Games are fun.

Right?

It’s only natural to want to share that fun with other people, as fun is multiplied by the number of friends with whom you share it.

A couple years ago, a bunch of people who were planning to have fun playing Mythic’s Warhammer MMO had had so much fun being excited about the game before it was even released, that they just had to share it. They got together and all launched blogs and started writing about it — and now many of them are among the top MMO bloggers in the industry.

We did the same sort of thing with Wizard101 blogs. There’s been blog groups for EVE Online, World of Warcraft… pretty much every game out there.

It turns out that writing about the games you play is even more fun.

None of these new bloggers expected to find fame (though some did) or attract thousands of readers (though some do). They wanted a place to share their excitement and game experiences and thoughts about gaming with friends and other gamers, so they started a blog.

YOU can start a blog. You SHOULD start a blog. Right now. Try Blogger (host of my bridge blog) or WordPress. Come up with a cool name for your blog, figure out what you’re going to write about, and start writing.

So, now that you have a blog, you’re a blogger. Grats! Your very next step is to head over to the Newbie Blogger Initiative and check in. Through the month of May, over 70 bloggers will be writing about how and why they blog and giving tips for getting words on the page and eyes on your blog. Because the absolute best bit about blogging is talking with other fans.

Look for a couple posts about blogging here in the next month — and check out the Newbie Blogger Initiative forums for the dozens of other blogs who will be giving their own take on this whole blogger thing.

And in the meantime, check out Google+, where a lot of great MMO discussion goes on every minute of every day :)

Related posts:

1. WoW and EQ2: Newbie Quests Finished fighting the Scholar to finish the Strange Black Stone...
2. Vanguard: The Newbie Fields Vanguard has its problems; Stargrace mentioned last night while we...
3. EVE Online: Nemesis Initiative update On my fourth try, my Nemesis invention produced an actual...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Avalon

Sure, everyone had this figured out awhile ago, but finally it’s announced — the newest world on the Spiral is Avalon.

Professor Greyrose writes:

Avalon is the silver city, a medieval fantasy world of knights, goblins, giants, and dragons. Merle Ambrose was born here, and gained a reputation as a fierce Wizard. Merle helped the young warrior-bear Artorius become king of Avalon. However, once King Artorius fell in the final battle slaying his archrival, Malory, Merle decided it was time to leave Avalon – Merle left to found Ravenwood School of Magical Arts and teach magic to any Wizard who wanted to learn it in the Spiral.

Avalon is a large world with 15 expansive areas to explore. Young Wizards who are a minimum of level 70 and have completed the quest “Through Glass, Darkly” need to speak to Merle Ambrose who will send you off on your adventures with a quest named “This Little Light of Mine”.

I pretty much keep returning to “knights and dragons” because, YUM. Anyone who knows me knows that if there’s a dragon to be killed, I am TOTALLY THERE. That desire for dragonly death held me from TSR’s DragonStrike game, through EverQuest, World of Warcraft and the rest.

Time to get leveling!

Here’s the last puzzle piece, for completeness’ sake:

Related posts:

1. W101: A puzzle piece, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by a mystery I had to wonder if there were any other puzzle...
2. Wizard101: A Puzzle of a Puzzler I don’t spend a LOT of time in my homes...
3. EQ2: Rise of Kunark Beta? Sign me up! Via Cuppy, the Rise of Kunark Beta application is now...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Helpless!

What I want to know is, if the Spinner of Shadows could “hold person” everyone in the party instantly, with no saving throw, for as long as she wanted, anytime she wanted — how did we win the fight?

Not to say that it wasn’t a fun fight — it was. The whole Web of Chaos arc was a lot of fun, for all that the last adventure turned into an extended advertisement for the expansion, giving some reason for the sudden merger of the world of Eberron and the world of Forgotten Realms.

The Spinner of Shadows adventure was, in particular, pretty fun. The adventure had a raid-like complexity. We split the party in two, with Gleek and Ulan keeping the Spinner busy while Spode and I raced around killing spiders for shards with which to rebuild the Spinner’s prison.

Spoiler alert, we fail, and Lolth is summoned from the Underdark into the plane of Khyber (if I am remembering this right). Well, we succeeded in the adventure, and failed.

With Lolth freed, we were treated to the trailer for the next expansion, and were then ejected back into Stormreach Harbor to report our failure to the Silver Flame guardians who did not welcome our news.

Ophiga

Fact is, I play a drow, and I’m not sure why I would not welcome Lolth into this plane of existence. We spent the entire night killing Drow, and I felt a little uncomfortable about that. Why couldn’t we have killed something that really deserved it, like gnomes?

Sometimes it’s hard playing a good drow. I guess that’s why my fellow drow and driders usually try to kill me when they see me. Still, I struggle on. Far from Vulkoor’s solace, driven from the Underdark.

At least I can meet my ex-drowfriends as a more skillful rogue. While working through the Web of Chaos arc, I reached level 17 at long last. I got a new rank of sneak attack, and Rogue Sneak Attack Training IV. I just need one more point for Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy Training IV, and then it’s just a hop, skip and jump to level 18 and Assassin III. Then I get two levels where I can choose levels in some complementary class. Since my last lesser reincarnation, I have become a strength-based rogue, which will allow me a little more leeway in choosing other classes. I’m thinking Fighter (for the weapon skills), Ranger (for ranged skills natch) or Bard (because… just because).

The glowy weapons I am wielding in the picture above come from the Web of Chaos arc. I didn’t get all the ones I wanted, but if we run the arc twice more, I’ll be able to select from all the options available, which is rather cool. That’s something just added with the most recent update.

Exciting times. Spode and Gleek have already maxed out their experience. Ulan and I are the laggers-behind, both now at 17. I really do want to get to 20 before we leave for Diablo 3, but levels come so slowly that I am not sure that’s realistic.

I’ve said it many times — I would enjoy DDO more if I didn’t have to spend real money to form a group to play on non-group nights. On the other hand, I like playing a MMO which was intended for group play. It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I guess I could join pickup-groups, but then there’s the fear that I am a terrible player and would enrage the members of any group I joined, since I care little for having the best armor, weapons or enhancements.

Back in EverQuest, the designers had this concept of camps. When you first came to a new dungeon (or even outdoor zone), there would be the “easy” camps for people with lesser equipment, levels, or ability. As you gained confidence, you’d move through the zone to harder camps, and as you gained a reputation, increasingly you’d be asked to come to a camp. That social web thing.

Now it’s all whirlwind speeding through a dungeon with people you will never see again. WoW, EQ2, Rift, DDO — all the same.

I treasure my static group :)

Related posts:

1. DDO: How to gimp your character My first Dungeons and Dragons character, I had no idea...
2. DDO: Baby I’m A-maze-d Last night we were down two people; Ulan had real...
3. DDO: Tripping the Lailat Fantastic We’ve been on the rocks the last couple of weeks,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

College-Ruled Universe

I used to doodle a lot as a kid. I’d draw up adventures where, typically, bad things would happen to my kid sister. If those drawings had come to life… well, I would have a very angry sister today (sorry, Val. At least I am comforted knowing you will never read my blog).

Artist Leo Dasso had a different vision. While doodling in class one day, he was inspired to turn his doodles into space ships, cities and extremely weird bosses and wire them up in Flash to make an abstract and visually striking side-scrolling shooter in the vein of R-Type and the old Treasure bulletstorms. He tapped a friend of his to do the music and called the game College-Ruled Universe.

He’s got the prototype coded up in Action Script 2.0 and is looking for funding to hire a programmer to port the game to AS 3.0 tuned to run best on Android (though the artist is now considering releasing it first for iOS). There’s a playable demo available. The rewards feature copies of the game once released and artwork based on the game (or even used IN the game), and a chance to get your own artwork into the game if you want to pledge that much.

As of this writing, the game has 49 hours left to go and has already raised $7,333 of the $6,000 goal, so it’s going to happen.

College-Ruled Universe is the perfect storm of indie game development that can reliably succeed on Kickstarter. It’s a game with a good “elevator pitch” — retro side-scrolling shooter with a distinctive art style and music. There’s a playable demo. The goals are reasonable and the funding target is low. We’ve seen these sorts of games succeed on other platforms again and again — flOw, Everyday Shooter, Castle Crashers and so on.

College-Ruled Universe might do well on Kongregate even without Kickstarter funding… but with the funding, it will be better and on more platforms.

Related posts:

1. Will Kickstarter usher in the age of boutique gaming? In Tim Schafer’s first post-funding update for his Kickstarter-funded old...
2. SOE: DC Universe Online SOE posted a cattle call for experienced game developers on...
3. Go: Absolute Beginner My mom died when she was fairly young. Her carnival...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In Tim Schafer’s first post-funding update for his Kickstarter-funded old school adventure game, he’s stunned and overjoyed that the project attracted over $3 million in funding for a desired level of just $400,000. A recently cancelled game had left the future of Double Fine uncertain; there would have to have been layoffs, but now it’s all saved. Double Fine’s success led to equally successful Kickstarters for such nostalgic titles as Wasteland, Shadowrun and even Leisure Suit Larry.

There’s a lot of excitement and discussion over a new era of gaming, where the players essentially pre-purchase games before they are developed (or in many cases, even thought about much). Is it sustainable?

In the video, Schafer mentions offhandedly that their recent Brutal Legend game cost $20 million. $100,000, on the other hand, would fund a simple iPhone-like game. $3 million, then, would fund a game a seventh the size of Brutal Legend, or a really, really good iPhone game.

The DF Kickstarter attracted 87,142 backers after a HUGE media push. Schafer mentioned that Full Throttle had been considered a success when it sold a million copies, but that Game of the Year Grim Fandango was considered a failure at just half that. The Kickstarter attracted a _tenth_ the number of backers as copies of Full Throttle sold.

Double Fine will have to attract many multiples of new players once their game has been released in order for Kickstarter-funded projects to be more than a stopgap development effort in between bigger budget games for AAA developers. $3 million is record setting for a crowd funded project, but just pennies compared to big budget games.

Crowd funding, whether via Kickstarter or some other means, might keep the lights on for established game developers. The real puzzle is how to use this to fund amateur game developers and make available games that would never have been made.

For unknown developers, the outlook isn’t that great. I’ll be going over the projects I have backed and those I have NOT backed in the next few days, but what looks easy if you are a well-known game developer is less so if you’re just getting your start.

A great idea isn’t enough.

I’m a big fan of ABC’s Shark Tank. Hopeful entrepreneurs try to attract funding from one or more investors, who (as the show’s narrator relentlessly repeats at the opening of each show) are deciding to spend their own money on someone else’s dream.

When someone comes to them with a finished or nearly finished product, have some sales behind them and a plan to expand and to spend an investment wisely, they usually get a deal. Come with an idea but little ability to execute and there’s rarely a happy ending.

The makers of FTL, a very indie game from a couple of developers in Shanghai had a video, a live demo of the game thus far running on OnLive for awhile, and an award at the Independent Games Festival; they got funded.

Your World, a random collection of inspiration from pretty much every game this guy had ever played or thought of, looking for $1.1 million and little ability to execute… probably won’t be funded. I’ll be writing about this one later.

Kickstarter offers a new way of getting products funded, but in the end it doesn’t change the world. You still need to have people with a vision and the ability to execute. There will always be room for new game developers to get a couple friends together and build something amazing on nights and weekends, then put it into the world via Kongregate, the App Store, XBLA, Indie Bundles and so on. If you build something great, and have a way to get the word out, people will want to play your game.

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on the social gaming explosion I quit Frontierville tonight. No big deal. I ended up...
2. The Cosmological Theory of Gaming So you install this hot new MMO, Frog Pond of...
3. Weekend Gaming: Torchlight and Wizard101 The weekend wasn’t ALL EVE Online, though it could have...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Whenever I get confused or overwhelmed in Wizard101, I head to Wintertusk and talk with Mother Raven. These mysterious puzzle pieces had me puzzled… I guess… so I headed over the rainbow bridge to the Wintertusk barge, threaded my way through the slow-moving vultures, worked my way up the root of Yggdrasil and asked her if she could fit these puzzle pieces together.

She said nothing. She just gave me another piece. I had a feeling from her that it would all fit together in the end, but … who can tell? Who can know the future?

Only Mother Raven. And she’s not telling.

This puzzle piece looks like it’s below and slightly to the left of the previous puzzle piece. Where that previous piece looked like something that was being held, here we’re seeing, I believe, a little bit of the person that is doing the holding.

One more piece to go!

Related posts:

1. W101: A puzzle piece, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by a mystery I had to wonder if there were any other puzzle...
2. Wizard101: A Puzzle of a Puzzler I don’t spend a LOT of time in my homes...
3. Weekend Gaming: DDO, W101, EQ, STO In Dungeons & Dragons Online, Kasul and I finished our...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I had to wonder if there were any other puzzle pieces in any of my other character’s homes. To my shock and welcome surprise, Marissa’s wall contained a third mysterious puzzle piece.

It looks to be the right part of some sort of building or statue, which kinda implies it’s on the right side of the puzzle, but not all the way to the edge. The yellow markings could mean Myth or maybe Balance. There’s something poking up from the bottom which could be an axe or a hammer.

Which is it? I have no idea… and I can’t wait to find out!

Related posts:

1. W101: Archaeology students discover lost tomb Journeyman conjurer Tara Mythcrafter, of Myth House, is among those...
2. W101: Drake apologises for lack of new high level content Famed sociopath and brother to the villain Malistaire, Professor Drake...
3. W101: Hallowe’en in Wizard City (and October patch notes) I didn’t intend to spend all night playing Wizard 101,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Wenn der blaue Schleim jemand angreifen, stirbt jemand

The screenshot tells the story. Me and Wenner unconscious, Sheeoil dead, only Bryn alive to finish the fight against the ravenous but somewhat stupid blue slime. And what of Splug? What of the goblin who gained our trust and betrayed us, literally backstabbing us?

What of Splug, indeed?

Splug

After we finished scraping off the lizard-bug juice from our boots (Bryn, Sheeoil) and feet (Wenner, myself), we decided to go have a look at the corroded bronze door near which Wenner had discovered some tasty and deadly pudding. The door had words scraped into it, “Do Not Enter!!!11!!! SRSLY!!!!”, but we’re not big on warnings and text speak just enrages Bryn, so we were hot to see just what was behind that green door.

We were stunned to see something in front of the door — Splug. Splug, the goblin we saved from the hobgoblin torturer (who apparently was moonlighting as a goblin torturer, just for Splug). Splug, who offered to carry our stuff and heroically guard the rear of any battle. Splug, who stabbed our faithful wizard and ran off. Splug, who has had his name mentioned in this post enough to be the number one search result on his name from now until eternity. Let this be a warning to any future adventuring parties — Splug is Bad News.

Now, I’m a paladin. Lawful good, totally crazy about Bahamut, hate Tiamat with a passion. If you behave honorably to me and my companions, I will defend you to the death. But if you betray me… well, justice demands you pay for your crime. When Splug decided to sink a dagger in Bryn’s back, he made my list. My short list. We could map this place or not, but Splug was not going to live to spread his treachery.

When Splug saw us, he spun, ran through the metal door, slammed it behind him. We could hear the pitter patter of goblin feet stumble down some wooden stairs, a muffled scream, and then — nothing.

Wenner listened at the door and heard nothing more. He opened it — slightly — slipping through and hiding in the darkness. We could all have hidden in that darkness, the only light was a dim blue phosphorescence coming from the water of an underground lake that cast no light by which to see. Even Sheeoil’s keen elven eyes could not pierce the gloom.

Wenner tracked the footprints in the disturbed fungus to the bottom of the stairs, where it met the unmarked stone of the natural cavern floor. He calls the rest of us down. I lit a sun rod to illuminate the room.

In the sun rod’s light, we could no longer see the glow from the lake. It looked just like plain water. Nonetheless, we decided not to go swimming just yet. Wenner followed the cavern wall south… and then let out a yell.

Sounded like he yelled “SPLUG!”

We all rushed that direction. Wenner wasn’t going to have the honor of killing Splug alone. Some kinds of fun must be shared!

When we get there, Splug was gasping and gurgling and obviously terrified, as he should be. His day of judgement had come. However, it wasn’t us that frightened him. He begged our protection, he threw himself at our mercy, he stole glances at the water and tried to shrink back further into the nook in which he’d squeezed himself. Wenner deftly tied the goblin fast with his rope.

“Good,” I said. I drew Lifedrinker from its scabbard. “Splug,” I said, “You have lost your honor. You have come to the end of the path you have chosen; make your peace with whatever gods you worship, for you will soon meet them. Wenner, hold him still.”

Wenner nodded curtly.

Splug didn’t seem aware of his fate. Looking out past we who’d come to kill him to the water behind us, he let out a shriek and fainted.

Soundlessly, the dim blue glow of the lake coalesced and surfaced — a blue slime appeared. With a gurgling sigh, it burped an explosive orb of acid at us all; the acid began to burn Wenner and Sheeoil.

We all turned and made a mad dash for the stairs, Wenner dragging Splug behind him. The blue slime was faster than we were. It formed two pseudopods, hit Wenner with one and curled the other around Splug. The goblin was slowly being dragged toward the slime.

I could not abide that. Splug deserved an honorable death. Wenner shrugged away the slime’s acid and tried to stab Splug. I tried to decapitate the goblin. Sheeoil, burned by acid, seared Splug with sacred flame. Still he lived, awake again, screaming. It would be a mercy killing.

Bryn’s force orb went wild, disappearing into the darkness. The slime slammed Splug to the ground and burped another stink bomb at us all. All except Bryn, who smartly stood well out of range on the stairs, casting from safety. Splug flailed desperately against the slime.

Wenner saved again against the acid, drank a health potion and ran away to the south, no longer part of this fight. Who does Wenner look out for? Wenner looks out for Number One.

That’s our rogue, and we love him for it. Love him!

With Splug trying to fight the slime, I thought we should accept the help. If Splug survived, we could still kill him later.

Sheeoil and I, unhappily within range of the slime’s pseudopods, do our best to bring the slime down, but it only seemed lightly damaged. Bryn hurled spell after spell from the stairs, but the slime just had too much health. This just did not look like a fight we were going to win.

The slime slammed Splug against the wall. Splug went limp. Freed by the slime, his still body fell to the ground.

Meanwhile, Wenner explored the rest of the cavern, as much of it as he could see without actually getting into the water. He could faintly hear waves lapping against the rear wall of the cavern, but it sounded as if there were a closer shore than the far wall.

Back at the slime, things were steadily going from bad to worse. I was knocked unconscious, but a miracle saving throw vs death brought me back to semi life. I crawled up the stairs to safety with Bryn. Sheeoil joined us, and it was clear the slime could not leave the water. We sat and discussed our task, Splug’s fate and other cheerful subjects while Bryn cast various magics at the creature. I tossed a few javelins in the slime’s direction.

Finally, the slime was bloodied. It disappeared into the water and into the darkness.

We couldn’t just let it escape like that. I crept to the shore and splashed around a bit. The slime returned with incredible speed, knocking me nearly unconscious again. Bryn hit it with another spell and it disappeared. Bryn cast magic missiles blindly into the darkness without effect. Wenner returned from his explorations and made sounds in the water.

Again the slime came, knocked the thief into oblivion, left when fired upon by Bryn. I used my heal skill to stabilize Wenner, then made a noise in the water. The slime came back and knocked me out for good this time. Sheeoil stabilized me, then was knocked out by the slime. Unfortunately there was nobody to stabilize him.

Bryn used Cloud of Blades to churn the water and lure the slime back to the shore, then burned it with magic missiles. This was not a fast way to kill it. Unstabilized and with bad luck in saving throws, Sheeoil died. Eventually, so did the slime.

With the encounter ended, Bryn was able to get Wenner and me conscious again. There was nothing we could do about Sheeoil. Wenner and I cautiously explored the lake and discovered a small island, on which was a half-dissolved corpse, a small amount of gold, a goodly amount of silver, a shield that hummed with power and a sealed scroll case.

I claimed the shield… of course. I don’t crave wealth, but I do feel a responsibility to keep the party safe, and to do that, I need better gear. We were no longer just fighting kobold minions.

I got Sheeoil’s corpse on my shoulders, and we headed back to Winterhaven.

–

We met Splug, but his death was empty. Was justice served? We had our first death, due mostly to impatience. We figured out early on that the slime wouldn’t leave the water. We could either just let Bryn kill it, or try to lure it into melee range and unleash hell on it. The result was 3/4 of the party out of the fight, and Bryn killing it anyway.

We played healing entirely by the rules, which was a problem. Back when we first started with D&D4E, we kinda thought Healing Surge was a kind of self heal you could pull out whenever you needed it. We were wrong. Healing Surges are a counter; it represents the number of times you can be healed between rest periods. It’s not itself any sort of heal. Everyone gets Second Wind — a heal they can cast on themselves. As a paladin, I get a second heal in Lay On Hands, which I can use a number of times per day as my Wisdom bonus, which is +1 — so once a day. In earlier encounters, before I read this, I figured I could Lay on Hands as often as I liked as long as I had healing surges left, which was totally not the case.

Most of Sheeoil’s attacks generate temporary hit points, which are useful but not real heals. He only has a few real heals. He ran out of those, I used both Second Wind and Lay on Hands just keeping myself alive, so basically, even with 1 1/2 healers, we can’t really take the kind of damage long fights put out. Both the pink pudding and the blue slime couldn’t be affected much with bladed weapons or acid spells, which took our DPS down quite a lot.

We did make it through — barely — but now we’re forced to return to town, rest up, then head back to the Keep and finish the adventure. I kinda have to call that a bad ending. I don’t know what the penalty for a resurrection will be for Sheeoil, but back in AD&D 1.0 it was a permanent loss of a constitution point, which is really nasty.

While in town, we’ll have to figure out how we’re going to survive other fights where we can’t use bladed weapons or must fight from range. And deal with the wrath of Lord Padraig, who will likely wonder, loudly, why it has taken us so long to map the Keep.

Related posts:

1. D&D 4E: Splug is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds, Part II You smelly backbiter, Splug. Splug liked hanging back behind the...
2. D&D 4E Shadowfell Keep: Splug is the hobgoblin of little minds. Part I. “You all so good people, give all you hug many...
3. D&D 4E: The Skull-Skull Arena There was probably a way to get through this without...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The First Piece

This piece looks to be a corner piece… those are always the best pieces to start with! Definitely part of the Wizard101 logo; it kinda looks like a piece of the old Celestia art… but it couldn’t be that.

The second piece

This one’s a real mystery. It looks like sand or stone. Part of the right edge. Edge pieces are good, especially if they fit into a corner piece. These two pieces don’t go together. Maybe if I turned the second one around… and used a hammer and some tape… hmmmm….

I’ve heard rumors of other pieces in other places… There’s a mystery here!

Related posts:

1. Wizard101: Ravenwood vs Hogwarts It’s been no real secret that Wizard101′s Ravenwood Academy owes...
2. Off to Virginia, but first, a puzzle: I’m driving to Virginia today to visit my son. So...
3. Wizard101: Pet games coming to an iPhone near you? First there was Wizard101, a MMO unlike any other that...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

FTL

I’m a big fan of ABC’s Shark Tank. I make no apologies, I like “some” reality TV. I don’t talk about it much on the blog anymore because I don’t think people are all that interested, but I still watch. If it’s a decent show and it’s shown on Netflix or Hulu Plus, it’s something to watch while gaming.

Anyway the premise of that show is that five actual real businesspeople, the “sharks”, listen to pitches by would-be entrepreneurs, the “chum”, and if they like what they hear, they invest. It’s an American version of the UK’s “Dragon’s Den”, a show I have not seen.

I don’t have millions of dollars, but I do have a few, and right now some of them are being sent to entrepreneurs who pitch their products on Kickstarter, asking me for my money, in return for rewards. Largely, I have been investing in gaming products.

I was checking up on the progress of some of my investments today when Kickstarter suggested I take a look at FTL, a kinda retro space based rogue-like.

They had me at “space based rogue-like”. So after I invested, guaranteeing myself a DRM-free copy of the game when it is completed in August, I took them up on their offer to actually play the game in its current shape… on OnLive.

OnLive is a service that lets you play games as a stream. You don’t have to have the actual copy of the game, or even hardware that can run the game well. All you need is a fast internet connection. OnLive runs the game on their servers and streams the sound and graphics to you (hence the requirement for a fast internet connection). They had FTL up as one of their independent games festival winners, I played it a couple of times.

The game isn’t really a rogue-like. There’s no way to save and death means end of game — but that’s where the rogue elements end. You don’t get the treasure with the odd names you have to figure out. It has real time combat, not turn based. You don’t have a character on the board. I’m not really sure why they call it a rogue-like.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t a good game, though. You’re given a ship with some crew and a number of ship’s systems, which must be kept in good repair, by sending crew to repair it in real time. Your job is to keep the ship intact, the crew alive, the energy allocated, the missiles loaded and so on as your ship, the Kestrel, struggles to keep ahead of the rebel fleet. The enemy, when you encounter them, can target specific ships systems, set fires, hole the hull and so on. I was happy to see I could extinguish fires by venting the atmosphere into space :)

You’ll meet allies and enemies as you warp through the sector to the exit system on each level. Take too long exploring and the rebel fleet will catch up to you and kill you. Take too little time exploring and you will miss friendly encounters which can result in new crew, weapons or other helpful items — or in unexpected calamity.

Goodbye.

The demo ends after finishing two sectors. To make you understand just what sort of worm you are, you’re destroyed by the ultimate power of destruction in the universe, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It’s a cute little game. Not a rogue-like, but it looks like it’ll be fun. It’ll come out on Win/Mac/Linux.

I was very impressed with OnLive. I’d always assumed I wouldn’t have the internet connection speed to handle it, but it worked very well for both FTL and Assassin’s Creed II. I tried their 30 minute free trial. No loading or patching or anything, just went right into 16th century Florence… after the prologue. I was very impressed.

Related posts:

1. Temple of the Roguelike: How did I miss THIS? Back in the early 80s, I was too totally proud...
2. Gimme Some Space: Star Trek Online, Pirate Galaxy, Space Paranoids Klingon meets Breen. Breen goes boom. Star Trek Online’s launch...
3. STO Special Task Force walkthrough: Infected (Space) Infected (Space) is very simple. There’s only one thing you...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.