Positech Games have masterfully concentrated the most entertaining bits of space games over the years: massive capital ships flinging gigantic lazor beams at each other with swarms of fighters dodging between them, and the ability to design and arrange those ships so that they might inflict the maximum amount of superheated plasma death upon the enemy before they bite the dust. In a glorious lightshow of kersplosions, of course.

They’ve tried to make something simple and engaging – something that doesn’t need frantic RTS-style clicking activity to get you anywhere. I’d say they’ve succeeded. You provide the brain and GSB will happily provide the brawn; in a vaguely Progress Quest way, the actual battle sequences don’t require any input from you at all – they’re just a display of how things turned out, as your ships act autonomously using whatever orders you set before the battle begins. But don’t be fooled into thinking this game has nothing for you to do. The challenge is setting up your fleet to achieve victory in an efficient way to earn yourself more “honour”, and so unlock armaments for the next confrontation that are even more devastating.

Folks who want to control every last detail may not find Gratuitous Space Battles to be their cup of tea, but it’s an excellent title for anyone who wants to cut to the chase and get right to the explody bit. What are you waiting for? The chaos is just a few mouse clicks away!

Game: Gratuitous Space Battles
Genre: Strategy
Author: Positech Games
Platform: Windows
License: Shareware
Homepage: http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/

Osmos [link], released a few months ago by Hemisphere Games, is something I failed miserably to mention at the time. Continuing the trend of ambient chillout games with which you can switch your brain off for a while, this one features a nifty absorb ‘em up gameplay mechanic with plenty of interesting twists to keep your attention. Drift around a fluid playfield filled with various sizes of cellular blobs and complete set objectives, such as absorbing a specific cell or simply becoming the biggest in the pool. Though it starts out easy, you’ll soon find yourself needing quite a bit of dexterity and fast thinking, especially if you want to unlock the endgame achievements. A snip at $10, I’d say, and there’s a demo for you to try first if you like.

Now, a confession – I’ve not sat down and given AI War: Fleet Command [link] an awful lot of my time, but I still want to give you the heads-up on it because Arcen Games seem to have a sleeper hit on their hands. The main thing to say is that despite being an RTS, AI War includes bits of 4X and even turn-based strategy, with the main draw being an extremely competent AI opponent (which you fight either solo or in co-op multiplayer). Attempting to control every single bit of the map will end in tears quickly, because the enemy’s “Threat” rating will increase as you destroy its ships and perform certain other actions, eventually reaching a stage where its onslaught becomes too great for you to counter; considered, surgical strikes are what you’ll need to win. If campaigns spanning many hours sound like your type of fun, give the demo a spin.

First, from Amanita Design, comes Machinarium [link]. The winner of this year’s IGF Excellence in Visual Art award has been a long time in the works but looks, as you may imagine, absolutely splendid. Help a robot who’s been exiled from his city to rescue his girlfriend, kick out the bad guys and generally make the world right again. Essentially it’s a point-and-click adventure, but with fantastic hand-drawn environments and characters. There’s a lot to praise about this game, not least the sublime atmospheric music and perfectly-weighted humour. Check out the demo in your browser, or wander along here for their other games.

After running a competition to decide its new name, the game formerly known as Dyson has become Eufloria [link] – a far more fitting title! Rudolf Kremers and Alex May have finished up the game and it’s a perfect chillout RTS without any of the frills that often confuse rather than help. Control your flock (cloud?… swarm?…) of sentient seedlings to explore an asteroid belt and discover the cause of a hostile infection. Nice and relaxing, yet with a definite challenge toward the end. Get a taste of Eufloria with the demo.

More indie stuff to come over the weekend!

Mondo Medicals [link, about halfway down the page] is a game from prolific Swedish developer Cactus. I can’t say I have a great fondness for his stuff – it tends to wander too far around the “experimental” side for my taste – but you can’t really bash what you haven’t played, and this seemed like a good opportunity to broaden my horizons and maybe even learn a bit into the bargain. Like most of his games, it’s fairly short, and isn’t too much of a time sink. Though of course that depends on how difficult you find it.

The plot, such as it is, involves… no, wait! I’m going to be a meanie and tell you to play the game yourself to find out, since there’s so little of it and it’s best experienced first-hand. What I can say without spoiling anything is that the basic concept is of a first-person puzzler, not entirely unlike Portal (without the mad physics); it exists to test your powers of observation and logical thinking – or should that be illogical thinking? – while making you feel “on edge” at the same time.

Medicals isn’t an especially cheery game, so don’t go into it expecting it to be all flowers and colours and cute fluffy animals. The small amount of dialogue you are shown skirts the border between comical, creepy and downright crazy. Ah yes, and you might want to turn the volume down from whatever you usually have it set to… *wink wink, nudge nudge*

It’s quite thought-provoking to play through and I enjoyed it more than I anticipated. What I did find was that there’s a tangible feeling of relief when you alt-tab or otherwise exit the game – which I guess for something that’s trying to be a bit edgy is an achievement worth recognising. Some of the eight levels you must work through are tricky, but they generally have a very simple concept behind them. As a closing piece of advice: take nothing for granted…

For those who are looking for something that’s out of the ordinary, or just for something to occupy yourself with for an hour or so, then give Mondo Medicals a look. Despite the gloom, I like it. It challenges your senses as well as your brains!

Game: Mondo Medicals
Genre: FPS, puzzle
Author: Cactus
Platform: Windows
License: Freeware
Homepage: http://www.cactus.x10hosting.com/games.htm

Play Zolyx online!

Brought to you by the power of the Java Commodore 64 emulator created by Joakim Eriksson. Hope it brings back some memories

Runic Games just announced that their hotly-anticipated action RPG Torchlight [link] will be available on Steam from the first day of release (October 27th). Previously you’d have had to wait an extra month if you wanted to buy the game this way, but there’s no need for that now!

Of course, should you wish to support the Runic team directly you’ll also be able to buy game keys from their website.

As I was saying – tinkering with Median XL hasn’t turned out to be a five minute wonder like most of my gaming habits, so it’s probably only right to put into words (and pictures) what has kept my interest so far…

If you have a peruse at Median’s homepage, you’ll soon see that the change list is ever so slightly HUGE. It changes all of the classes by giving them brand new skills. It adds new monsters that use sneaky AI and uberquests for tough-nut characters. It adds new gems, new runes, and “mystic orbs” you can use to create crafted items with the exact bonuses you want. There’s just a lot more action, right from the get-go… and for an action RPG, I’d say that’s a good thing

It’s doubly strange, really, because I’m far from being a fan of horror stuff either – yet that’s what 5DaS is themed on. But its horror is well-paced, done in such a way to build up a decent sense of tension. Playing it in a dark room with headphones on will surely immerse you into the atmosphere quite well…

You play the part of “Trilby”, a gentleman thief and all around dark horse, who has learnt that the manor of the late Sir Clarence DeFoe – a wealthy man who only recently caught a bad case of aristocracy – has been left empty after his untimely demise. Thinking to strike while the body is still warm and bag himself some shiny loot, Trilby very soon finds himself making an entrance to the upstairs of the place through a window that has been conveniently left open. Discovering that the safe in DeFoe’s study is empty, however, is only the tip of the bad vibes iceberg…

Beyond this, I can’t really tell you anything more about the story without getting into spoiler-land, so we’ll move swiftly onwards. What is the game like to play? There’s a lot of quality that shines through. The artwork is great – not the best, but well beyond a lot of solo-made efforts – and the creepy ambient sound effects and incidental music draw you in to the experience nicely. The key thing, though, is how well the puzzles flow. I’m guessing it likely that veterans of the genre may find the game a little on the easy side, but for me the difficulty was pitched just right. In other words, they made me scratch my head a bit without forcing me to go off and look at a walkthrough; there’s always some logic behind the solution.

As a game that’s been around for a good number of years, and made in the solid Adventure Game Studio, you’re unlikely to encounter any annoying glitches in 5DaS to halt your progress – but death is possible, so saving at regular intervals is a good move unless you really enjoy retracing your steps. As for the horror elements of the story, well, the impact of the gore isn’t numbed by being too frequent or too in your face. But I don’t doubt you’ll get a scare or two on your first playthrough!

For fans of point-and-click games – and even for those, like me, who’ve never really bothered ’til now – 5 Days a Stranger holds some worthwhile hours of storytelling. Give it a try, and if you like it, you’re in for a treat – there’s another 3 games that continue the DeFoe saga, all avilable from FullyRamblomatic.com.

Game: 5 Days a Stranger
Genre: Adventure
Author: Ben Croshaw
Platform: Windows
License: Freeware
Homepage: http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/5days/

Here is a handy illustration of gapspace that you may wish to carry with you in order to safeguard your day-to-day activity.

Meanwhile, normal posting (if anything here can be categorised as such) will resume shortly…

I’m hyped. It’s going to be an interesting couple of days!