DiezelPower has vigilantly been improving and adding to their fast-paced zombie arena shooter Nation Red since its release way back in August of 2009. To date, it’s received dozens of content-filled updates adding new modes, maps, weapons, perks, enemies, and maybe most importantly implementing a lot of player feedback. In fact, just a couple days ago the game received drop-in online co-op and a new stats section. Those additions turned out to be a preamble for a free weekend that’s just kicked off on Steam, with a major discount on the full version offered for the duration of the event.

The game offers close-quarter combat versus an endless oncoming horde of various zombie enemy types with lots of perks to choose from, and lots of undead blood to spill. If you’re interested in participating, all you have to do is click the applicable banner on the game’s page and it should automatically be prompted to install and run in the Steam client.

The free weekend ends at 1 PM Pacific time on Sunday, January 15th. The 75% off discount goes 24 hours beyond that point, ending on January 16th.

Update: Delays and problems, it seems. The free 5-day weekend thing has been delayed until the 15th. Guess it’ll be a couple more weeks until we can hit the battlefields of tomorrow.

When you advertise a ‘free weekend’ for your game, it usually leads people to assume that it’ll happen over the weekend. Netherlands-based indies Interwave Studios dare to think different, though. Starting this December 1st and continuing until the 5th, everyone will be able to download and play their interesting FPS/RTS hybrid Nuclear Dawn for free via Steam. Accompanying this will be a permanent price-drop to a more palatable $20, and a range of temporary perks on top of a recently-released mod toolkit.

In the style of Savage and Natural Selection before it, Nuclear Dawn splits each team into two key elements; a near-omniscient commander who plays the game as an RTS, building bases and directing units around, and squads of human soldiers, carrying out their commanders orders and making sure that the enemy players don’t scupper your plans for world domination. All this is wrapped up in a post-apocalyptic setting, with fancy power-armored future US & Russian forces (branded the Consortium and the Empire respectively) duking it out over the ruined and scorched setting.

By all accounts the game is flawed at worst, but excellent when all the pieces fall into place. Victory for any team hinges on the capabilities of the commander, and that’s a lot of pressure to put on a single player. The everpresent plague of indie multiplayer games – a lack of players – is, of course, the greatest obstacle, but that’s exactly what this free weekend and price-drop hope to address. The more new blood in brings in, the better the game becomes, and the more resources the developers have to further continue development. For that reason, I wish them every bit of success and can’t wait to get my hands on the game for a proper look at it come Thursday.

[Nuclear Dawn]

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DIYGamer Holiday Give Away! For each and every article we post we’re giving away an indie game.

This article’s game is Honor In Vengeance 2 for the PC (code is redeemable on Indievania), by MichaelArts!

Leave a meaningful comment below to enter into the drawing.

Cadenza Interactive has several new announcements that we need to pass along. First off, their turret defense title Sol Survivor has been updated to v1.81, adding just a small list of bug fixes to the game (or does it?) Owners of the game can pick it up now on Steam.

From the Steam patch notes:

Sol Survivor 1.8.1

• Fixed custom officer crash on first ever run.
• Fixed small default windowed mode size.
• Fixed some old hardware crashing instead of reporting failure to meet specs.
• Fixed crash when a player joins a game just as it starts.
• Corrected description of Kitchen Sink achievement.

For those who don’t own the game, you may be interested to know that it’s free for anyone with a Steam account to play through the weekend. During which, the game (as well as its already discounted four-pack) can be purchased for 50% off the standard price. The free period ends Sunday, October 10 at 1 PM Pacific.

Finally, Blue’s News has word that the update brings more than what’s shared by the Steam news feed, as well as alerting us to the development of the team’s next (currently unannounced) title. I can’t for the life of me find this quote from Cadenza anywhere else, but Blue has always been a reliable source in the past so we’ll take his word for it:

Included with the weekend sale and free play is a new patch including customizable turret loadouts for single and multiplayer games. This is the latest in a long line of community-inspired additions to the game which, along with new map content, is a free addition to the game as a “thanks” for the passionate support of our community. Come share in our creation process as we continue to grow Sol Survivor and our next title now in development!

Nimbly Games has announced a free weekend on Steam for their flying multiplayer title Altitude, which has already officially kicked off. If you want to get in on the action, head over to your games section on the Steam client and you’ll have the option to download and play the game for free through Sunday. The multiplayer-heavy title is available on PC and Mac and includes cross platform play.

If you find yourself having a good time, your mood will be bettered by knowing the game goes for half price through the event. $5 will net you both PC and Mac versions of the game.

The goodies appear to be in celebration of the currently in motion Penny Arcade Expo, as the game is a PAX 10 Finalist for this year’s event. Both the sale and free weekend end early Monday, September 6.

Eskil Steenberg has announced that his MMO action building game Love will be free to play for this weekend only. You can download the client right now, but will have to wait until the servers open up to everyone sometime tomorrow.

With plenty of focus on working together, a free weekend should be fun for both new jumping in and active players running the show. Especially with the unique experience and leveling system the game totes.

Check out our interview on the game with Eskil here.

Additionally, the deathmatch-prominent title goes for 50% off throughout the free play period; taking a single copy down to just $5. If you can think of a few others that would go in with you, grab the already discounted 4-pack for just $15 ($3.75 a copy.)

The free weekend ends Sunday, August 15 at 1 PM PST with the half-off sale going through Monday, August 16 at 10 AM PST.

Additionally, the developer has released a new update for the game, adding a new map and updating the tutorials along with some fixes and additions to the map editor. The file is available for automatic download for owners of the game and can be had by restarting Steam if the patch isn’t received initially.

The free weekend goes through Sunday, May 23. From the update change log:

New Maps:

Added ball_asteroids map (thanks Boko)

Updated tutorials

Added “Export -> Collapsed Screenshot” to Map Editor

Fixed rendering bug with Map Editor -> Edit Hull

Fixed automatic update issue when multiple server launcher instances are running on one computer

To celebrate the release, Tripwire invites new players to try Killing Floor for free, holding a free-to-play weekend for the game on Steam beginning with the new content’s arrival Thursday, October 22 and going through Sunday, October 25.

Full announcement after the break.

From the release:

We are pleased to announce the “Level Up” Free Content pack for Killing Floor. This massive new content pack will be our largest free content pack to date and will be available October 22nd for anyone that owns Killing Floor. To celebrate and to allow as many people as possible to try it out, we will also be running a free weekend on Steam from Thursday October 22nd through Sunday October 25th.