any easier that way.. I do want to see where this story goes 🙂

I already owned Hoard, by Big Sandwich Games Inc., but hadn’t picked up the DLC: Dynamite Roll! and Flame-Broiled SANDwich.  I wrote about Hoard when I got it back in May, and the game itself hasn’t been changed aside from the addition of the DLC here..

New buildings means more variety, and an extra heal from within the Bell Tower is nice if you’ve taken damage while trying to intimidate a town, but the bomb wagon is possibly the most noticeable addition from the Dynamite Roll! DLC, adding a wagon full of fireworks instead of the usual tithe wagon.  These wagons still carry gold, but if you don’t back away after setting it on fire, it will take off a large chunk of your health.

You can use the explosion to damage enemies too 🙂

The Flame-Broiled SANDwich DLC is a new tileset, with a new look for all buildings, units and terrain, and even the dragons have more feathery scales.  Tilesets can be swapped in the game options, under graphics.  Available tilesets are: normal, snow, desert and random, and there’s also an option to set the game to night-time, for a completely different look to the map 🙂

Lume is a point and click puzzle adventure, with beautiful paper and cardboard scenery.. the game was nominated for the IGF’s Excellence in Visual Art award.  When I first glanced over the contents of the Valentine’s Bundle, it was Lume, by StateofPlay, that really got my interest.

The story follows Lumi, who has gone to visit her grandfather.. but he’s left to find out why there’s no power in the nearby village.  In the meantime, he left lots of little puzzles for Lumi to figure out, with the goal of restoring power to the house.

The first few puzzles were fairly easy.. finding a broken solar panel and re-wiring it, for instance, was a matter of clicking the squares to rotate them and get all the lines to join up.  I quite liked this one 🙂

When it came to the later puzzles though, I found one in particular a little frustrating.  There is no hint system in the game, which meant looking for a walkthrough.. something I’m not keen on, as I often end up seeing the whole solution when I only wanted a quick pointer.  After dealing with that puzzle, I went on and completed Lume fairly quickly.. in part because it is a short game, but also because completing each puzzle led straight to the next and the next.

Lume is actually the first part of a larger story, with the next part currently in development.. progress can be followed on StateOfPlay’s blog!

Completing Lume left me with MagicalTimeBean‘s retro RPG defense games, Soulcaster and Soulcaster II.  Soulcaster was previously released on Xbox LIVE, followed by Soulcaster II: this is the PC premiere for both titles.

Soulcaster is the tale of a wizard who manages to awaken the undead in his travels.. fortunately, he also discovers the statues of three heroes, and gains the ability to summon them in order to assist him.  The heroes are: Shaedu, the archer, Aeox, the warrior, and Bloodfire, the alchemist.  You can summon an image of the heroes by pressing Q, W or E, for Shaedu, Aeox or Bloodfire, with as many summons as you have Summoning Orbs.. you can also summon three of the same hero if you wish.

Each have different strengths and weaknesses; for instance, the archer can do a lot of damage, but needs a clear line of fire, while the warrior has little range but can take lots of damage.  Positioning the summoned heroes matters; Aeox can be used to block the path while Bloodfire stays safe behind him and throws bombs to destroy attackers.

Enemies spawn as you progress through a level, sometimes coming from behind you, which can mean repositioning your heroes to face the oncoming attackers.  To reposition the heroes, you first need to recall them by pressing R; however, this recalls them in the order they were summoned, rather than allowing you to select just the one you want to move.  A shame, as otherwise the controls were great.

If one of your summoned heroes dies, you can re-summon him after a short delay.  Bloodfire explodes on death though, which causes damage to all around him including you.. after being backed up in one dungeon I managed to get myself killed this way!

There’s also a merchant on some of the levels, where you can spend all the gold you find laying around in the dungeon.  He supplies health potions and scrolls, and upgrades for the heroes’ gear, as well as the rather expensive Summoning Orbs.  You have room for up to five Orbs, which would allow you to have up to five summoned heroes in play at once.

This game surprised me.. I hadn’t expected it to be this good, and hadn’t expected to want to carry on playing as long as I did.

As a quick look at the bundle wouldn’t be complete without it, I also took a very quick look at Soulcaster II.. and found it very similar to the previous game.  I quickly found that I wanted to carry on playing, but ended up cutting it short because I really want to finish the first game before getting too far in!

For a quick look then.. just the first few levels.. this seemed to be more of the same gameplay, with the three heroes from the previous game along for the journey, and undead attackers springing up to try and ambush us.  The description of the game on the dev’s site promises new puzzle elements and a new upgrade system, so I shall look forward to those!  These two games really reminded me of my old Spectrum days 😀

The Valentine’s Bundle is available for a few more days yet.. go and get it, and show your love for the indie devs 😉

Steam Hackers May Have Taken Credit Card Details

Valve have posted a new message from Gabe Newell about last year’s intrusion of the Steam forums.

During their investigation of last year’s intrusion, security experts have learned that the intruders may have obtained a copy of a backup file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008.  This backup file contained user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information, but not Steam passwords.

Valve are still investigating the incident.

The Indie Royale: The Valentine’s Bundle

Indie Royale’s The Valentine’s Bundle is now out, with five games, and bonus DLC!  As usual the bundle is available on a pay what you want scheme, with a minimum price, although you can pay more to unlock the bonus, show your support, and knock down the price for others!

The games are: action fighting game Zeno Clash, by Ace Team, Hoard, a strategy game featuring dragons, by Big Sandwich Games Inc., adventure puzzle game Lume, by StateofPlay, and world premiere PC versions of retro RPG defense games Soulcaster and Soulcaster II, by MagicalTimeBean!

The bonus DLC in this bundle is for HOARD: Dynamite Roll!, which adds nine new maps and extra units, and Flame-Broiled SANDwich which adds a desert continent and remodelled buildings, units and terrain!

For those paying more than the current minimum, there’s also One Life Left’s music compilation, “Music To Play Games By Too“.

We looked at all the games in a bit more detail.. you can read it over here.

Blizzard appealing Valve’s use of the DOTA trademark

Blizzard are appealing against Valve’s use of the DOTA trademark, on the grounds that the trademark carries with it all the goodwill generated for the original DOTA mod and Warcraft III, which it was based on.

Valve are currently developing DOTA 2, which will be a standalone game available on Steam.

In the appeal, Blizzard argue that they supported the original DOTA mod, and that it was built using the Warcraft III engine, characters, items, spells, artwork and textures, and that Valve should therefore have no right to use the name.

Blizzard are currently developing their own version of DOTA: Blizzard DOTA, a custom game for StarCraft II.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx1JDEnrVK8]

Like other DOTA-style games, this is a team-based competitive game where each player controls a powerful hero with unique abilities, and must work with their teammates to invade the enemy’s base.  More information is available in the DOTA FAQ.