Thursday, April 01, 2010

Gaming Notes

The big news this week is that Dwarf Fortress is nearing its first new official release in over eighteen months. Given that Tarn and Zach have been working on it steadily, the new version should be mind-blowing (although the scope and detail of DF is already staggering). Tarn has mentioned that the new version may be up by this weekend, so look here for news. Plus, if you've never read the Recent Developments posts, they're totally fascinating.

If you've never played Dwarf Fortress before, the complexity of the game can be daunting, at first. There's an epic series of video tutorials by "Captain_Duck" that are just fantastic--they're in reference to the current version, but they should still help get you firmly grounded in how to play.

For me, DF is the single finest world simulation ever created, because it geniuinely feels like a real world. This is my desert island game.

Also in great indie game news, Mount & Blade Warband has been released . I've written about the original Mount & Blade before, but in short, it's epic and wonderful. Warband is also available on Steam (I'm downloading it right now from Steam, actually).

Matt Sakey's excellent Culture Clash column is up, and this month, it's The Beast Within. Matt's also written a chapter on the Stalker series for a soon-to-be-published gaming book, and it's one of the most interesting pieces on gaming that I've ever read. I'll let you know when the book comes out.

Chris Kohler put up an excellent feature at Game|Life last night that's entirely appropriate for April Fool's Day: The 10 Meanest Tricks That Games Ever Played on Us (please note: LOTS of spoilers).
Finally,  Matt Teets sent me a link to a story about Aung Zaw Oo, a parkour enthusiast who doubles as a game animator. Just seeing this video made me interested in his company's upcoming game--Monday Night Combat.

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