Technology Tell had the chance to interview Pyrodactyl Games Arvind Yadav about his recently released kickstarter games Unrest. Here is a short sample of the interview.

Warning: The interview contains some spoilers about the endings.

GT: Do you have any creative reasons for not providing resolution to any of the characters’ stories within the game?

Yadav: Yes, absolutely. Morality in RPGs tends to be a matter of action and consequence; you rob a man, get five evil points, he dies, your party’s reputation decreases by six. Providing this much focus on ends, not means, has a reductive effect on how players interpret those systems.

Unrest offers the idea that sometimes, there is no right and no wrong decision–sometimes actions must be weighed and judged without knowing what the consequences will be. Even someone playing the game a second time has no way of knowing whether Tanya’s marriage to Hanu will end in an uneasy alliance or an abusive, miserable domestic hell–and each time the player chooses, they must choose not based on what the outcome will be, but on what they feel is right.

GT: Who made the decision to end Unrest on a cliffhanger, and why?

Yadav: The decision emerged organically. One of the main ideas of the game is that casting Unrest’s story as Asha’s Heroic Narrative–her fall from safety, her struggle to survive, her triumphant rise to power–is absurdly, inherently artificial. Obviously the story of Bhimra’s troubles began far before Asha came into being, and obviously it will continue long after she gets her “happy ending.” Unrest has a cliffhanger ending because to the real story, the story of Bhimra – told in part through Tanya, Bhagwan, and Shyam – has no clean ending.

GT: Was the abrupt end due to a lack of funds?

Yadav: We might have tied a few things up if we had more money, but if we weren’t happy with how the game ended, we would have kept working on it. This game was made by a team of five on a budget of $30,000 over the course of 1 year – and to be honest, that is not enough money to pay enough wages to one person, let alone five. During the year, one of us worked at Home Depot, and three of us had to freelance alongside making the game to pay the bills.

The Rampant Coyote has another post for on his gaming blog. The new post talks about the amount of humor in Frayed Knights. and how he wanted to add more.

Sometimes it’s a little over the top. Sometimes its subtle. Sometimes… well, there are spots now where I can now tell I was really trying too hard. It happens.

If I were to do it all over again (which, fortunately, I’m kinda doing right now as I’m working on the next game), I’d do more to ground the characters and the world, and give the player access to their back-story. Again, this would be to make the more humorous parts stand out by contrast. And also because it’s just a fun, bizarre little world that these guys inhabit, and there are forces at work in the world with cool plots and plans in mind that – in my mind at least – amusing, but only if the players feel like they care about the world and what’s going on in it.

So yes, I’m saying I’d try to increase the humor level by … increasing the less humorous aspects. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Not to fear, there will be ridiculous trope-subverting plots and a return of the Rats of Nom and everything else players love about the first game. I’m pretty pleased with how Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon turned out.  I’ve heard a lot of great things back from players suggesting that I had more hits than I had misses. But I learned a lot from that game, and hope I can put it to good use in the next one.

Ekuator Games next post-funding update for Celestian Tales brings us the coloured illustrations of the main characters you will play as in the game.

Coloured Characters

It's a bit late than the usual once every two weeks update, we know. There had been some problems and national holidays which set us back. We did say it'd be once every two or three, though, so hopefully this update isn't late by too much.

On the last update, we noticed that some of you asked for the coloured illustrations of the main characters, so that you can compare them with the alternate costumes later. We've shown Aria and Ylianne, and here are the rest.

On our next update we will showcase the alternate costumes which you have chosen. The most voted sketches have been made to stronger line arts, and we'd like you to see them and say your ideas regarding colour schemes before we move on to textures and colours. As before, this update will only be available for Vanguard-tier backers and above.

Polygon has another interesting article this week about the the mobile version of The Banner Saga, and how Stoic avoided the budget-price pitfall of the App Store.

My first time playing the iPad version of The Banner Saga, the strategy-RPG from Austin-based developer Stoic, did not last especially long.

I picked up an iPad Air loaded with an early version of the port before chatting with Arnie Jorgensen and John Watson, two of the studio's co-founders, about how the game was received after landing on Steam in January. After knocking out a few rounds of battle, and maneuvering around the interface for a few minutes, I handed the tablet back to Jorgensen.

"Everybody does this when we hand them the mobile version," Jorgensen said. "We break out the tablet, and after a few seconds, everyone just goes, ‘Yep, it's the game!'"

Adapting the PC version of The Banner Saga to iPad, Android and Windows tablets hasn't been as difficult a process as you might think. The team is "not re-engineering it for tablets" at all, Jorgensen explained — The Banner Saga was designed to work on mobile devices from the start.

"All of our user interfaces were designed from the ground-up to be simple enough to use with a finger," Watson said. "You could play the entire game on PC with your left mouse button."

Ultimate Fantasy Studio latest kickstarter update for The Meridian Shard has information about a new demo version of the game that will be released in August.

Early test game coming soon!

This is just a quick message to you all to say that I am working my butt off and am putting together a new update for the end of August. I am attending the InCON games convention in Courtenay, BC on August 9th and I will be doing a live presentation of The Meridian Shard that day. So, after that I will include the event and a playable demo in the August update!

This means that all of you will have a 15-30 minute sneak-play of the game soon, and I will post a downloadable easy-installer for you on kickstarter. So far, you will be able to test-play a few closed areas, battles and navigate the new menus with lots of items, weapons, spells and all that good stuff!

I expect to have the update ready for you by Saturday, August 30th (give or take a week). I still have months and months of solid work to do, but progress has been fantastic so far.

The Legend of Grimrock 2 website has an update with information from Almost Human that development will be slowing down due to summer vacation.

The RPG Codex has ppsted a new review of Pyrodactyl Games Unrest.

Unrest is an adventure game lacking in puzzles, but strong in plot. The story is well told and there is some replay value in trying its different paths. It is, however, quite short, and can be finished in just a few hours. For those expecting an RPG that simulates some of the statistically light storyteller-type tabletop games like Amber and In a Wicked Age, I am afraid you won't find that here.

Ultimately, I think this game is going to be a point of debate on the Codex due to the high hopes some members may have held for it. The game will probably be enjoyable for those who haven't been following its development or the hype surrounding it, but I think that those who have been looking forward to it for some time will be a little disappointed that its decision paths aren't more complex. For my part, I found it enjoyable enough, but it's not something that I would put on a list of highly recommended games.

If you live in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand the new Collector's Edition of The Banner Saga is now available in a boxed edition. Here are the details.

The Banner Saga: The Collector's Edition Out Now in Europe, Australia and New Zealand

Critically Acclaimed Indie Tactical RPG Gets Physical

London, UK - 25th July, 2014 – Independent developer Stoic and games publisher Versus Evil, in partnership with Sold Out Sales & Marketing Limited, announced that indie mega hit The Banner Saga is available at retail stores in Europe, Australia and New Zealand today.

The Viking-themed tactical role playing game – which has received and been nominated for several awards and praise for its story, art design and gameplay mechanics – is now available in physical form for the first time ever.  This special Collector's Edition offers fans a permanent collection of one of this year's best indie games and includes the core game along with the ‘Insane Viking Pack’ digital content and Official Soundtrack which is composed by the BAFTA award winning, Austin Wintory. The “Insane Viking Pack” is currently only available as part of The Banner Saga: The Collector’s Edition.

Boasting a style inspired by classic animation films of yesteryear, with stunning hand-drawn visuals capturing a merciless Nordic era, The Banner Saga is a single-player turn-based strategy game in which players take charge of a wandering army sent to fight the warlike Dredge.

Weaving a narrative which often demands tough choices that affect the player’s narrative permanently, it's a game of strategy and of decisions unlike any other, winning it huge acclaim upon release earlier this year.

"We are very happy that Versus Evil found a great partner in Sold Out to bring a physical version of our game to some of the key European, Australian and New Zealand markets" says Arnie Jorgensen, Stoic’s Art Director. "The fact that there is demand for a physical version of The Banner Saga is humbling.  We can’t wait to get a hold of a boxed copy ourselves and hope that fans are equally excited to pick one up today."

The Banner Saga: The Collector's Edition is available on PC from today, in a number of territories including, UK (£19.99), Europe (€29.99) & Australia/New Zealand ($39.99).

Here is the next update from Black Cloud Studios on the next species you will find in After Reset. This time the topic is about Incorporeals.

INCORPOREALS:

Humanity first met the Incorporeals in the hours immediately after the Reset. Minutes before the nuclear chain reaction resonated, humanity saw the owners of enormous Artifacts that appeared on Earth 2 years before the apocalypse. Even the most advanced weapon and defense technologies of the United Governments of the Past Age were no match for the beings created (or so it appeared at the time) from pure energy.

The last data on Incorporeals received by the United Governments in real-time is dated 3 month after the Reset. The other data was collected after more than a hundred years, by the recovering drone operations in the Yellow Zones. According to that data, there has been no evidence of the presence of Incorporeals since 1 A.R. - except for Artifacts left by them. The Dallas Incident in 129 A.R. proved the ability of the modern United Government to eliminate alien Artifacts and theoretically even Incorporeals themselves. However the practical testing of that theory has not been possible because of their apparent absence.

Unexpectedly for the United Governments, the societies of survivors above the surface do not share fear, hatred or a "righteous feeling of resistance" against the alien invaders. In the new world which appeared from the ashes, blood, and struggle, Incorporeals took their place in the survivors' tales – as mythological characters, legends, and even as gods. Their heritage of forgotten Artifacts, Red Zones, and terramorphing became a natural part of the new civilization of survivors on the new Earth.

Vince provides us with a new update for Age of Decadence, talking about the recent steam update.

We just released an update on Steam so might as well post a forum update at the same time.

We're still working Ganezzar, which is coming along nicely. I'd say we're half done now and the hardest part is behind us now. At this stage we have all the questlines and they flow, interweave, and arrive to logical conclusions quite nicely. They are more focused and interconnected and as a result there is a larger number of options and double-crossing opportunities. 

Thus this update is also light on content as Ganezzar is a priority for us as we want to release it as soon as humanly possible.

So, what’s in this update?

• 13 new Achievements
• A new conversation with Lorenza
• If you had a pickpocket encounter in Teron and decided to take Livia to Cado (thieves only option, obviously) instead of killing her or letting her go, you can meet her in Maadoran now and get a glimpse of the role she's going to play in Act 4 (endgame).
• You asked for a good dagger and we listened. If you manage to save a trader upon arrival to Maadoran, he'll reward you with a nice custom jambia.
• A new merchant in the Slums who can sell you an axe called Black Dow.
• Added text explaining what happened if you leave the Monastery area without doing anything and return later when you're good and ready.
• Added a text-based option to sneak into the vaults as well as the dialogue options depending on how you handled the raiders.
• Fixed an older dialogue that wasn't triggered correctly - after talking to Old Azra and learning that she spent her youth in Maadoran, you can ask the street 'guide' about her.
• Fixed a number of minor bugs including the critical strike issue in Aemolas' village

As always, thank you for your continuous support and patronage. If there is something you wish to see in the next update, be it specific items (that won't require new animations), different character types, or certain characters' viewpoints or past, let us know and we'll do our best to add them.

Thanks Oscar for letting us know.

In a new update for Ghost of a Tale, Seth explains that the Gamescom trailer is done.

Hello everyone! With August very soon upon us this might end up being the last update before Gamescom. I’ve just wrapped up work on the reveal trailer yesterday at 3AM. It was back-breaking work, but it’s done and I’m happy with the result. I want to thank Paul for his indispensable help on finishing the trailer and obviously Jeremiah for his hauntingly beautiful soundtrack.

The trailer is an important element to get right because for a lot of people (I hope at least) this will be the first time they’re introduced to the world of Ghost of a Tale. You guys already know about the game of course, but it’s still pretty much unknown to the wide gaming audience.

It’s a difficult act to balance as Ghost of a Tale is definitely not a AAA game. People expecting the scale of Skyrim or the action of Dark Souls are not going to find it. Instead they’ll find a small game with elements of exploration, action, stealth, adventure, and I hope the charm and heart which I think so many bombastic AAA games lack nowadays.

Here’s a screenshot for you (it’s HD resolution so you can make it bigger). It’s not part of the trailer, just some dark, humid location in the demo.

So now I’ll move on to working on the playable demo we’ll show on our booth (Hall 10.1 Aisle C No: 51). It’s going to be at pre-alpha stage, meaning a lot of elements are not there yet, like the questing and dialog system, inventory, etc… But the mission for Gamescom is not to say “here look at our game, it’s almost done!” but rather to simply raise awareness. And despite the fatigue, the bugs and the long hours I have to say I love how the game is shaping up. What is shown at Gamescom is going to be but a fraction of what Ghost of a Tale has to offer…

Mr. Nixon of Black Cloud Studios continues his updates on what on what species you can find in After Reset. The time we get more information about Biomass.

BIOMASS:

Even to the scientists of the United Governments, there is not much known about Biomass by 132 A.R. According to Scientific Corps, there was no evidence of Biomass species in the Past Age. The only examples of the species were found by drones rarely returned from the Red Zones. Upon being taken out of a Red Zone, a Biomass species loses its state of separate species, hibernating or decomposing into other species or just consuming itself.

However, there are some legends among Indians who live close to the borders of Red Zones ("Bad Lands", as they called it) about the demons devouring flesh and souls of those who encroach upon their territory. Similar folk tales are common among several groups of the survivor societies.

One way or another, due to extremely hazardous environments in the Red Zones, the study of Biomass keeps being complicated - leaving its true nature and origin unidentified.

Our resident forum dweller Pladio bought The Age of Decadence early access game only a few weeks ago and find it's an amazing game, which interweaves stories in a world full of lore and deception.

To help support the Iron Tower Studios team, Pladio decided to give away one game on Steam to one of our regulars here at RPGWatch by means of a small contest.

The rules are simple :

1. Only users with 100 or more posts may participate.
2. You need to answer all questions correctly in one post.
3. You only have one chance to get it right. If you are posting twice, you are out. Editing your post is not allowed either, so ensure your post is final when you post.
4. The first one who answers the questions correctly will win the game.
5. The winner needs to 'friend' Pladio on Steam to receive the key as that is preferable to sending the key by mail
6. Pladio is the judge and his decision is final.

All questions can be answered by people who have not played the game as the answers are easily found online.

So here are the questions:

1. Ganezzar is ruled by which Noble House ?
2. The remnants of the Imperial Army was rebuilt with what name ?
3. In The Age Of Decadence May update. How many locations were released out of how many in total (according to the developer at the time of the update?

The Rampant Coyote is happy to announce his RPG game Frayed Knights is now available for purchase on Steam. Here are the details from a recent post.

Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon Finally Live on Steam

I was not sure this day will ever happen.

I guess after all this time, nothing short of a miracle will make it anything but anticlimactic. But hey, it’s an Event, and it’s Important, and the stress finally started hitting me a few hours ago.

Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon is finally on Steam.

Yay!

I’m celebrating on this fine state holiday here in Utah by… working extra hours, ‘cuz deadlines. Being a part-time indie can be even more anticlimactic.

But please – share, spread the news! This is a new version of Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon, steam-enhanced with achievements and some smaller fixes / tweaks / improvements. Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen.

I’ll have the non-steam update for people soon. If you bought the game *BEFORE TODAY* from me directly or through Desura and really want the steam version, email me (jayb) with your purchase information, and we’ll work something out. If you got the game through a bundle, check your bundle page. If you don’t have a code already, it should be up in a few hours.

So — now I get to jump to work with the non-Steam updat, and I’m behind schedule on a milestone for the sequel for a week from today. GAH. Okay. Back to work.

Please spread the word.

And thanks. Really. It’s meant a lot to me.

Oh, and one more thing, I just wanted to say… 0L4L6.

Thanks to PegasusOrgans we now have a new update about Graywalkers: Purgatory. You may recall the original kickstarter failed, and was supposed to re-launch months ago.

PegasusOrgans : It has been a while, and I'm still as excited as ever. Your game world is actually unique and I love the character designs! Please say you're still at work.

Dreamlords Digital: We're really glad to hear that you are still excited. Yes, it has been a while and we apologize for that...and yes we are still hard at work on it. Good news is we will have a big update here in less than 2 weeks where we will tell you about the future of Graywalkers and show you a sneak peak on what we've built in the past few months.

You can now buy Unrest on Steam or GOG, and I also collected a few more reviews to help you decide. Now lets get started here is a short release trailer.

Set in a fantasy interpretation of ancient India, Unrest is an adventure RPG focused on story and choices. Play as five ordinary people who are struggling to get by in the in the famine-stricken city-state of Bhimra.

Brave poverty, disease, treason, political and social upheaval. Face unique burdens and gripping dilemmas as you struggle to survive in each chapter...but choices made to help one character may well make life harder for another.

In Unrest, there are no heroes of legend, there is no mystical quest, and fate has not chosen you. You're on your own.

And lets not forget about  the following reviews in no specific order.

Gamespot - 6/10

Despite the glaring issues, I was swept up by Unrest's unique cast, and I cared about their troubles, enough to even feel responsible if the path I led them down ended up in disaster. Though flawed, Unrest's system of cause and effect is a refreshing change from traditional conversation mechanics and deserves appreciation. In a sea of clearly defined morality systems, Unrest proves that sometimes the best waters consist of infinite shades of gray.

Incgamers - 7/10

Unrest is a short narrative full of ethical dilemmas, presented through the eyes of an unusually diverse cast of RPG characters. Those choices have an isolated impact, but don’t expect them to alter the story to a radical degree.

Softpedia - 8/10

Unrest offers a gripping story about hope, failure, action and inaction, fear and security, which feels more like an interactive visual novel than an actual game. And a well-written one, at that. Sort of like A Game of Thrones without endlessly waiting for the dragons to come, the game delivers its quick shot of gripping narrative, challenges you to make a couple of life and death decisions, then leaves you boiling in the karmic print of your choices.

Well you guys should know the drill by now so here we go. Mr. Nixon of Black Cloud Studios posted the next update on what species you can find in After Reset.

Species in After Reset RPG: Part V. Synthetics

SYNTHETICS:

The Synthetics are species of artificially constructed machines, robots, virtual and artificial intelligences - as well as any other synthetic components, creatures and beings.

By 132 A.R. the largest Synthetic of the United Governments is the Quanton - a unified quantum computer network of the United Governments. It is a disorganized network from local quantum subnetworks called Quanton Hubs, which are often given the personalized names of bunkers, cities or other places where they exist.

Despite its cutting-edge technologies, the Quanton is not a fully-fledged AI. The initial prototype Quanton was developed back in the Past Age within the walls of the Science Corps of the UG. However, even in the design stage it fell under the oversight of the HRW Department (abbreviation of Human Rights Watch) of the Social Corps of the UG. The purpose of this oversight was to enforce the proactive and comprehensive ban on the creation, or accidental appearance of AI during work on the project. After the Reset, for a variety of social and technical reasons, Quanton grew into the universal information infrastructure of the whole UG.

The Banner Saga is 50% Off on GOG for one day only priced at $12.49.

Gem Promo: The Banner Saga

In a real saga you crush your enemies skulls, not sweets.

The Banner Saga, a unique Viking-themed role-playing game with solid tactical combat mechanics, beautiful 2D graphics that look nothing like any other modern title, and a captivating heart-touching story, is now available 50% off DRM-Free on GOG.com, for Windows and Mac OS X. That's only $12.49 for the next 24 hours!

Mr. Nixon of Black Cloud Studios posted the next update on his kickstarter page about what species you can find in After Reset. This time the topic is plants.

Species in After Reset RPG: Part IV. Plants

In this news we proceed sharing game lore about the species of the After Reset world. This news is dedicated to Plants.

Beyond that, if you've just joined to our daily news stream, you can find previous data about other species at these links:
Species in After Reset RPG: Part I. Humans.
Species in After Reset RPG: Part II. Animals.
Species in After Reset RPG: Part III. Insects.

A species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.

IMPORTANT NOTES: Due to storyline limitations, you can choose only Human species for your character in After Reset RPG's single-player mode. Despite that, you will meet a variety of other species during your adventure in the world of the game.

PLANTS:

Plants are the most widespread living multicellular organisms in the world after the Reset. They form a clade that includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, club mosses, hornworts, liverworts and mosses - as well as, depending on definition, the algae, etc.

Before the Reset green plants were the dominant part of the flora. Such type of plants has cell walls with cellulose and characteristically obtains most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis using chlorophyll contained in chloroplasts, which gives it its green color. Some plants were parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize.

During the first decades after the apocalypse, when the green plants were dying off in huge numbers, that last group of flora took advantage of the opportunity to spread among the subterranean regions - developing its ability to gain required energy and substances from sources other than sunlight and water. The largest accumulations of these plants are usually spotted close to Red Zones - which keeps the question of alien terramorphing's effects on Earth open.

Alright my fellow watchers the Rampant Coyote needs your help with the Steam release of Frayed Knights. We sent Corwin's review and the old interview to help.

Okay, folks. I can use some help here.

I know many of you have already played through all or most of Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon. If you have, I could use some support :

Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon on Steam

I could use some reviews, community discussion, support, screen shots, etc. there.

If you previously obtained the game from Rampant Games directly and are willing / interested in writing a review on Steam this week, please let me know via email or twitter PM. The jayb addy works best. I’m trying to get a lot of things done quickly, and I may even push out the release date a few days if I have to, but I can use every bit of support you guys are willing to offer. I’d love the site to have content from people other than me on launch day (or shortly before / after, where possible).

Thank you all for your help – big and small. Even little words of encouragement and optimism (when I felt little, myself) helped a great deal.

The Rampant Coyote is back with another post for his RPG game Frayed Knights where he talks about the changes he made in the upcoming new patch.

Over the course of the week, I made some changes to Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon that go beyond adding Steam achievements.  This will be version 1.07, and will be made available for non-Steam versions soon.

The changes are small, but (IMO) significant:

* Change to the Search skill. When there is a hidden treasure within range of the skill, you will get a message to that effect even on a failed check – just no indication of range. There is no change to searching for traps.

* Weapons with spell effects on impact (for example, the Spear of Concussion and the Axe of Fiery Microdoom) now may cost additional stamina when the spell effect lands. These are generally pretty low-level spells so the endurance cost isn’t major, but it does help balance out the otherwise quite impressive effects of these weapons.

* The Endurance cost modifier for the Demotivate spell has been increased from 3 to 4.

* Fixed a bug when attempting to cast directly from a scroll onto a friendly party member – the casting dialog would sometimes have scrambled information.

* Some minor dialog changes, mainly for typos.

I suspect that the change to search will be the most well-received, with the average response being something to the effect of, “It’s about time!

The next update about the species in After Reset has been posted by Mr. Nixon of Black Cloud Studios. This time we get information on the games insects.

Species in After Reset RPG: Part III Insects

In this news we proceed sharing game lore about the species of the After Reset world. This news is dedicated to Insects.

Beyond that, if you've just joined to our daily news stream, you can find previous data about other species at these links:
Species in After Reset RPG: Part I. Humans.
Species in After Reset RPG: Part II. Animals.

A species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.

IMPORTANT NOTES: Due to storyline limitations, you can choose only Human species for your character in After Reset RPG's single-player mode. Despite that, you will meet a variety of other species during your adventure in the world of the game.

INSECTS:

Insects are invertebrate eukaryotic organisms having an external skeleton, a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Insects as a species are general representation of Arthropoda, i.e. "foot" or "leg", which together mean "jointed leg", and include the insects (wasps, grasshoppers, flies, cockroaches, beetles, isopods, etc.), arachnids (scorpions, spiders, mites, etc.), crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, shrimps) and trilobites (almost extinguished by the Past Age, that name is now used by scientists of SOC for all type of insects with non-earth DNA).

Even before the Reset, the number of insects is estimated at between six and ten million, and potentially represented over 90% of the different animal life forms on Earth. Insects could be found in nearly all environments, and were one of the largest groups in the food chain on Earth. Their real challenge is the cold - insects are unable to produce heat metabolically. Most of their survival techniques involve skirting around freezing weather – migration, freeze tolerance (waiting for the sun), or freeze avoidance (habitat and supercooling).

Because of their prevalence, vitality, unpretentiousness, high radiation resistance and reproduction rate, the insects became the largest and the most widespread organisms within the warm regions of Earth after apocalypse. By 132 A.R. its representatives could be easily found even in Red Zones. With that, as the most prevalent source of proteins, insects became the major brick in the biological food chain on the surface.

Visionary Realms Brad McQuaid has posted the next monthly update for Pantheon.

Update 07/21/2014

Its update time again! Thank you for your support as we progress through development and Pantheon continues to take shape.  We have been making solid, steady progress these last couple of weeks.  Currently we have several island scenes that are in development and will share some early screenshots of those.  In addition, we have finished working out the races/classes that will be included at launch.

The N4G News Blog has a new preview of Klei Entertainment's Invisible, Inc.

I can't say I gave Invisible, Inc. a fair chance the first time I loaded up the alpha. My foolhardy ways said, “This should be no problem, I'll succeed with grace and make it through all ten floors, learning everything I need to know along the way.” What a dummy. I stumbled my way through the first floor only to find myself on the second floor deader than a really dead thing. This game is not all that forgiving and does not reward foolishly brave behavior. Invisible, Inc. is a game built for critical thinking and tactical planning and is incredibly beneficial to those that give their time and patience to it.

Although the title is just now out of alpha and has many changes to go through before it even enters its beta, the fundamentals are clear in what might be considered a “proof of concept” of mechanics. Invisible, Inc. is on course to be one of the most interesting tactical titles with a stealth focus to be available to players and should garner plenty of attention when it's fully available. Just remember... Don't skip the tutorial.

Pyrodactyl Games has a new update for Unrest about a poster, and the DRM-free build.

Just a few weeks ago, we promised that we would give you the DRM-free builds a week before release. Unfortunately, due to several issues and the release date rush, we were unable to do that. The good news is that you will get the DRM-free build, just on the release date. We’re taking the extra time to quash last minute bugs, especially since patching and updating DRM-free builds is a lot tougher than on Steam.

There’s only 3 days to go, so I hope this slight delay isn’t too much of a problem. Thanks a lot for your patience and support, I hope to see and hear you all once you’re playing Unrest!

Also Hardcore Gamer has posted a new review that gives the game a 3.5/5.

Unrest is a choice-driven RPG with little combat to speak of that touches on relevant social issues. It’s not unlike Always Sometimes Monsters, though it ironically takes cues from western-style RPGs where that game took them from eastern ones. Unrest feels a little more focussed than most games of its ilk, and it has a thankfully short run time to facilitate multiple playthroughs. You get a real feeling of agency as you guide the game’s story, and it’s refreshing to play something from a different cultural perspective.

Atlus released a new trailer for Citizens of Earth called Meet the Vice President.

You've just been elected Vice President of the World--what do you do now? Why, recruit your mother, brother, and 40 other Citizens of Earth to fight for you, of course!

Being the Vice President of the World means asking not what you can do for your countrymen, but what your countrymen can do for you!
The retro-inspired game begins just after the VP has won a long, drawn-out candidacy and returned to his hometown for some taxpayer-funded rest and relaxation. But after just one night passes, the VP awakens to find the world gone berserk! As elected official he has two responsibilities: investigate what's caused people to go crazy... and delegate as much of the dirty work as possible.

Citizens of Earth will be available in North America and Europe later in 2014 as a download-only title for PC, PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, PlayStation®Vita handheld entertainment system, Nintendo 3DS™, and Wii U™.

The next update from Mr. Nixon of Black Cloud Studios for After Reset brings us part two of the species found in the game, and this time it's about animals.

Species in After Reset RPG: Part II. Animals

In this news we proceed sharing game lore about the species of the After Reset world. This news is dedicated to Animals.

Beyond that, if you've just joined to our daily news stream, you can find previous data about other species at these links: Species in After Reset RPG: Part I. Humans.

A species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.

IMPORTANT NOTES: Due to storyline limitations, you can choose only Human species for your character in After Reset RPG's single-player mode. Despite that, you will meet a variety of other species during your adventure in the world of the game.

ANIMALS:

Animals are multicellular organisms of the kingdom Animalia (also called Metazoa) whose cells contain a nucleus and other structures (organelles) enclosed within membranes. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their lives. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently. All animals must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance.

During the Reset, the majority of animals were wiped from the Earth's surface. Locked in the cities, most of the domestic animals also died - either instantly, or from lack of food that they were not skilled enough to get by themselves. More than 90% of the rest were extinguished during the first decades after reset, due to enormous ecological damage inflicted to the lowest levels of the Earth's food chain.

Despite all of that, it turned out that humanity was much more of a threat to fauna then even the Reset itself. After the first decades of apocalypse, the radiation level decreased and Yellow Zones began to emerge. Without human interaction, the flora overtook those new regions and the animals soon followed.

By 132 A.R. animals, plants and insects are the dominant species on the Earth. Many of the animals of the Past Age were extinguished forever, but their place is being intensively taken over by new ones - adapted, evolved, or even brought from another world during the alien terramorphing.

Popzara interviewed Supergiant Games Greg Kasavin. They talk mostly about his recently released game, and a few other questions about the developer.

Transistor clearly shares a heritage with Supergiant’s first game, Bastion. When the team was working on Transistor, did you make a conscious effort to differentiate the game from Bastion? What aspects of Bastion did you explicitly decide to carry over or drop?

GK: Our main goal with Transistor was to create a new game with its own distinct identity, as strong as that of our first game. Any similarities between Transistor and Bastion are mostly due to it being the same team that created both games, and a conscious decision on our part to continue exploring the action RPG genre. Other than that, we held over nothing from Bastion for the sake of doing so.

When we did come around to making similar decisions — things like the camera angle or the use of voiceover as a major component of the narrative — it was because we felt that those decisions were best for Transistor.

Upon Transistor’s PC launch there were a number of technical issues that hampered people’s ability to play the game. As an indie studio with perhaps less of a staff and budget for QA, how does Supergiant feel about this kind of problem and how do you approach it when it comes up?

GK: First off, if you personally ran into problems with the game at launch then I’m very sorry about that. I hope from your perspective that you felt like we addressed those problems swiftly.

For the small percentage of players who ran into compatibility issues or other problems around the time of the game’s launch, we responded often in a matter of minutes and worked closely with each individual to make sure they could get the game running. While there is no excuse for a rough launch in this day and age, if and when the reality of technical issues arises during a game’s launch, I think it is the developer’s responsibility to work swiftly to resolve those problems.

We invested heavily in the quality assurance of Transistor — much more so than we did or could on Bastion — both because we think it’s worth it and because we expected we might have a lot of folks trying to play the game on day one.

Fundamentally I think our approach was the right one: To test the game as thoroughly as possible on as many different systems as possible for as long as possible prior to launch, then to all be standing by for the launch to swiftly address any issues we did not or for whatever reason could not have anticipated.

Its time for another developer update from Overhype Studios for Battle Brothers. This time they talk all the various world map location you will visit in the game.

The strategic worldmap in Battle Brothers is filled with opportunities for adventure, battles and interaction. One of these opportunities are locations that you can explore, destroy and plunder or trade with. In this week’s developer’s blog we want to present you a couple of these locations.