Darwinia
Thanks to a recommendation from Jason Price of Talk Strategy (www.talkstrategy.com), I did something I rarely do anymore--I downloaded a demo.The name of the game is Darwinia, and just the demo has given me more entertainment than most full games I played last year. It's also more creative and innovative than every game I played last year--combined. I have never seen so many different visual styles and gaming elements combined in the same package, and it's tremendously well done. This is going to be a breakout hit for Introversion Software, who also made the ingenious Uplink.
Why should you download the demo? Because you'll see a game that feels like Tron, Populous, The Incredible Machine, Myst, and damned near any other game you can think of. I was totally blown away.
Here's a link to the demo: http://www.darwinia.co.uk/downloads/index.html. Be warned that the site is very slow to load during the day (U.S. time), but the actual download speed is very good.
One warning: help in the demo is not presented in a conventional way. You're basically exploring the game and interface from the ground up, and you must actively seek help instead of it being presented to you. I thought that was terrific, but it will drive other people crazy. So here's a link to a small guide that presents help in a more conventional way:
http://www.thenextgame.co.uk/guide.php.
I'll say it again: this game is going to be a huge, surprise hit.
<< Home