Cardboard Children – Expansions Round-Up

Okay, so next week I have a MAJOR REVIEW of a very important indie game. It’s not a new release, but it’s a historically important one, I think. And before we head off into better coverage of indie/small-print releases, I think it’s one we have to cover. Before THAT though, we need to clear the decks a little bit. I realise that there are a number of expansions that I’ve not covered yet, and they’re worth highlighting here. All of them are strong. Very strong.

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Bridges The Gap: Poly Bridge Out In Early Access

Building bridges is hard. Both in the physical and metaphorical sense. Dry Cactus’ new game Poly Bridge [official site] tasks you with helping vehicles of various shapes and sizes across watery chasms using World Of Goo style physics systems. It’s out in Early Access now.

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Tiny Twitch – The Game Whose Code Fits In A Tweet

As the rest of the country complains about a heatwave I am indoors wearing a long-sleeved shirt and complaining about trying to beat Graham’s high score at Tiny Twitch [Github page] – a game whose code fits in a single tweet.

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18 Years Later, Why Are People Still Playing Ultima Online?

Later this year, Ultima Online [official site] will turn 18 years old. In the genre of MMOs, that makes the game positively ancient – and it’s even more remarkable when you consider that it’s still funded via a subscription model.

I’ve never played an Ultima game, much less one that’s nearly my age. I wanted to find out what the game is like to play today as a newcomer, and to ask people why they’ve continued visiting Britannia for nearly two decades.

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Watch 7 Minutes Of Civilization: Beyond Earth’s Rising Tide

A rising tide lifts all boats, it’s said, and there’s some hope that the watery Rising Tide expansion will lift all of Civilization: Beyond Earth‘s [official site] systems and not simply provide a new shimmering surface for the same old ideas. Find out whether that seems likely via a video demonstrating some of the oceanic mechanics below.

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Wot I Think – Lethis: Path Of Progress

As the doors of game development open up to more and more souls, an added benefit is that it’s ever-more plausible to make some great art then slap it into your engine, elevating the functional into the beautiful. Caesar/Zeus/Pharaoh-inspired, combat-free Gallic citybuilder Lethis: Path Of Progress doesn’t do especially remarkable things in terms of town management, but with an animation-inspired, gently Steampunk art style which falls somewhere in between bande dessinee and Studio Ghibli, it’s too gorgeous to put down even when it’s on the verge of tedium.
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Turn-Based Cyberninja Action: Ronin Out Of Early Access

I dug the demo of turn-based stealth-o-swordfighter Ronin [official site], and the more-complete Steam Early Access version that Marsh prematurely evaluated sounded even better. It’s a clever blend of real-time sneaking with gadgets then simultaneous turn-based sword combat when that goes tits-up, turning fights into careful ballet of thrown blades and dodged bullets. Playing it made me feel like the coolest cyberpunk assassin, which is of course the highest class of murderer.

I’ve been waiting for the full release before picking it up, and today it finally arrived.

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Stock Car Extreme Devs Reiza Crowdfunding Updates

Lately whenever I post about broom-broom games, one commenter or another pops up to remark that I should post about goings-on with Reiza, the folks behind Stock Car Extreme [official site] and Formula Truck 2013 [official site]. My usual response to people making demands is to throw my drink in their face then shake them upside-down until sufficient coinage for a new bevvy falls out their pockets/guts/wherever it is money lives, but this primitive Internet prohibits polite retribution.

So fine, I’ll say it: after years of free post-release updates for their racing sims, Reiza have launched a crowdfunding campaign to keep those rolling for another year and a half.

… [visit site to read more]

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LEGO Minifigures Online Release, Ditches F2P Model

LEGO Worlds is looking like it’ll become the brick ‘em up folks have been asking for since 1873, with the grand vision of letting folks slap down plastic bricks with their pals and play silly beggars to their hearts’ content. LEGO Minifigures Online [official site] is, well, one of the games that made the long wait for LEGO Worlds so frustrating.

Made by Funcom, it’s an MMO action-RPG where different LEGOMEN are different classes, romping through LEGO settings. After a year in open beta as free-to-play, yesterday it officially launched as regular old pay-to-play offering everything for one price.

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Explore-o: Aquatic Adventure Of The Last Human Demo

I’m a sucker for self-proclaimed Metroid-vanias, especially ones with a nice pixel art, so The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human [official site] is totally up my street [I’d meant to post about it sooner myself -ed]. As such, it’s nice to see that the game was Kickstarted successfully, raising over 60,000 Swedish Krona (£4600ish) for developers YCJY to finish the post-apocalyptic undersea project.

A demo is already available, which includes a decent chunk of ocean for you to explore and a couple of bosses to defeat.

… [visit site to read more]

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No Jokes, Please: Dirt Rally Goes To Baumholder

The simultaneous announcement and Steam Early Access launch of Dirt Rally [official site] in April was the kind of surprise I’d thought Big Video Games had become incapable of pulling off – someone always squeals. Content updates are less of a surprise, as that’s sorta what Early Access is all about, but still just as welcome.

Five new cars are now squealing around an all-tarmac German track, offering a different style of race.

… [visit site to read more]

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Galaxy Class: New Heat Signature Dev Walkthrough

This new Heat Signature [official site] video dev diary/walkthrough is giving me some serious “Hotline Miami in space” vibes, and I’m totally digging it. Developer Tom Francis has made some significant updates to the game since we last saw it 220 days ago. Watch as he talks us through a few missions, resets the universe a couple of times, and nails precision rebound wrench throws.

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Meditative Bullet Hell: Soft Body

“You are a beautiful, gooey snake, and you paint the world with your soft body,” says Zeke Virant, and I want to know: who squealed? But as chance would have it, that statement would also apply to people playing his game Soft Body [official site]. It’s a puzzling action-y bullet hell-ish sort of a meditative chillout game, a description which may seem contradictory in half a dozen ways but will make more sense once you’ve seen the trailer.

We’ve peeked at Soft Body before and played a prototype, and now it’s slated to launch in autumn.

… [visit site to read more]

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