Early Access Preview: RimWorld

January 30, 2017 Nick Vigdahl 3

PC/Mac • RimWorld is a colony building and survival simulation game that has everything you’d expect from the genre. You’ll act as the architect for a new colony and guide its residents to ever greater levels of survivability, self-sufficiency, and success. This includes zoning the settlement area for residential buildings, farming, and storage as well as identifying what structures should be built, how electricity should be generated, and what tools of production, furniture, and artwork should be used. There’s also the usual research function to build out a technology tree and open up new options. What’s cool about RimWorld is not that it hits these hallmarks of base-building and survival games. It certainly does. It’s not that it does it really well or better than most—though this is also true. What really makes RimWorld so good–I had to force myself to stop playing–are two things: a true open-world style and a relatively unique story-infused narrative.

Obsidian announces Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

January 27, 2017 David Neumann 0

If you’re like me you have a stack of games that you’ve purchased and have yet to play, both tabletop and on your PC. Time, family, and a debilitating drug habit always seem to get in the way. Poor me! One of these Isle of Misfit Toys wannabes is Pillars of Eternity from Obsidian. Released back in 2015, I purchased it on day one and it has sat in my GoG library ever since with the knowledge that, when I have time and/or quit heroin, I have a really great RPG waiting for me. This week Obsidian kind of kicked me in the ribs and told me to hurry up because Pillars of Eternity 2 is on the way.

1775: Rebellion heading south

January 25, 2017 David Neumann 0

HexWar released 1775: Rebellion last year to much fanfare, only to have the initial release be received less than warmly. Since Matt’s review, the game has undergone several updates fixing many of the issues brought up in the review. They’re not done, either. They’re planning another major update that will not only fix bugs and improve the app, it will also introduce a brand new scenario created by the game’s original designers.

More Commands & Colors coming in 2017 from HexWar and Lordz

January 25, 2017 David Neumann 2

Last week saw Richard Borg’s latest Commands & Colors title, The Great War, make its way to Steam for PC/Mac. We had rumors from GMT Games that more Commands & Colors titles, specifically Ancients and Napoleonics, were on the way but had little evidence to back up those claims. That ended yesterday when GMT released their January update. Not only are both Ancients and Napoleonics on the way, both of them should be in our hands by the end of 2017.

New mini-boss incoming to Solitairica, bigger plans down the road

January 24, 2017 David Neumann 1

One of 2016’s better mobile titles was a little card battler from Righteous Hammer called Solitairica. Following in Card Crawl’s footsteps, it was a quick-playing, fast solitaire card game whose true genius was less in the game’s mechanisms and more in all the extra doodads you can unlock the better you play. Solitairica sported several different classes and special powers to unlock so, even if you failed to make it all the way to Castle Stuck, there were rewards right around the corner. The problem is, eventually, you ended up with all the doodads in your pocket with nothing left to quest for. Lucky for us, it looks like Righteous Hammer has big plans for 2017 and making Solitairica something to come back to.

Early Access Preview: Factorio

January 23, 2017 Nick Vigdahl 2

You’ve crash landed on a strange planet and need a plan to survive. There’s a couple different ways you can go. There’s the Mark Watney way—eking out an existence thanks to potatoes fertilized by your own feces. Alternatively, you could build a massive, sprawling, and fully interconnected factory complex using your off-the-charts engineering know how. Which do you choose?

Commands and Colors title, The Great War, comes to PC/Mac

January 19, 2017 David Neumann 0

Another Commands & Colors game from the mind of noted designer Richard Borg has made its way to digital. No, it’s not Memoir ’44 or Command & Colors: Ancients, instead it’s his latest entry into the series, The Great War. It was released earlier today for PC/Mac with tablets coming down the road.

Sci-fi tropes up for grabs in upcoming Galaxy of Pen and Paper

January 19, 2017 David Neumann 1

One of the things they don’t tell you before becoming a parent is that your kids will test the limits of your sanity. I’m not talking the sleepless nights, or worrying about them when they’re sick. I’m talking about the phase they all seem to enter around 3-4 years old called the Knock-Knock Joke Phase. “Prepare thyself for constant hilary, ma & pa!” is something that you’ll never, ever hear. In fact, I did some research and discovered that the words “knock knock” actually come from Latin and refer to a rather unfortunate form of ritual suicide. Your dinner table will be beset with knock knock jokes that, worst of all, don’t even make sense. Not one usable pun will be uttered from the back seat of your minivan following the words “who’s there?” With my youngest, I spent an entire year asking “Who’s there?” only to be answered with “baby butt”, which isn’t as funny as a 3 year-old thinks it is. Well, it’s kind of funny, but not the 4,378th time you’ve heard it.

Preview: Wartile

January 17, 2017 Nick Vigdahl 3

Wartile is an upcoming real-time strategy game that is styled like a tabletop miniature war game. [And looks a hell of a lot like Heroscape. That’s not a bad thing. -ed.] The game is currently in alpha-testing with a planned Windows release sometime in Q1 (and later releases for Mac and tablets) and I recently had a chance to give the whole thing a whirl.

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