It’s no secret that Fractal Softworks’ Starfarer is one of my most eagerly followed alphafunded indie games. A shockingly in-depth space shooter/strategy blend with RPG elements – it might sound intimidating, but the combat is accessible, the interface is well designed and the sandbox elements are very reminiscent of Mount & Blade even at this early point. It’s been quite some time since a new playable build was released to pre-purchasers, but this one is fairly massive, to the point of actually having four staggered change-logs.

While the scale of the game is still sadly limited to a set of standalone missions and a single sandbox star-system to explore (the final game will have a large part of the galaxy to freely roam around), the individual components have all been tweaked, tuned and refined here. The ships themselves are much more interesting now – previously, they were just hulls onto which you mounted gear, but now each chassis has a built-in ability/feature that defines it. One might have anti-missile flares, another a short-range teleporter, a powerful but damaging booster engine and so on.

Another major gameplay feature is phase-cloaked ships, which can fade in and out of reality. They’re not just invisible, but largely invulnerable while cloaked, capable of even phasing through the front of an enemy capital ship, turning round, un-phasing and unloading some cannon fire into its exposed engines. There’s already a range of tools and tricks to counter these new ships, and they’re largely limited to the ‘high-tech’ factions of the game such as the Tri-Tachyon corporation.

The already-impressive AI has gotten yet another overhaul, too. The importance of this can’t be understated – while you have command over a fleet in Starfarer, it doesn’t work like a traditional RTS. You’re an admiral, and pass orders down to your captains. How these captains carry out those orders depends on how well supported they are, their morale, their personal skills, stats and so on. It’s much more RPG-like than you’d first think, and this requires ship AI capable of holding its own.

The AI feels a little more human now, and more aware of exactly what ship it’s flying – strengths and weaknesses included. There’s already been some players caught unaware by the newfound survival instinct of the previously hapless Buffalo Mk2 missile barges. When threatened and cornered, they’re likely to launch their entire cargo of missiles while retreating in order to save their own skin. Conversely, aggressive hunter-killer ships will now actively seek to bring down missile boats sitting on the edge of battle in order to clear the field for their less agile bretheren.

Reminiscent of Cortex Command, Starfarer may still be a long way from completion, but it already has a large and dedicated modding community. It’ll take a while for the current wave of mods (and there’s dozens, if not hundreds – some even adding whole new playable races) to update to the current build, but the game should grow even faster now that modders have these additional features to play around with.

Starfarer is available for Windows, Mac & Linux PCs, and planned to cost $20 when it finally hits V1.0. Until that fateful day, you can buy in early for $10. While there’s only a finite number of missions and a small sandbox, I’ve probably sunk more hours into this than many AAA blockbusters already, so I can easily recommend it if you’re a fan of space combat games such as Freespace, or would rather that Mount & Blade be about spaceships and lasers instead of horses.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Starfarer’ 0.53a Update Brings Ship Modules, Phase Cloaks, Brutal AI

I’ve been meaning to try out Wrack for a while. First announced what feels like an age ago, it’s the product of Final Boss Entertainment, a group of old-school, ‘first generation’ Doom modders and mappers getting together to put their own spin on the retro FPS genre. This weekend, to celebrate Quakecon, they’ve updated their preorder demo and dropped their pre-order price to a very palatable $5 for the weekend. I jumped on this deal to see just whether they’re recapturing that old-school magic, or missing the point, and to tell the rest of you whether or not it’s worth taking the plunge as well.

There’s no pretension here – you’re an all-American action hero, and there’s a bunch of alien lizard-men from Arcturus invading the planet, so you’ve got to shoot them and their robot buddies until there’s nothing left to shoot. First off, the game is still way, way off from being complete. Right now, it contains just four levels, and some key visual effects clearly aren’t finished yet – enemies spawning into an arena just unceremoniously pop into existence, rather than being heralded by a teleporter effect and a shower of particles. Other than the small handfull of levels, you’re going to find four weapons and – surprisingly – three boss battles, although one of those is wildly unfinished.

Yep, bosses. Plural. While the game is developed by Doom veterans, they’re billing this one as halfway between Doom-style FPS and Contra-style arcade game. There’s platforming, traps, pattern-based bosses which fire walls of bullets that have to be jumped over or ducked under, points, secret areas, checkpoints and extra lives. Right now those features feel a little shoehorned in, but with a little more focus on them in the HUD (some kind of indication of when you hit a checkpoint would help), I can see it actually being a fairly interesting blend.

The levels themselves are fairly standard early Doom-era stuff, albeit with a lot more coloured lighting (reminiscent of Quake 2 in places, for better or worse) and the occasional floating platform to hop across. It’s fairly forgiving platforming, and doesn’t tend to get tricky unless you’re trying to get access to all the secret areas scattered around, which often offer permanent +5 boosts to your health and armor capacities. Once you’re past the first level, there seems to be a rising focus on throwing you into thunderdome situations with a pile of ammo and waves of enemies in an arena.

Right now, I think the two largest problems with the game are an over-reliance on the scuttling spider-bot melee enemies that seem to be in EVERY room, and are just short and annoying enough to require shifting your aim, yet somehow aren’t easy to jump over despite looking only two feet tall. That, and the lack of sense of impact when fighting the space-lizards themselves. There seem to be no blood or impact effects at all when they’re hit, outside of a few red particles on the biggest type in the current build, and they don’t seem to make enough noise, vocally speaking. Maybe it’s because I’ve played too much Doom, but I like enemies that groan, scream and fall over with a gory thud.

It would seem that there are no enemies with ‘hitscan’ weapons – everything is a visibly moving energy blob that can be dodged, jumped over or ducked. After the spiders, the largest annoyance probably comes from the slightly-too-small ceiling and floor turrets, which fire diagonally up or down at you, and also don’t seem to have quite enough visual presence. If they made a loud noise and flashed a warning light at you before attacking, maybe that would help. There’s quite a few things to be tuned up here.

Still, I grumble, but the overall feel of the gameplay is solid and enjoyable. The larger arenas tend to be pretty satisfying, with you chewing through wave upon wave of fodder enemies. The bosses, as mentioned, are Contra-inspired. We’re talking telegraphed attack patterns, broad sprays of bullets, big health bars and dramatic opening poses/death-animations. You even get a first-person thumbs-down animation played after taking one of them down. It’s something I’d like to see built on in the full version – they made for interesting breaks in the action. The cel-shaded aesthetic works well for the most part, making the graphics clean and easily followed, and the music is very much in the style of the original Duke Nukem – plenty of energy without rushing you.

They’re planning on rolling Wrack out in episodic format. Almost like the old Shareware days, but probably with a smaller demo. Right now, a pre-order covers just that first episode, so your $5 will theoretically get you maybe 8-10 levels. There’s definitely a lot to be done with this one, and the game is clearly far from complete, but there’s a framework here that I can’t help but find compelling. Looking forward to seeing the final version of this once it’s done. You can get a discounted preorder now for $5 and pass your own judgement if you want here on the official site. Keep an eye round these parts for a full review once the final version comes out.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Wrack’ Preview – Four Levels Of FPS Nostalgia

To get the boilerplate out of the way: Anna is the first game out from Italian developer Dreampainters. It is a horror game with adventure elements built around legends from the Val D’Ayas region of Italy. Anna was built in Unity and is currently only on PC, though other verions are planned for the future. The game is currently available on Desura.

All of that is factual information about Anna, but that doesn’t tell you what Anna is. Let me try to explain.

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Anna can be purchased through Desura.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Anna Delivers Occult Scares and Difficult Puzzles

It’s been a while since we too a look at Blue Bottle Games’ Neo Scavenger. A turn-based browser RPG that takes absolutely no prisoners. Available now direct from the developer as an beta-funded work-in-progress, there’s already a demo available to cut your teeth on. Despite being browser based, Neo Scavenger is as hardcore as they get, outstripping most Roguelikes for difficulty.

In recent updates, the developer has made efforts to drag the game away from any fantasies of post-apocalyptic heroism that the player might have burnt into their head from all these generations of Wastelands and Fallouts. In Neo Scavenger, you’re a (largely) regular human being – frail, fallible and vulnerable to death from a thousand different sources. You need food, water and sleep to function, and the forests – while occasionally bountiful – are often inhabited by horrible mutant monsters.

The two big changes in the works for the game are a vastly expanded combat engine. Combat was previously a case of ‘Use axe on looter’ and repeat until someone ran out of HP and collapsed. The combat engine is set to expand to allow the use of a much broader range of skills and manoeuvres based on your characters knowledge and stats. Not many RPGs can offer the option to try and grab an attackers leg and pull him to the ground with you if you’ve already been knocked flat. Combat won’t be decided by Hit Points, but rather blood-loss, shock and other, more realistic incapacitating factors.

The AI seems like it’s getting an overhaul as well. While mutant monsters might be a little more aggressive, human enemies aren’t going to want to fight to the death over a handful of berries and scraps that you’ve picked up in a field, and will often just turn and run if hurt. No more last-man-standing Thunderdome action, which is good. I wonder whether speech-related skills will come into this more later on – being able to shout down and intimidate attackers is always an interesting option.

Winning a fight doesn’t mean you’re going to survive, either. Get slashed with a knife and you’re going to be left bleeding with a potentially infected wound, so you need to properly treat the injury. Sterilize rags to use as bandages, take antibiotics to fight infection, painkillers to stop yourself from falling into shock and all that serious medical fun. I reminds me a little of survival-roguelike The Unreal World, or perhaps Silmarils’ quirky survival simulators Robinson’s Requiem and Deus. It might not be the first game to offer a medical system like this, but it makes for a much richer survival challenge.

It sounds like there’s going to be a good range of injuries, illnesses and unfortunate events that can befall your tragically mortal avatar, too. Broken bones need to be splinted, bruises need to be reduced or risk them causing additional pain in the future – it’s gritty stuff, and the example images for the medical system are quite amusing – while it’s unlikely you’ll ever end up anywhere near this injured in the game without dying, it looks like it’s possible to practically mummify yourself. Always good fun.

It’s an impressive amount of progress for what amounts to a one-man show. While the game is low on animation, there’s some pretty sharp pixel-art on show, especially in the scattered ‘setpiece’ locations such as the laboratory shown in the header pic waaaaay up there. It’s definitely a game to keep an eye on, and there’s a lot to get your teeth into if you decide to buy into the early beta. If nothing else, give the demo a spin. Just don’t be surprised if you die horribly. The post-apocalyptic world is a cruel place.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – School Of Hard Knocks – ‘Neo Scavenger’ Takes Survival Seriously

Shades of Newgrounds’ famous Madness series here. Worlds is a third-person shooter by small French studio Curious Planet. While wrapped in almost pointedly early-2000s style graphics, there’s a little more going on under the hood than you might expect. Putting you in the combat boots of Reyk, an agent tasked with hopping between dimensions and doing whatever it takes to make sure the various linked worlds never discover each other’s existence. This apparently involves a lot of shooting, some sneaking and even a bit of conversation.

Originally released in French only, the English version of the game has just been rolled out via Indievania, or you can buy it direct from the developer if you so wish. The game isn’t complete – only about a quarter of the missions are currently implemented – although the developer estimates that’ll still take you a solid 5-8 hours to chew through. When new builds are released with further missions, the game will auto-update and bring you up to the latest version.

I had a quick poke around the preview build sent my way, and found something pretty interesting. I wasn’t too impressed at first with the tutorial. Too many cutscenes and not enough hands-on action. The gunplay seemed solid enough, and the stealth was interestingly presented as a two-way street, with the end of the tutorial segment ending in a gunfight against a rival agent trainee that can also hide in the shadows and snipe you as you blindly run past. It added an interesting cat-and-mouse element to the gameplay that I hope is explored more later.

What seems to be a fairly clean-cut, low-fi shooter with some stealth elements expands impressively after the tutorial ends. From there, you’re given an equipment budget, and tasked with investigating a missing agent on an icy world, meaning that you first have to buy yourself some cold-weather gear. The mission is just equipment recovery – the agent is dead, but he had some sensitive gear on his body – but rather than shooting everyone in my path, I found myself talking to the locals and slowly piecing together clues as to who killed the agent, and where I might find his stolen equipment. Stumbling into a random house got me a torrent of verbal abuse from the surprised inhabitant, too – a cute detail.

It seems that there’s quite a bit to the game beyond sneaking and shooting. If the trailer above is to be believed, then things keep getting bigger and weirder as the game goes on, with special powers, gravity-flipping, more abstract dimensions and the occasional bit of low-res brutality. Shooting a guy in the feet and stomping on him as he tries to crawl away is probably not kosher under Queensbury rules. I guess that’s another element that it’s carrying over from the Madness animations and games – if abstract, grey pseudo-people dying violently offends you, this might not be the game for you.

The translation is workmanlike for the most part, although a couple of French words seem to slip through the cracks here and there. Nothing that makes it hard to understand, but it doesn’t feel like a final version yet. Understandable, really – it isn’t. The work-in-progress price tag of 5 Euros (or $6) seems quite reasonable, especially if you consider that if the missions continue to be as long as the ones included in the current build, the final game should be 15-20 hours long.

While I can’t really recommend it or not until I’ve played a bit more, you can (and should) grab a demo over on the official site, and if that tickles your fancy, then the full game is only a few bucks direct or on Indievania.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Third-person Stealth Shooter ‘Worlds’ Launches In English With Demo

NOTE: This game is in Alpha and does not represent the final and finished product.

Ah, the colour red. The colour of blood, the colour of violence, even the colour of the shards in the mao. Also, the colour of love. The love of my trusty javelin, fists, legs and other things that kill hares and make them show their glistening bright red blood. (Disclaimer. You have just arrived at Mad Hatters Tea Party and this game is in alpha. That means that it crashes at awkward moments and is still being worked on.)

Welcome to my 2 part preview series of Overgrowth. In this post I cover the base game itself. Next time, I cover the great modding and map-making scene for this game.

I recommend that you watch the combat in this video to understand the rest of this post.

Overgrowth is a beat-em-up. By “beat,” I mean pummel and kick violently. By “em,” I mean other hares and occasionally wolves. Finally, by “up,” I mean kick their sorry and lifeless bodies into the air. The video above shows what I mean. However there is a lot more to this game. By “more” I mean awesome stuff that very nice people over at the forums have made.

The combat is extremely polished. For every situation all you need is WASD (move, duh), space bar (jump, AIII-EEEE), shift (crouch, roll), Q (throw) and both mouse buttons. Considering the wide range of options – that isn’t a lot. That, is down to the fantastic engine that does something different each time you charge into combat. The smoothness is outstanding during combat. When fighting is the main point of the game, it needs to be good. If you really want to see how well it is done, press tab. Suuupppperrr slllooowwww-mmmmoooo engaged. The rhythm and the interlocking punches are just beautiful. However I can’t wait for more weapon options. Crossbow please.

Overgrowth has been in development for four years by the team that brought you Lugaru – Wolfire. To sustain such a long development cycle as an indie team you need pre-orders, lots of them. To gain attention and the pre-orders that follow you need something to entice a community. Some of the best map-making tools ever certainly help with this. In the video above, I had to place the weapons and characters in. I can plonk them down somewhere in a matter of seconds. It would be like playing Battlefield and just deciding that the level was slightly boring, then adding tank and a terrorist with an RPG. Not possible. Though it is in Overgrowth.

Feeling more adventurous? Add in buildings or take to Blender to create new objects and character models. This game doesn’t have a lot to it. What’s there however is polished. Nowhere else have I seen such good animations and fighting mechanics. There is loads to this game. Sadly there is no story – yet. The lack of a proper time filling level is also notable. However that is where the community steps in. For my next post I will be taking a look at one or two of the best community maps.

PS. You could have an argument about whether Overgrowth is actually a game and not a tech demo or Hare fighting simulator. Though the ultimate objective in any game is to have fun. I take pleasure in being able to defeat a dagger wielding hare with my bare paws. Therefore this is a game. Disagree? State why in the comments below.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Overgrowth Part 1. The Colour Red

Path of Exile is a comparatively small game by small New Zealand-based studio Grinding Gear Games that’s trying to do some very big things. How big? How does standing up to Blizzard and trading blows with Diablo 3 sound? Currently deep into its extended Beta development phase, the game has earned no shortage of praise from players and critics alike, and while the final build of the game will be fully free-to-play, you can get early access now by putting down $10 on cash-shop currency. It’s not a large price to ask, but is it worth your money, even in this early state?  Well, let’s see if we can’t answer that.

If you’ve ever played a fantasy action-RPG in the style of Diablo, Torchlight, Titan Quest or countless others, you’ll be right at home here. While PoE makes a lot of interesting changes under the hood, this is a game that any genre fan can leap straight into. Playing as one of six character classes, you’ve been condemned to exile for various crimes against the kingdom and are being unceremoniously dumped on the cursed continent of Wraeclast. A haunted place where mutant monsters roam, jungle temples lie overgrown, and the dead walk. Good place to hoard loot and level up, really.

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Path of Exile has no fixed release date yet, but it’s nearing completion. It’ll be completely free to download and play when version 1.0 rolls round, but until then, you can either sign up on the official site now for a chance to win a beta key in regular drawings, or put $10 down now on cash-shop credit to jump the queue and start playing now. Personally, I’ve had more fun with PoE already than Diablo 2 and 3 combined, so consider this a glowing recommendation. Just don’t expect the game to go easy on you, especially in Hardcore mode.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Path Of Exile’ Preview – The Indie Answer To Diablo 3

First Chrome Hounds returning as MAV, Ace Combat as Vector Thrust, and now Battlezone as BIONITE: Origins? While it may not be the most original field in indie gaming, it’s great to see dedicated fan-bases taking up the gauntlet of updating and reviving forgotten franchises. Pandemic’s reimagining of ancient vector-graphics arcade game Battlezone as a hovertank-based RTS/FPS hybrid was inspired, and earned no shortage of fans. Yesterday, the first public alpha build of fan-made ‘spritual successor’ BIONITE: Origins (tellingly known internally as ‘project BZ3′) was released. Here’s how it’s shaping up.

The first thing to keep in mind here is that this is an early first Alpha build. Nothing is complete yet, and nothing is set in stone. The aesthetic of the environments is definitely reminiscent of Battlezone already, with a quite oppressive layer of fog, and some nice, chunky hovertanks to play around with. The purpose of this early build is largely to get players used to the vehicle handling, and gather feedback on it, so the only real gameplay here is a rough ‘destroy this target’ objective with a few static defensive structures between you and it. You’ve got a couple of AI squadmates, but they seem content to just float in circles at the moment.

Almost everything aside from the vehicle models, their handling and their weaponry seems to be a placeholder at the moment. The HUD is a mock-up, for the most part. While some parts function as intended, the radar is just a static image, and the weapon HUD only displays your current selected gun, rather than your full weapon list. The level itself is just packed full of placeholder elements – there’s not even a full collision map. Some areas are blocked off with invisible walls, and some areas will just drop you off the map, while other areas that look like fatal drops are actually solid.

While there’s not much meat on the bones of this build, I will say that they’ve got some great-feeling weapons worked out already. I especially like the corkscrewing missiles – the wandering pattern they move in makes them look more dangerous, somehow, and they explode with a satisfying sound. The handling is also loose and heavy enough to feel like you’re driving a hovering tank, rather than a generic FPS character, and the weight of the controls changes notably between the smaller and larger models available. You can hop out of your tank to change vehicle, and the massive difference in how the handling feels becomes immediately obvious.

There’s none of the core RTS gameplay in the current build, but it sounds like they’re patterning it pretty closely to the original Battlezone games, so expect a mixture of front-line tank combat and commanding groups of units from a tactical map, as well as base-building, resource-gathering and all those traditional strategy elements. The general aesthetic of the game seems to lean a little more towards the gritty, pseudo-cold-war stylings of Battlezone 1, with the tanks being made out of heavy slabs of riveted and painted metal, rather than the smooth sci-fi lines of Battlezone 2‘s vehicles.

There’s definite potential here, although this current build is only really of interest for the most dedicated of fans who want to help with the bug-hunting at the earliest possible stage. The developers eventually plan to release a game with a full story-driven singleplayer campaign, as well as skirmish and multiplayer modes. Being a huge fan of the Battlezone games, I can only wish them the best of luck, but there’s still a very long road ahead of them, judging by this first Alpha.

In an interesting little twist, the BIONITE developers are offering the multiplayer-only version of the game free (once released) to whoever tracks the game on IndieDB now. Given that a multiplayer game lives or dies based on the size of its playerbase, this is pretty savvy business, and could well give the game a good foot up before it officially launches. You’d do well to follow their suggestion. Free stuff is always nice. Either way, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the project here at IGM.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Battlezone, Too? – ‘BIONITE: Origins’ First Public Alpha Preview

It’s been a long, long time coming, but we’re on the final stretch now. When the long-awaited La-Mulana remake for Wiiware finally passed Nintendo’s complex approval process and was released in Japan, it seemed a sure thing that we’d see it soon. A year later and after no shortage of conspicuous silence, English publisher Nicalis announce that a western release has been cancelled. Since then, developers Nigoro have made two decisions – firstly, to return to the platform that spawned the game, and secondly, to sign up with Playism, an indie localization and distribution firm that has (until now) been localizing western indie games for release in Japan. Now, they’re doing it the other way round. Everybody dance now:

Now that, there, is how you announce a release date. Playism and Nigoro have been kind enough to let me play around with a beta build of the remake, and I can safely say that it’s well worth the money already. Dropping the faux-MSX stylings of the original release, the new version looks to be somewhere in-between late 16-bit and early 32-bit console graphics, reminiscent of Castlevania: Symphony of The Night in many ways. Also like SoTN, the game is a sprawling, non-linear exploration platform puzzle adventure that is notable for taking new players easily 20+ hours to complete their first time through. The PC remake will be moddable, and also includes the DLC that had to be sold seperately on the Wii due to size limitations, which includes the infamously masocore Hell Temple level, and a remarkably extensive boss rush mode.

Fans of the original release don’t have to worry about the game being dumbed down. While the accessibility of the earlier sections of the game has gone up, the difficulty hasn’t changed one iota. Newcomers are advised to talk to Elder Xelpud, who’ll give you a new and useful piece of software for your dungeoneering laptop – a one-way e-mail client which allows him to send you regular hints and tips – but this is entirely optional, and you can play the whole game without using this new hint system. A few additional tweaks have been made to the game, including putting glaring ‘evil eyes’ in the backgrounds of rooms where randomly whipping the walls might bring the wrath of ancient deities upon you, so now you know when to tread lightly. Death still comes quickly until you’ve cleared the first couple of stages, but it feels fairer. Similarly, the puzzles are still very clever, but the cryptic hint messages feel just a tiny bit less obscure than they used to, although this may be due to a higher-quality translation overall.

The biggest change in the remake is the feel of the combat. It’s just smoother, snappier and a little faster-feeling. Enemies animate a lot smoother, and feel more solid when you fight them. The element to get the biggest overhaul is the bosses, though. Previously limited by the pointedly retro style of the game, they’re now exceptionally well animated and detailed. Some that were especially limited by the old sprite style are now completely re-envisioned, making the fights much more active and involved. I’ve not seen all of them in action yet (the game is huge, and I’m rusty), but I have a feeling this quality continues right up to the final battle. We’ll have a full review of the game by the new release date, but from what I’ve seen of this preview build so far, it’s all good.

Update: La-Mulana will cost $15 when it launches next week.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Massive Platform-Adventure ‘La-Mulana’ Remake Hits PC July 13th via Playism

It seems to be a regular thing for fanbases to step up to bat after a franchise has fallen from grace. Duke 3D mods are still going strong, MAV seeks to revive Chrome Hounds, and now Vector Thrust is taking a swing at the venerable Ace Combat franchise, after the series veered off into Michael Bay QTE-filled territory with its latest entry. The horse has bolted, and the door was left open for a small indie team to sneak in and start making things right once more.

For those who haven’t played an Ace Combat game before, imagine a modern-day equivalent to the X-Wing or Freespace games. Dramatic yet unrealistic air combat, with swirling missile contrails, accessible close-combat gunplay and constant battle-chatter as other fights rage around you. It’s a winning formula; accessible to anyone with a gamepad, but authentic-feeling enough to pass for a simulator at first glance. Vector Thrust is looking to bring that feeling to PCs, and has just released its first playable Alpha build, available to those who chip in a few dollars as a pre-purchase.

Developer TimeSymmetry are fairly open about what they’re trying to achieve here. This is Ace Combat through and through. Judging by the gameplay video above, they’ve captured a lot of the style of the AC series already, and despite aiming the game deliberately at lower-end systems, it looks quite graphically impressive. The choice to go with cel-shaded aircraft probably saves on skinning, as stylized, flat-shaded textures can stand out more. It’s most likely a pragmatic decision, but I can’t deny that it looks pretty.

One thing that I do hope to see more of as the game develops further is a growing focus on one of the most underrated aspects of the AC franchise: Spectacular super-weapons and the setpiece battles against them. Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t really feel like an Ace Combat game is complete without at least one improbable tunnel-flying segment, and ideally a battle against some kind of aerial fortress or flying aircraft carrier. Boss battles might seem out of place in any other game about modern-day jetfighters, but Ace Combat heroes are incomparable badasses, and their planes are magical and carry twenty times their own weight in missiles, so it works.

This might well happen, just not by the most direct means. Interestingly, there’s already a dedicated fan-group attached to Vector Thrust, planning on (unofficially) reviving the Ace Combat games via this new engine. The Ace Combat Infinity group have a gallery full of screenshots of a modded build of the game, featuring a variety of classic Ace Combat aircraft, decked out in paint-jobs representing the many fictional airforces of the alternate-earth settings the series was once famous for.

Vector Thrust already boasts extreme moddability – from missions to planes to campaigns and more – so the dreams of Ace Combat fans could well come true. It’s already looking to be a solid game in its own right, so if it can offer all that and the ability for fans to retrofit it into a full-blown AC fan-game? Well, that’d be just dandy. Vector Thrust is in active development and can be purchased via Desura right now for $12 or region equivalent, giving you access to the current build and all future releases.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Trace Combat – Aerial Action Game ‘Vector Thrust’ Alphafunds Via Desura