Publisher Tiny Build Games announces
BOID
will be released
on Steam
on January 8th, offering early access to this multiplayer real-time strategy
game from indie developer Mokus Games. They celebrate the news with the release
of a
launch trailer
showing off gameplay. Here's the deal on the game: "BOID is a streamlined
multiplayer RTS that has a big class-based focus on quick-thinking and bluffing,
rather than simply building up units and overpowering your enemy. Games last
mere minutes, and the losing player can potentially turn the tables with
last-minute stealth attacks and clever maneuvers."
Continue here to read the full story.
This trailer shows off
gameplay from
Red Goddess, a side-scroller coming next year to Windows,
OS X, and Linux (as well as consoles and mobiles) from indie developer Yanim
Studio. In the game, The story revolves around a troubled goddess named Divine.
She feels confused and haunted by her past. Something mysterious and unknown is
tearing her apart from the inside out, destroying her mind, her soul ….and her
altogether! Our journey begins when Divine decides to right this wrong by
exploring her own subconscious. She will discover a planet within her own mind
made up of mountains, forests, caves, and unknown perils. Discovering who she
is, who she was, and what she will become is our quest…..but soon we realize
that there is more to this adventure than what we first thought. Explore a
mysterious Planet driven by the subconscious mind of the main character:
Divine.
Continue here to read the full story.
The
Bethesda Blog points the way to
this blog
post by someone who has figured out how to play
QUAKE on an
oscilloscope. This is an interesting exercise, and the article goes into the ups
and downs of the process. The author includes
a video of this in
action, obviously shot off the screen, though calling footage of an oscilloscope
"shaky-cam" seems redundant at best.
Continue here to read the full story.
Link of the Day: Happy 50th birthday to the
Star Trek Original Series Enterprise Model.
The
Steam Game and Player
Statistics page shows that over the weekend
Steam achieved a new record
for concurrent users, showing a peak of 8,357,541 players were online at once at
some point yesterday. Thanks
NeoGAF via
DSOGaming.
NeoGAF has
word on a post that has since been deleted from the
Steam forums
for
The Talos Principle, indicating the game has an interesting approach
to piracy. According to the report, players using illegal copies of Croteam's
first-person puzzle game will end up stuck in an elevator forever, which is not
Croteam's
first such effort at
messing with stolen copies of their games. There's apparently even a QR code on
the elevator wall with a hint about what's going on, but no word if they are
sadistic enough to include Muzak. Thanks
PCGamesN.
The holidays are not keeping the industrious folks at GfK Chart-Track from their
namesake task of chart-tracking in the U.K. They offer
this list of the top 30 PC games for the week ending December 27th, which
looks pretty similar to the previous week's chart with
Football Manager 2015
maintaining a toehold on the top spot, though the
Truckin' Collection
from SCS Software pulls in at #22. The status quo remains in effect on the
all platforms chart as well, with
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
remaining number one. Here's
their summary of the
activity:
‘Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’ (+20%) signs off the year in
style taking its 5th No1 crown since launch.
Grand Theft Auto V (+33%) continues to deliver strong sales climbing to No2
after four successive weeks in 3rd place. ‘FIFA 15’ (+11%) is relegated to No3,
which means that for the first time since 2009 a FIFA title doesn’t occupy a Top
2 position in the final week of the year. Price promotions for ‘Assassin’s
Creed: Unity’ (+18%) deliver another week on week sales boost as the title
climbs a spot to No4. It overtakes a second Ubisoft title in the form of ‘Far
Cry 4’ (+4%) which is down to No5. The third of Ubisoft’s Top 10 titles ‘The
Crew’ (+7%) remains at No6 for a second week. A price cut for PS4 exclusive
‘Driveclub’ (+24%) propels the title back into the Top 10 at No7. Usual suspects
‘Minecraft: Xbox Edition’ (+3%) and ‘Minecraft: Playstation Edition’ (+4%) are
non-movers at No8 and No9 respectively. ‘Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham’ (+11%) is
also a non-mover, but a timely sales boost ensures it holds its No10 spot edging
out Activision Blizzard title ‘Destiny’ (-11%) which slips to No11.
Congrats to Verno for winning
this year's NFL pool, impressively finishing in the top 0.7%. Vern averaged
close to a win per week more than me, as I ended up in the middle of the pack,
tied for 14th. In the smaller, but trickier
spread pool, LastPlace defied his nickname to finish in first place, landing
in the top 0.5% of all ESPN pools, which is pretty impressive. I finished in the
middle of that one too, though clearly almost last place if you don't count
players who didn't make picks all season. Congrats to the winners and thanks to
all for participating, as it was a lot of fun. I'll look for a playoff pool...
if anyone has any suggestions for a site to curate our picks for the postseason
feel free to make them.
With New Year's Day falling on Thursday it's hard to say how much gaming news
there will be this week, so we'll just have to play that by ear.