The Stone of Madness is a highly stylized stealth/tactics game from the Blasphemous team
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
I have to give it to The Game Kitchen, they are not an easy studio to predict! They went from making point & click adventures to grim yet stylish Metroidvanias, and now they're working on what looks like a Commandos inspired real-time, stealth focused tactics game!
Set in an 18th-century Spanish monastery, The Stone of Madness will put you in control of five prisoners, each with their own unique skills and resources. However, unlike games like Commandos where you play with a team of hardened veterans, your characters in The Stone of Madness aren't exactly the most... stable bunch. So not only will you have to navigate obstacles and deal with all sorts of enemies with them, but you'll also have to manage their phobias and their dwindling mental health.
Project Zomboid's Update 42 will rework crafting and greatly expand Engineering/Electrical skills
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Despite its numerous advances over the years, some of Project Zomboid's systems and features are currently still in a placeholder state - they work, but only just. The best example of this is the entire Electrical skill as not only is there very little to do with it, but actually increasing your skill level is such a monumentally grindy task that most people probably haven't even explored what little content there is.
Thankfully, it looks like the upcoming Update 42 will be changing all of this for the better. First and foremost, the entire crafting system will be getting overhauled in an effort to make a unified and expansive system that will be able to work with anything from simple crafting stations to complex machines and appliances. This will also bring with it a rework of every single crafting skill as the new system will allow for more customizable recipes and a greater degree of complexity, both of which will be needed if you're planning to make a functioning post-apocalyptic society.
Chants of Sennaar is a clever and colorful language-based puzzle game
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
If you're a fan of puzzles games and you're in the mood for something a little bit out of the ordinary, you might want to check out the remarkably charming Chants of Sennaar. Inspired by the Tower of Babel myth, Chants of Sennaar puts you in the shoes of a traveler attempting to decipher ancient languages in an effort to restore the connections between the now-divided peoples of the tower.
In order to do that you'll need to collect, catalogue and expand upon a variety of phrases, solve all sorts of tricky puzzles, and once you find yourself in some of the more hostile areas, even do a little bit of sneaking around to get to the bottom of things! What all of this looks like in action, as well as what it sounds like, that you can check out through the launch trailer below. Have a peek:
The Dead Cells team has now launched Windblown - a 3D, challenging and fast-paced roguelite
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Given the popularity and quality of Dead Cells I wouldn't have blamed Motion Twin from simply making Dead Cells 2 and going for a near guaranteed success. However, that doesn't seem to be where their passion lies. So instead of doing a retread, they've decided to tackle the roguelite genre from a different direction with the freshly launched Windblown.
We're still talking about a fast-paced and challenging roguelite, though this time around the action is in 3D which means a lot more room to maneuver, a lot trickier attacks to deal with, as well as more potential to outplay your enemies. And the biggest new addition? There's now online co-op so you can relentlessly mock your friends every time they get smashed by a boss!
All of Magic: The Gathering's future cross-over sets will be legal in every format
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer on December 10th, 2024!
In what is quite possibly going to be remembered as one of Magic: The Gathering's biggest and boldest steps, whether that be for good or bad, Wizards of the Coast have announced that all future cross-over sets will be legal in every single format. And yes, this does mean that 'Universes Beyond' sets like Final Fantasy or the various Marvel ones will be fully legal in Standard in both paper and on MTG Arena.
The reason for the change, besides the fact that this is going to print an obscene amount of money, is to help onboard new players into 60-card formats, which is a genuine issue. As it stands right now new players are all funneled into MTG Arena or into the four-player Commander format, thus leaving paper formats like Standard or Pioneer without the new blood they need to function.
MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer this December 10th, 2024
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: MTG Arena's Pioneer Masters set has arrived with an avalanche of competitive staples.
Quite a few years have gone by since Pioneer Masters was first announced, but it looks like the long wait will soon be over. According to a recent announcement, MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer on December 10th, 2024 thanks to the Pioneer Masters set.
What this means is that MTG Arena will not have every single card that's currently legal in Pioneer, but rather any card that has seen even fringe competitive play. And if any random card ever becomes popular and successful enough to reach top 8 in a major tournament, Wizards of the Coast have said they'll make sure to add that as well.
Dota 2's Patch 7.37e has arrived to mop up some of the recent balance problems
- By Ash
- in News
A fair bit of time has gone by since the last major, gameplay-focused update, so unsurprisingly Dota 2 is currently in a bit of a stale place given that everyone knows which heroes are the best at which role and why. In order to get everyone out of this routine the game will need a little shakeup, which is exactly what the freshly released Patch 7.37e is hoping to achieve.
With that in mind, it's worth noting that Patch 7.37e doesn't bring with it any sort of massive changes, but rather a variety of minor buffs and nerfs that will nudge a hero's winrate only by a percentage or two. This way the meta will hopefully get its much-needed shake up while Valve will get a bit more time to work on the traditionally chunky update that tends to launch a few months after The International tournament.