A non-major but still interesting Dota 2 [official site] patch has dropped. 6.88e is all about tweaks, as you’d expect from a patch with a letter on the end of it, rather than one which heralds a whole jump forward in numbering. The reason it’s interesting is more that it gives me a chance to talk about a thought related to patches and living games like Dota 2.
It was announced over two years ago that Amazon were going to make PC games, but we had no idea what kind until last week. At TwitchCon, the company announced three games and let people play one of them, a four-on-four called Breakaway.
I was there, to play the game, to talk to Patrick Gilmore, studio head of developer Double Helix Games, and to feel out of touch while not recognising a single one of the Twitch streamers surrounding me.
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows [official site] takes me back to those shining days where I could mess about and play games like Arcanum and Nox all the time without worrying about paying bills. I still do those things, but bills are an unfortunate part of my daily life now. Soon, I imagine, Masquerada will be as well, as the tactical RPG is out.
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Look, it’s called Crayon Physics [official site]. You could probably invent the game in your mind knowing just that. Now take some crayons and revert to your childhood self. Not too much! Oh, well, you’ve done it now. There’s no way you’ll handle 70 levels of physics puzzles like this.
Back in 2010, a chap named Paul Schneider brought Doom II fans an exciting mod in the form of Unloved [official site]. A traipse through the classic shooter several shades darker (way more than fifty shades) than fans were used to, it was an exercise in serving up entrails as floors and chunks of flesh scattered throughout each level.
Most importantly, it was good. It could have become its own game, honestly. Oh, wait. It looks like it has! Unloved has broken out on its own as a fully-fledged horror shooter after escaping the confines of Steam’s Early Access. It’s available in full now, in fact, and looks like it’s well worth trying.
Sundays are for hanging out with your kid, obviously. Best make this week’s jaunt to the world of videogame worlds and videos a quick one, then.
Leigh Alexander’s Lo-Fi Let’s Play, once syndicated here at RPS, has returned as a Patreon-funded series. Each episode features an old adventure game. No, not LucasArts or Sierra stuff – older and more obscure. The new episode looks at Escape From Rungistan.
I was immediately intrigued by It Matters Games’ Caravan [official site], a simulator that took me back immediately to the days of puttering about in my elementary school computer lab. I fought valiantly for Kid Pix and The Oregon Trail encased in their felt floppy sleeves, and when I won The Oregon Trail that basically cinched the rest of the day for me. Caravan, so far as I can tell, wants to take me back to those simpler times, leaving me free to roam the Orient and the Arabian peninsula, trading and exploring.
