Category Archives: News
The Developer of Homesick Needs Your Help
UPDATE: The Campaign page was closed down due to the campaign being “High Risk” (according to IndieGoGo). While I am trying to keep tabs on the whole situation there are as of yet not enough facts to post a full conclusive update.
With so much happening on the internet it is hard to keep track of everything happening around you. In this case only today did I discover the story of Chloe, the Developer of Homesick. I did not hear of Homesick or of Chloe until I decided to check the news on Project Zomboid. Turns out that Chloe, an active member of the Indie community has had a serious Car Accident. While the doctors managed to patch her up and get her walking and moving again the procedure was not flawless. A piece of metal shrapnel is still stuck in her and it is causing serious poisoning. The campaign she started on Indiegogo was frozen when a lot of very skeptical people asked for an analysis of the campaign, whether it was a scam or not. After a few days the results of this investigation proved that the Campaign was genuine. A message from Chloe may be watched below.
The Developers of Project Zomboid and Thomas was alone organised a small campaign to donate to the campaign and help Chloe recover. Today (5th of April 2013) already a third of the money was gathered for the whole campaign so with a month still left I strongly believe that the campaign will be a success. However, if you can help out, do so. The sooner Chloe gets the money she needs the better. So if you have a bit of spare change, or are willing to help out a bit more follow the links below to the different sites providing information and campaigns to help you keep on track.
Spread the news if you can, it is the least one could ask for.
Project Zomboid Campaign (posted on the 3rd of April 2013)
Indiegogo Campaign Page
More in-depth article from Indie Statik
The Homesick Indiestone Forum Topic
Thank you.
Alex “WriterX” Bielski
Cross-Medium Copyright Infringement and Intellectual Property Concerns
There are currently three kinds of property. The first can be referred to as real-estate or lands owned. The second a delightfully antiquated word such as chattel, or moveable property, encompasses. It is the third which is rapidly becoming more complex and variegated in our society: Intellectual property. Intellectual property is intangible, and therefore difficult to establish a concrete definition for. Intellectual property and its protection made up 34.8% of the American gross domestic product for 2012 alone. And that percentage is projected to keep increasing.
There are a number of subdivided laws designed to regulate intellectual property: Copyright, Patent, Trademark, and Trade Secret to start with. The problem we are experiencing is that creativity does not begin in a vacuum. For one invention to be made, it must incorporate other patented inventions. For one book to be written, it must incorporate character archetypes and story concepts that have been presented countless times before in other copyrighted books. Where then does one draw the line?
WarZ is Back on Steam
You can imagine my surprise when I was looking over my Steam page and the very first thing that caught my attention was a recent News Feed from Steam titled, “The WarZ Now Available for Purchase“. Since I was already sitting I could not fall down into my chair and wonder just how short a time-span does Steam think people have? It has been only two months since the WarZ Steam Scandal with false advertisement and right now it is back. The question that crawled on my mind was, “Did anything change?”.
It is back.
Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is officially in the saddle
Geralt of Rivia is back, more battle-scarred, jaded, and STD-ridden (probably) than ever. The Witcher series has collectively won in excess of 200 awards and sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. And now the third installment is looming on the horizon, slated to drop the second quarter of 2014, though one can’t help but wonder how optimistic that is considering developer CD Projekt RED hasn’t actually found a publisher yet. Feels like I’m announcing the success of my next book before I’ve even found a literary agent.
But we’re neck deep in the grit-stone-and-bone fantasy world of The Witcher; we don’t have time for rational solutions in the face of all the grim gory glory being thrown our way. Witcher 3: Wild Hunt features Geralt having regained his long-lost memory and finally found purpose to pick up his sword again: SEX! He remembers his sorceress lover and is intent on finding her. As one can expect when you’re on a quest to save the princess, shit happens in the meantime, most notably involving looking for the land’s rightful king in the Skellige archipelago in order to fend off the impending Nilfgaardian invasion. It’s all very cloak and daggery while your back is turned.
Why is a hero never shown in full sunlight?
Studio Head Adam Badowski has gone on record as saying that they’re ready for the next step and are choosing to abandon the linear main quest supplemented by numerous side-quests archetype which has gotten them this far. What they’re after is the huge freedom of open-world games. Translation: “We’re making Skyrim 2.”
Rudimentary in-game economy, riding everywhere on horseback, using your own personal boat, crafting your own gear, open-world dynamics, and turning one enemy against another while either taking local quests or skipping them as you move from one grim-grey Northern landscape to the next is gist of what several dozen pages worth of interview material and buzzwords boil down to. But there’s one thing these guys are doing that sounds even remotely different from Skyrim: long-term storage stashes from inns so you don’t have to keep moving your stuff from one house to the next like a bad example of George Carlin’s monologue, “A place for your stuff.”
Am I speaking ill of The Witcher? Not at all. CD Projekt RED has demonstrated an exemplary ability to establish a compelling story and meld it with gameplay that takes a couple hundred hours before it gets old. Aside from the fact that their games always require the sort of top performance machine that costs the average player an arm, leg, and nut to own, Geralt’s saga treading the boards where all the world is his stage is definitely something to be excited about. The problem is that we’re jaded and have come to expect this high level of quality from them. And since Skyrim had the jump on them in terms of open-world adventure, that’s the benchmark they must meet and exceed come Q2 2014.
Sad that it took some of our competitors upwards of a dozen pages to say the same, isn’t it?
Shadowrun Returns: Soon
You wait your habitual long count of twenty after the door slams, staring up at the crazed ceiling with the odd bullethole and the deep, scorched scar leftover from the Maiden Handgrenaten case. Licksy’s signature mélange of BO and nicostix still assails your nostrils when it’s done. The air exchanger where the lower lobe of your left lung used to be does its job finally. You’d been mentally willing it not to wheeze while the dwarf fixer was in your office—for someone with such delicate feelings you’d think he’d do more to keep in clean clothes.
Cold, hard nuyen in the bank. Time to celebrate.
You tip your size 25 boots off your pre-fab desk and reach for the bottom drawer. The creak that erupts from your straining chair is echoed by the creaking of bones. Goblinization hit you harder than most. When the other juves in school were worrying about getting hair on their wedding tackle you were worrying about hiding the tusks and 80 kilos of extra muscle. Humanis policlub had ties with Shatogunda Corp back then, and the best you could hope for was Dad’s contract being terminated when they found out. That didn’t much matter when Dad turned out to be an ork too. You’d think a megacorp headed by a millennia-old dragon would be more willing to tolerate those caught in the fallout of magic returning to the world.
No synth-drek for you this time. Real bourbon. The hard stuff, still in the vacuum-sealed cylinder, is your reward. It glistens like red gold as it eases into the shot glass. That glass is smaller than your yellowed thumbnail, but the night is still young, the fires out in the Sprawl and gunshots closer to your little stomping ground have only just begun—take your time savoring it.
“Seems a little out of your price range,” a wry, feminine voice says.
In a flash, your Ares roomsweeper is out from under the desk, the bottle protectively in your other hand. Only then does the shot glass shatter against the bare ferrocrete floor. A willowy figure is standing in the corner, inspecting the hung pictures and clippings that are all you have to show for twenty years beating the harsh pavement as if the fragging mammoth of a battle shotgun isn’t even there. Long, silky black hair sweeps down a synthleather overcoat. High-heeled jackboots and slender, delicate hands are all you can see protruding from its folds. Too stiff to be decorative. Too scarred to be a corp-brat slumming it. Armored.
You hadn’t heard her come in. And that just didn’t happen. Not good.
“Dish,” you rumble, and set the bottle back in its protective sheathe. It’s meant to be disarming, but the smile out of the corner of her high-boned face tells you she knows you’re freeing your hands for action.
Blinding fast, she turns. Wired reflexes. You flick the shotgun into full-auto mode and let the ominous hum it emits speak for you.
“You’re Jack Hardt? Private investigator?” she asks, moving her hair out of her black, almond eyes. The chrome of a datajack glistens at her temple, but you’re more wary of the chrome peeking from the end of her left fist. Flick razors. She’s too high tech for a lowlife razorgirl.
“And you’re no five nuyen and a hit street samurai,” you return.
You stumble over your chair to keep her out of blade range as she sweeps forward to drop ceremoniously in front of your desk. Her eyes are looking for weakness, laughing and roving over the beaten up 2.5 meter rawboned body that fate deemed fit to bless and curse you with. She tips her head slightly in respect when she finds none.
“Feel free to speculate on what I am not,” she says, then switches to Navajo, a language from a past no one living knew of. “But it would be better for us if you did not think on what I am.”
The words sink in, and the controlled tension eases from your frame just as your heart grows heavier. The roomsweeper is placed carefully on the desk between you two, and you right your chair to sit down.
“So you’re putting together a run?” you sigh.
Her graceful head dips, and you see the tips of her ears peeking through her hair for the first time, confirming your suspicions.
“How much?” you ask.
The Christmas Spirit Arrives to World of Tanks
Hello tankers, you might recall how last Christmas World of Tanks celebrated with all the different bonuses and free gifts? This year will be no different. This time around however we are not looking at just “a thing”. The entire Christmas period is spread out over a period of time, and every few days you may expect something different! The full list of details is available on the World of Tanks announcement, but if you cannot force yourself to click, then scroll down for the details.
Slender: The Arrival Announced
In case you did not hear, you will hear it from us. The Creator of Slender (yes, the game of which you might had read the review or even played) is working on another installment of the game, Slender: The Arrival. It is once again Slender Man, it is once again a creepy forest. Although there is very little information about the game itself we can expect two things: 1) It will be terrifying, 2) You will have no sleep, at all, and will need regular visits to a psychiatrist. So far we have only two pics to go on but as far as I can tell this is no longer a little child lost in the woods. Armed with a Camera and flashlight we might be looking at somebody mad enough to expose who the Slender Man is.
There is currently a IndieDB and Official Site, both of which do not provide any fresh news or views on what will Slender: The Arrival be like, but if it’s an improved Slender Man… well…
Primal Carnage available for Pre-Purchase on Steam
There are not that many games with dinosaurs about. The only such games that come to my mind are Jurassic Park spin-offs, including some “Theme Park” builders. There were also a few FPSs, but the choice is not as impressive when compared to “Modern Combat” or “World War 2″ games. Holding this in mind, did you ever want to play a game where Mercs fight against Dinosaurs, and where both sides are controlled by players? Where you could be a hunter, skulking in the jungle to pick off the bigger lizards, or a T-Rex that is currently making himself a man-wich? I already wrote about Primal Carnage, in a general information Article and an article focusing on a new Trailer that was released. This time around I would wish to inform all of you that Primal Carnage will be available on Steam for Pre-Purchase.
“Dude! Not cool!”
Project Zomboid is going Green(light)!
If you like zombie games then you would love Project Zomboid. Not only does it indeed have zombies, but also evil survivors, hunger/health/thirst system, possible mental depression, cooking but also it’s a giant sandbox with optional Story Campaigns. Although it cannot be a fully realistic Zombie Survival Simulator it is one of the most demanding games that you could face. You gather supplies, stay low, evade zombies, and try to survive in this strange and hostile environment. With its isometric view and pleasant yes not too demanding graphics many can enjoy this game without the need for Super Computers. There was, sadly, a problem with this title, for some. You could only get this game through a number of ways, which required plenty of extra registration online, on different sites.
Steam Greenlight
World of Tanks: Generals Announced
Here I was, driving through Malinovka in my Tiger I when my radioman informed me of World of Tanks: Generals. I was so perplexed that by mistake I ran myself into the bog and sunk. It was one of those news I did not expect or hear of before, and upon checking the Announcement site I was intrigued by the idea, yet somewhat worried at the same time.
Some Art from the game. Must be for a Defense Bonus card.
