Monthly Archives: September 2017

Doomtrooper CCG Increases Firepower with Upcoming Kickstarter Campaign

DoomTrooper -CCG News

The classic franchise, Mutant Chronicles is coming to digital format! The Doomtrooper CCG based in that universe is going to attempt to take it digital, with their demonic aliens, cyber-mechanical vehicles, and interplanetary chainsaw warfare! It should be a refreshing game, both visually and mechanically, and on Monday, September 25th, a 30 day Kickstarter campaign will kick off! It’s a digital adaptation of the physical card game of the same name, brought back to life thanks to Justin Reynard of Fallout: New Vegas, Dungeon Siege III and more (Secret Cow Level). There will, of course, be alpha access when the campaign ends (for eligible backers), and exclusive rewards like custom card backs, and classic card variants. At first, the goal is Windows/Mac OS, but a stretch goal for mobile phones is on the table.

Doomtrooper is one of the best collectible card games ever made,” said Justin Reynard, “and we’re so excited to bring it to the digital era.” Reynard and his team are dedicated to being as faithful to the original game as possible, tweaking the rules only slightly, and preserving all the core elements in a gameplay-first approach.

Justin’s working with Cabinet Entertainment and the original designer of the game, Bryan Winter, and a fully playable alpha has been built and is turning to crowdfunding to really make a fantastic game come to life in a new way. Fans can look forward to a livestream at their Official Twitch Channel for an overview of the game, with Justin Reynard. It goes live at 6pm EDT!

Miner Meltdown

Miner Meltdown is an online 2D multiplayer shooter blending gameplay and visual elements from titles like Terraria and Spelunky. Take your pick from a variety of diverse weaponry and get to digging through the randomly generated map picking up gold and killing any enemies that cross your path, available for Windows.

Features:

Game Mode Trio: Eliminate all opponents in Team Deathmatch, collect the most diamonds in Diamond Rush, or stay in the designated area for as long as possible in Crazy King.

Gun Jubilee: From pistols and assault rifles to flamethrowers and rocket launchers, with so many ways to kill one another it’s hard to pick just one!

Molerat: Follow the path your teammates have created or dig yourself a new one.

Dragonball FighterZ: Closed Beta Impressions + Stream

Dragon Ball FighterZ_ Frieza _ Character Trailer - YouTube

by Jason Parker (Ragachak) and Colton Leighton (ColtonXL)

So, Dragon Ball Fighter Z won’t be live until next year, but this weekend we got to play in the Closed Beta on Saturday and Sunday! I do have a gripe or two before I get into any actual thoughts though: Not being able to play a training mode, and having to Google move lists was pretty disappointing. I mean sure, the moves are easy (Fireball/Tatsumaki and a button for almost every move, a few Down+Down+Button moves). But as a fan of both Fighting Games (anime fighters in particular) and Dragon Ball Z, this game had everything I wanted in one convenient place. I daresay this is the best single Dragon Ball game to ever be made. That’s with the Budokai/Xenoverse titles on the table. Not a one of them comes this close to capturing what Dragon Ball is. In the Beta, we got to play as Goku, Teen Gohan, Cell, Frieza, Vegeta, Trunks, Krillin, and Android 18 (with 17 as her support). I cannot say enough how fun and authentic of an experience this was.

DRAGON BALL FighterZ - Gamescom Trailer _ X1, PS4, PC - YouTube

Only being able to play in weird blocks was very frustrating, but maybe there’s a reason to it. Lots of people probably wouldn’t have stopped playing, and I wouldn’t blame them. But if you’ve played BlazBlue you can play this. You can teleport, dash around, double jump/air dash and for those who don’t know, it’s a standard ArcSys four button fighter. Your four face buttons are your main attacks, and (for PS4) your R1/R2 are your support/action buttons. This is a three-on-three where you can tag in your other characters for assist attacks, or swap out at the end of a combo. For a beta, it was very smooth. It does feel like auto-combos are in the game right now because I was able to perform combos without any real idea of what I was doing, other than having played Blazblue/Guilty Gear in the past. Colton had a pretty easy time figuring out his team and what he wanted to do, which will be evident later.

DRAGON BALL FighterZ - Trunks Reveal Trailer Thumbnail

I enjoyed that each character felt unique, and even though the Kamehameha is a pretty common ki blast, they are still pretty different from character to character. You can charge ki up (your super meter), use some of it to teleport behind opponents to continue combos, There are standard moves, which use a pretty common ArcSys system (direction on the pad+button for a variety of attacks. 5a being a neutral A attack, 2A being crouch, etc. Think of it like a Number Pad) and for fans of these games, it’ll be like a fish in water. But that’s where the auto-combo system comes into play. For those new folks, it’ll be simple to get into. Manual combos still do better damage and look cooler, but auto-combo is for people that want to get an idea of what a character can/should do. But there are so many cool mechanics, from the Dragon Rush, Jump Cancels, Dragon Install (Transformations, but the only character who can right now is Frieza, turning into Golden Frieza. Think Sol’s Dragon Install from Guilty Gear). There’s also a “Universal Overhead”, an Overhead attack that everyone can use. It’s 6+M (Medium Attack, B?) but you can’t combo off it without spending an Assist in prep for the move.  You can’t just throw it out and do stuff.

Can We Wish This Game Here Faster? HYPE TRAIN OVERLOAD:

Dragon Ball FighterZ - E3 Gameplay #1 _ PS4, X1, PC - YouTube

I jest. I want this to take as long as it has to; please do not rush to publish! The action is fast and furious and feels like a blend of Marvel vs. Capcom plus Dragon Ball. If your opponent summons both of their assists, you can what in the FGC, is known as Happy Birthday!  them. You can attack all three members of their team at once, dealing massive damage and putting them at a serious weakness. But you know what I really love about this? While each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, characters like Krillin aren’t weak, just because they aren’t Sayajins like in the source material. I’m sure there will be a clear, defined Tier List where certain characters perform better than others, but it’s nice to know that if you want to play Krillin, or Tienshinhan, one of the Androids, or whomever, you can and be happy. I am hoping to see Hercule Satan in the game though (if you’re reading this, Bandai Namco, make this happen for me!) and I have to say that without a doubt, I have not played a fighting game that has made me this happy in years. Possibly ever. I haven’t had this much exciting gameplay since Street Fighter Alpha 3.

There are lots of little things that show me they know the source material and care about the fans. Android 18 teams up with 17 as an assist, but some of her moves, depending on if Krillin is in the match/alive, she’ll summon Krillin instead to help her (on her Super Art). It was such a wonderful experience.  The clash and cool anime cutscenes when a character falls/a new one enters the fray is wonderful. The post-match victory screens are grand. Other than not having a training lobby, I loved everything about this. I heard that there were problems finding a match on the Xbox One, but on PS4 there were gigantic lobbies full of players. Want to see what it was like for yourself? I and Colton played it this weekend and Colt hosted the stream! Check it out!

PAX West 2017: A Closer Look at Rend

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS), Editor-in-Chief

Multiplayer survival games have been growing in popularity in the past few years. From ARK to DayZ, gamers have a love for games with competitiveness, customization, and a sense of risk versus reward. But as the market grows more saturated with survival games, it is becoming more difficult for developers to make their title shine apart from the rest. But after meeting with Jeremy Wood (co-founder) and Jordan Leithart (developer) of Frostkeep Studios at PAX West, I have a good feeling that the studio’s upcoming survival title, Rend, has what it takes to offer a fresh experience.

From the start, Frostkeep Studios made it clear that they wanted to address some of the pain felt in survival games. They cited elements like losing progress while offline to a player raid on a personal base, or joining a server to find a highly powered guild that has its sights set on conquering without mercy. The solution to this problem that Rend offers is faction based survival. On character creation, players can choose one of three factions. A new player will login to find themselves in a community with a shared communal base with community resources, shared goals, and shared enemies.

PAX West Rend Shrine

Faction bases are protected by a magical shield that cannot be destroyed. Instead, the shields of all three faction bases drop on a pre-determined schedule that’s visible on server select. This time is called “The Reckoning.” During the Reckoning, all shields come down for a few hours, and players can attack their enemy’s bases – but must also contend with The Lost Ones, a hoard of PvE enemies. This scheduled event reduces the overnight attacks, and encourages players to a server-wide event that can result in a true siege war. While testers loved this system, Frostkeep found that they wanted even more war, skirmishes that could happen at any time between these larger-scale battles. Testers also found that the community bases were sometimes skewed, with only a couple of people building and contributing while the rest benefited from their work.

Faced with this feedback, and knowing that it would take longer to change the game to suit this player feedback, Frostkeep took the risk and decided to head even deeper into development to offer an even more polished experience. They shut down the Rend alpha, doubled their employees, and sought outsourcers to build new assets for the game.

The first solution was to add personal bases into the world – with caveats. As the team explains, it’s less fun for the person being raided – especially when they’re not there. So Frostkeep’s design philosophy is “non zero-sum raiding,” in which the raider still makes worthwhile gains, but the raidee loses less in the process. They are also introducing customization through personal advancement crafting. Previously, all research was done through the faction. Each player can advance their own crafting trees by making items. This makes them more skilled at making items and opens up new branches of better items to research and make.

How do these two things tie together? Well, instead of simply attacking a base and raiding for supplies, players can raid bases for research knowledge. By accessing a player’s crafting station, you can steal research from them and take it directly back to your own to learn it yourself. Jeremy explains that this actually offers an incentive to not destroy another player’s base – after all, doing so means they have to spend more time rebuilding, and less time researching. A stealth mission will ensure that the enemy never knows you were there, and lets you return to steal more research in the future. There’s also the fact that it takes a lot of heavy structural damage through expensive crafting like bombs – meaning that resources to attack structures are better suited for faction-held structures rather than personal player bases.

PAX West Rend Environmental

In addition to player bases, Rend has also introduced control points. These begin as small shrines which any faction can claim and then build around. While controlling it, the faction is also given a special bonus (which varies per control point). Of course, opposing factions can move in and attack and claim these control points at any time – and they gain not only control of the shrine, but anything left still standing around it. Thus it pays to avoid mass destruction, and focus on doing as little structural damage as possible. These control points will also come under attack from the Lost Ones during the Reckoning, meaning that stronger factions are more spread out in their defenses if they want to hold everything they own.

The end balance goal, then, is that players who are behind can gain from attacking players who are ahead, while players who are ahead have nothing to gain from attacking those who are behind. This leads to a better hierarchy of power on the server, where weaker players will attack stronger player to gain power, and stronger players will attack faction enemies for power. Meanwhile, faction power as a whole should shift more regularly, as player limits force factions to consider their holdings tactfully each week. All of this should come together as a prevention against power snowballing, in which the strong only grow stronger and the weaker have no chance to gain.

Rend’s server structure (which supports 20 people per faction) and lifespan is also different than most survival games. Each faction has a “scoreboard” called the Divinity Stone – visible in-game as a large tree with runes running up its trunk – and the goal is to fill this meter with as many souls as possible. The first to fully fill their meter will win, putting the server into a temporary grace period before it fully resets. Each player will be granted meta progression points at this time, based on their personal participation in the server’s events as a whole and contribution to the faction, with an additional small bonus for the winning faction. This means that players who don’t contribute much to their faction will see little rewards, win or lose. These points can be used for various situational and head-start abilities, cosmetics, and potentially even new classes.

PAX West Rend Shrine Top Down

The game will feature plenty of progression depth within its sandbox structure, too – creating depth of progression through hunting down rarer materials, for example. One of these areas is the caves, which features dangerous environments, deadly creatures, and the threat caused by funneling all three factions into a central area. The caves are also incredibly dark – a darkness that can’t be solved with gamma adjustments – meaning that choosing to use a light is a tactical decision that may give away your position to the enemies. Noise, too, is important – armor and talents may determine how much noise you make, which in turn gives away your position to player and AI enemies.

The deepest area of the game is the Eternal Wastes, a place of constant freezing darkness designed for prepared groups. This is where the best resources of the game are found, but it is also where tombs are found. Each tomb is locked, and requires an expensive crafted key to open. Within these tombs are boss encounters. Groups who defeat these bosses can loot the tomb to gain ridiculously overpowered legendary items, including server-unique artifact items. Frostkeep notes that these items won’t be able to be gathered until the server’s progressed far enough that it is near the end of its cycle, which is when the gloves come off with balance and it becomes a fun rush to push to the last goal. These items are also lootable from dead players, which means that they will be hotly contested and in demand while they last. There will also be measures in place to prevent players from logging out with these items and not logging back into again or other measures of griefing.

Rend is shaping up to be an exciting new competitive survival experience. Early Access on Steam is coming soon, so make sure to add it to your wishlist and keep an eye out for future news.

 

Puzzle Fighter

Puzzle Fighter is an upcoming free-to-play casual mobile game developed by CAPCOM where players can step into the ring with their favorite CAPCOM fighters and help them battle by completing puzzles. With an expected global release in 2017 and earlier launches in a few select countries, Puzzle Fighter promises to bring your favorite CAPCOM characters with you wherever you want to go in an easy-to-play format that is perfect for mobile gaming. Make sure you’re prepared to enter the ring because once you do you might never come back!

Features:

Iconic Characters: Play as Ryu, Ken, E. Honda and Chun-Li from Street Fighter, X from Mega Man, Morrigan from Darkstalkers, Frank West from Dead Rising, Mike Haggar from Final Fight,Jill from Resident Evil and more on your quest to dominate the ring.

Character Teams: One main character can be chosen to fight for the player, as well as two assist characters that will enhance the abilities of your main character. Each character comes with different strengths and weaknesses that will change how you think about the puzzles you are presented with, making each match feel even more different than the last.

Real-time Matches: You’ll have to strategically build up gems by matching them in the puzzle frame and destroying them, then unleashing epic combos with them to knock out your opponent. You and your foe will be fighting in real-time, meaning you had better be ready to think faster than them if you want to come out on top.

Tunnels & Trolls Adventures

Tunnels & Trolls Adventures is a free-to-play fantasy RPG developed by MetaArcade for iOS, Android, and is expected to see a release on PC as well. In Tunnels & Trolls Adventures players can experience the nostalgia of their favorite pen and paper RPGs while enjoying much faster-paced gameplay. Pathfinder Adventures and Dungeons & Dragons fans alike will be able to find something for them in this new take on classic fantasy RPGs. With gripping stories to experience and thrilling adventures to go on, your fun is only limited by your imagination. Create your character and set out on epic quests that only you can fulfill!

Features:

Four Races: Become a Human, Elf, Dwarf, or Hobb and watch your character come to life through detailed storytelling and hand-drawn art.

Roll of the Dice: Rolling dice will determine whether or not your stats can keep you safe. Will your dexterity and luck rolls keep you safe from the chasms of Buffalo Castle, or will you fall to your doom?

Unique Locations: Go on quests in places like Buffalo Castle, Naked Doom, Seven Ayes, Golden Dust Red Death, Grimtina’s Guard and more! Adventures are updated nearly every week, expanding existing content or adding entirely new experiences for you to enjoy.