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Always Sometimes Monsters is surprisingly almost human
Always Sometimes Monsters doesn't play, look, or read as particularly human. Vagabond Dog's story about traveling across the United States to win back your first love, built in GameMaker, is a heady brew of visual novels like Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward and SNES-era Squaresoft role-playing games. Squat, big-eyed cartoon characters wander about squat cartoon college dorms and warehouses having lengthy conversations in a lackadaisical but outsized tone, like a less scatological Kevin Smith movie. Vagabond's new PAX East 2014 demo impresses because of how a deeply human game peeks through these layers of artifice. "You can play as any race, gender, sexual orientation," Justin Amirkhani, creative director and writer on Monsters, explained. "People treat you differently based on who you are, what you look like, and whether they have personal prejudices or not." The demo demonstrates this philosophy well, but takes time to warm up. In a clever fourth wall-breaking sequence, Amirkhani and his partner Jake Reardon actually appear in the game, explaining why the player I'd get to control would be randomly selected. As a failsafe making sure my decisions reflected my own personality and prejudices, it worked nicely. The lovesick character picked for me came close to the mark: a white, heterosexual male writer. His great love? A Hispanic woman named Gina.
PAX East 2014: The Repopulation's Josh Hall on the future of the game
If you're looking for Kickstarter success stories, The Repopulation definitely qualifies. While the game hasn't yet been released, it's managed to run not one but two successful campaigns looking to fans for funding, and it's managed its development carefully to keep itself on track for release. The game feels like a well-managed professional affair. And it's been a bit more quiet, but that comes down largely to the focus on getting the game out of its current alpha state and into its first beta. At this year's PAX East, I sat down to talk with Josh Hall, one of the core team members on the project, about where the game is in development and what it's heading for in the next few months. While the final alpha stage has taken slightly longer than originally planned, the team is on track for launching the first beta phase at some point over the summer, and it's eyeing further release plans.
Vlambeer mutates Nuclear Throne with co-op live from PAX East
From the show floor at PAX East 2014, Vlambeer has unleashed an update that adds co-operative multiplayer to Nuclear Throne. The game is currently available via Steam Early Access for $12.99. "We launched it about an hour ago, I'm uploading it from the show right now. We're updating the website to make sure it's ready. The goal for now was two players, and we're looking into the possibility of more than two players," Vlambeer's Rami Ismail tells Joystiq. "At this point two players is so crazy and insane that we're not so sure it's a good idea to have four." Ismail says that his team thought Nuclear Throne would be a fun single-player experience, but the community clamored for a multiplayer component. "We've been live streaming, we've been really open about our development, but we were worried about multiplayer. Since it was such a big deal though, we decided to do it between the live streams we did. When it was done, we realized it was good. Local multiplayer for two people. The build will be available in just a little while." [Image: Vlambeer]
Galak-Z blasts into PS4, Vita and PC this fall
Galak-Z will "have to be out by this fall," developer 17-BIT's CEO Jake Kazdal told us at PAX East. The new game from the Skulls of the Shogun developer, which also has a strong spiritual connection with Solar Jetman, will launch first on PS4, followed by Vita and Steam. The top-down physics-based roguelike gameplay is highlighted by action reminiscent of Asteroids. "It's not about waves of enemies," said Kazdal. "It's about leading shots, the AI becomes apparent as you play. We put a lot of work into the AI dodging shots and being something we don't normally see in arcade shooters." PAX East attendees can check out the game inside the Indie Megabooth. [Image: 17-BIT]
Below is a link between Dark Souls and Zelda
Below makes you feel small. Wonderfully, wonderfully small. Capybara Games' new adventure, a lush marriage of Dark Souls and the original Legend of Zelda, is a game of contrasts, encroaching dark and tiny lights with a wee character in a big, echoing world. "The idea of scale was the first thing we landed on. Ever since 1080p monitors came out I've had this dream of taking advantage of that technology in a different way," explained Kris Piotrowski, Below's creative director. "You've got this view you've never seen before, a character on a scale you've never seen before, and it gives the world a feeling of vastness and mystery." The muted, thick colors and heavy rain surrounding the Wanderer, Below's fragile star, in the game's beach side opening are as oppressive as they are beautiful. Wanderer is tiny on the beach and rocky path leading up into the hills in the background, taking up almost no screen real estate and moving slowly. Even holding the run button, he only moves at a trot. Unsheathing your sword and shield takes a good beat as well, leaving you vulnerable. Climbing up a trail toward the monolithic cave first seen in Below's E3 2013 debut is immediately tense and alluring. Those feelings of vastness and mystery sweep you up so much that you're not expecting it the first time spikes shoot out of a grey splotch of cave-floor, cutting your life short. When you start again as a brand new Wanderer, a little wiser and a little more ready with a sword, that's when this chilly game warms up, inviting you into its artful, challenging exploration one dark cave at a time.
You might hate Claptrap in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Gearbox is fine with that
Claptrap as seen in the original Borderlands The next Borderlands isn't Borderlands 3, and it's not being developed by Gearbox. As we learned earlier this week, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (read our preview!) bridges the gap between Borderlands and Borderlands 2, it's only on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, and development has been handed to 2K Australia. Oh, and it's set on the moon. Placing Borderlands with a new studio and introducing a new setting offered up a chance to reinvigorate the series, says 2K Australia general manager Tony Lawrence. "We had an opportunity to make it fresh. We sat down with these guys from Gearbox Software, talked about where it would be and who the characters would be, and what the fans would really like. The moon was something that came up quite a bit. So that was it: to the moon." The lunar environment naturally lends itself to The Pre-Sequel's headline features like low gravity and the necessity of oxygen. The Pre-Sequel also introduces the ability to freeze and shatter enemies with ice weapons. And, of course, it has new playable characters. That includes allowing players to play as Claptrap for the first time, something that could be equal parts amusement and annoyance – but we'll get to that in a moment.
PAX East 2014: PlanetSide 2's Higby on weekly updates
It's been three months since PlanetSide 2 started updating once every week, if you don't count one update that was pushed back simply because it wasn't quite ready. As creative director Matt Higby put it to me at this year's PAX East, the schedule comes second to making sure that every update is the best it can be. But it's still been quite a ride, and it means that the game has kept up a schedule that's astonishingly fast. More than a year out from launch, Higby has a lot to say about the game's development process as well as the updates it's already undergone. It's not an unmitigated success story, but it's filled with a lot of lessons and improvements. And like any MMO, the game's development is far from finished. In PlanetSide 2's case, it's a complex process that requires supporting new players, veterans, casual gamers, and professional gaming, sometimes in unconventional fashions.
Civilization: Beyond Earth breaks free from history, heads to the final frontier
When I ask Firaxis lead designer why the studio decided to take the Civilization series to space with Civilization: Beyond Earth – just announced at PAX East – his answer is simple: "Why not?" Designer and programmer Anton Strenger offers a little more meat. "I think that one of the things that space allows us to do as designers, and for the artists as well, is to get free from a historical context." Civilization has always been tied to human history, but Beyond Earth allows it to branch out in a fresh new direction (even if that direction isn't completely new to Firaxis). "We, as designers, were free to come up with really fun new gameplay systems that didn't really make sense in a more historical game, or even like a fantasy game." Specifically, Strenger mentions one of Beyond Earth's new tactical elements, the orbital layer, which allows players to launch satellites over a planet, influencing the events below. Firaxis' artists had a field day creating satellite designs, says Strenger. Producer Lena Brenk chimes in, "Yeah, that was amazing to see the artists. Usually we have historic reference that they're working from, and right now they get to invent a world, basically, an alien planet in the future." That's not to say, however, that Firaxis is just making everything up. "It's really important to us that the player be able to draw a line of plausibility through the entire experience," says lead designer Will Miller, "we want the suspension of disbelief maintained throughout." Beyond Earth begins around 200 to 250 years in the future, he says, and science-fiction fans will recognize plausible concepts like ships that fly at sub-light speeds and cryogenic stasis. "But where you end up is quite different, so we're going to draw that line from where we are now to these sort of post-human evolutions." You won't be starting NASA from scratch, in other words, but Beyond Earth starts in a believable place: Humanity travels to a new planet. The question is how you choose to master it.
Civilization: Beyond Earth announced, ready to colonize this fall
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth was just announced at developer Firaxis' panel at PAX East. It's not a sequel to Alpha Centauri (those rights are owned by EA), but 2K Games is finally giving fans the spiritual successor to the sci-fi strategy game they've been constantly nagging Firaxis about for over 10 years. The elephant in the room has been tackled right up front at the PAX East panel happening right now. Firaxis' Will Miller, who is co-lead designer on the Beyond Earth project, said, "The heart and soul [of Alpha Centauri] lives at Firaxis. For all the fans of Alpha Centauri, this is the game we've made for you." "The biggest systematic change for Civ 5 is that tech is a web, not a tree," said David McDonough, the other co-lead on the project. "By the end of the game you've got 70 percent of the web." He notes this leads to two cultures having radically different techs, where genetically modified aliens can fight sentient robots. Beyond Earth will have players assembling their cultural identity and craft their colony before exploring their new world. The game will also add a quest system (something very new to the series,) for players to learn more about their new planet. We've got more details here. The game is set to land this fall.
PAX East 2014: Landmark's current tools and future crafts
We've all seen what gamers are capable of making in Minecraft. A quick search online turns up replicas of everything imaginable, sublime works of art, even inexplicable cat fountains. According to Dave Georgeson, this is exactly what led to the creation of Landmark, and by his own admission the development team owes Notch a Christmas card solely because of that. Without that limitation, Landmark wouldn't be what it is now, nor would it be developing into what it will eventually be. At this year's PAX East, Georgeson explained to me that as much fun as Minecraft is, it lacks something crucial: a way for players to see all of these creations. Landmark, by contrast, is designed from the ground up not just to allow that sort of interaction but to actively encourage it. And that's only the beginning; the game's current status as a sort of super-Minecraft is the simplest core expression of the game's promise. By the time it's done, the whole point is to make a game that can be anything, a game for all seasons and tastes.
Spearhead Games hosting first Project Cyber tourney at PAX East
Are you at PAX East this weekend? If so, you might want to stop over at the Unreal Engine Epic Booth #1447 to check out the first ever tournament for Tiny Brains developer Spearhead Games' upcoming Project Cyber. The game is a 3-on-3 take on soccer, with a distinct cyberpunk flair and aesthetic. Spearhead has intimately tied Project Cyber to livestreaming; the studio streams the game's development weekdays on their Twitch channel, takes suggestions on features to implement from their audience, and features in-game livestreaming as well. Those who tune in for a match of Project Cyber can even trigger in-game events with their votes, according to studio co-founder Malik Boukhira. "The possibilities for this technology are endless, and we'll be soliciting more thoughts about it at the Unreal Engine Epic booth," he said in a press release. There's no expected release date for Project Cyber, but even if you're not at PAX East, you could potentially get in on the action early by requesting one of Spearhead Games' free Steam keys via their website. Thus far, more than 50,000 people have requested such keys. [Image: Spearhead Games]
Super TIME Force arriving 'late May, early June'
Capybara Games co-founder and president Nathan Vella tells Joystiq that its next game, Super TIME Force, should be available in either late May or early June for both Xbox 360 and Xbox One. "It's in QA, going into cert soon," Vella told Joystiq when we asked about the oft-delayed game's release. "It's out of our hands until Microsoft certification is done with it, but it's not the hardest game to certify because it doesn't have any multiplayer and it only has a single leaderboard." Vella tells Joystiq that the game's numerous delays were to enhance the game's original design, turning a good idea into a great game. "I hate the idea of gamers wasting their time on a game. Buying something because they believed it was one thing and having it turn out to be something else, and with Super TIME Force that could have happened in a weird way. It was always cool, the original game jam game was cool, but what we've turned it into is what I think people expected when they saw the very first trailer." [Image: Capybara Games]
The first public demo of Star Citizen
Ever wonder what $41 million looks like? It's a lot more blue than we would have thought. This is the first public demonstration of Star Citizen, Chris Roberts' interstellar crowdfunded project. It's 14 minutes of pretty planes and space battles in a very early build. The yelling isn't part of the game – that's the crowd at PAX East. Chances are, a lot of those people are cheering because they're finally seeing their money in digital, playable form. Star Citizen has raised more than $41 million in crowdfunding. [Image: Roberts Space Industries]
PAX East 2014: WildStar's panel is all about the endgame
So what happens when when you reach the end of WildStar? You've got a while to think about it, obviously, the game isn't even out just yet. But it's an obvious concern. People are going to hit the level cap, and what are they going to be doing then? Staring at the walls, singing songs, perhaps clawing desperately at the metaphorical walls in the hopes of getting the next major patch somewhat sooner? According to the WildStar panel at PAX East, the development team is hoping to launch with a fairly robust endgame no matter what you're hoping to do. The panel went through pretty much every part of the game, from items to PvP to solo story questing, all of which is intended to work together to create an environment wherein you don't run out of things to do and don't find yourself forced out of what you find fun. How well it will work remains to be seen, but there's certainly a lot on the table to start with.
Report: Mercenary Kings runs, guns toward Vita release
Mercenary Kings, the recently-released retro 2D shooter with surprisingly complex crafting mechanics, is currently available only on the PC and PlayStation 4, though according to Destructoid, we can soon add Sony's Vita handheld to that list. The site spoke with developer Tribute Games at the ongoing PAX East conference, and the team said it was working on a Vita port of Mercenary Kings, as well as ports of Ninja Senki DX and Curses n' Chaos. There's no solid timeframe for any of these handheld releases, but Tribute plans to release the games once the studio has finished development on each. [Image: Tribute Games]
The Behemoth's next game is an Xbox One exclusive
Castle Crashers developer The Behemoth is working on an unnamed project for the Xbox One, the studio announced at PAX East today. No further details were revealed regarding the untitled game beyond the bizarre teaser image seen above. The Behemoth notes that "Game 4" will be playable this year, and further information will be announced at San Diego Comic Con in July. The Behemoth is currently hosting a catalog sale on Xbox Live, discounting Castle Crashers and BattleBlock Theater to $5 apiece. [Image: The Behemoth]
Blizzard reveals Hearthstone single-player campaign
Blizzard announced its upcoming Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft single-player Adventure Mode at PAX East today, detailing the challenges players will face as they progress through the new Curse of Naxxramas campaign. Curse of Naxxramas features a series of unique enemy encounters and boss battles that take place on a new Adventure Mode-exclusive game board with interactive corners. The mode adds 30 new cards to the Hearthstone deck, including bonus cards awarded for completing nine unique Class Challenges. The Curse of Naxxramas will gradually roll out new Hearthstone content in the five weeks after its simultaneous launch for Windows, Mac and iPad this year. A release date has not been announced. [Image: Blizzard]
Harmonix announces 'rhythm-runner' Record Run for mobile
Harmonix announced the development of a new free-to-play game at PAX East in Boston today called Record Run. Described by the developer as a "rhythm-runner," the game is "coming soon" to as-yet-undetermined mobile platforms. Record Run features gameplay that compares to Gaijin Games' Bit.Trip series, according to Harmonix head Alex Rigopulos. The game uses songs from players' mobile devices as the backdrop for its levels, which features a character running down a sidewalk, avoiding obstacles and collecting music records, all seen during Rigopulous' presentation. He noted that Harmonix has "lots of other irons in the fire on mobile" aside from Record Run. [Image: Harmonix]
PAX East 2014: Hearthstone reveals Naxxramas single-player adventure
Hearthstone is planning to revisit one of Azeroth's most notorious locations in the card game's first single-player adventure: Curse of Naxxramas. Blizzard announced at PAX East that a new single-player mode for the game will be coming "soon" starting with a romp through the necropolis of Naxxramas. In it, players will journey through five wings of a dungeon, accumulate new cards, and fight bosses with their own unique abilities. Thirty new cards and nine class challenges will come with the adventure as well as a Naxxramas-themed game board. Once it's released, Curse of Naxxramas will slowly unlock its wings over the course of five weeks. The first wing will be free, with the remaining four requiring purchase. It will release on all platforms simultaneously. Massively's on the ground in Boston during the weekend of April 11th to 13th, bringing you all the best news from PAX East 2014. Whether you're dying to know more about WildStar, Landmark, or any MMO in between, we aim to have it covered!
A bullet and bad guy love affair in Sniper Elite 3
Bullets soar in slow motion once again in Sniper Elite 3, a new installment of Rebellion's third-person shooter coming to PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 this summer. Continuing the franchise's tense action through the second World War, Sniper Elite 3 focuses its efforts on the mountainous regions of North Africa. What fascinates and still disturbs me about the Sniper Elite series is its relationship with bullets. Sometimes, you fire away and the ammunition is simply disposable destruction, but every so often the game becomes enamored with a single shell. It lovingly slows the camera down and sways as the killing shot exits your rifle's chamber, triumphantly careening toward its new owner (also known as the guy you just shot). As the bullet hits, the enemy's body contorts; in a single cut, the camera pans around both the baddie and the bullet in an eloquent and disturbing dance of death. Get a room, you guys.
