There’s something charming about the older style 8bit graphics. Their smooth untextured surfaces are non-threatening to me.. like a quiet, dark room… The game is Neverdaunt:8bit (N8 for short). Website is here. It still appears to be early in Beta. More like a tech demo at the moment, but the combination of graphics and mechanics bode well for something nice. ^^ Check out the current trailer.

That’s the word here.. “nice”.  You’ve built your blocky castle. I’ve got my blocky guitar. And we’re gonna rock out to the blocky stars in a low gravity kung-fu fight. The developer promises guns (projectile weapons), achievements and airships (aww yeah) for the future. It appears to be just the one indie developer at the moment cranking it all out, so he’s done well so far.

The game appears to have a heavy emphasis on player driven content creation. Oh noes.. but what if they make something that hurts my eyes?..

…inappropriate “pixel art”, and other nonsense are not censored in any way.

However, if someone or something offends you, players do have it within their power to reshape the world. If you see content that you would rather not see in game, use a bomb. If some player offends you with words, use a sword (or you could try using words, I’ve heard those are fairly powerful).

I think I just like that older feel. Not only the graphics, but the ‘wild west’ of the internet kinda feel. Un-moderated, blocky, broken and waiting to be tamed by.. well, me. o^^o

Yeah.. wow. The game is called Achron. It’s in Alpha. Website is here. Have a read. Here’s a small excerpt from their F.A.Q.

Q: Is it true that I can keep sending units back in time to have them fight along side themselves and duplicate an entire army?
A: Yes you can, but not without consequences. It costs chronoenergy to command units from the past to travel further into the past, and obviously you use more chronoenergy to control more units in the past. Also you are using up your playing time to manage this instead of building units or controlling your armies. And finally, if the original ‘parent’ units are damaged, the time traveled version will wind up being damaged and if the original units are destroyed and don’t travel back in time, you wind up undoing the entire cycle.

Niiice o.O

They have a whole page dedicated to paradoxes, and the resolving of them. If your mind hasn’t already exploded from glee at the implications this mechanic has to potentially all multiplayer, watch this video. Or watch it anyway. :D

These guys seem to have written their own in-house engine called the Resequence Engine. They even have a section regarding licensing the engine to other developers (essentially licensing the time-travel mechanic) so they can make their own genre/themed time-travelling games.

We have here, in Alpha (and working well from all appearances) ‘an RTS that will incorporate all of your expected layers of strategic complexity. Flanking, ambushes, stealth, range VS melee, upgrades, micro VS macro’… and time travel.

Imagine a full game of Starcraft, Rise of Nations or Warcraft 3..  and then, oh yeah *insert time travel*. If you’re still not yet a wet, mouse-clicking puddle in your chair, turn in your geek card. You’re not welcome here anymore. :P