What is Dustforce? That’s the question we’re asking after watching this fantastic new trailer from developers, Hitbox, spotted on Reddit. The video communicates a sense of swift agility and freedom of motion that immediately makes me want to take control of the character and experience it first hand. It’s hard to tell from the trailer what your actual purpose is. Sometimes the sprites are darting about, sweeping up dust and swathes of fallen leaves, at other points they seem to be spreading it around the map and beating the crap out of flapping leaf-bird things.

The official Dustforce site has little more information, but does have a couple of screenshots, and news that Dustforce will be hitting Steam later this year. Check out the shots below.

“With UE3 and Flash, games built for high-end consoles can now run on the Web or as Facebook apps, reaching an enormous user base,” Epic CEO and founder Tim Sweeney said during the Adobe Max conference (via Gamasutra). “This totally changes the playing field for game developers who want to widely deploy and monetize their games.”

Next stop: Gears of Farmville, Angry Birdstorm, and Sorority Un-Life. The future’s looking pretty damn gray. Er, great. Yes, that’s what I meant.

A Closed World

GAMBIT. Play it on the GAMBIT website.

A Closed World is a simple JRPG-style adventure about what life can be like if you are homosexual. That’s quite a rare thing in games, and I could probably reel off an entire column’s worth of words on that alone. In this heavily metaphorical game, you venture into the woods to battle demonic versions of those who’ve caused you trouble in real life: your family, your partner’s family, and your partner him/herself. After each face-off a beautifully drawn cutscene plays out, advancing the story as it does.

I’m not sure how I feel about the way that the theme is dealt with, so I don’t want to talk too much about that. I’ll just say that I’m glad a game has chosen to tackle this subject matter, and that I hope others will go on to tackle it in a more interesting manner. I also hope another, similar game comes along which is A) slightly longer, and B) more invigorating to play. You can get to the end of A Closed World in just a few minutes, even though it feels more epic in scope than a short-form title, and none of the battles are remotely challenging. Perhaps that could work as a statement itself, although I’m not sure it’s the statement the game is trying to make.

Wandering around the woods between fights yields very little of intrigue, which is a shame. But this is still worth playing. After all, it’s a game about what it’s like to be a gay person in a hetero-normative world, and I’m not sure there are any other videogames about that.

Thelemite

Mikolaj Kaminski. Play it on Newgrounds.

In Thelemite you play as a computer programmer, which is why it’s natural that you should end up a mutant superhero who can run at 50 miles per hour, cause explosions with his fists and climb up walls at will. It’s all part of a medical test that went awry, you see – but it’s fortunate that you turned out like this, as an entire band of mutants has been created too, and they’re taking over New York.

It’s a high-speed, side-scrolling beat-em-up that’s basically Prototype in 2D. Impressively, quite aside from the ludicrous story, it manages to create that same sense of immense power without the need for an extra dimension. Well-timed power-up usage leads to even more carnage: it turns out that there are few things more entertaining than smashing through a whole bunch of enemies on one go, even if there’s a bit of – uh – ‘collateral damage’. Awesome music complements the game’s astonishing pace, and later scenes see you battling enemies that are roughly the size of a million planets piled on top of each other. Huge, silly and supremely satisfying.

Sketch Quest

VFS Game Design. Play it on Kongregate.

This is an action-platformer that’s not only rendered in a wonderful hand-drawn manner, but also demands you put your own drawing skills to use. Weapons, equipment and various other game-world items all have to be drawn into Sketch Quest at different intervals, and all can be customised with lots of lovely colours and shapes. I made my sword look like a Christmas tree and painted my hat red, green, blue, black and white.

The game itself is fairly simple, but it’s the presentation that carries it. It looks delightful, for one thing, but it’s all just so endlessly lovely. Your enemies include killer penguins, bees with frowny faces, and rugby players who charge towards you then stumble backwards, dazed and concussed. And apart from the chiming music, almost all the sounds are made by someone’s mouth, and are just brilliant. I played this through with an enormous grin on my face, and I think you will too.

Keys of a Gamespace

Ludologique. Download it from the official website.

Ludologique, a team at the University of Metz, make ‘expressive games’. They believe videogames can be used to tell stories that tap into our minds, and explore the minds of characters. Keys of a Gamespace is an example of what they can do with this idea: a profoundly moving point-and-click adventure game, filled with fresh ideas and creative storytelling methods.

You play as Sebastien, and your partner is not happy. She wants a child, but you’re obsessed with your job as a videogame developer. One night she leaves to spend the night at her parents’ house, encouraging you to use the time to clear your head. So you do. Each of the game’s levels are memories from your past, and as you explore them one by one you begin to piece together the reasons why you’re so afraid of taking the plunge into fatherhood.

It is at times an unsettling game, playing with some fairly hard-hitting subject matter in extremely effective ways. The game’s tone flits from beautiful to disturbing, and asks you to make some big decisions along the way. I just wish the English translation had been a little less clunky, because at times it snapped me out of what was otherwise an incredibly engaging, gorgeously presented and confidently delivered game.

It’s made by Eric Ruth, who also created the fantastic de-make of Left 4 Dead, which can be downloaded for free on Fileplanet. Team Fortress Arcade is also free to download now on PikiGeek.

The expansion can be bought from the Lord of the Rings Online site. The Legendary edition costs $49.99, and comes with a selection of Rohirrim mounts and armour sets, a selection of quest packs, including Trollshaws, Eregion, Lothlórien and Moria. You’ll also get a thousand points to spend in the store. The $39.99 Heroic edition will just come with the mounts and a grand of points, and the base edition, at $29.99, comes with a single mount, and of course, Rise of Isengard. Raw and uncensored.

You can jump in and play Lord of the Rings Online for free right now. To get started, create an account on the Lord of the Rings Online site and download the client. It’s rather good. Check out our Lord of the Rings Online review to find out why.

Söldner: Secret Wars

Wings Simulations. Get it from MoFunZone.

For some reason that I will never pretend to understand, several people have asked me why I’ve yet to include Söldner: Secret Wars in my roundup of the week’s best free PC games. I’ll give you a clue: it’s because it’s rubbish.

Absolutely, extraordinarily, impressively rubbish. You could make an argument for saying it’s so awful that it becomes hilarious, but this is a column about the best free games on the internet, so it still feels a little disingenuous. This is a first-person shooter in which enemies get stuck in the floor, can frequently shoot you through walls, and sometimes just disappear altogether, right in front of your eyes. There are vehicles, and foes often use them to spectacularly run each other over. Söldner’s ‘training’ missions haven’t been touched by a development hand in the years since the game came out, so they’re just as ludicrously broken as ever. They’re free now, but remember: once, people were expected to pay for this.

Of course, the reason this has been re-released is because the community has patched up the multiplayer side of things. Which means it’s now ugly, messy but at least vaguely playable if you can manage to get some other people involved. Somehow, it developed a bit of a community, who seemed to like it’s wide open maps and – I don’t know – something. But it’s really nothing to write home about. The utterly abysmal state of the singleplayer, however, very much is.

There. You’ve made me imply that one of the worst first-person shooters in the world is somehow one of the best of a given time period. Are you happy now?

Ruins

Cardboard Computer. Download it from the developer’s website.

Absolutely gorgeous, Ruins is a game in which you play as a dog, chasing rabbits, and engaging surprisingly well-written conversations that branch the game’s story depending on the dialogue options you choose. The game world is starkly painted in muted reds and blues, the eponymous ruins and your canine friend silhouetted over the top.

To begin with it’s abstract, difficult to penetrate. Then you play to the end and an engaging, genuinely moving story begins to surface. But it takes multiple playthroughs to grasp all the subtleties contained within the narrative. Each time you’re likely to find something different, leading to different interpretations of the same sequence of events.

Aside from the brilliant, understated writing, Ruins’ two great achievements are the dog and the camera. The dog trots along with uncanny realism, while the camera swings elegantly around the small game world, always smooth, always pointing you in the direction you need to head in. This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found it to be an endlessly fascinating game, and a properly touching tale.

Super Springbreak Speedboat Hero

PLA Studios. Play it on the official website.

In Super Springbreak Speedboat Hero, which is a delightfully ridiculous name, you build your own tracks and then race around them, your character a strange 3D stick-man. The track designer is basic and intuitive, and – most importantly – features things like sharks and dinosaurs.

Sharks and dinosaurs!

So the resulting speedboat ride is wonderfully barmy. It’s all played out in a sort of angular, block-coloured 3D that reminds me a little of Darwinia, so you’ll find yourself dodging dinosaur heads and riding through the mouths of sharks all up close and personal. It does a lot visually with limited resources, and the music is absolutely wonderful.

Plus: sharks and dinosaurs!

Antagonist

Jonathan Whiting. Play it on the dev’s website.

It’s a game about running away from an enormous red spinning-top thing with what appears to be a sight line coming out of it. In this high-speed platformer, you’ll be dodging its movements, making daring leaps for safety, and trying to avoid the numerous spike traps that litter the levels.

Antagonist is a simple but effective game, one that manages to deliver a surprising amount of tension as you try to evade your enormous red foe. The suspense is ramped up further by your character’s movement, which causes you to skid just a little when you try to stop. Mistime your runs and you can find yourself sliding over the edge of a platform to your bloody, spiky death. It’s basic, but it’s fun. I think you’ll like it.

Once the track is loaded, the controls feel lovely and smooth. Tom hates it because it broke his PC, but don’t listen to him, he’s just jealous because he hasn’t finished his game yet. I think it’s pretty good. Why don’t you try and beat my par time on this track?

(via Simon)

Valve. Get it from Steam. But hurry up!

I never thought for a minute that I would get the chance to write about Portal in this column. But by way of sneaky half-rule-breaking, I do. Because one of the greatest PC games ever made is now free – not forever, but until Tuesday, which is enough days away from the time of writing that I’ve decided it still counts.

You know the score, surely. It’s a first-person puzzle game in which you fire one portal to jump through and another portal to emerge from. In doing so you’ll learn to overcome a variety of increasingly complex environmental obstacles, and Valve’s expert level design means that while you’ll scratch your head on a number of occasions, you’ll always experience the most beautiful moment of realisation when you work out how to apply your existing knowledge to a new scenario.

It’s made even better by a fabulous story, one that starts with refreshing subtlety but builds, slowly, suspensefully, before releasing in a phenomenally climactic final hour. It’s one of the most dazzling, innovative, smart and hilarious computer games ever made, and if you haven’t tried it yet, you now have absolutely no excuses. Grab it before the 20th, and three of the most special gaming hours you’ll have are yours to keep forever.

Digmaan

RWSB Games. Grab it from IndieDB.

Digmaan is a game made in First-Person Shooter Creator, which always sets alarm bells ringing. It’s fixed-resolution, blocky, doesn’t like widescreen formats, and textures occasionally clip and overlap with one another. One time an enemy fell out of the game, and another time one got stuck in a wall. It’s an ugly, broken mess, carried by a story so flimsy it might as well not be there: the aliens are invading, and via some sort of unexplained teleportation and regeneration science you’re taking them on… while your army buddies stand around doing not very much at all.

But my goodness, there’s the basis of something good here. Your extra-terrestrial foes attack from a distance with pinpoint laser accuracy. At first I thought it was just awful game coding. I kind of still think that. But it works. This is a game where it only takes a hits of bullets to fell a foe, just as it only takes them a few shots to down you. It’s extremely rare to be able to get close enough to see an enemy in all its gruesome glory – most of the time, you’re crouching behind cover, sprinting from place to place, popping up every now and then to take a pot-shot in the hope of landing a bullet where it needs to go. You’ll die a lot, but you respawn nearby with the world as you left it, BioShock-style, so it never gets too frustrating (unless you completely run out of ammo, with no way of finding any more, which caused me to reload an earlier save a couple of times).

It’s hideously unpolished, in the way that all FPSC games are. But it’s also got more of a spark, more tension and atmosphere, than any I’ve played before.

Netpack

Royal Paw. Download it from the dev’s website.

It’s an absolutely brilliant idea. Pac-Man, reimagined as a roguelike – a version in which you can take your time, eat one pellet at once, plan your moves, and utilise inventory items on your quest to rid the levels of foes.

And it is a proper quest, too. There’s nothing in-game to explain it, but the readme file comes equipped with a big story, explaining why you’re here. You’re an explorer, searching for the revered Mace of Four Winds. And you’ve finally laid your hands on it, at the bottom of a massive network of caves. The only problem is, having stowed it away in your backpack, you’ve realised it’s haunted. And that’s why you’re in trouble.

Amusingly, there’s even combat, in the most perfunctory sense: you simply move into a ghost to battle it, and the game tells you how much damage you’re doing to one another with each press of an arrow key. This is a really smart reinterpretation of a classic. I think you’ll like it a lot.

Forget-Me-Not

Nyarlu Labs. Download it from the developer’s site.

Another interpretation of Pac-Man, Forget-Me-Not is about as far removed from its slow, careful pace as it’s possible to get. This is Pac-Man reimagined as an even faster-paced arcade game, one in which a whole load of other game mechanics come into play.

Originally released on iOS, Forget-Me-Not sees you shooting your way around procedurally-generated levels that fall apart under the strain of your blasting. As well as collecting pellets, you’ll automatically fire at anything in your way – which sounds simple enough until a bit of the map breaks off, forms a wormhole that loops it back round behind you, and you suddenly realise you’re about to die because you’ve been shooting your own behind for the last ten seconds.

Power-ups can be exploded for extra goodies, and they keep appearing for as long as you’d like them to, so it’s tempting to stick around in a level past the point where you could move onto the next one. Take too long, though, and everything goes dark, a ghost appears, and it’s a race for the finish line before you’re doomed.

I’m almost certain that, in my half-hour or so spent becoming hopelessly addicted to the game, I haven’t seen anything close to every secret it has to offer. You can even have a go in two-player mode. It’s fabulous. Thanks eternally to Phil_Lapineau for pointing it out in last week’s comments thread.

If you still haven’t tried this intense free-to-play arena game, there’s no better time than the present. With the upcoming patch, major changes are on the way, in the update officially deemed Bloodline Champions 2.0: Dawn of Relics. We’ve got everything you need to know about what’s in store for BLC, including customization from Traits and Medallions, balance changes, and improved readability. You could also win a spiffy Titan account by entering our giveaway here, so you can roll into the 2.0 patch with style. Now, without further ado, let’s get a closer look at what Stunlock Studios’ Peter Ilves, BLC’s lead designer, has to say about the huge changes coming down the Bloodline pipeline.

I can finally tell how much health people have! Oh happy day!

PC Gamer: How extensive will the Traits system be? What level of customization will players have, to differentiate/specialize their stats to enhance their favorite bloodline?
Players will be able to modify things like damage output, max health, energy cap, movement speed and cooldowns. The actual changes will not be monumental, but still enough so that you can feel that you’re specialized. Players will also be able to select between a number of different perks; for example, taking less damage when stunned, or dealing extra damage when you’re below 15% health.

Medallions will grant the player extra abilities, but these are balanced around an energy cost (similar to EX abilities) and their usefulness will therefore be situational. It’s important to understand that we do not want to change the core of the game with the addition of Traits and Medallions; we want to spice up the existing gameplay and give the player the chance to modify his or her bloodline in a way that suits their play style.

What spurred the decision to make Rated Solo Matchmaking only available to max-level players?
One of the main reasons for the big rework of the interface was to get more players to join the matchmaking system instead of using the current custom game option. We want new players to take part in a less competitive environment when they start out. The rated matchmaking is, by it’s very nature, a more hostile environment, since a lot of BLC players are very competitive; we want the player to be ready and know the ins-and-outs of the game before they join rated games. That said, it’s not entirely decided if the rated option will be for max level players only; the minimum level might be somewhat lower, as it’s still being discussed.

Medallions will add a whole new layer to the frantic action of BLC.

How big of an advantage will a player with specialized Traits/Medallions have over someone who’s just started?
They will be a bit stronger, but we’re very careful about increasing the power level too much. The perks and bonuses will be quite small: a max-level player vs a level one player might be able to dish out 15-20% more damage, for example. Rest assured, the matchmaking system will make sure that you’ll never get matched vs a max level player when you’re first starting out.

How will players acquire Gems and Medallions? Will all items be available to players for free (provided they earn enough blood coins), or will you need to pay for some?
Medallions and Gems will be blood coin only, except for the Troll Medallion—that might be sold for Funcom points. Everything that affects gameplay will be blood coin only.

Tell us more about the (new medallion) Troll ability—does it do what I think it does, aka humiliation?
The Troll medallion is more for a laugh and, as you say, humiliation. The troll medallions won’t affect gameplay, unlike the other 3 medallion types. One example of a Troll Medallions is “Bubble Heart,” a shield that makes you immune to all damage and after a short duration you teleport away from the Arena and the other team wins. Another one is “Trinket of the Troll God” that replaces the kill effect with a mad face printed in blood.

How many players are intended to battle on The Hanging Gardens of Savir? What’s the general layout of the map?
It’s a 3v3 medium sized Arena map and has a somewhat similar layout to Dubaku the Fallen Fortress: on one side, it has a more open area, and on the other, a tighter bottleneck with walls and stairs. It’s quite hard to describe; you’ll soon see the map when it goes live!

Shinkuu...HADOUKEN!

Are you confident that the Seeker/Grimrog reworks will do the trick at balancing their power levels? Are you open to adjusting bloodline mechanics as you find any abilities that need rebalancing/tweaking?
It’s hard to judge the impact of the changes before the patch goes live, but we gathered a lot of data during the QA, and we listen carefully to our top players regarding balance and suggestions. We’ve always been open to changing mechanics and rebalancing abilities if we feel that it is necessary. I think people will be surprised by the amount of ability changes that Patch 2.0 will bring. After Patch 2.0, we plan to go back to releasing smaller updates on a more regular basis to better ensure balance.

How often do you plan on adding new bloodlines for this new season?
We will be adding bloodlines from time to time; we’ve been quite busy with all the content for patch 2.0, but players can expect at least one new bloodline during the next season.

What prompted the switch to increase all damage / healing by a multiple of 10? Is this meant to be a psychological adjustment for players who don’t feel like they’re doing enough damage, or is it easier to balance larger damage numbers?
With the introduction of Traits and Medallions players will have slightly different stats. For instance, if I’m modifying my Igniter to do more damage, my fireballs might do 175 damage instead of the baseline of 160. With the old numbers, that would mean my Fireball would have done 17.5 instead of 16, and we don’t really want to have decimals in tooltips, combat text, and so on; with multiplying by 10, it’s easier to spot changes. It also makes it easier for us balance-wise, since we’ll have room for smaller tweaks.

This does not bode well for the poor Astronomer.

Why the change to how healing spells work (no longer an AOE, can only heal the target closest to impact)? Were certain team compositions too powerful with it, and do you expect that they’ll be balanced now that heals are single-target only?
This is actually a quite small change, and we don’t think that it’ll affect gameplay that much. The main reason for removing the additional group heal was that it was just a bonus that made healers stronger, and since (in the current meta-game) healers are already very strong, we felt that this was an unnecessary bonus.

With the new queue system, will players be able to queue up for matches against both European and US players at the same time (increasing the available player pool)?
The current issue is that we have too many queues which make some of them empty. With this change, we get more players into the same system, meaning that players will get better matchups, faster games and a bigger chance to play on preferred region.

How often will you be releasing in-client tutorial videos and guides? What skills will they cover?
We’ve not really decided on how many and when we will be releasing tutorial content. The main reason we implemented the video tutorial section is because we’ve had a lot of players from the community creating amazing guides and tutorials, and we want to make sure that they can reach out to more players and also of course getting credit for their work. The tutorial section will mainly be driven by community content.

The Ravener's goomba-stomp-like ultimate in full effect.

Sounds like Josh and I will have to go into intensive training, Rocky style, so we can show the world what we’re worth when Patch 2.0 goes live this Wednesday, September 14th. If you’d like to read the patch notes in their extensive, highly-detailed entirety, hop on over to the next page to get a sneak preview at the nitty-gritty adjustments to your bloodline of choice.

The Night Circus

Failbetter Games. Play it on the official website.

A word of warning from the get-go: this is both a social game that requires you to log in via Twitter or Facebook, and essentially an advert for a soon-to-be-released novel. You’re never forced to share anything on either social network (the game makes a point of mentioning how reasonable it is about this) and the fact that it’s promoting a product didn’t bother me. But I know some people are funny about that.

It’s a card game. But it’s also a sort of choose-your-own-adventure title. At any point you’ll be able to deal yourself between one and six cards, each leading to a different area of the Night Circus and a different strand of the story. Within each situation you’ll be afforded various other decisions which affect your path through this world.

It’s almost entirely text-based, but the writing is strong, the storytelling well-paced and intriguing. You’ll find yourself held back unless you allow yourself to be a slave to the social functionality, but it’s perfectly playable – if a little more sluggish – if you don’t.

Doppler

Luke Todd. Grab it from TIGSource.

As oddly shaped space debris falls to Earth, your job is to collect the rainwater that comes with it. You’re a scientist, you see, and it appears to have fascinating properties. The weather’s gone crazy, and it’s up to your character to work out why.

Of course, this is a fast-paced arcade game, so you’ll not be doing much laboratory analysis. Instead, you’ll be running around the environment, avoiding the falling rocks and collecting the water as it plops down from above, ready to be analysed during the short dialogue sections that arrive between each level.

It isn’t a long game, but it is decent fun, and a title whose level of challenge ramps up nicely as things progress. The forecast’s good for this one.

Hollow

Connor Ullman. Play it on JayIsGames.

In this platformer, filled with short levels of intimidating obstacles, you’ll step into the skeletal shoes of a small chap who’s got stuck in the depths of the Earth. The levels are masked by darkness, only the immediate area around you lit up, and you’ll face a variety of troublesome foes on your way.

Hollow likes to throw some hefty challenges in your direction – insta-kills are frequent, but it’s okay, as you’re never set back very far. The twist is that jumping on your enemies’ heads won’t do a thing to stop them here. Instead, you’ve to use your own head to smash through them at high speeds. This causes a bit of damage to your character, though, so if possible it’s always best to run away.

Its pleasing art style would lead to an atmospheric title were it not for the hideous music. Turn it off instantly before it makes everyone in the room want to kill you.

Victory

Refrag. Play it on the Ludum Dare website.

Victory is, according to its developer, “a simple puzzle/platformer that attempts to discuss the compulsion towards achievement, pressures of modern life and one’s need for escape.” What this translates into is a fast-paced and increasingly action-packed title in which you must reach the top of a platform-filled level before big white walls at each side close in on you and crush you to death.

It starts out simply, but introduces more complexity as it progresses, asking you to create variously sized boxes to hop upon when the jump you need to make is too high. The level design, too, increases in difficulty, and by the end you’ll be button-bashing at extraordinary speeds to escape your environment before the timer runs out. It’s stressful stuff, in the best possible way.

There’s also a story that appears in fragments alongside each level. I didn’t find it to be an especially interesting or profound one, which is fine, as long as you don’t get the impression that the game thinks it is. Which I sort of did. It’s also a bit annoying to try to read the text before starting the level, especially later on when you’re asked to move at breakneck speeds. That could’ve done with a little more thinking through.

Oh, hey, did you notice how the names of the last two games I wrote about spells ‘Hollow Victory’? I quite liked that.

All missions, levels and zones will be available to free players, including daily quests and missions created by paying members using the Star Trek Online Foundry creation tools. The Foundry will be off limits unless you upgrade to gold membership by paying a monthly subscription of $14.99, this will also give you access to more bridge officer slots, the ability to join a guild, unlimited use of in-game chat and email features, and a monthly wage of 400 Promotional Points to spend in the item store.

The full list of features that will be available to non-paying players and subscribers can be found on the new free to play section of the Star Trek Online site.

Star Trek Online has plenty to recommend it. You get to pilot your own starship, for a start, fight enormous space battles and then transport down to planets with your away team to phaser aliens in the face in the name of peace, diplomacy, and the will of the Federation.

My overriding memory, though, involves Tribbles. An icon on the taskbar will let you pet them at any time, even in the middle of a fire fight, whereupon they make an initially adorable noise that quickly becomes the most annoying sound in the universe after about five seconds. If you leave them in your inventory, they eat any food in there and multiply, so there are plenty spare to go around. After a while the entire away team would habitually stop in between fights to stroke their pets, giving rise to a chorus of wibbly “woooo!” noises that would alert every enemy in the vicinity.

Cryptic’s Tribble-breeding sim is set to go free to play some time later this year, though there’s no precise date yet.

Rizzoli and Isles: The Masterpiece Murders

Pastel Games. Play it on Kongregate.

Also available on iPad, Rizolla and Isles: The Masterpiece Murders is a simple but highly polished detective story that sees you hunting down and analysing evidence relating to the grizzly death of a young lady in her apartment. You’ll be dusting for prints, attending autopsies, speaking to a variety of potential witnesses and, back at HQ, scratching your head as you try to piece all the elements together.

Your only interaction with the game is to click on things, and it would have been nice to see – say – more traditional adventure game dialogue trees, or similar. But it’s immaculately presented, with beautiful hand-painted scenes that put most of the competition to shame, and the atmosphere remains consistent throughout.

It’s not a very long game, and it ends with a strange abruptness that seems at odds with how steadily the tale builds to that point, but you shouldn’t let that put you off: this is a smart and intriguing title that certainly held my attention for its duration.

Lu Pei’s Dream

Biggt. Download it from the developer’s website.

I like how Lu Pei’s Dream, from its opening scene of a girl next to a park bench in the sunshine, steadily descends into madness as the game progresses. When you prick your finger on some sort of spiky fruit, and accidentally start bleeding all over the place, things take a turn toward the surreal as the sky turns red, a washing machine explodes, and fish get caught in a weird suspended animation.

It gets much stranger from there, each new section of what is generally a lightweight puzzle-platformer adding something even less expected into the mix. But it always makes sure not to sacrifice its status as an invigorating game just to make sure it’s weird and wacky.

You should know before starting that left and right move you around, down is your use key, and space is a special key, because the game doesn’t bother telling you. It also only contains text in Chinese – but there’s not a lot of it, so you should be able to muddle your way through regardless of whether you’re familiar with the language.

Sake Express Pro Wrestling

Mooosh. Here’s a direct download link.

Welcome to a veritable explosion of completely bonkers gaming nonsense. Here is a game in which you must swing your mouse around and hammer both buttons to make your character punch a stream of psychotic angry pandas as they race towards you, the whole thing presented like a bizarre Japanese game show designed to tear the very fabric of existence right in front of your eyes.

That might all sound a little over-excited, but the intensity with which Sake Express Pro Wrestling launches colours and sounds and pandas at you is quite something. Controlling the game can be oddly fiddly at times – it’s a top-down view, with you moving a cursor around to change directions, but the speed makes it difficult. And it is completely bizarre. But if you like having your senses assaulted and the word “Japan!” pretty much screamed in your face for a game’s duration, you’ll probably get on with this one.

The Man Who Sold The World

Nick Yonge. Play it on the developer’s website.

Afforded the opportunity to save humanity at the end of the world, but only if you prove that humanity deserves to be saved, what would you point to as reference?

This is a simple but thoughtful platformer about things that define us as human: about love, courage, and spirit.

Inhabiting the bodies of three people back on Earth, you must prove to those in charge of the balance of the universe that the human race is one worth preserving. It’s narrated in strange, enigmatic riddles, and not all of it makes sense immediately, but after you’ve bounded around three distinct environments things become clearer.

Some of the later sections involve navigating complex areas with sometimes difficult controls, which is unfortunate, because elsewhere this is lovely. The developer is currently looking for new ways to expand the concept. I’m intrigued to see what he does next.

The creators of the terrific, slow burn backstabbing simulators Neptune’s Pride and Blight of the Immortals have launched a new game. It’s called Jupiter’s Folly, a self styled “online strategy boardgame” that has a cluster of players fighting for the right to mine precious Crystal from bountiful planetoids. You can play for free in your browser, and pay later to unlock premium features, like more maps, new armies and the ability to create your own custom games.

Like Neptune’s Pride and Blight of the Immortals, Jupiter’s Folly is about using limited forces to capture linked nodes on a battlefield. You can choose to mine nodes above rich veins of crystal, or stock up forces to fend off nearby human rivals and deflect attacks from the malevolent alien race that inhabit the rock. While there can only be one winner, the best way to dominate a map is to team up with your competitors. So fragile alliances start to form, and the inevitable plotting begins.

Games of Jupiter’s Folly last for weeks. You log in once a day to move your forces about, check your resources and trade ability cards with other players. While you’re logged off, your orders will slowly take shape. It’s a formula that will hopefully encourage the kind of back-room deals and glorious betrayals that made Neptune’s Pride our web game of the year in 2010. You’ll have to pay to set up games with friends, but if you’re quick, and all join a game at once, chances are you might get matched up with your pals anyway.

Damp Gnat. Play it on Kongregate. (Immediately.)

Hmm. How to tell you about something quite so extraordinary, quite so unexpected, without spoiling the magic…

It’s probably safe to tell you that you’ll be playing a game of crazy golf on what looks like an insane modernised version of an M.C. Escher piece. To start with it’s pretty colours and curves, but look a little closer and you’ll realise that it’s a vast city, drawn isometrically, stretching upwards into the sky. The game begins with a series of meteors slamming into the ground, thus creating your first hole.

It’s safe to tell you that its fixed and uncomfortable viewpoint means you have to really think about the aim of your shots, but it’s absolutely never fiddly or frustrating. It’s a game that requires precision, but the physics are spot-on, even adapting to the specifics of the environment. Each hole offers a new challenge, but the rules remain the same. You never feel cheated out of that birdie, or anything but ecstatic at that hole-in-one.

But what I can’t tell you about are the things that elevate it above being just a fun and pretty diversion. The way what begins as a straight-forward game of crazy golf grows so magestically, so surprisingly, and so consistently. Wonderputt is an endlessly, joyously creative game. It deserves to be universally played and celebrated.

Fear is Vigilance

Randomnine. Play it on the developer’s website.

From the creator of Beacon comes a strange little game about shifting free safety alarms to students in a park. A version of Fear is Vigilance was released a while back, but now it’s been updated, and it’s rather good, in its own quirky way.

Unfortunately, no one’s that interested in your safety alarms, even though they’re free. So, back at home, you hatch a plan. If you go to the park at night and beat people up, the next day people might be more inclined to buy a safety alarm.

And so it goes. Each day you hope people are a little more scared, and a little more inclined to take one of your alarms. What starts with a smile quickly takes a dark twist, but it’s always entertaining, whichever part of the game you’re in.

No Place Like Home

Sachka Sandra Duval, Reynald François. Play it on JayIsGames.

You’re in a bathroom, the sink covered in a thick brown dirt, the mirror smeared. “They’ll tell me when it’s time to have a wash,” says the protagonist.

This is a particularly dark, impressively atmospheric room escape game, one that’s as much about unraveling the mind of a thoroughly disturbed character as it is about finding the key to the front door. Few of the puzzles are especially interesting (although few are irritating, either), but it’s the story that propels you onwards – a story that riffs on The Wizard of Oz in some compellingly strange ways, told via collected notes, your character’s musings, and the environment around you.

It’s immaculately presented in all its grimy detail, taking on an art style that sits uncomfortably between two poles, its soft colours and blurred edges giving way to unsettling scenes of a life gone wrong. This is one of my favourite room escape games in some time. It’s a shame so few are this interesting.

The Book of Living Magic

Jonas Kyratzes. Play it on Kongregate.

This is a surreal, quaint and prosaic point-and-click adventure about a girl from the city of Dull. She’s bored there, feels like she doesn’t fit in, only makes herself happy by going around hitting people over the head. Which can’t be good for her interpersonal relationships. One night she dreams of the Book of Living Magic, which promises to make everything better. So she sets off in search of it.

With a unique art style, some excellent writing that flits between serious and silly with absolute precision, and a focus on conversation and exploration over and above puzzles, The Book of Living Magic has a real sense of identity. What might put people off is the simplicity of interactions, which don’t stretch much beyond clicking on someone to either exchange an inventory item or have a chat about something. But it’s all so lovingly crafted, with such attention to detail, that I found myself not really caring. You might. But it’s well worth a try either way.

With its recent transition to the free-to-play model, S2 Games is staying strong with Heroes of Newerth, releasing two heroes in the latest update for the second time in a row. This week, we welcome Rhapsody, a support-caster songstress, and Master of Arms, a gruff gunner with dual functions on all of his abilities. We’ve got some sweet tips on how best to play this dynamic duo, so be sure to check ‘em out before you head online.

Master of Arms

• Master of Arms’ abilities
• There’s no cooldown between switching weapons (E), so you can always swap to the appropriate skill at any time.
• The Pulse Cannon will be your main weapon early on, until you get better, more expensive items later in the game.
• Using Charged Shot followed by Forked Lightning makes for great easy-to-use burst damage.
• Blast Shot can throw enemies over cliffs, so you can position yourself to kick someone out of a fight or down into allies.
• Nullfire Blade, Savage Mace, or Charged Hammer really let the Repeater shine with their on-hit effects.
• Master’s Call functions like Homecoming Stones, in that you can target the ground or the minimap and the ability will automatically find the nearest allied hero from where you clicked, casting either the shield or the boost on them. This will quicken your reactions and allow you to save someone in another lane without having to move your camera all the way over to them.
• Recommended items: Steamboots, Nullfire Blade, Shrunken Head, Savage Mace, Charged Hammer, Geometer’s Bane

If you're like Master of Arms, you speak softly and carry an enormous, dual-ammunition weapon.

Rhapsody

• Rhapsody’s abilities
• Staccato and Disco Inferno combo perfectly together. Use the pulses on Staccato to cause enemies to stop for a bit, then do it again after .5 seconds (when the linger on Disco Inferno wears out) to re-apply the damaging effect.
• Staccato can be used to interrupt attack and cast animations if timed correctly. This gives you a huge advantage during early lane fights.
• To take advantage of Arcane Hymn, your allies must be in the aura while damage is being done. Make sure that Thunderbringer is standing near you when he ultimates!
• Protective Melody is best used in clutch reactionary situations. Don’t use it preemptively unless you’re absolutely sure an initiation is about to kick off. It has a low duration, so timing it correctly is crucial—if used correctly, it’ll waste enemy attacks and spell casts, as well as divert attention to you.
• Recommended items: Astrolabe, Void Talisman, Shrunken Head, Blood Chalice

The End

Preloaded, Channel 4. Play it on the official website.

The End is many things. It is, ostensibly, a platform game, in which you leap from place to place and collect stars, and eventually a key, which unlocks later levels. You’ve also a trick up your sleeve which allows you to turn shadows into solid platforms to help you on your way.

But it’s also a Facebook-integrated social game. At various points, you’re asked big questions. Questions about life. And your answers end up being plotted on a graph, shared and compared to those of the rest of The End‘s player base.

And it’s also a sort of puzzle-based board game at various points, whereby you battle what amount to boss creatures on a hexagonal grid. It’s a brave combination of many genres, pieced together in a way that’s presumably intentionally confusing. That’s quite a brave decision in a title commissioned by Channel 4.

There are some fairly significant problems, unfortunately, especially early on when tutorial tips prevent you from moving for seconds at a time, even after you’ve read them. And the platforming is competent but unimpressive. The game also isn’t too great at explaining itself sometimes: I like the ambiguity, but there are occasions on which this doesn’t seem to be part of the game design, and is instead a result of some dodgy planning. Still, it’s immaculately presented, atmospheric, and a hugely commendable idea. I just hope people push through its foibles to the point where they can experience it.

Hide

Andrew Shouldice. Download it from Super Friendship Club.

This is a low-definition, 3D horror title with a remarkable ability to be scary without once making you jump. The aim is to find the five locations dotted around the world, without being caught by the horrific thing that stalks you as you do so.

The visuals are blocky, blurry and noisy. And it’s dark. It’s difficult to navigate, and even while sprinting you move stiflingly slowly. Dotted around are balls of light, floating gently to and fro. Stray too close to one and it’s a rather abrupt – and genuinely frightening – game over for you.

Hide‘s biggest triumph is its sound design, with growls and sirens and heavy breathing dominating. It absolutely demands to be played with headphones on, rivaling the likes of Amnesia with its disorienting, haunting audio track. That the developer comments on the download page that he doesn’t usually incorporate sound into his games… it is beyond belief, given how extraordinarily well it’s used here.

Lee-Lee’s Quest

Marcus Richert, [adult swim]. Play it on the [as] website.

Of all the surprisingly decent games appearing on [adult swim] recently, Lee-Lee’s Quest is the one that’s most in line with the brand of surreal, silly comedy that the network became known for. It’s a very straight-forward platformer in which you bounce around and collect stuff, but what’s really important here is the context to it all.

Your girlfriend’s been kidnapped. Only – uh – she hasn’t really. It’s just that your character’s a bit insane. See, she’s not been kidnapped; she just went out with a friend. In fact, she’s not even your girlfriend. Or, indeed, a girl. As your lost companion tells you at the start, “I just happen to have long eyelashes and like pink.”

Regardless, off you trot to find her, slaying anyone who gets in your way. Who, generally, are just other folks trying to get you to calm down. Naturally, before too long a star pickup has stolen all your clothes, and people don’t take very kindly at all to your running around naked.

It’s utterly mental, wonderfully scripted and voiced, and while short it’s always funny. There is an achievement for stealing from an old man. And for killing him. “Oops,” the game says to you, but you can tell it’s secretly grinning.

No Longer Subject To Judicial Review

NiallM. Play it on the website.

A fascinating game, No Longer Subject To Judicial Review nevertheless requires you to suspend disbelief a little. The game is introduced with a letter from the Prime Minister, and the idea is that as the current legal system is failing, court cases are now decided by a public jury in a “virtual courtroom”, with everyone casting their votes based on the evidence presented. Which amounts only to a list of articles from various newspapers. Hmm. What this all adds up to, though, is a game that’s supposed to teach us about the dangers of believing everything we read in the media, and raise questions about how we can ever be one hundred per cent certain about someone’s guilt or innocence.

You read the articles and click on the stuff that you think is relevant. When you’ve gone through it all, you cast your verdict, the evidence stacked up for and against different characters. There are multiple endings, all of them intentionally ambiguous. I’m going to say that I really like this, in an odd sort of way. But perhaps you shouldn’t believe me.

There’s very little information available beyond that at the moment, but there is a new website where you can sign up for a newsletter. There are also a few work in progress screenshots, which you’ll find below. F1 Online is due out early next year.

Heroes of Newerth

S2 Games. Sign up on the official website.

Hey, look, Heroes of Newerth is free-to-play now! It’s a tower defense/strategy hybrid along the lines of Defense of the Ancients and League of Legends – and, in fact, designed to maintain that game’s hardcore attitude. Across a multiplayer arena you’ll take control of a selection of ‘heroes’ as you do battle.

It’s tightly designed and often rewarding – if you’re good enough. Last time I checked, I wasn’t. And people weren’t happy about that. HoN’s community, historically, has been extremely unforgiving to those who don’t know what they’re doing. It is not a beginner-friendly game.

Presumably this free version is designed to help mitigate that in some ways. It requires you to purchase tokens to play certain game modes or as certain characters. Pay some money or play for long enough and your account will be upped to ‘verified’, which means you can play games against only others who have verified accounts – hopefully this will mean the new players can learn in peace while the experienced guys get on with their own fun.

(There’s more info on Heroes’ free-to-play version in our big ol’ interview!)

Soul Tax

Jarod Long, Lauren Careccia, Brad Snyder. Play it on Long’s website.

Created as part of a development competition on enormo-web-community Something Awful, Soul Tax sees you taking control of a ghost, possessing people and ultimately killing them. This is because you owe eight years’ worth of ‘soul tax’ – although you didn’t know it. Since you died all that time ago, you’ve been happily plodding along doing meagre little hauntings… but now Death has shown up, and it turns out you were supposed to have been harvesting souls for him since the moment you died.

It’s kept fresh by the new abilities that your victims acquire throughout the game. Which, of course, means more tricks up your sleeve when you possess them. In what is essentially a very simple game, seeing what’s around the corner in this way proves rather satisfying.

Is also knowingly silly, and well-written. I laughed a lot. Maybe I’m just weird, but this is right up my alley.

Alight (In Dreams)

Twofold Secret. Play it on Newgrounds.

In this exploration-platformer, you play through a man’s dream. He’s dreaming that he’s in the house he grew up in, he can smell smoke, and he has wings. He dreams of flying a lot, he says.

Outside, the garden disappears into a void, but platforms lead over to the other side. Naturally, you begin jumping. Your wings don’t really let you fly; you can ride on currents, but generally you’re limited to a triple-jump system that feels both adequate for what you need to do, and restrictive enough to make the game impressively stifling despite its freedom.

As you explore the world, across a series of levels, the man delivers chunks of monologue which go some way to explaining what on Earth all this is about. The story itself isn’t especially surprising, but the writing is always strong and understated, and for a game that’s so low-def it absolutely exudes character. Artful but not pretentious, this is well worth a try.

Murder Dog IV: Trial of the Murder Dog

Thecatamites. Download it from GameJolt.

The weirdness of this game cannot be understated. For one thing, it’s called Murder Dog IV, but I cannot find any evidence of Murder Dogs I, II or III. And for another, it’s a game in which you play as a dog, defending yourself in court as you stand accused of several gruesome murders.

It’s obvious you’ve done it, the game tells you, so it’s about generating an understanding of how the court works, and manipulating the evidence to go in your favour.

This is achieved in a manner not entirely unlike the Nintendo DS series Ace Attourney. Only more PC and more indie. You have an interface via which you can use, eat or destroy evidence/jurors/witnesses. But eating a witness probably isn’t going to help your case that well.

You’ll also be cross-examining people and generally doing what you’d expect a murderous dog in a courtroom to do, I guess. Supremely funny in its own special way – and there’s a surprisingly in-depth game lurking below the surreal comedy.

Master Yi sneaks into enemy territory to snag a point for his team.

Similar to World of Warcraft’s Arathi Basin battleground or Team Fortress 2′s cp_dustbowl, Crystal Scar is a very compact map, with a circular ring connecting five control points in the shape of a star. Gameplay is fast and furious thanks to a number of tweaks to get you in the action right out of the gate: there’s a global buff that increases your mana regen rate, respawn and recall timers are drastically reduced, and buff-granting Relics (like a speed boost and health pick-ups) are scattered around the map. Our favorite change? Each champion starts the game at level 3, with a surplus of gold to buy better items right away. There’s also a plethora of new items, added with the intention of balancing out champions who would otherwise feel underpowered in Dominion’s frenetic pace.

It's a mad dash to see who will prevail: the attackers, or the defenders?

Matches almost always finish in 25 minutes or less, and kill/death ratios take a backseat to racing around the map capturing enemy points. The more points you control, the faster you damage your enemy’s base, so if you can manage to hold all five points, two things happen: you can acknowledge that you are pro, and your games will be over in a flash.

Dying in Dominion isn’t the catastrophic, snowball-starting tragedy that it is in Summoner’s Rift; Dominion feels closer to FPS King of the Hill modes with its quick respawns and frequent skirmishes. In the games we played, there was a much heavier focus on small-scale battles, instead of the full team fights in Summoner’s Rift battles, which made for some incredibly intense moments when the teams’ points were neck and neck. And, you can always come back even if you’re losing hard: never give up, never surrender.

This picture is worth a thousand words: 'epic' 1,000 times.

Towers are also completely different on the Crystal Scar. Instead of being able to permanently destroy towers, each point has an orb that will attack the enemy of whoever controls it, but only if a defending champion is standing on the tower at the time. Any champion can disable the orb by neutralizing the point, but any damage taken during the 4-10 second process (it goes faster with more champions or minions attacking it) will disrupt it; luckily, capture progress never “resets” if no one’s interacting with a control point. There’s always the tension of desperately trying to capture a point as an incoming champion murder squad inches closer and closer–do you try to convert the point to your side and defend, run away in fear, or turn and fight? From start to finish, each Dominion match felt like it was filled with back-to-back battles, and with the hectic back-and-forth nature of the map, it’s never over til it’s over.

Josh and I were instantly hooked on the game’s fast pace, and the bevy of new content opens up a whole new wonderful world of possibilities for champions we didn’t really care for on Summoner’s Rift and there are tons of new strategies for teams to uncover and experiment with each game. We’re spending two days down at Riot’s offices right now, playing the map as many times as they let us, between gathering all the tips, tricks, and secrets from the developers about how to win on this revolutionary new map. We’ll have a full guide and tons of background and insider info on Dominion and the Crystal Scar map in the upcoming November 2011 issue of PC Gamer US, which should be reaching subscribers within a few weeks. Until then, enjoy the trailer and screenshots and get ready for the next big thing in League of Legends.

UPDATE: In all the excitement, we forgot to mention that Dominion will be added to LoL completely free of charge. All the runes and champions you’ve purchased will be available to you, and they’ll be no extra cost associated with the new mode or map.

Nocturne slinks up behind an unsuspecting Garen. There'll be no shouts of 'DEMACIAAA!' this day.

Dead Cyborg – Episode 1

Endre Barath. Grab it from the game’s website.

This is an absolutely superb adventure game offered on a donations model. It’s free to download and play, but there’s a ‘donate’ button on the menu screen. I downloaded it for the purposes of this column, and now I’m pretty sure I’m going to donate a reasonable sum, because oh!

It’s a first-person, 3D adventure. Think Penumbra when it didn’t try to be about combat. You awake in a cryogenic tube, apparently with no memory, and it seems something has gone very wrong wherever you are. Everything’s broken and delapidated. Radiation spills everywhere. Robots wander around, guarding corridors. The old amnesia trick might be overdone, but the sense of exploring a scary new world is phenomenal.

This is a game that knows how to ramp up the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the puzzles don’t always match – many are about scanning the scene for objects you may have missed, and the ones that aren’t have a tendency to slip into obscurity now and then. Still, there’s a walkthrough available should you need it. And I’d thoroughly recommend that you have a go at this. The first episode will last you a couple of hours, most likely, and there are two more instalments to come.

Sweatshop

LittleLoud. Play it on the official website.

Once again working on behalf of the UK’s Channel 4, LittleLoud have created Sweatshop, a game designed to teach about the ills of dodgy factories around the world. It’s slightly more up-front about its educational nature than their last game, The Curfew, was – but it still understands that the best way to teach is to make sure the lesson is fun.

You’re an aspiring sweatshop manager and it’s your job to hire, fire and hopefully not injure or kill your increasingly dishevelled workforce. There are many different facets to consider when embarking on production. Kids are cheap labour but slow and inexperienced workers. Other workers have areas of specialism – such as putting together hats or shirts or shoes. You’ve to hire the right people, in the right quantities, to construct your products by the time the raw materials reach the end of the conveyor belt.

It’s an exceptionally funny game at times, but there’s some dark humour involved, and it only gets darker the further you push into the game – and realise that, ultimately, you’ve lapsed into the habit of ruthlessly overworking your employees, and you barely even noticed it happening.

Adventure: All in the Game

Akril. Download it from BigBlueCup.

Oh, this is smart. And just a little bit knowing. It’s the follow-up to a 2008 game I’d never heard of, but totally intend to go back and play now. Baically: an adventure game about adventure games – their past, their present, their problems, and how to fix them.

Games commentary in game form might sound just a little bit worrying, but developer Akril has made it work better than you might expect. That’s thanks in large to a hilarious script that references (either explicitly or implicitly, depending on your adventure game knowledge settings. Yes, I know) a whole host of titles from adventure history.

More than that, the story sees you entering a range of famous adventure titles from years gone by, and the art style and puzzles change up to reflect the title in question. And while the parody is laid on thick, it’s never spiteful. This is, at its heart, a love letter to the adventure genre – an examination of why players fell in love with it, warts and all.

Prime Minister’s Questions

Pixel Politics. Grab it from the dev’s website.

This is a game in which you play as Prime Minister David Cameron.

You can’t make him fall off a cliff or anything, should you be that way inclined. This isn’t that sort of game. You can, however, make him shout “Balls balls balls!” at Ed Balls MP, which makes this game immediately worth playing.

It’s basically Insult Swordfighting from Monkey Island. You’re asked a hard-hitting question and it’s your job to respond to it. You can do so by picking the appropriate reply from a list, or by going for a special attack, attempting to throw your opponent off-course – but you’ve to be wary with these, as they’ve not got an amazing success rate, even though they’re mightily effective when they do work.

This is a silly game, and not especially substantial, but it raises a smile. Try it out.

If you’re already a proud owner of HoN, don’t panic—you haven’t been ripped off. S2′s approach to the change in payment model comes in the form of a three-tiered account system. User’s accounts will be categorized into three distinct types, as follows:

• Basic: The standard, free account new players will receive upon sign up.
• Verified: Basic accounts that have been upgraded through a show of commitment to their account, by either purchasing Goblin Coins or surpassing a certain threshold of play time. This allows them to participate in Verified Only games.
• Legacy: Paid user accounts that existed prior to the free-to-play model. These accounts receive a lifetime of free access to all HoN heroes and are able to play in Verified Only games, to ensure that experts and beginners are separated. Legacy accounts can no longer be purchased.

Verified Only matchmaking should solve the problem that Team Fortress 2 faced when it went free-to-play: keeping expert and beginner players separate. With Verified Only games, we have faith that more players will feel like they’re on an even playing field during matches. This is especially important given HoN’s notably hardcore community; new players have a tendency to get raged at pretty hard, as we’ve experienced firsthand.

If you took advantage of HoN’s $10 price drop this past week, don’t worry, you’re still getting your money’s worth. Basic and Verified accounts will have access to a rotating pool of 15 free heroes at any given time, while Legacy accounts will have free, permanent access to all heroes. One catch is that there will be a short delay between a hero’s release and it being added to the Legacy player’s roster, with the option to purchase early access if the user’s keen on trying every hero as soon as they’re released.

We wanted to know more about what S2 plans to do now that they’ve entered the F2P ring, so we asked James Fielding, director of design and development at S2, about where HoN is headed now that the playing field’s really opened up.

PCG: Congrats on making the switch! What are the specific goals you’re trying to achieve by making HoN free-to-play?
James Fielding: We’re aiming to lower the barrier of entry, making it easier for our existing players to get their friends playing alongside them. After all, HoN’s a heavily team-based game, and playing with your friends is what it’s all about. We’re also aiming to open the game up to some new audiences.

PCG: Will the inevitable influx of new players open you up to implementing anything you weren’t able to before?
Fielding: Because we’re anticipating more players bringing in and playing with their friends, we’d like to reward them for playing together. Players will receive bonus coins after every match they play with friends—the more friends you play with, the more coins you get! In addition, depending on the success of the model, we may be able to do things faster (and work on more of them at once). HoN’s numbers generally tend to exceed our expectations, so we’re pretty optimistic.

PCG: How will the existing shop be affected? (Bonuses, XP/Coin boosts, etc) Are you planning on making any UI changes?
Fielding: The shop had a few new items added to it, but nothing too drastic. The biggest example is the hero browser, so that F2P players can browse and purchase heroes. There have also been a number of UI changes. We included difficulty ratings and categorization for different hero types in the hero browser, to enable players to make an informed purchase. We’ve also spruced up the alternate avatar preview for browsing these items in the store. We’ve had to do a lot to make the F2P experience compatible with the experience that the existing players are used to. All in all, we tried to keep the experience for existing players as similar as possible, while adding new things for the F2P players.

We’ve update our spectator interface, as well—it’s much flashier, easier to read, and a lot more entertaining in my opinion. We added some graphs to make it easier for spectators to identify what players are the strongest in the game, have the most kills, most gold, etc; [this also helps spectators to] identify what team has an advantage in gold/experience. We also worked a bit with certain members of our community (including shoutcasters) to get an idea of what features and tools they want available when spectating a match.

PCG: With the switch to microtransactions, will every hero be getting an Alternate Avatar in the near future? Deadwood needs some Captain Falcon love!
Fielding: We’ll certainly continue to add Alternate Avatars—we add based on a number of factors, though, [so we're not necessarily] aiming to add one for every hero. I’ll see what I can do about Captain Falcwood (pun gods: forgive me).

PCG: How often can we expect updates once HoN goes F2P?
Fielding: The frequency of updates probably won’t change—we currently patch once every 1-2 weeks (with a hero usually coming every two weeks). The amount of content in them may [increase], though, depending on how things go with the new model. We wouldn’t want to add [an excessive amount of new content], or the game changes too frequently to the point of instability.

PCG: What are the projected Goblin coins / time spent needed to upgrade from Basic to Verified? What are the upsides of being Verified?
Fielding: A purchase of any amount of Goblin Coins will automatically promote your account to Verified. If you choose to get there without wanting to spend any money, you must play until your account reaches level 5. It’s hard to say how many games that is, because it varies from person to person (for example, your first win of the day awards more account experience), but we estimate about 60 to 70 games for the average player. Being Verified allows you to choose to play in “Verified Only” matchmaking, alongside the current (Legacy) HoN players. We expect Verified Only matchmaking to achieve a higher quality match—due to the entire player pool all being people with a vested interest in their HoN account, they’re less likely to do something that would get them banned. Additionally, you gain access to the Report A Player (RAP) feature, which further improves the quality of Verified Only games. You also get a few tokens once you become verified, which grant you the ability to play in game modes other than All Pick (Basic accounts are restricted to only All Pick games).

PCG: How long will the waiting period be between a new hero’s release and them being added to all Legacy accounts?
Fielding: Heroes that enter Early Access are intended to stay there for about 4 weeks, at which point they’re released into the general hero pool. [At this time, though], not all numbers are final (and we always adjust to what makes sense, based on live data).

PCG: Thanks for your time! Anything else you’d like to add?
Fielding: We’re very excited for the Free-to-Play switch here at S2. Ultimately, we’re interested in providing the best multiplayer competitive title out there, and securing HoN a place in the ever-changing, competitive marketplace. HoN has been continually growing since it’s release [and consistently retains players] (90% of all time sales are active), so we’re really excited to open it up to some new audiences. If you’ve never given HoN a try, there’s no time like now.

Be sure to check out the two new brawlers coming to Heroes of Newerth in today’s patch: the Monkey King and the Drunken Master. Also, be sure to invite your friends to give HoN a try, and join the official PC Gamer clan while you’re at it!

UPDATE: The winners have been chosen, and will receive their codes shortly. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Risin’ up, back on the street. Want to win some MOBA goodies. Went the distance, now I’m back on my feet, gotta email to win meee a priiize!

I could go on, but you get the idea. Realm of the Titans, the MOBA contender from Aeria Games, is going into Beta today, and we want to make sure you get the most out of it. That’s why we’re giving away an item boost, a hero, and a mount to the 100 worthiest Titans this plane of existence has to offer. Want to find out how to enter to win these PCG-exclusive codes? Read on.

'I WON THE PC GAMER CONTESSSSTTTTTTT!'

Winners will recieve a code that grants them a 30-day experience-boosting item, permanent access to the White Tiger hero, and the in-game Skyboard mount.

To enter the giveaway, simply send an email to contests@pcgamer.com with “I’ve got the eye of the tiger” in the subject line. We’ll select 100 lucky winners on Monday, August 1st and send them an email with their code. You’ll need to be a participant in the Beta to redeem your prize, so make sure you’ve signed up at the official ROTT page before entering. Just picture it now—cruising around as a majestic Tiger who is riding a hoverboard into battle, gaining extra XP all the while. It almost brings a tear of joy to my eyes.

• Every day, over 1.4 million players log on to play League of Legends
• There are over 15 million registered accounts
• Between NA and EU servers, peak concurrency has reached 500,000 players
• Players spend an aggregate total of 3.7 million hours in-game every day
• The official League of Legends site gets 6 million hits a day
• League of Legends YouTube videos have nearly 100 million views
• Over 1,690,000 viewers tuned into the online broadcast of the League of Legends Season One Championship, with concurrent viewership peaking at over 210,000

 
Now, I don’t know about you, but where I come from, 1.4 million is a lot of people. With the game already prospering in North America and Europe (despite its server issues), and with Riot’s plans to release LoL in Asia, the playerbase can only grow from here. Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck chalks the game’s success to the ever-enthusiastic community. “We’re most proud of the numbers that show just how many players are truly engrossed in the League of Legends experience,” says Beck. “[The community’s] loving League of Legends even when they’re not playing it—hundreds of thousands of people tuned in for our Season One Qualifiers, for instance. We’re very grateful to the League of Legends fans that have made us one of the most popular PC games today.”

But what do these numbers really mean? A lot of companies hold their stats close, so it’s tough to get any reliable numbers, but Heroes of Newerth confirmed with us this morning that their peak concurrency is near 50,000 players. EVE’s peak concurrenct users hit 60,000 a little over a year ago, and back in January, World of Tanks celebrated breaking the peak concurrent user record on a single server with almost 75,000 users online blowing each other up in tanks. [UPDATE: Our previous comparison with TF2 and HoN used inconsistent types of statistics. The current stat comparisons should be more accurate.]

My fellow LoL players, let’s celebrate our favorite MOBA’s success with a hearty round of Ranked, Normal, and/or Custom games—whatever floats your boat, just as long as you’re having a good time (don’t forget to check out Wukong!). And if you still haven’t dipped into the League of Legends pool, there’s no better time than the present to give it a shot. Be sure to join the “PC Gamer” channel when you log in—you never know when we’ll be playing next.

This week, Lucas takes the helm of the PCG Podcasting Pinnace with crew-mates Chris, Tyler, Evan, and Josh, as they discuss a week’s worth of tantalizing news stories. You’ll find out which indie games we’re lovin’ right now, what constitutes a worthwhile Collector’s Edition, the verdict in co-op versus competitive multiplayer, Chris’ physical dependencies to Civilization V, and many more amusing anecdotes. Message of the week: drink booze to regain mana!

PC Gamer US Podcast 281: Indie Invasion

Have a question, comment, complaint or observation? Leave a voicemail: 1-877-404-1337 ext 724 or email the mp3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com.

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Dragon Nest was a sleeper hit at E3, attracting crowds and long lines with its appealing graphical style and frantic, third-person-shooter combat. After just a few cutthroat PvP matches (chock-full of smacktalk and righteous fury against Josh), the PCG staff is most definitely excited to play more of this fast-paced MMO. Haven’t heard about Dragon Nest yet? Our interview with one of the devs will tell you everything you need to know about the fast-paced Korean MMO that’s headed our way.

If the above trailer wasn’t enough to get you jazzed for the game, know this: you haven’t played an MMO like Dragon Nest. The combat was fast and furious, and felt closer to Unreal Tournament’s team deathmatch than World of Warcraft’s arena. Abilities are all skill-shots using a target reticule, and combos are essential to coming out on top during fights. I derived a certain glee from flip-kicking Josh into the air as an Archer, then filling his airborne-body with arrows while he plummeted to the ground; all the while, Tyler Wilde was backing me up with some sweet lightning attacks and heals as a Cleric. You won’t find auto-attacks here—Dragon Nest feels like the marriage of Quake and Street Fighter, and that’s enough to hook me to any MMO. All you need to do to join the upcoming Open Beta (which starts next Tuesday, July 26) is visit the Dragon Nest website and create a Nexon account.

Face, meet my mace. Mace, face.

PC Gamer: What inspired the game’s art style?
Tyler Chang, Eyedentity Games: With the art style, we wanted to convey a feeling of warmth and easiness, and so we adopted a casual and light color palette that’s easy on the eyes. On top of that, we used cute, feminine lines for our female characters, made the monsters goofy looking, and crafted serious-looking backgrounds which all blend in well with the lighter, casual look of the characters. We feel that the cute graphics style, coupled with the active and dynamic action and effects, makes for a very visually appealing game.

PCG: What did you observe during the game’s Closed Beta? Any valuable lessons learned?
Chang: Absolutely, the closed beta test (CBT) was held specifically so we could begin making gameplay and network improvements, paving the way for an even smoother open beta test launch later this month. One area in particular that received a lot of positive feedback was the control scheme and the game’s fast-paced action, so we’ll continue to emphasize content that allows for chaining massive attack combos.

One area that generated a lot of feedback was Dragon Nest’s empowerment system. Our release of Dragon Nest will differ from the Asian version in significant ways, but the biggest distinguishing item is probably the empowerment system. In the Asian version, players receive restrictions on game content when playing for long periods of time. This type of content restriction has proven highly unpopular in the west, so what we’ve done is remove that system entirely and replace it with something that does the exact opposite: players are now rewarded with empowerment points daily, which enables them to receive bonus experience.

It's like fighting the nightmares I had as a kid after watching Fantasia.

PCG: What’s in store for people participating in the Open Beta?
Chang: The upcoming Open Beta Test (OBT) on July 26 will launch with significantly more content compared to the CBT. The level cap will be set at level 24, and players will have a slew of new dungeons and bosses to try and defeat. The guild system is also being introduced, which is a major component that expands the social aspects of the game. And as a way of saying thanks to all the players who are helping make Dragon Nest the best game possible, we’re going to reward all OBT participants with in-game currency that can be used to purchase convenience items from the cash shop. We’ll also be rewarding players with cash shop items for leveling up and completing other in-game activities. The currency can be used throughout the OBT to make questing more efficient, improve the look of players’ avatars and the like.

PCG: Are any of the four classes specialists in PvP?
Chang: Each of the different character classes brings a different skill set to the table in PvP, there isn’t one class that we consider “overpowered.” We’ve taken great pains to keep the classes balanced, so it’s our design to make individual player skill and teamwork the primary factors that determine the victor in a PvP match. For example, a round between a warrior and a sorceress will come down to who knows how to best time the use of special abilities and keep or close the distance gap on the battlefield. The warrior obviously has the advantage at close range, whereas the sorceress will dominate from a distance.

The Archer dealing death from above.

PCG: How many PvP options will there be? Will there be goals/ladders for beginners and hardcore players alike?
Chang: Dragon Nest fans can expect to eventually see a wide variety of PvP modes, although the exact name and number that we’ll have at launch is still in the works. We plan to roll out the staples for PvP over time, such as a round based mode, a respawn mode, a “take out the enemy leader” mode and a free-for-all mode, and more. And yes, there will be a ladder system! Nothing encourages friendly competition like a robust ladder and ranking system where players can scope out their own stats and the stats of their friends and peers. Beyond the thrill of going head-to-head against other flesh-and-blood players, there will be plenty of incentives for PvPing as well. Players will collect PvP EXP points in order to increase their rank and also to acquire medals to redeem for high value items at the Arena goods vendor.

PCG: How much customization is allowed for each of the four classes? Can you differentiate yourself from the pack, either visually or skill-wise?
Chang: There is a significant amount of customization for all of the character classes, both in cosmetic appearance and gameplay-wise. Each of the four base character classes can branch off into different specializations at two points while leveling up. The first branch occurs at level 15, and the second level of specialization occurs later.
For example, at level 15, an Archer can choose to branch off to either the path of the Sharpshooter or the path of the Acrobat. The Sharpshooter is the ultimate long-range damage dealer. She uses incredible single target ranged and area-of-effect skills to destroy her foes. The Acrobat by contrast develops close quarters combat skills that she can use to launch foes into the air, stun them, grab them and pummel them down to the ground with a flurry of melee attacks.

Two-player combos: mmm mmm good.

PCG: What’s your personal favorite combat combo to pull off? What’s the most hits you can get in one combo?
Chang: I love to play the Sharpshooter for combos, as I’m able to combine air strikes together with close-up physical moves to dodge and block enemy attacks. It’s a lot of fun to use the various spaces in the game to my advantage, so whether I’m knocked down on the ground, running towards an enemy or just flying in the air, I can come up with an attack or counterattack to fit my situation. I’ve done up to a 170-hit combo so far, but I have a long way to go to beat the biggest records out there! There are achievements for pulling off different combos in the game, and I look forward to seeing players unlock the 400-hit combo achievement!

PCG: Can you tell us more about The Abyss?
Chang: The Abyss mode is the highest difficulty level for each dungeon, and it’s available only after clearing the four lower difficulties – Easy, Normal, Hard and Master. While the difficulty gradually increases for the five different modes, the Abyss mode also changes the physical environment of the dungeon. When playing on Abyss mode, the dungeon will become darker and sinister in appearance to add to the tension. The gap between Master and Abyss difficulty is also fairly substantial, and players will want to take a party of their bravest friends with them, because the fiends you will face will be incredibly challenging.

PCG: Thanks Tyler! Anything else you’d like to add?
Chang: Open Beta is coming up really soon and we are incredibly excited to showcase Dragon Nest to the widest audience possible. The characters that players create during OBT will remain live throughout the life of a game, meaning that there won’t be any database resets once the servers open July 26. We cannot wait to see players filling in each channel and seeing the massive numbers of players in the villages. We look forward to seeing you online!

It’s called the Brimir Class Carrier, and while this massive ship (the largest in the game) is heavily armored, it doesn’t pack much of a punch in combat. Instead, it has a completely unique trick up its sleeve: the ability to launch strike craft to protect larger ships. The developer hasn’t yet decided if the strike craft are going to be player or NPC controlled, but you will be able to target them at specific enemy ships, which could help add a new layer of complexity to the hectic fleet vs. fleet battles that erupt from time to time in BSGO. And since those large conflicts provide the best thrills the game has to offer, anything that makes them even more exciting is a great change in our books!

Another uncertainy is the price, which, as of yet, hasn’t been revealed. We know that you will be able to purchase it with in-game cubits (either earned by playing or purchased via microtransactions), though we have no idea how many of ‘em it’ll cost. Then again, with a ship this big, and this cool, we’re going to go ahead and suggest that you start saving now. There’s no way they’re going to let this puppy go home with just anyone.

Line Bender

Increpare. Play it on the website.

The latest title from renowned indie studio Increpare is Line Bender – a small but smart twist on Snake. You know, that game you played on your enormous Nokia brick phone ten or eleven years ago. Yes, it’s still going strong.

The idea here is that the middle section of the play area makes your ‘snake’ skip across to the other half of the screen. It’s a wormhole, if you like – a big, blank space in the centre where nothing can exist.

It’s a minor twist, certainly, but it completely transforms the way you play, as you learn to re-evaluate the game space. The simple presentation could have done to be spruced up a bit, being a straight-forward black-and-white job, but it at least allows you to focus entirely on the game’s smart hook.

MFA Prep Course

John Bruneau, Marek Kapolka. Play it on the LudoGenesis website.

A very strange ‘game’, MFA Prep Course plonks you into the lazy boots of a filthy student. You’re sitting at your desk. You should be doing work. However, because you’re a student, you’re looking for any possible reason to procrastinate.

You can drink coffee. You can spark up a cigarette. You can play with your phone a little. But that’s it. Alongside the blocky, MS Paint-style visuals, it should be a recipe for disaster.

It’s interesting, though, because of the control input. In order to perform these mundane actions, you’ve to control each of your protagonist’s hands separately. One hand’s mouse-controlled, the other keyboard-controlled, and it’s surprisingly taxing to try to manipulate each limb in the manner in which it needs to be manipulated. It’s a game that’s worth playing for its form, then, rather than for the extremely limited content.

Super Meat Boy

Terry Cavanagh. Play it on his website.

This is just a quick one, but it’s well worth playing. Basically, it’s Super Meat Boy remade by VVVVVV developer Terry Cavanagh, vaguely in the visual style of his own brutal platform game.

In a blog post, Cavanagh explains that Team Meat asked him to draw a title screen Easter Egg for last year’s famously challenging indie game – which Tyler Wilde very correctly score 90%. In the end, though, he ended up making his own version – and when he came across it again recently, he decided to throw it online.

There are only a few levels, and they’re relatively easy to navigate. It would be great to see this expanded into a fuller product, though I suspect such a game is unlikely. Nevertheless, the combination of Meat Boy’s platforming style and Cavanagh’s visual touches make for a really interesting few minutes.

Zombotron

Ant Karlov. Play it on Armor Games.

This is a surprisingly adept side-scrolling shooter, which hopefully won’t become lost in the sea of slightly inept side-scrolling shooters that frequently dominate the free PC gaming space. It’s another zombie game, but it stands above the rest for its excellent use of physics and distinctive visual style.

It’s a sort of hand-drawn, cartoon look, but one with some impressive attention to detail and some often beautiful depth to the images. And some neat physics enable you to take out the zombie hordes in new and interesting ways, mainly involving crushing them with boxes, barrels and suchlike.

If there’s a complaint it’ll be about the controls, which are a little wayward and floaty in that way that PS3 hit LittleBigPlanet became famous for. Personally, I don’t think it’s a problem, but you might. Either way, you get to shoot and crush zombies in a very pretty environment. Oh, and you play as a robot, which is awesome.

Where I Go At Night

Pat Kemp. Play it on Pat’s website.

Two players. One human, one wolf, both part of the same body. By day the man searches a town for an elixir. By night the wolf takes over and goes on a rampage.

This is a really interesting take on a two-player game, asking players to work against each other in intervals. The daytime player’s job is to build barricades to stop his nighttime alter-ago from chomping on the lovely townsfolk, while collecting elixirs to hopefully cure his ailment. Then the nighttime player must tear down those barriers and, y’know, aggressively murder people. During the switchover period it’s a frantic fight for those few seconds where both forms are lucid. It’s clever stuff.

While the game looks blocky and basic, it still manages to paint quite a lovely picture. People appear to go about their business in town, and the nighttime scenes take on a lovely glow that transcends the pixelated image. Well worth a look.

PCG’s Gut Reactions™:

• The Cow Mangler 5000: Pardon me, but I could’ve sworn you said “doesn’t require any ammo.” Holy smokes! This “rocket” launcher turns the Soldier from a frontlines fighter into a support specialist—thanks to the four-second building disable, you won’t need to rely on a skilled Spy to break up a pesky Sentry nest. And we have to imagine that nailing someone with a fully-charged shot is just about as glorious as it gets.
• The Righteous Bison: I’MMA FIRIN’ MAH LAZER! Who cares about doing reduced damage to buildings when this little number can hit multiple enemies at once? You’ll make many a Pyro have a sad day when they try to deflect a beam of light with an airblast, and again, the whole “no ammo” thing is immensely exciting for those situations when you’re behind enemy lines. This phaser is most definitely not set to stun.

What do you think of TF2′s first venture into the great unknown? Also, don’t miss the awesome companion comic that explains how the Soldier got his new swag (and why he needs to make more friends).

At E3 last month, I spoke to Emil Englund, one of the founders of developers Arrowhead Game Studios, and asked him how the buggy launch happened.

PC Gamer: When the first game out it had quite a few bugs, how did that happen?

Emil Englund: Oh, I mean, you have to start from the beginning. First of all, we were students, we were a very small team. We didn’t have any experience. We started working with Microsoft XNA initially, and we were looking at the XBox, and then halfway through we changed to the PC. So, I mean, already there you have a foundation for a lot of bugs. Combined with not having a lot of resources to try the game on different platforms, you know. I read an article in Game Developer Magazine about the Civilization 5 development, and they said, ‘Oh, and we had engineers from Nvidia and AMD at our office who constantly helped us try the game on the different graphics cards.’ We didn’t have that. So it’s kind of hard for us to do everything right from the get go.

Also, some other things. We didn’t know the game was being released, the time that it did. It’s kind of stupid, but we thought it was released the day after or something. And all of a sudden someone says, “It’s live!” And we were working on the Day One patch already. We’re like, “What!?” We had like three hours where the game pretty much didn’t work because we hadn’t got out there with the release patch. There were a few bugs that snuck through at the end. We had them fixed, but it wasn’t distributed to Steam. It was a nightmare.

And then, of course, there were a lot of other bugs as well. Many of the bugs were simply things we hadn’t noticed. We had beta testing, but nobody reported it, so we didn’t find it. So the only thing we could do was promise everybody we were going to patch this a lot. Which we did. We pretty much lived at the office the first two weeks and just kept pushing out patches each day, to fix as much as possible just to show our good will. And it seemed to work out. People appreciated it, and we kept patching, only we had to put more and more space in between the patches. Right now, we have a lot better quality assurance about patches as well, to make sure that the new patches don’t break the game further.

But yeah, working with XNA wasn’t really helping us. And right now we have a lot more resources. I mean, Paradox is helping out a lot as well. If we need somebody that knows more about something, they’ll help to get a contact for us to talk to, and that has increased quality for DLC and patches.

Magicka is now polished, and last month Arrowhead pushed out an enormous free update adding PvP. I asked Emil what had changed for them since the game’s success.

PC Gamer: The game has sold 600k copies so far. How has that changed your lives?

Emil Englund:Oh, we actually have a salary now, which we didn’t before. We had a really low one towards the end so we could actually pay our rent, and buy food without loaning from parents. Right now we have salaries so we can live regular lives. We managed to employ some more people. We’ve grown from 7 to 11 since release, which is always fun, to bring some fresh blood aboard. And I don’t know, it’s kinda strange, sometimes I just don’t get how much we’ve sold, how successful the release has been. And though there were a lot of issues, we have more plans for the future, there’s a lot more stability in the company now. I mean, there was no money in it at all at the start. Right now, we at least feel we might be able to get somewhere. I guess that’s the main thing, that we have a salary, so we can live ordinary lives.

Magicka is available through Steam for £8.

Nitrome. Play it on the dev’s website.

Just another Monday morning in the PC Gamer office.

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, the thing you’ll absolutely definitely still want to do is go to work and earn some money. After all, as you’ve been told, your continued employment depends on it. So, in Office Trap, that’s exactly what you do on the way to the rescue helicopter that will take you to your safety.

It is, essentially, a high-score-chase game. You begin on the ground floor of your building, working your way up to the top, collecting coins and avoiding the undead as they burst out of biohazard canisters. When you reach the roof, you’re taken away, then start all over again with a new guy.

There’s also a two-player mode, but it isn’t especially interesting, simply dropping another little guy into the mix and not really taking full advantage of him either co-operatively or competitively. Still, it’s the trimmings that I really like about Office Trap. It’s a game with a supremely silly sense of humour, featuring as it does a company called Corp Inc and a character named Godfrey Nectarine.

I am easily amused.

The Haunted Ruins

Gamedesign. Play it on the website.

Bet it doesn't taste as nice as strawberry.

This is the English language version of a Japanese title called Mamono no Iseki, originally released a month or so ago. It’s a low-definition dungeon crawler that neatly combines maze exploration with basic RPG elements to create something surprisingly compulsive.

You’ve been summoned to the eponymous Haunted Ruins to slay some beasties. Doing so, through simple turn-based combat, gives you experience and money. Levelling up is automatic, but you’ll have to find your way back to the town on the surface if you want to purchase new equipment or resources.

In some games that would get boring, but this is a strangely hypnotic game, one that quickly puts you into a trance of click-click-click. The music is also wonderfully mental. Try it.

Soldiers are Dreamers

Peter Willington. Grab it from the Introspect Podcast website.

This is what you'll see for most of the game. But that's cool.

This is probably one for the crowd who loved The Graveyard. Soldiers are Dreamers is over in just a few minutes, and there’s no complex interaction to be found. Standing in a room, you simply click on various items, each of which giving you a new speck of information to add to the story that’s forming in your head.

It was built in Adventure Game Studio as part of a project exploring the topic of war in computer games. Despite its minimalist nature, the little glimpse you get of a family which was most probably torn apart by war is surprisingly touching.

It’s not for everyone, certainly. But if you’re into experimental or short-form games, and don’t mind not being able to shoot the enemy with a bunch of big bad guns, then this is worth checking out.

Don’t Lose Your Head

Drogen. Get it from TIGSource.

This pretty much sums up my performance.

Don’t Lose Your Head is a flabbergastingly unforgiving platformer that requires you to dodge a variety of environmental obstacles with extraordinary reaction times. Fail to do so and you’ll end up dead. Look – the game’s even kind enough to print it in massive letters across the screen each time, just in case you hadn’t realised the gravity of the situation.

Fortunately, the brutal difficulty is mitigated by the fact that you’ve unlimited tries at each level. It means you’re able to take risks in a way that similar platformers don’t allow. This is a game in which repeated death is expected – and that’s all part of the fun.

Whether it’s spikes, falling objects or gloop splattered from a strange, circular monster, there’s always something around the corner to splat you against a hard surface in a satisfyingly stupid way. Good old masochistic entertainment.

Sid Meier’s social take on Civilization is now live for all to play on Facebook. 2K have been running an invite-only closed beta for a short while, which has been sending Owen slightly mad with power. “Look at all my little men!” he would cry as his city slowly grew “look at them!”

Not only can you look at your little men, you can give them jobs and instruct them to build an empire. As the video above explains, the aim of the game is to earn fame, through economic or military victories. You can form groups with your friends and work together to achieve co-operative victories as well. It also offers the rare opportunity for you to become king of all your friends. Head to the Civ World Facebook page to start your reign of terror.

Choosing from one of four ships (with more options to be released in the future), you can jump into a game right away and get a taste of what Asteroids feels like when it meets colorful graphics and three-lane, creep-wave-pushing gameplay. If you’re as much of a noob as I am, I recommend choosing Follado Bokuvski, the sinister Space Vampire, as your pilot. You’ll be frail, but his shots automatically leech life from other ships, so you can cruise around dodging missiles and lasers while your firepower does the work for you. But no matter your skills in galactic warfare, this is definitely one of the more impressive Facebook/browser games on the market right now. You can give Vorp! a go by adding it to your Facebook profile, where you can join me in challenging your friends to top your awesome high score or K/D ratio. And look forward to checking out an exclusive look at two of the upcoming pilots/ships in the Oct 2011 issue of PCG US (which, oddly enough, comes out in a little over a month).

World of Warcraft Starter Edition

Blizzard. Sign up on the official website.

Is the sun setting on subscription-based WoW?

Some unknown online game called World of Warcraft is now free-to-play. Well, sort of. What you get for your lack of money is time-unlimited game content up to level 20, although there are fairly tight restrictions set in place to limit the fun you can have.

What you don’t get are the auction house, voice chat, mailbox, player-to-player trading and, quite fundamentally, access to guilds. Gold is capped at 10, and trade skills stop at 100.

But what you do get are the first 20 levels of a truly majestic MMO. There’s a reason it’s so popular: it can be phenomenally deep and intricate, but it’s also accessible, friendly, and ultimately forgiving to new players, even those who’ve never picked up an MMO before. Its version of Azeroth is lighthearted, cartoon-like and welcoming, despite the dark things that go on within it. It’s constantly rewarding, too. If you’re not one of the hundreds of billions of people already playing, the Starter Edition is your chance to see why we think World of Warcraft is still the best MMO ever made.

Proun

Joost van Dongen. Grab it from the official website.

It's not like you really have much choice.

In Proun, named after a series of paintings by Russian artist El Lissitzky, you play as a ball travelling very quickly around the outside of a tubular circuit. But there are obstacles. Obstacles which smash your spherical little face in if you don’t have the reaction times of a star-nosed mole. (It’s the creature with the fastest known reaction times on Earth. I looked it up. Yeah, I’m cool.)

It’s a game in which the slowest speed setting is ‘Fast’. It is fast enough. To unlock the higher settings, you’ll have to win championships on the lower ones, which can be quite a challenge. As there are only three tracks (a fourth unlocked if you choose to pay for the game), it can also be a little tedious – but it’s worth pressing onwards just to experience the extraordinary speeds of the more advanced modes.

It looks great, it features some awesome music, and you can get it for absolutely nothing – although there’s a pay-what-you-like option, and the dev does, of course, encourage you to throw in a donation if find yourself having fun. You will.

Mosquito and Cow

Petum. Play it on Kongregate.

That is not what I thought a cow looked like.

This barmy puzzle game sees you taking on the role of a mosquito. Your mission is to suck the blood out of cows. And that’s it.

Of course, cows are smart. Smart enough not to let a pesky mosquito bother them, anyway. They’ll bat you away with their very strange tails if you get too close, ridding you of any opportunity for attack.

Sometimes it’s as easy as stumbling upon a cow who’s asleep. But most of the time you’ll have to hatch dastardly plans, rigging often quite complex traps for the cows to fall into. A pleasant little earthworm guides you through the game with pictorial hints, while the game’s entire aesthetic sits brilliantly between the twee and the obscure. It’s a surreal, silly game, but that’s why I like it.

Luftrauser

Not Vlambeer. Play it on the Vlambeer website.

Keeping the game this simple was a very smart idea.

Increasingly prolific Dutch indie developer Vlambeer and its side-projects are churning out some really top material at the moment. This time, it’s an air combat game that uses its extreme simplicity to its advantage.

You can fly around, and you can shoot. You’ll be attacked by other planes, which you’ve to destroy, but you can also destroy ships and the like. It’s all played on a screen with just a handful of colours on it, and the same tiny passage of music loops throughout.

It works, however, because every single element of the game is so precise. The controls are flawless, that little musical motif gets your head nodding, and the simplicity of its visual style affords clarity to every inch of the game. It’s small but perfectly formed, basically. I think you’ll enjoy it a lot.

UPDATE: The winners have been chosen, and will be contacted shortly. Thanks to everyone who entered! Even if you didn’t win a Premium Membership, you can still get the full experience of this “sexy, savage, and brutal world.”

Only a month after its announcement, Age of Conan’s free-to-play incarnation, dubbed Age of Conan Unchained, is to be released tomorrow, and we’ve got the exclusive look at the official launch trailer to celebrate it. We’re excited: we previously discussed the details of how the business model works, and now it’s time to try it out for ourselves.

First up, I think I’ll pick out a new companion to accompany me on my journeys from the store. Funcom gave us the exclusive scoop on new “tempress” pets being added to the game’s cash shop that’ll replace your silly non-sexy pet that currently follows you around with a seductive lady of the night. There are several different varieties, and while interaction is limited, Funcom stressed that this was a change they could only do because they’re now free of any rating restrictions in the new free-to-play mode. Of course, the usual lineup of weapons, armor, potions, and all that jazz will also be available in the cash shop.

Read on to learn more about the new content and characters as we talk with Executive Producer Craig Morrison to hear what he’s doing on launch day and get his tips for those jumping into AoC for the first time. We’re also giving away 11 60-day Premium Membership subscriptions—details inside.

Update: Funcom sent us over a list of several other companion pets that’ll be available in the store tomorrow. They are: Arctic Hare, White Khitan Tiger Cub, Black Khitan Wolf Pup, Hippo Calf, Wolverine Kit, Panda, Polar Bear, Obsidian Ravager of Jhil, Ivory Ravager of Jhil, Ashen Fu Dog ,Pleasure Priestess of Derketo, Pleasure Priestess of Morrigan, Pleasure Priestess of Ishtar, Pleasure Priestess of Yun, Social Pet: Owlet, Social Pet: Loyal Crocodile, Social Pet: Fearless Crab, Social Pet: Tamed Baboon. Personally I’m most intrigued by that Hippo Calf–for example, can it blow cute little bubbles and pop them while giggling?

We haven't seen official shots of the new 'tempress' companions yet, but Funcom sure isn't shy about mature content.

To win one of the premium membership codes, send an email to contests@pcgamer.com with “Ladies love premium members” in the subject line. 11 random winners will be chosen tomorrow, July 1st and have their code emailed to them.

PC Gamer: That was fast! It wasn’t too long ago that you announced AoC was going free to play at all, and here we are on launch day. How long has the team been working on this transition?

Executive Producer Craig Morrison: We didn’t want to have too long of a delay between the announcement and the release, mainly so that people wouldn’t put off trying the game because they wanted to wait for the new offer. These changes have been considered for some time, and it was always an option that we knew we were likely to use at some stage in the product’s life cycle.

In some ways, parts of this have been in motion for almost two years. Since we knew it would most likely be something we’d do eventually, we were able to lay the foundations in other systems from the start. We’ve always felt that it’s good development practice to be flexible in [regards to business model]. We also benefited from our work with Neowiz in launching the game in Korea, where we’ve been using elements of this business model since it launched there last year.

In terms of concentrated work–the supporting systems, shop integration, and inventory–we’ve been working in detail since the beginning of the year so we could get everything in place for the summer.

Undead or no, a dude that gross deserves whatever trouble he gets when adventurers stroll in.

PCG: What areas are the dev team monitoring most closely for player feedback in order to make quick adjustments? (i.e. store prices, leveling speed, security issues)

CM: We’ll definitely be paying attention to how the new players integrate with the existing players. The game itself hasn’t been altered in terms of progression for free players, so the speed of leveling should be pretty much the same. In terms of the sales through the item store, yes, we definitely pay attention there and will be monitoring players purchasing habits with interest.

You always think you have a pretty good idea about what will be appealing to players, but if you learn anything from working in this genre, it’s that the players can always surprise you! So whenever you do something new like this you are watching the results closely.

PCG: What are you most excited to do today? Are you going to be analyzing player’s actions/choices on the backend, lurking out in the chat channels listening to what people are saying, or just out enjoying playing the game?

CM: I think I’m probably most looking forward to showing the game to more new players than ever before, and to welcome back those [I played with] who haven’t played in a long time…I will definitely be in game quite a bit, as I usually am, as you get a lot of invaluable insight from just listening to and playing alongside the players.

Raawr, it feels good to be free!

PCG: What tips would you give someone that has never played Age of Conan before who’s going to jump in today?

CM: The game feels and plays a little differently from other, more traditional MMO titles. In particular the combat system, so be prepared for a little adjustment. It isn’t too steep [of a learning curve], however–once you get the hang of bringing down your wrath on your foes without things like an auto-attack, the combat system provides a really engaging and layered experience. It really makes for a more exciting gameplay experience than you may find elsewhere.

PCG: Is there any race/class combination that you’d recommend for new players?

CM: That depends on your playstyle to a large degree. If you want to dive right into the front lines with a melee class that uses the combat system you should look at the Soldier or the Rogue archetype. Priests can be fun as healers in Age of Conan, and can also take an active roll in combat–they aren’t just back line support characters.

But if you find the concept of the dynamic combat system a little too intimidating, you can try one of the Mage archetypes as they largely use spells rather than combos, which plays a little more like a traditional MMO.

Of course, for the true Conan experience the Barbarian class in the Rogue archetype is everything you need to follow in Conan’s footsteps!

These terracotta murderers must be stopped or orphans will die! Are you really selfish enough to NOT play?

PCG: What’s one thing that everyone that plays AoC F2P absolutely has to experience?

CM: I would urge people not to ignore the low- and mid-level dungeons. They’ll require you to make some friends and find a group, and some are premium spots, but there are some really fun and interesting encounters to be found in them. The desire to level fast is an easy trap to fall into, but it’s well worth your time to check out dungeons like The Black Castle, Sanctum of the Burning Souls and the Amphitheater, to name just a few.

Also if you’re one of those who are prone to the odd hardcore PVP desire, you might want to check out the upcoming Blood and Glory server ruleset, which will provide a very harsh “old school” open-PVP environment for those brave enough to try it.

PCG: Personally, what’s your favorite part of the new content being added today, and why you enjoy playing it so much?

CM: For me personally, it’s rewarding to see the new team members that we brought aboard after the expansion (when some moved across to work on The Secret World) mix in with the veterans. I’m usually a little nervous when I do the first few internal playthroughs of content from a new team setup, but this team have really pulled it off. So as a player, I really like the new instances…they play really well, and I think the players are recognizing, and appreciating, that.

I also love that each of the new areas have great atmosphere and their own distinct feel to them. The art team did a wonderful job giving them all unique elements that allow you to immediately identify with the area. From the awesome vistas in the Forgotten City, to the bleak and stormy environs of the Breach, through the brilliantly twisted nightmare section of The Refuge of the Apostate, and the grim corruption of the Paikang districts. Our Dreamworld engine is capable of creating some of the most atmospheric and amazing environments that can be found in any MMO, and I think it brings that dangerous and brutal world that Robert E. Howard described in the Conan stories to life brilliantly.

 
Sound like fun? You can download the client at Age of Conan’s website right now and play! Let us know what you think in the comments or, as always, at letters@pcgamer.com.

For the past week, the PC Gamer community focused their attention on playing League of Legends’ Tristana. We found camaraderie in the PC Gamer chatroom in LoL, with over fifty players at any given time meeting together and arranging teams for epic clashes. The only rule: someone on each team had to play Tristana. Readers and writers laid their best skills on the field of battle, and walked away with bitter shame or glorious honor. The conflicts ended in everything from narrow victories to complete crushings, but GG, they were fun!

Almost instantly, a tradition emerged. During the early game, opposing Tristanas would duel among creeps in the middle lane. The back and forth skirmishes between tiny cannon-wielders captured the attention of both teams—after all, it was the Tristana scores that would be accumulated at the end of the match. Regardless of the scuffles initiated on the side lanes, all eyes continually drifted toward the center of the map just to see whose Tristana would pull ahead in kills or pushes.

PCG staff were right alongside them fighting, with Josh, Lucas, or myself in almost every match. Josh (a first-time Tristana player) quickly found himself a painted target, as bragging rights were proudly claimed by anyone who scored a killing blow against him. And there were plenty to go around. RyePunk was one of the first braggarts: “Fresh off a face pounding of @jaugustine’s first game as Tristana. He shall learn… or else,” he boasted on Twitter after the first match. Them’s good fighting words, RyePunk. But he backed ‘em up—props to the community for showing no mercy!

Your cannonball versus my, um, water?

In at least one game, the focus on Tristana allowed a different player to spend most of the game under the radar, quietly growing stronger than the rest. In one particular match I played in, the other team didn’t realize that letting Amumu farm up had sealed their doom. Jetter summed it up: “Our Amumu had a pentakill in the jungle! Nice work, Attico.”

Whether penta-kills or penta-deaths, or somewhere in between, you sent in your scores—and Tristana’s role as a ranged carry held firm this week. Players in the community averaged 10.6 kills, 5.7 deaths, and 9.2 assists—that’s over three times as many kills and assists as deaths. Go team PC Gamer!

Community tips and tricks

Throughout the week, members of the PC Gamer community contributed their insights for playing Tristana. We’ve compiled this vast collection of knowledge for all of posterity—may these tips help any who wish to improve their Tristana game.

Mentioning one of my favorite play-styles, MuppetMower writes, “Trist is an amazing tower pusher. That’s what she should be doing all game.” Who cares about kills/deaths ratios; toppling towers is what wins you games! And if your opponent arrives to stop your incessant pushing, Dr. Noobfragger has a plan for taking them down. With Rapid Shot, Tristana “practically doubles her attack speed… so on-hit effects like Bloodrazor or the Black Cleaver are very nice.”

When selecting your first abilities, Fryulator suggests you take Explosive Shot “because it’s a very decent ranged harass with both its active and passive.” Damage-over-time and exploding minions can be miserable for your opponent (and great for your bank account) during the early game. He adds that despite the great utility of rocket jumping, it should be used carefully as it can get you into trouble as easily as it can get you out—especially if you don’t know who’s waiting in the bushes to gank you. Illuria adds that “while Rocket Jump recharges with a champion kill,” it only works if you get the kill or the assist, so “adding the Lizard Buff to your arsenal and keeping the enemy champion slowed with that buff is a massive boost.” Besides, it may just score you the leap-resetting kill you need to hop to safety afterward.

The first rule of a ranged carry: Don't go alone!

Every Tristana player longs to master the Jump/Buster combination. Michael Scherling wrote, “There’s nothing quite like hopping over, and blowing the enemy right back into your turret! I always get a kick out of that when I’m able to pull it off!”

Speaking of awesome uses for Tristana’s ultimate, Mike “TheFailBus” Williams offers a warning: “Don’t use your ulti to last hit enemy champions or to try to kill steal. You WILL mess it up and end up saving them instead. Also, don’t be afraid of using your ulti to escape if you’ve already blown your Rocket Jump.” Fryulator adds that you should use Buster Shot to “interrupt all channeled abilities, like Nunu’s and Katarina’s ults.” Halting those massive AoE spells quickly can save your team and secure your MVP title.

Austin Lombard‘s strategy is simple: “Build attack speed. Don’t die. Shoot people.” I don’t think I could have said it any better myself.

But playing as Tristana is only half of the equation here. Wherever there’s a squat cannon-carrier, there are 5 players facing off against her. Here again, “TheFailBus” offers some sage wisdom: “Trist is super squishy. Wait till she tries to jump in and then focus her down instantly. You can bait Trist into wasting her Rocket Jump early by either making yourself look like a target while your team waits in the brush, or by ganking her while having people waiting further down the lane.”

Items, Runes and Masteries

We held a poll on our Facebook page asking what you thought the best items for Tristana are, and a lot of players sent in their more fleshed-out build guides. Here’s the consensus.

Items:

• Phantom Dancer for extra attack speed and movement speed.
• Infinity Edge for raw damage and extra power to critical hits.
• Other community favorites included the Bloodthirster, Hextech Revolver, Madred’s Bloodrazer, and Last Whisper.

 
Runes:

• Everyone agreed that the most important are Attack Speed and Armor Penetration
• Many liked to include Armor and Magic Resistance in their builds
• Others instead went with a mix of Mana Regeneration, Critical Strike, and raw Attack Damage as their secondary attributes

 
Masteries:
In a shocking first precedent for the internet, everyone unanimously agreed on something: that you should go with a full-out offense Mastery build as Tristana. More specifically, you should put 21 in Attack, 0 in Defense and 9 in Utility. This will help beef up her late game damage significantly.

Ouch! Hot feet! Hot feet!

Rants and Raves

Whether you view her as one of the greatest unsung champions or noob-only fodder, you shared your opinions on just how useful Tristana is. It was a love-hate extravaganza!

• “Woo! Love Tristana! She’s been my main for most of my LoL career, and I must say, she is VERY under-appreciated” -Dr. Noobfragger
• “This call to arms made me stop checking my tweets and go play some LoL” -SlyderEST
• “’Tristana is for noobs’ answer [on the Facebook poll] is right. It’s just one of those “click and watch” champs.” -Dimitar D. Dimitrov
• “Tristana is horribly underpowered. It’s sad cause I think she’s really fun and one of my favorite characters.” -BorisYeltsin
• “Tristana is a great AD carry, able to last-hit with ease.” -Illuria
• “Her ultimate is an awesome game-changing mechanism.” -Knut André W. Jøsok
• “I played AP Trist once. Using my ulti made me smile as I landed on them and blasted them away.” -Tiago
• “AP Tristana is a gimmicky build but she does scale well with AP on Rocket Jump and Buster Shot.” -@menthol_penguin
• “Tristana is squishier then jello, ALWAYS stay back and fire from afar unless in pursuit of an enemy who has low hp.” -Samsta
• “I don’t like Tristana. She is great at harassing and farming, but I feel she is lacking the ‘oomph’ I’m looking for.” -Jesse Moore
• “Late game is usually where Tristana’s best at winning…like if you see a team-fight mid, go top and take out a turret.” -Mak3itSn0w
• “I rock with Tristana” -Michael Scherling

 
If you have a compulsive urge to get in the last word, tell of these jerks in the comments below.

Rocket Jumping is best when surrounding an enemy.

This week’s MVP: Fryulator

Epic plays don’t happen every game, but when they do, you remember ‘em for a long time. Here’s one of Fryulator‘s best:

His team was losing pretty badly, so they decided to have him wait in the jungle while the enemy team pushed past him, and then he would run in to backdoor the enemy base for the win. It may not be ethical, but a win’s a win, right? While waiting, he decided to grab the dragon. Unfortunately, the other team had the same idea. When they arrived, they found the dragon’s corpse on the ground and a quaking Tristana in the corner.

I’ll let Fryulator explain how the rest went down:

“I figure “Oh crap, I’m dead”, so with 3 of them initiating, and the other 2 closing in, I Rocket Jump into the middle, press Q, and ult to knock their carry away. I still don’t know how, but I managed to drop their nuke and 1 of 2 tanks, along with their carry when Shen on my team ults in, saving my life. I pick up the second tank for a Quadra Kill and go for the Penta, but as I land from Rocket Jump, Shen’s sunfire picks up the killsteal. I aced the team, in what was almost a 1v5 situation. I was too stunned to move in for the winning push after that. Anyways, moral of the story: a late game Tristana will murderize you if cornered.”

That’s the kind of moment we play for. That’s the kind of story you’ll brag to your friends about for weeks, until they can recite it word-for-word on their own. That’s the kind of experience we shared in LoL in this week’s Call to Arms. If we missed your story, be sure to add it in the comments or in the forums. If you missed out on the action this week, don’t worry, we’ll be hosting similar events soon. Let us know in the comments who you’d love to see the community focus on playing in the next Call to Arms event.

By the way, if you loved playing Tristana this week and are sad to see her drop out of the free-champion rotation, have no fear! Several members of the community wrote in to share how you can unlock Tristana and her pink-haired skin for free by going to Facebook and “liking” League of Legends. After that, just follow the directions on their Tristana Riot Skin page, and Bam! You can play as Tristana any time you like!

Big props and thanks to everyone who participated in this edition of PC Gamer’s Call to Arms, especially those who left comments and submitted suggestions for this community guide. We can’t wait to do it again!

The new jetpack store can be found in Dome City. Ironically, you have to use a Dome City jetpack to reach the jetpack store on the upper levels of the hub. The store will also sell custom jetpack trails. The new fashion store, Burning Fashions, will replace Carter’s Seasonal Accessories, and provide more buy-able cyborg bling to pimp out your warrior. You’ll find the full patch notes below.

Dome City Changes:

• Carter’s Seasonal Accessories has closed up shop.
• Burning Fashion has arrived in Dome City and will be selling cosmetic flair where Carter’s used to be.
• The long awaited Skyward Jetpacks has finally landed at the upper deck of Dome City and is open for business. In addition to selling jetpacks available elsewhere in the game, Skyward also sells high-end jetpack trail effects. You must be a boosted customer with a jetpack in Dome City in order to reach the upper deck of Dome City where Skyward resides.
• Adjusted the position of the guard at the South gate to the Sonoran Desert to be less confusing to players attempting to exit the dome.

 
Open Zone Changes:

• Uncommon quality Repair Kits can now be purchased from Yuma Imports at New Yuma Station
• Fixed some issues with materials that appeared to flicker when using Direct X 10 on some clients

 
Gameplay Changes:

• Frenzy wave should now properly award buff points for hitting allies

 
Bugs Fixed in Version 1.44

• Finalized netcode update (initially deployed on 6/23). Significant changes to net code that improve communication between the Atlanta data center and the games` other data centers. This should reduce occurrences of the “stuck on floor” issue for EU and NA West users, as well as provide some other benefits while entering and leaving matches.

 
Map Changes

• New PvP Control map “Magmarock” has been promoted from Beta and added permanently to the Mercenary PvP Queue.
• New PvP Payload map “Haulin’ Acid” has been added to the Beta Maps Queue.

Players that like what they see can purchase the game and the Burning Crusade expansion (which increases the level cap to 70, opens Outlands, and unlocks the Blood Elf and Draenei races) for only 20 bucks. In addition, anyone that currently owns the original game, but did not have the Burning Crusade expansion, now has that expansion automatically added to their accounts for free.

What do you think? Will you play around in the new endless trial mode? Is this the Blizzard’s first step in making WoW free-to-play? And is that a change you want Blizzard to make for WoW?

Update: Blizzard has released a full FAQ on the new system, which details (among other things) the restrictions on the trial accounts. It looks like our pie-in-the-sky dreams of building a guild full of level 19 PvP twinks on free trial accounts might be out of our reach…for now.

The full restrictions are:
- A level cap of 20.
– A maximum of 10 gold.
– Trade skills are capped at 100 ranks.
– Unable to trade via the Auction House, mailbox, or player-to-player.
– In-game access to public chat channels unavailable. Players are limited to communicating using only say, party, or whisper.
– Characters will be unable to create or join guilds.
– Characters are not able to send whispers to other characters unless they have been added to the characters’ friends lists or have received a whisper from a character first.
– Characters will not be able to invite other players into a party.
– Characters will not be able to join parties with other characters above level 20.
– Voice chat disabled on Starter Edition accounts.
– Realms experiencing login queues will prioritize players who have full, paid accounts.
– Starter Edition accounts are not eligible for character transfers
– RealID features are disabled on all Starter Edition Accounts.

The open beta phase of Hellgate will launch alongside a series of experience-boosting events, with the addition game modes. Duel Area adds player vs. player deathmatch in four different arenas with names like “Forgotten Grave” and “Passage of Hallucination.” The second mode is the Cow Room. There are no cows in the cow room, but there are zombies, and sandstorms. If you survive the waves of undead and take out the Cow Room boss (hopefully a cow), you stand a chance of picking up some of the most effective weapons in the game.

Hellgate: London was originally made by the now disbanded Flagship studios after the game’s failure caused the studio to shut down. Some members of Flagship went on to form Runic Games, who made the excellent action RPG, Torchlight. Meanwhile, Hanbitsoft have scooped up Flagship titles Hellgate: London and Mythos, and rebalanced both of them as free-to-play games. You can find out more about Mythos on the official site.

Team Fortress 2

Valve. Get it on Steam.

So they actually did it. After all the rumours and speculation, Valve have announced that Team Fortress 2 will be free forever. If you haven’t bought it and you never buy an in-game item, you still get all the maps, classes and game modes paying customers do. The only limitations are that certain rare items aren’t available to find or craft, and you have less inventory space to store the ones you do find. But spend even £0.29 on the cheapest item, and you’re treated as a paying customer and those few restrictions are removed.

Team Fortress 2 added an in-game item shop late last year, letting players pay real money for the many unlockable weapons and hats for each class. This switch to free-to-play comes with a huge new update adding even more of these items for almost every class. But if you’re new to TF2, you won’t care about that: you’ve got enough to learn without any extra items to think about.

A good way to learn the ropes is to play the King of the Hill mode – choose it when you look for a match, or if you’re using the server browser, look for maps starting with koth_. It’s nice and simple, just one control point to capture, so you can learn how the classes work in a controlled environment. The Medic is a good class to start with, since you’re always appreciated and you can pay attention to what your team mates are doing rather than shooting people. Just keep the healy beam on the big man.

Arma 2: Free

Bohemia Interactive. Get it from the Arma 2 website.

Arma 2 is a hyper-realistic military sim with an extraordinary sense of scale and accuracy, but the single-player campaign that never quite hit the heights provided by multiplayer. Which makes Arma 2: Free an exciting prospect. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Operation Flashpoint, Bohemia have taken the best bits of Arma 2 and lobbed them online for you to grab without paying a penny.

All you miss out on is the campaign, the highest quality graphics settings, and the ability to use mods. What you can do is create your own campaigns in the excellent editor, or play those other people have created. The community is huge and creative, and you can find lots of the campaigns they’ve made over at Armaholic.

It’s a huge and often scary game, simulating real war mercilessly. Group up with some friends, lay some explosives, and lie in a bush together for an hour while you wait for the enemy tank convoy to roll over them.

Skinny

Atmos Games. Play it on Newgrounds.

I haven’t seen a game so quietly beautiful in a long time. This 2D, silhouetted platformer has such an extraordinary sense of style that it’s captivating within seconds – and that’s before the game itself has even had a chance to get going.

When it does, it’s a pleasantly floaty platformer about a robot. You’ll jump, grapple and smash your way around the immaculately designed world as you first embark on a quest to recover your son’s lost marbles, then find yourself involved in something a whole load bigger.

You gain new abilities as you work your way through the game, and the surprisingly strong and heartfelt storytelling keeps Skinny engaging throughout. I haven’t enjoyed a browser game this much in ages. A very strong recommendation.

‘Dillo Hills

fexLab. Play it on Kongregate.

If you’re familiar with the iPhone game Tiny Wings, you’ll be at home with this armadillo-based equivalent. If not: you hold a button to roll down slopes, then release it to let the momentum carry you uphill and into the air. You can also, er, ‘soar’ by clicking the upper half of the screen to delay your descent, smashing through birds mid-air for no ethically sound reason. Gems on certain slopes give you an incentive to come down sooner or soar a little longer.

The game’s (re)created very well, with some pleasant aesthetic touches giving ‘Dillo Hills a much needed dash of its own character. It’s peaceful, and pleasant, and a great way to spend a rainy half hour.

One of the biggest surprise announcements of E3 this year was that Arma 2 would be going free to play. Just a few weeks after that announcement, Arma 2 is now free to play. You can grab the 960MB download right here. Thanks to RPS for the heads up.

The free version will let you play the full game, including multiplayer, but locks off the highest graphics settings and cuts out mod support and the single player campaigns. Full map editing tools are present in the free version. If you’ve always been tempted to try a hyper-realistic war sim, this is one you have to try. We’ll see you on the battlefield.

Maple Story, the charming free-to-play game with an alarming amount of depth and addictiveness, is getting a massive update this summer with the new Chaos campaign. Continuing the story after the events of the Big Bang and Resistance content, Chaos sees an evil greater than even the Black Mage creeping to the surface. With the first part of the Chaos update series coming next Wednesday, July 29th, it’s about time to usher in the Age of Heroes. Check out what you’ll find in the incoming update, from time travel to Mutant Slimes.

We're not quite sure what's going on here, but we like it.

The Age of Heroes is the first step in a long line of content additions headed to Maple Story this summer. Here’s what you can expect to see come June 29th:

• The new Gate to the Future area, with new quests and zones
• A new high level boss…from the future!
• Mutated versions of low-level creatures you might remember from back in your early leveling days—those adorable green slimes you killed at Level 1 have morphed into monstrous purple mutants
• Hero class rebalancing: restrictions for creating Dual Blade, Aran and Evan classes will be removed
• New skills and retuning for existing classes; Explorers, Cygnus and Resistance classes return with greatly upgraded main skills

Cute and cuddly no more!

Four more major updates are slated for release following Age of Heroes. In July, we’ll see the dawn of the Age of Artisans, which will debut a new level-based crafting system. After that comes the Age of Battle, where players will finally get to throw down with some good old-fashioned PvP modes. Once you’ve traveled through the Ages, you’ll need to gather your allies to take on the dreaded Ice Knight encounter.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, now’s the time—Maple Story is completely free to play! If you’re having trouble running Maple Story on Windows 7, you can check out our handy troubleshooting guide on the subject.

Tristana – The Megling Gunner

Rocket-jumping is a time-honored, well-loved PC gaming tradition. For years, we’ve launched ourselves to the heavens with a fiery explosion and fired rockets mid-air at unsuspecting enemies during its sacred ritual. Enemies stand in awe as we rain death upon them from on high. Whether you mastered the skill in Quake or struggled with the timing as a Soldier in Team Fortress 2, now is your time to shine! Rocket-jumping isn’t just for FPSes anymore–you can find that same addictive joy in League of Legends.

Enter Tristana, one of the original cast in the ever-growing pantheon of League of Legends champions. She’s a squat, elf-ish, ranged damage-dealer who wields an single-shot cannon with an over-sized barrel that’s as big as she is. On her back, a basket overflows with cannonballs ready for the loading (that is, of course, unless you fork over some cash for her epic firefighter skin, which replaces the ball-filled basket and cannon with a hydrant and hose that sprays jets of water). And with any big weapon that fires explosives, it just takes one well-aimed shot at her feet and BAM! Tristana executes the physics-defying rocket jump. At first, you may stop and wonder at how an iron ball packs the punch needed for an aerial leap, but once you’ve bagged your first jump-kill with it, you’ll no longer care.

The view is lovely from up here--Annie'll never know what hit her.

Just like it did during the classic days of Quake, Tristana’s rocket jump creates some of the greatest moments in a match. Whether you’re attempting a surprise attack or a desperate flee attempt, a bit of a lift is just the ace you want up your sleeve. See a lone hero pushing a tower? Leap out from behind the trees for a nice scare. Need to catch up to a fleeing champion? They’re just a little hop, skip and jump away. Get ganked by the entire enemy team when you’re trying to take out the epic dragon-creep? Just scale the wall to safety in a single bound (taunting your enemies while you’re at it). The possibilities are endless, so long as you don’t miscalculate the distance and end up with a profound, but ineffective, bunny-hop. Nothing screams FAIL! quite like seeing your champion smack up against an wall when you should be sailing to safety. Face-palm!

A few tips

As a ranged champion, Tristana performs best when she’s primarily loaded up with damage and attack-speed items. Couple those with her passive increased range and her Rapid Fire ability to fire up to 80% faster for a few seconds, and she can be quite the glass-cannon. Items with on-hit effects are great with her attack-speed, but be sure to tack on some extra hitpoints in the process, just to be safe.

Whether soloing in the middle lane or teaming up with an ally, Tristana’s passive ability that causes her cannonballs to shatter, doing AoE damage, whenever she kills an enemy is perfect for scoring cash-granting kills on minions, not to mention helping build those early tower-pushes. Just be wary of pushing too far, too fast– the other team is bound to notice and lay a nice trap for you in the bushes.

If you’ve seen that old video of a big balding man who takes a cannonball to the gut at point-blank range and stumbles back into a net, you’re already familiar with Tristana’s ultimate, the Buster Shot. Point your cannon at an enemy champion and fire a heavy shot to knock them backward, no bald man or net required.

But cannons are not toys–you’ll need to be careful when working with teammates–the buster shot can be a huge boon or a huge bane. Time it right and you’ll save a fleeing ally from imminent death. Or combine it with a rocket jump to leap past an enemy and knock them backwards into your tower. Time it wrong, however, and you may unwittingly free a rival champion from the clutches of your team. D’oh!

Line 'em up, knock 'em down.

For the next week, Tristana is part of the free champion rotation. Get out there, give her a try, and let us know what you think. We’ll be hosting game nights on League of Legends all week long, so be sure to join our Steam group and follow us on twitter (Josh, Lucas, Andrew) to receive announcements when we host games! In League of Legends, you can message Nereus, Ljrepresent, or Antichulius in-game for invites. Or set up your own Tristana-filled games.

Don’t just wait for us, though. We’re on a collective mission to play Tristana as many times as physically possible in a week, so do your part and cruise through some matches whenever you have some free time, and capture some hilarious videos ot try out some new item/mastery builds so you can send us your screenshots, videos, strategies and tips! You can download the client for free here, and hit up our beginner’s guide for League of Legends if you’ve never played before!

Whether you play with us, with friends, or with some random pubs (or bots!), help us build the PC Gamer players’ guide to Tristana. To pitch in, and see your name on these hallowed internet pages, send any of the following to letters@pcgamer.com with “Call to Arms” in the subject line.

• Your favorite item builds, rune choices, and mastery selections
• Tips for new players, both for playing as Tristana and for playing against her
• Your epic or embarrassing Tristana videos or screenshots (for videos, upload ‘em to your Youtube account and send us the link)
• Rants and raves–anything you love or hate about Tristana
• Your total kill/deaths/assist count for all of your matches this week, as Tristana only. Your scores will add to the grand community-total.
• Cast your vote in our Tristana poll on our Facebook page

 
We’ll be collecting your submissions in the comments of this post, in this forum post, at letters@pcgamer.com, or on twitter with the #PCGCallToArms hashtag.

When the rotation changes next week and Tristana is no longer free to play, we’ll sift through everything you’ve all sent in and compile it into a full community guide for Tristana, with the best videos, strategies, tips, anecdotes, and a combined kill/death/assist ratio for all us as Tristana and post it on the front page of the site.

*Cue Valve’s Rocket Jump Waltz* Let the battles begin!

“Paying members will have access to all areas in the full game, along with membership benefits such as competitions and community events. In addition to the 15+ robust adventure zones and instances as well as 5+ property worlds currently in-game.”

“Access to new expansions, like major Ninjago content coming later this year, will require players to register for full membership,” they add.

Come August, the game will only be available as a digital download, so there’s no initial charge to get hold of the game client. If you’re thinking about giving the game a go when the free-to-play version arrives, find out more in our Lego Universe review, or check out the Lego Universe site.

UPDATE: The match is over! Congratulation to LoL’s first-ever world champs! (whose name has been edited out for the sake of spoilers–go watch the replay videos!)

This weekend’s Sweden-based Dreamhack esports tournament has hosted some amazing matches for all the competitive games, but League of Legends is my personal favorite to watch–and almost 1,000,000 people have tuned in at one point or another to spectate the LoL portion of the tournament.

The finals match starts today at 3:00 PM PST, and you don’t want to miss it! Two European teams, aAa and FnaticMSI will be duking it out for the $100,000 and all the pride, bragging rights, and nerd cred that comes with being crowned the champions of League of Legends’ first Season.

You can watch video recaps, dynamic brackets, and all sorts of other goodies on Riot Games’ website.

Consider this something of a public service announcement: if you’re anywhere near a computer with internet access (likely, seeing as you’re reading this), then you owe it to yourself to check out the livestream for the League of Legends DreamHack finals, which is currently (as of 10:45am PST) kicking off the match between aAa and Team SoloMid to determine who takes 3rd place and who’ll be making it to the Grand Finals. With the pro-level shoutcasting and High Definition stream, this is one live event you shouldn’t miss (even if you’re at work—just tell your boss you have some important eSports matters to attend to). Check it out at Riot’s Season One Championship site!

Revolutions

Zink-Interactive. Play it on Kongregate.

Revolutions is the sort of game that proves there doesn’t have to be a huge amount of substance for a game to be exceptional: just careful design and a strong sense of identity will get some titles by.

In Revolutions, you play as a small, glowing orb, and your objective for each level is to get to another, slightly bigger glowing orb. It’s a platformer, but the lack of anthropormorphic characters means you identify with the game in a different manner.

The levels are very neatly put together, but it’s the aesthetic that binds everything – it’s a glorious collection of yellows, whites and oranges, combined with the soft, elegant music, that keep you hooked until the end. Simple, but lovely.

Probe

Koubo. Download it from the dev’s website.

I love my exploration games. They’re not too taxing, but they do provide some glorious moments of surprise if done well. Probe isn’t exceptional – it doesn’t throw those surprises at you quite frequently enough – but it adds something different to the mix that ramps up the tension in quite a nice way.

There’s no tutorial, so you’re left to work things out for yourself, but you get the idea that your spaceship has run out of power and you’ve to find a way to fix it. And so below the ground you drop, searching for resources.

But not all areas of this cavernous world are accessible straight off. Instead, you’ve to collect blocks around the place that you then stack, build stairs with and suchlike to reach new places. All the while, a timer’s ticking down – if it runs out, you die.

It’s engaging, and provides a reason for you to be efficient with your work in an otherwise calming game. Worth a look.

Z-Type

PhotosLab. Play it on the website.

I missed Z-Type a little while ago when it emerged onto the web, but it’s good enough that I’ve been holding it back for a rainy week. It’s been raining quite a lot this week. It’s time, people.

So. Do you remember The Typing of the Dead? It was essentially a typing tutorial program, except that it was also House of the Dead, and correctly typing the words that appeared on the screen caused the zombies to explode in a big shower of goo.

Z-Type does the same sort of thing, except it’s a space shooter. You have your ship; the enemies are attacking from above with big words. It’s your job to type those words in order to fire your guns, and eradicate all threat.

It sounds silly, but a nice ambient soundtrack and some lovely minimalist presentation make this properly engaging beyond its core mechanics. Really worth playing, whether it improves your typing or not.

Dinosaur Zookeeper

Not-Vlambeer. Play it on the [adult swim] website.

It’s great – another new addition to [adult swim]‘s increasing collection of delightful free games, and a new title created by Super Crate Box dev Vlambeer. At least, I assume so: the game has “NOT VLAMBEER” plastered all over it, but the fact that the name’s there at all suggests they might be one and the same.

Anyway, this is a sort of distinctly indie take on Zoo Tycoon-meets-Jurassic Park. You’ve taken over a dinosaur park which the previous zookeeper ran into the ground. Your role is to ensure the customers and the dinosaurs are both happy – and, of course, that no one gets eaten alive.

To begin with that’s as simple a task as dragging some fences around your exhibits, but as you progress you realise that this is going to be a more difficult task than you originally thought. The art style is pleasingly sketchy, and the game’s sense of humour raises more than a few smiles.

Crystal Towers 2

David Newton. Grab it from the game’s website.

The full version of Crystal Towers 2 is $5, but there’s also a free version – and since it’s substantial enough to not just feel like a demo, it goes in this list. Especially since it’s very good. I’m always looking for excuses, me.

Initially it seems to be a fairly straightforward platformer with an introductory sequence far longer than any game of this type needs to have. However, it’s also a very funny game, one that absolutely nails the comic timing of its events and dialogue in a really effective way.

The story is that this world is being rid of music, and your job is to stop this from happening. Along the way you’ll meet all sorts of ludicrous characters, and Grab an impressively wide range of collectibles that shape the way you play. For a free version, it never feels restrictive: it’s always looking for new ways to impress you, in as wide-ranging a manner as it can.

Excellent stuff, basically. Get involved.

Now, this isn’t a repackaging of the Observer Mode that you’ve likely seen in previous LoL tournaments or shoutcasts. The previous rendition felt more like a workaround, where the observer would be listed as a teammate to one side, only able to keep tabs on one team’s perspective. Riot’s addressed this problem, and how—spectators will now be on an entirely separate “team” of their own, able to chat amongst themselves as they watch the action unfold. Producer Travis George emphasized that the name change from Observer to Spectator was a calculated decision, saying that watching high-level LoL players needs to feel “more like a sporting event.” PR Manager Chris Heintz added that Spectator Mode should feel “as close to ESPN as possible.” (Minus the obnoxious Around the Horn episodes, I presume.)

And it’s not just in-game improvements, either: Riot plans to revamp the website to draw attention and drum up excitement for major and minor tournaments alike. Plans are in place to include a live bracket for tournaments as part of the new page’s coverage, and George stated that they want to support shoutcasting as much as humanly possible. One way to do that is by giving spectators some empowering interface functionality, with a new UI made specifically for Spectator Mode. Want to get the skinny on how it’ll work? Let’s take a closer look and break it down, piece by piece.

Click me! Either for the full view, or just because you want to.

1: Visibility
No longer is the audience restricted to watching one team or the other—spectators will be able to see every player, not to mention the entire map. That also includes being able to see when members from either team get gold from creep kills, towers, and so on. Now it’ll be apparent who’s dominating a lane, and who’s lagging behind on CS.

2: Readability
This handy scoreboard isn’t fully finalized, but we like what we see already. The biggest numbers in the middle display how many kills each team has, and this is usually (but not always) a good indicator of who’s in the lead. On the outsides, there’s a display for how many buildings a team has destroyed—again, pretty self explanatory. What’s most interesting is the number in between: this denotes how much gold either team has earned as a whole. While it may not be as exciting as a killing spree, a team’s gold count is oftentimes the best determinant of how much it’s leading or losing by. As you can see in the example here, the kill tallies may be the same, but Purple’s gold is ahead by a sizable margin, meaning it can afford more items that grant additional damage and survivability.

3: Super-vision
As you can see from this little side panel in the corner (which got cut off in the image by Riot—curses!), spectators can control their map awareness, so to speak. Fog of War can be toggled on or off to see if a player did or didn’t notice that an entire team was about to gank him, and one team’s perspective can be chosen for a throwback to Observer mode. Best of all, custom hotkeys allow spectators to move the camera at the press of a button. In the build we saw, George had mapped the members of the Blue team to Q, W, E, and R, and with just a few keystrokes, he zipped around the map, switching to ongoing action instantly and able to lock his camera on whichever champion struck his fancy. George said this tool will be a huge boon to the shoutcasting community—mastery of your keybindings will be incredibly liberating for commentators and spectators alike, as commentators will be able to control where, when, and how we view the action.

4: Primed and ready
Just like when you’re playing the game, you’ll see a row of portraits displaying the HP and MP levels of your teammates, and whether or not their ultimate abilities are ready for use. But what you won’t see anywhere other than Spectator Mode are the cooldowns for each Summoner Spell a champion’s selected. This means you can cringe when someone gets ganked two seconds before their Flash was up, or yell at your monitor when Ashe fails to use her ultimate in a teamfight even when it was available the entire time. If you want even more in-depth info, you can click on a champion’s portrait to see the cooldown on their every ability, and what level each of their skills is at.

5: The nitty-gritty
And, of course, you’ve got a complete picture of what’s happening in the game at the bottom of the screen, with the same information you’d normally see if you pressed Tab to check the scoreboard during a real match. This isn’t incredibly exciting, but it is quite useful—at a glance, you can see who’s getting which items, who’s not killing enough creeps, and which champion is feeding like crazy with their 0/11/2 record.

Additionally, George explained that the playback on matches has a slight delay (around 15 seconds) for two reasons: to eliminate the possibility of a phone-a-friend cheater who tells you where everyone is, and to reduce stress on the already crowded servers. So there you have it: Spectator Mode, the new best way to watch your favorite League of Legends matches (that’s almost a game within a game, thanks to the spiffy camera macros). At the moment, Spectator Mode is only compatible with custom games—this will likely change, but it’s fine for now, as all championship matches are set up as customs. George said they would try to deliver Spectator Mode to fans as soon as possible after DreamHack, where they’ll be showing off its capabilities for the entire audience to see.

Speaking of DreamHack, get hype! This weekend, the best League of Legends players around will be duking it out for an unprecedented $100,000 prize pool at DreamHack 2011 in Jönköping, Sweden. You should definitely check out the LoL page dedicated to DreamHack periodically during the weekend—I know I’ll be glued to my seat for these matches, where we’ll get to witness the titans of the LoL community clash for fame and fortune. Which community will be victorious in the battle of US vs EU servers? Tune in to find out.

Fract is a first-person puzzle game with that looks like a cross between Darwinia and a Daft Punk video. The puzzles are pretty simple – twisting knobs or pushing buttons to match patterns – but it looks stunning and the world responds in ways that makes solving those puzzles extremely rewarding.

The game isn’t finished yet, but you can download a beta for Windows or Mac from the Fract site. Or skip below for more screenshots.

Tutorial videos are the best way to learn the ropes of a new character when stepping into the arena of any MOBA. You can forget the stress of trial-by-fire and just sit back and enjoy a step-by-step manual on how to own face. That’s why we’ve begun recruiting some of the top shoutcasters and video guide-makers to bring you guides to new MOBA champions as they come out. Up first, we’ve got an in-depth guide to Grimrog, the newest bloodline to join the roster of Bloodline Champions, who just went live yesterday. BLC shoutcasting all-star Kast (with a K!) is on the mic, and if you haven’t heard of him yet, let us assure you that this guy knows his stuff! Want to learn how to make your enemies kneel before your burst damaging, debuff-and-heal blasting self? All you have to do is press play.

Way back in the middle of May, we gave you the world-exclusive reveal of Grimrog, the pugilistic pairing of the dinky shaman Grim and his beefcake brother Rog. With yesterday’s 1.2.1.1 patch for Bloodline Champions, Grimrog’s finally available for use in matchmaking and tournament games. With the info from Kast’s tutorial, you’ll be prepared for to both take down and play as the hulking healer-melee hybrid.

Once you’ve learned the ins-and-outs of Grimrog, you’ll be ready to take on any League (even Diamond). Even if you don’t feel like competing yourself, the insight Kast provides’ll come in handy when you’re watching the intense BLC portion of Dreamhack this weekend. If you want to see more tutorials by the always-insightful Kast, be sure to check out his YouTube channel for more tips and tricks (both in general and for specific bloodlines) that’ll propel you to victory. Even if you think you know it all when it comes to BLC, you should be watching his shoutcasting streams at www.BLGtv.net and www.BLGaming.com, they’re fantastic.

Got any comments or suggestions for Kast? Drop him a line at kast@BLGaming.com —he’s totally open to viewer feedback. Drop us a note in the comments about what champion/hero/bloodline you’d like to see our next video tutorial cover. And if you want to be tapped in to all the latest BLC info, be sure to follow Kast’s Twitter and Facebook accounts as well. Now get out there, and give Grimrog a whirl! (Bad Claw Flurry pun intended.)

Massively revealed the official announcement today, along with some rudimentary details about how the free-to-play system will work. In short, there will be four levels of payment that you can adopt: nothing (the whole game will still be open to you), less than the current sub (all the same content as current subscribers, plus an XP gain), the current sub (same as previous, but with extra rewards and cash shop currency to spend), and higher than the current sub (which has everything already mentioned, plus it gives the bonuses to anyone you group with–and it can stack with other top-level subscribers for ultimate domination).

The cash shop will sell cosmetic items, convenience items that reduce crafting times, and other unspecified goodies. GamersFirst is selling balanced guns in APB: Reloaded, so I would expect them to do the same in Fallen Earth, although that hasn’t been confirmed yet. The shift to free-to-play is expected to happen within the next few months.

A video, screenshots and some thoughts below.

The game starts at the end of Mohammed Mossadegh‘s life, and you control the cat sleeping at the end of the bed. Using only the arrow keys and the space bar to swipe, you then coax Mossadegh through the significant events of his life: from his imprisonment, to the coup that overthrew him, to his nationalising of the Iranian oil industry and the beefs with Winston Churchill and President Eisenhower that inspired. Each scene is a little puzzle with which you interact in simple, cat-like ways, and in so doing the game creates an easily remembered metaphor for each event. It’s a compelling way to teach the things that matter about historical events.

It’s also fun. Go grab The Cat and the Coup on Steam for free right now. You won’t regret the 15 minutes you spend with it.

Still not convinced? There are a few more screenshots of the game below, a bunch more on the official site, and the release trailer below gives you a sense of it:

The Cat and the Coup – Release Trailer from Peter Brinson on Vimeo.