Monthly Archives: July 2019

Stronghold: Warlords

Stronghold: Warlords is a 3D RTS kingdom-management simulator featuring the historical castle economies of the Far East.

Business Model: Buy-to-Play

Microtransactions: No

Key Features:

Leaders of Legend: Recruit great people of power from the Great Khans of the Mongol Empire to the disciplined Shogun Commanders hailing from Japan. These paragons of history each come with unique attributes and abilities essential for maintaining borders and conquering your enemies.

Remember the Time: Relive important battles and famous eras pulled straight from the history books. Start by taking direct control of the likes of the Qin Dynasty or Kamakura Shogunate, and eventually roll out the red carpet for the arrival of Genghis Khan himself.

Overwhelm, Overcome: Utilize time-appropriate siege weaponry like gunpowder-fuelled weapons and flaming oxes to take down even the most fortified of settlements.

Divine’s Chosen: Command troops, manage resources, and rule the continent through fear or admiration!

Circuit Superstars

Circuit Superstars is a top-down arcade style racing game featuring a dynamic physics-based driving system.

Business Model: Buy-to-Play

Microtransactions: No

Key Features:

Pick Up and Play: Engage with mechanics designed to be easy to learn and deeply rewarding for both old and new players alike.

Blast from the Past: Race through the various thrilling eras of motosports starting from the cutting edge of modern times all the way back to the timeless 60s.

Beep Beep: Manage your car’s wear, tear, and pit strategy as you make a mad dash to the finish line.

Dustwind Releases Single-Player Campaign

Dustwind Studios and Z-Software GmbH released a huge update today for Dustwind, and that is to add a single-player story. In this update, we also see a Titan Race that is now available in multiplayer, and an improved Single-Player Storyline Map Editor. But most importantly, the single-player story campaign releases into the game. This update is also free for all players.

“You might have already guessed that the female on these images is the protagonist of our new single-player campaign that awaits you in the BIG update. The story involves the player taking over the role of the heroine without a name… She is a civilian that tries to survive with her daughter in the bleak post-apocalyptic world of DUSTWIND but on a fateful day she gets assaulted and almost killed. Her memories are gone and her daughter is lost somewhere without a trace. After raising back from the dead, she’s ready to fight and resist! It’s your turn to guide the heroine through the hardest adventure of her life that will affect a lot of lives in the wasteland of DUSTWIND!” – Andreas Heldt, CEO, Z-Software GmbH

The Update Highlights:

  • Singleplayer campaign
  • Titan race (playable)
  • New npc race (frogpig)
  • New editor features:
  • + create your own singleplayer campaign
  • + more assets for creators
  • + more features for creators
  • New main menu: structure and usability, especially for singleplayer, editor and solo mode, were improved

Autonauts to Be Published by Curve Digital

Curve Digital is proud to announce they will be working with studio Denki to bring their management sim Autonauts to PCs this autumn. Autonauts is from former DMA Design creative director Gary Penn and will let players explore an adorable universe, and colonize procedurally-generated planets, with fully programmable AI helpers.

Starting from nothing, after leaving your spaceship, you harvest stick and stone to begin the colonization efforts, crafting rudimentary items and teaching AI helpers their duties. You show the helpers what you need them to do, step-by-step, whether it’s cooking, farming, or mining. The helper bots will carry out their duties until they are finished, or you can set them up to loop indefinitely. This creates a fascinating dynamic where players can code AI to do their bidding, offering a whole new approach to building/colonizing style management sims. Autonauts has been in development since 2017 and has been downloaded over 300,000 times since Early Alpha.

Autonauts Features:

  • Playful Programming: Teach your workerbots requisite steps to complete tasks by asking them to repeat actions utilizing a visual programming language. Designed to be easy to learn but with added complexity, there are numerous possibilities.
  • Automated Automation: Build an army of bots to automate just about everything in your colony, teach them what to do and expand both their brains and task possibilities with numerous upgrades and options.
  • Various Ventures: From gathering to building, cooking, fishing, tailoring, farming, animal husbandry and more – the world of Autonauts is vast with limitless opportunities to automate and colonize.
  • Charming Creativity: The world of Autonauts pops to life with a low-poly art-style married with a consistent and bright color palette adding depth and scale, creating a relaxing and attractive play space.

Pagan Online Announces August Launch and Content Updates

Pagan Online announces August launch

Pagan Online, by Wargaming and Mad Head Games announced it will be leaving Early Access on August 27th, 2019. The game will offer massive updates and revamped systems, based on player feedback when the game launches officially. The combination of top-down ARPG and session-based PVE will release for 29.99 at launch.

“Since we began closed alpha testing 10 months ago, Pagan Online has been constantly evolving with the help of our players,” said Uros Banjesevic, Chief Creative Officer of Mad Head Games. “During our 4 month run in Early Access we have implemented massive changes and amazing new features and mechanics to deliver the best possible 1.0 experience at full launch. It is going to be, literally, a different game.”

Pagan Online also announced a community initiative called the Might & Glory Club. This club will give content creators, streamers, artists and more the ability to take part in the launch of Pagan Online and to be mentioned in the game’s credits. Club members are granted access to updates (and can produce content on said content) a week before launch.

All members will also receive codes for in-game rewards, including Decimator the dragon, that can be given away on their channel. Every day from August 21st to 25th the Pagan Online team and its media partners will nominate Heroes of Pagan Online from authors of the most creative and resonant pieces of content. The most creative participants will also be offered a partnership with Pagan Online. Further information can be found here.

Features of Pagan Online:

  • Full story campaign – Featuring eight total acts, new zones and maps, and two new bosses.
  • Click-to-move controls and full controller support – Originally designed for WASD controls, the control scheme has been extended due to popular demand.
  • Two new playable characters – Joining the battle and expanding the roster of heroes players can choose from are:
    • Elden  A quick and nimble dual-wielding ice construct with high attack speed, capable of slowing and potentially freezing enemies with each slice.
    • Hector – An agile scrapper who specializes in everything fire. His weapon of choice is blunderbuss and he uses dirty tricks to set the battleground ablaze.
  • Fabled Weapons – Some Legendary Weapons could be upgraded to Fabled by overcoming Pagan Online’s toughest battles.
  • Schools of Magic – Ultra rare gear sets that boost stats and provide awesome new looks.
  • Revamped crafting and loot drop systems – Making drops more valuable, diverse, and immediately usable, while recipes become more rare and have a bigger impact.
  • All-new skill trees –  Letting players build and spec out unique heroes by improving, modifying, and unlocking new abilities.

Fit For a King is an Upcoming ‘Henry VIII’ Simulator

Fit For a King is a concept that I never realized I needed until I read it out loud: A Henry VIII simulator from Kitfox Games. Players will enforce their royal will, marrying foreign princess, or even something like a lamp, or their favorite bookshelf. Or both! Why restrict yourself? Jail people, execute everyone, ordain your horse as a priest! Hell, why not go for broke and Knight your rug? Who is going to stop you? God? Nope, Henry VIII broke away from the Church, after all.

In Fit For a King, the year is 1520, and as King or Queen of England, you have been challenged to outspend your rival, King Frank. Though you’ve misplaced your gold all across the kingdom. So now you must figure out how to humiliate France with wealth and excess or die trying. High-stakes tax collection is on the way with this dark comedy sandbox, developed by Tanya X. Short, and her partner, Brent Ellison.  There are over 26 royal commands to decree in this non-linear game. It’s what Henry VIII would have done if he had a little more imagination. Fit for a King releases on September 5th, 2019, and we absolutely cannot wait.