Alpha Beta Gamer

Dark Deception may look like a horror game, but it’s actually Pac-Man, the creepiest, freakiest Pac-Man game you’re likely to play.

You’re tasked with roaming the corridors of the maps, collecting all the shards (Pac-Mans dots) to complete the level. This is easier said than done though as it’s much harder to do from a first person perspective than a top-down view. Not knowing where the enemies are means there are some real jump scares as enemies pop out from behind corners just in-front of you.

There is a story to the game, that’s something to do with you playing a cop on the run, but it doesn’t really matter, all you need to know about this game is that it is freaky first person Pac-Man and it’s great.

Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde were never this scary.

Play the Alpha Demo, Free

Text Based Multiplayer Shooter strangely enough is exactly what the title suggests, even stranger is the fact that it actually works rather well! Deathmatches (or Team Deathmatches) may not be fast, but they’re certainly frantic and fun, with players typing out commands as fast as possible.

Typing skills are definitely an advantage here, both in speed and accuracy, a misspelled command can mean the difference between life and death. Commands will be familiar to anyone who has played a text based adventure before, but you can always type ‘help’ to be reminded of them.

The game is currently on Steam Greenlight, with plans to add more game modes (including co-op, duel and capture the blip), wallpapers and some ’highly detailed and descriptive worlds with some walls to look at’.

Play the Prototype, Free

Earthlock: Festival of Magic is an original turn-based role-playing game set in a world of machines and magic, that stopped spinning thousands of years ago. You start off as Amon, a scavenger from a small desert town, who gets embroiled a conflict between two warring factions, and soon finds themselves on a quest for peace will take them to the corners of the world to uncover the secrets of Umbra’s mysterious, catastrophic past.

Still in early development, visually Earthlock already looks great, with cortoonish visuals reminiscent of Zelda, but with a Final Fantasy-style sense of grandeur and spectacle. The Alpha Demo starts of pretty slowly, with you havesting a crop, but soon livens up once you leave the starting area and start fighting enemies. Battles are turn based affairs, with no random encounters (enemies are always visible), with your team formed out of 2 warriors and their respective protectors (Kind of like pets). It’s an interesting system, that’s easy to learn, but will offer plenty of depth.

Already halfway to it’s kickstarter goal of £150k and Greenlit on Steam, Earthlock is planned for release on Windows, Linux, Mac, PS4, XBO and WiiU. It’s shaping up to be a great fantasy RPG with some novel ideas, a rich story and plenty of character.

Visit the Kickstarter page & Download the Alpha Demo (Win, Mac & Linux)

Celestian Tales: Old North is a great loking RPG featuring moral-driven storyline, six points of view, multiple personal arcs, and beautifully hand-drawn art.

Unlike other fantasy RPGs the storyline does not revolve around a dimension-defying sorcerer or an awakened godlike creature of ancient myths, but the darkness lurking in every man’s heart. Grey morals, questionable justice, and blind faith are among the main themes of Celestian Tales. You’ll play the game from 6 different viewpoints, as 6 different characters, spanning 3 decades, with the players growing and the land changing over time. With no real black and white choices, the developers hope is that when you reach the end of the game, you’ll ask yourself “Did I do the right thing?”

The Prototype shows off a small section of gameplay, allowing you to explore a forest and the first town. You’ll take part in some turn based battles which are fairly standard RPG battles at the moment, but hopefully it will become more complex as time goes on. The visuals are wonderful though, with it’s hand drawn backdrops and sprite-based characters, this isn’t just another RPG Maker game, it’s coded in Unity, and all the better for it.

The promise of a complex moral-driven storyline, playable from 6 different perspectives all wrapped up in a wonderful hand-drawn visual style, make Celestian Tales: Old North a very exciting prospect – an old school RPG with a new way of thinking.

Download the Prototype, Free

Black Ice is an excellent hacking-based cyberpunk roguelike FPS RPG set in a computer mainframe, with Tron-like neon visuals and lots of Diablo-style loot.

We first covered Black Ice around 6 months ago when it was in Alpha, but with the newly gameplay improvements and the start of the Steam Greenlight campaign, we thought it time for an update.

When you start the game, you are surrounded by a variety of relatively easy to hack coloured servers, but stray further afield and things can get much tougher. Walk up to a server and right click to start hacking and a load of nasty minions will spill out of it and start attacking you. Complete the hack to earn XP and collect some lovely loot to aid your future Hacking attempts. The final goal of the game is to find and hack the biggest server of them all to release an imprisoned AI. You’ll need to level up your character considerably before you take it on though as it’s incredibly tough.

Since we covered it originally, they’ve implemented a quick but very useful tutorial section that helps to get the player started. There are also plenty of new weaponry (allowing for billions of weapon combinations), multiplayer, a hardcore (YOLO) made, better graphics, hundreds of other gameplay tweaks and the S.H.A.R.K. (a badass boss character that’s very hard to kill).

Black Ice is a thoroughly enjoyable FPS roguelike, with a great art style and an addictive quality that pushes you to just do ‘one more hack’. Highly Recommended.

Play the Beta, 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)

Gang Beasts is a a very silly fighting game with an odd control scheme, reminiscent of Surgeon Simulator, that features some adorable, comically animated characters.

Bearing in mind that this is a very early build, as a fighting game it’s (intentionally) technically pretty terrible, with an awkward control scheme and clumsy characters that make the game extremely entertaining. There are a selection of interesting environments for you to fight on, such as moving lorries and Ferris wheels, with an aim to shove the other players off or into hazards, leaving you the last man standing.

Your characters move-set is pretty sparse, with the only actions available to you being jump, grab and pummel. Grabs are done with the shoulder buttons of an Xbox control pad (it’s best played with a control pad), allowing you to grab onto enemies, scenery and objects with your left and right hands. If you grab an objects or people with both hands then you’ll lift them over your head. That’s pretty much the extent of the controls at the moment and it can lead to some very silly, slapstick brawls, especially with 4 players playing at a time, trying to grab and position the other players so that they’ll fall to their doom.

The Pre-Alpha is obviously still very early in development and there are lots of improvements planned by the devs, including new fighting moves (such as kicking, elbowing and head-butting) and new game modes. Hopefully they don’t plan on changing the control scheme too much though as it’s perfectly hilarious fun as it is.

Download the Pre-Alpha, Free

Super Chibi Knight is great new hack and slash RPG with beautiful, big cartoony graphics and a wonderful sense of playfulness, created by game developer Nick Pasto (creator of Abobo’s Big Adventure with over 8.3 million downloads) and his 8 year old daughter Bella. Coming to PC, Mac and Linux, The game has already hit it’s Kickstarter target with 12 days left to go and has been greenlit on Steam.

Throughout the game, you’ll explore the world map from a top-down, Legend of Zelda-style view, switching to a side on view when you start battles, visit shops, enter houses or any other areas. As you progress you’ll uncover quests, level up your character, learn special moves, ride on a variety of mounts and upgrade your equipment. You’ll need these upgrades, as some of the monsters you’ll meet are massive, and pretty tough!

The world that Nick and Bella have created is overflowing with colour and charm, full of big, bold cartoon-like character design, fun challenges and nice surprises. It’s an exuberant and charming RPG, so overflowing with happiness that it could make a corpse smile.

Sign up for the Beta

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

Copod is a vibrant 2D top-down exploration roguelite, set in a colourful, beautiful, organic feeling world. All you have to do is impress your mate by finding a flower and bringing it back to her. However, it’s a dangerous place to be exploring, and you’re only a little Copod, you’ll have to use your wits to survive.

This isn’t a fast and frantic shooter, things are a bit more sedate and all the better for it. There are no time limits so you’re free to explore the world as you see fit, uncovering lots of wonderfully animated (though usually deadly) creatures. Adding to the relaxed atmosphere, your Copod can be controlled entirely by your mouse, move with the left button, attack with the right and select weapons with the roller. There’s a nice selection of power-ups available and the ability to hatch Copod eggs, with the youngsters then following you and attacking enemies, or you can sacrifice them for more health.

With a colourful, well crafted world that feels like it’s part of one big ecosystem, it’s a joy exploring the world of Copod, a wonderful, chilled-out roguelite with a very organic feel.

Download the Alpha, Free

Posts tagged Greenlight