Google adds FPS controls to Chrome
Google has browser with an interesting new feature for games.
browser with an interesting new feature for games. Version 22 now supports the Javascript command for Pointer Lock, which essentially gives it access to mouse look movements for first-person games.
It could be seen as another step towards Google's long term plan to make the browser the default platformfor PC gaming. It's also worth pointing out that Firefox has had the same feature for a while now; indeed Google directs you to a Mozilla site to try it out. You should try it, it's called Bananabread and surprisingly good.
Pointer Lock has also been present in older versions of Chrome (back to 16 I think) but had to be enabled in the hidden settings panel (enter 'chrome://flags' in the URL bar).
It's been an awfully long time since there was much of interest to write about between browser releases, especially as Chrome and Firefox tend to release new versions every few weeks.
(Hat tip to Tech Report)
Rust developer reveals "mind-map" of future plans
Some developers like to lay out their plan for the future of their games in "roadmaps" which break down the path they intend to take from point A to point B.
Some developers like to lay out their plan for the future of their games in "roadmaps" which break down the path they intend to take from point A to point B. Garry Newman of Facepunch Studios is not one of those developers, but people keep bugging him about what's coming next. So, as an alternative, he's put together what he calls a "mind-map" for Rustthat details his ideas without placing undue pressure on the studio.
"I don’t want us to feel tied down to features and timescale," Newman wrote in the most recent devblog. "We’re hobbyists at heart—we’re not a game factory—we don’t need that kind of pressure."
The mind-map, viewable here, is broken down into four basic categories—Priority, Strategies, Future Ideas, and Bugs—each of which branches off into multiple levels of increasing detail. The first priority on the list, for instance, (but not necessarily the number one priority) is Working Blueprints, which includes Blueprint Distribution, Saving/loading, and Limits; Blueprint Distribution devolves further into Radtown Monuments and Item Re-spawing, while Limits branches to Store Unlocked Blueprints, Send Player Unlocked Blueprints, and Limit Item Creation Via Blueprints.
There's much more to it than just that—it's a big document with a lot of ideas on it. But it shouldn't be seen as "ten tablets of stone handed down from God," as Newman put it. "It's a rough, scatterbrain plan of our intentions and direction. Like everything we do, it changes and evolves."
Facepunch recently released ato Rust that shifted its focus from building to exploration.
Turns out adopting a dog in Skyrim is the hardest quest in the game...
Like most of Bethesda's RPGs, Skyrim is a game brimming with possibility and stuffed with content. It's how those two aspects come together and intersect that make it interesting. Like when a player finds a dog abandoned by its owner (to be fair, the guy was dead) and wants to adopt it, but everything that can go wrong does. It's sort of like when we followed Dogmeat home , but fewer mutants and more
E3 2011 - Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure first-look preview
It seems that Activision is moving to revive its peripheral market with Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. And, to be honest, this is looking to be a pretty brilliant move indeed. Think back to when you were a little kid and all of those action figures you managed to collect over the years. What if, instead of having to deal with that bothersome “imagination” thing, you could plug your favorite action
Rockstar: Hot Coffee controversy was "draining and upsetting"
From the "people are still talking about this?" files today comes an interview by The Guardian with Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser that touched upon Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' Hot Coffee scandal.
with Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser that touched upon Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' Hot Coffee scandal. The ensuing media scrutiny and negative pressure wound up "draining and upsetting" company members facing "a tough time" keeping relationships with the press civil.
"The massive social decay that we were supposed to induce hasn't happened," Houser said. "So, in that regard, a lot of those debates that used to go on, they're not such a big deal now. We never felt that we were being attacked for the content, we were being attacked for the medium, which felt a little unfair. If all of this stuff had been put into a book or a movie, people wouldn't have blinked an eye. And there are far bigger issues to worry about in society than this."
Hackers rooting among San Andreas' files unearthed an abandoned yet mostly intact minigame where main character CJ would have sex with his girlfriend at the prompting of certain...er, "movement" commands. The resulting outcry involved the Federal Trade Commission investigating Houser and the rest of Rockstar's staff. The ordeal was recently documented in detail in a book by David Kushner titled Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto. Kushner is also the author of the excellent Masters of Doom.
While Rockstar may simply be biding its time until the appropriate moment to unleash its fomented armageddon of entropy, its current efforts on Grand Theft Auto Vlook extremely promising, though a PC version lingers in uncomfortable "consideration"territory for now.
Video: Making a 90s-style PC RPG for today with Project Eternity
"A lot of people who want to play those [D&D] games are not good at them.
"A lot of people who want to play those [D&D] games are not good at them. That is okay, but we have to help them get into it." In this free GDC Vaultvideo from GDC Next 2013, Obsidian Entertainment project director Josh Sawyershares the challenges of capturing the look and feel of classic CRPGs and appealing to newcomers for the team's Kickstarter-funded game, along with tricks to handle the rendering of HD environments with tremendous size and scope, in the talk "Gathering Your Party with Project Eternity ."
Other GDC Next 10 talks already available for free include Storyteller creator Daniel Benmergui on using plot devices to create gameplay,HumaNature's Greg Johnson on connecting players emotionally in DokiDoki Universe ,The Odd Gentlemen's Matt Korba on 'using Lego and literary genius to prototype Wayward Manor ', Double Fine 'rethinking the adventure genre'for Broken Age , Team Dakota on Microsoft multiplatform MMO Project Spark and 'turning players into creators', Capy's Nathan Vella on Super Time Force and "turning game jam games into 'full' games", and SWERY on D4 and 'taking control of the Xbox One's Kinect.'
About the GDC VaultIn addition to this presentation, the GDC Vaultoffers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech
The Pickford Bros Ask Players To Give Feedback On Their Game Prototypes
The Pickford Bros are trying something a little different with the development of their next two games, by asking players to take an early look and offer suggestions and feedback.
“This is the future of original game development!” is how game developer John Pickford puts his new idea. What is he talking about? Well, the BAFTA nominated Pickford Bros are allowing players of their puzzle game, Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint , to download and play two prototypes of theirs. If you’ve purchased the game then you should receive a small update which will be a fast paced jumping play-control experiment ‘I Sent My Monkey To The Moon’, and radically redesigned gravity-based game mode ‘Squish’.
Depending on how players react to these two prototypes, they may each be developed into a new game mode within Blueprint , or a complete stand-alone game, or even be abandoned altogether. The development brothers think it’s a brilliant idea of theirs and encourage many other developers to pursue similar experiments.
“By making prototypes available the moment they’re playable we’re offering players an insight into how original games are designed, and how they change and evolve during development,” said Ste Pickford, “and having players involved and engaged at this stage of the process allows them to give us feedback at the earliest opportunity, guiding and influencing the way the finished games turn out. We’re not precious about our prototypes though – as game designers we regularly try out risky new ideas. If they don’t work we’ll abandon them, but if players respond positively then we’ll know we’re going in the right direction.”
The Bros have been so pleased with how this prototype experiment has gone that they don’t plan on stopping just there – making use of the painless update system of the App Store to turn their game Blueprint into an “incubator” for game ideas. They say they’ve already had lots of valuable feedback and will be releasing updates to these prototype ideas in a few weeks based on player feedback.
“A lot of indie developers are finding innovative ways to develop games with audience participation, from releasing games at the beta stage, like Minecraft, or following the ‘fail fast and early’ model of social games,” continued Ste. “Our ‘incubator’ plan is to make Blueprint an essential product that’s downloaded onto every gamer’s iPhone or iPad, not just because it’s a great game in itself, but because it offers players a unique opportunity to become involved in the design of future video games.”
You can grab Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint from the App Storefor free. More information on The Pickford Bros and their games can be found over on their official website.
E3 2011: Activision's terrifying-sounding Portal of Power could actually have huge potential
Activision has announced that Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure will feature a cross-platform game file system, which will let gamers load their game save on anyand every platform they have access to. Their action figure's profile data will be storedvia a cloud-based server, downloadable to any platform the game runs on. It may not be the cross-platform multiplayer gaming announcement our excitable minds
Show Us Your Rig: Chucklefish's Adam Riches
Show us your rig
Adam Riches is an artist at Chucklefish , the studio best known for Starbound , and I pretty much want his desk.
Each week on Show Us Your Rig, we feature PC gaming's best and brightest as they show us the systems they use to work and play.
, and I pretty much want his desk. He's got a nice, large space with lots of a light and some absolutely fantastic figurines. I am seriously considering flying to the Chucklefish offices to 'interview' him just so I can make off with that 3D printed Guybrush Threepwood voodoo doll. Lacking that, Riches was kind enough to take some time and tell us about the bobbles around his desk, what he's playing right now, and why he's excited for the next Deus Ex.
What's in your PC? Case: Cooler Master Silencio 550 CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 Processor @ 3.40GHz Memory: 8GB DDR3 Motherboard: Asus B85M-G GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 760 Primary HD: Kingston SSDNow v300 series 120GB SSD Storage HD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 2x Dell S2340L 23" Monitors Wacom Intuos Pro £5 desk fan from Morrison’s
What's the most interesting/unique part of your setup?
Probably the figurines that have accumulated on my desk. I ordered some 3D printed Monkey Island and Day Of The Tentacle figures specifically because I love the classic Lucasarts adventure games (and they aren't really something you can buy merchandise for) but everything else has just mysteriously appeared in one way or another. A couple times now I’ve come into work in the morning and found a new figure placed on my desk.
I also received a unique, hand stitched framed picture of the main characters from our next game, Wayward Tide. We did secret Santa last year, and everyone got really creative and made each other handcrafted gifts.
What's always within arm's reach on your desk?
Our office gets really warm in the summer, so right now I've got a tiny desk fan at hand, which provides a small but welcoming breeze.
I'm also regularly checking up on my desk plant. Everyone in the office has their own plant, and we've got a bet to see who's the best at keeping theirs alive. One of us (naming no names) has a particularly sad looking bonsai tree, that I’m amazed is still alive!
What are you playing right now?
I'm still making my way through Shadow of Mordor, the nemesis system is really refreshing but I've hit a point where I've got to finish story missions to continue and they aren't as compelling unfortunately. I'm also slowly working my way through the last part of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I'm a bit of a completionist when it comes to those games so I’m urged to read every email, crawl through every vent, hack every terminal etc. It makes getting through the hub sections of the game a little overwhelming!
What's your favourite game and why?
I have a few favourites! One of them is Little Big Adventure 2, by the now defunct Adeline Software. It starts like a typical adventure game, with you tasked with performing a simple fetch quest, but the sheer scale of the game is ridiculous. By the middle of the game you're caught up in a conspiracy, fighting aliens on a totally different planet. It's completely bizarre but the story manages to constantly hold your attention, and it managed to effectively tackle real-time combat within the adventure game genre.
For similar reasons my other favourite is the original Deus Ex by Ion Storm. I came into it pretty late, but loved the way you could approach situations in different ways and how certain actions would have notable consequences within the story. I'm more than a little excited for the new one that just got announced.
App Store Updates – April 5th, 2012
Did you get an ‘the new iPad’, only to find that many apps are blurry?
Did you get an ‘the new iPad’, only to find that many apps are blurry? Have no fear! Here’s a nicely composed list of the most recent apps to upgrade to retina display (for iPad).
TowerMadness HD by Limbic Software($0.00, Free)
Free is best, don’t you agree? Snag these while they’re still free:
Halo 4 Forward Unto Dawn "Joyride" trailer released
The latest episode trailer for the Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn webseries has launched and this time it features a young recruit demonstrating a super-charged Warthog for the camera crew. This is only the latest in a string of teasers released for episodes in the upcoming webseries. We've already seen the " Enlistment " trailer and the spectacularly creepy " Cryo " trailer as well. Everything we've seen so far has been spectacularly well produced. Especially the full-length version . Topics Forward Unto Dawn Joyride Microsoft Shooter Halo 4 Halo 4 We recommend By Zergnet Load Comments
GTA 1, 2, 3, Vice City and San Andreas for £5 on Steam
The bloody-good-deal alert klaxon has just gone off at PC Gamer HQ, signalling the appearance of another bloody good deal.
The bloody-good-deal alert klaxon has just gone off at PC Gamer HQ, signalling the appearance of another bloody good deal. Right now you can steal away all but the most recent of the Grand Theft Auto Games, from the 2D original through to GTA: San Andreas, for just £5, which is a saving of 75%. The first two games aren't even available to buy on Steam any other way, and GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas are all brilliant, and in many ways, very different games. The deal will last until Monday and you can grab it now on Steam.
Final Fantasy designer's take on Batman is extra spiky
Batman has always looked intimidating. The Dark Knight has had some crazy costumes in the past (many of which will probably be showcased as Batman Arkham Knight pre-order options), but none of those can top the extreme version of the Batman costume created by Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts designer Tatsuya Nomura. It seems he took the "knight" part of "Dark Knight" quite literally. Behold! The statue
Goat Simulator and I Am Bread Team Up for GoatBread
Many readers will be familiar with both the game where players can control a goat, and the one where they can maneuver as a piece of bread.
Many readers will be familiar with both the game where players can control a goat, and the one where they can maneuver as a piece of bread. Now, everyone can have a little bit of both – a bit of GoatBread, if you will.
Bossa Studios – known for both Surgeon Simulator 2013 and I Am Bread – are teaming up with the folks behind Goat Simulator , Coffee Stain Studios, to make themed DLC for each of their respective games. Goat Simulator will be receiving playable bread with which to muck about in the sandbox, while I Am Bread will be getting the “RAMpage mode” level, which of course is inspired by Goat Simulator . Naturally, the whole effort is being called “GoatBread,” as previously mentioned. The above “teaser” for it shows the no-longer-forbidden love of a goat and a piece of bread.
For those who don’t know or can’t guess, Goat Simulator gives players control of a goat with a surprising amount of dexterity, and drops them into a sandbox. Goat-themed chaos ensues. I Am Bread tasks players with navigating through a domestic obstacle course as a piece of agile bread, with the ultimate goal of reaching a toaster and ascending from mere bread-hood to full toast-dom. Goat Simulator is available for $9.99 USD on Steam for Mac, Windows, and Linux PCs, while I Am Bread is available on Mac and Windows only for $12.99 USD.
Those who already own either game will get the associated DLC for free when it is released. Anyone interested in keeping tabs on GoatBread can visit the DLC’s website, where they can sign up to be notified about the content and take in more “meaningful” video updates.
Grifball will be added to Halo 4 multiplayer
According to Joystiq who was in attendance at a 343 Industries panel, the much-beloved, fan-made Halo multiplayer variant, Grifball , will be an official game mode in Halo 4. Grifball was introduced by the fan community in Halo 3 when the "Forge" mode allowed for the creation of new types of levels and games. It was not featured at launch, but was eventually patched into Halo: Reach, and will now be available at launch in the latest title. Grifball is a unique type of game variant created by Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth, in which two teams attempt to carry a ball or bomb into the enemy base. All players are armed only with energy swords and hammers. So essentially it's futuristic death rugby. Topics Microsoft Shooter Halo 4 Halo 4 We recommend By Zergnet Load Comments
Rust diary, part 2: "It's hard to kill a naked jumping man"
It's the dead of night and I'm in my cabin, which, at the moment, is essentially just a box.
This is part two of a multi-part Rust diary from noted naked man Christopher Livingston—read part one here, and come back next Wednesday for part three of his adventures.
It's the dead of night and I'm in my cabin, which, at the moment, is essentially just a box. But I have plans for expansion. Big plans! Like adding a second box. Next to the main box. So it'll be two boxes. Anyway, I'm crafting with the spoils of my daytime scavenging and hunting. I've got ore simmering in the furnace, food cooking in the campfire, and I'm banging together some new building materials at my workbench. That's when I hear footsteps outside. They approach slowly, crunching through the grass, until they're right outside my cabin wall. Then they stop. Then... nothing.
Having a house in the Early Access crafting survival game Rustcomes with a few benefits. Drop a sleeping bag, and now you have a place to respawn. Build a workbench and a forge, and now you have a place to craft. Build a storage box, and now you have a place to store your materials. There's a downside, however. Once you've got a home, you've got neighbors. And neighbors love to drop by.
Take this current visitor, who has walked up to my cabin and is apparently standing just outside. I hold my breath, straining to listen. I'm nervous. I mean, I know my door can't be opened by anyone but me, and my tiny cabin is almost certainly too small for someone to bother wasting explosives trying to get in. But still... there's someone— some other human person —standing right outside my walls in the middle of the night. I extinguish my forge and campfire, plunging my cabin into darkness. I hold my breath. There's some shuffling outside. I can barely see a human figure crouching in the moonlight. He's peering through the narrow gaps in my walls. He's a virtual foot away from me and we're staring at each other through a crack in the wall. It's... unsettling .
I fire a shotgun blast at the wall, knowing I can't hurt him from in here, but mostly to let him know I actually do have a gun and I'm not AFK. He crouches there a moment longer, then I hear him walk away.
The next night, again, I hear footsteps approach. This time, they stop right outside my door.
"Hello," says a hollow, monotone voice. "Hello. I'm friendly. You can open your door." Somehow I'm not convinced. He circles my house a couple times, reassuring me in his odd, flat voice that it's OK to let him in. I sit inside, eyes wide, until the footsteps recede.
The next day I build another room onto my house, and put in some exposed stairs leading to what I plan to be the second floor. Around dawn, I have another visitor. I douse my flames and listen while the footsteps go from the grass outside to the boulder next to my house. Then there's a clunk as he jumps onto my roof. Whoever he is, he's walking around directly above me.
"Anybody home?" a voice asks, knowing full well that somebody is home. "Anybody? If nobody's home, then... I'll just tear down these stairs."
There's a splintering noise as he starts smashing my new staircase. I have no idea if he can actually ruin my stairs or not, but I'd prefer he didn't. I go outside.
"What's going on?" I ask him. He walks off my roof and lands in the grass. He's wearing only pants, and holding a rock.
"Come here, and I'll show you."
I walk over, because in general I choose to be trusting. Also: I am extremely stupid. He immediately begins trying to smash me with his rock. I pull out my pipe shotgun and fire. Naturally, I miss.
We have a merry little chase. Him, trying to bash me with a rock while hopping around like a kangaroo, me backpedaling, firing wildly, missing, and trying to reload my one-shot boomstick. Finally, I make a buttonhook around my house, slither up the boulder, and slide down the other side to the grass. He follows but makes the mistake of leaping off the boulder.
He lands with a crunch and drops to the ground, where his prone body appears to suddenly be sleeping. I assume he's dead, but just to be safe I shoot him at point blank range. His body vanishes in a spray of blood and is replaced by a backpack. He's carrying nothing but starter gear: torches and two bandages. And his rock.
So, it seems I've been welcomed to the neighborhood, Rust-style! It's not all bad though. The kind benefactor from my first diary entrylives a short distance away, and drops by every so often to see how I'm doing, to give me the local news, and to brutally kill any interlopers he spots. When I tell him about the guy who tried bashing my head in, and how long it took me to kill him, he says, "Yeah, when someone comes at you with a rock like that... it's hard to kill a naked jumping man."
I'm also starting to be recognized in the valley. Not all strangers slink around my house in the middle of the night: many come over and introduce themselves. My friend has friends, soon I learn their names and get comfortable having them around. We share resources if someone has a project going. We swap news, stories, and advice. If someone accidentally gets shot (which happens), apologies are made. If someone accidentally gets shot and killed (which also happens), gear is politely returned. It really feels like a little neighborhood. A weird, violent little neighborhood filled with irradiated bears and mostly-naked men.
Speaking of the neighborhood, it's sprouted some new buildings. The next time I log in, someone has built a wide three story building with barred windows and a series of ramps leading up one side of it. I'm impressed: it's taken me days to build a tiny three-story, and someone arrived and threw this together alone in a few hours.
However, as you can sort of see in the screenshot, our new neighbor left out an important detail: one ceiling section. Word around the valley is, as soon as he logged off, everyone in our 'hood climbed the side of his house, jumped through the roof, and looted his storage crates. I have a look inside myself: the place has been entirely cleaned out. He hasn't been back. I guess it pays to get friendly with the locals before building a condo on their block.
Speaking of friendly locals, it's now been days since I've had anyone creep around or try to kill me, which makes me think that perhaps I'm leading a too-sheltered life. I've got my cozy corner of the server, and it's great, but maybe it's time I left it for a bit, to get a true taste of the outside world. Maybe it's time I went walkabout!
I should point out, I don't make this decision. It's sort of made for me. After a day of hunting, I've run back to the cliff where my house is located, but when I get there my house is missing. It's because I've run to the wrong cliff. I run to another distant cliff, but it's the wrong one as well. Two things occur to me: I'm completely and utterly lost, and the sun has gone down.
You know how Bilbo Baggins went There and Back Again? Next week, I try to do the same.
Starbound update brings pets, teleporters and slime caves
Starbound has received another stable update—the second to be released this year.
Starbound has received another stable update—the second to be released this year. That means new features, of course, but also a new Adjective Animal version name. Formerly on Upbeat Giraffe, the game is now running version Spirited Giraffe.
New features include a new planet bookmarking system, on-planet teleporters and ship pets—animals that correspond to the player's race choice, and that will investigate items and objects and generally be cute around the place. There are also new locations: the mysterious Ark, and a Slime Cave biome containing new items and furniture.
It's a big ol' set of changes, and you can see the full rundown over at Spirited Giraffe's patch post.
Put Your Toasting Skills to the Test in I am Bread
I am Bread .
. Anything else I type here is a waste, crushed by the colossal power of those three simple words. Bossa Studios, developers of Surgeon Simulator (otherwise known as Malpractice AHOY! ), have moved away from helping the general public complete their medical degrees in hopes of stomping out a much more common problem: Being incapable of toasting. Do you burn your toast? Is it too white? In the safe confines of I am Bread ‘s toasting simulation space, you can live the life of a piece of bread and test the various methods and famous theories around toast and toasting procedures.
The best way to truly understand the toast is to become it, and as such, the game is using a Mount Your Friends style mechanic to maneuver your bread around. You have four buttons that each apply to a corner of the bread, and you use those to make the corner stick to any surface. Using this along with the stick will help you move your toast around the house, which will let you test out whether letting bread ride skateboards, putting it on the ceiling fan, or letting it soak in the toilet will improve its toasting capabilities. As an added bonus, the bread possesses a katamari-like adhesiveness, which allows the player to stick various condiments and small objects to the bread for sandwich analysis. Advanced edibility algorithms will test the bread’s fitness for human consumption, so go wild with your most intense bread tests.
I don’t dare think of the damage that could be done in a real-world situation using such bread stress tests, so thankfully we can carry them out in the safety of Bossa Studio’s simulation right now. I am Bread is now available for $9.99 on Early Accessfor anyone who dares not waste another slice of real world bread for their sickening, twisted experiments.
Is toasting all that this simulation contains, though, or is there something darker under its surface?
To learn more about Bossa Studios and I am Bread, you can check out their websiteor follow them on Facebookand Twitter.
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn "Cryo" trailer
The latest trailer for Halo 4 : Forward Unto Dawn has launched, once again giving viewers a glimpse at the life of UNSC recruits. The previous trailer gave us some of the inside thoughts and feelings of new recruits, while this trailer gives us a look at the extremely creepy-sounding experience of cryosleep. Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is an upcoming webseries tied in with the release of the mega-blockbuster sci-fi first-person shooter series. It launches October 5th and will continue until the game launches on November 6. Topics Microsoft Shooter Halo 4 Halo 4 We recommend By Zergnet Load Comments
Rust diary, part 1: "Frosh Man has a gun!"
By now, we're completely familiar with the basics of crafting games.
This is part one of a multi-part Rust diary from noted naked man Christopher Livingston—come back next Wednesday for part two of his adventures.
By now, we're completely familiar with the basics of crafting games. You hit a tree until it becomes tree parts, then use the tree parts to build wooden things. You smash a rock until it becomes ore, then smelt the ore to build metal things. You meet a half-naked guy named Batman, and he follows you around for ten minutes eerily moaning, "Take me to your house. Show me your house. Show me your houuuuuse." Actually, that last part might not be common to crafting games. But Batman's weirdness is not that unusual in Rust, the early-access crafting survival game from Facepunch Studios.
My first day in Rust was not particularly unusual. I found some trees and hit them. I saw some rocks and smashed them. I encountered some animals and killed them, and encountered some monsters and ran away. I saw the creations of others and became determined to create things of my own. Standard stuff.
Then I built a campfire and tried to cook the animal meat I'd harvested, but not understanding how to properly use the campfire, I accidentally ate all of the meat raw , and then began vomiting onto my campfire. Then I died mid-vomit. That part wasn't quite so standard.
My first night in Rust, I ran around with a lit torch, looking for somewhere safe to spend the night, finding only darkened cabins with locked doors. Some wolves attacked me, bit me, and chased me. I found an empty shelter, a simple wooden room with no door, and hid inside. I was hurt from wolf bites, I was trapped by the wolves themselves, I was hungry but had no food, I was cold but had no fire, and I was taking radiation damage from something nearby. Eventually my torch ran out and I died in that little hut, in complete darkness.
The next day, I decided that if I was going to die alone in pain and misery, it should at least be in my own doorless hut. So, I crafted a stone axe and ran around I whacking trees all day. I also met some of the locals. Another player ran up behind me and screamed, ear-splittingly, into the mic, then ran away laughing. I met Batman, as described above, and tried to ignore his soft, hollow moans. Someone else passed by and, when I said hello, said something so profane in response that I'm not sure it can be reproduced in writing without adding a few new letters to my keyboard.
Another half-naked man approached. "Frosh Man," he said. "Do you have a bandage?" I said my name was "Frohman," and that I didn't have a bandage (not realizing that new spawns actually have two by default) and he started walking away. A moment later a gunshot rang out nearby and the half-naked man started screaming. "Frosh Man has a gun! Frosh Man tried to shoot me! Oh my God. Oh my God. Frosh Man tried to shoot me!"
"It wasn't me," I told him. "I don't have a gun."
"Oh my God," he repeated, running around the map. "Everybody, stay away from Frosh Man. He has a gun. He tried to shoot me. Stay away from Frosh Man! Oh my God!" He continued loudly accusing me of violence until he disappeared over a hill and his voice faded.
Eventually, I collected enough wood, then built my shelter just as night fell. In the corner, I placed my campfire, and carefully— carefully— inserted some raw chicken breasts I'd gotten from a deer I killed (yes, dead deer give you chicken breasts at the moment). I cooked them and ate them, and I suddenly felt better about everything. I had a whacking tool and a shelter and warmth and enough food, and thus had cleared the first hurdles in every survival game. Maybe everything would be okay. Then, another half-naked man, this one pointing a shotgun at my face, suddenly slipped into my shelter. Maybe everything would not be okay after all.
"Hey," he said. "Is this your first time playing? You really shouldn't have a campfire going in the middle of the night, everyone can see it."
"I'm pretty new to this," I admitted. "I just needed to cook some food before I starved to death." I waited for a blast of gunfire, or failing that, a blast of profane derision.
"Here," he said. "Take this stuff." From his bare torso, bags began to fly, one by one, until they littered the ground in front of me. He gave me wood planks. He gave me ore. He gave me walls, pillars, a roof and a doorway. He gave me storage boxes and a smelting forge and a sleeping bag. He gave me a shotgun, and tons of ammo.
As we ran together through the night he answered my crafting questions ("Can you build a compass?") and game questions ("Is there an in-game map?") and my personal questions ("Am I naked?"). The answers: no, no, yes. He gave me some pants. When another player tried to kill me with an arrow, my guide fired his shotgun and chased the attacked away. As dawn came, he showed me a good spot to build my house, in a place called Resource Valley.
It was amazing. By showing my complete ignorance to a stranger in this crafting game, I had somehow crafted the perfect item: a guardian angel, a tour guide, a mentor. A friend! Within the hour, I had a real house built, with walls and a roof and a door that only I could open. I had crates full of loot and a gun full of ammo, all due to the generosity of my tutor. Thanks to him, I had a home.
Of course, once you have a home in Rust, you have something else as well: neighbors. But we'll get to that particular peril of homeownership next time.
Devs react to Spacebase DF-9 release: "Early Access is not an 'alternative' development approach"
Earlier today, we brought you Tim Schafer's explanation for Spacebase DF-9's unexpected transition from early access to v1.0 release, and why planned features have been lost in the process.
for Spacebase DF-9's unexpected transition from early access to v1.0 release, and why planned features have been lost in the process. The short version is that the game stopped selling enough Early Access copies to keep supporting development at the scale Double Fine was hoping for, so it had to adjust its plans. In light of this, several other developers with Early Access games have made public statements regarding their projects, and Early Access in general. Here's what they had to say:
"Alpha Funded / Early Access is not an 'alternative' development approach. It has a very specific use for a very specific set of games," saidAndy Hodgetts of Project Zomboiddeveloper The Indie Stone. "So what is very clear to me, is if you can't guarantee this from the outset then Alpha-Funding / Early Access is not for you. It's too risky and were it just your own reputation on the line, that'd be fine. But failures tarnish the reputation of the entire model, so a failure (particularly a high-profile failure) is potentially damaging to the very developers who need this model the most."
Meanwhile, a 'health check' statement on the Chucklefish blognotes that recent troubles at other developers means: "It's not the best time to be a part of the early access party and it's easy to see why people are worried about the health of the Starboundproject." However, it goes on to note that the game's future is completely secure:
"Not only is the development of Starbound extremely healthy. (More so than it's ever been in fact, with more team members than ever and all of us in the same location), but Chucklefish could fund the development of Starbound for another 9 years at least. Even if we didn't make another penny in that time."
Elsewhere, Maiadeveloper Simon Roth shared some hard numbers. He said that, over its lifetime, Maia has averaged $1,515 a day, though that number is massively skewed by the attention it got around launch. During a month without significant updates, it makes closer to half that amount.
"At our current burn rate, running off cash reserves, with no further sales of the game, development can easily continue for about five years," Roth said. "That said, current development has a few bottlenecks I would like to hammer out of the pipeline, which will push up costs by a few thousand."
It's interesting to see that it's these smaller devs that have the financial safety to net to keep development going even if sales drop, but it also makes sense. As Hodgetts pointed out, unlike Double Fine, they have much smaller teams that don't work out of San Francisco, where the average employee costs $10,000 per month.
Ultimately, it's important to remember that Early Access remains a very new funding method, and the bugs are still being worked out in terms of best practice. As ever, we're interested in hearing your thoughts on what works here.
Fallout and Elder Scrolls director Todd Howard wins Lifetime Achievement Award
Todd Howard is the director behind Bethesda's Fallout and Elder Scrolls games - inarguably some of the most absorbing titles of all time, if not in terms of immersion then surely in terms of hours spent playing them. And while it's no Dragonfire of Akatosh or real-life Pip-Boy, Howard himself is about to take home one of the industry's most celebrated treasures: a GDC Lifetime Achievement Award. The
Halo 4 Forward Unto Dawn "Enlistment" trailer released
Following in the footsteps of many of the previous games in the Halo series, Microsoft has introduced a set of live-action trailers and advertisements for Halo 4 intended to get players thinking about the men and women behind the uniforms of the UNSC. We love these types of advertisements. As opposed to many trailers or adverts which try to show you how amazing the gameplay is (also a good approach
7 Days to Die adds crafting and voxels to your post-apocalyptic sandbox
It doesn't take the world's greatest detective to see that zombie games are popular.
Left 4 Deadis a beloved franchise, The Walking Deadwon a pile of game of the year awards, and DayZ became so popular that Bohemia Interactive is making it into a standalone game. All those games caught on because they took common concepts the zombie genre hadn't really done before (co-op, branching storytelling, and multiplayer survival, respectively) and executed them well. For 7 Days to Die, that concept is crafting.
Your overarching goal in 7 Days to Die is one you've probably heard many times before—survive. But it's the way you survive that makes the game so promising. As a survivor in Arizona's rarely seen, non-Mojave Desert environment, you need to spend precious daylight scrounging for parts and scrap to use against the nocturnal zombie horde. It sounds sort of like Minecraft but with more emphasis placed on zombie-killing rather than recreating other worlds.
The game's websiteis also advertising a destructible, voxel-based world, online co-op and something called a "Dynamic Story Generation System" to get players to keep coming back.
The pre-alpha trailer doesn't do the game's visuals any favors, but this isn't exactly a finished product ready for consumption—human or otherwise. The developer behind the game, the irreverently-named The Fun Pimps, have told us that they're using a business model similar to Minecraft where the earlier you buy, the less you pay.
The first thousand people who plop $14.99 on the table will gain early access to the alpha build that's coming out sometime late July according to the developer The Fun Pimps. The rest will have to pay $29.99 for the chance to fulfill their post-apocalyptic engineering fantasies. The full game is expected to release sometime this October, though the developer told us that release date isn't set in stone.
7 Days to Die seems to be borrowing design qualities more than it is creating brand new ones, but that doesn't necessarily make it any less promising. Any game offering to add something new to the tired, over-populated zombie genre—even if you have seen it elsewhere—is more than welcome.
Starbound trailer teases Winter Update features
After a strong release at the start of the year, things went rather quiet for Starbound.
After a strong release at the start of the year, things went rather quiet for Starbound. Rather than periodic large updates, the team settled into an opt-in 'Nightly Build' format for those who really wanted to see what the "Early" in Early Access could mean. That work is now culminating in a massive Winter Update to the more stable beta build of the game.
For those not keeping up with the Nightly Builds, it should be a dramatic shake up of the game. The above trailer outlines some of the major changes, from new blocks, items and enemies, to a new, fuller combat system.
The update is due to be pushed out to the game's Unstable branch next week, with the Stable build release scheduled for January.
Anniversary Capstone: The Indie Game Magazine Humble Bundle
I promised we’d be capping off our anniversary month with a major event, and now that time has come!
I promised we’d be capping off our anniversary month with a major event, and now that time has come! After months of planning, The Indie Game Magazine and Humble Bundle have teamed up to showcase some of the most exciting games we’ve featured over the past 12 issues of the Magazine. Not only that, but we’re also giving away free issues of the Mag as part of the event. Starting as of now, the bundle is live, and features 7 handpicked games (selected by IGM’s own Vinny Parisi… or as I like to call him, me.) all for a really amazing price.
Following typical Humble Bundle rules, bundle purchases can pay what they want for the bundle, with those that beat the average purchase unlocking a second tier of games, followed by a fixed price that unlocks all seven. As for the free issues of the Magazine, we’re giving away both the April 2014 issue that (re)started it all, and our latest April 2015 issue. I wanted to give away these two issues in particular so that new readers can check out just how far we’ve come over the past year. But the best part? You don’t even have to buy the bundle to get the free issues. All you have to do is enter your email address on the page where prompted, and you’ll get both a download voucher for access through our distributor, and a PDF file as well. Of course, everyone who does purchase the bundle will receive the issues as well.
As for the games featured, take a look at all the incredible games below:
Pay What You Want
Beat the Average
Pay $13 or More
For the Early Access games, Arena: Cyber Evolution and Brawlhalla, purchasers will receive Founder’s Packs. Finally, the two charities I selected to work with for the bundle are Child’s Playand The AbleGamers Foundation. I’m a big fan of both, so I’m really excited we’re able to support them with a major promotion like this. Oh, and as a disclaimer, since I know this will come up: IGM is not earning any money from this bundle. All revenue goes to the developers, the charities, and should purchasers so choose, to Humble Bundle as a tip. That said, we’re counting on the community to spread the news about this event like wildfire. You get two free copies of IGM just for visiting the page, so please share it across social media and let the world know about it. Hopefully you’ll like what you read, and decide to support IGM by subscribing; With your support, we can cover even more indie games and further improve the Magazine!
I’d like to thank all the developer teams involved in the promotion, and a special thanks to Humble Bundle for letting me curate this genuinely great bundle. I think we’ve got a well rounded package that offers something for everyone. Of course, the biggest “THANK YOU” of all goes to the indie games community and our readers. Thanks for letting IGM be a part of your world for the past year. We look forward to another great year ahead!
Halo 4 will be playable at MLG Fall Championship
Major League Gaming announced today that they've landed a big guest star for this year's Fall championship eSports tournament. The one, the only: Mr. Chief himself. Halo 4 multiplayer will be playable by the public at the gaming event from November 2-4. No doubt this will increase the attendance and visibility of the MLG as eager gamers show up to get an early look at 343 Industries' long awaited sequel
7 Days to Die adds crafting and voxels to your post-apocalyptic sandbox
It doesn't take the world's greatest detective to see that zombie games are popular.
Left 4 Deadis a beloved franchise, The Walking Deadwon a pile of game of the year awards, and DayZ became so popular that Bohemia Interactive is making it into a standalone game. All those games caught on because they took common concepts the zombie genre hadn't really done before (co-op, branching storytelling, and multiplayer survival, respectively) and executed them well. For 7 Days to Die, that concept is crafting.
Your overarching goal in 7 Days to Die is one you've probably heard many times before—survive. But it's the way you survive that makes the game so promising. As a survivor in Arizona's rarely seen, non-Mojave Desert environment, you need to spend precious daylight scrounging for parts and scrap to use against the nocturnal zombie horde. It sounds sort of like Minecraft but with more emphasis placed on zombie-killing rather than recreating other worlds.
The game's websiteis also advertising a destructible, voxel-based world, online co-op and something called a "Dynamic Story Generation System" to get players to keep coming back.
The pre-alpha trailer doesn't do the game's visuals any favors, but this isn't exactly a finished product ready for consumption—human or otherwise. The developer behind the game, the irreverently-named The Fun Pimps, have told us that they're using a business model similar to Minecraft where the earlier you buy, the less you pay.
The first thousand people who plop $14.99 on the table will gain early access to the alpha build that's coming out sometime late July according to the developer The Fun Pimps. The rest will have to pay $29.99 for the chance to fulfill their post-apocalyptic engineering fantasies. The full game is expected to release sometime this October, though the developer told us that release date isn't set in stone.
7 Days to Die seems to be borrowing design qualities more than it is creating brand new ones, but that doesn't necessarily make it any less promising. Any game offering to add something new to the tired, over-populated zombie genre—even if you have seen it elsewhere—is more than welcome.
Starbound studio announces Wayward Tide, a co-op puzzle game about pirates
Few people will complain there are too many pirate games.
Few people will complain there are too many pirate games. Frankly, there are not enough. Starboundstudio Chucklefishis doing its bit for the under-represented criminals with the announcement of Wayward Tide, a top-down cooperative puzzler with an aesthetic which will please anyone who has sunk countless hours into Starbound.
Players will start in a "bustling sea-town" before moving on to one of five islands, each with its own treasures and difficulty level. The island layouts will be randomly generated, in case maiming pixelated foes for loot should ever get old. Naturally enough, if every player on a team dies all will start at the sea-town. Loot will be retained, but island layouts will not.
According to Chucklefish, the cooperative mode will encourage competition between up to four collaborators, mostly in the way users will solve puzzles and negotiate traps. "For instance, you and your friends might find yourself dealing with a pressure plate trap," programmer Jack Palfrey wrote. "The solution would involve everyone stepping off at the same time. Stepping off too early will unhelpfully drop a boulder on your friend. We're currently planning on a way to resurrect co-op players from time to time, so it's not game over if a few of you get killed along the way.
Best of all, Wayward Tide will support modding in some shape or form. No indication regarding a release date as yet.
The Sailor’s Dream – Go On a Dream Voyage.
The Sailor’s Dream is a challenge-free experience, primarily focused on exploring a non-linear story through words, music, sounds and illustrations.
Swedish developer, Simogo, presents The Sailor’s Dream – a philanthropic story, and melancholic tale, about the burning desires of three hearts united by a wonderful, but unmerciful ocean.
is a challenge-free experience, primarily focused on exploring a non-linear story through words, music, sounds and illustrations. Simogo assures that even with the lack of puzzles, that doesn’t mean you won’t find playful things in the game. The team also states that the lack of challenge won’t hinder your want and need to touch, play, tinker, and explore The Sailor’s Dream. And it definitely doesn’t mean that it’ll be easily digested!
Put on your adventuring shoes, your sailor cap, and get your compass ready; You’ll be free to explore the ocean and the islands that inhabit it, completely at your own pace.
Simogo’s goal is to tell stories in video games using what would be considered an unconventional style, drawing inspiration from books, radio plays, and even musicals. They plan to create an experience leaving you with wonder, leaving the game open for discussion.
Players familiar with Simogo’s other works, such as Year Walk andwill find that The Sailor’s Dream uses similar navigation mechanics, and the concept of the players piecing together a bigger story from smaller pieces.
To keep up with this and other Simogo projects, follow the team on Twitterand like them on Facebook. There is no official release date for The Sailor’s Dream as of yet, but it is set to be released on iOS in 2014.
Halo 4 multiplayer requires 8GB install
Microsoft confirmed today that players who wish to access the multiplayer component of Halo 4 will need access to 8GB of storage space on their Xbox 360. That can be either on an official Xbox 360 harddrive or on removable flash memory. However, this will leave some Xbox 360 owners out in the cold, with Core, Arcade, and 4GB console owners left to find more data storage in order to play online. It
TF2 crafting minigame teaches you recipes (and makes you want to play TF2)
Team Fortress 2's loot drops crept in to my brain.
Team Fortress 2's loot drops crept in to my brain. At first, random items were enough. Then I had a stint of trading with friends. Then those friends became random internet men. Eventually I replaced "trade" with "buy" and "drops" with "purchases." I started buying hats and name tags and paint and... DAMN you Valve and your clever ways, exploiting my weak brain and its desire for virtual loot.
As highlighted by Reddit, this fan-made gameuses your Team Fortress 2 crafting knowledge for good. You're tasked with creating rare stuff from an ever-expanding inventory. It's both educational and fun.
Don't know your Refined Metal from your Reclaimed Metal? Start here.
Starbound dev blog outlines what's left to include for version 1.0
Chucklefish have been beavering away behind the scenes working on Starbound for a while now, but it seems they've finally spotted the fabled version 1.0 somewhere over the horizon.
for a while now, but it seems they've finally spotted the fabled version 1.0 somewhere over the horizon. There's still a lot of work to be done before they'll apply that label to the game, however, and they've outlined what's left to achieve in a new dev blog. It's all a bit complicated if you're not familiar with the game, but essentially, expect new missions, biomes, pets and the like in 1.0.
Chucklefish caution players about spoilers in the blog post, so if you'd rather remain blissfully unaware of the new biomes, missions and features in the full game, now's the point to exit this article and resume pretending to fill in that Excel document for work.
But yes, they've detailedthe tech tree, the biomes you'll encounter as you progress through the procedurally generated universe, and the new missions you can take part in, including the rather ominous-sounding "tentacle mission". Also lots of fixes that won't mean anything unless you're knee-deep in Starbound already.
The devs are planning at least one more stable update "once the tech tree can be progressed through from start to finish", but after that they're going to be chipping away at that big to-do list. They're aiming to release version 1.0 later this year, but it could slip into 2015—if you want to try out the new features before then, you can always opt in to the less stable nightly builds of the game.
If you want more Starbound in the meantime, Phil collected this list of the top 10 Starbound mods.
Bethesda already ported Skyrim to Xbox One - there's just one problem
Bethesda already has Skyrim running on Xbox One. It's done! Ready to go! Tell us the pre-order bonuses! There's just one teensy issue: the studio only ported Skyrim as a new-gen exercise in the lead-up to Fallout 4 , and it doesn't seem to have any plans to actually release it. "The first thing we did was port Skyrim to Xbox One," game director Todd Howard told Game Informer . "Don't get your hopes
Halo 4 Xbox 360 bundle revealed in Microsoft online store
A listing that was briefly glimpsed earlier today by IGN on Microsoft's online store has confirmed the contents of a new console bundle that had until now been unannounced. The console was briefly available for pre-order, but the listings was swiftly taken down shortly after it appeared. From the images we can surmise that the console will include an Xbox 360 emblazoned with Halo 4 's signature neon
Star Wars: The Old Republic Preview
The problem with putting out a set of jaw-dropping CGI trailers for your game is the follow-up.
The problem with putting out a set of jaw-dropping CGI trailers for your game is the follow-up. It's tough to make an action game look as good as a whole load of pre-canned people doing set animations; it's nigh-on impossible to make an MMO look even half as exciting.
It's a problem The Old Republic hasn't got away from. The game's first set of trailers used LucasArts' heft to put together the best Star Wars vignettes since Revenge of the Sith's last lightsaber battles. The trailer for its warzones doesn't have close to the same visual impact – using in-game footage and relying on the MMO's stylised combat – but it does share its CGI cousins' sense of cinematic scale.
The Old Republic's warzones are the game's PvP arenas. When you and your buddies elect to bash some fellow humans, you'll hop into a warzone from your current location; once complete, you'll zip back to where you were, resplendent in your new and useful gear. So far, so MMO, but The Old Republic differs from the pack by steeping its PvP combat in lashings of Star Wars lore.
There's no abstract point collection or artificial fight club context: the warzones are zones for war, conflict that ties in with the universe as set out by LucasArts and compounded by BioWare's hive of storyobsessed writers. The first shown was set on Alderaan (Leia's exploded adopted home in the 'current' Star Wars timeline), and centred around a planetary defence cannon. Lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo explained how having a set objective would change the usual PvP template. “Other MMOs have arbitrary points or something to win – actually having something visual to aim for makes it much more epic.”
The two teams engaged in the warzone – one from both Republic and Imperial sides of the big Force-fence – set down on Alderaan to nab the cannon for their own purposes. Once there, it's a case of supporting your team and pushing through to capture points, before getting control of the big gun itself. With it under your team's control, you'll start taking automatic potshots at your enemy's dropship. If your team holds the superweapon long enough to bring down your foe's craft, hooray! You've won the day. But your position on the gun can be usurped and the cannon aimed at your own ship to knock your ride out of the sky.
Arena matches and more traditional quests both consciously occupy the same universe, so BioWare haven't narratively cockblocked the rewards players can be handed for doing well in this portion of the game. With so much pure data to mine for back-story, it's not surprising TOR's developers are towing the game so close to the fiction – but for an inveterate Star Wars geek, it's reassuring.
Rather than take on one single avenue, Nvidia has decided to go all in and attempt to satisfy both the
Android and PC console game trends in one go. It's not going to work, argues Gamasutra UK editor Mike Rose. You don't need to be a veteran video games industry analyst to know that two of the biggest trends of this year will be Android home consoles, and dedicated PCs for the living room.
Opinion: Nvidia Shield is a confused mishmash of current trends
Graphics processing company Nvidia surprised the video game industry today, entering both the Android and PC home console markets in one fell swoop with the Nvidia Shield handheld console.
You don't need to be a veteran video games industry analyst to know that two of the biggest trends of this year will be Android home consoles, and dedicated PCs for the living room. But rather than eye up one single avenue, Nvidia has decided to go all in and attempt to satisfy both trends in one go.
The Shield controller is a Tegra-4 powered Android device with a 5-inch 720p flip up, flip down touchscreen that can play any game available on the Google Play store (though of course not everything will be compatible with the game pad). Not only that, but it also has PC game streaming capabilities, such that it can pull games from your PC's Steam library and fire them either onto its own screen, or onto your TV.
One of the issues with attempting to tick multiple boxes, rather than focusing on a single market, is that you can end up with a device that does each thing sort of well, but not great. Look at Microsoft's Surface, for example -- it's a good tablet, and it's a good laptop, but it's not particularly a great anything.
There'll be a similar story for the Shield, I fear, as it'll come away as a decent Android game device, a nice way to stream PC games to your TV, but not really a winning combination overall. Its attempt at bringing together both sides of the coin has also left it looking rather ugly to boot.
It is an Android?Let's look at its Android capabilities first. Nvidia says that the Shield will be the most powerful Android device available to date, thanks to its Tegra-4 chipset.
That's great and all, but the power of the device means nothing if people don't want to own it in the first place -- and you really have to question what sort of person will want to grab a Shield for its Android games.
Think about it this way: you probably already own a mobile device capable of playing touch-screen games, whether it's an iPhone, an Android or otherwise. Picking up the Shield would mean lugging around two different devices that both essentially do the same thing, with the caveat being that one of them has physical buttons.
But fairly rapidly, I stopped using it and went back to my touchscreen-only Android device. That's because once you've played the handful on Xperia Play-dedicated titles, the vast majority of the Android game market is best played on a touchscreen, and the Xperia Play wasn't so great for touchscreen games.
There's no doubt in my mind that my thoughts were universally shared by other smartphone users, as the Xperia Play died out pretty quickly, and can now be regularly found for silly prices (it's still worth picking one up if you enjoy playing emulated games).
The Nvidia Shield shares a similar concept with the Xperia Play, while ripping out the smartphone capabilities in order to call itself a dedicated game console. Hence, as I did with Sony Ericsson's offering, I find myself wondering why I would choose to play a touchscreen-based game on a Shield when my Android phone can do it better.
If I knew I was going to be travelling for several hours, and the plan was to fill that time playing Android games -- the majority of which have been built with the touchscreen in mind -- I'd be crazy to grab both my phone and my Shield, when just my phone would do.
Of course, there's the argument that it could simply be used as a home console, like the Ouya and the GameStick. But there's an issue here too: the Shield is clearly going to be a bit pricey, given that it has a top-of-the-range processor built in, and a retina-like screen attached to it (not to mention that it can stream PC games too).
So if I really wanted a home console that can play Android games, wouldn't I rather pick up the much more affordable competitor models? The Ouya and GameStick are also vetting the games which work on their devices in a bid to provide the best experiences possible, whereas Nvidia has simply said " all the games! " without giving it much thought.
In my mind, as it currently stands there really is no reason to purchase a Shield with Android gaming as its primary use.
It is a PC?So then, if the Android bit isn't really that exciting, perhaps the PC game streaming will win the day.
Nvidia says that the Shield will be able to stream games directly from your PC's Steam library to either the screen on the Shield, or to your PC. That sounds pretty great - I'd personally much rather have a dedicated device like that than lug my PC downstairs or buy an entirely separate PC for my living room.
The issue is that Nvidia is not alone in releasing technology that makes PC games friendlier for the living room. Valve has confirmed that it is working on its own hardwarethat is suitable for the living room, and the company believes that it'll have plenty of competition for other companies too.
With Valve's own "Steam Box" (as it is being dubbed) also on the horizon, it's obvious that I'm going to wait to see Valve's hand before even considering a Shield for PC game streaming. The latest chatter is that Valve is developing a Linux console, which could potentially give Nvidia the upperhand -- but given Valve's strong track record, that doesn't automatically mean I'd choose Nvidia over Valve.
Not just that, but a dedicated device from Valve is obviously going to be the best supported device when it comes to intregration with my Steam account. I highly doubt that Nvidia can outdo Valve when it comes playing games on Valve's own platform.
What is the Nvidia Shield for, then?What it all comes down to is this: Nvidia is attempting to combine the best of both worlds, but it doesn't seem likely that they'll better the competition in either trend.
You could argue that it would be tidier to own an Nvidia Shield rather than both an Ouya and a Steam Box. That may well be the Shield's saving grace, and if Nvidia can get the hardware out to the public -- and prove the device is worthwhile -- before Valve has the time to make a move, then it could be a viable option. As of now I'm incredibly skeptical, and most likely the Shield is going to be non-news by the time the next round of consoles has been revealed.
Game worlds are bigger than ever, so how come we never stop to smell the roses?
I remember the first time I played Skyrim . It was pre-launch, at a public convention, and slots were strictly limited to twenty minutes per player. I can’t recall all the specifics, but I do remember that the demo dropped you just outside of Riverwood with the goal of talking with one of the town’s inhabitants to further the current quest chain. I waited in line, and when my time came I sat down,
Halo 4 multiplayer map 'Longbow' introduced
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Our spookiest PC gaming stories
It's nearly Halloween, the time of year devoted to spooky stories, scary movies, horror games, and changing your Twitter handle from 'Gary Watkins' to 'Scary Bat Skins' and then forgetting to change it back until at least mid-November.
It's nearly Halloween, the time of year devoted to spooky stories, scary movies, horror games, and changing your Twitter handle from 'Gary Watkins' to 'Scary Bat Skins' and then forgetting to change it back until at least mid-November. Come on, Gary. Get your shit together.
Come, won't you, and join the writers of PC Gamer as we sit around our virtual campfire, where with flashlights (activated by pressing the F key) pointed at our avatar's faces, we take turns telling our spookiest PC gaming stories. Some involve horror games, some don't. Some took place on a screen, some in real life. All involve games, in some way.
And all involve... terror . (scarylaugh_6.wav)
James Davenport: GTA Fright City
As most teens do, my friend and I abandoned every responsibility in favor of playing GTA: Vice City on its release day until we could no longer stay awake or drink anymore sugar water. We were at his house, a log home on the edge of a small town in western Montana. It was late fall, which meant snow, and it was coming down in droves that particular night. We cozied up inside and smashed cars into walls for a good while. It was a great time, but I started feeling unnerved for no obvious reason. We kept playing, the nervousness peaked and dissipated without issue.
Three or so hours later, around 2 a.m., the feeling came back. This time, my friend and I made knowing eye contact. ‘You feel like we’re being watched?’ he asked. I nodded. We looked around the room, out the living room window, and the glass pane door behind us. We didn’t expect to see anything, considering the tall fence surrounding the backyard was locked. Nothing but the snow coming down in heavy flakes effused by a dim porch light. We returned to the game, but only for twenty or so minutes this time. The feeling came back, more intense than before. My survival instincts were kicking in. Again, we made eye contact and began to scan the room. Framed in the glass pane doorway was a woman in a cream colored nightgown. She looked gaunt and pale, her hair was red and wet. She took another step towards the door. No shoes. We didn’t move and just looked at one another for a moment.
She began to scramble with the door handle. We didn’t tend to lock our doors in Deer Lodge, so she was able to open it and start her way inside. My friend stood up and threw himself against the door, pushing her out and locking it. As he ran to get his dad, she took off around the corner. The man of the house emerged from upstairs in whitey-tighties cradling a shotgun. We looked for her outside, but she was nowhere to be found. The snow had already covered her footprints, as wet and heavy as it was. We all came down from the adrenaline and considered what had actually happened. So it probably wasn’t a ghost, but someone who’d locked themselves out in the neighborhood. But who locks their doors here? How and why did she get through the fence to the backyard before ringing the doorbell up front? I still have no idea. But now whenever I stay up late playing a game, I check the windows instinctively every hour or so just in case.
Wes Fenlon: In the woods, everyone can hear you scream
In the winter of 2011, two of my best friends and I took a trip out of town to spend a weekend at my family's lake house in rural Georgia. It was a freezing cold February, so we weren't going for the swimming. We were there for the big TV, the surround sound system, and three days of isolation to play Dead Space 2.
To get in the spirit of things, we decided to play Dead Space 2 from dusk late into the night. Since it was winter, the sun was down by late afternoon, and we took turns guiding Isaac through the necromorphs infesting the seriously messed up space station called The Sprawl. Dead Space 2 was spooky, but veered more towards action than the slower-paced original. We were all on edge: the amazing surround sound design meant we had necromorphs moaning and roaring all around us. It gets really dark in a lake house in the woods in February. After a couple nights of playing, we'd made it through most of the game. And then we got to the eye surgery scene.
The more cavalier of my two friends was in control, and he kept the needle perfectly positioned over Isaac's iris...until the last second when it jerked out of position. The entire needle armature came hurtling down, crushing Isaac's eye socket in a fountain of blood. He laid there writhing on the table with a giant needle jammed clear through his skull. Two days of tension exploded in that moment. The other friend jumped off the couch, howled "What the fuck!" and couldn't stop alternating between nervous laughter and revulsion. It took us a good five minutes to recompose ourselves enough to try the scene again. Thank god I made it through the second try without crushing Isaac's eye. I honestly don't think we could've taken the violence of that scene a second time.
Tim Clark: Peter Molyboo
The earliest I can recall being, well, not so much spooked, but weirded out by a game, was playing Rambo on the Commodore 64. (Which should enable you to brutally pinpoint my age.) I was playing it with my best pal, and it had been a marathon session thanks to some hilariously hands-off parenting. Through bleary eyes, one of us noticed Rambo had developed a doppelganger. Blinking out from behind the bushes was another, greener, Rambo, otherwise going about the same foreigner-killing business. Ghost Hulk Rambo can only have been on screen for a few seconds, but we became with obsessed with him, and spent many hours fruitlessly trying to re-summon him. These days it’d barely make for a cool YouTube glitch video, but back then, with no internet to explain otherwise, it felt like some sort of eerie proto-Easter Egg the meaning of which we were compelled to decipher.
My other semi-spooky story is actually purloined from James Davenport, who reminded me about a morbid piece of audio from Black & White that also weirded me out. Whenever a villager died in the fun-but-flawed god game (hey, it was a Peter Molyneux joint), a spectral voice would whisper ‘deeeeeeeeeath’. Perhaps because it was barely loud enough to pick out over the regular FX, the sound wormed its way into my brain like the Ceti eel larva which Khan dunked into Chekov’s ear (I’m going for peak nerd here). The more I played, the more I started hearing ‘deeeeeeeeath’ elsewhere. In supermarkets. At school. On the shrink’s couch.
Well, not quite. But it was creepy. And potentially even creepier, because the game would also, very occasionally, also whisper the player’s name, provided it was common enough to be in the selection of audio samples. Quite how it knew what you were called was hotly debated, with this threadsuggesting it was actually based off your Windows registration. Haunting stuff, eh Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaames?
Samuel Roberts: Star jumps...from hell!
One of my stranger habits in life—and it’s a decent talking point if I’m stuck for conversation with someone I don’t like—is that my preferred form of exercise during the evenings is going into my spider-infested garage and doing 400 star jumps (or jumping jacks, as they’re also known) before returning to my flat, hopefully without my neighbours noticing. The garage contains nothing except the discarded box of a Lego Batman Tumbler and, for some reason, a copy of Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill (long story, but I ended up with that because of BioShock 2 and now it lives in my garage while I read books about Batman instead). One night I’d been playing chapter three of The Evil Within, a chapter where you stalk around a horror sandbox in this dark, foggy village, looking for a way to open the gate to progress.
It’s not that scary as horror games go, but there was this big bastard chained up in a barn who, once you shoot the chains that free him, chases you around with a chainsaw until you can find a way to kill him. It was touch and go: I made a run for it around the village, avoiding death frequently while dodging the chainsaw swipes. I emptied all my explosive crossbow bolts into the guy, and eventually lured him into a trap where I pulled a trigger and killed him with spikes shooting downwards from the ceiling. Dead! Good job. End of chapter. I saved the game and switched it off, ready to go outside to do my evening routine of star jumps. In the dead of night. In my garage. Outside the safety of my flat.
I creep into my garage and silently shut the door. I turn around and there's a guy there all chained up! Not really, but I do check the cracked walls for spiders before I start to jump. I’m about 20 jumps in when I hear someone walk past my garage door. Very closely, by the sounds of it. I pause jumping, wait for the person to go, then carry on jumping.
About 30 seconds later...FOX MATING SCREECH! “NOPE” I think to myself, running out of the garage and back inside where I watch a disc of The Simpsons to calm down. The Evil Within isn’t that scary, but there’s just enough grim, real world imagery for my brain to make the connection between it and real life. Enough for me to stop exercising like a complete idiot, anyway.
Tom Marks: We don’t go to Ravenholm
I was 13 when I first played Half-Life 2, and I didn’t like scary things. I didn’t watch horror movies or play scary games, so when I got to Ravenholm I was just as apprehensive as Alyx was. It was a tense experience the whole way through—checking every corner twice, saving all the bullets I could. I couldn’t find joy in activating traps or slicing zombies in half with a saw blade because my heart was pounding so loud I could pretty much hear it over the game.
About half way through the town, I finally began to relax a little. I started to understand what was coming and could prepare myself for it. Until, that is, I found myself on top of a building and a drain pipe began to shake. Fast zombies. As they started surrounding me on a Ravenholm rooftop, my conservative attitude towards ammo quickly flew out the window and I started shooting at anything that twitched. Predictably, I ran dry fast.
Everything was dead, my guns were empty, and I was breathing heavy...and then I heard another pipe shake. I grabbed a nearby gas tank and ran into the small room on roof, crouching as I huddled myself into the corner furthest from the door. The pipe continued to shake, before it was replaced with an eerie silence. I had my Gravity Gun trained square on the entrance, and finally a fast zombie burst through the door and made a b-line straight for me. I screamed, jumped, and shot the propane tank at him, which promptly exploded. I had a brief moment of pride, thinking my plan had worked, before a burning zombie emerged from the flames and and continued its pursuit. I pretty much lost my shit and probably died, but I honestly don’t remember much after that moment. This was the first moment I was truly terrified in a video game and honestly, I’d rather not remember it all so clear.
Chris Livingston: Dead but not deleted
I was playing The Graveyard. Despite the title, it's not a horror game, it's an experimental art game by Tale of Tales. In it, you slowly escort an elderly woman through a cemetery. You listen to a strange little song, and then the woman sits down for a rest on a bench. That's essentially it, at least in the free version. In the paid version, there's a chance that while the old woman is sitting on the bench, she'll die. My morbid curiosity led me to buy the game, and there I was, watching her rest on the bench for several long, uneventful minutes.
At one point my cat jumped onto my desk, and as he was a large and boisterous cat, this led to him knocking a bunch of things over. After a moment spent straightening up, I looked back at the screen. The old woman was dead. I'm not a deep thinker, but this still lead to a few moments of somber reflection on how minor distractions can cause you to miss the most important events in life, and how our lives are fleeting and someday we'll all be passing away on that same metaphorical bench, perhaps while someone important to us is busy attending to something else.
A few weeks later, my morbid curiosity surfaced again. I'd gotten something out of The Graveyard, those few thoughtful moments, but I hadn't actually witnessed that old woman die. I started the game again, determined to see it actually happen. When the game loaded, instead of it beginning with the walk through the cemetery, it simply started at the bench where that old woman WAS STILL SITTING THERE DEAD.
I was completely shocked and aghast. I freaked out. I think I actually got out of my chair and left the room. I mean, yikes and gross and eww and nope. I had no reflective thoughts on how once we die we're dead for all eternity, or anything like that. Just the thought that there's been an old dead woman on my computer for the past several week s, just sitting there, dead and alone and dead while I was playing other games. I immediately uninstalled it, and the double-checked to make sure all the files were completely gone. It was just too damn creepy to know she was there, her lifeless virtual body haunting my PC.
How Starbound plans to break down the lines between player and game designer
Chucklefish have been busy.
Chucklefish have been busy. Over the last couple of months, Starbound's developers have announced sweeping changes to the game that made their name, and begun the process of relocating the majority of their international team to a new headquarters in London. The phrase 'bedroom coder' doesn't quite apply to developers who have already scaled the heights of the Steam charts, but the change the team is undergoing is similar to the process that took place in the UK in the 1980s, as larger studios formed around games that started life as passion projects.
Starbound's early access success has given Chucklefish the opportunity to become a small publisher in their own right. They've been working with select indies to help bring their games to an audience, and they're currently hiring a second development team to work on a new game—a topdown pirate RPG influenced by The Legend of Zelda.
“I don't think we want to become a big company,” says Starbound lead designer Tiyuri. “Despite the fact that we work with other companies to get their games out, everybody in the company right now wants to participate in those projects in some fashion. I don't want to lose that—I don't want to lose the idea that we're small enough for the talent we have to take part in everything we do.”
The Starbound community has benefited from this sense of focus already, but they also stand to gain from Chucklefish's evolution into a studio proper. “We've done OK working remotely, but it's certainly not the best way to do things,” Tiyuri says. “I'll be honest – it's probably been our most problematic challenge. Everything takes twice as long. It's going to be so much more efficient being in the same room, and I think it's going to help us creatively as well.”
This is a time of significant change for Starbound. In its present version, the 2D game challenges players with survival on procedurally-generated planets within a massive randomised galaxy. You mine for minerals, construct shelters and craft your way up through tiers of gear—much like Minecraft or, particularly, Terraria. Where it differentiates itself is in the scale of its randomisation and in the effort being made to give each world a sense of life and history. Planets may have settlements with NPCs, dungeons, or bases full of enemies. Each of these affects the type of experience players will have, and their presence complements Chucklefish's goal to guide the player through Starbound with quests, stories and choice as well as the pursuit of the next level of gear.
It's this goal that is informing the next stage in Starbound's life. The game is in a position now where sweeping changes can be made to content without requiring substantial changes to the underlying engine. “What has taken so long in developing Starbound is the technology, not the content,” Tiyuri says. “We're now at a stage where almost all of it is done and we can throw ourselves into the content—and that just doesn't take as long. It's a lot faster, and a lot more fun.”
He goes on: “the more content in the game the better the experience becomes. We set out to build our engine and our toolset so that you're able to add new content to almost any part of the game without any programming knowledge whatsoever. Our artists aren't simply drawing pictures – they're adding new guns, weapons, monsters, all sorts of things. This frees our programmers up to work on bug fixes and engine features.”
“It's a very fluid environment,” Rhopunzel, one of Starbound's artists, tells me. “There's no set thing a person does – as things to do come in, people just do them.”
The structure of the game that surrounds this content is going to change substantially. Instead of progressing through space sectors of escalating difficulty, the bulk of the game will take place within a single sector. Players will be asked to acquire an amount of pixels (Starbound's currency) to open up new places to explore, but unlike the current game you'll be free to acquire pixels however you like. This, then, is the hook for Chucklefish to add lots of new things to do—from building a homestead and farming to running missions for NPCs based on outpost worlds. If you'd like to keep digging and dungeon-running, you can, but the developers won't be required to stick to that pattern while designing new stuff to do.
What Chucklefish are capable of building, however, will always be exceeded – at least in number – by what the community can produce. Starbound already has an active modding scene on account of its flexible engine, and in some cases mods have been folded into the official game. I asked Tiyuri if having modders alter the game in its alpha state would affect Starbound's direction as a whole.
“We have an idea of what fits the game in its base form,” he says in response. “A tone to the content. A lot of what modders produce gels very well with our current ideas, but whenever we find a mod and include it in the base game we make sure to tell that modder that we don't want to stifle their creativity. We don't want them to just work to our specifications. We don't want to lead anyone – we like the creativity, and it's good that not all of the mods out there conform to what we want Starbound to be.”
Instead of overtaking the main game, then, Chucklefish see modding as a valuable counterpoint to their own work. “I really like working with modders,” says programmer Bartwe. “They expand the possibilities—they're doing all kinds of things we can't or didn't think to do.”
I am Bread Preview – Toasty Cliffhanger
If, for some reason, I’m ever making breakfast for you, do not ask for toast.
I am Bread has shown me that I am dangerously incapable of just getting a piece of bread onto any kind of surface that would toast it, without dropping it on the floor, letting ants crawl onto it, or letting it fall into the sink. Even so, I think the scales may be tipped in the game’s favor due to Bossa Studios’ signature bizarre, uncomfortable controls. I have never had such a hard time completing such a simple task, but then again, I also never knew how much fun my bread had when I left the house.
You have one goal in I am Bread , and that’s getting a piece of bread toasted. That’s it, and it is a whole lot harder than it sounds. Normally, my bread doesn’t get around much without a little help, but this intrepid slice can adhere to things with the push of a button. Each of the four corners of the toast can grip things if you press the corresponding button or key, and as long as it’s grabbing something, you can make it move around using the control pad or directional keys. I found it easier with a controller, but I’m not implying that the controls were ever simple to use. This is Bossa Studios, developer of Surgeon Simulator . Having a hard time with the controls is what they’re all about.
Keeping track of which buttons to press when isn’t all that intuitive, since all four sides of the bread really look the same when you’re falling off the table towards the deadly, dirty floor. I often mashed buttons in hopes that one would grip the side of the wall or table. You can stick to any surface, so it’s always worth trying to grab something. Still, it takes a lot of thought and a careful eye to see which button you should be pressing, and you should indeed check before you start flopping around. It’s funny to flop your bread around the room, but the game is extremely difficult if you want to actually beat all of its stages. The game indicates which buttons will affect what sides, which is a nice concession from the developers.
Why should you care if you fall on the floor, though? Well, what’s the sense in making toast if no one can eat it? Your slice has an edibility meter that gauges the fineness of your toast, and this, along with the time it takes, dictates your score at the end of each level. Also, if your edibility drops too far, you’re done and have to restart the stage. Contact with all sorts of bad things will drop your edibility, from a drop to the floor to a dip in the sink. It drops fast, too, so you never want to make contact with these surfaces for long. If you don’t make a move on the floor while you’re just lying there flat, you’ll be back to the loading screen in seconds.
Your toast will also show visual wear depending on what you’ve rolled it through during the level. If you let it hit the floor, it will pick up dirt. If it rolls around in the mysterious goo at the bottom of the fridge, it will show that, too. If you drop it in a pile of ants, they’re on it for the remainder of the stage. It feels insane to say, but the game genuinely grosses me out more than most anything I’ve played. That worries me about myself. I am Bread , you may be a little too real for me.
You’ll want to keep yourself out of trouble by staying out of bad things using your sticky corners, but the bread has a grip meter straight out of Shadows of the Colossus (a comparison I didn’t think I would ever make). It drains as you cling to things and refills when you’re at rest, so if you have to climb a tall object, you need to do it quickly. You can’t just hang or cling to something indefinitely, which puts a little urgency into the game when you’re hanging over some muddy footprints on the floor.
This also results in some harrowing cliffhanger moments. Another game might have a mountain climber hanging over the abyss, or the hero’s fingers barely clutching the side of a platform as the villain sneers down. In I am Bread , you will feel that same tension from a piece of bread hanging from a cereal container over a sink of water. It’s quite a thing to experience.
The different levels show a lot of variety, but mainly take place in steadily more challenging household areas. The first level takes place in a kitchen, making it relatively easy to figure out what you’re supposed to do and where to go. After that, it moves to different areas of the house, with furniture that’s spread further and further apart. As the game moves on, you need to get more creative with your ability to cling to objects and fling your bread around using the control stick.
Object interactivity is what will save your bread. Most every little object in the game can be moved or used in some way, and it all relies on your own creativity. From the very first stage, you can use the oven instead of the toaster to get the job done. Still, the oven isn’t on when you get there, requiring you to think to use the dials to turn it on. Items become more important in the next area, where a wall heater might save the day. To get there, I’ve tried rolling across the floor in a pot, riding a skateboard, and spinning around on a cat’s toy to roll my way to victory. Each stage is a toy box, and it’s up to you to look at your surroundings and use what’s there to solve the puzzle. There tends to be a clear, better way to do things, but even in Early Access, there were often several other creative ways to win.
This creativity, combined with being a piece of bread, makes for some silly good times. The controls can be frustrating if you’re focused on winning, but so could Surgeon Simulator . If you treat this as more of a funny toy to play around with and see whether you can reach the end, you end up with some really great moments that you’ll want to experience with friends. I am Bread is the kind of game you’ll want to pass around, letting each person try something new and silly to get their bread toasted.
Even in moments when I was starting to get frustrated with the game, the chill music kept me calm. It sounded like something out of an old sitcom, playing relaxed music that has a quirky, upbeat tone. Also, something about the music, especially in a post- Too Many Cooks world, only adds to the goofiness of what you’re playing.
I am Bread is shaping up to be another fine, absurd game from developer Bossa Studios. Its simple premise marries well with the complex controls and open environments, expecting a lot of creativity from its players. It’s hard for those who are looking for a challenge, but provides equally as much fun for those who just want to play around with a slice of bread. If you’re looking for the next great silly game, you’ve found it with I am Bread .
I am Bread is available on Steam Early Access for $9.99. If you would like to know more about the game or its developer, you can go to their websiteor follow them on Facebookand Twitter.