There are a lot of ‘Survival Simulators’ out there right now: Ark: Survival Evolved, DayZ, State Of Decay, Rust, Minecraft, I could go on. The majority of these games whilst heavily emphasising survival gameplay elements all focus on a single looming threat, be it zombies dinosaurs or creepers. The Long Dark is no exception though that looming threat is not a pixelated green monster or a Velociraptor, it’s the elements.
Ark:Survival Evolved has made it to Xbox Game Preview. After being available on Steam’s early access since June, many PC gamers have already had a chance to enjoy this Dinosaur infested survival game, I however, hadn’t managed to give it a go so began my journey with this console version.
Whilst at EGX this year I was fortunate enough to be overwhelmed by the amazing games featured in the ‘Rezzed’ indie area, among the most visually stunning of those games was Ironcast, a Steampunk mech combat game currently available on Steam. The people over at Ripstone games kindly arranged for me to have a chat with Daniel Leaver, creator of Ironcast who is also the Lead Designer behind Little Big Planet 1 & 2 as well as Tearaway. Here’s what he had to say:
I was able to have a chat with the guys from developer Coatsink (thanks for the free t-shirt guys) about Esper. Esper is an interesting first-person, Virtual Reality puzzle game set in 1975 designed for the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR. The version I tried was using the Samsung Gear VR.
There was a heavy emphasis on the ‘indie’ megabooth at this year’s EGX. Named the ‘Rezzed Zone’ it was a bustling array of stalls boasting all types of games imaginable, everything from VR games to student ventures seeking attention for their most personal projects.
During a chat with Tyrone Walcott, the PR Manager of Rising Star Games, a publisher now well known for showing the smaller titles on Steam or console, I was introduced to Lumo. I was immediately assured that this was not an indie game, this was the work of Gareth Noyce under the quirky Developer name ‘Triple Eh?’. Noyce has a broad spectrum of experience in Videogames, working on titles including Crackdown 2, Too Human, and Fable 2, though Lumo is a much more personal project, one that clearly shows a lot of thought and attention.
There is a myth surrounding one of the first ever films shown to the public. ‘L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat’ released in 1896 or, ‘Train Pulling into a Station’ as it is known in English, was supposed to be so new, so real, that as they watched a film showing a train moving towards the camera the audience panicked and frantically left their seats to escape the danger. After experiencing Steam’s Virtual Reality through the HTC Vive, I can safely say I believe this myth to be true, as during my twenty minute demonstration I felt an abundance of emotion that no entertainment experience had ever given me before.