compulsion
Latest
We Happy Few's dystopia is held together by drugs and denial
We Happy Few has come to fruition in a unique way. Compulsion Games first captured attentions in 2015 with its creepy, atmospheric trailers, also launching a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund continued development of its dystopian title. The following year, the game launched on early access programs for both the PC and Xbox One. It was a procedurally generated, roguelike survival game, intended to be relatively short and replayable. Only, the world Compulsion had built was too alluring. The people wanted more, being particularly fond of the game's quirky characters and the player's interactions with them. And so We Happy Few has evolved over time to become a substantial story-driven adventure. At launch on August 10th, the game will follow three very different playable characters that, for one reason or another, don't fit in with their ever-jolly neighbors.
How 'We Happy Few' plans to avoid the pitfalls of 'No Man's Sky'
The 1960s dystopia of We Happy Few will hit Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on April 13th, 2018, thanks to Compulsion Games and Gearbox, the studio best known for Borderlands. You're not hallucinating -- We Happy Few did already come to Xbox One and Steam as an early-access game, but now it's ready for prime time. The full experience, priced at $60 and featuring a rich storyline starring three separate characters, will be ready to roll next spring. That's all fine and dandy, but We Happy Few's joyous release-date news hides a deeper development story. Compulsion has followed a long, winding road to April 2018, and the first major twist in that path came early in the development process.
Teen texting can be just as compulsive as gambling
There's no question that modern teens are more comfortable with cellphones than earlier generations, but there's now evidence to suggest that some of them are a little too comfortable. A recent study shows that some teen texters exhibit the same compulsive behavior you see from gamblers, including the inability to cut back, sleep loss and lying to cover up habits. For the girls in the study, this frequently translated to poorer grades at school (though they still fared better overall than the boys). The quantity of texts didn't affect the teens so much as their inability to pull away from their devices. Sending just a few messages doesn't matter if your eyes remain glued to the screen, after all.
Get a terrifying taste of 'We Happy Few' on Steam, Xbox this holiday
We Happy Few isn't necessarily a terrifying first-person stealth and combat game. So far, it's more of a bone-chilling, creepy, deeply unsettling experience. In other words: It looks great. Today, there's good news for anyone who pledged to the game's successful $330,000 Kickstarter, or anyone in the market for a drug-fueled romp through a fictional 1960s English town. We Happy Few will hit Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview at the same time this holiday season, Compulsion founder Guillaume Provost tells Engadget.
JXE Streams: An early, eerie look at 'We Happy Few'
Drugs, check. Dystopia, check. An alternative 1960s English town with a terrifying history, check. We Happy Few ticks a lot of my boxes in its premise alone, plus the art direction seems spot-on and the characters already feel real. Take Uncle Jack for example: He's a talk-show host with a permanent smile fixed on his painted face, and he says things like, "Of course, none of us had to do anything terrible when the Germans were here. No, no. At least, I can't remember anything. Can you?" And then he laughs in a way that suggests, yes, everyone in this small English town definitely did something awful. One thing remains unclear about We Happy Few so far: How it plays. We're going to find out today live on Twitch with a super-early, pre-alpha build of the game. Even though Compulsion still has to add more AI behaviors, world-building elements, combat mechanics and other features, they've given us the go-ahead to show off the early world of Wellington Wells. Join us at 3:30PM ET / 12:30PM PT right here, on the Engadget Gaming homepage or at Twitch.tv/Joystiq.
Drugs and dystopia in 1960s England: 'We Happy Few' hits Kickstarter
We Happy Few takes place in 1964 in the isolated English town of Wellington Wells. On the surface, it's an ideal place, filled with smiling residents and all the conveniences of retro-modern technology. But Wellington Wells hides a dark and terrifying secret: During the German occupation of World War II, the citizens had to do something so awful that they devised a drug to make them forget their actions and guilt. The drug, Joy, makes the Wellies friendly and complacent, unless they encounter someone who isn't dosing; that's when they turn violent and beat any "Downers" into submission (or death). The town is on the brink of collapse and its residents are starving, but everyone keeps on smiling -- or else.
BioShock shakes hands with Stepford in 'We Happy Few'
Smile for the camera -- and for the TV, and during the walk to the store, and while you're sitting in the living room, in the dark, all alone. Smile, because if you don't, they will come for you. That's the story behind the first trailer for We Happy Few, the new game from Compulsion Studios, maker of PlayStation 4 launch game Contrast. We Happy Few features a "drug-fueled, retrofuturistic city in an alternative 1960s England," filled with citizens with permanent smiles literally affixed to their faces. It's creepy, unsettling and cheerful all at the same time. Think BioShock with a splash of V for Vendetta and a smattering of picture-perfect Stepford. "I will say that Bioshock wasn't a direct inspiration, it's just that our interests have kind of always aligned with Irrational's games (people made the same comparison with Contrast)," Compulsion marketing director Sam Abbott says. "It's a pretty daunting comparison, given that we're less than one-tenth their size."
Gears of War 2 Combustible Map Pack available 3AM ET tonight
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Gears_of_War_2_Combustible_Map_Pack_available_3AM_ET_tonight'; This just in from the Spike VGA Awards: Gears of War 2 Combustible map pack, which includes Flood, Gold Rush and Fuel Station, will be available tonight at 3AM ET. No price mentioned. Now back to the liveblog ... Update: According to a source speaking to X3F, the map pack will be 800 points / $10. Gallery: Gears of War 2 - Imulsion Map DLC
Gaming's best kept secret: World of Warcraft
Like a child taking his first step, a non-gamer encountering his first MMO is something to be cherished. Two wolves, one cow, and one top-heavy avatar later, Patrick Howe's first foray into "so-called" massively multiplayer games already has him wondering about addiction. Why, usually it takes at least four or five wolves before the average MMO gamer starts checking for the aggro radii of farmyard animals. (Patrick, when you want to know how best to take care of those pesky snow rabbits, we here at Massively.com can point you in the right direction). It's no easy thing to tip a virtual cow and realize you are suddenly standing on the lip of an abyss that contains games that can thrill you, addict you, train soldiers and fight cancer.Did you know that "there are games that require teams of people -- real people, from all over the world -- to work together to solve problems (although those problems often involve killing monsters)?" It's true! Perhaps one of the things that most surprises Patrick is that there are any benefits to playing MMOs. It's hardly surprising, considering the backdrop for his wolf-slaying excursion was an all-day conference on video game compulsion held at Cuesta College last May. It's easy to throw around that word, compulsion. Some people feel compelled to play. Do MMOs, by requiring long periods of play to build up a character and become part of a raiding guild and take part in raids, to have people depend on you, create compulsion in people otherwise compulsion-free? Or is this just the hysteria that accompanies any new leisure time activity, like music, movies, television or football?From the outside, non-gamers see us as addicted troglodytes, sitting in silence as we puppet over-stylized characters into ritual murder games. From the inside, we see it as a fun time with friends. But we all know people who really are a little "too" into their game, and need to take a step or two back, before they find themselves seized by eager psychologists hot to warn the unaware public of the latest danger to their poor children's fragile psyches.
