Darkwind: War on Wheels is a physics-based, turn-based, squad-based vehicular combat MMORPG with a real world timescale and detailed economic simulation. And as improbable as that sounds, it’s apparently quite real. Shaun (udm on the forums) writes:
You create a gang, and the main goal is just to survive. Do whatever it takes – trade, race, banditry, fight etc. My favourite aspect of the game still has to be racing, mainly because my gang’s roots are too firmly ground into races. Think of the tabletop game Car Wars having sex with EVE Online, then doing a threesome with Autoduel and Auto Assault, and finally making out with Football Manager. You get to do trading and other miscellaneous activities which I haven’t explored yet via the web browser. When a battle takes place, you launch the in-game client, and you fight in turn-based 3D.
But let me elaborate more on my favourite part of the game, since it’s also my most familiar, and hopefully it will excite more people – the races. Races and deathraces are held on a regular hourly basis, so there’s no shortage of races to take part in. The game is turn-based. You select the degree of turning, select the optimal speed, and end turn, and the cars will move according to how the players/AI choose. Sounds boring on paper, but the physics are so well executed in-game, it’s a thrill ride. I’m even willing to say that this feels even more intense than any real-time racing game I’ve played. It’s just… addiction at its best.
I know there’s bound to be disbelief, but this game is really amazing. You have to play it to believe it, and I urge you guys to try it.
I haven’t played Darkwind yet myself, but I’d be impressed if the game lived up to even half of what it claims to be on the website! I will point out that character permadeath and persistent NPC gangs are two of the game’s features. I just thought those sounded particularly interesting.
If you’re interested, you can try the game for free for an unlimited amount of time. Buying a subscription, however ($20 for 3 months, $34 for 6 months, $58 for 12 months), enables you to buy, sell, trade, and customize cars, own facilities, and participate in subscriber-only events, among other things. And if you subscribe now, your subscription is free until October 19th.
My silence should not be mistaken for inaction, in fact the opposite is true. Today I start the first stage of the open Alpha for Love. At this stage you wont be able to log in and play but you will be able to see the engine run on your machine, giving you an idea of how well your machine will handle the game. This will let me work out any compatibility issues.
Some lovely new screenshots of Love here. (The characters kind of creep me out, though. In a Xenu sort of way.)
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an exclusive trailer of Eskil Steenberg’s impressionistic MMO game Love. Lovely visuals. It’s nice to finally see the characters roaming around and… fighting with one another! In the most beautiful way, of course.
And the music, by Ian Dorsch, fits perfectly, in my opinion.
Procedurally-generated world. Procedurally-generated characters. Deformable terrain. Day/night cycles and environmental effects. Massively multiplayer and online. ONE developer.
Do I even need to mention that he’s a Swede? ...I imagine that Eskil Steenberg, like hearty Obelix from the Asterix comic books, might have fallen into a cauldron of Swedish magic water when he was a kid.
But perhaps I’m being too presumptuous, seeing as the game is still in development. In any case, Love certainly looks beautiful, with computer-created graphics that look painted with a brush. And its cooperative gameplay, though vaguely outlined at this point, sounds very different from your average MMOG.
Eskil’s development blog is full of interesting musings, too, so check it out. I like his latest post, in which he defines his own independence:
Why am I making this game alone? Its a question I get over and over and sometimes ask myself. I think I could get a job at a Game developer, maybe even a big name one. Many people dream of working at Valve, id, Blizzard or Nintendo, but i don’t see what I would do there. They do fine without me, and I would rather play their games as they are, then trying to change them. Sure It would be cool to have a biz card from one of those companies, but isn’t it the people who built those companies who deserve hand them out?
...Like everyone else, I have game design documents, scripts, pilots, deigns [sic], books, and ideas lying around, but at some point you have to be asking yourself, Do I want to spend my time trying to convince the world that I have potential, or do I want to spend my time actually doing something.
Hmmm, this is most definitely intriguing. Ian McConville, who’s probably best known for his work on the webcomic Mac Hall, joined Three Rings (Puzzle Pirates) in 2006 as an artist. What he has been working on there was anyone’s guess until about a week ago, when he revealed Whirled to the world (via his new webcomic with Matt Boyd, called Three Panel Soul).
At first glance, Whirled appears to be your average game portal/social network, but it’s a bit more than that. Ian describes it on TPS as “a Flash-Based Object Oriented Multi-User Dungeon.” Three Rings calls it “a web-based social world fueled at every turn by player created content.”
Aside from playing games alone or with other players, you can create your own Flash games and hook them up to Whirled via a free multiplayer library supplied by Three Rings. Ian himself designed a simple brawler (see image) with it that’s pretty awesome.
In the games you can earn points which can be used to buy things, including assets (avatars, pets, etc.) created by other players. You can also create a personalized “room” from the ground up and then connect it to other players’ rooms. These rooms can be embedded into any website, where anyone, account or not, can access it (guests show up as little ghost avatars).
It’s obviously early in the beta, but I’m excited by the idea… it seems like the next logical step for social networks, game portals, and MMOG’s could be right here.
I’ve been playing this web game Ikariam for a few weeks now, and man, it’s pretty fun (and free!). There’s just enough to do that it keeps my interest, but it’s passive enough that I don’t feel bad walking away from it for a few days at a time. It’s well-balanced so that you can have a good time no matter how social you want to get.
Essentially, the game is empire-building. You register an account, choose a world (server) to play on, and then you’re plopped down on a random island. A big part of the game involves building up your town, doing research, and managing resources. Which, of course, ends up being pretty fun. Harvesting of materials and research is automatic, and the only decision to be made is how many citizens to devote to each (citizens without specific tasks will generate gold).
Every island in Ikariam holds 16 towns maximum, and each island has one sawmill and one luxury resource – marble, sulfur, crystal glass, and grapes. These two spots are shared by all the inhabitants of the island and must be upgraded through donations. As you can imagine, you need all four of the luxury resources to expand in Ikariam, so trading between other islands is a must. The trading interface is slick and easy to use.
Since the sawmills, quarries, pits, mines, and vineyards are all communal, you get some moochers on every island who don’t donate – it’s common practice to pillage these poor bastards until they feel generous. War and diplomacy are also big parts of the game, and I won’t go into too much detail, but, suffice to say, you can be a total Machiavelli and/or Ghengis Khan, if you please. Just be careful of pillaging towns that belong to alliances, as you can quickly find yourself at the wrath of one of the more powerful ones.
This is about the perfect amount of learning curve/investment for me, for an online game (and the graphics are nice, too). If you want to play together, join the world “Iota” and come find me! My capital is “Tiger Sauce,” on Cukios [70:45]. My friend and I have a small alliance going (“Owl Country”), and it’d be nice to have some TIGers in it!
EDIT: Great to see so many people joined up! Here’s a guide to joining alliances. Before you join, you need an embassy!
SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON (May 10, 2006) – RomeoPie Software® of America, Inc. and RomeoPie Software Europe Ltd. today announced the long-anticipated return of Diamond Rider™, a fan favorite since its original release in 1989. Developed exclusively for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Diamond Rider marks the first project from the recent acquisition of San Francisco-based studio, Drip Dry Software.
Diamond Rider delivers action-RPG thrills as a small band of Riders embark on an epic adventure to recruit allies, expose the enemy and prevent the annihilation of their breed. Delivering an intense and unique combat experience, players charge into battle on the backs of ferocious beasts or take their chances with the enemy while on foot. Fighting skill, wits and even magic are all called into action as players immerse themselves in the struggle to defeat an evil intent on enslaving the remains of civilization.
“Diamond Rider is one of our most treasured brands and is a complete re-imagining of the story that will take gamers on an unforgettable journey,” said Kyle Pulver, Vice President of Marketing, RomeoPie Software of America, Inc. “The vision we have for the remake of Diamond Rider is nothing short of remarkable and it can only be realized on the PlayStation 3 system and Xbox 360.”
There’s a new indie MMO in the works that’s got people talking. It’s called Lila Dreams:
...the game is a 2d, side-scrolling platform game that takes place in the mind of an 11-year old girl named Lila (pronounced, LEE-lah). As she drifts through life, players (as a race of mental entities called “Memekins”) must deal with the emotional storms and actually guide her through events which could crush her or save her. There will be plenty of actiony combat, some RPG-lite elements (but no level grind), exploration galore, and other non-combat activities like gardening in the soil of Lila’s psyche.
Well, the concept is certainly damn cool! As well as the concept art (no screenshots yet). I’m really curious how players can interact with one another as “Memekins.”
Lila Dreams is being developed by a small team of three, and will be published by Kongregate as part of their Premium Games service. As revealed in this recent interview with Wired, the game is browser-based and will be free to play, with micro-transactions as the primary source of funding for the developers.
No hints about a release date, although Creatrix has said that they will probably launch with 30% of the game’s planned content in, with the rest to come if it does well with players.
Posted by Albert Lai
Sun, 20 May 2007 17:15:00 GMT
Welcome to another installment of "Korean MMORPG: If It Ain’t Broke, Keep
Making Copies In the Hopes That It’ll Result In Another Hit, or At Least Enough
Money to Feed Our Children and/or Keep the Server Running", which is not
‘indie’, technically, but, eh.
Today’s
topics of note:
Lunia! Not actually "Entirely New
genre!"—more like Gauntlet in addition to some kind of instanced mission
system.
This game has the most punishing tutorial I have ever sat through.
The classes are limited to only 3 types, with no customization available, so
you’re required to get used to the three different models after a while. It’s a bit soothing,
like a preview of some kind of dystopic future. It might appeal to some people
—the interface is heavily reminiscent of World of Warcraft and everything
else is more or less directly taken from other MMORPGs, including the complete
lack of attention to localization—but I would suggest skipping the download
until it’s more fleshed out.
On a similar note, Pristontale is
also free to play now, though the vague memories I have of it have completely
been fuzzed over by now. It’s probably fairly safe to say Pristontale is similar, if
not identical to, games such as ROSE Online, RYL, etc, etc, etc. More polished than Lunia, but the thought of sitting through another heavy download to test that claim
makes me throw up a little in my mouth. Reports have been somewhat
positive. (Screenshot from mmoflash.seesaa.net.)
It’s rather funny how all these companies try to imitate the success (the terrble,
terrible success) of Maple Story. You can almost hear them thinking "3D
is one more than 2D. Ha! Maple Story! More like…soon to be overwhelmed with
my success story! Should I implement Cash Shop now or later? Where’s my coffee?
I need to celebrate."
