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Valve have long since wanted Steam to be a service that they are as hands-off as possible with regards to interference, preferring instead to add tools that allow users to control what content gets promoted and what doesn’t. User reviews are a key part of this and today they got a little more useful.
With the recent proliferation of Early Access games, an awful lot of reviews are now being made for games while they are in an unfinished state, and unless you know the dates of when a game went from Early Access to Published there was no way to tell… until now. If a review is made on a game that is in the Early Access program, the review will now have a little tag that says ‘Early Access Review’ prominently stamped between the ‘Recommended/Time Played’ header and the actual text of the review itself. It’s quite a useful way of knowing if a bug that a comment mentions might be due to poor coding or just that the game’s developers haven’t gotten around to patching it out yet.
However as of right now, the ‘Early Access Review’ label appears only on the reviews on games which are currently still in Early Access, and not on those games which have already left Early Access and been fully Published. Maybe Valve will go back and add the labels later, and certainly it would be a useful thing to do mainly for the reason mentioned above. For now though, it seems that Valve are on the right track with adding useful features that users can make use of to judge for themselves a game’s quality.
Puzzles! Platforming! Death? This week I tried out a new comically-morbid platformer on Steam called Life Goes On. In this game you guide an endless supply of heroic knights to their deaths in order to solve puzzles. The end goal: The Cup of Life!
If you are someone who dies a lot in games, this is the game for you! For in this game death is not setback. It is the only means to success. For you need to sacrifice your loyal knights to get by the obstacles put in your way. These puzzles require you to jump onto spikes to make a path for your fellow knight, get launched out of a canon to set things in motion, jump into a spinning blade in order to have your body land on a button, jump into a stream of electricity to stop the flow of energy, as well as many more death causing ways.
All in all, the final goal in each level is to get to the golden Cup of Life. While you can just kill your knights over again to try to figure out how to solve the puzzles; it is better to think it through a bit. For each level has the challenge of trying to get through it with the least deaths possible. There is also the challenge of trying to solve the puzzle under their target time. Then there is my personal
favorite challenge. Try to get eaten by Jeff, a fuzz ball of a creature that is found on each level.
The atmosphere of the game, in my opinion, seems very Monty Pythony. There are even a few references to it on the screens at the end of the levels. I particularly like the humor in some of the names they have for each of the knights. For each knight has a unique name. Everything from Sir Bob and The Underhanded Baron Joseph Mutton to The Needless Mother Superior Natasha and The Crown Princess Julia Bowie. I’ve even come across one called Sir *$&N%@! the Profane.
All in all this game has unique and challenging puzzles which make you think about death in video games in a different way. And its visual look and awesome music just add to the atmosphere of the game. So if you want to play a puzzle platformer with an interesting mechanic, I would definitely suggest trying Life Goes On.
What happens when you mix old school Mega Man with a dash of insanity and a whole lot of explosions?
You get Explodemon from the makers of Stealth Bastard Deluxe.
You play as the title character, Explodemon, a rather dimwitted and sometimes outright insane “savior” of the planet Nibia. Faced with invasion at the hands of the Vortex, the planet calls on the help of the Guardians. Unfortunately, they are nowhere to be found. Given the choice of surrender, or releasing Explodemon from stasis, the elders choose surrender. Ironically, the Vortex invasion releases Explodemon at that very moment. Set loose in the world once more, our hero(?) must run, jump, puzzle and explode his way to victory.
Its this rather wacky setup that gives Explodemon much of it’s charm. The story is told through wonderfully stylized animated sequences that feel as if they might have been ripped from Ren & Stimpy. While there is no voice acting, the writing more than makes up for it with Explodemon spouting absurd gibberish in response to the questions of NPCs and the taunts of his foes. This is backed up by handsome 3d models set against gorgeous backdrops as Explodemon ventures across futuristic cities and ancient temples. The music, while nothing amazing, does a good job of being catchy and urging you forwards. But..what would a game called Explodemon be without some seriously good explosion sounds? Fortuantely, those deliver in spades, never failing to bring a smile to my face when I exploded multiple times in a row and brought doom to my enemies.
Its here that Explodemon really shines. This game hearkens back to the tough as nails days of old SNES games like mega Man X. Explodemon can’t shoot. Instead, he has a meter that fills up over time. Once charged, he can explode. This mechanic affects every aspect of the game. A well timed explosion after jumping will propel you to new heights. Need to throw a box across an area and onto a pressure switch? Exploding at the propr angle will get the job done. Enemies must be taken down with well placed explosions. It may sound like a button spamming gimmick, but there is real depth to it. Enemies take more damage the closer to the center of an explosion they are, fostering a risk reward mechanic. Do you get close enough to do maximum damage, but risk a potentially fatal blow if you mistime it? Or do you stay at a safe distance and chip away slowly? Add in to this the powerups that Explodemon gets from vanquishing bosses – a double jump that can be extended into something nearing flight with well timed explosions for example – and the depth on display is extremely satisfying. Furthering the depth of the game is an upgrade shop. Collecting currency found in the game world will allow you to purchase armor, extended dash capability and a longer explosion fuse for Explodemon. Add on top of that the ability to find items within each stage that allow you to level up Explodemon’s charge time and abilities for that specific level and there is a very complex meta game underpinning the seemingly simple mechanic of run, explode, repeat.
Each stage is well designed, and chock full of hidden collectibles. If you are a completionist, tackling some of the more mind bending physics based puzzles and nigh impossible to reach trinkets will eat up a ton of your time. To Explodemon’s credit, acquiring these hidden gems never feels like a chore. Instead, it becomes a challenge to master the timing needed to propel yourself into that tiny space high up on a wall. If I have one complaint with Explodemon and its excellent design, it would be that the sliding mechanic is a bit touchy. More than once, I would find myself sliding in the wrong direction, leading to a death by bottomless pit. A minor gripe, to be sure, but one that caused my demis on multiple occasions.
In the end, Explodemon is a quirky, funny, immensely satisfying throwback to the golden days of 2D platforming, shoot-em-up goodness. If you ever enjoyed Mega Man, Castlevania or Metroid during the SNES era, you owe it to yourself to pick up Explodemon.
EGX Rezzed is in full swing, and DayZ’s creator Dean “Rocket” Hall hit the stage today to talk about upcoming plans for the open world zombie survival game.
During his talk, Hall hit on several key highlights for the future of the game:
Refrigerators and cupboards that actually hold items
Improved path finding for Zombies
Animals
AK47s
Cars
64 Bit Compiling
These are the highlights, but much more was hinted at. So, lets breakdown the above items.
In an effort to improve the number of items on a server without bogging the game down, the team is implementing searchable refrigerators and cupboards. The goal is to make them part of the game world rather than just decoration. This is also going hand in hand with the improved pathfinding for the AI. Hall explained that the AI will soon see a voxel based version of the world and that the team is adding “walkable” polygons. In essence, this will tell the AI where it can and can’t go, eliminating those pesky zombies that phase through floors and hit you from inside walls. ANimals are also on the slate to round out the hunting and survival mechanics of the game. Be warned though, Dean also promises hostile animals such as wolves and bears. Lastly, he touched on the inclusion of the AK47 and vehicles stating that they are things that will take time to add and we shouldn’t expect them until the third quarter of this year.
The big news though was that the game is being compiled into a 64 bit version. While not a big deal for players, this will open up many possibilities for servers. The goal is to make the game as robust as possible while keeping server memory load to a minimum. The changes the team are making will allow the game to be updated for loot based on quadrants of the map, allow admins to speed up or slow down time, implement snow and wind effects that affect weapons ballistics…..and build barricades and even persistent structures. You read that right. DayZ plans to let you build your own buildings , barricade them and then hide in them while you slowly starve to death because you are to scared to go out and look for cans of beans. Which sounds awesome to me.
It seems the team has a lot in store for us, and some really exciting plans in terms of the meta game of DayZ.
For all things EGX 2014, stay tuned to Sanitarium.FM.
