Archived News:
Hopes that the once-cancelled fan-created King's Quest game The Silver Lining might be saved turn out to have come true, as Phoenix Online Studios announces an agreement with Activision to release the ambitious project for free in episodic form, with episode one, "What is Decreed Must Be," to be released on July 10. The Silver Lining Website is now online, and here's word: "In The Silver Lining, players will assume the role of King Graham as he sets out on a quest to save his children, Rosella and Alexander, from a mysterious curse. The episodes will be released as free downloads from www.tsl-game.com."
Chronic Logic now offers online sales of AstroDriller3020, "a whacky physics based puzzle game" for Mac and PC. A playable demo is available, and here's word on the game: "AstroDriller3020 is a whacky physics based puzzle game that is simple and easy to get into, but has hidden depth and strategy. The goal is to help the lovably gruff AstroDrillers collect precious gems from within different colored asteroids. To do this, you must use your Laser Turrets to guide the asteroids into the matching vacuum tubes while grinding off as much excess rock as you can. The more rock you grind off the asteroid, the more valuable the gem inside it will be! Drill through 90 unique levels while upgrading your abilities in this colorful and crazy take on the puzzle genre!" Thanks Gamer's Hell.
Free-to-play MMOG King of Kings 3 is to begin closed beta testing Monday, and North American and Europeans interested in checking it out can sign up now. The thrust of King of Kings 3 is guild warfare, as word is: "King of Kings 3 redefines the idea of guilds in an online RPG, expanding upon it greatly. Players first join together to form a guild, later they can band together with other guilds to form a legion and complete an epic quest to create their own kingdom. Every guild, legion, and kingdom is leveled up by the players, earning it more access to features of the game."
MicroVolts is a free-to-play MMOG described as an "online multiplayer toy shooter." Beta testing is getting underway, so anyone interested should head over to register their interest.
Hemisphere Games discusses their recent Linux port of Osmos, analyzing the economics of developing and releasing the port. This is complicated slightly by this being a game that can be played on PC, Mac, and Linux for a single purchase, but the staggered release helps them sort through this. Their conclusion is that the port was a worthwhile project, though it should be noted they feel paying bust-out retail for a pro Linux developer to handle the port may have been enough to make this economically unviable. They also comment how many sales they picked up when Steam began supporting Mac, and that "the lack of a strong Linux portal makes it a much less 'competitive' OS for commercial development." Thanks Ant via Linux Today.
The Unreal Development Kit Website now offers downloads of the June 2010 beta of the Unreal Development Kit, which allows the creation of standalone Unreal engine games. A list of the major changes since the previous beta follows. Continue here to read the full story.
The Kings and Castles Video Blog #20 features Chris Taylor and his E3-triggered bronchitis, answering more questions about Kings and Castles, their upcoming real-time strategy game. Topics include Jeremy Soule's and Chris' contributions to the project, micromanagement, and some spam. There's also another look at some more of the gameplay coming down the pipe/pike for the game showing off the world's largest elephant, and an even larger state warrior. The embedded version follows. Continue here to read the full story.
IndustryGamers - Facebook's Evil Twin Dilemma. By Alex St. John.
Watching Zynga and Facebook "getting along" in the press reminds me of the scene in the 1993 movie Army of Darkness where Ash struggles to separate himself from his evil conjoined twin. I wrote previously that the first generation of "social games" are really just Facebook parasites. They are games that nobody wants to play outside of Facebook. First-generation social games are designed for one purpose: to hijack the social graph machinery to virally promote themselves, providing just the shallowest amount of entertainment value to get their players to perpetuate them to their friends. The games can't survive outside their host social graph on their own merits. The point of making this observation is not to denigrate the many talented social game developers out there, but to make an important observation about the future of the phenomena called "social gaming."
GameZone - Why Fighting Games Are Better in 2D.
But since the 3D conversion took place, how many epic fighters can you name that you truly love? Two? Maybe three? Before the conversion, however, there were dozens: Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs. Capcom (which was preceded by excellent Marvel-specific fighting games), Killer Instinct, the 16-bit Street Fighter games, to name a few. Even lower-end fighters like WrestleMania and Primal Rage had their moments. How many lower-end fighting games can you say that about today? How many top-tier 3D fighting games can you say that about?
Sorry to see the U.S. out of the World Cup, but it was an exciting run.
Watching more of the competition, I believe I have one of the main skills to be a top player. I certainly don't have the lifetime experience to control the ball so deftly with my feet, nor the instincts to know where to be on the pitch, but I believe I could lie on the ground writhing as if I've been shot any time an opposing player comes near me. Most sports in the US involve this odd macho where players don't like to show any pain (even when hit by a 90 mph fastball), so this fake injury/agony thing to try and draw fouls against your opponent is surprising, and a trifle embarrassing.
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