Month: February 2018

Yume Nikki: Dream Diary

Yume Nikki: Dream Diary soon to bring a new dimension of horror to Steam

by PJ Moon, posted in Posts, Previews

Horror gaming in 2004 was a different landscape than it is today. Resident Evil 4 had yet to come along and redefine the genre, and Silent Hill games were still good. Most horror games played like early Resident Evil titles, featuring low-poly player characters struggling for their survival amongst compressed, pre-rendered backgrounds.

Yume Nikki + Kikiyama

A two-dimensional horror game was completely antithetical to what early-aughts horror game developers were developing. So, a two-dimensional horror game in 2004 would have been a pretty weird concept, right? Right indeed. Yume Nikki is a horror game from 2004 as weird as it is two-dimensional.

Yume Nikki was created by Kikiyama, a secretive developer about which little is known. The game was created using RPG-Maker and features simple gameplay mechanics. Players navigate pixelated nightmare-scapes and solve obtuse environmental puzzles. Unlike most of its RPG-Maker counterparts, Yume Nikki pits these gameplay mechanics against a set of bizarre, colourful worlds. Yume Nikki is notorious for leaving players dazed because of its sparse story, abstract world, and all around one-of-a-kind experience. Now available for free on Steam, Yume Nikki is a game you should play if you have yet to do so.

Playism, the publisher of Yume Nikki, recently announced a sequel too… sort of. Less a sequel and more of a reboot, Yume Nikki: Dream Diary is a reimagining of the original title. Featuring direct cooperation and supervision from Kikiyama, Yume Nikki: Dream Diary is being developed by Active Gaming Media, a company known for its localizations of titles No More Heroes and Soul Caliber IV.

Yume Nikki: Dream Diary will feature the off-putting, psychedelic world of Yume Nikki in three dimensions. Much like the original Yume Nikki, Yume Nikki: Dream Diary focuses on the young girl protagonist, Madotsuki, exploring a variety of dream worlds while trying to avoid horrifying humanoid monsters. Yume Nikki: Dream Diary is coming to Steam on February 23 and will cost $20.

Check out one of the trailers here:

The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights Of Britannia gets a pre-launch trailer

by Sally Mettson, posted in Posts

Anime fans will be happy about this one. The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights Of Britannia game is coming exclusively to PS4 on February 9th, and Bandai Namco have just released a pre-launch trailer to build the hype up some more:

The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights Of Britannia

In case you didn’t know, The Seven Deadly Sins is a Japanese manga series that was later turned into an anime series in 2015 – it was then licensed for an English release by the mighty Netflix.

Knights Of Britannia allows you to fight with Meliodas, King, Ban and the other Seven Deadly Sins and play the anime stories of over 100 quests across Britannia.

The adventure mode allows you to roam around the land with Hawk Mama to find out where the other Sins are. There are side-quests to complete and you can perform the special character attacks called ‘Sin Action’.

In the duel mode, you can face off in traditional arenas set in locations from the anime; there’s both 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2 modes. You can customise your character with magic crystals and there are 20 playable characters available – with an online mode as well.

There’s a physical version on its way called The Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath Collector’s Edition which features this shiny lot for super fans:

  • The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia Full Game
  • Genuine Official Laser Cell Art, designed exclusively by the anime studio
  • 12cm (4,7“) figurine of Meliodas by Banpresto
  • Collector’s Box

The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights Of Britannia

You’ll see recreations of some of the fights from the show along with battles from the second season Revival of The Commandments. It’s looking fun from the trailer already, so hopefully, it’ll turn out to be a winner.

VR game Innocent

VR game Innocent escapes to Early Access at the end of the month

by Nitchigamer, posted in Posts, VR

Nuclear Studio’s new VR game, Innocent, will go into Early Access via Steam on February 26th.

VR Game Innocent: What’s It About?

Innocent is not the developer’s first VR game, but they have stated it’s their biggest project to date. Many a late night has occurred during the creation of the title then. But what’s it all about?

Fundamentally, it’s a puzzle adventure game with an ‘intense’ storyline and a bit of a twist:

“This is not a typical room escape game – you don’t just escape from one room – you escape from the run-down earth and find a way to survive.”

What about that story?

In the year 2218, Earth has been devastated by disasters caused by excessive logging and destruction of natural resources. Unknown viruses have filled every corner of the world with raging “mutated creatures”.

The most terrible of such viruses is known as “carbonized disease”. It’s the greatest threat to humanity that has ever been seen. Infection with the disease will cause a human to carbonize from the inside out:

It’s all looking rather intriguing. Innocent hits Steam Early Access on the 26th February. You can check out the store preview page here while you wait.

Switch sales

The Switch beats the Wii U’s entire sales in 10 months

by Nitchigamer, posted in Nintendo, Posts

A few days back Nintendo released its earnings report, giving us a look at the lifetime sales of all of its hardware launches. It was unsurprising to see that the Switch is doing extremely well, however, what was a little surprising is that it has sold more in ten months then the Wii U did during its entire run. That’s in 5 years.

Nintendo Switch Sales VS. Wii U

Capture.JPGCapture2.JPGThis can be explained by the differences in titles and features that both systems had: the Switch launched major first-party titles early that are open world and frankly rocked just about every review site there is, with Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild selling 9 and 6.7 million respectively.

The Switch also has a solid selection of third-party titles to go along with a growing list of download only games. The Wii U never really seemed to get off the ground and was always waiting for the major titles – it also placed a lot of focus on the second screen gameplay of its tablet. A concept that was, to me, pretty clever, but it was difficult to market and certainly hard to use, even for more experienced gamers. Most thought the Wii U was an attachment for the original Wii.

The Switch is on pace to pass the GameCube’s figure of 21.74m and it may well overtake the Nintendo 64 at 32.93m as well. However, it is still a long way off from the PS4, which Sony believes sold 18 million alone in 2017 bringing its total sales to 73 million. (The PS4 has been on sale since 2013).

With that said, it’s early days yet and the Switch is proving to be a great place for indie developers to get their games noticed in a marketplace that isn’t supersaturated – at the time of writing anyway.

Raging Justice

Feel the ‘Raging Justice’ – a new 2D beat ’em up coming this year

by Sanjiv Sookoo, posted in Nintendo, Posts

Side-scrolling beat ’em ups were commonplace amongst the consoles of old with unforgettable titles such as Final Fight and Streets of Rage.

Raging Justice: Clean Up The Streets

So, as with everything in life, the gaming industry is also cyclical, and new title Raging Justice pulls at the strings of nostalgia, drawing much inspiration from those classic games.

Featuring two playable characters, a 41-year-old ex-cop Rick Justice and a 31-year-old ex-military Nikki Rage. The basic premise of the game is as simple as those aforementioned names: you beat up a lot of thugs on the streets.

What’s interesting is the wide variety of weapons available, however. From lawnmowers to tractors, the player will have a lot of fun in choosing their preferred method of cleaning up the streets. Raging Justice adds an interesting twist as players can defeat their enemies physically or arrest them too, each garnering a different reward:

The game is being developed by MakinGames and will be published by Team 17. It’s set to come out later this year on PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

Hollow Knight

Another free content pack for Hollow Knight is coming soon

by Sanjiv Sookoo, posted in Posts

Hollow Knight has been one of the most praised and prominent indie games in recent memories. It is a stylish Metroidvania developed and published by Team Cherry and has garnered positive reviews all around. The game shows that indie developers can stamp their name in the industry.

Hollow Knight: Free Content Pack Number 3

Today, the Hollow Knight developers have officially announced the game’s third free content pack called Gods and Glory. It is the final chapter of the Knight’s journey and includes a lot of new content:

  • Players will unlock an extra character and quest involving the Godseeker.
  • There are new boss fights and a new game mode that is unlocked by completing the Gods and Glory story.
  • Furthermore, there’s new music and new charms to add to the collection. That’s a lot of new!

There’s no official release date for the content pack just yet, but it’s said to be released early 2018. For the meagre price of $14.99, I highly recommend players jump into this game and experience one of the best games of 2017.

Steam Indie Games

5 Indie Steam Games For This Week – Feb 1st

by Nitchigamer, posted in Features, Posts

There have been some solid Steam indie games released recently, so here’s a few we selected for this week:

In Death

In Death

In Death was created exclusively for the amazing immersion of VR – so you’ll need a HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or Windows Mixed Reality headset to play it. The game is a roguelite shooter set in the afterlife.

  • Store Page
  • Price: £13.94
  • Developer: Sólfar Studios

Tangledeep

Tangledeep

Tangledeep combines 16-bit graphics from classic SNES-era RPGs with elements from roguelikes and dungeon crawlers to create an experience for players of every skill level.

  • Store Page
  • Price: £9.89 –  until Feb 8th
  • Developer: Impact Gameworks

Anchorhead

Anchorhead

Anchorhead is a text adventure game in the style of old Infocom games from the 1980s. That means no graphics, no menus, no point-and-click – you navigate a written story using typed commands, and read what happens next. Sound intriguing?

  • Store Page
  • Price: £7.19
  • Developer: Michael Gentry

Martial Arts Brutality

Martial Arts Brutality

The quite literally named Martial Arts Brutality is a F2P (Free-to-play) turn-based tactical card fighter. In the game, you will learn the secrets of Kung Fu while ensuring you maintain some good ‘Chi’ Energy.

Dust and Salt

Dust and Salt

Dust and Salt is a text-based narrative adventure which features turn-based tactical battles. It’s set in a medieval fantasy world, but one in which there’s sadly no Aragorn or Gandalf.

That’s your lot this time around. Have you been playing any new indie games on Steam this week? Let us know in the comments section below.

Battalion 1944 Early Access

Battalion 1944 is now in Early Access on Steam

by Trevor Cripe, posted in Posts

The shooter community had been crying out for an old school, take me back to the basics FPS for a while now. This desire eventually led to UK developers, Bulkhead Interactive, creating a Kickstarter for a skill-based, twitch shooter called Battalion 1944.

Battalion 1944 Early Access On Steam

The Kickstarter was hugely successful and has grossed over $400,000 so far. Now, almost two full years later, Battalion 1944 will finally be available to the public.

Let’s get you guys caught up:

  • Today (February 1st) Battalion 1944 has launched on Steam through the Early Access program
  • The standard Early Access version of Battalion will go for the modest price of $14.99
  • While the “First to Fight” edition (which includes the core game, 5 war chests, the original soundtrack and an exclusive trench gun skin) will go for $24.99
  • Additionally, if you buy Battalion on launch day, you get 10% of the retail price of whichever version you choose to purchase
  • Lastly, Bulkhead has released details of the first patch for Battalion 1944. It arrives on February 8th, with the highlight of the patch being ranked matchmaking

So, will you guys be picking up Battalion 1944 in Early Access? Or will you wait for the full release? Let me know in the comments down below!

Z-Alert

Survival RPG Z-Alert announced for PC and Mac

by Chris Wheatley, posted in Posts

A brand new survival sim from indie developers Cedar Games – Z-Alert – has been officially unveiled for release on PC and Mac. The announcement for the debut title from the young development team also came with a rather intriguing trailer to help shine some light on the unique zombie apocalypse title:

The non-linear 2D survival title places players into a world full of the living dead, and a resourceful approach to make it through the night alive. Players will have the ability to craft resources found when scavenging, recruit team members both online and offline, as well as building their own shelter to stay safe from the hordes.

Here are the takeaways from the announcement of Z-Alert:

  • The world of Z-alert provides an engaging story full of characters, with unique world generation and surprise encounters to ensure each playthrough is as fresh as the first.
  • Players will be able to discover useful resources to craft new items and construct a shelter, as well as embark into the dangerous forest for valuable loot.
  • Played in both single-player and online, players are able to recruit a team of companions to help take on the dangers of the world outside your shelter.
  • The unique 2D visuals present a non-linear approach with plenty of simulation, survival and RPG elements like customizing character skills and perks to keep Z-Alert rich and engaging.

The survival experience is completely customizable, granting players the ability to change combat from automated fights, classic 2D combat or tactical isometric battles.

More on the debut title – Z-Alert – from Cedar Games is bound to surface later in the year as the game sets to release on PC and Mac. Stay tuned.