Monday Recap

Welcome to my Monday recap of past featured games.  We have our first good news story of the year with a featured game being greenlit and a final push for the Kickstarter campaign for our first featured game Vidar.

Vidar by Dean Razavi

A despairing RPG-Puzzler set in a town on the brink. Random storytelling. Random puzzles. Constant loss.

Current Status - as of 16th February, it is $14,053 towards a final target of $18,000 on Kickstarter.  It needs to reach the target by Friday 27th February.  It is nearly there with 11 days to go - I urge you to check it out, try the demo and back this unique project.

Kickstarter link

Game Website

Demo Link

Tiny Robot Justice Squad by Mind Realy
Tiny Robot Justice Squad is a 2D action platformer/arena shooter for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux platforms. It has explosions, big guns, big bosses and quick-paced platform gameplay. The game is being developed by Mind Relay (which is actually just one person!), with all proceeds generated by the game to be donated to the charity GamesAid which helps disabled and disadvantaged young people. Carry on reading to learn more about the game and how it will support good causes!

Current Status - A fun-looking game with proceeds from it being donated to a good cause. Check it out and make sure it gets greenlit.

Steam Greenlight Link

Game Website

Curse of Mermos

Curse of Mermos is a lighthearted hack and slash game with fast paced action and challenging combat. Players wield the Hammer of Horus or shoot the Crossbow of Neith to defeat hordes of monsters in the tomb of Ebo. The game features unlockable abilities and skill upgrades for personalized combat. Special game modifiers allow players to customize each playthrough."

Current Status - the completed game is available via their website for free.  Also, as of Friday 13th February the games has been greenlit! Congratulations to the team.

Game Website

Mad Games Tycoon by Eggcode
"Form your own game studio in the early 80s in a small garage.
Develop your own game concepts, create a team and develop million-selling video games.
Research new technologies, train your staff and buy larger office buildings.
Expand your business and dominate the world's market for video games!

Current Status - currently at 0.150215A with changes and bug fixes being made on a consistent basis; the latest update added Russian Language support.  It is worth noting that it is very playable at the moment and worth supporting if you like these types of games.

Steam Link

Game Website

Mordheim: City of the Damned by Rogue Factor
Mordheim: City of the Damned is the first video game adaptation of Games Workshop's cult classic tabletop game Mordheim. Set in the Warhammer World's decimated Empire city, Mordheim: City of the Damned is a turn-based tactical game where you lead warbands into bloody and lethal skirmishes. The game blends RPG elements, fast-paced tactical combat and intricate unit customization in a time wrought by chaos and rivalry where only the strongest survive.

Current Status - Recently had it's third update, adding a new warband, warband management and some new battle types. Last week it had a significant patch as well, fixing a number of bugs from the last update. There is a really handy guide on their early access page for what will be coming in future updates as well.

Steam Link

Game Website

War for the Overworld by Subterranean Games
Tired of invading dungeons? It’s time you build your own.
War for the Overworld is a Dungeon Management Game that employs your favourite aspects of the RPG, RTS and god game genres.

Current Status - The final game will be released on 2nd April 2015 but in early access you can currently access a lot of content from the latest update from Christmas Eve, including a short tutorial campaign of 3 missions, a sandbox mission and a survival mission.

Steam Link

Game Website

Featured Game - War for the Overworld

War for the Overworld is a Dungeon Management Game that employs your favourite aspects of the RPG, RTS and god game genres.

In War for the Overworld, you will play as a malevolent Underlord with unrivaled dark power and an insatiable desire for bloody conquest.

Excavate your dungeon and populate it with dozens of unique rooms that will attract myriad creatures to your halls to work and fight for you. In addition to creatures you have destructive spells and powerful rituals to cast upon any unsuspecting goodly hero (or rival Underlord) who dares trespass your unholy halls.

Dungeon Keeper was one of a number of excellent games produced by Bullfrog back in the 90s, alongside other such greats as Theme Park and Theme Hospital.  All of those games combined great gameplay with a wicked sense of humour.  Sadly, no one has been able to recreate the magic of Dungeon Keeper and its sequel Dungeon Keeper II.  There have been attempts such as that by Overlord but it never quite lived up to expectation.

 Starting Out

This all changed for me though when I visited Eurogamer 2013 and came across War for the Overworld where I had a brief chat with one of their team and tried an early version of the game.  Both the passion of the person I spoke to (I’m sorry I can’t remember your name!) and the impressive early build I tried convinced me that finally, the new king was on its way.

 At Battle

Upon getting home, and handily armed with a link and discount code, I bought the early access version of the game and have been intermittently playing it with each new update.  Even from late 2013, there was enough content to keep me amused for hours and recreate the fun I used to have on Dungeon Keeper.

Enjoying a Drink at the Tavern

For those not familiar with the premise of the game, you are an Evil Lord who is intent on building an underground fortress / dungeon.  You have worker minions whose job it is to excavate, build and gather gold.  Each room they build is then inhabited by the requisite creature, e.g. a Cultist for the Archive.  Each room also has a set function, such as the Foundry which allows you to create traps.  As you keep building and expanding you will come across other dungeons for you to conquer, as well as “good” invaders to fight off.

At Work in the Foundry

Overall it is a very satisfying experience, even in the early access phase.  Quite simply, if you liked Dungeon Keeper, you will love War for the Overworld.  If you aren’t familiar with Dungeon Keeper but love management and building games then this game is an interesting twist on that and is well worth checking out.  To help support the final version, give early access a try; otherwise you won’t have long to wait for the game to be properly released on 2^nd April 2015.

Current state

The final game will be released on 2^nd April 2015 but in early access you can currently access from the latest update of 24^th December 2014:

• Game modes: Sandbox (3 levels), Campaign (3 levels, including a tutorial), Survival prototype (1 level), Multiplayer, Skirmish 
• Rooms: Lair, Vault, Foundry, Slaughterpen, Archive, Wooden Bridge, Beast Den, Crypt, Barracks, Torture Chamber, Prison, Garrison, Stone Bridge, Spirit Chamber, Alchemy Lab, Sanctuary, Arena, Tavern 
• Minions: Worker, Cultist, Gnarling, Bafu, Chunder, Skarg, Necromancer, Ghoul, Succubus, Spirit, Augre, Ember Demon, Crackpot, Witch Doctor, Beastmaster, Shadow, Oculus, Frost Weaver, Wraith 
• Spells: Summon Worker, Possession, Rally, Lightning, Chill, Cauterize, Impasse, Recall, Obey, Heal, Shockwave, Blood Money, Magical Meat, Construction, Imp Rally, Annex, Enrage, Volcanic Bridge 
• Defences: Wooden Door, Ballista, Rampart, Bone Chiller, Gargoyle, Portcullis, Midas' Door, Blade Lotus, Augrum Wall 
• Constructs: Replacement Earth, Underminer, Ember Rift, Gold Vortex, Outpost, Warding Totem 
• Rituals: Avarice, Wither, Fortify, Uprising, Revelation, Prospector, Besiege, Assembly, Overload 
• Potions: Quick Freeze, Work-A-Lot, Transmutation, Wisdom Juice, Frost Weaver, Haste, Spirit Workers 
• Enemies: Firebreather, Juggernaut, Priestess, Templar, Lord O'Theland, Dwarf Worker, Warden, Bard, Sapper, Huntress 
• Shrines: Gold, Perception, Research, Manufacturing, Mana, Siege 
• Systems: Veins of Evil, Unit Abilities, Unit Needs, Gateways & Unit Spawning, Room Construction, Gold, Fog of War, Water, Basic Combat, Shrines, Dialogue, Objectives, Unit Levels, Happiness, Torture/Conversion, Enhanced Terrain (Chasm, Sacred Earth, Brimstone, Lava, Permafrost, Sand, Natural Bridge), Unit Groups, Debug Console, Potions, Rituals, Unit Panel, Minimap, Room Upgrades, Dungeon Themes, Enhanced combat AI

Availability

On Steam here

£22.99 for the Standard edition

£29.99 for the Underlord Edition – this includes Sovereign Dungeon Theme, a soundtrack download, and a copy of The Dungeoneer's Guide to the Underworld, a digital companion book for all your Dungeon-Building needs.

Game Website

Early Access Thursday

Only two early access titles to talk about this week but both of them look pretty good:

TerraTech by Payload Studios

In TerraTech you design, construct and command a fleet of unique vehicles, as you battle your way to victory across the lawless frontiers of new alien worlds, in a quest for glory and profit. In the distant future, Earth's natural resources have been depleted, and as an off-world prospector it's your job to travel to alien planets and scour them for valuable materials. These can be refined and shipped back to Earth in return for cash, or crafted into new components to augment your fleet. The rarest resources unlock the best equipment, so expand your territory and capture enemy bases, to secure your position on each planet.

Price - £19.99 for standard edition, £28.99 for Deluxe edition (currently 35% of until end of Friday 13th February)

My Opinion - I'm loving the look of TerraTech with the almost endless combinations for designing and contrucing vehichles.  It looks like a cross between Spore and Minecraft, with the potential to be more fun than both.  I can imagine multiplayer being a big selling point for this down the line.

Steam Link

Game Website

Monstrum by Team Junkfish

Monstrum takes the traditional survival horror formula and remixes it completely with procedurally generated levels, permadeath, and AI driven predators, ensuring that nowhere on its derelict cargo ship is ever truly safe.

Price - £9.99

My Opinion - Another survival game! But I have to admit from watching the trailer I'm really impressed.  It looks like a genuinely scary game and for only £9.99 I think this is worth checking out for any fans of the genre.

Steam Link

Game Website

Greenlight Wednesday

A huge amount of games added on Greenlight and sadly no time to give any proper opinion on them this week (day job has got in the way).  However I've still chosen a Top 5 and with the trailers you should get a good flavour of all of them.

Star Horizon by Tabasco Interactive

Experience fast action, thrilling levels, spectacular explosions and lots of pew-pew-pew. Star Horizon is a reboot for the on-rails space shooter genre.

My Opinion

Greenlight Link

Developer Website

Aurion, legacy of the Kori-Odan by Kiro'o Games

Aurion, is an epic action RPG , set in a wonderful African Fantasy world, with an unique, open and dynamic fighting gameplay.

My Opinion

Greenlight Link

Developer Website

ShipAntics: The Legend of The Kiki Beast by Studio POWOW

ShipAntics: The Legend of The Kiki Beast, is a point and click adventure game, set in a vibrant cartoon world and stuffed to the gills with weird and wonderful characters!

My Opinion

Greenlight Link

Developer Website

The Song of Seven by Enlightened Games

Song of Seven spans an entire world and tells a story of forgotten celestial siblings, isolated villages, seafaring pirates, ghosts, monsters, leaders, artists, mystics, lovers, dancers, inventors, and the power of connections.

My Opinion

Greenlight Link

Developer Website

Nightside

Nightside is a classic RTS game that features three races each with its own play style. The game is set on the dark side of an unknown planet where the valuable "green ice" resource can be found. Follow Adam, a human explorer, as he discovers the secrets of this dark world through a story-driven single player campaign ,battle online to achieve the highest ranks on multiplayer ladder or practice against smart, adaptive AI opponents.

My Opinion

Greenlight Link

Kickstarter Tuesday

Some great new games on Kickstarter this week; here's my top 5:

Izzy's Revenge by Indie4Fun

Be Izzy, a young inventor who has challenged all Steelbridge guilds. There's only a way out, so get your weapon. You're gonna need it!

Funding Goal - $55,000 by Thursday 5th March

My Opinion - With a steam-punk setting, female lead and a great back-story, I'm loving the look of Izzy's Revenge. Also make sure to vote for it on Greenlight.

Kickstarter Link

Developer Website

Greenlight Link

Underworld Ascendant by OtherSide Entertainment

Join the original team behind Ultima Underworld on a quest to rekindle this legendary fantasy RPG series.

Funding Goal - $600,000 by Friday 6th March

My Opinion - If you ever played Ultima Underworld you will remember how awesome it was.  To have it recreated and updated is a dream come true. Simply put, this game has to happen!

Kickstarter Link

Developer Website

Seaworthy by Mildly Competent Games

A pirate adventure roguelike featuring RTS combat and brutal 16bit graphics - inspired by great games like FTL and Sid Meier's Pirates

Funding Goal - $44,000 by Tuesday 10th March

My Opinion - A new way of presenting a pirate themed game and if it lives up to Sid Meier's Pirates then I'll definitely be giving this a go.

Kickstarter Link

Game Website

Windwalkers by Forge Animation

An ACTION RPG for PC, single/multi-player with co-op, set in a new sci-fi and fantasy world where you have to survive.

Funding Goal - $330,000 (Canadian) by Friday 6th March

My Opinion - As you can see from the trailer, Windwalkers looks amazing and it also has a great back-story.  If they pull off what they want to, this could be a great game.

Kickstarter Link

Developer Website

Orion Trail by Schell Games

A science fiction space adventure game where you must rely on your wit, your officers, and your spaceship to survive.

Funding Goal - $90,000 by Friday 13th March

My Opinion - If like me, you were rather disappointed with Star Command you will be forgiven for looking at games like this with some scepticism.  However I'm an optimist and I think this could live up to everything Star Command originally promised and more.

Kickstarter Link

Developer Website

Monday Recap

Here's another Monday recap of previous featured games of the week:

Vidar by Dean Razavi

A despairing RPG-Puzzler set in a town on the brink. Random storytelling. Random puzzles. Constant loss.

Current Status - as of 9th February, it is $11,993 towards a final target of $18,000 on Kickstarter.  It needs to reach the target by Friday 27th February.  If you haven't already, check it out and give the demo a go via the link below.

Kickstarter link

Game Website

Demo Link

Tiny Robot Justice Squad by Mind Realy
Tiny Robot Justice Squad is a 2D action platformer/arena shooter for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux platforms. It has explosions, big guns, big bosses and quick-paced platform gameplay. The game is being developed by Mind Relay (which is actually just one person!), with all proceeds generated by the game to be donated to the charity GamesAid which helps disabled and disadvantaged young people. Carry on reading to learn more about the game and how it will support good causes!

Current Status - A fun-looking game with proceeds from it being donated to a good cause. Check it out and make sure it gets greenlit.

Steam Greenlight Link

Game Website

Curse of Mermos

Curse of Mermos is a lighthearted hack and slash game with fast paced action and challenging combat. Players wield the Hammer of Horus or shoot the Crossbow of Neith to defeat hordes of monsters in the tomb of Ebo. The game features unlockable abilities and skill upgrades for personalized combat. Special game modifiers allow players to customize each playthrough."

Current Status - the completed game is available via their website for free.  It still needs your support though to get Greenlit.

Steam Greenlight Link

Game Website

Mad Games Tycoon by Eggcode
"Form your own game studio in the early 80s in a small garage.
Develop your own game concepts, create a team and develop million-selling video games.
Research new technologies, train your staff and buy larger office buildings.
Expand your business and dominate the world's market for video games!

Current Status - currently at 0.150202A with changes and bug fixes being made on a consistent basis; the latest update added NPC studios.  It is worth noting that it is very playable at the moment and worth supporting if you like these types of games.

Steam Link

Game Website

Mordheim: City of the Damned by Rogue Factor
Mordheim: City of the Damned is the first video game adaptation of Games Workshop's cult classic tabletop game Mordheim. Set in the Warhammer World's decimated Empire city, Mordheim: City of the Damned is a turn-based tactical game where you lead warbands into bloody and lethal skirmishes. The game blends RPG elements, fast-paced tactical combat and intricate unit customization in a time wrought by chaos and rivalry where only the strongest survive.

Current Status - Just had it's third update, adding a new warband, warband management and some new battle types.  There is a really handy guide on their early access page for what will be coming in future updates as well.

Steam Link

Game Website

Featured Game - Mordheim: City of the Damned

Mordheim: City of the Damned by Rogue Factor

Mordheim: City of the Damned is the first video game adaptation of Games Workshop's cult classic tabletop game Mordheim. Set in the Warhammer World's decimated Empire city, Mordheim: City of the Damned is a turn-based tactical game where you lead warbands into bloody and lethal skirmishes.

Why I have chosen it

I’m a big fan of Games Workshop and both the Warhammer and 40k universes, as well as having bought pretty much every GW computer game.  Some of these have been fantastic (Dark Omen, Dawn of War) and some not so good; hopefully Mordheim fits in to the first category.

Summary

The best way to describe the setting of Mordheim is that of a post-apocalyptic city in the Warhammer world, with various factions searching for items and warpstone.  In-fact the City has been destroyed by a warpstone comet; warpstone being a poisonous and corrupting substance that can give great power, as well as causing mutations.

Mordheim: City of the Damned seeks to replicate the tabletop version of Mordheim with turn-based tactical combat.  You control a group of characters (currently from a choice of 4 factions), each with varying abilities and weapons.  Choosing the right character, weapons and abilities for each combat is crucial to success; you don’t want your priest facing off against an ogre for example.

The basic gameplay works out really well with movement, abilities/casting and combat all very easy to do and well explained in the tutorials.  The game though is one that is easy to learn and hard to master; a lot of trial and error is required.  For example I haven’t quite worked out the best combination of characters, when to change weapons or when to cast certain spells yet.

On to what’s available in the current version now:

• 4 warbands – Skaven, Human Mercenaries, Sisters of Mercy, Cult of the Possessed
• Full range of tutorials
• Warband management
• 4 Maps
• Different winning conditions

  

Strengths:

• Gritty feel of the Warhammer / Mordheim setting
• Variety of warbands and personnel within them
• Enjoyable and easy gameplay
• Using a controller is very easy

If you like Warhammer and / or tactical combat this is definitely worth looking at.  Whether it is worth buying in the current state is another matter, but if you do you certainly won’t be disappointed with the level of content already available.

Current state

It has been in early access since 20^th November last year and has had two big updates since.  The next planned update (I’m assuming in March) will have the option to have max ranked warbands, as well as new maps.

Availability

On steam for £23.99 (here)