Non RTS strategy games

An update so quickly? Behold the Free Gamer world is coming to an end. :p

So, we mentioned some promising RTS games in the last update. OK, I forgot to mention Spring1944, but I am also a bit reluctant to mention Spring and its mods since it is such a pain in the backside to get it running correctly. :(

Back on topic... there a quite a few really great non RTS FOSS strategy games. I guess I don't really need to mention the classics to the typical reader of this blog, but Wesnoth, FreeCiv, FreeCol and UFO:AI are all very playable and good looking games! However there are others that get less attention and also some that show great promise!

Advanced strategic command

Advanced strategic command is one of those that gets relatively little news coverage, even though it is a really playable game. Granted, its graphics are pretty much the same as its big inspiration, the classic Battle Isle series, but that doesn't necessarily make them bad, right?

A new version was just released a few days ago, which finally also includes a tutorial for those new to this type of game.

Also interesting is the (German) Project: Battle Planets, which could be described as a MMOTBS based on ASC. It is not quite what you would expect from this description as most of the MMO part is done manually by human game moderators, which exchange ASC games states between players (sorry, it is a bit hard to explain exactly ;) ).

A similar game to ASC is Crimson Fields by the way, which has found its way to many mobile platforms.

Widelands

Another often neglected game is Widelands, which is obviously based on the classic game the Settlers (no not the Settlers of Catan, check Pioneers for that).

Widelands game play

The graphics could still be improved a bit, but it is shaping up to be a very faithful and fun re-implementation of that great classic game.

Unknown Horizons

While we are at FOSS re-implementations of great games... Unknown Horizons is continuing to become a Anno1602 clone of epic proportions. ;)

UH game play

It is not quite at the point where it could be described as a fully playable game yet, but you can expect it to become one relatively soon, I guess! (Another not quite playable but really promising game worth surely mentioning is FreeOrion by the way).

8Kingdoms

Last but not least, there is 8Kingdoms, which really is one of those games people don't even try after having a short glance at the screenshots. Yes, it's programmers art, albeit one that at least tried to hide it by having a plastic-like style for the figures. ;)

But if you actually try it, you will realize that even though it is a bit rough around the edges (why can't I set a custom wide-screen resolution :( ), the game play and the engine is already quite advanced.

What this game clearly needs is an artist taking over the graphical matters, and then this could quite quickly become one of those true FOSS strategy game gems!

TLBB ( Dragon Oath Europe ) – gameplay review

Site: http://tlbb.eu.changyou.com/

Here you can read my preliminary Dragon Oath post.

Dragon Oath, known also as TLBB (Tian Long Ba Bu) is a Chinese MMORPG recently made available around the world. I played on the European servers so my impression is related to them only.

I downloaded and started the game with great expectations so when I saw the camera rotation restrictions I was a bit disappointed. The game camera is not freely rotated like other Asian MMORPG games, you can freely rotate around your character but the min and max camera height are very close and you look at the game from a certain angle. I really prefer to have much freedom of movement and to see larger area around my character, this helps a lot in PVP battles or even in standard PVE gameplay.

Graphics
As most Asian games TLBB has beautiful and eye catching graphics. Players can enjoy fantasy sceneries and Chinese themed towns. I spent some time just sight-seeing and walking mindlessly around the world.

Gameplay
Your character starts is journey in a beautiful Eastern town with many NPC and missions. In fact your starting town is large enough to get lost several times. This is not a problem because you can easily find a NPC or coordinates by clicking on it in the quest window or on the map. The game start with quests and you will have to do more and more quests. I prefer simple grinding but quests give you more experience and you level up faster through them. At some point somewhere around level four or five you must kill some mobs. The mobs on the first environment map are relatively weak, character level 5 easily kills level 10 enemies. Anyway quests give you more experience. There are treasure boxes all around the map, even in towns. You can open them and get their reward. Soon your inventory will be full of some boring stuff like bread (equivalent to potions in other games) and so on.
After two hours running mindlessly doing quests I was level 10 and I was allowed to join a class. I selected a pyromancer because I like to have strong attack and I don’t care for defense or hit points. There is no quest for joining a class, you just need to select join from the class representative menu after talking to him. After joining a class I receive a bunch of teleport tokens to go directly to my class palace.
The skills of pyromancers are awesome but you are overpowered against mobs even without skills.
I almost forgot about pets. You will have a mission to level up an ugly bunny. I really don’t care about pets in games but now they are fashionable. Leveling up your bunny is easy enough, you need to kill two level 1 mobs. Capturing your next pet – a duckling is also easy, I succeeded from the first try. But if you bring your pet to fight higher level mobs they will attack it rather than you. After joining a class you can claim a pet from the representative. I got something like hedgehog.

Classes

• Pyromancer - For weapons Pyromancers use spears and falcons. They give up defense for a short in order to have a powerful attack. They have the most powerful attack of all nine classes in TLBB.
• Lotus Order - Lotus Order members use single or dual one-handed swords. They have ability to absorb damage and to heal.
• Royalty - They prefer to use their finger than any weapon. Anyway their weapons of choice are Fan and Chakram. They have skills to stun the enemy or reduce his spirit abilities.
• Minstrel - Minstrels rely on devices and traps to fight the enemies. Their weapons of choice are Fan and Chakram.
• Taoist - Taoists use single or dual one-handed swords.
• Voodoo - Voodoo members use single or dual one handed swords as their weapon. They are the weakest as physical strength and so they rely on poisons to inflict damage. They have strong defense against spirit.
• Assassin - Assassins master the physical and ice attack, they prefer to do quick and powerful combo hits. They have a skill to become invisible. Their weapons of choice are fan and chakram.
• Beggars Alliance - They use combination of moves and each hit increases the damage of their next attack. They can use poisons. They use falcons and spears.
• Shaolin - They use falcons and spears. They have good offensive and defensive powers. 

FOSS RTS games

Hey FreeGamers!

I know, news are a bit slow here lately, but all three of us are a bit busy with real-life issues, I guess. So if you are interested in becoming a contributor to this blog drop us a line in the forum!

We have also recently gotten some readers feedback concerning this blog entry. I have to admit that our background search was a bit short concerning the Hypertension game... and it turned out that this game is surrounded by some controversy concerning the (probably illegal) use of the original Blood art assets (which were only granted by Monolith to the Transfusion project).

Are there any good FOSS RTS?

Well that depends on what you think is good :)
We have had a small discussion in our forums which resulted in a lot of links to all sorts of FOSS RTS. So if you are looking for some obscure (often unmaintained RTS) have a look.

Overall I would say however that currently there is none that can be recommended without doubt. This might change soon however!

0-A.D. Commercial grade FOSS RTS?

We have mentioned this great project before, and especially since they have gone fully open-source earlier this year all eyes of the FOSS community are probably on this gem.
So far a consumer ready release seems to be still distant however, even though some parts of the game look quite playable already:

0-A.D. Gameplay

Development is progressing though and you can have a look at this interview with the current project leader for some background infos and nice new screenshots. Further news can be found on Moddb.com.

Upcoming Warzone2100 developments

Warzone2100 is one of the few really playable FOSS RTS games out there. There are steady improvements and sometimes you can even find someone to play online ;)

With it's Playstation 1 art assets it is quite a chore to look at however. There is light on the horizon though; A new terrain renderer was recently developed for it and is expected to be released with Version 3.0.

New Warzone2100 terrain renderer

Let's hope this will reach us gamers ASAP!

Their forum has also some other nice upcoming features to offer. There are plans to update the GUI, with some really nice mockups.
Furthermore MaNGusT is working on new units:

And there is a nice mod project involving mechs :)

DragonSky

Site: http://dragonsky.aeriagames.com/

DragonSky is martial arts MMORPG game published by Aeria Games. The game is fast and action oriented, with many cool features like massive PvP battles, duels, bounty hunting, guilds, story-line quests, crafting and much more.

The game world represents an ancient China with some beautiful, fantasy motives. Two well-known fractions meet each other on the battlefield – Tigers and Dragons.

Gameplay
DragonSky have a little different system for characters and skills – there are no classes and any character can learn any skill. Leveling up and getting rank experience in game is achieved through killing monsters. Some items or equipment require your character to be a particular level or higher before using them. DragonSky has one more type of experience – Zen experience. You can acquire Zen experience through meditation. Zen experience influence learning of different martial arts and some skills.

The game has four different weapon types: Fist, Sword, Spear, and Hammer. Each weapon group has five martial arts associated with it.

Shot Online

Site: http://shotonline.gamescampus.com/

Shot Online is a free-to-play, sports MMORPG game featuring golf simulation. Sport MMORPGs are relatively rare and this is the first golf game I ever see. I am not really into sports, even online but the game looks cool and entertaining.

Gameplay
The game allows up to four players to tee off together, players can trade between them, gain experience and in-game currency from completing holes and have fun. Characters can level up and gain skills through in-game training. The game offers even quests and events.

Classes and Characters

Player can choose between seven classes: Zygmunt, Shaoring, Erda, Belzebuit, Wotan, Albus and Camilla.

Trailer:

Angels Online Trailer

Angels Online - 2D MMORPG with lots of angels, robots, pets and fun.

Merry Christmas!

Holiday Roundup

It's been an incredibly busy time here at Arcen in the last two months,
what with Pablo and Chris coming on fulltime and all the paperwork and
business stuff that entails, the ongoing development of The Zenith
Remnant, our further pre-development of art and design for our next two
titles (the first two previews for both of those will be out today), and
our ongoing work with publicity, new upcoming digital partners, and our
upcoming retail deals. Actually, this has been about as busy as time
as we've ever had. So, more than a few things have fallen through the
cracks on the announcements front, so our apologies for that. Here's a
catchup post with a variety of stuff:



Recent Press

- Rock,
Paper, Shotgun recently featured AI War as their December 18th
entry for their "Games of 2009" list.



- Sugar Free Gamer
recently selected AI War as the "top indie game that you should play
this year."



- A.J.
Hess from Diehard GameFAN picks AI War as his #7 game for 2009.



- DIY
Gamer gave an honorable mention to AI War was one of the best indie
games of 2009.



- Sandy
Warnstaff over at Reclaim Your Game recently did a review of AI
War: "One of the most methodical, challenging and unrestricted games I
have ever played, AI War is the embodiment of nearly everything that
can go right in an RTS game with few drawbacks... I've seen some good
developer support, but Arcen Games really takes the cake... I hold Arcen
Games up as the standard that all developers and publishers should be
held to."



Expansion Update

Work on the expansion has been proceeding as we had hoped, and the
current prerelease of the game (2.001ZE today) has 117 new ships for the
expansion. That's considerably more than we'd been expecting to add
(having previously promised "between 80-100" new ships), and there are
still about 6 or so more ships that are going to make it into the
expansion before our release in the second week of January (which we are
presently on schedule for). We also have over 44 minutes of new music
so far completed, with more on the way -- it's some really great stuff,
and we're holding it until our official release day as something of a
surprise. If you liked the soundtrack to the base game, you'll love
this one even more.



So, what's not in the expansion yet? Well, the big thing is that
there is still a lot of QA work to do, and many of the ships still need
balance tweaks or various little fixes to them. There are also still
more map styles to be added beyond the two new ones that are already in
place, and the new neutral AI is something we're still working with
along with the last player-controllable golem. The new
expansion-specific achievements also aren't yet in place. And that's
about it! This product has come an amazing way since October when we
started on it, and honestly I think we're all a bit surprised at just
how much we have been able to accomplish in such a short period of time.
It's shaping up to be a really notable expansion, to be sure.



December/November Free DLC

One other thing that we've learned in the last couple of months is that
it's pretty much impossible to release free DLC while we're actively
developing an expansion to a game -- at least when the turnaround on the
deadline is so short. Make no mistake, we've been absolutely packing
the DLC into the beta patches all through November and December, and
those are free to anyone who has the base game. However, we didn't do
an official release of any of that DLC in November, and now it's become
clear that we can't do one in December, either.



There is simply too much risk of introducing bugs into the official
release from the beta work when things are changing constantly;
generally we prefer to have a week where no major features are added
before we do a release, so that that week can be spent on final QA and
bugtesting. With the expansion in full swing, we just have not had an
opportunity for that sort of downtime. Hopefully that makes sense --
we've promised monthly free DLC, but our first priority is to make sure
that we always give you a quality product, not one riddled with bugs
(not that the beta versions are riddled with bugs, but there are a lot
of outstanding issues that we'd strongly prefer to resolve before making
an official release).



But! Don't worry that you're losing out on anything DLC-wise, in the
grand scheme of things. Our next DLC release will be by January 8th at
the latest, and it will have 3x as much content as a normal one --
basically, all that queued-up content from the betas in November,
December, and early January. There's a lot of cool stuff in that one,
so it should be very exciting even for those who aren't ready to move up
to the expansion just yet. And, if you want it sooner than later, you
can always download the beta DLC at any time you please.



Lastly... Happy Holidays!

It's a great time of year to be a gamer, with games of all sorts having
come out in the last month or two, and with lots of discounts all over
the place. Look for discounts with all of our distribution partners in
the coming weeks. Here at Arcen, we're largely going to be out of the
office from December 24th through January 3rd, though Chris we'll be
around for critical support issues, and probably some smaller
balance/bugfix work on the expansion, along with some last work on the
neutral AIs, etc, so that we're sure to be on schedule for our release
in January. But, we're going to be around a lot less in general during
that timeframe, anyway, so that we can spend time with our families and
enjoy the holidays. We hope that you have a chance to do the same!
It's been a really great year for us, with the company being founded and
then amazingly growing large enough to actually support us fulltime,
and we owe great thanks to all our fans for making that possible. In
more senses than one, we couldn't have done it without you!

Previews Of Upcoming Arcen Titles

Work is still in progress on The Zenith Remnant, AI War's first
expansion (due out in the second week of January), but Arcen is finally
ready to show some previews of their upcoming projects for 2010.



The first preview is a bit brief, but gives you a sneak peek mainly at
the art of the very next Arcen title, a currently-untitled
puzzle game (formerly called "Feedback"). The basic premise on
this one is that it's a new, as yet undisclosed, block-based mechanic
that is fun and easy to pick up; miles away from the glut of match-3
clones. Arcen will have a lot more information on this one starting in
January and February, and most likely a playable beta in February or
March (demo for free, or full thing for people who preorder, same as
with The Zenith Remnant).



The second preview is for Arcen's next next game, a tower defense
game called A
Valley Without Wind. Even if you turn your nose up at the
casualness that is generally the tower defense genre, if you're a fan of
Arcen titles this is a preview to check out. True to Arcen's growing
reputation, this will be a title that doesn't sit neatly in a single
genre, and which pushes the boundaries of what that genre is supposed to
be (see preview for details). Most likely development for this title
will not begin until somewhere between April and June (right after the
puzzle game is released), with a release likely in Q4 of 2010.



As is always the case for Arcen, these titles will include co-op as a
primary feature right alongside their single-player experience. The
puzzle game will also have competitive multiplayer, a first for Arcen.
Compared to AI War, both of these games have a more vastly casual veneer
to them in terms of art and how accessible they are on the surface, but
they'll also both have the same level of hardcore depth that fans of AI
War have come to expect. More information to come on these exciting
new games starting in January! And, don't forget -- the second
expansion for AI War is still planned for late 2010, and free DLC for AI
War is going to continue all throughout the year!

Neverland Online – Survival Guide

Neverlnd Online is a free-to-play 2D MMORPG. The game don’t need an installation, you can play it in your browser window.
The game is interesting and requires some thinking.

The gameplay is somewhat complex with many choices and options, and many newbie players stop playing after some time.

At the beginning you start with selecting a character. All characters can learn any skill but every class has its strong and weak points. Here are the classes and the corresponding skills and powers:
Male and female Rangers are best at Valor and Fortitude power.
Both Assassins’ best power choices are Confidence and Insight.
Elemtalists’ power choices are Fervor and Delusion.
For both Taoists you must choose Grace and Aura.

What does it mean?
The skills in Neverland Online are grouped in types or let’s use the term powers. Learning one type of power will allow you to learn its corresponding skills. For example with Valor you can develop Devil Bane, Desperate Strike, and Warlord’s Great Sword.
To open the power window go to Status (or press C) , and select the Power tab. There you can level up your powers. At the beginning select one power type, appropriate for your character class and level it up.

To level up skill you need a skill book at the appropriate level, corresponding power with the necessary level and skill rank. To rank a skill you must practice it – use it in battle. At the beginning your skills won’t do more damage than your regular attack.

Stat points
Stat points affect your character damage, defense, hit points, mana points. To open the stat points menu go to Status menu (or press C), and select the Ability tab.

Stat points:
Strength – increase physical attack damage
Stamina – max HP, defense against spells, increase heal spell effects
Agility – hit chance, physical attack critical chance, dodge chance against physical attack, higher probability to attack first
Intelligence – spell damage and max mp
Faith – max rage points, spell hit chance and critical chance, defense against physical attack, evasion
You have three buttons beneath the stat points – Damage, Balance, and Survival. They are quite convenient if you don’t know how to allocate your points.

Leveling up
Neverland Online has many quests and they give more than enough experience, rewards and game knowledge. If you are newbie, focus on quests. The NPC that has quests for you will have giant exclamation mark above its head. You can find all quests in progress and all available quests from the quests menu – the last icon at the bottom of your game screen will open it.
There are many different quest types – fighting mobs, catching pets, crafting, delivering messages, learning skills, and even quiz.

Pets
To catch a pet you need to press Catch during battle. You can’t catch a creature whose level is higher than you. Catching baby pets is very easy – you just need to select catch on the action menu. For normal pets you need to do some damage before catching them. Be careful no to kill them because you won’t be able to catch them.
You need to feed your pet regularly or it won’t be loyal to you and won’t appear in battle. You can restore the pets loyality and cure it at one of the NPCs. This NPC in the first town is Healer Quinny Boa.
To view and update pet stat points go to the pet menu. From there you can select See details to view more information, skills, wisdom, and so on.
The first pet, that worth some time is the brown bear.

Battles
The battles in Neverland Online are turn based. Who will attack first depends on characters agility. You have a menu with available options – Auto, Skill, Capture, and so on. You can select to use item like healing pot but you will lose one turn.

Luna Online – mmorpg review

Site: http://luna.gpotato.com/
Status: Free-to-play

Luna Online is a colorful, anime-styled MMORPG published by gPotato. The game has cute, fun graphics and relaxing atmosphere. If you like to spend some time in a tale world, this MMORPG is for you.
Do you have problems to fight cute, little monsters? (Am I cute?)

Gameplay
You can choose you character race, appearance and class. There are three available classes at the beginning, and 52 classes in total so players can customize their character development in details.
When you fight monsters you gain experience and level up, at each level you get stat points and skill points. To learn skills you need skill points, gold and to reach a certain level.
The monsters drop both whole items and parts for creating items. You can construct and reinforce different things.

Classes
You have three classes to select at the beginning – Fighter, Rogue, and Mage. At level 20 each of them can advance to a new class. Not all classes are accessible from all races. Leveling up is not very fast, for two hours intense playing and doing quests I was only at level 8. Today I’ll try to reach level 20 and obtain a profession – Elven Mage.

Community
You can actually find many people playing the game. I was surprised to see so many characters selling and buying things at the shop area in Alker Harbor.

I’ll spend some more time in game before evaluating my impression. I am not exactly the type to like chibi characters but the game took my attention and I enjoy my playing time a lot.

MLB Dugout Heroes - sports MMO game trailer

Warrior Epic

Site: http://www.warriorepic.com/
Status: Free-to-Play

Warrior Epic is an action, 3D, fantasy MMORPG with not so usual gameplay. Players can lead an army of warriors through solo, PvP, or multiplayer adventures.

The game lacks the standard, persistent world used by must of the MMORPG games. It has a lobby, where players create and host games; team up with other players to fight in missions.

At the beginning you can play an easy, tutorial mission to grasp the controls and the gameplay.

The first chapter starts with six possible classes and later players unlock much more. Starting classes are: Assassin, Devotress, Dungeon Archer, Illusionist, Pangolan, and Pit Fighter.
New players start with Pit Fighter – somewhat boring character, relying on brute force and close combat.

Classes:


Hall
Each player has his own hall, where he can requite and equip warriors, prepare battle strategies. The halls are customizable, you can add more rooms, and artifacts.

Trailers:

Dark Elf – browser, turn based strategy game

Site: http://www.darkelf.eu/

Dark Elf is a multiplayer, browser strategy game. It combines medieval and fantasy nuances, and is loosely based on the film "Lord of the Rings".

The world map is enormous; players can view their own lands, other players’ lands, fortresses, heroes.

At the beginning, you start with a small kingdom and few soldiers. As time passes, you conquer more lands; build fortresses and magic towers, train heroes. There are several playable races - Men, Barbarians, Orcs, Uruks, Necromancers, Magi, Elves, Dark Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Ents. Every race starts with different amount of initial resources.

The game objective is to conquer lands from other players and defeat the evil Dark Elf, a tyrant, ruling the world.

Mini Fighter Online Preview

Site: http://global.netmarble.com/minifighter/

Few days ago, Netmarble announced an Open beta of their game Mini Fighters Online is going to be launched on December, 17.

Mini Fighter Online is a fast, 2D, side-scrolling MMO game centered on fighting.
The gameplay vary from quest and boss mode to fight challenges with other players.

It is fast and addicting game, already a hit in Korea.

Screenshots:

FreeStyle Street Basketball - sports MMO

Site: http://freestyle.gamekiss.com

Are you tired of the standard MMORPG games? Do you like to try something new? Do you like sports? Do you like street basketball?



FreeStyle Street Basketball is a sport MMO or can I say MMORPG. The game is based on the hip-hoop style of street basketball.

Gameplay
The gameplay is fast and addictive. The matches are quite fun.
Players obtain experience, level up, get stronger and faster. You gain in-game money after each match and with them you can buy clothes or other fun items.

Update
Today GameKiss announced a major update, going to be launched on December, 15. The update will add new items, new skills, replay mode, and public mode.

Gameplay Video

Ether Saga Online

Site: http://eso.perfectworld.com

Ether Saga Online (ESO) is a free-to-play MMORPG by the creators of Perfect World, Perfect World Entertainment. The game features beautiful, anime-like graphics with some cool in-game systems.

Many gamers find the ESO play style somewhat similar to Perfect World style. The game has many quests and leveling up through quests is fast enough. So, although the game is Korean, the grind level is relatively low.

Races and Classes:
Players can choose between there races – Renzu, Shenzu and Yaoh.

Classes:

• Dragoon – uses lance and heavy armor. Dragoons are the tank equivalents.
• Rogue uses dagger. Rogues are damage dealers.
• Mystic – healer class.
• Ranger – uses a bow, and can cast de-buffs. Another DD class.
• Conjurer – equivalent to battle mage, DD class.
• Shaman – something between healer and tank. Your shaman character can cast buffs, tanks, fights. Uses hammer and heavy armor.

More game features:

• Quest and Navigation Systems are integrated; you will always find where your quest target is located.
• Element Leveling up – as you level up, you will receive points that can be assigned to specific elements. The elements have different properties and will affect greatly your gameplay.
• Skills – each class has unique skills. Characters receive additional skills, related to the day; they were created (birthday skills). Also ESO offers group skills for player guilds.
• Pet System – but lately almost all MMOs have pet systems. Do you have a pet home? I have cats … Together with the pet system comes the fusion system – something like morph system, players can fuse with their pets and gain new abilities. (I want to have cat ears and tail in the real life)
• Monster Card System – another morph system, you can collect monster cards and transform into the respective monsters. 

Screenshots: