Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a new editorial of the first few hours of System Shock 2 from the  perspective of a new player.

Shock 2 reveals just how potent and atmospheric it is to be pathetically weak. It creates a bleakness that’s unachievable by just painting your backgrounds grey-brown and having the gruff post-apocalyptic super-soldiers shout curse words as they trot ever forward. It’s a bleakness that’s not superficially aesthetic, but intrinsic, and overwhelming. I really am overwhelmed by it. My heart is heavy when I think about carrying on playing this obviously excellent game, knowing what an ordeal I’ll be putting myself through.

Where I’m left is divided on how I feel about that. Perhaps it’s my frame of mind at the moment, perhaps I’m getting old, perhaps I’m growing weak. But that just doesn’t strike me as the most appealing notion.

Yes, so jeer at me, condemn me, cancel your subscription and petition in the streets that I have the temerity to write about videogames. I deserve it. But I do want to stress that I’m not settling for the status quo.

System Shock 2, as incredibly difficult, incredibly intense, and incredibly unnerving as it is, has strongly reminded me of what I’m missing from games. Explained to me why I bounced off BioShock: Infinite like it was made of space-rubber. I don’t want everything reduced down to a left or right mouse button, binary choices along predictable skill trees. I loved Dishonored, but Dishonored was a piece of piss. I was a GOD in that game, a GOD amongst puny underlings, crushed beneath my might. And that was probably the major thing wrong with it. Games just aren’t difficult enough, are they? Sure, you can turn the “difficulty” up, but that just makes it harder to get stuff done – not actually harder. A difficulty level doesn’t change the philosophy of a game. So no, I confess, SS2 is over a line for me that I once never had. But it’s revealed a pathway I long to be walking down in more games. Just, maybe, not this one?

Except that I just went back and played a bunch more.

In their latest update for Mage's Initiation more information is provided on the state of the development of the game.

First, we’ll show off some eye candy with this new background from JP—the game’s sure going to be imbued with some old school goodness in terms of visuals!

And, some words from him regarding the background art front.

Background Art & Techniques

I've been working through a schedule to get a set number of backgrounds colored and edited weekly, and have a color-coded map that shows me which areas need to be redesigned and edited, as well as new locations that need to be conceptualized. I'm developing a master color palette for each location to streamline the process and most of all keep things consistent.

One of the critiques I heard during the Kickstarter was a concern about some of the background art being too blurry. In the past I was not fond of the pencil tool, as line work often turned out too jagged for my tastes, and I found adjusting the opacity settings for it to be tedious. The latest version of Photoshop (now CS6) in addition to having an incredible selection of texture and angle brushes, also has a much improved pressure sensitivity button for the pencil tool which enables me to sharpen and define the scenery in its native resolution. Many of the backgrounds were colored at a higher resolution and needed to be sized down, creating some discrepancies in the detail levels. I can now revisit other areas of the game with this tool to improve the detail level and create consistency across the entire game.

I'm hard at work on finalizing additional scenery for Mage's, such as the surrounding forest trails of Iginor, originally sketched out by the very talented Jeremy Kitchen. It is with great effort that I make these environments have both the familiar classic flavor reminiscent of the Spielburg Valley in Quest for Glory I VGA, but with a higher resolution, more updated twist. Above is one of the latest forest rooms in Mage's Initiation. I've made the lighting as dynamic as possible, complete with cast shadows. When D'arc will navigate the forest, his level of brightness will change when he moves under a tree and into the light.

Another area of the game I've been finalizing are rooms in the Priestess's Palace. I'm creating room objects for a labyrinth of sorts (no, not an endless, annoying, headache of a maze) where D'arc can now engage in combat with Amun-Cul's minions. To tell any more would spoil the fun!

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to post on the forums. I'm often swamped with art-related tasks, but I'll try to keep up with the postings there. Thanks again for all your support, and I look forward to providing you with future updates.

Now to turn the proverbial mic over to Morgan to discuss changes to the combat engine.

City Interactive sent out a press release to various websites to officially annnouce Lords Of The Fallen. Some of you might already know about the game due to small tidbits given out over the last year.

WARSAW, POLAND - May 16, 2013 - CI Games, a fast-growing international publisher and developer of interactive entertainment, today officially announced Lords of the Fallen, a challenging fantasy action/role-playing game (RPG). Development of the game is being led by Tomasz Gop, former senior producer of the award-winning The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings. Lords of the Fallen is a demanding and strategic third-person action-RPG experience being created for next generation consoles and PC, coming in 2014.

"Our team is building Lords of the Fallen specifically for players who enjoy taking on huge challenges, where the odds are stacked against them," said Tomasz Gop, executive producer, CI Games. "From the very beginning, Lords of the Fallen will intrigue and satisfy players' hunger to explore each corner of a brand new world, freely customize and build their own character and take down some of the most epic enemies ever seen."

Lords of the Fallen is a hardcore action-RPG featuring an advanced combat systems and robust class skill trees. Set in a richly created fantasy world where the Gods have failed mankind, players will take on the role of a human named Harkyn who sets out on a quest to stand against an apparently unstoppable supernatural force. Players travel across a world that is deeply dived by those that follow and others that resist, the Fallen God. Along their journey they will be faced with a series of decisions that will alter both the world and their character thus dramatically impacting the storyline.

Lords of the Fallen will be presented live at the Electronic Entertainment (E3) Expo in Los Angeles, California at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 11-13, 2013.

For more information on Lords of the Fallen please visit: www.cigames.com  or www.facebook.com/LORDSoftheFALLEN

Well it's time for update #18 for the Jagged Alliance: Flashback kickstarter.

Production Plans for JA:F

So a lot of people have been asking what happens when the Kickstarter is successful. Will the game suddenly appear out of nowhere after a month and what does pre-production mean?

I just wanted to take the chance to give you a quick overview of how games are made.

In very! broad terms you have the following phases:

- Idea conception

Where you sit and throw ideas around of what would be cool to do, the overall settings, making some concepts and pulling things apart and reassembling them. You also need some business sense here to spot what you can actually sell and make a living off.

- Pre-production

This is where JA:F is right now.

Here you sit down and produce concept art, write overall story, settle on the major game mechanics as well as produce production plans. Who does what when, how much money is allocated to the story writing, who to hire for level design and so on.

- Production

There is a slide into production then, where more and more people get added to the production team. Artists will start taking the produced concepts and create core art assets (terrains, trees, houses, a few characters), level designers will start blocking out levels with boxes, coders will implement basic core functionality like movement and camera.

So what specifically happens with JA:F after Kickstarter success?

First - the JA:F team will take a week of vacation :-)

Then we will resolve the Humble Bundle pack distribution of the Classic game pack, as well as calculate in detail what the final development budget will be. Kickstarter and Amazon are taking their cuts, we have obligations to especially physical tier pledgers that costs money.

Then we can turn our eyes onto the game itself.

As we’ve said, we are in early pre-production - on purpose! We want to engage with the modders and with the old JA2 crew to make the final designs and talk openly with them (and you) about what we want to do, scope it all into budget constraints and so on.

We plan to run pre-production through summer and into September’ish with a small 2-3 person team. And then gradually move people from Space Hulk production onto Flashback over the fall.

Production will then run until sometime next Summer/Fall 2014, where we can then enter into polish/testing/release to get you the game end of 2014.

Darkwood is a survival horror roguelike game told from a top-down perspective. The three developers are crowdfunding for money on Indiegogo. Give the project a look.

Also if you're unsure what a roguelike is, don't worry many of us are. Suffice it to say it's all about randomly generated levels, and permanent death.

Darkwood is a top-down, oldschool survival horror set in a procedurally generated, open world. It features RPG and roguelike elements, with intense combat and a eerie atmosphere. It's developed by 3 people from Poland, who like to call themselves Acid Wizard Studio, and is currently in pre-alpha stage.

This trailer features basic barricading and energy / generator management at the player's home base.

Follow us at our blog:
http://www.acidwizardstudio.com

OXM has an article about Dark Souls 2. According to PR Director Lee Kirton the publisher has no qualms about marketing the game this time. Namco would like to attract Skyrim players, but previous buyers are still the main focus.

"The good thing this time round is we're investing more in it from a marketing perspective," Kirton told OXM at a preview event in London today. "With Dark Souls and [PS3-exclusive spiritual predecessor] Demon Souls it was very focused, small-scale. We're treating this as a massive, massive triple-A title."

"We're going to go guns-blazing with it, and hope to God that it works," he continued. "We're going after people who love and adore Dark Souls, while hopefully widening the net a little. I'm not saying that every Skyrim player's going to be jumping on Dark Souls, but it would be nice if some of them did. It's a different game, sure."

Discord Games 2D ARPG Chasm has battled its way to Kickstarter success. Their stretch goals are still on the table thanks to pre-orders.

In order to keep project going Discord has opened up a pre-order option which grants goodies depending on your choice of bronze, silver or gold tiers. All this goes toward the same Kickstarter stretch goals and so New Game+ is still within reach.

Check out the Chasm pre-order program to learn more. It's due for PC in May 2014.

Chasm is a 2D Platformer Action-RPG currently in development for Windows, Mac, & Linux. Taking equal inspiration from hack 'n slash dungeon crawlers (procedurally generated dungeons, loot drops, etc) and Metroidvania-style platformers, the game aims to immerse you in its 2D fantasy world full of exciting treasure, deadly enemies, and abundant secrets.

If you read my previous post then you should already know Grim Dawn released an Alpha version to certain backers. Well one lucky gamer called Hiclang has posted two short videos of gameplay footage. Enjoy.

BioWare has released Game Update 2.1: Customization for Star Wars: The Old Republic. The update brings new dye mods, appearance kiosks, and collections. Check out the launch trailer.

Howdy from Austin, Texas! We are thrilled to release Game Update 2.1: Customization today. This update introduces many highly requested and anticipated features to Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. As the name indicates, Game Update 2.1 is all about giving players the freedom to customize their characters to fully immerse themselves in their personal Star Wars™ saga.

What types of customization and convenience options are now available for purchase, you ask? Well, players will be able to change their Character, Legacy, and Guild names with new Cartel Market consumables. And if your character’s look doesn’t quite match their new name, then swing by one of the Appearance Designer Kiosks located on both Fleets and Capital Worlds and adjust almost anything about your character’s image. This includes body type, face, scars, tattoos, hair style, eye, hair, and skin color. You can even change your character’s species! For a completely fresh look, I would suggest trying out our brand new species, the Cathar! Subscribers can expect a permanent discount on these items.

Game Update 2.1 also introduces Dye Modules, which can be purchased as consumables on the Cartel Market, with in-game credits at the Security and Collector’s Edition vendors, as well as through crafting. With our new Dye Mods you’ll be able to recolor almost any piece of gear in The Old Republic. You can mix and match colors on each individual piece of gear, or you can choose to Unify Color for a more classic look.

Kalypso just released a new trailer for DARK. In the new trailer you get a close-up look at several of the vampire powers available to you.

Watch as Eric hypnotises unsuspecting guards to slip past them or deliver a deadly strike. Or, use Regeneration to convert the blood of your enemies to health points! Watch the new video to learn more about these and other stealth-focused powers featured in DARK, which Kalypso Media will release this summer on Xbox 360 and PC

In this latest post funding Kickstarter update for Project Eternity designer Bobby Null talks about the design of the creatures in the game.

One of my responsibilities has been creating the bestiary for Project Eternity. I'll admit, it's been a lot of work, but it's also been a lot fun. Like most of the things we do here at Obsidian, the process has been very collaborative. We have a few high-level goals regarding this process on Project Eternity.

• Creature Variety - The goal is to have a large library of creatures to use for the final game. Thus far, we're on track to meet this goal. The concept artists, modelers and animators have been tearing through the bestiary and delivering quality assets at a rapid pace.

• Recognizable is Good - We don't want to try to reinvent the wheel with every single monster. As we've shown in an earlier update, we feel some classic monsters, like the ogre, are essential to capture the adventuring feel we are aiming for. Moving forward, we are committed to including monsters that we feel fans will appreciate, while giving the beasties flavor appropriate to the world of Project Eternity.

• Different if Cool - We've already shown one of the unique creatures for Project Eternity in an earlier update, the skuldr. We will continue to create other unique, and often times bizarre, creatures to populate our world, but unique doesn't always need to feel bizarre. Different because it's cool is the goal.

So now that I've briefly discussed our high level goals, let's talk about a new creature: The Cean Gúla (KEN GOO-lah, "Blood Woman", Glanfathan), and the pipeline we use to get it through the concept phase.

Crate Entertainment announces on their kickstarter that the Alpha of Grim Dawn will be released tomorrow.

And so it was on the 1385th day of development that a messenger of the Lord appeared to Crate Entertainment and said unto them, “You hath labored well and faithfully and now, at long last, thou shalt releaseth thy Grim Dawn Alpha upon the world, if it is good”. And so then did Crate know that alpha should be released, for the alpha seemed good to the. And thus they issued forth emails to the people of Humble Store and to the people of Valve saying unto them “Lo, I doth beseech you now to make good all preparations in accordance that Grim Dawn Alpha may be released with due haste!”

So yeah, it has been a long time coming but the release of Grim Dawn Alpha is nearly upon us! Let us rejoice in its coming and give thanks to the many supporters, both fans and volunteers, who made this possible. We have labored hard these last few weeks to resolve critical issues so that your first experience in Grim Dawn is not overly marred by bugs and stability issues; though certainly there will still be some less common crashes, various oddities and numerous smaller issues.

Please remember that this is an indie title developed by a tiny start-up studio with a fraction of the developers and funding of major ARPG productions. We are not really trying to compete with the big boys, at least not yet, and our small budget means we do not need to sell a large number of copies for this to be successful. There are some limitations on what we can achieve in terms of features and polish, but we have poured our hearts and years of our lives into creating Grim Dawn and feel that we have created an enjoyable experience for those interested.

I know what you are thinking now: “cut to the chase and give us the release date already”. We expect the Alpha download to go live tomorrow, May 15th. Short notice I know, but we were not screwing around when we said we planned to release it without further delay once we felt it was ready. We debated releasing next Monday to be safe but we know how eager you all are to get your hands on alpha and we are a fly by the seat of our pants kind of studio, so… here we go!

Update number 17 of the Jagged Alliance: Flashback kickstater is now available. Not to much new info this time except more tier changes, and a new addition to the team.

Today we’d like to announce that additional modders have joined the modding team! Modders Stan “sbobovyc” Bobovych and bugmonster.

Stan “sbobovyc” Bobovych, the creator of the modtools for Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. Stan cracked open the code and created tools enabling users to modify Back in Action.

bugmonster from the Russian community, author of the JA2'005 modification for Jagged Alliance 2 who also did some interesting things with 1.13. He will also be one of the first people from the Russian community who’ll be able to confirm that we indeed are not going to discriminate Russians as the evil ones in Flashback ;-)

New Tiers & Tier Changes

We’ve decided to add a new Top Tier and a special unique Tier as well as making a change to the $1200 Tier.

Tier Changes

$1200 Tier will now be:

$1200 So You’re a Bad Guy Tier: For the right price you may just play along, so you get:
All previous rewards + Help co-design an enemy in the game, who can be recruited to your team if persuaded in the right way. (Appearance, Nationality, Gender, Name) (ONLY THIS TIER) Limited (5)

New Special Tiers

$600 Woody Woodpecker Tier: You just can’t enough of all that wood, so you get:
All previous DIGITAL REWARDS + Become a manic woodcutter (Help co-design the woodcutter + co-write 3 responses) Limited (1)

$10000 Oily Business Tier: It’s messy but you’re swimming in black gold, you get:
All previous rewards + Become the Oil Baron of the island (Story NPC) and have your very own small oasis with a deluxe Bedouin Tent, surrounded by oil fields (ONLY THIS TIER) + Have a in-game statue or monument made in your honor and to your likeness + Become an honorary member of the development team and be credited as such with a framed certificate and thank you picture (PHYSICAL) + A very special Thank you in the game credits + 50 extra digital copies of the game. + Top tier forum Badge for the official JAF forum + Gift bag of unique items + Meet and greet, enjoy a day with developers, before the day of the official launch party (which you’re invited to as well (accommodation paid, transport not included)) Limited (1)

On a final note we’ll be making it possible for the ALL DIGITAL $600-$650 Reward Tiers to add the physical add-ons if they please.

A Kickstarter campaign is now live for Shadow of the Eternals in addition to the campaign being run directly on the games website.

It was reported that the game was not using Kickstarter because developer Precursor Games is based in Canada. That has now changed. So just to recap here is what the game is all about:

Darkness Has Returned

When Detective Paul Becker is called to one of the bloodiest gang massacres in Louisiana state history, only two survivors remain from a brutal conflict between two rival cults. As Becker begins his interrogations of the suspects, their combined recollections will uncover the truth about the ‘Eternals’.

Shadow of the Eternals is a psychological horror game made by the creators of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Reqiuem, a spiritual successor to the cult classic. Featuring an ensemble cast of heroes and villains, Shadow of the Eternals will span over 2500 years of history throughout Egypt, England, Hungary, and the United States. Players will question the perception of reality as they try to balance the mechanics of combat, magick, and sanity events to progress through the adventure.

Shadow of the Eternals will take players on a memorable journey throughout time; weaving historical fact with disturbing fiction to create an experience unlike any other

Snowbird Games announces update 1.0.7 is now available for download. As usual Steam will update the game, and you can use the auto update for all non-steam versions.

Patch notes:

• Added a button at the center of the quarter wheel in the city screen. When pressed, it’ll position the camera on general city view.
  

Fixed:

• A bug that caused essential for progressing provinces appear on shards with standard conditions.
• Archmage’s inability to use two spells in his first turn.
• ‘Parry’ and ‘Forced March’ skills weren’t working properly in the first turn.
• Game’s freeze after diplomatic capture of a province.
• Event spam after hiring gargoyles.
• Wrong color of information display when a province is 100% explored.
• ‘Unrest’ icon will no longer be shown on the map if inhabitant’s attitude to player’s reign is positive.
• An exploit involving an exchange between heroes and hiring units in besieged enemy capital’s garrison.
• A bug that allowed learning spells during enemy capital’s siege.
• A bug that allowed learning spells from scrolls if the Library isn’t constructed.
• Health indicator display at 1 HP for dragon and hydra units.
• A bug that allowed summoning creatures from eggs and keeping the eggs at the same time.

GamerEuphoria has a new article discussing morality systems, and how they need to be improved. The article refers to The Witcher 2, Fallout 3, BioShock, Fable, and Mass Effect as examples.

‘Black and white’ decisions are the bane of morality systems. The choices are normally between doing an utterly selfless deed that is absolutely morally correct, or doing something that is straight up 100% evil; there is rarely middle ground. The problem with this is that these decisions then become a little detached from the dramatic effect that most of these games are aiming for.

ShowMeTheGames is hosting it's summer sale, and for the next seven days 32 Indie PC games will be on sale. There are a few RPG's, and other titles in the sale.

The sales on the site are made directly though the websites of the developers so showmethesales.com won't be getting any money from this. All the money goes to the developers so this is a good way to show your support for Indie game companies.

GameSkinny has an article about Grim Dawn called "A Potential Successor to Titan Quest."

Something on the horizon...

The reason I want to bring this to light is because, after the Immortal Throne came out, the publisher (THQ) ceased the series and refused to create another game. Well that was a huge disappointment for anyone who played the game; it meant that the could-have-been epic series would not be completed and there really was no substitute for the amazing, mythology-steeped, dungeon crawler.

However, there is truly light on the horizon as a Kickstarter project titled Grim Dawn was recently funded and several of the old developers of Titan Quest decided to break away from Iron Lore Studios and create the unofficial successor to Titan Quest. The new development firm is called Crate Entertainment and it's headed up by Arthur Bruno, the previous head designer at Iron Lore.

Now despite having been announced nearly three years ago, there isn't a great deal known about Grim Dawn, even as it nears Alpha testing, but looking at the screenshots and listening to the videos available makes a fan like me think that Grim Dawn will be everything we hope it to be. The screens and videos seem to show a wonderfully similar art style with beefed up graphics despite Titan Quest (for its age) having very formidable graphics. Additionally, the creators have kept the true gem of the game that is the unique class customization that was so loved in Titan Quest. And, although the somewhat light and colorful mythological environment seems to be gone, it's been replaced with a darker, more haunting environment that really adds to the game's setting.

I don't know how many people were more or less disappointed by Diablo 3, but I count myself in that crowd for reasons I won't go into. It seemed that the dungeon crawler world I'd been such a fan of was in decline, but now, as Grim Dawn nears its completion, I can rest easy knowing that all is not lost, and perhaps the best is yet to come. Please go and check out their website. It may be a little bare-boned, but at the end of the day, the game is really what matters.

GOG has released a classic RPG called Anvil of Dawn. The game is avaiable for $5.99.

What's cool about it:

• A tough, but accessible to newer players, classic RPG with a vast world to explore!
• Features a "learn by doing" skill system without the need to collect and grind for experience points.
• Customize your character as you see fit as there are plenty of character stats to fine-tune to your liking.

Overview:

The world of Tempest is in need of a champion! You have been summoned to embark on a noble journey to save all of humanity from an evil fate. You must keep your wits about you, your sword must stay sharp and ready, and your spells charged as you forge through Tempest's massive landscape. Descend into the maws of many a dark and and dangerous dungeon in search of your quest's end.

You'll have at your disposal more than 25 spells and items of great power, each drawing upon one of the elemental forces such as earth, wind, fire, and lightning. Whether you prefer a more tactical approach or attack all-swords-swinging, Anvil of Dawn features a hybrid of real-time and turn-based combat to satisfy your needs. Remember, your choices and actions affect the ebb and flow of combat so think, and act, wisely. Are you prepared to pay the ultimate price, to steal away the gift of a dark god, and journey to the Anvil of Dawn.

Forbes has a new opinion article on the topic of Mass Effect prequels.

I’m going to go ahead and declare the Mass Effect trilogy done for good now that the Citadel DLC arrived and finally gave (almost) everyone the ending they wanted for the series. But it’s a big universe, and just because Shepard’s arc is over, that doesn’t mean the universe will dissipate. Rather, it’s likely only just getting started.

Going backwards is cheating. It’s the easy way out when you don’t want to innovate and move your story forward in any meaningful way. You already have the ending written, and have probably established some of the pieces along the way. Making a prequel, you simply have to fill in the blanks, and people fail to realize that sometimes it’s a lot more interesting to leave blanks blank. Just ask Boba Fett.

I like some of these ideas. I think Mass Effect 4 starring Liara or Garrus (or both!) would be a pretty cool  idea, though honestly I’d love an entirely new series where you once again got to create your own character. Maybe you could even choose your alien race this time?

Perhaps such a game will exist at some point, but until it does, I do imagine we’ll see at least a handful of Mass Effect spin-off prequel titles like the ones mentioned. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they could be great, but I think like so many other series Mass Effect would be better moving forward than looking backward.

Guido Henkel has written a new blog post, which this time is about items and weapons in Deathfire.

For the past few days I’ve been working on some exciting things in Deathfire, that have propelled the game forward quite a bit in my mind. Items. Sounds trivial, I know, but items are the salt and pepper of any role-playing game.

It started when I decided to make a weapons list for the game. We have been working on parts of the user interface for the past two weeks or so, and it got to the point that I wanted to see some weapon icons in the respective slots. In order for Marian to begin drawing some icons, we began making a weapons list. It started out quite innocuously, but once I got into it, the list grew very rapidly, and at the end of the day we had a list of over 150 weapons for the game. And that is just the first go at it, not including any quest items and not including any unique, named weapons, which we plan to feature prominently in the game.

Adding all those will easily double the number of weapons in Deathfire, and I have no doubt that on top of that I probably forgot a good number of cool weapons that we will want to include in the game as we go along. All things said, in the end, I would estimate that we will have somewhere between 300 and 400 weapons. Just to give you a comparison, Shadows over Riva, the third of the Realms of Arkania games had less that 100 weapons. In fact, looking over the game’s source code showed me that the entire game contained a mere 480 items. So, in essence, it looks as if we will have nearly as many weapons as Shadows over Riva had items. Nice!

Last week RPGFan did a hands-on preview of Underrail based on the available alpha build and were positively impressed with the state it is in.

"They don't make 'em like they used to." We hear it all the time, but when it comes to video games, I say nonsense to the old adage. Maybe the triple A companies don't make 'em like they used to, but there are so many independent game designers out there now catering to an old school audience that these days; they definitely DO make 'em like they used to. So much so that the way they "used to" could just become the way they are making 'em.

Unlike a lot of previews you'll read on RPGFan, we did not have any kind of exclusive access to the game. Anybody can go online right now and purchase the alpha of Underrail, which includes a copy of the beta, the full game, and future updates. In playing the game itself, I initially found it quite challenging compared to more contemporary games, getting smoked by the first pair of rats I came across. This was entirely due to carelessness on my part, but I asked Dejan what he thought of the difficulty of the alpha.

"In my opinion, the game is only hard if you're careless or just very unlucky. But obviously I'm not qualified to measure the difficulty, since I know the game mechanics inside out."

Consider me appropriately chided. But I agree with this assessment — the more I realized the encounters require planning and caution, the less trouble I had staying alive. This game is difficult in the best possible meaning of the word. That said, I wonder if gamers who are unfamiliar with that style of gaming will have trouble with this. Dejan was ambivalent on that point in a compelling way, speaking to his game design philosophy.

In the recent days four updates were added to the Indiegogo campaign for Ghost of a Tale, which just requires a little of 10 KEuro more to reach its goal of 45 KEuro in the next 7 days. The updates are about the steps that are required to create a crab from scratch.

For those of you interested in the more technical aspects of the game’s development I thought I would present the method I used to create the crab model. As a side note, I’ll have to spread that presentation over several updates, as Indiegogo only allows for one picture per update.

Before starting to work on the model, I always surround myself with visual references (photographs, paintings) and make mental notes of aspects I will emphasize in order to end up with a model that’ll be interesting enough.

It all starts with a simple cube (within Maya), followed by other cubes to roughly represent all the body parts and get a feel for the overall volume of the limbs. As you can see, it’s all very blocky and I do not worry about details at this stage. It’s best to check that everything looks as expected now (in terms of overall morphology), as it will become more difficult to change things further down the line.

Then I start to work on the body parts in Zbrush (bottom picture), simply refining the broad shapes. Again, not caring too much about details yet; just roughing in the main volumes. Note that at this stage I already know I’ll have to open the arms of the creature so I can get a better look while sculpting. But starting with the arms folded ensured that the crab would eventually be able to get into that pose later on.

 

And the result is this:

Gamebanshee posted a five page review for Eador: Master of the Broken World.

If you are in any way a fan of strategy-RPG games, ranging from Heroes of Might & Magic to Age of Wonders, or even if you enjoy turn-based strategy games such as Civilization, then I think Eador: Masters of the Broken World is just about the perfect game for you. While it is slower-paced than some of these games, and the initial difficulty level is fairly high, the amount of depth all aspects of the game makes it a contender for one of the most interesting and fun strategy games or RPGs that I have played. The game's creator originally made Eador: Genesis as a love letter to his favorite games, and he really did succeed at making a game that combines some of the best aspects of all of them together.

However, the fact of the matter is that the game is still very buggy. It's getting better with every patch the developers release, and I have a feeling in a few months I'll be able to wholeheartedly recommend the game - but as of now, you'll have to make a decision as to whether it is worth putting up with some major bugs and glitches, some of them literally game-breaking, in order to have fun. At only $20 USD, Eador: MotBW is very affordable, and that might be the tipping point for you - but it's also worth considering that the original Eador: Genesis is nearly the same game, lacking only a few additions, balance tweaks, and of course, the updated graphics. It simply might be the better buy for you if you don't mind searching the Internet for fixes on how to get it running smoothly on your new quad-core system.

At the end of the day, Eador: Masters of the Broken World stands as a strong and highly enjoyable strategy-RPG which can easily go toe-to-toe with the best in the genre, provided you are not opposed to spending a large number of hours getting familiar with the game. With lots of replay value, an extensive campaign with multiple endings, and some very well balanced and challenging combat and strategy, Eador is the best of many worlds. It's just a shame it released in the state it did, and I can only recommend the game right now for those who have faith the bugs will be squashed in the coming months, or those who simply don't mind putting up with them.