Greetings and welcome back fellow strategists and gunners. Hope you have kept your wits sharp and your trigger-finger ready to go, because we are going back into Interplanetary for some more planet-bombardment action. The folks at Team Jolly Roger Games have made many improvements to the game since we last looked at it, including graphical fixes, network improvements, more weapons of mass destruction, a tech tree and research mechanic, a working spying mechanic, and other improvements and goodies. I have been purposefully keeping myself in the dark about the game’s development, so that way each iteration can become more of a surprise for my next skirmish. Boy I must say, they really have made some great strides since my initial preview, which you can read here if you haven’t already.

The first topic I wish to talk about is possibly the biggest and most influential of them all, the spying mechanic. Previously you could view your opponent’s planet and see where all cities and developments have been placed, allowing precision-based weapons to take a huge advantage and dominate the weapon selections. With the recent changes, you no longer have all that info readily available. In order to view possible enemy weak points, you must construct buildings which will allow you to view planet infrastructure. Depending on your planet’s level of intelligence – the number of spy buildings you have – the possible targets available range from a couple low-value locales up to the entire planet. To keep away prying eyes, you can counter by building “cloaking” or counter-intelligence buildings in order to hide your planet’s infrastructure. This feature alone adds much more strategic gameplay and flow to the system, as players are no longer just racing to get the biggest and best guns. Priority is now split between getting your planet ready for conflict and keeping your cities and important structures hidden, creating both an arms and intelligence race.

Along with intelligence comes the research aspect of the game. You now need to research technology in order to access the bigger and more advanced weaponry. No longer are you able to build missiles and laser weapons right from the get go. Now you must allocate time in order for research to be done. This is done via a simple tech tree, where various tech and bonuses can be researched and applied to your advantage. Techs include giving permanent boosts such as more power production or spying levels as well as the ability to manufacture one of the two new weapons of massive destruction.

Now we are getting to the juicy parts of the new additions, the new weaponry. A new laser and artillery weapon have been added in the form of the ‘Solar Laser’ and the ‘Asteroid Diversion’ respectively. Once I noticed these weapons in the tech tree, I just HAD to acquire them and give them a shot (pun intended).

FIRE THE LASER!

The Solar Laser is a satellite parked in the sun’s orbit which focuses the sun’s power into a giant solar death ray, obliterating anything you set its deadly sights on with pinpoint precision. I couldn’t help but feel like an evil genius, pinky to mouth, when I set loose the focused wrath of the sun onto my enemy.

As cool as the Solar Laser is, I felt that the Asteroid Diversion was more “in tune” with the sci-fi nature of the game. As the name implies, the Asteroid Diversion weapon takes an asteroid from the local asteroid belt and diverts it to a course of your bidding, into say perhaps a nearby planet that you dislike. Nothing beats the sight of an asteroid hurtling out of space at full speed and slamming right into your enemy’s precious home planet. Numerous blockbusters and B-movies have been made on that premise, and now it is in your hands to unleash upon your foes. So set an asteroid loose on that pesky planet and whip out some popcorn for the show (3D glasses not included).

Recreate a B-movie disaster film on your enemy’s home planet

While all these additions are great, I have merely touched upon a few of the major updates to the game. Many other improvements have been made to the game such as improved multiplayer networking and graphical fixes, all showing that Team Jolly Roger have been putting a lot of effort and love into this project. I was blown away by my first look into the game many versions ago, and the current build they have on offer is no exception to that statement. I look forward to the next iteration of the game. If the additions they have made so far are any indication of the future trajectory of the game, we are in for an Earth-shattering (pun intended) release once the full game is out.
You can check out Interplanetary on Steam Early Access for those interested in some tactical fun. Let’s get those guns primed and lasers flying!

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Gravity sucks. Like that annoying kid on the playground who likes to trip you because he thought it would be funny, gravity is always there waiting for its time to strike. A silent guardian of physics, gravity is the cause of every dropped biscuit wasted, every painful trip you’ve taken, and every pen that’s escaped your grasp.  I hate you, gravity.

0RBITALIS is all about gravity, or perhaps more accurately it’s about figuring out how to exploit the forces of gravity to get a small red ball to stay in orbit for as long as possible. If you’ve ever played Angry Birds: Space, you will already have a good idea how the controls work.

Each level presents itself as its own unique puzzle, with large red stars and smaller white asteroids liberally dotted around in their own orbits. Changing the angle and force of your shot can yield wildly different results, and by using the gravitational pull of each celestial body you’re able to pull off some crazy ‘skill-shots’ that leave your projectile soaring through the stars for what seems like a lifetime.

Of course, getting a trajectory that lasts longer than a few seconds isn’t always easy. If you apply too much force on your shot, you’ll end up flying straight off the map and into a world of failure. Shoot too softly, and you’ll be sucked straight towards the closest object. It’s all about finding that sweet spot for each level.

There’s little to dislike about 0RBITALIS. It scratches an itch for physics puzzling without overcomplicating things. The levels are varied enough to keep you occupied for a good while and the leaderboards can help create healthy competition between you and your friends. The game is essentially feature complete despite launching as an Early Access title, and if you’re in the market for a new puzzle game you can’t go wrong with shooting things into space for fun.

0RBITALIS launched on the 16^TH across Steam Greenlight as an Early Access title.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Prepare to encounter the forest’s indigenous population.

The Forest will be available on Steam the 22nd of May and will feature Oculus Rift support.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Tactical turn-based future-sports football game Frozen Endzone (holy hyphen spam, Batman) is now available through Early Access on Steam.

By pitting teams of sinister looking robots against each other in a deadly game of ‘future football’ (Not the British kind, but the pretend football you see in America) Frozen Endzone hopes to score the same popularity that its predecessor – Frozen Synapse - received.

Launching alongside its Early Access release, Frozen Endzone will also get a number of updates to the current beta version of the game.

• Players can now have stats: strength, resilience, “burst” (a small burst of acceleration when getting the ball), evade, intercept radius, block radius
• “Handball” (now called “Full Match”) game mode enters beta.  This has been totally revamped to accommodate stats and is now the main game mode.  Lots of turnovers, interceptions, end-to-end action, and new points zones make this really exciting and strategic.
• Team Editor allows you to name your players and set their stats; upload your team to the server and use it in multiplayer or skirmish with it offline
• Completely revamped, much more intelligent AI and a selection of new AI skirmishes
• Easy-to-use tile-based Pitch Editor (alpha)
• Custom Game Mode creator (alpha)
• Commentary system (alpha): commentary makes use of player names; in single player, the AI calculations are also used to allow the commentators to analyse your play-style; in multiplayer, the commentators will discuss your previous history with your opponent
• New animations and some big improvements to camera code
• There is now in-game audio to go with the music!

And if that wasn’t enough, here’s a brand spanking new trailer with developer Paul talking us through some of the new features listed above.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.