In world with very disappointing early access games it's nice to point to one and realize it was done right. I picked up Prison Architect in 2013 after a very positive review of Alpha 10 by Chris Schetter. At the time it was a lot more simple but even then it had enough gameplay to hook me. After the next updates came I decided to pause my play of it because it seemed like they had a ton to add and I wanted to pick it up in closer to 1.0. As luck would have it, it seems I can head back and start managing my prison again.


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Blizzard dropped a huge 3.0 patch to Starcraft 2 today. This brought a some new changes including an entire redesign of the user interface. It also preps current Starcraft 2 players to get all the files they will need for the expansion come launch day. Blizz has also now made the new Legacy of the Void prologue missions "Whispers of Oblivion" free for everyone. I just finished up the first mission and it was a frantic ride with the Protoss. The into cinematic and first prolog mission really set the stage for the upcoming campaign and if this mission is a taste of what we have in store for the main campaign, it will be great.

For all of you that only have Wings of... Read All


One of the things I want to spend more time doing is interviewing game developers making great games. Portland has a very active local game scene and I plan on giving it more attention over the upcoming months. Some of my local friends over at Tiny Horse Games are working on a local couch multiplayer platform shooter that is so frantically fun it gives me some of the original Unreal Tournament feels. I reached out to Tyler and Hagen to do an interview with us and after a great PAX showing and a few local cons later they had time in their indie rock development life to talk to us about making games.

jdodson: I want to congratulate you both for the game coming out on... Read All


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Now that Starship Rubicon has been launched into orbit I want to focus some attention to Cheerful Ghost. As a community we've come really far on this current site and technology platform but I have some ideas on ways to improve things that should help us out quite a bit. Over the last couple months i've sent out some emails to community members where we've discussed ideas i've had but I want to now ask everyone together.

What kinds of things do you want to see Cheerful Ghost do? Is there something you do on the site now you'd like to see improved? Is there something you'd like us to get into? We are a community and as such i'd like to hear your ideas and work on the... Read All


Charisma isn't something i've spent many points on in Fallout but I am thinking having a more Charismatic character might be something I do this time around. Talking people into things seems like a better solution and I remember many times in Fallout 3 where it would have saved me much grief to make friends instead of blasting away.


Chet Faliszek is a writer at Valve that worked on Portal, Left 4 Dead and Half-life. He is currently working on VR at Valve and gave a great talk at this years EGX. If you are interested in learning more about VR and how Valve and HTC are making the Vive you need to check this out. Plus, you know, it's more from Valve.... Don't we all love everything they do?


Cough. Yeah, well you know I couldn't really help making that pun so... anyways, let's not count this too far against me ok? Anyways, oh right Knuckle Sandwich is a great new upcoming RPG game from Indie developer Andrew Brophy that just dropped on Steam Greenlight.

"Knuckle Sandwich is an ļ½ļ½„ļ½–ļ½…ļ½Žļ½”ļ½•ļ½’ļ½… ļ¼ rpg thing where you play as a young man who starts working at a run down diner. His job sucks and his boss isn't much chop either! Luckily, people from around town start to go missing and a hella mysterious cult appears and they're looking for someone who seems dangerous.

Wait, no - that's not lucky, that's bad!

It's not up to you to get to the bottom of this mystery, but... Read All


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I've been waiting to pre-order Legacy of the Void until details of the Collectors Edition dropped and today was a good day. If you saw the Diablo 3, Reaper of Souls, Starcraft 2 or Heart of the Swarm Collectors Editions this is fits along side those. Featuring the base game, CD score, behind the scenes DVD & Bluray and field manual this version should round out my collectors set for the trilogy.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19907624


"To accompany the game, Ben Prunty composed a masterful sci-fi soundtrack that we're thrilled to release on vinyl for the very first time! Give it a listen here. To do this vinyl recording its ultimate justice, we had the audio mastered at Telegraph Mastering Studio. We can't wait for you to hear it like this!

We teamed up with Leif Podhajsky to design a vinyl package that blows our minds with its awesomeness! Leif's pedigree includes album covers for many top labels, including famed rock group, Tame Impala.
"

I like seeing this kind of lush physical release treatment for Indie games and soundtracks as they generally only exist digitally. This is a nice piece to put on... Read All


As WhiteboySlim mentioned in the latest roundtable, ConcernedApe is nearing the release of Stardew Valley. He says it should be out sometime this year and as such Chucklefish streamed the game for an hour. Personally I want to wait to experience the game fresh, but I don't fault you for peeking early. I'll clip out a bit from a recent blog post on the matter:

"The game is very close to being finished. I don’t have a set release date yet, but it will certainly be out this year. Single player is 99% finished, but needs a more polishing and debugging. Multiplayer still needs some work, and I am looking into possibly switching to MonoGame, which would allow for a Mac and... Read All