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Greenlight Spotlight Vol. 4

Greenlight

My previous few Greenlight articles focused primarily on games with active crowd-funding campaigns. Most of those campaigns are over now, so let’s take a quick look at the results: Among the Sleep was struggling for a while there, but a surge of support in the final hours allowed the Kickstarter to end with $248,358, hitting three of the five stretch goals. A.N.N.E. closed with $100,272, allowing the game to reach three of the seven stretch goals. It was pretty close, but Ghost of a Tale‘s Indiegogo campaign managed to close at 48,700€, just over the target goal of 45,000€. The Stomping Land still has a few days left, but it is already raised more than three times its original goal. Unfortunately, The Realm was over £100,000 short of its goal. The developers plan to try again sometime in the future.

There has also been some new games Greenlit since my last article, which I mentioned here. Those titles include Bleed, Game Dev Tycoon, The Legend, Legends of Eisenwald, RIOT, and Stardew Valley. The PC versions of Bleed and Game Dev Tycoon are already out, so I expect that we should be seeing Steam releases before too long. Now that the Greenlight updates are out of the way, we can get on with this week’s five game spotlights:

CannonBrawl

Cannon Brawl by Turtle Sandbox Games

Cannon Brawl is an interesting mix of a 2D RTS/artillery game. You control an airship and must use it to construct towers in an attempt to destroy your opponent’s base. The terrain is 100% destructible, and you can use this to your advantage to pull off some pretty impressive strategies. The game is close to being finished, with a set release date sometime this summer for $10. There is an alpha demo that you can try that gives you a good idea of what to expect from both the campaign and the multiplayer.

Darkwood

Darkwood by Acid Wizard Studios

Darkwood is a top-down, open world survival horror game that has been getting quite a bit of hype lately because of its ongoing Indiegogo campaign. It features some roguelike elements in the form of permadeath and the world’s randomly generated nature, so each playthrough will be different. The game’s use of line of sight and lighting looks fantastic, and adds a lot to the tension of the game’s already oppressive atmosphere.

Wrack

Wrack by Final Boss Entertainment

Wrack is a fast-paced, old school-style FPS that borrows heavily from classics like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Quake. In fact, one of their big selling points is that Bobby Prince (of Doom and Wolfenstein fame) is working on Wrack‘s music and sound effects. The level design looks to be another big plus for this game, with large, multi-tiered levels full of alternate paths, secrets, and hazardous terrain, just like in the old days. The game will ship with the so-called WrackEd software, a fully-featured level editor and suite of mod tools.

StarshipCorporation

Starship Corporation by Ratakari

Starship Corporation is exactly what it says on the tin: a management sim about running a starship manufacturer. You design starships, making sure that the internal layout is optimal for the starship’s role, and sell the finished product to other companies and groups. You can create everything from mining vessels to gigantic battleships using over 50 types of rooms divided into 6 categories. You can also take on missions with your ships to gauge their performance, and even create your own private fleet to defend your interests. There is a playable alpha out right now that is really rough around the edges, but such is the nature of early builds.     

TheForest

The Forest by SKS Games

I heard someone describe The Forest as a higher resolution, more survival horror-focused version of Minecraft, and that description seems fair enough. In The Forest, you play as the lone survivor of a plane crash that leaves you stranded in a mysterious forest with aggressive, cannibalistic mutants. The goal is simply to survive by any means necessary, be it by building fortifications to bunker down in at night or by crafting crude weapons to try and fight off the mutants. The environments and lighting effects look amazing, and SKS is looking to launch with full Oculus Rift support.

That’s all for this week. Remember to check some of my previous Greenlight Spotlights for more interesting games. Of all the games I’ve highlighted, only Cradle has made it through so far. My hope is that these articles can do at least a little to help change that.