Over the years I’ve noticed a direct link between getting older and having less time to spend playing video games, I will never accept its because I am getting older but instead because I have more responsibility and more important things to do in life!
In reality I try to fit in time playing games in the precious spare minutes I get, but this limits me to short, straight to the point games. The past few years have been fantastic for a real explosion of talented game developers building games initially out of their bedrooms (and then later from their own, gold plated studios) which are just great fun to sit down and play.
One example of this is Dwarf Fortress, although not a new title, it highlights what can be done when you have a vision and passion to bring it to life. Minecraft is another, more recent, example of quality game development in the indie game scene.
While those are both games from the past, what is there in the future? Well I’ve gathered up a few up and coming games which I think look fantastic and should hopefully make an impact when they land.
FTL: Faster than light – http://www.ftlgame.com/
This is roguelike game, if you aren’t familiar with the style its a one-shot game format. You start with something, you build up your resource or character and dead is dead, no returning to the last checkpoint.
So how many times have you dreamt of commanding your own spaceship? Firing off orders, re-routing power, creating tactics for epic space battles etc. FTL is planning to bring all of that to life in a randomly generated universe. The premise is that you command a ship with numerous different systems that can all take damage and consume power. You can travel around the ship to effect repairs and keep the ship in order whilst you travel around the galaxy completing missions and dealing with random encounters. Have a look at the trailer they’ve posted on their site and there is a great PC Gamer hands-on preview which really gives you a decent idea of what to expect.
Castle Story – http://www.sauropodstudio.com/
Played Minecraft before? Right, now zoom out a little bit, imagine a Populous style game world below with numerous tribesmen to do your bidding. Replace the tribesmen with “Bricktrons” and then imagine each of them mining rock and other resources out of the ground and then building epic castles from the mined resources. At night the monsters will come so there is an element of survival too. Have a watch of the first game play to get a better idea of how its going to play it. If they get the balance right and give you enough to do then it could be pretty good fun.
Prison Architect – http://www.introversion.co.uk/prisonarchitect/
Remember Introversion? The Introversion of Darwinia and Uplink fame? Well they might not have been about for a bit but they’ve been busy. Their next title is a back to basics top down god style game. Again its simple in its design, create a prison, maintain the prison, look after the inmates etc. Although the graphics don’t look amazing I do remember the great fun to be had in the first ever Grand Theft Auto, which was entirely top down 2D graphics. If it works out I can see this being fantastic fun to play, we’ll have to wait and see the result.
