Alpha Beta Gamer

Stones Of Sorrow is an ultra-violent action-roguelike based on historical cave paintings with cooldown based combat mechanics and buckets of blood (or paint).

The levels in Stones of Sorrow are all procedurally generated, with you having to pay a gatekeeper with gold to get lower into the cave. You’ll find some of this gold scattered throughout the levels, but you’ll earn most of it through killing enemies. This gold also comes in handy when you die, through a nice Rogue Legacy-style perks system that allows you to purchase upgrades that will aid your next playthrough.

Enemies tend to continually spawn from set locations, causing them to bunch up together in large groups which you can then run into and wipe out in a huge bloodbath. You can also use bombs which can be bought from a shop, or grab and execute an enemy for a nice +666 gold bonus. The combat system takes a little getting used to as every move (even crawl) has a cooldown period with a count-down at the bottom of the screen indicating when you can use them again. Once you figure it out though, it’s great fun, and adds a tactical element to the fighting.

The current build is still early in development and contains 1 level, 1 weapon, 4 enemy types, 3 different executions on one enemy, 6 stat changing items, a trader, a gatekeeper and lots of violence. The full game will contain at least 10 levels, 20 weapons, 15 brutal executions, 23 enemy types, 60 stat changing items, many different traders, eating corpses, weapon modifying and a story about a power struggle within an ancient tribe.

Coming to Windows, Mac & Linux, Stones of Sorrow has just started an IndieGoGo campaign with a very modest €4,000 Goal. Contributors who pay €4 or more will get access to the full blood-soaked version when it’s released.

Play the Alpha, Free

Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow comes Today is beautifully crafted 2D sci-fi point and click adventure inspired by The Secret of Monkey Island, Broken Sword, Day of the Tentacle, but has a more mature theme, similar to I have no mouth and I must Scream or Sanitarium.

It features a classic point and click interface, a mature and dark storyline set in a dystopian sci-fi world, an excellent soundtrack and a beautiful, stylish hand drawn art style. It really does feel like a classic old-school point and click adventure (albeit with prettier visuals). Featuring a puzzle style that will be familiar to anyone who has played a good point and click adventure before, with well thought out, logical solutions.

The world and storyline of Dead Synchronicity deserve special mention, with the world in a state of decay after it was his by something called ‘the great wave’, which destroyed all energy sources and communications, plunging the world into disarray. Worse still, a terrible disease is sweeping the population, turning them into ‘the Dissolved’, making them delirious, giving them supernatural powers and eventually killing them.

Throughout this, you play as Michael, a man who can’t remember his past, who’s trying to uncover what happened to the world, and eventually stop time itself from dissolving. It’s an intriguing storyline and a great looking game, full of interesting characters and ideas, and a level of maturity rarely seen in games.

Download the Alpha Demo, Free (Win & Mac)

alpha-beta-gamer:

Age of Ascent (AoA) is a great looking new space-based sandbox MMO, that is so big, that they’re planning on breaking EVE Online’s Guinness World Record (4070 concurrent pilots fighting) by staging the largest PvP battle ever seen.
As if that wasn’t enough, they’re planning to beat EVE Online’s record with the battle taking place in a single, continuous unsharded battlezone, all in real time (EVE uses time dilation). If Age of Ascent manages to pull it off, this will be the MMO equivalent of beating an opponent blindfolded, with your arms tied behind your back, while balancing a tea-cup on your head.
The Alpha test will be for the PvP component only, but the devs promise that the full game will include exploration (in a map of our real galaxy), a completely player-driven economy, PvE missions, modular ship designs, space station construction and management, and all the alliance organisational tools you’ll need.
To top thing off, although the game looks pretty spectacular, it will play on any browser (Other than Safari), and doesn’t require the installation of any game data or plug-ins. All you have to do is turn up at the website on March the 14th, where you’ll be assigned a side, jump straight in and take part in a world record breaking battle!
Join in the Guinness World Record breaking Alpha

Just a reminder, the World Record attempt will be happening today, everyone’s invited! – March 14th from 7pm GMT / 3pm Eastern / 12 noon Pacific!

Join in the Guinness World Record breaking Alpha

Proven lands is a vast procedurally generated science-fiction sandbox roguelike with en emphasis on exploration, inspired by Star Trek, Don’t Starve, Project Zomboid and Cataclysm.

This isn’t just another sandbox survival game, here there is an emphasis on exploration and storytelling. The story of Proven Lands unfolds in two distinct ways, one is a scripted story about friendship, bravery and even a pregnancy, while the other is generated by an AI game-master that reacts to the player, weaving a unique game-playing experience for each playthrough. Both or these options sound fantastic, though for a pure sandbox experience, the player will have the option to turn the scripted storyline off.

The planets of Proven Lands look wonderful, a lot of work has gone in to making it them feel like a real alien landscape, with diverse creatures living in their own ecosystems. As you traverse the landscape, you’ll encounter weather effects, natural disasters, a variety of topographies, enemies and AI companions (including a cat in it’s very own cat spacesuit). You’ll also build, craft, use vehicles, create outposts, progress your chosen character type, choose alliances and travel to other planets, it goes without saying that it’s a pretty ambitious game.

The Pre-Alpha is a very early build, so obviously is nowhere near fully featured. You can eat, drink, chop trees, destroy stones and kill enemies, fight hunger, thirst and diseases, all in an endless procedurally generated terrain. Although pretty basic at the moment, the Pre-Alpha does give you a basic overall feel of the game, and a sense that the finished product could be something very special. The Greenlight and Kickstarter campaigns have just started so make sure you check them out.

Download the Pre-Alpha, Free

Storium is an online storytelling game that allows players to create a story through a series of scenes, reacting to obstacles and people as you come across them. It’s played with 3 people, with one person playing as the Narrator, and the other 2 playing as the characters.

The Narrator chooses the world that the story is set in (with choices such as ‘occult pop horror’, ‘medical drama’ and ‘cyberpunk’), then starts each scene, using cards to give the players challenges to overcome. The players will then try to overcome these challenges as they see fit, progressing the story in fun and interesting ways.

There are a few more rules, but it’s remarkably easy to pick up and is only limited by your imagination. Storium is a fun and fluid way of storytelling, with players reacting to each other and no-one being fully in control, it can lead to some VERY interesting stories.

Our attempt was an occult pop horror called ‘The Badgers of Doom’, they’re black, they’re white, and they bite! Coming soon to cinemas near you!

Sign up for the Alpha

UPDATE: Alpha Sign-ups are now closed, but you can now get immediate access to the Beta by backing the Storium Kickstarter

Age of Ascent (AoA) is a great looking new space-based sandbox MMO, that is so big, that they’re planning on breaking EVE Online’s Guinness World Record (4070 concurrent pilots fighting) by staging the largest PvP battle ever seen.

As if that wasn’t enough, they’re planning to beat EVE Online’s record with the battle taking place in a single, continuous unsharded battlezone, all in real time (EVE uses time dilation). If Age of Ascent manages to pull it off, this will be the MMO equivalent of beating an opponent blindfolded, with your arms tied behind your back, while balancing a tea-cup on your head.

The Alpha test will be for the PvP component only, but the devs promise that the full game will include exploration (in a map of our real galaxy), a completely player-driven economy, PvE missions, modular ship designs, space station construction and management, and all the alliance organisational tools you’ll need.

To top thing off, although the game looks pretty spectacular, it will play on any browser (Other than Safari), and doesn’t require the installation of any game data or plug-ins. All you have to do is turn up at the website on March the 14th, where you’ll be assigned a side, jump straight in and take part in a world record breaking battle!

Join in the Guinness World Record breaking Alpha

Gunscape is a great new voxel based FPS construction kit that allows you to create your own single-player campaigns, co-op levels or multi-player arenas, tailoring the theme, weapons, enemies and power-ups to create your unique vision.

The crafting is remarkably easy once you get the hang of it, with the basic level layout created out of Minecraft-style cubes, then filled with a wide selection of decorations and interactive objects. There will be a large choice of themes, ranging from early classics to the modern triple-A stealth and war shooters. Levels can then be uploaded, shared and voted on, so there will allways be a huge selection of content to play.

There were no single-player levels available at time of testing, but Multi-player death-matches are reminiscent of early shooters like Quake and Doom, fast paced and fun, with a nice selection of weaponry, power-ups and enemies to keep things interesting. Gunscape is shaping up to be a very powerful FPS Construction-kit, with which it’s both fun to create and fun to play.

Download the Alpha, Free

Rodina is a wonderfully ambitious space exploration RPG inspired by Freelancer, Star Fox, and the Elder Scrolls.

Like the upcoming ’No Mans Sky’, it features large, procedurally generated planets that you can seamlessly land on and explore, going from the depths of space to exploring the planet with no load times whatsoever. You can also wander around your ship in first person, or or upgrade and customise it from an overhead, FTL style view-point.

While the controls could do with a little work (there currently seems to be a slight delay between inputs), exploring the universe is great fun, especially as everything is procedurally generated, you’re never too sure what you’re going to get, whether it’s a hostile ship, or some wonderful loot.

Still early in development, Rodina is already technically impressive, with a massive universe to seamlessly explore, you really can go where no man has gone before.

Download the Alpha Demo Free, Or pay what you want for full Alpha Access

Kill The Bad Guy is a stylish, mature puzzle game where you are tasked with manipulating the environment in order to kill war criminals, Mafia members, and other assorted miscreants, while making it look like an accident.

Kill The Bad Guy basically gives you the keys to toy box of death and sets you loose in fun sandbox environments. You can use a variety of distractions, diversions and lures to get your target exactly where you want them, then dispatch them with some fiendishly funny booby traps. It’s great fun devising brutal ways to bump off the bad guys, with a wide variety of tools at your disposal, there’s room for lot’s of variety and experimentation to be had.

Special thanks to @FreakOramaXD for informing us about this game!

Download the Alpha Demo, Free

Radical Heroes is a great looking 2.5D side-scrolling beat-em-up, reminiscent of classics like Double Dragon and River City Ransom.

It looks fantastic thanks to the 2D retro Sprites in a 3Dish (slightly-less-retro-but-still-pretty-damn-retro) world. It also features Oculus Rift support, but be warned, the mixture of 2D, 2.5D and 3D may make your eyes implode.

The fighting is fairly basic but great fun, with extreme close-up finishers, weapons and objects scattered around the levels, boss fights, the ability to enter shops to buy items and upgades, even the ability to hire back-up from a Robocop lookalike. There are also a huge amount of unlockable characters, mostly with tongue-in-cheek references to classic movies and games, with Ultra Lad (Mega Man), Street Commando (Rambo) and Robo Kid (Terminator) all making an appearance.

Radical Heroes is shaping up to be a great slice of retro nostalgic fun, it’s big dumb fun, exactly what a side-scrolling beat-em up should be!

Download the Alpha Demo, free

Posts tagged Alpha test