It’s once again time to get some fantastic games for almost no money. The latest Humble Bundle is out, and it contains all of Introversion’s back catalogue. So, if you don’t already own Uplink, Darwinia, Defcon, or Multiwinia, and would be willing to part with a single quid (or indeed, less), check it out. The company has been struggling to survive for the last few years, so I truly hope this makes them a crapton of money so they can continue making Subversion, which they had to abandon recently. Amusing trailer is below.
It goes without saying that this is a brilliant deal, as the Humble Bundles always are. I’m especially keen about this one because Introversion have never made a bad game, and yet financially they have been struggling to make ends meat for quite some time now. Its easy to forget that not every indie developer makes it big. With the most harrowing nuclear war simulator ever made (Defcon), and the charming, underrated Multiwinia under their belts, I just wish they make enough money to keep going. Subversion looked as though it was going to be another superbly quirky addition to their library, and I’m gutted they had to cease development for the simple reason they ran out of money. Without guys like this, the games’ industry will just get more stagnant, and we’ll be left with nothing but Call of Duty 19 and The Sims 27. That’s not a future I like the sound of.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
Format: PC
Release date: 1993
I have 2 memories of this game that are separated by over 20 years.
I’m currently enjoying getting down and dirty with nature. Taming dinosaurs in Ark: Survival evolved is exciting and frustrating in equal measure. Exciting because I’m taming friggin dinosaurs. Frustrating because bigger dinosaurs keep eating them… And when I’m not playing that, I’m exploring the freezing mountains in Rise of the Tomb Raider – seriously, I have never felt so cold playing a videogame. It’s the way Lara hugs herself in the chill wind as the snow clings to her jacket. It’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve seen in a long time.
Format: PC
Year: 2000
It may look clunky as hell thanks to the original Unreal engine, but Deus Ex was a pioneer in videogames because it gave the player so many choices to make. It resulted in one of the deepest gaming experiences of the time, because it went to great effort to show the consequences of those choices. The story was spread across many ‘hub’ levels, giving you total freedom to approach your objectives whichever way you wanted, aided by an RPG style upgrade tree that you invested in as you played. Wanna finish it without killing a single soul? That is entirely possible. Prefer to tool up with a rocket launcher and just murder your way to the end? Nothing could stop you. Your NPC allies would respond differently back in the Unatco base, depending on what you did out in the field. This level of responsiveness was unparalleled for a long time, to the point that even if you walked into the ladies toilets, your boss would scold you for it during the mission debrief later on. It was many little moments like that which made the game so memorable for me.
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