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Owners of Macs found out when they bought some of Valve’s new hardware that their computers couldn’t make either the Steam Link or the Steam Controller work. Despite them having been advertised to work.
Valve are sending out apology emails now to all affected, hoping to make up for the oversights. They have cited the cause as “temporary software issues” and say they will probably last a few weeks before they can be fixed.
“We want to apologise for the delays in providing full functionality for the Mac platform. We’re doing everything we can to resolve the issues. For the latest fixes and functionality, we recommend that you opt in to the Steam client beta.”
An upcoming update will add support for Macs so that you can use the Link to stream from them, as well as adding support for video,audio and controller input. Gamepad emulation will also be supported on Macs for the Steam Controller.
Until then, Valve are adding the Valve Complete Pack to the Steam accounts of affected customers, giving access to them for all Valve games; past, present and future. It’s free and can be kept even if the customer opts to get a refund on their hardware. The returns policy has also been extended to 60 days and Steam will also cover postage for those wanting a refund.
Firstly Dracucat has reached its target now with 12 days to go, so expect that game to be available at some point in the future; while Home Free has reached and passed the Dockland stretch goal and is very close to getting the Cat stretch goal met too. Aberford unfortunately is way off target with less than 3 days to go, so another method will need to be found to fund that game if Sketchy Panda decide to go ahead with it.
Every one of the four games covered last week still have quite a while to go yet and none are too close to their targets as of yet. However we know that the last few days of a Kickstarter can bring surges so this isn’t to say that they will fail, and we’ll update you as the weeks go by.
Starting us off with the sole card game this week, and I chose this one because not only does it sound quite silly; it’s another team based card game and I do enjoy some co-op play.
The game is an 12+ (normal deck) or 18+ (NSFW deck) game for 2-6 players, although there needs to be an even number to make the two teams balanced. The aim is simply to be the team who conquers 25 of the territories, and play is conducted through 3 assaults. The team who wins the best of 3 using their held damage cards get the territory.
GOAT ARMY currently has 36 days to go and has made €1,301 of its €2,000 goal, so I dare say this one will meet target.
This is a 2D adventure game with RPG elements set in a sci-fi future, using pixel graphics and a hand painted feel setting. Sounds promising.
The story follows a convict who awakes his deep sleep to find the orbital prison facility he was being held in has crashed on an abandoned Earth. With the aid of a ragtag group he finds himself trekking the wasteland of the planet to try and locate the nine cell blocks now scattered about the planet, braving the harsh environments as well as dangers both animal and sentient. The game is also on Steam Greenlight, so if you’re interested you might want to go find it to vote it up there too.
Wanderer has made $15,686 of its $70,000 goal so far with 26 days still to go.
This game’s a puzzler that might seem familiar at first, but this game has a neat little twist to turn it around. Literally.
Quatros is like a graphically updated Tetris. Except whenever a piece is placed the ‘board’ will rotate 90s degrees, changing the stacks and lines to keep you on your toes and alert. Each turn could mess up or make easier your task as you keep stacking blocks to form the lines to make them vanish and score your points. It’s simple but if you’re a fan of simple puzzle games, this one might be for you.
Quatros Origins has a target of €15,000 of which it has made only €515 so far with 26 more days to go.
Finishing our round-up today is a game with graphics that consist of school-book scribbles, which is a unique draw to say the least.
Scribbled Arena is a twin-stick shooter where everything looks like the pen doodles that you used to draw on or in your school books during class. It has both a singleplayer and a multiplayer mode, with customisation of armours and weaponry available. It’s already been successful on Android and is now halfway through development for the PC version and the Kickstarter page has a planned schedule of objectives and when they aim to be working on them which inspires a little confidence in backers if they want to know when they can expect to see certain things.
Scribbled Arena has made $1,178 of the $25,000 goal and has 27 days to go.
A few months back, Unknown Artifacts began popping up in various systems throughout the galaxy of Elite:Dangerous. Some transmitted in morse code, others just seemed to sit there. The collective player base scratched their heads and set out to find out what, exactly, these artifacts were all about. The forum thread detailing commander’s efforts to decipher these artifacts is long, impressive and worth a read if you have some spare time.
To make a long story short however, it was revealed that while some were in fact morse code scans of nearby objects others retained there secrets. Until recently when a player by the name of Mike Juliett Kilo fed a pre-recorded unknown artefact signal into a scanner in his cargo and got back the following image:
To those not in the know, this is a wireframe depiction of the Vulture spacecraft, the ship which Kilo happened to be flying at the time. As he said to the official Elite Community site at the time: “I was prepared to see an alien face or Thargoid warship. I certainly didn’t expect to see a Vulture, especially as I was flying one at the time! It sent shivers down my spine.”
Thargoids are the alien race that has featured in some previous Elite games, notable for being insectoid and thouroughly in love with blowing things up.
Frontier, of course has remained coy on the entire matter, stating that the artifacts are only the beginning. Of what, we don’t know.
As Hearthstone grows and new cards get added to the mix, new deck strategies are formed and cards that at one time weren’t terribly overpowered become so and need a tweak. Now it’s the turn of Warrior favourite the Warsong Commander.
For those unfamiliar with the card it’s a Warrior-exclusive 3 mana cost Minion with 2 attack power, 3 health and a card effect that gives Charge to every minion with 3 or less attack that is summoned as long as Warsong Commander remains on the field. It’s quite a good one for a Warrior deck that relies on smaller creatures, but with the introduction of the Grim Patron it became part of a combination that could do 30 points of direct damage far too fast to be countered.
A Grim Patron is a minion that has only 3 attack, thus benefitting from Warsong Commander’s effect. Whenever the Grim Patron takes damage that it survives, it will summon ANOTHER Grim Patron to the field. Which will also gain Charge, and so on. When combined with another Warrior-exclusive card, the Frothing Berserker who gains +1 attack everytime a minion takes damage but starts at just 2 and also gains Charge from that… well it all gets ridiculous quite quickly frankly.
Because of this Blizzard have changed the Warsong Commander’s text to now read “Your Charge minions have +1 Attack.” which completely breaks the combination down. You can still use your Grim Patrons to power a Berserker, but not to such ridiculously high levels.
On the matter Blizzard community manager Zeriyah said:
“Going forward, we will continue to stand by our stance that we will only make adjustments to cards when we feel it is completely necessary and allow the injection of new cards into the game help our players define what the meta evolves into. In the case of Warsong Commander, we felt this change was necessary to help expand both future design space and to stand by our overarching game philosophy that battles between minions and fighting for board control is what makes Hearthstone fun and compelling.”
This is quite a substantial change, and honestly while I can see why the change was made, it really is QUITE the nerf. It eliminates a deck type for certain and while Warsong Commander might once again find its place within certain styles of Warrior decks, it might take a while to start seeing them a lot again – similarly to what happened with Starving Buzzard last year.
The patch to apply the nerf will release next week.
If you are a fan of the good old 2D side-scrolling hack and slash arcade games, this game is definitely for you. Zombie Vikings is a quirky and visually stunning multiplayer game that will have you hooked with the story right from the beginning.
The storyline for Zombie Vikings is based on the gods from Norse mythology. The story begins with Loki stealing Odin’s good eye which contains magical powers. In order for Odin to retrieve his eye he raises four Vikings from their graves and sends them after Loki. It seems like quite a basic storyline but with other characters added in throughout the levels and also a twist to the plot you won’t want to put your controller down.
The voice acting for the game is really well done as the voices truly match the characters adding to the humour of the game. The music for the game is very quirky and upbeat and really fits the style of the game. My personal favourite piece is when you pause the game – lounge style music plays while someone starts singing the word “pause” to you. Such a nice tough to the game, although it did make me want to keep it on pause for a while.
The gameplay can get quite repetitive, however side missions and boss battles help to break this up. When you complete the side missions in the game you receive new weapons, however if you are playing multiplayer you will need to fight to the death to receive it for free, otherwise you will need to use in game coins to buy the weapon. Although the game can be played with one player it is more fun and easier when you play it as a multiplayer game. There are also parts in the game where the players can use a move called zombosis that joins the characters together creating a giant more powerful zombie which all players control. There are certain levels in the game where you need to have someone playing as a specific character as it is about their backstory. This can be a bit annoying if you are playing by yourself and have gotten used to a different character however, if you are playing the game with four people this isn’t much of an issue.
There were a few issues with the game when it was first released as there were some frame rate issues and quite a few glitches; one for myself being I got stuck in a wall. However the team at Zoink games were quick to fix the issues by releasing updates. Let’s remember it is easy to review a game but not so easy to make one and occasionally mistakes can happen so don’t let these sorts of things put you off playing games!
Overall the game had me hooked with the humour and storyline. I also adore the artwork.
