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You can’t spell ‘futile’ without ‘FTL’, and demonstrating randomly generated and bastardly tough space roguelike FTL without flicking some special developer switches seems, to me, the very definition of it. But the FTL devs are brave space types, venturing into the depths of their wonderful space-ship management sim to show off the new additions. Their 1000% Kickstarter funded indie game was already amazing, but they’re mining those Star Trek tropes for all they’re worth: they’ve added cloaking and teleporting. “Captain, we have an incoming message from YouTube.” “Onscreen, Lieutenant Sexington.”(more…)

With every year that passes, modern games become more and more 'cinematic', while the games industry itself increasingly takes on aspects of the Hollywood model. We're talking blockbuster production values, inescapable marketing, assumed sequels, and bankable franchises. Talent from all over the fil...

Sort of like a two dimensional Second Life, but without the thriving sex industry, 8BitMMO is a top-down, java-based sandbox construction game currently under development at Archive Entertainment.

Its world, built entirely from scratch by users, supports up to 250 concurrent players in a persistent environment, who can either craft on their lonesome or join with others to create collaborative constructions. A "grief protection system" prevents malicious ne'er-do-wells from jackin' with your craft, should you choose to build alone. There's also "basic" PvP and PvE combat, as well as "amusing quests and unusual enemies" like the Lawyercat.

Despite still being under construction, the latest build is available for free at the game's official site.

Sundays are for looking at far away places on the map and feeling a bit like Truman. I should like to go to Fiji. One day. Now though, it’s time to consider other escapes, and the things people write about them.

• We’ll have our own feature on this soon, but I wanted to link to Gnome’s Lair’s coverage of Wing Commander Saga, the freeware project intended to bring that franchise back to life in the Freespace 2 engine: “Features don’t make games great. What makes them great is the love poured into them, great game dynamics, and solid storytelling–and we’ve done our best to make sure Wing Commander Saga has all of that. We, as designers, wanted to ensure that the entire experience is exciting: the game makes you feel that you are not just watching the action but actually stepping into the role and experiencing what it is like to be Sandman.”

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So there was no Bargain Bucket last week. Sorry about that, I hope you didn’t all go crazy and buy a bunch of games at full price. I was busy being at GDC, and I forgot to organise my minions into taking over. I’m back now though, so get ready for a selection of wonderfully reduced electronic entertainment software that I’m about to thrust in your direction. You can also find more cheap games than you will ever need to buy over at SavyGamer.co.uk. Here’s the bargain bucket: (more…)

No journalist, friend or decent human being wants to ask that question, especially not to an 18-year-old first-time developer who recently saw success as a student finalist in IGF 2012. Unfortunately, today we asked Mattia Traverso that very thing about his game One and One Story, after the events unfolded live on his Twitter feed: Traverso alerted the community that One and One Story had been counterfieted with "THEY STOLE MY GAME" and a succession of five tweets that included seven capitalized f-bombs.

One and One Story hadn't been cloned or copied, but it was completely stolen -- code, graphics and all. The group that stole it implemented a few unused assets that were hidden in the game file, Traverso told Joystiq, and its version has completely broken animations and stretched graphics.

"It's kind of hilarious," Traverso said hours after his initial discovery. But when he first got the Google Alert and tracked down the stolen game to the App Store this morning, Traverso didn't find anything about the situation amusing.

"I panicked. I didn't know what to do, so I screamed on Twitter," he said.

His screaming didn't go unnoticed and it drew the attention of other indies, including Canabalt's Adam Saltsman. Saltsman instructed Traverso to fill out a DMCA takedown, and two hours after his discovery Traverso was able to breathe a little easier.

Filed under: Features, PC, Retro, RPGs, GDCThis is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. It wasn't supposed to be Fallout. After the role-playing game genre crashed in 1995, new models for the style began to appear. Smart money would have been on the wildly popular Diablo to become the trendsetter, where Fallout was an underdog from the start. At the 2012 Game Developers Conference, Fallout's lead producer, Tim Cain, described its creation: he was the only Interplay employee assigned to the game for months, it was almost canceled twice, and when it shipped Cain was told it was a "risk" despite the low level of company investment.

Despite all that, the original Fallout has become widely known as one of the greatest and most influential games of all time, and the model for the biggest RPGs of recent years. Several weeks ago I argued that Ultima was the most important game series of all time, but Ultima's influence through new games was almost gone in 1997. Fallout was its replacement; it was the first modern role-playing game.

Diablo III’s landing in May might have made the biggest tremors in the release schedule, but there’s still every reason to keep an eye on the beautiful, sinister dungeon-crawler, Grim Dawn. I tell you, after this interview, there are few games I am looking forward to as much. The latest trailer shows the Occultist class in action. It’s looking more intense than I’d imagined, and I suspect Crate are going to nail this one.(more…)

Are you eager to see people from the games industry in clothes that don’t look like they’ve been put through the ‘grey and rumpled’ cycle of the washing machine? Because this is your chance! Tonight is the industry BAFTA awards, and even if you weren’t invited (AHEM!) you can still join in the crushing disappointments and the victorious thrills by observing the livestream. This year it’s once again being hosted by Irish joke-talker Dara O Briain, and it’s expected Notch will be there to pick up his BAFTA Special Award in Persson. Ahem.(more…)

I’m a big fan of games that use existing, but non-game tech in interesting gamey ways. World Of The Living Dead is a Google Maps based zombie survival MMO. You’re a watchful protector trying to guide survivors around real world city streets. You use Maps’ pathfinding to set destinations, and the zombie density reflects US census data. You need to manage the survivor’s fear, fatigue, hunger and route as the zombies increase their grip on the world.(more…)

Greetings Flare-opaths! By now, all of you that filled-in the form in the bumper Christmas issue, and sent in your (non-refundable) sixpences, should have received your Deluxe Membership Packs and free (while stocks last) mahogany-effect Flare Path flair point display racks. It’s a handsome gift, is it not? And so versatile! Gavin Babbington, a member from Plymouth, has written in to say that though he isn’t lucky enough to have won any flair points yet, he’s currently using the rack to display his collection of SS thimbles. Good work, Gavin! That’s just the kind of lateral thinking Chervell Bathgate, founder of the Flare Path movement and keen amateur cross-stitcher/eugenicist, would have approved of. (more…)

Tom’s Guide are reporting that Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls MMO will be announced in May. Here’s the claim: “An industry source that wishes to remain anonymous revealed the name of the new MMO to us, and confirmed that the game would take place a full millennium before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Using the Elder Scrolls Wiki timeline as a guide, Elder Scrolls Online will likely take place during the “Second Era,” or several hundred years before any of the other Elder Scrolls games. This information was corroborated by two additional sources before publication.” Elderscrollsonline.com has been registered by the company since 2007, and the rumours seem corroborated by ZeniMax and Bethesda hiring for MMO development positions over the last couple of years. It’s a big old maybe.

All right; we're done. Throwing in the towel, getting the heck outta Dodge and all that. The robot apocalypse is coming to a head faster than we thought, and it's time for us to move to our safe-hut deep in the jungles of Malaysia. Goodnight, everyone!

Michael Cook, a computer scientist at Imperial College London, has created an AI system that designs games -- clever, complex, slightly sadistic games -- and he has named it Angelina. Angelina has used "co-operative evolution" to make Space Station Invaders, an 8-bit platformer about a scientist trying to escape a space station full of aliens and homicidal robots. Cook provided the graphics and sound effects for Angelina, but still, we have to wonder how comfortable he is with that particular in-game scenario.

We just spent the past 10 minutes playing a game designed by a computer, and we enjoyed it. This is of course all a part of the machines' master plan -- get us complacent, then wham. Lasers everywhere. Either that or we can expect a flood of educational games about adopting children from third-world countries any day now.

The Game: Castle Crashing The Beard Genre: Beard Slayer Platform: Browser (Flash) The Scoop: Castle Crashing the Beard is a remarkably fun & good-looking flash game, considering that it is basically based off of an inside joke. The basic premise is that Castle Crashers developer (and Newgrounds magnate) Tom Fulp agreed to not shave his beard until Castle Crashers launched. This is a game based on annihilating that evil, evil beard...

Update: A representative from Overhaul Games stated that Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition will not simply be a straightforward remake of BioWare's original game. "We're adding new original content in the spirit of the original game," the representative said, as well as "maintaining all the awesome th...

A countdown over at BaldursGate.com has revealed that Atari and Beamdog intend to produce an enhanced edition of the original game for release this year. Some tweets from Beamdog’s Trent Oster suggest that the game will feature new content by some of the original team, and will also contain the Tales Of The Sword Coast expansion. We’ll try and find out a few more details soon.

My wait, actually. The best bit of the PC Gamer Top 100 meetings was listening to Gamer’s secret weapon Tony Ellis (if you’ve ever laughed at a caption or dark dark bit of humour, it was probably from Tony’s sick mind), talking about Anachronox: we’d all stop flushing heads down the toilet and pause mid-Chinese burn as he told us about the insanity of Ion Storm’s other game: all I remember now is that you could have a planet as a companion. A planet! I’ve been waiting for it to appear on GoG, and this morning it did. In addition to the planetary buddy, it’s a combination of Japanese style RPG and western sensibilities, but thanks to a rushed production (lots of content was removed then Ion Storm closed a month after release), it’s also rather buggy.(more…)

That Wasteland sequel you've been waiting for is about to go into production, as the game's Kickstarter crested its goal of $900K while we slept last night. The Kickstarter has started to pick up some momentum, it seems, as the total currently sits at just over $967K, with another 32 days to go.

As stated on the project's site, the goal is actually to raise $1 million, but inXile head Brian Fargo had agreed to put $100K of his own scratch on the line -- it's looking like that won't be necessary any more. Which isn't to say there aren't plans should the team raise even more money. If they reach $1.25 million, the extra dough will go to "making the world bigger, adding more maps, more divergent stories and even more music."

If the fundraiser reaches $1.5 million, that depth goes further, with, "more adventures to play, more challenges to deal with, and a greater level of complexity to the entire storyline. We'll add more environments, story elements, and characters to make the rich world come alive even more." Oh, also, it'll come to OS X. So, hey, how about we get things to $1.5 million so your buds at Joystiq can play the game on their writing machines? That'd be just capital.

Firebase’s side-scrolling shooter Orbitron: Revolution has turned up on the personal computer format, over here. It’s a fine-looking piece of retromancy, although I am have been playing it and am not fully convinced. While the pace of the Defender-meets-Uridium-on-a-ring sort of play is excellently paced and suitable explody, I found the visuals a bit tricky to read. Perhaps it’s down to the game being more slanted towards TV play than Jim’s-face-in-monitor play, but I found myself losing track of what was going on from time to time. That said, I am rubbish at retro-styled shooters, so perhaps the talents of those humans with brains attuned to side-scrolling will have a better time.

This is it, folks. It's officially official: Everyone can finally return to Tristram on May 15 when Diablo 3 finally, finally launches. Interested dungeon crawlers can pre-purchase the game from Battle.net right now in order to "be ready to play the minute the servers go live."

Blizzard also took a moment to remind everyone that you can still snag a free copy of Diablo 3 by signing up for a World of Warcraft annual pass. The deal expires on May 1. If you're looking for something a touch more physical, you'll be able to nab the retail collector's edition, which includes lots of extra goodies, for $99.99.

Rocked by mortar blasts and raked by small-arms fire, the heavily-laden Bren Gun Carrier comes barrelling down the track towards us. Any second I’m expecting it to explode like a Roman candle, or lurch, mortally wounded, into a ditch, but somehow it keeps coming. A cheer goes up as it finally bounces into our shrapnel-strewn farmyard and the driver – a dusty sergeant major from the 9th Cameronians – clambers out. “I believe you gentlemen require 6pdr ammo and PIAT bombs. Private Stone?” When I step forward, the visitor tosses me a battered canvas bag. “What’s this, Sir?”. “It’s your old passion for Combat Mission, laddie. Don’t you recognise it?”

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It’s a Kickstarter miracle! Top-down post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland 2, has managed to earn its Kickstarter funding goal in 42 hours and 30 minutes. With 33 days left until the end of the world begins, Brian Fargo’s dream project has scooped its $900,000 target and is closing in on that first million. Impressively it’s sold out all eight of the offered $10,000 reward packages, including a donation from Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, who did so as an apology for pirating the original game.(more…)

Punk’s Not Dead is the regular column that looks at the snot-nosed, blue-haired, noisy frontier of game development. You know the one: that experimental, rude one, with the games about colours and nightmares. Speaking of which…

This time: Cactus.(more…)

First-person shooter meets strategy is a confusing concept. But having seen how Heroes & Generals plays, it’s one that just might work. It’s World War 2, it’s Axis vs. Allies, and it’s going to take months to win.

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The Game: Truck Dismount Genre: Unlucky Crash Test Dummy Simulator Platform: Windows, OS X The Scoop: Truck Dismount is the sequel/companion to Stair Dismount. Like that game, your goal is to cause as much injury as possible to your hapless humanoid dummy...

Angry Birds is, at its core, a game about being bullied and then exploding those bullies, so it makes sense that Rovio would join MTV's "A Thin Line" campaign. Discouraging "digital disrespect," "cruelty" and "sexting," among other things, A Thin Line will incentivize active community involvement by rewarding positive social actions with an exclusive Angry Birds Space level.

It works like this: Once Angry Birds Space launches on March 22, players that post a "positive action" on MTV's Draw Your Line site will be given a hint that leads them to a secret "Golden Egg" level in Space. A "positive action" can be something as simple as changing your email password to protect your identity, or as complex as hosting an anti-abuse event/rally. The whole site works on the honor system, though, so most positive actions will probably be lies, concocted solely to obtain the game's secret level.

Peter Molydeux may be recognized on some level as a comedic genius, satirizing Fable creator Peter Molyneux on Twitter in the form of outlandish, brilliant game proposals, such as:

You control a mystical rabbit at a bus stop during Winter. You must find as many creative ways as possible to make people miss their buses. - petermolydeuxNOT (@petermolydeux) December 2, 2011
It's turning out that Molydeux may just be a genius, all comedic modifiers aside. Yesterday, after the world premiere of the above trailer for Molydeux's latest parody, Pin Drop, things turned serious. Anna Kipnis of Double Fine tweeted the idea of a game jam "where each team picks an idea from @petermolydeux and goes for it," and Molydeux responded that he would give any jam based on his "world-changing designs" his "blessing and support."

Today we have MolyJam2012, set to run March 31 through April 1 (April Fool's Day) in San Francisco and overseas in Brighton, but developers around the world are invited to join via a shared sign-up sheet, Molydeux tweeted.

Just a couple of years ago saying “the graphics are a bit blocky” was a way to put down a game, but now it seems it might just as likely be an indication of indie-success. It’s been almost a month since we last saw something from the cheerily blockular Cube World, but now it’s back with a “Monsters” trailer. That clever title should give you some clue as to what it contains, which is some monsters. A huge blocky dino-thing gets a beating from our sword-wielding block-protagonist, and there’s a strong, strong whiff of things Nintendo in there. Go take a look, this is looking really impressive.(more…)

The Ant Experiment is one of the more bizarre ideas out there: an MMO in which players will form an ant colony, which means large scale co-operative mandible-ing and ant-based problems, like “Who signed this release form saying David Attenborough was allowed to film us having sex?”, and “How did we get in this person’s pants?” Indie studio BlackCherry are looking for your help to Kickstart the game.(more…)

We do like a bit of balloon war, and few games do that as proficiently as the awesome Air Buccaneers HD. The game’s alpha version is now available on a but-and-try basis, and the work in progress has been documented in a recently video, which you can see below. It certainly looks fine. Mysteriously, devs Ludocraft promise something special for next week, but won’t say what it is. Hmm.(more…)