Analogue Darwinia (continued)

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Chris
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Analogue Darwinia (continued)

Postby Chris » Mon Mar 28, 2005 2:29 pm

You may remember this news article from a while ago, in which Jo Stansfield painted a fantastic picture taken straight from Darwinia. To celebrate the launch of the game she has now created a second painting based on a more recent screenshot, and you can view it at her DeviantArt page. Click here to look at the new picture.

Image

The painting was commisioned by Mark and Tom for their flat in London, but the original Analogue Darwinia painting is still on my living room wall in Cambridge. Click here to view the first Darwinia painting.

In other news
- IGN.com has posted a rave review of Darwinia, scoring it 8.8 out of 10 and awarding us the IGN Editors Choice award. They also have some of the best screenshots i've ever seen from the game. They had this to say about Darwinia:
"The game is both simple fun and a unique blend of wonderful. It reminds me of the good old days when creativity reigned over marketing ploys and safe choices. Darwinia is a great argument for keeping games in the hands of creative developers with good ideas."

- GamesTM magazine has reviewed Darwinia and scored it 7/10.
- Dutch games website FOK!Games has reviewed Darwinia and scored it 88%. Click here to read the review.

We are building up quite a collection of reviews now. Reading through the Exposure section really is quite heart-warming. We are in the process of adding scans of all the mag reviews, and taking quotes from all the web reviews. Our aim is to end up with a complete record of every article ever written about Darwinia.
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Postby edd8990 » Mon Mar 28, 2005 2:31 pm

That is a NICE picture...

That is one talented artist.

And 'gratz on the reviews.
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Postby Jonax » Mon Mar 28, 2005 3:50 pm

Those pictures are blinding :D

Shame they're one-offs - I would have loved to have one of them on the wall :( Still, those two paintings could be worth a fortune in a few years :)

IGN's review was pretty good - Dunno whether it's me but the reviewer did sound like he was in love with the game :lol: Just got to wait to see how long until the other large US sites (e.g. GameSpy) learn about the game.
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Postby Darksun » Mon Mar 28, 2005 4:06 pm

Darwinia seems to be spreading across Deviantart, just spotted this one (thanks to Xtreme for the link).

Also check out LLamaboy's image at http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/16561841/
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Postby NeoThermic » Mon Mar 28, 2005 4:51 pm

I've translated (roughly, with the help of my dutch friend Vic) the FOK.nl article:

Introversion software calls themselves the last "bedroom programmers". They are only with three men and do everything themselves: they develop, they publish, and they also do the Internet site and all PR. Although many will have heard of you never of the small company, does perhaps tinkle at a some bell. Introversion is, as it happens, the developer of the heavily underappreciated Uplink. This game in which the player played hacker was complete good, but unfortunately, although there was, however, a very large mod-community, few people heard of the game. Read out review to find out if Darwinia is just as good.


After the game starts up and one of (as there are several) the small intro-films play, the first response says everything: “Wow!". Still, almost never have we seen a game this way with graphic splendidly. Not because of the high number of details or fantastic physics engine, but because of the splendid surroundings, that has been inspired on polygons. This is all nice and nice, but you do not come of course for nothing in the game; there is work to the shop! Darwinia is worldly first digital theme park, changed by an enormous virus infection. You have the task to tackle these and to get Darwinia back up and running.

You cannot tackle, of course, zomaar by hand hordes of viruses, since you look in on the digital world. For these enemies, differing from small viruses to large spinachtigen, from zul to row you must the enemies to catch with computer programmes. You can, by a certain form of gestures, sign a programme to start. This way you can call for a squad with which you can fight viruses, just sign a triangle. You can only run certain number of programmes at the same time to. Sometimes the game doesn’t recognise the sign that you make immediately, but after a try (or few) it succeeds. The programmes you can send to the areas in a type2d-rpg-view slant, and you can use it to repair the digital landscape. Available programmes are already the earlier-mentioned squads, engineers (can repair those buildings and collect "souls" of dead viruses can convert into Darwinians, the occupants of Darwinia), officers and others.

You'll be able to control your Darwinians by creating officers This doesn’t always, however, go smoothly. Sometimes Darwinians don’t follow, so you’ll end up with landscape full of loose Darwinians. These are not to hard to control and that is, for example, very annoying in the first mission, where you must try get all Darwinians to one spot in the map. However, the further you come in the game, the more difficult it becomes, therefore for this reason you can choose already to further your programmes research to improve software. Your squad members for example, increase by number, and your Darwinians can defend themselves with lasers.


The games main purpose isn’t just for fighting. Squads are required when you want to eliminate your enemies, but Darwinia itself must be set up again. For this reason you’ll have to create Darwinians with engineers to man the machines which convert, for example, sunlight into energy or which dig "raw polygons" from a mine. Thus there a beautiful tactical game arises, in what the squads are used firstly to eliminate the viruses, and afterwards the engineers and other programmes in the game appreciates help a bit the country further in the fight against the infection.

The game is, in the beginning, still reasonable simple, but the further you go, how more options that becomes unlocked. Your squad has several weapons to use, that all in several situations it is more skilful, and there more programmes you will find un-lockable. Although the game becomes, however, more difficult, it never becomes frustrating. Also for absolute strategy-newbie (such as I) this game plays very well still.

A Downside is the sound. Outside intro music and the bit of music which you hear if you have completed a task, there is no music in the game itself. Although the impact of dying viruses is very well, the game from time to time nevertheless seems “bald” this way without music. There is no need for complete licensed soundtrack under the game, but a couple beautiful electro-songs had been absolute at their place in the game. I got rapidly into the habit to start Winamp while playing though.

Darwinia is a splendid game. In spite of some small problems, such as some bugs and the lack of music, this property for each gamer is in fact which has had sometimes charge of a virus. It feels then simply good to shoot all viruses from your screen. The game is certainly not perfect, but the fun which is packed in the game exceed that of the most well-known top games Thus this game is not for everyone. Because of the somewhat technical topic/subject of the game it's only really funny when you know something about computers. Moreover the game floats a fine line between genres. This is in principle isn’t bad, but the game is not because of this perhaps the best choice for the real strategy-fanatic, and also not for the lovers of a good RPG, even if sits there of both genres, however, something in the game packs. If you therefore not yet certain this something is for you, I can advise you to find time and download the demo of the official site.

Game play: 90%
Fun: 90%
Sound: 70%
Graphics: 90%
Durability: 80%
Originality: 95%
Review score: 90%

Overall: 88%


You'll have to excuse my translation mistakes, as I'm still learning Dutch ;)

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Postby Tortanick » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:08 pm

Darksun wrote:Darwinia seems to be spreading across Deviantart, just spotted this one (thanks to Xtreme for the link).


LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT

My one gripe is that the central darwinian should be an officer. any chance that he will be soon?

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