Author: Admin

Indie Developer Karabas Studio Lies About Awards


Another day, another indie developer accused of engaging in some shady practices. Today the topic is Karabas Studio, developer of the upcoming The Sorceress on Steam, or currently existing Fabulous Journey on Itch.io.

Looking at the game’s screenshots, it seems to be a pretty run of the mill Unity engine RPG, nothing spectacular or particularly special about it. You may notice, hovering over the game’s store page, that this title is the recipient of several awards. A lot of awards, like a whole show of awards. Best atmosphere, best graphics, best action, and the Indie World Award, all from one year. Last year, even, plus a Dev Gamm award with ‘Moscow 2017’ written on it. Pretty impressive considering The Sorceress wouldn’t have been groundbreaking or noteworthy on any of those fronts even ten years ago, but maybe the competition at the Indie World Awards was just really that poor last year?

As it turns out, no, but that’s not the point. A skeptical mind might head on over to Indie World 2016 website to check the awards and find that The Sorceress didn’t win. Anything. At all. Possibly because Karabas wasn’t even in the list of participants. The whole list of awards is fake. Just to make sure there wasn’t some crazy mixup with the translation, I tracked down each game via the website’s list of participants. You can even head on over to Russian Facebook, also known as VK, to see the awards being handed out in action.

But don’t take my word for it, check out the real winners of the awards:

As for Dev Gamm 2017, I’ll assume that the logo is just noting that the game will have some kind of presence, as Dev Gamm 2017 in Moscow hasn’t happened yet and thus no awards have been handed out. Certainly we haven’t hit a point where a developer would stoop so low as to claim awards from shows that haven’t happened yet. The next step may come as a surprise to those of you who have seen how shady indie developers operate, but upon questioning the award listing I was promptly banned by the game’s developer.

Incredibly, the award listing has seemingly been pulled down since my ban. Through the power of internet archiving, however, you can see the page here with its awards on full display. The Sorceress releases February 1st.

Neverwinter’s River District Offers Daily Advancement


Perfect World Entertainment has released a new developer blog discussing the River District, and a new threat from a group of wizards hell bent on taking over Neverwinter (who isn’t these days?). The goal of the River District is simple: Stop the wizards from taking control and reclaim the district for Lord Neverember. The campaign revolves around clearing enemies, assisting with efforts to rebuild guard posts and maintain security, and defending against counter-attacks from the wizards and their minions.

The goal, however, is to provide a campaign that has more content than the simple rotation of daily quests that players are used to.

The dynamic nature of the zone means more choice when it comes to completing dailies for the campaign. Rather than having several rotating quests that must be completed each day, the bulk of your daily credit simply comes from playing in the zone. You can play the territory control game with the guard posts, activate and explore treasure vaults at the dig sites, participate in heroic encounters to stop wizard rituals and counterattacks, or just defeat enemies throughout the district. Any and all of these things grant credit toward daily campaign progress.

For more information, check out the developer blog at the link below.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Jagex Appoints New COO:


Jagex has announced that Phil Mansell will be taking over as Chief Operating Officer as well as acting Chief Executive Officer, following the departure of Rod Cousens. Rod Cousens took over the position of CEO in April 2015, taking over for Mark Gerhard.

Mansell’s reign comes just in time for RuneScape to begin its expansion releases, starting in June with the release of Menaphos.

“Driven by a passion for creativity, our teams are focussed on what really matters for the core business – supporting our live titles and their huge communities and leading the creation of new games for multiple devices,” said Phil Mansell, COO, Jagex. “Off the back of record financial performance, Jagex is in an incredibly fortunate and positive position. We have become stronger with every year that passes and now that we are united with our parent company, ZhongJi Holding, it is both an honour and a privilege to be take Jagex to its next stage.”

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

Pre-Order FFXIV: Stormblood Today


Final Fantasy XIV’s next expansion is nearly among us, so long as you don’t count June 20th as too far in the future, but you can make that time go by faster by pre-ordering your copy on PC or Playstation 4. In fact, pre-ordering will make it come faster, since Square Enix is offering a few days of early access as an incentive. Also coming with your pre-order is a pair of earrings and a wind-up red mage minion.

For $200, the collector’s edition will grace you with a rather hefty Zenos yae Galvus Figure, a cloth map of Eorzea, Stormblood art book, and three in-game items. It’s worth mentioning that all of the items in the collector’s edition are real, physical goods (except for the in-game items). You can check out the figurine at the Square Enix store. The store does note that for the PC version, Steam users must purchase the expansion through Steam, otherwise it will not work on their account. There is no Playstation 3 version as that version is sunsetting.

Leslie Benzies Announces New Game Studio


Leslie Benzies, former Rockstar North President, has announced development on a next generation game utilizing Amazon’s Lumberyard, based on the CryEngine and integrated with Amazon’s web services, including Gamelift and Twitch. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland and Los Angeles, the group is in the process of building new game design and development studios.

“I am proud to have been part of past advancements in gaming,” says Benzies, “but I am even more excited about what we have in store for the future. The working title of this new game is EVERYWHERE” and the vision is long term, with the capacity to develop and grow forever. Our goal is to create a platform where players can be entertained, and also entertain others while blurring the lines between reality, and a simulated world.”

Everywhere has an official website up at the following link. More information sure to follow about upcoming projects.

Conan Exiles Readies For Early Access PC Launch


Conan Exiles hits early access in just a week, January 31st for those of you keeping track on your calendars or late night on the 30th for those of you west coast gamers, and Funcom has pushed out a press release today detailing the when, the where, and the how. The time is 6 in the morning GMT, which means those of you in California will be able to get your hands on it at 9 the previous night before you go to bed. You’ll be able to pick up early access via the Conan Exiles early access by heading over to the game’s Steam store page.

“One of the really great things about working with Conan the Barbarian is that there is this huge pop cultural universe surrounding him,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “Being able to team up with Dark Horse Comics, Modiphius, and other Conan creators has allowed us to build a special edition that speaks to both fans and those discovering Conan for the first time.”

Now for the goodies: The Barbarian edition of the game costs $60 (standard full release title) and includes digital Conan comic books, an exclusive digital Conan Exiles comic book, the “Coming of Conan” digital ebook, two digital soundtracks, a distinctly non-digital t-shirt, items in Age of Conan, and much more. The standard edition hits for $29.99.

Alternately, window shoppers and prospective buyers can check out the cinematic trailer below. Conan Exiles is coming to Xbox One early access this Spring.

(Source: Steam)

Star Trek Online: Agents of Yesterday Hits Consoles February 14


Star Trek Online’s third expansion hits Xbox One and Playstation 4 next month, letting young couples show their love…for the original Star Trek series. Agents of Yesterday takes console gamers and tasks them with saving the future, by saving the past. The update includes new story missions as well as content from the Artifacts update.

Agents of Yesterday recruits Star Trek Online captains to become temporal agents and save the future by protecting the past. Players will create a captain from Star Trek: The Original Series and fly one of several 23rd Century ships, including the classic Enterprise, Constitution-class starship. As they play through each new episode, they will interact with iconic characters voiced by beloved Star Trek actors, including Chekov (Walter Koenig), Scotty (Chris Doohan, son of James Doohan), Temporal Agent Daniels (Matt Winston), Admiral Leeta (Chase Masterson) and cyborg crewman 0718 (Joseph Gatt).

Also on its way is a new specialization tree, new task force missions, and more.

(Source: Perfect World Press Release)

[NM] SWAT 4 Breaks Long Silence, Shows Up On GOG.COM


SWAT 4 is one of the greatest tactical first person shooters surrounding swat team action, as well as being one of the only tactical first person shooters where you play on a SWAT team, but that’s not important. What is important is that fans of the game have been unable to legitimately get their hands on the title for years, ever since Direct2Drive initially shut down, the game hasn’t been available digitally and the cost of buying said game on disk has skyrocketed.

But all that has changed, as you can now get your hands on the Gold Edition for $10, or $12.49 if you buy it with SWAT 3. Take on the role as the head of a SWAT team as you negotiate hostage crisis, deal with armed/unarmed bad guys with as few shots fired as possible, and more than anything prevent civilian casualties.

[NM] 100% Completion: Tattletail


Tattletail came out on Steam on December 28 and pretty much flew under the radar until a bunch of Youtubers discovered it and made it somewhat a success (I’m sure it more than paid its development costs and probably put a decent amount of pocket money in the developer’s…pockets). Looking at the Steam stats, it actually still turned out to be a low key title with somewhere between six and twelve thousand owners, which is a disappointment because this game is much more engaging and suspenseful than Five Nights at Freddy’s ever was. Me, personally, I threw my $5 down on launch night.

This is a game with a basic premise: You are a child who opens his Christmas present five days early to find that it is a Tattletail (think creepier Furby) and you have to survive each night until Christmas. Each night progressively introduces you to more mechanics, your Tattletail needs to be brushed, fed, and charged regularly otherwise he will not stop chattering. You have a flashlight which also much be shaken regularly otherwise the room gets dark (obviously), and by sprinting you create noise. The noise mechanic is important because in order to avoid the Mama Tattletail who is out to kill you, you’ll need to keep Tattletail satisfied and your flashlight charged. You actually don’t see any real action until about night 4.

I recommend playing through this game, you’ll get a few hours out of it for a fiver and it isn’t as bad as the screenshots might make you believe. Tattletail has resources that need to be filled, but they go down so slowly that it never becomes obnoxious, and even when he does start screaming about food, the game is basically lenient enough that you can walk from one end of the house to the other and still not have to worry about Mama attacking. The tension in the game comes from the feeling of losing control, as you move around the house, avoiding Mama’s red glowing eyes, while trying to keep your flashlight on and shushing Tattletail. The game punishes you for reflexes, the moment your flashlight goes out your instinct is to hit the mouse button and charge it, causing instant death.

The game isn’t perfect, there are a few instances where you’ll be in Mama’s sights without being able to see her on screen, resulting in an instant death because you thought it was safe to charge your flashlight. There are numerous ways to cheese the game, but you should at least finish the game once before you ruin the experience, spots you can seek out where Mama doesn’t have a spawn point watching over, or when you figure out that your flashlight is only necessary while holding Tattletail (because he’s afraid of the dark) and not charging it doesn’t penalize the player while walking alone in the dark while charging it could potentially kill you.

While I hope that the developer behind this game continues to make games, I hope to never see a Tattletail 2 without at least good reason. What little story is there leaves just enough questions to the player’s imagination, and I’d hate to see sequels for the sake of sequels.

Check it out on Steam.

DC Universe: Buy Your Legendary Set, Get The Rest 50% Off


So you’ve finally hit the maximum level and grinded your read end off to get that fancy legendary gear you need so your character can best even the most deadly of adversaries. Now what? You could start up another character but do you really want to go through that arduous process of grinding gear again? And then what, do it a third time?

Luckily, DC Universe has the right idea. The folks at Daybreak Game Company are taking notice of player’s frustrations with the recent launch of Amazon Fury Part III, noting that while the costs of end game gear are pretty high, and appropriately so given their power, the system isn’t all that nice to those in the community that really want more than one set, or have a bunch of alt characters.

We have created the capability to reduce the cost of vendor gear based on feats you have completed, and we are planning to implement this in our next Game Update with gear from Amazon Fury Part III. Using this system, this essentially means that gear vendor costs will be reduced after the first set of gear has been completed.

Upon completing the set, your character will receive a feat and prices for the vendor will drop by half.

(Source: DC Universe)