The message for the games industry is clear: you don’t have to have pretensions to art – because here is a game that could not be more unpretentious in an artistic sense – for your game to have a serious message. Even the manshooter can be about something, without having to carefully distance itself with irony or hyperbolic absurdity. But crucially there is also scope to do shooters differently on a mechanical level. They do not have to be linear rollercoasters, nor multiplayer menageries. They can be slow. Even contemplative. -Jim Rossignol, “On The Importance Of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” @ Rock, Paper, Shotgun
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Hard Reset Review
Disclaimer: Blade Runner was not harmed in the writing of this review.
For those potentially coming fresh off Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the cyberpunk action-adventure of the moment (also included on our list of recent cyberpunk titles), Flying Wild Hog’s début throwback FPS Hard Reset might take some getting used to. After …
ReadInterview with Epic Games’ Jay Wilbur
Since its inception in 2008, the Dubai World Game Expo has been the annual showcase for game developers in the Middle East. In the last few years many western studios have taken an interest and have come to sponsor or give panels, including CryTech, Blizzard Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Epic Games.
Epic had a large presence …
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Latest Post: Quote of the Day: Jim Rossignol
10/12/2011 – 15:32
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- That is a cool quote alright. by qptain Nemo in Quote of the Day: Richard Garriott
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Ensnaring Customers: Spiderweb Carnage Sale
17/10/2011 – 14:00
I’ll let Jeff Vogel, the man behind the Seattle-based RPG game company Spiderweb Software, do the talking:
Glorious October Carnage Sale! In celebration of a fantastic year (releasing Avadon and putting out our first titles on Steam and the iPad), we are permanently lowering the prices of everything we sell by 20% or more! Even better, for the entire month of October, all of our products for Windows and Mac will be 10% off!
In his blog, Vogel also outlines his motivations for the change in the company’s overall pricing structure:
A LOT of money is being made by selling games for cheap. So now , instead of selling our games for $25 or $28 (!!!), we’ll sell them for $20 or $15. I know this still seems like a lot, but I haven’t backed off on the key thing I’ve long said … People Who Write Niche Games Can’t Charge a Dollar. If you’re making a pretty, shiny, highly casual game with cartoon squirrels and you think you can find a million fans for it, go ahead. Charge a dollar. You’ll have to. But if you write games like mine? Low budget, old school, hardcore RPGs with lots of content? If I charged a dollar for it, I’d have to sell a copy to pretty much every interested human everywhere to have a chance of making money.
The end result of the price drop? Geneforge 1-3 go for 15% and 4-5 for $20; the same pricing structure applies to Avernum, too. Throw in the extra 10% October discount and you’re looking at some pretty cheap stuff. Avadon, now $20 on the website, is actually cheaper still on Steam right now, so you might want to take a look at that, if you’d like some extra DRM to go with your games!
The Indie Stone: Brave-Faced & Hard-Headed
16/10/2011 – 19:00
“Ah, but The Indie Stone is a brave-faced stone.” -Brendan Caldwell
In what can only be described (in suitably hyperbolic tones) as the most unfortunate development process ever (Duke Nukem Forever, you say? Ptsch! Ptschhh!), the Indie Stone have had their dev laptops stolen. According to the team, the latest update – and as such, months of work – to Project Zomboid was lost due to the game being backed up between the two stolen machines, yet seldom externally. A massive, repetitive witch-hunt by the gaming community subsequently ensued on both Reddit and Twitter, resulting in emotional distress, self-flagellation and many a brain cell lost.
Yes, perhaps the lost data should have been backed up better, but after such a costly setback, the isometric open-world zombie survival game developers need all the financial and emotional support they can get. It’s not like “Backups!!” weren’t the first thing they thought when the severity of the situation first unraveled.
The burglary is only the latest episode in an inexplicable series of unfortunate events; the team has had their Paypal funds held hostage by the evil bank-like corporation (also experienced by the Xenonauts team as well as Mojang); only shortly after the Paypal debacle, the Indie Stone also got a similar receipt from Google Checkout, who blocked new orders and revoked access to their funds.
A man blows himself up in a car next to the aforementioned flat; their expensive web servers crash. A development build leaks.
Once the team finally gets back on track, solving their issues both with Paypal and Google Checkout by ingeniously pairing joke games to actual pre-order subscriptions – then, the burglary.
Gosh, these hard-headed, brave-faced guys, they’ve got stones all right, having already promised to “come back stronger”! You should preorder Project Zomboid now – just to tempt the fates, spite the gods, piss off the demons and so forth. Surely something somewhere is trying to put and end to Project Zomboid. Let’s not let it, shall we?
The Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle
11/10/2011 – 17:01
I was almost going to let this pass by without making a note. Another Humble Bundle has gone up, but it’s one of those in-between ones without a number; moreoever, it was initially offering only one main game, which felt somewhat off and going against the community vibe that the previous bundles have had. But when that one game happens to be my favourite indie game of the year, and on top of that they go and add my second favourite indie game of the year, I just can’t deny it acknowledgement. There is over a day left and the total purchases just reached the million milestone. So what the heck, go ahead and buy yourself some substantial hours of smart indie gaming.
So what do you get for your voluntarily-sized payment this time? No less than Frozen Synapse and SpaceChem, two indie heavyweights, as well as Trauma and the previous Frozenbyte bundle if you pay above the average. As well as, of course, the opportunity to donate towards two charities, EFF and Child’s Play. As usual there is additional bonus content included with your key that inflates the total value to ridiculous proportions, such as the soundtracks and editors for some of the games, not to mention registration keys for Steam, Desura, OnLive and Direct 2 Drive should you feel the urge to add DRM to your DRM-free games.
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Hard Reset Review
13/09/2011 – 22:05
Disclaimer: Blade Runner was not harmed in the writing of this review.
For those potentially coming fresh off Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the cyberpunk action-adventure of the moment (also included on our list of recent cyberpunk titles), Flying Wild Hog’s début throwback FPS Hard Reset might take some getting used to. After all, the game’s name could and should be taken in reference to its status as an earnest homage to “all those forgotten Dooms, Quakes, and Painkillers”.
What the ex-members of CD Projekt RED, People Can Fly, City Interactive and Metropolis do is literally drop the you onto a dank, bleak futuristic alleyway, with barrels and crates strewn across the street, glowing power-ups beckoning. Efforts to interact with this architecturally impressive scene will prove much in vain, however, with items merely bumping, bouncing and rolling about; If you discover an explosive barrel or a glowing transformer, you can rest assured its only function is to act as a stationary tool for tactical destruction.
Stuff blows up. Big time. End of story?
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Do Ya Feel Lucky, Cyberpunk?
16/08/2011 – 21:27
Cyberpunk is much-loved here at the Slowdown. If there’s one thing I and Martyn have in common, it’s our fondness for cyberpunk masterpiece Blade Runner. Ridley Scott’s neo-noir thriller has had a considerable influence on the genre since its release almost 3 decades ago. Neuromancer and Ghost in the Shell are two other favourite stories of mine that have inspired countless movies and games. So it has been a pleasure to notice a growing number of games cropping up recently that celibrate cyberpunk themes and offer more than just a nod to the aforementioned properties.
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