Monthly Archives: February 2016

PAX South 2016: Excubitor and Upwards, Lonely Robot

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS) and Andrew Skelton (Outfoxed)

 

The very last meeting we had scheduled at PAX South was off the floor in one of the historic San Antonio downtown hotels with Kasedo Games. A digital publishing division of Kalypso (of Tropico and Dungeons fame), Kasedo’s focus is bringing quality games to a wider audience through its publishing expertise. Kasedo’s already published a few games, including Hegemony Rome and Crowntakers, but to PAX South they brought two new titles planned for a release later this year: Excubitor and Upwards, Lonely Robot.

 

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Excubitor

Excubitor is a mixed blend of action-shooter, bullet hell, and tower defense. You play as the pilot of a small defense craft called the Hammerhead, tasked with defending the massive space vessel Antares. Aside from your ship, you also have command of the base’s turret defense system. You’ll have to use both your ship and your towers to defend the ship and keep it from being destroyed.

The Hammerhead is a sleek, kick-ass ship that can be modified cosmetically and upgraded using the game’s primary resource. There are multiple stages of upgrades, each of which affects the ship’s appearance. You can also choose your weapon loadout from a selection of weapons that includes a rail gun, machine gun, missile launcher, and tesla gun.

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The game is played isometrically. Although your ship is not capable of changing altitudes, it can shoot up or down depending on aerial or ground targets. Each mission takes place on a large map with multiple areas to build turrets and multiple ‘lanes.’ You’re limited on how many turrets you can have up at a time (based on energy), and enemies will attack different parts of your base, making it necessary from time to time to sell off your old turrets to place new ones elsewhere. Your turrets can be upgraded as well to make them more powerful in fighting off the hordes of enemy ships that will come your way.

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Each mission map may also have world objects. These range from simple destructible items that contain currency or can set off explosive chain reactions to controllable mines that allow you to gather more resources for your upgrades. World objects may also include traps and additional weapons to use against the enemy – especially bosses. And bosses might be some of the most awesome we’ve seen in a game of this type. These bosses are the kind of huge mofos that take up the entire screen and unleash a real bullet hell barrage you’ll be lucky to escape unscathed, not to mention the scores of smaller ships they send out to attack you as well.  Each boss has certain criteria to accomplish before it can take damage from your weapons too, from damaging its turrets, to breaking its shields with well timed depth charges from a nearby tower.

As a single-player campaign game, Excubitor has 18 missions available to play on multiple difficulties. Sorry, no co-op, though we agree it’d be bad ass! You can find it on Steam later this year.

 

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Upwards, Lonely Robot

Upwards, Lonely Robot is a deceptively simple platformer that places you in the role of an unknown robot ascending a tower for some unknown purpose.  Throughout the game’s 75 levels, the story unfolds and tells you exactly what has happened.  The controls are impressively responsive for a platformer, and the game itself is quite easy to get into after very little practice.  While it starts out simple enough, things ramp up quickly with the addition of larger towers, enemies to impede your path, and stages where you start with less energy than normal.  Collecting fruit (yes, fruit – the story explains that too) scattered across the tower will help replenish your energy, so always be on the lookout.  There is also a mode that allows you to go through the story mode without the story segments to practice levels you might have problems with or to challenge yourself further.

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In addition to the fully fleshed-out story mode, ULR also offers an infinite mode to try and reach as high as possible, complete with leaderboards.  Thankfully, to place on the leaderboard, you have to start with a minimum and specific set of parameters to ensure fair placement.  The level building options are also quite impressive, ranging from the size and width of the tower, to what enemies you’ll have to deal with, to the dreaded “purple death” which rises from the base of the tower at a decent rate.  The latter forces you to always focus on upwards movement, and punishes any mistakes you make with instant failure.  There are also options to enable special platforms: illusion and collapsing.  Illusion platforms are easily recognized by their hazy outline, but during the heat of climbing, can be very easy to miss.  Collapsing platforms can only be landed on once, before collapsing like their namesake suggests.  Interesting to note, too, is that collapsing platforms can be gone through from underneath as well, so they’re not always a hindrance to a skilled player.

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Finally, the game offers a duel mode to challenge your friends.  This split-screen mode provides the same level building tools as infinite, but the challenge here is the player who loses all energy first loses the match, regardless of how high up the tower they make it.  This makes it a perfect party challenge game, as you and your friends seek to see who’s the best platformer of the bunch.  It’s also interesting to note that while both players have the same tower to climb, they can not interact with each other — no sabotaging your friends here, folks!
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All in all, for such a simple seeming game, Upwards, Lonely Robot has an incredible amount of depth to it.  Having such a long, developed story mode is impressive enough, but the addition of the infinite tower mode as well as local competitive play really seals the deal.  If you’re looking for an entertaining puzzle platformer that caters to both single- and multi-player options, you may want to consider checking out the game when it launches.

PAX South 2016: Eternal

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS), Senior Editor

 

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One of the games that caught my eye early on the PAX South floor was Eternal, a new card game from Dire Wolf that was making its public debut. If the developer sounds familiar, you might be remembering them as the developers for the upcoming The Elder Scrolls: Legends. No Molag Bal was to be seen or heard, but the artwork and polished graphics I spotted on screen pulled me in to try a match.

Let’s not beat around the bush, though: the first impression the main gameplay screen of Eternal gives is a visual imitation of Hearthstone. Unfortunately, the team member that kept offering commentary as I played the demo match also kept comparing the game to Hearthstone (I heard “unlike Hearthstone” at least three times in five minutes). It left me feeling like Dire Wolf was trying too hard to mix the popularity of Hearthstone with its own design. That’s a disappointment, because Eternal can, and should, stand on its own.

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Eternal pits two players (or a player and AI opponent) against each other in a turn-based card duel. Players have both regular cards and faction cards. There are five factions in the game that work as a resource system akin to Magic The Gathering. Each turn, one faction card can be played, and that earns one point of reputation with that faction which lasts permanently (during the match). Each game card requires a minimum reputation with one (or more) factions in order to play on the field. As reputation is not “used up” during the match, players can continue to play more powerful cards without having to pool resources.

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There are a lot of interesting mechanics at play. Here’s a few I got to see during the demo:

Warcry: This unit special ability grants +1 attack and health to the top unit card in the deck each time it attacks, no matter where that next unit is. This can be incredibly powerful depending on what unit it lands on.

Ambush: Units with ambush can be played during an opponent’s turn as a defensive or offensive measure. There’s no “tell” that an opponent has this card, so the ability name is appropriate.

Echo: Units with Echo will create a second copy of themselves when played.

Flying: Flying units can only be defended against by other flying units.

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The Choice of Defense: Each turn, the player has the choice of defending against attacks. By default, attacking units will go straight for the hero to bring their health down for a win, skipping over any units in the field. If a player chooses to defend, all of their units on the field will go into a defensive mode, forcing all attacking units to attack them (a la taunt) first. This means that you can “protect” units by not having them defend, or force a defense to pummel your opponent’s units.

The match demo I played was fun and fast-paced, though certainly felt easy as I decimated the AI opponent even while I was learning mechanics as I played. The game feels promising, if it can get past its comparisons to Hearthstone. Eternal will feature a single-player story campaign alongside the competitive card duels against both AI and other players. It’s heading into closed beta soon, and sign-ups are available.

 

 

Atari Vault

Atari Vault is an arcade complication title by Code Mystics. With original Atari titles from the 70’s and 80’s, gamers can now relive the golden days of gaming once more, now with online multiplayer.

Features:

Over 100 Atari 2600 titles: Play seminal Atari titles including Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Tempest, Warlords, and so much more.

Online Support: For the first time ever, battle for arcade supremacy online or at home and compare your high scores with players from around the world.

Steam Controller Support: Experience a new level of control playing your favorite games with the multi-functional Steam Controller.

New UI: Enjoy a new User-Interface designed to create the greatest classic arcade experience.

Eternal

Eternal is a strategy card game developed by Dire Wolf Digital. Featuring unique combat and well designed cards, Eternal plans to make new waves in the form of F2P CCGs.

Features:

Best of Both Worlds: Build any deck you can imagine by freely mixing cards from an expanding collection, and plunge into lightning-fast battles.

Growing Content: Frequent new cards release between set launches to guarantee that the meta-game never gets stale.

Truly Free: All gameplay — every card and every game mode — in Eternal can be earned or unlocked without ever paying a dime.

Tons of Enemies: With dozens of enemy decks, wild “boss level” environments, and unique card mechanics, Eternal stands ready to challenge players at any hour of the day or night.

Time of Dragons

Time of Dragons is an MMO Shooter create by 4 I Lab. While riding on dragons armed with missiles and lasers, players will take their dragons to the sky and compete against other players to prove that they’re the best.

Features:

Dragons Galore: Take control of multiple creatures with unique capabilities.

Intense weaponry: Battle using a wide selection or weapons

Free Flight: Experience the and beauty of dragon flights

Massive Multiplayer: Battle against players from all over the world!