Arcen games , whose financial troubles have been splashed across our frontpage of late, have announced two new games. Hopefully, if they can release them before they shrivel up and moths explode out of their pockets, they'll be so awesome that everyone will buy them and it'll all be great. There are two: a zombie trap-laying roguelike thing, and a tower defence game.
Let me say that again: a tower defence game from the makers of AI war .
A Valley Without Wind
As Quinns so rightly points out over at mockpoopershootgun.com , A Valley Without Wind is great news for people with a vested interest in towers. AI War had a distinctive approach to AI - rather than make it pretend to be human, Arcen Games had it be a terrifying machine-o-mind instead. If this doesn't instantly qualify Arcen for the title of "most likely to make an awesome tower defense game", I'll eat this sandwich. In fact, I'm such a good sport that I'll eat it anyway. Right now.
You'll be able to play it on your own or with a friend in co-op mode. It's set during a fictional future ice age (not the future ice age that actually happened, then) in a world called Environ. It'll have a JRPG-style narrative - women squeaking at you? - written by King of Arcen Games and all round nice guy Chris Park.
They'll also be breaking one of the dumbest traditions of tower defence games - they'll be giving the monsters AI. Yep, rather than just blindly stomping past a thicket of flamethrower turrets, they'll be able to pose the question: "Is there a better way I can approach this situation without suddenly losing a lot of weight and gaining a fantastic all-round tan?"
Initially, you'll be able to select from around five towers to take into battle with you. Like in AI War, you'll be able to pick what they are (all of them, this time). You pick from a library of around 40 towers, and towards the end you can deploy almost double as many types of tower. We've very excited for this.
Alden Ridge
Alden Ridge looks like it'll be a sort of Lovecraftian rogue-like puzzle game. Lots of undead, immune to conventional weapons, arranged in a challenging situational pickle. You'll cobble weapons together out of weird stuff lying around, fight eldritch horrors, and you can even design your own levels. It's co-op too.
