Introversion have posted their first in-game video of Multiwinia, the multiplayer-focused sequel to the rather excellent Darwinia. My verdict? I’m well impressed.

This is the RTS I’ve been dying to play for years. Hell, this is the RTS I’ve been dying to make for years. Judging by the five minute video, I’d describe Multiwinia as “the love-child of Command & Conquer and Quake III Arena.” Similar to it’s predecessor, Multiwinia seem more like a fast-paced action game with strategy elements bolted on as opposed to the other way around. This, I wholeheartedly approve of.

Apart from Darwinia, I haven’t enjoyed an RTS in a long time. Shogun: Total War was the last one that managed to be tactically complex without being overwhelming. After that the genre spiralled into an overcomplicated mess, where you were either a hardcore fan who relished the ever-increasing complexities of the genre, or you weren’t and just stopped enjoying RTS games. I, like a lot of people, fell into the latter group.

Introversion are picking up from where “real” developers lost the plot. They are creating a game which will (hopefully) be complex enough to allow for a wealth of different tactics, but without throwing a ridiculous amount of information at the player. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!

Don’t you love surprises? I was flipping through Futureshop’s flyer early last week, looking for bargain games and drooling over televisions that I can’t really afford, when a quick glance at the latest music releases produced “Chemical Brothers – We Are The Night”. After a quick double-take I proceeded to flip out. A new album by one of my favourite bands, and all I had to do was wait a couple of days? I thought it was too good to be true.

It was. The album is a bit disappointing. Why?

(read on…)

I can’t think of a better way to get this brand new blog rolling than by using some old, recycled material! I wrote this postmortem in December, soon after putting the final touches on Smiley and his Shooty Adventure for the Nintendo DS. I figured it would be worth re-working the whole thing and posting here.

When I started writing Smiley, I had three clear objectives:

The first, and the reason this project even started, was to write a game for the Nintendo DS. A friend at work bought a supercard, a magical homebrew enabling device, for his DS. I’ve always loved coding for embedded devices, and this was the perfect excuse to write something for the DS!

The second was to write a shoot-em-up. This one was a long time coming. Ever since I was re-introduced to this wonderful genre through GridRunner++ and DUO I knew I had to write some sort of shmup, but the opportunity never presented itself.

The third, and perhaps the most important objective, was to throw alot of fancy FX across the screen.

(read on…)