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PSA: Dragon Age story bridge The Last Court now in session
The Last Court, a text adventure bridging the narrative gap between Dragon Age 2 and the upcoming Dragon Age: Inquisition, is now available to experience for free via your web browser. If you're ready to play the role of marquis, ruling over the small state of Serault, simply head over to the Dragon Age Keep and log in with your EA Origin account. In case you missed our previous post regarding The Last Court, the game charges you with overseeing a small fiefdom located in the country of Orlais. Major characters from the Dragon Age games will appear, and it's up to you to decide how to handle your populace and its problems. The BioWare Blog post announcing The Last Court's release states that each playthrough of the game takes an average of seven days to complete. Better hurry then, as Dragon Age: Inquisition is due for arrival just 10 days from now, on November 18. [Image: EA]
Text adventure The Last Court ties Dragon Age 2, Inquisition
Failbetter Games, the studio behind Sunless Sea and a virtual cornucopia of text adventure games, has partnered with BioWare to create The Last Court: a text-based game that promotes you to ruler of Serault, a small township located within the nation of Orlais. As the marquis, you'll need to manage threats both physical and fiscal, forging alliances and interacting with major characters from Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2. Players will be able to choose the Huntress or Scholar archetype for their character, giving themselves a boost to physical or mental stats, respectively. If you're not too keen on playing the medieval fantasy version of Parks and Recreation, here's some added incentive: The Last Court will connect the events of Dragon Age 2 to the forming of The Inquisition, the driving force behind Dragon Age: Inquisition. Failbetter did not announce precisely when The Last Court would go live, but when it does, you'll be able to access it via the Dragon Age Keep - a website where you can sync and customize your personal saga through BioWare's universe. A first-look video is available after the break.
Sunless Sea update goes 'steel' with major combat changes
Sunless Sea's "Steel" update is now live for all players, and brings a major change to the game's combat. The roguelike seafaring RPG previously featured turn-based combat, deemed "tiresome" in our time with the Early Access game in July. As demonstrated in a video provided by Failbetter Games after the break, the Steel update brings combat out of the game's menus and into the same top-down overworld in which players pilot their ship. The new real-time combat system still relies on players charging weapons and keeping enemies within range, though the latter is now represented by a red arc that circles their ship. Failbetter also "made some changes to the way the map is laid out in terms of balance and variety" and recommends that players start the game over with a new captain and chart to get the most out of the Steel update. The update entered a beta phase late last month. Sunless Sea is available through Steam Early Access and DRM-free on the developer's site for $18.99. [Image: Failbetter Games]
Sunless Sea Emerald update adds new regions to sail, fear
A few patches of the Unterzee's oceanic void Contributing Editor Mike Suszek approached in our Early Access Sunless Sea review have been properly charted – as in, developer Failbetter Games has actually implemented those areas into the build available via Steam in this week's Emerald update. Players can now explore the Sea of Autumns, the Salt Lions and the Iron Republic, but casting off on a new venture no longer involves a sense of direction earned from previous discoveries. A press release states that Sunless Sea's map now changes "every time you play," so just because you've become acquainted with certain territories doesn't mean their locations will be familiar. The Emerald update improves the sense of direction used by zee-bats and allows players to name their ship. It also boosts Sunless Sea's script beyond 100,000 words, but we'd use far fewer to describe Sunless Sea's unsettling brand of sea life: "gross," "what the hell is that" and "creepy enough to dine at Red Lobster in hopes of consuming its ancestors and preventing its existence" all come to mind. [Image: Failbetter Games]
BioWare tease points to possible Shadow Realms reveal
BioWare may be set to unveil a new project shortly, that's if you go off the clues tied to a teaser the company posted on YouTube. The 44 seconds of footage are as vague as the developer's E3 video, but online sleuths have connected dots that may shed some light on something called "Shadow Realms." BioWare sent out a mass email today, linking to a "You've Been Chosen" site featuring the new video. The site's text reads, "The time is near. They are watching. Your power is rising. Cologne, Germany. You've Been Chosen." The timing would suggest Bioware will unveil the project at next month's Gamescom conference in the German city.
Early Access Review: Sunless Sea
This is an Early Access Review, in which we hope to help you decide whether or not it's worth jumping into a game before it's officially complete. When describing Sunless Sea, you might refer to its text-heavy visual novel elements, or its myriad of RPG-like, story-building choices. It's a top-down seafaring game with simple visuals, in which players set sail across a massive sea deep below the earth's surface. Alongside the straightforward sailing, the battle, dialogue and decision systems are governed by plain menus and text. It's a basic approach that complements the mythical atmosphere, leaving the bulk of Sunless Sea's vivid concepts up to the imagination of the player. The project is far from complete, as over half of the sea's map is empty. There's another kind of emptiness in Sunless Sea, though, as even the accessible regions feel endlessly dark at times. This other emptiness, the pervasive, creeping fear of the unknown as you sail mysterious waters, is what makes Sunless Sea stand out, even at this early stage of development.
Eat your crew to stay afloat in Sunless Sea, now on Steam
Failbetter Games' dark, top-down nautical exploration and survival game Sunless Sea is now available on Steam Early Access. To celebrate its arrival, the developer is discounting the game by 10 percent ($17.09) until Tuesday, July 8. Sunless Sea, which first arrived in alpha form in mid-June on the Humble store, has players exploring an underground ocean in which every decision made impacts a "non-linear, choice-heavy, personalized experience." In order to survive, captains will need to fight large creatures and make tough decisions, such as eating their dead. The game is set in the same universe as one of the developer's previous game, Fallen London, and draws influences from games like FTL: Faster Than Light, Sid Meier's Pirates and Don't Starve. Sunless Sea earned £100,803 ($161,769) on Kickstarter in October 2013, and uses Failbetter's own narrative-focused StoryNexus engine (which it also used for Fallen London). Random House put the engine to use in April 2013 with the free-to-play Black Crown. [Image: Failbetter Games]
BioWare partners with Fallen London dev for upcoming project
Interactive fiction developer and Fallen London creator Failbetter Games broke an extended period of radio silence this week, announcing that it is working with Mass Effect and Dragon Age creator BioWare on an upcoming project. "For the last year, on and off, we've been working in absolute secrecy on a project for a much larger company," Failbetter co-founder Alexis Kennedy explains. "When we've gone quiet for no obvious reason, it's because we've been heads-down on this. When I've mentioned that we don't take client work any more, with rare exceptions, this is the rare exception." Publisher Random House previously tapped Failbetter's StoryNexus platform for the browser-based interactive story Black Crown. Failbetter also recently Kickstarted Sunless Sea, which features an "underground ocean" and customized steamships. No further details regarding the team's BioWare project have been announced. [Image: Failbetter Games]
Random House gets interactive with StoryNexus tech and 'Black Crown'
Book publisher Random House is putting Failbetter Games' StoryNexus platform to good use with a free-to-play browser-based narrative project dubbed Black Crown. So far Black Crown has a website, which features a gas mask icon and describes the endeavor as "an infectious new kind of narrative experience." A phrase in latin on the top of the page translates roughly to "now comes truth, God, truth comes now."Whatever it is, Black Crown is scheduled to go live in May, and Random House plans to run it for a full year, first hoping to generate "thousands rather than hundreds" of registered users before launch. The author behind the project remains a mystery until May, and this whole thing might result in a physical book and ebook down the line, Digital Publisher Dan Franklin tells The Bookseller.Failbetter Games is behind such narrative games as Fallen London, and its StoryNexus platform is available in public beta for anyone who wants to create browser-based, interactive stories, right here.
