Devil’s Bluff: Like Clue Where the Murderer Actually Gets to Murder

One of the most annoying parts of playing Clue, for me, was to discover that in order to win I had to turn myself in. Also, why didn’t I know that I was the murderer? It makes no sense. I should have been solving my predicament by murdering all the people who are close to figuring me out. In Devil’s Bluff, that’s exactly what you get to do… WHILE WEARING A LUCHADOR COSTUME.

devil's_bluff2zoom in

The online game stars ten friends who are enjoying their yearly costume party at a spooooOOOOoooky mansion when someone turns up rather murdered. That doesn’t usually happen, and a note from the murderer gets them all working on a scavenger hunt. The players need to form alliances, but that could be a serious problem, given that one of the players is actually the devil, hell bent on murdering everybody.

Meanwhile, the mansion is filled with secret passageways, peep holes, trap doors, sliding staircases, deathtraps, and hiding places that the players can use to their advantage. The devil can see all of these, but the survivors will have to discover them.

devil's_bluffzoom in

I think this sounds like great fun, so go spend money on Kickstarter; early birds get the game for $10(USD), and everybody else only has to spend $15. For now, the devs are only promising the game for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, Android, and iOS are all stretch goals.

[via Kickstarter]

Impact Winter: Can You Survive 30 Days of Snow and Good Voice Acting?

Eight years ago (in the game Impact Winter’s setting), an asteroid struck Manitoba. That was indeed bad, but the worst part was the amount of debris it kicked up into the atmosphere. As a result, the oceans froze over, the skies darkened, and snow covered everything. You play as Jacob Solomon who, along with his robot named Ako-Light, is leading a small group of survivors who are using an abandoned church as their home. There is hope, however, since the game starts with Ako-Light getting a “mysterious broadcast claiming that help will arrive in 30 days.”

impact winter 620x413magnify

Each of the other survivors offers something to the group’s well-being from crafting to repairing and upgrading Ako-Light to medicine, but all of those skills will require raw materials that are buried by 40 feet of snow out in the void. You’ll need to manage everybody’s physical and mental health, upgrade the church, and upgrade Ako-Light to last those 30 days.

What I really like is the emphasis on risk vs. reward that the developers are using. Ako-Light, for example, is very useful, offering maps, light, and a bunch of other upgrade features like heat “drilling,” but when his battery dies Jacob has to carry him, causing increased fatigue.

The developers said their inspiration comes from The Thing, The Oregon Trail, Fallout, and Don’t Starve, but I found myself thinking the decision-making sounded a lot like FTLImpact Winter is new on Kickstarter, and you should give these people money.

That Which Sleeps: Play as an Evil Fantasy God Awakening to Conquer All

There have been countless games, films, and novels written about a hero or group of heroes rising up to combat some great evil as it’s awakening and attempting to once more regain all of its evilness and power. In the end, Sauron/Nagash/Voldemort is vanquished and everybody is happy. That Which Sleeps is not that game.

that which sleepsmagnify

In That Which Sleeps, the player takes the role of Sauron/Nagash/Voldemort and uses all of the evil fantasy tropes to subdue a world. You can send out your agents (because what acceptable evil overlord doesn’t have some?), unleash plagues upon the world, and cast evil spells. Of course, there’s no need to be loyal to your agents either, when they’re being interrogated by the wrong people or have otherwise outlived their usefulness, you can make sure they have literally outlived it. It’s not all just disrupting a world’s power balance and terrorizing villagers, however. A group of heroes will band together to try to stop you, as soon as they’re aware of your existence.

What makes this more than just a gimmick, and into a genuinely interesting game, however, is the work the dev team has put into giving it some serious replay-ability. Rather than simply randomly generating a world, the world is built with a certain logic to it, so that the nations, guilds, cabals, characters, and the like involved all have meaningful and believable relationships with one another that you hopefully haven’t seen before. Better still, the game players will receive is being built entirely with the in-game editor, meaning that modding should be fairly easy.

[via King Dinosaur Games]

“Tetropolis” Is a Side-Scrolling Adventure Starring a Misshapen Tetris Block

Tetris is one of the greatest games ever made. There’s something that fascinating, mesmerizing, and addictive about putting various blocks in perfectly fitting holes, even if the Tetris god never graces you with the line piece you needTetropolis, which is on Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter now and is planned to be released for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Ouya, imagines a bizarre back story behind Tetris, complete with the unfeeling incineration of blocks that aren’t “perfect.” That’s right, Tetropolis is the story of two blocks who didn’t come out in one of the standard tetromino shapes, and must join forces to create proper block. Will they find their way into a game, or will they decide that they don’t want to?

tetropolis game 1 620x348magnify

Throughout the game, which is designed as a classic metroidvania, the player has to explore by using the special abilities of the tetromino shapes. For example, a square can smash destructible objects and enemies, while a line can scrunch up like a spring and jump across the screen. Interestingly, the theme doesn’t end there: the levels are also made up of tetromino shaped sectors that the play can, at certain points, rearrange in order to unlock new areas of the game. That’s a very clever idea, and we’d love to see it applied to D&D’s Undermountain some day.

Right now, the games Kickstarter doesn’t seem to be going all that well, which is a shame, so get on Steam Greenlight and try to get this game made. It’s always fun to see some real originality in game-design.

[via Tetropolis]

New Unreal Tournament Will Be Free, Crowd-Sourced and could have Oculus Rift Support


True to their tease, Epic Games is beginning development on a brand new Unreal Tournament today. The game will be free co-developed by Epic and their community. “Let’s do something radical and make...

Wolfenstein: The New Order Gets 25% Price Drop + Doom 4 Beta Access


Next month's big FPS release Wolfenstein: The New Order will hit the shelves on May 20th for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, an PC. For those running gaming capable PC, the pre-order got a huge...