STRAFE: Wolf in Some Other Wolf’s Clothing

So those mischievous developers over at Pixel Titans had us all hoodwinked when they released Strafe a couple of weeks ago. This very successful KickStarter project promised a procedurally generated 90’s style FPS experience, but actually delivered something quite different once you peel away the crispy-polygon coating, and personally I’m pretty thrilled about that. As regular readers will be aware, I have mixed feelings about … Continue reading STRAFE: Wolf in Some Other Wolf’s Clothing

It’s Shadowtime in Kickstarter-land

I was going to start this post off talking about coincidences, but around the halfway mark on the first paragraph, my typings reached the conclusion that I didn’t have a point, what I was writing about wasn’t coincidence, and that I should just give up and start again; so I did… unfortunately this version isn’t going that much better, but I’m going to stick with it.

I want to make some online noise about two games currently on Kickstarter, both of which take place in a fantasy world and have the common theme of shadows. I was going down the “These two games coincidentally have similar themes”, avenue of blog post, but there is a common, third element, at work which eliminates the coincidental nature of these two games; that element is me. I like games like this, so finding two which are both on Kickstarter at the same time isn’t so true coincidence, but more like ‘good-internetting’ by me to find them. Self-analysis/congratulation done with, let’s move on to why they’re interesting and what tipped me over the edge from “these are interesting, I should keep and eye on them” to the much more fun “WOOOH!! I’m backing this!”.

Continue reading “It’s Shadowtime in Kickstarter-land”

The Flame in the Flood: …through the briars and the brambles…

For the second time in recent weeks my gaming has taken me to the forested wilderness of North America. I mentioned then that I have a particular soft-spot for the small towns and uninhabited regions of the U.S. which is apparent from my daily, borderline ritualistic, checking to see of Act 4 of ‘Kentucky Route Zero’ has been released*. This particular foray into that vista was provided by the recently released portion of Americana that is ‘The Flame in the Flood’ (TFITF). I had already sunk a fair tally of hours into it during early access and would like to congratulate the veteran team at ‘The Molasses Flood‘ for wielding that particular double-edged blade with a surprising amount of grace, using the experience to tweak the game balance whilst holding the attention the early-access audience. The final release saw the addition of the ‘Story Mode’ to the existing ‘Endless Mode’ which was a welcome addition and I decided to sail through the plot at least once before typing anything here.

318600_screenshots_2015-07-08_00005
… all about this radio… 

Continue reading “The Flame in the Flood: …through the briars and the brambles…”

Kickstarter: ‘Refuge’ – Are windmills becoming the new lighthouses?

The Ark; some forgotten pinnacle of rock, crowned by the windmill and peppered with structures from a seemingly forsaken society.  The snow gently falls…  This is your arena in Fox Rogers’ current Kickstarter pitch, a lovingly crafted monochromatic world into which 2 players will be dropped, yet only 1 will survive.

I’ve thrown some money at the pitch, and not just because it has a windmill (although if someone ever made a game called “Windmills and Lighthouses: It’s going to be emotional”  I’d probably just let them be a signatory on my bank account) It caught my attention for a few reasons, but before that, I’m going to be a little cold and clinical and outline what the pitch reveals. 
Continue reading “Kickstarter: ‘Refuge’ – Are windmills becoming the new lighthouses?”

Kickstarter: “Hello,  Neighbor!” – if Pixar made “The ‘burbs” into a game

Dynamic Pixels’ have provided me with my latest ‘backing fix’ in the form of the confusingly spelt “Hello, Neighbor!”, a stealth/survival game set in a non-threatening suburban street. According to the KS pitch, you take on the role of an ‘innocent’ resident, neighbour to a suspicious tank-top clad loner. For reasons as yet undisclosed, you take it upon yourself to do some sleuthing with the ultimate goal of gaining entry to their basement and discovering the ‘truth’.
Continue reading “Kickstarter: “Hello,  Neighbor!” – if Pixar made “The ‘burbs” into a game”