Mojang have released a small snapshot for Minecraft, mostly for the purposes of optimisation because they say that they’re gearing up to release the long awaited 1.8 update for the game.
 
Snapshot 14w28a is mainly a snapshot that works behind the scenes to help with smooth client and server running as well as the usual bug fixes that come with one. It does also add the ability to finally specify an enchantment or effect by name rather than with the ID number at last which will make it a lot easier for new map-makers to program effects to be added to players into command blocks if they don’t know the ID number. It’s also since had a b version release to fix new bugs that cropped up with the fixes.
 
Keep an eye on the horizon people, 1.8 might be just around the corner at last!
 

San Diego Comic Con has been revealed to be the place that more information about the Halo: Master Chief Collection is to be given out to the public, specifically around Halo: Nightfall – a live-action digital series to be released on a weekly basis starting from the game’s release date of November 11^th 2014.

The game itself will have a panel to itself and it’s probable that the talk about Nightfall will be a part of it. Microsoft says it will be a place to be the first to get the details on the story of the series and the production of it, with the panel hosting guests such as 343 Industries’ Kiki Wolf, Halo franchise director Frank O’Connor and “key Halo: Nightfall cast and crew”.

Other games at the event include Sunset Overdrive, which also has its own panel, as well as around 20 playable games including Evolve, Fables Legends and The Crew. The event itself will take place July 24-27 at the San Diego Convention centre.

Thought it was time to dig into some of the Indie Games out there that are still in Beta form. Thought I’ll start it out with a First Look at the game Nekro which is in Early Access Beta on Steam.

In Nekro you play as a man who was executed. Feeling betrayed by his god he takes up service to an evil god called Kleer the Lord of Chaos. Kleer turns the man into an undead necromancer and charges him to slay the King of the land you travel though. In turn you get to enact your revenge by killing everything in your path.

When you start the game you get to choose what type of Nekro you want to be. There are currently 3 to choose from with more to be implemented in the future. Each Nekro has different abilities and attributes, as well as 2 unique attacks bound to the mouse buttons.

The first Nekro is the Alchemist. He has a long range attack but lower armor. He is also able to heal by throwing down a vial which he and his minions can stand under. If you shoot his attack though the healing area, his attack gets stronger.

The second Nekro you can choose from is the Grim Keeper. His attacks consist of throwing grenades at medium range dealing high damage. He is also able to swing his sack of grenades at people to knock them back. Combining his attacks causes you to hit the grenade like a baseball with the sack causing more damage on impact.

The third Nekro they have available is the Outlaw. The Outlaw is a primarily melee brawler with high armor and close range attacks. The more damage he does with his main attacks the stronger he gets. His secondary ability is a chain which allows him to pull victims closer to him so he can deal close range damage. It also gives him life steal as well.

After you choose your Nekro you get to check out your first summon. Summons are the minions you can summon to help you wreak havoc though your journey. You are automatically given one called Scourge which is demonic snakes which cause high area damage and can also be used to make minions out of inanimate objects in the levels like pumpkins. Later as you level and progress though the levels you are able to unlock more summons. Usually you are made to choose between two at a time. Once you choose you can’t get the one you didn’t choose. So you need to think carefully on what types of minions want to help you; whether it be flying bat like creatures or a creature you can summon under someone that would chomp them.

Now that you got your character set up its time to enter the game. Each level consists of an area with people, creatures and animals that can all be killed. Each level usually has a certain goal, like collecting a certain amount of souls (i.e. killing everything) or killing a certain number of a certain type of character. Some levels are even boss battles. First one being against a character called Mayor Biscuit, a hard to kill man with a top hat and monocle.

While you would think that all you do is just go around killing everything in sight you do need to think though how you go about the levels. As you go through the game you come across tougher enemies that can really do some damage to you if you aren’t prepared. Usually you will need to skirt the area outside the main town part where most of the enemies are. To prepare for battle you need to find corpses, either ones lying around or ones you make and either eat them for the blood that is used to summon minions or use them to summon extra minions. Most of the time this would lead you to killing mostly farm animals like chickens and pigs at first to build up your little army.

Once you have your army of minions it’s time to kill everyone. It’s best not to agro too many enemies at once because it is easy to get over run at times even with your summons helping you. Just take your time and you should be fine and don’t forget to collect more blood to summon even more minions.

In between each level there is a voice over reading out a journal of the character you are playing. The voice acting as well as the journal entries can be quite amusing at times and gives the game a nice humor.

This game seems like it will be a good game to replay multiple times. With different characters and different summons load outs you can come up with, I can see you having a different experience each time you play. There is also local and online multiplayer so you can play with friends.

I can’t wait to see where this game goes in the future and I can’t wait to continue to have a bloody good time playing it.

Nekro Early Access Available for PC, Mac, and Linux on Steam.

Check out the trailer:

*Note: Remember this game is still in development so not all features are in the game yet. Remember Beta is Beta.

Current European developer trends in relation to gaming platforms were revealed when the results of The GDC Europe State of the Industry 2014 Survey were published today.

Console wise, despite Microsoft’s strong showing at E3 a higher percentage of developers either were currently developing for the Playstation 4 or planned to for their next game, 18 per cent and 33 per cent respectively; as opposed to just 13 per cent currently developing for the Xbox One and 23 per cent planning to make their next game for Microsoft’s console.

Beating out the consoles though were the number of developers currently developing for PC and mobile, with 58 per cent working on a PC title and a massive 65 per cent developing a mobile title. Future development aims beat out the consoles too with 60 per cent looking at PC and 64 per cent at mobile.

Trends also suggested that while currently the percentage of crowd funded projects in Europe were low, almost 41 per cent of developers were considering using crowd funding to finance their next projects.

The full details of the survey can be found here on the Game Developers Conference website.

Seems like the Minecraft community might have been marked out as an easy target. Another unofficial Minecraft convention has been called off five days from the date it was meant to start on, in fact it was due to happen this weekend – the forth in six months.

The convention in question was named Mine-o-rama and was due to take place in New York over the weekend of the 12^th and 13^th of July, but was called off at very short notice. The reason given for the cancellation was that the con-organisers had wished to stream live feeds of panels and events but had been met with refusal of permission from Mojang to actually do this due to the fact that said livestreams would have been pay-to-view – probably due to Mojang’s EULA saying that you cannot make money from their game, with a few exceptions. This, the organisers claim, means that they didn’t have enough money to run the event.

This of course has left a lot of attendees with tickets they currently cannot use and in some cases flights to New York and hotel bookings to attend an event that is no longer being held. However many of the booked guests have hastily begun to organise fan meet-ups for their fans to give them something to attend on the trip at least.

The Mine-o-rama Twitter account has acknowledged that the cancellation has left many fans disappointed and out of pocket but have said they tried desperately to re-plan the event but were left with a shortfall of about $175,000. They have said they are hoping to have the team meet next week to plan rescheduling the event but so far refunding people has not come up although the tweets are all terribly apologetic.

As with the last big Minecraft convention cancellation (article can be found here) BebopVox of Minecraft Mondays has put together a video on details he dug up that were publicly available:

The article about the event published in Forbes magazine was also referenced on the Twitter account, with the number of ‘7,500 tickets sold’ disputed as being 2,000 sold at the time and another 5,500 promised to students of which about 3,000 were actually sold. It also disputed the total of $1 million saying that in the end they only raised around $600,000 through ticket sales.

It’s another tricky situation, and I’ll be watching as the story develops more. My heart goes out to those left disappointed and I hope that the fan meet-ups that are actually organised go as smoothly as they can be.