PC Gaming News Message Board older than one year ago

No hyperbole: Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing is probably one of the best educational typing games ever, largely because it doesn’t even try for two seconds to be educational. It’s about a guy named Icarus who kinda tries to teach you typing skills occasionally, and also his Native American spirit owl pal Jerry who is over 2000 years old and speaks like a Renaissance Faire reject. The best news of all the news? It’s now become a (still free) weekly episodic series. The plot? An entirely surreal and silly murrrrrrder mystery heavily inspired by Twin Peaks.

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sorry no time for capitals or punctuation this week theres a flakturm high stack of demos on my desktop and if Im going to introduce each and every one of them to you and still have time for a spot of luncheon grammatical niceties must go by the board on the other side of that html ha ha down there roman chariot haulers paw the dust grenada awaits invasion viking history masquerades as third person adventure and a motorbike sim prepares to graze you in places where youve never been grazed before … [visit site to read more]

There are some things in this universe I will simply never understand. Mainly, I’m referring to math and this older gentleman who goes to the bar where I do karaoke every week and only ever sings Gangnam Style, but the idea that a sequel to the universally reviled Shaq Fu could exist in the year 2014 is up there too. As if that’s not enough, it gets even more bewildering: Shaquille O’Neal, American household name and multi-millionaire basketball star, is hoping to garner $450,000 of gamerly cash on Indiegogo. Or rather, the company he’s working with is. Right? I don’t even (indie) know-know anymore. There is a trailer of Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn below, and it is certainly… something.

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If we’re intent on having ungames and notgames, then we need the opposite category to classify those which seem especially comfortable in their own gameyness. These gamegames, supergames, hypergames might normally be called arcadey, but they’re not retro. They’re as modern as Call of Duty, as vital and current and new as Rust or DayZ, and Towerfall: Ascension could be the genre’s fig. 1.

Here is a long descriptive sentence. Towerfall: Ascension is a single-screen competitive and co-operative multiplayer game for 1-4 people in which every player is armed with a bow and arrow, and in which your objective is to kill everyone else before they kill you by whittling down their lives or, in the new Quest mode, to work with your friends to kill waves of enemies across a series of increasingly difficult levels.

Conceptually, it’s unremarkable and easily described. In execution, it’s exquisite and has me chuffing on about ubergames, ultrogames, megagames. This is wot I think. … [visit site to read more]

Alec rather struggled to enjoy Blackguards. A far too dull game, despite offering some oft-loved turn-based RPGness, it failed to find that King’s Bounty love. However, the game continues on defiantly, and has just launched its first DLC – Blackguards: Untold Legends – only a month or so after release.

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Atmospheric space mystery is now playable.

Arkedo co-founder Aurelien Regard is developing a stylish PC racing game inspired by Nintendo's F-Zero series, IndieGames.com reports.

The Next Penelope challenges players to survive a series of overhead-view races interspersed with high-speed, free-roaming boss battles. The game is currently in development for Windows, Mac, and Linux, though IndieGames notes that developer Regard is "very interested" in console ports.

Pix'n Love Rush and Hell Yeah! creator Arkedo disbanded last year due to a lack of studio funding. Co-founder Regard went on to launch the arcade-style platformer Poof vs. The Cursed Kitty for PC platforms in November.

[Image: Aurelien Regard]

Proceeds from PopCap sale to go towards cancer research foundations.

The actual rocket scientists at NASA have joined forces with the virtual rocket scientists of the Kerbal Space Program to update the indie space simulation with legitimate technology and an actual, real-world, ongoing mission.

Kerbal Space Program: Asteroid Redirect Mission shares its name with NASA's ongoing attempt to land astronauts on an asteroid orbiting beyond our moon. Details on how this crucial effort will translate to the video game are currently scant, but representatives from NASA and Kerbal Space Program developer Squad will be on hand at the upcoming SXSW culture festival to offer the first public look at the update.

"Kerbal Space Program is about giving gamers the chance to dream big, even if they're not astrophysicists," wrote lead developer Felipe Falanghe. "This relationship with NASA, the very beacon of big dreams and imagination, is going to give players a real opportunity to learn about the universe we're living in."

Full details on when and where SXSW attendees can witness the demonstration can be found at the festival's website. [Image: Squad]

In his latest monthly status update, designer Chris Roberts reveals plans to grant the public access to the dogfighting component of Kickstarter success story turned space epic Star Citizen.

"As I write this, the Star Citizen team is all around me hard at work on the Dogfighting Module," Roberts wrote. "We plan to premiere dogfighting at a special Citizens-only event just prior to PAX East. If all goes as planned, the Dogfighting Module itself will launch shortly after PAX and you will finally get your hands on your flight sticks!"

While this is not the first taste of Star Citizen's gameplay offered to prospective players - Kickstarter backers were granted access to hangars late last year - it is the first major component of the game to make its public debut. Unfortunately, Roberts offers no information on how fleshed out this dogfighting module might be, though with PAX East scheduled for April 11 through 13, we likely won't be waiting long for a first-hand glimpse. [Image: Cloud Imperium Games]

An extra 100MHz. This is progress, Intel style. I speak of the expected refresh of Intel’s Haswell-vintage CPUs, due in a month or so. It’s a PR upgrade to what was already an underwhelming family of desktop processors and yet another example of some pretty specular foot-dragging from Intel in recent years. Will Intel’s next properly new family of chips, known as Broadwell, be any better? If not, we should at least be able to look forward to a big step up in SSD performance fairly soon in part enabled by Intel’s upcoming 9 Series chipsets. Well, it’s something to look forward to… … [visit site to read more]

Gearbox Software is polling fans of the classic real-time strategy game Homeworld to determine the Collector's Edition contents of its upcoming compilation Homeworld Remastered Edition.

Announced last year, Homeworld Remastered Edition updates Homeworld and Homeworld 2 with high-res textures and support for HD resolutions, among other improvements suggested by fans and modders. The collection will also feature the original versions of both Homeworld games, and proposed Collector's Editions will include a replica Mothership and other memorabilia. Gearbox notes that further details will be revealed soon.

Gearbox purchased Homeworld's intellectual property rights following publisher THQ's bankruptcy in 2012. Gearbox later leveraged its purchase to fund Homeworld: Shipbreakers, an intended series successor that now carries the official Homeworld license.

[Image: Gearbox Software]

Super science magic always goes wrong. Project Temporality’s latest trailer neatly demonstrates the process by which any sort of exciting in-game tech inevitably becomes the only means of escape from the laboratories in which it was constructed and tested. Examples from the past include Magrunner’s magnet gun, Portal’s portal gun and Half Life’s crowbar. Temporality’s timeline-splitting tool can be added to the list when the game launches on Friday. This is what happens when Portal steps into a teleporter pod and The Swapper jumps in alongside it just as the switch is thrown. Mad bad science.

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This week’s episode of A Game And A Chat is very special. Very special indeed. For one, I’ve got two whole guests this time – namely, former Thief: The Dark Project director Greg LoPiccolo and longtime Thief series designer/Thief: Deadly Shadows director Randy Smith. Yes, it is time to talk (and play) all things Thief. Classic Thief, nu-Thief, and everything in between. Expect stories from the dank depths of the first three Thieves’ development chambers, inside info on what could’ve been, and opinions from series vets on Eidos Montreal’s reinvention of their storied stealther. This is one you absolutely should not miss.

We’ll be kicking off at 11 AM PT/7 PM GMT. Tune in below. 

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I’m a sucker for silhouettey foregrounds, colourful backgrounds, it’s true. Which is likely why my brain-eyes were immediately drawn to forma.8. They stuck around for the intriguing-looking 2D exploration and splatty combat of a little floating probe.

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The logical conclusion of all ironic '90s nostalgia is raising funds now.

Company introduces new proprietary design that makes PC gaming controls faster, more precise, and longer lasting.

We learned last year that Gearbox were planning to re-release the enormously loved Homeworld games. Having plucked the license from the THQ jumble sale, apparently because their Chief Creative Officer Brian Martel has maximum love for the series, they made clear their intentions to release an HD version of the first two games. They’re upping their terminology now, from “HD” to “Remastered“.

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As was foretold, Shaq is returning to the gaming world with a rebirth of one of the more infamous games in history, Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn. The flexible funding project is now live on Indiegogo, and is seeking $450,000 to make the beat-em-up game a reality.

The funding page acknowledges the original game's less than stellar history and notes that Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn will be "what the original game should have been." A Legend Reborn still stars the former basketball player, but instead opts for a beat-em-up style game that features "hundreds of moves and battle techniques" with "dozens of cool melee weapons." The game will include a cooperative multiplayer mode in addition to player-versus-player options.

The developers behind the PC game at Big Deez Productions are former triple-A developers that worked on series like Halo, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Alan Wake, Battlefield, Killzone and more. The Indiegogo campaign is set to end on April 20. The game will come to additional platforms if it reaches varying stretch goal levels: $650,000 for iOS and Android, $775,000 for Xbox 360 and PS3, $960,000 for Vita and 3DS, $1.08 million for Wii U and $1.62 million for Xbox One and PS4. [Image: Big Deez Productions]

Namco Bandai has revealed when we can expect the brutally hard Dark Souls 2 to arrive on PC.

Tropico 5 is all set to keep you safe from the sun this summer, as you rule a banana republic paradise through the ages from the comfort of your shaded domicile. The game's beta test is scheduled to begin this month.

Every second year, the RPS hivemind startles awake from its eternal slumber. “Hrmm? Oh, we should talk to all the people making PC games who are nominated for this year’s IGF.” And then we do that. And now we’re doing that. First up, the similarly hivemind-ish team from Tale of Tales, Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn. They’re nominated this year for Luxuria Superbia, a “simple game of touch, pleasure and joy made for fingers”, in which you glide through a tunnel and make its walls explode with flowers and marine imagery. … [visit site to read more]

NaissancE is first-person platforming in an exquisitely beautiful abstract world. I’ll say this: it’s a recipe for conflict within Old Jim Rossignol.

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Where in the world is Serious Samdiego? I think a fair number of people would like to know, especially in light of the fact that series creator Croteam announced it was funding Serious Sam 4 with a Humble Bundle. But then it just disappeared. So what gives? Did the beloved throwback shooter have a stumble (bundle)? Evidently not, as Croteam is now claiming that Serious Sam 4 will be out by the end of 2014.

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Adam Saltsman is probably known to you as the creator of Canabalt, the infinite runner with the fabulous glass-smashing sound. He and fellow developer Rebekah Saltsman are now setting up a studio, Finji, to bring together their many game projects under a single name. That includes Overland, a collaboration with Shay Pierce; Portico, a turn-based sorta-tower-defence-ish game previously called Grave; Capsule, a really neat, extremely difficult space game about asphyxiation which you can buy right now; and Night in the Woods, the Kickstarter funded adventure game from Alec Holowka, which Finji are helping publish.

Pssht. Lazy. … [visit site to read more]

Here’s some complete nonsense to kick off your Thursday morning. A fly-on-the-wall mocumentary of the birth of one of gaming’s most iconic characters. It’s not Pong 2.

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Plus, a development update on the next horror game from the Amnesia developer.

Every day, in addition to The Daily Fix, we list off the day's biggest stories in this simple and easy to read format.

ACE Team will release a title that blends platforming, fighting and possession mechanics this summer.

Game developer Shawn Allen grew up as a biracial black kid raised by a white mom in a mostly Latin neighborhood in Manhattan. Now, as an adult, most people assume he's black, Middle Eastern or Hispanic, while others squint and ask, "Where are you from?" Diana, his wife, is Puerto Rican, and their friend, Manny, is Sicilian and chief of his Taino tribe.

Together, they're aiming to bust down the barriers to video game diversity with a retro-styled brawler, Treachery in Beatdown City. It features RPG elements and a turn-based combat system, and it features a cast of minority characters. The star of Beatdown City is Lisa, a Puerto Rican woman designed by Diana to counteract the "spicy Latina" stereotype in popular media, Allen tells me.

"Lisa was made to be a strong character first, who can also be a positive Latin woman in games," he says. "She is, if not the only, one of the few leading Puerto Rican women in games."

Beatdown City isn't an activist game - it spawns from the team's love of brawlers, and they've worked to make it different (turn-based combat will do that) while still recalling classics such as Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. But if Allen and his friends are going to make a game with human characters, they're going to be as diverse as the developers themselves, Allen says:

"When Manny and I started making the game, we wanted to make iconic, memorable characters like brawlers of old did. But we infused them with backgrounds based on our culture, the culture around us and of people that we know. The more we thought about it, the details flowed very easily."