Alpha Beta Gamer

InVerbis Virtus is a first person spell casting game that mixes action and puzzle elements in a fantasy setting, you play as a wizard who can perform spells that will only be cast by pronouncing magic formulas. It’s like a better implemented and more complex version of the voice controls in Skyrim,

While playing InVerbis Virtus you find yourself completely unarmed in a dark dungeon that hides many dangers. The only way to overcome the obstacles is to learn the secrets of the arcane arts of magic through inscriptions that you will find along your path. The magic formulas found, if pronounced correctly, enable you to perform many kinds of spells. Using these powers in a creative way you can solve puzzles, overcome traps and kill the enemies that try to hinder your journey.

Even in Alpha, the voice controls work really well, allowing the user to comfortably cast spells and solve puzzles, all in a beautiful, highly artistic, gothic H.R. Gieger-esque setting.

Download the Alpha, Free

The Red Solstice is a tense top-down real-time tactical 8 player co-op survival game set on Mars in the distant future. The core game will be an 8 player multiplayer experience but there will also be a single player campaign too for the lone wolves among you.

At the moment it feels a lot like a team based version of the recent (and underrated) Alien Breed remakes mixed with a Diablo-style control system and loot drops. This works really well, levels feel tense and atmospheric and there are plenty of tactical choices afforded by the mouse based control system. You’re also never sure what’s going to come at you next thanks to the randomised map features (loot drops, missions and monsters), which both adds to the tension, and to the replayability of the game.

The Alpha Demo allows you access to the prologue for the game, with access to the multiplayer locked at the moment. So it’s just a short Alpha demo, but It does give you a good taste of the tactical options, combat systems and the great atmospheric team-based space-Diablo vibe of the game.

Download the Alpha Demo, Free

Zombies Monsters Robots (ZMR), is a fantastically over the top looking third-person shooter in which you’ll fight (yup you’ve guessed it) zombies, monsters and robots. It features a suitably ridiculous Sci-Fi story about humans inventing a cross-dimensional portal that allows a whole army of nasty Zs, Ms & Rs access to our world. Of course, they’re not just popping over for a cup of coffee, instead their plan is to kill, crush and destroy any humans they come across, including you.

Developed by Yingpei Games (collaborators on Gears of War), it’s a spiritual successor toMercenary Ops a hugely successful game with over 30 million registered users. Gameplay looks quite similar to the Gears of War series, with OTT weaponry and some masterful enemy design, up to eight players working together in co-op missions or 16 players going head to head (includes monsters Vs humans mode).

ZMR looks set to deliver some fun, team based third person combat with great visuals, style and enemy design. It’s Gears of War, Online and turned up to eleven.

Sign Up for Early Access

Spirit is a wonderful pixel art game where you’ll stroll through the beautiful landscapes and uncover the long forgotten past of an ancient temple. Featuring an art style and gameplay reminiscent of Swords & Sworcery EP, it’s a side scrolling adventure where you play a retired old man who’s intrigued by stories of a nearby mysterious temple. He sets of on an adventure find the temple and it soon becomes apparent that “Something magical awaits you beyond this world”.

Having already surpassed it’s $4000 Kickstarter goal by almost $3000, Spirit is well on it’s way to it’s stretch goal of $8000, which is to make a full on sequel to Spirit as soon as they’ve finished making the first game. It’s an ambitious stretch goal but Spirit certainly deserves it’s kickstarter success, it’s a charming game, full of character, humour, warmth and beauty.

Download the Alpha Demo, Free

Outpost is a management sim that tasks you with helping your crew survive in a remote mining facility on a hostile planet until rescue. It’s simple, Prison Architect graphical style belies a deceptively tricky game, which is an ongoing balancing act of building defences, mining, hunting and resource management.

This balancing act is pretty hard to get to grips with initially as there are so many things to keep tabs on that you’re constantly running out of one resource or another. A tutorial would be a welcome addition, but once you get to grips with the game, it presents satisfying challenge. A challenge that only increases as earthquakes, freezing storms and local wildlife disrupt the base operations. Also, there’s also the small matter of what killed the previous occupants of the base, and when it’s coming back.

Outpost is a challenging balancing act that will force you to make sacrifices and difficult choices along the way. It’s doubtful all of your cute little engineers will survive, but hopefully they won’t die in vain!

Play the Beta, Free

Please Be Nice :( is a free game which allows the first person to beat the current build to submit a feature they want added to the game. This feature will then be added and the cycle will restart.

Now in it’s 98th cycle, as you can imagine people have requested some very outlandish additions, such as “giant star boss, wearing googly eyed pants” to “add bird jesus”. Since it’s inception the game has morphed from a from a very simple, get from point A to point B on a single screen game, to a multicoloured fever dream where you can control the horned-head of Nicholas Cage in a top down shooter, firing turtles and being rewarded with a picture of a big cat when you reach the end of a level.

It’s a fantastic experiment, and will probably never make a great game, but that’s not the point. It’s more about the experience, watching a game evolve over time and laughing at some of the ridiculous additions that have been requested and implemented.

Play Please Be Nice :( Free

Glitchhikers is a surreal new game about that meditative place you go when you’re driving alone at night, listening to the radio. The game explores “that liminal space, that journey, that infinity, our place in the universe, the gothic sublime, love, death, and the adventure that lies between.” Throughout the game you’ll find yourself driving along the road, listening to the radio, picking up some very strange hitch-hikers and having some even stranger conversations.

It’s a fantastically surreal concept, created by Silverstring Media (story-writers of the excellent Krypt of the Necrodancer) and due for release in early 2014. We’d highly recommend checking out the trailer as it’s rather freaky.

Watch the trailer and sign up for the Beta

FreezeME is a glorious retro N64 style 3D platform game inspired by Mario 64, that allows you to freeze objects and enemies in place with your camera.

As soon as you enter the first world of FreezeME you’re instantly transported back to the glory days of the N64. The huge open world level of the Alpha is big, bold, bright, cheerful, full of surprises and features an authentic N64-sounding, super-happy soundtrack. This genuinely feels like a place Mario would go on holiday when he’s not busy saving princesses.

Being an early alpha, it’s not perfect, the XBox 360 controller is supported but not fully functional, it can be a little glitchy and the characters movement can feel a little awkward at times, but these are normal flaws in developing such a game and will no doubt be remedied in future releases.

The freezing-objects-with your-camera mechanic is a nice novelty too, but that’s not the reason to play this game. You’ll play this game this game because it’s a glorious slice of nostalgia, transporting you back to the heyday of the 3D platformer and of the last cartridge-based home console.

Download the Alpha, Free

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

Posts tagged animated gifs