Here’s a piece of look & feel concept art for our new setting. We’ll show how it translates into Shadowrun’s isometric gameplay view when our Kickstarter launches in January!

Stay tuned for more details about Shadowrun Hong Kong as they become available. Be sure to keep an eye on the Shadowrun Kickstarter page for further updates as well.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with Prismata recently. Since we’re dealing with a game still in an early playable alpha stage, I was cautiously optimistic that Prismata was playable enough for me to enjoy myself and get a good feeling for the game. I’m very happy to report that Prismata is not only playable, but also a lot of fun.

Since learning new card games in general can be pretty difficult, I was pleased to see that Prismata’s alpha already has a robust series of tutorials that get new players up to speed. I’d like to think of myself as more of an experience-based learner, so after skipping around through 3 of the deeper tutorial missions, I opted to just start diving into real games versus the AI and living opponents. Regardless of how you learn, or at what pace, Prismata’s early learning curve isn’t as harsh as one might expect. This is especially true for players with prior card or strategy game experience.

Players that have some experience with Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering will find some similarities in Prismata, though I suspect they’ll find just as many things that set this game far apart from the competition. Most notably, deck building is entirely removed. In its place, players have access to a standard deck of cards, along with a randomized assortment that will differ from game to game. Each player has access to the same standard and randomized cards during a match, thus doing away with situations like one player owning considerably more powerful cards than their opponent. By removing the emphasis on building overpowered decks, Lunarch Studios has put a real focus on adaptive strategy. Choosing the right strategy is largely dependant on observing what your opponent plays, and making strategic choices based upon that information.

The combat and economy aspects of Prismata play much more like a RTS game, but in more of a turn-based sense. Each turn, players go through a more streamlined set of phases compared to something like Magic: The Gathering. Players harvest gold from drone units, which they may then use to build new units with various abilities. Depending on the strategy a player chooses, new units may generate other resources or act as combatants during the attack or defend phases.

While both players will be using gold as their primary resource, they’ll also have access to 4 additional resources by which to build new units. Despite having access to the same cards, it’s possible for players to focus their resource generation differently than their opponent. Because the matches are so situationaly adaptive, players will need to keep a close watch on what resources their opponent is pushing towards, as that could be a good indication of the cards they are aiming to play later in the match.

Combat through both turns is played at a significantly quicker pace than traditional card game fans might be accustomed. While that may sound a bit offputting to some, I encourage you to try the Prismata Offline Demo out for yourself before casting judgement. Combat is fast, fluid, and still remains engaging. Quite frankly, this turn-based RTS-style card game makes a lot of sense once you’ve got a few games under your belt.

As a Magic: The Gathering player since back in the Ice Age days, and an avid RTS fan that got my start with games such as Warcraft 2 and Command & Conquer, I came into this hoping that my prior experience with both genres might give me a leg up on the competition. Learning to play Prismata went pretty quickly for me, although I suspect I’ve got quite a bit more to learn when it comes to many of the advanced strategies in the game. Thankfully, Prismata is similar enough to appeal to fans of either genre, while still being unique enough to require players invest some time to really learn the intricacies of the game.

Even for a Magic: The Gathering veteran of nearly 20 years, Prismata impressed me a lot more than I thought it would. Instead of waiting for what can feel like minutes for a slow player to complete a turn, players move through the phases at a much livelier pace. It’s a wonder why more developers haven’t made an attempt at quickening the experience of traditional card games, as it really makes the overall game more accessible to players that prefer action-oriented gameplay. With such an enjoyable experience in its alpha phase, I can only hope that Prismata continues down this design path during development. Newcomers to the card game genre might just really enjoy what Prismata brings to the table.

On top of the stretch goals on Kickstarter, the team at Ice-Pick Lodge is also inviting fans to vote for them for eventual inclusion on Steam. Readers can give Pathologic their approval at their Steam Greenlight campaign page

There’s still a few days left to push Pathologic through their stretch goals, help fund Pathologic at Kickstarter.com

We had some time to sit down with an early build of Gryphon Knight Epic earlier this week, even at this stage of development, the game shows a lot of promise. Players take up the role of Sir Oliver, a knight armed with a crossbow who rides atop a mythical beast. Additional playable characters are planned as Kickstarter stretch goals or DLC later on, but at currently players are stuck with good ol’ Sir Oliver and his giant bird.

Gryphon Knight Epic feels like a mixture of R-Type and MegaMan in a medieval setting. Despite being in 2D, Gryphon Knight Epic doesn’t feel constrained by its environment. Players will need to utilize every inch of available screen space, as the danger comes from literally all directions. I constantly found myself moving around to avoid attacks, sometimes even needing to reverse directions to take out a particularly nasty enemy. Rather than simply moving forward, I eventually made it far enough in the level to then have to dig down underground and begin fighting enemies from underneath. After a bit more fighting, I managed to emerge out the other side of a mountain and into the reach of a boss fight in the form of a particularly mean treant.

It’s this sense of controlled exploration that I found to be particularly enjoyable. The environment and my direction of progress kept me guessing, which is everything you’d want in this type of game. Mean fish would jump from the water, spiders hung from trees, and giant plants would emerge from the ground in hopes of enjoying a quick bite to eat.  Carefully executing attacks and movements was crucial to my survival. For example, I couldn’t just go straight at the giant plant and score an easy kill. Dispatching of this particular enemy required that I time my attacks to be able to land a shot, otherwise the plant would shrivel up and evade me. In another area, dinosaur-like creatures would throw spears at me while hiding behind cover. This left me the choice of either destroying their cover first, or flying over them and reversing direction to land shots from behind. The flying aspect isn’t just a gimmick, it actually ties very nicely into the overall environment.

As players progress through the game, they’ll acquire upgrades in the form of new weapons, squires that fly along with you, and artifacts that grant new abilities such as dash. Defeating a boss actually gives you access to their particular weapon, a feature many players will fondly recall from the MegaMan series. Taking one look at the various boss encounters below, players will likely have a selection of powerful and interesting weapons.

At the end of the day, this isn’t just a completely linear old-fashioned game. Instead, Gryphon Knight Epic mixes a whimsical medieval setting with concepts both new and old. The result is a game that was challenging and enjoyable for all ages.

If you’d like to support Gryphon Knight Epic’s Kickstarter campaign, there’s still a bit of time left to do so. If you happen to miss out on that, you can always thumbs-up their Steam Greenlight campaign. The game’s release date has not yet been announced, but you can keep up with the latest developments at http://www.cyberrhinostudios.com/.

Even without the indie gaming connection, the story itself is quite interesting. Maksym (aka Maxim or Maksim) and his brother Dennis (aka Denis or Denys) “rented” the Palm Springs condo and stopped paying the bill after establishing their 30 day residency requirement under California law. The homeowner is now left with a squatter that refuses to leave, in addition to thousands of dollars in legal fees that she’ll need to pay to file the paperwork needed to evict him sometime in the next 6 months. To add just a bit more insult to the whole situation, the brothers are said to be generating 4x the normal power costs due to their habit of leaving the doors and windows open all day while running the A/C. So much for at least being polite squatters.

The story doesn’t end there though. Thanks to the collective effort of the internet’s best detectives, we now know a lot more about Maksym and his brother. It seems that the Pashanin brothers are the “owners” of indie game developer Kilobite Inc, and they’ve already successfully generated just under $40,000 in Kickstarter funds for their first game, Confederate Express, on top of whatever they’ve pulled in from pre-orders on their website. In addition, as the AirBNB story was breaking, Kilobite was also running a Kickstarter campaign for a second game, Knuckle Club, despite failing to deliver Confederate Express to buyers.

That’s not all though. After the owner threatened to shut off power to the home, Maksym threatened legal action due to the fact that they were actively using the home for game development and claimed to be making between $1,000 – $7,000 in daily sales. Things came to a dramatic head this week after Maksym took to his own Kickstarter page to comment on the situation. His comment “10/10, would squat again” seemingly generated a number of complaints from the Kickstarter community, which possibly drove Kickstarter to take action on his page today.

Kilobite has yet to release another statement on the situation, it’s possible they may not though. Due to ongoing litigation, it’s probably in their best interests to keep quiet. The internet continues to dig up more details about the past dealings of the brothers, including a 2009 lawsuit for, you guessed it, squatting. As the Pashanin brothers are still squatting in the home, we likely haven’t heard the last of this story. With all the horrible media attention these two are getting, it’s tough to imagine a positive outcome for the duo after this insane series of events.

If you’d like to leave the good brothers a message, we’ve left links to their various sites within the article. At the time of writing, Steam users seem to be having a field day in the comments section of their Greenlight page

Sheltered is a post-apocalyptic disaster management game that gives a whole new meaning to the term “nuclear family”. Given a head-start over the billions lost in a nuclear holocaust, you must gather as many supplies as possible en route to the concrete underground shelter that will soon become your family home for the foreseeable dreary future.

With all hope lost, how will you cope in this bleak new world? How you handle the many moral choices you’ll encounter on a daily basis could be the difference between your family surviving or dying. Combat claustrophobia, radiation and mental exhaustion as you cling desperately to life in the cramp, cold and scary underground shelter. You’ll have to leave the scant protection the shelter offers behind as you’re forced to venture outside into the dangerous desolate wasteland to scavenge for vital supplies which could ensure your families survival for just one more day.

Sheltered is scheduled for a 2015 release on PC, iOS, and Ouya. A PS4 port will be included as a stretch goal in their Kickstarter campaign. You can learn more about the game and support the Kickstarter (already successfully funded) by visiting https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/29211325/sheltered

Watching the above video explains things in pretty great detail, but the abridged version is that they have already secured funding for completion of the game. The Kickstarter campaign is a means to add extra features that would normally be cut due to time or budget constraints. In essence, Nordic Games wants to make the best game possible for the fans.

The best way we can describe this Kickstarter campaign is that Nordic Games is skipping the regular campaign to fund development and just fast forwarding to the stretch goals. Genius right? Why make potential fans pay for a theoretical game that may just piss them off when it doesn’t reach successful funding or the stretch goals some of the fans were hoping for? Nordic games may have cracked the code when it comes to how to nail a video game Kickstarter campaign and we tip our hats to them.

Check out the gallery below to enjoy some preview shots of The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 and be sure to head over to The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Kickstarter page for more information.

Check out the campaign video below or hit up their Kickstarter page for lots of additional details.

Check out the Kickstarter launch trailer and more details after the break.

Astrobase Command is a character-driven survival and building simulation in a 70’s sci-fi setting.

Send out your crew to negotiate treaties, research and discover technology, and generally secure your Astrobase against attacks and espionage. All while exploring the universe and utilizing everything you were taught from sci-fi television and movies to not get them killed.

After defining and customizing your species, you play in a procedurally generated universe with AI-created events and stories. Astrobase Command is about realizing your science-fiction fantasy.

• Astrobase Command combines elements of Base-Building, RPG Sandbox, and features AI-generated stories
• The funding goal is for the single player version of the game. We would love to do an optional persistent multiplayer game mode, but this would take additional resources and is part of our stretch goals.
• Astrobase Command will be available on PC, Mac, and Linux.

With the Kickstarter about half way over and only about a 3rd of the way funded Bugbear really could use the support to make a game that appears to have highly advanced vehicle simulation physics and looks gorgeous.

Did you love the over-the-top, reckless racing action of the FlatOut series? Or the ferocious wrecking fests of the Destruction Derby games? We did too! What if you could somehow relive those glorious moments, mixed with some serious Street Rod inspired vehicle upgrading and spiced up with fierce online races where players can battle it out with their tricked out bangers?

Now THAT would be something.

Over the years, we’ve been thinking about going back to our roots, and creating another high-octane racing game that would capture the spirit of over-the-top action and reckless racing as the legendary games of the past. For years, both Destruction Derby and FlatOutfans have been screaming for a comeback.

Now it’s the time, and we have some pretty exciting news for you. Our next racing game is going to bring those unforgettable moments up-to-date, and the best part of it all is that we want to make it with YOU!