Is Multiwinia the dark side of gaming?

[martinmir]

Now compared to what games are out there commercially if you compare and contrast I feel as though Multiwinia caters for the darker side of gaming. When I say the darker side of gaming I mean the old stuff, the good stuff. If you look at any classic game like Space Invaders, Worms or Paper Boy there was something quite scary about playing them. The sounds the look and the atmosphere these games would produce. Almost like you were in a gaming experience that meant business and none of this light hearted I am a fairy who can fly Britney Spears as a game rather than Dearth Vader as a game.

So I ask this question to the community what is it about these darker games that is so addictive and are they a pure form of escapism?

[Greeba]

After barbecuing an untold number of enemy DGs with flame turrets, nuking my own base just to clear out an ant hill and laughing maniacally when the WMD wave casts a thousand invaders to the next plain, I can firmly say this is a game of many sick thrills and all the better for it.

As a fan of the original which was more thoughtful and had a certain serenity to it (plus the tearjerker soul mist intro amongst the others), it's funny to see that change in tone to pure DG bashing and hilarious deadly pile-ups. When you've learned to appreciate and preserve each digital soul in Darwinia, it makes the crass warmongering of Multiwinia all the naughtier

[JigsWithoutWoodstock]

There was something scary about playing Paper Boy?

[LLamaBoy]

I find Multiwinia to be quite similar to Worms in many aspects, although definitely more frantic and tactical.
I wouldn't call either of them dark though.

Multiwinia, like Worms and other, older games (Powermonger springs to mind), put a great deal of effort into successful gameplay. They don't need cinematic flair or fancy presentation or wonderful storylines because, at the end of the day, you're playing the game to win. It's a stripped down, essence of fun type of experience. The truly serious part of these games is in the design and creation.

My 1/50 of a currency unit.

[ynbniar]

There was something scary about playing Paper Boy?

Oh yes...would you want to live in that neighbourhood


As for "the darker side of gaming" the backstory tells us a bit about what we need to know about the multiwinians...

"drunk on power and unswerving in the pursuit of world supremacy"

So they are not exactly the most lovable little rogues. I doubt I'm alone in having more of an emotional connection with Darwinians who seemed helpless and in need of some guidance...Multiwinians on the other hand are like 8bit Terminators...little digital Rottweilers.

There is more of a connection between Multiwinia and Defcon than just the Nuke crate...everybody dies in the pursuit of statues/spawns/hills...

[Donat]

I think any game where you can total your kills in the couple thousand in one game any have no remorse for the poor little beings you just squashed 'dark'.

Darwinia always has had a darkness about it, except in the game Darwinia you felt sad for the darwinians and hated the virus... In multiwinian you don't really care about your couple hundred of multwinia because their going to respawn, you do however passionately hate soul destroyers, Futurewinians, and evil winians.

So yes, i find Multiwinia dark, any relm where the death of thousands doesn't phase the population is shocking. Of course rules on Darwinia are different ¬_¬

And paperboy was Furiously dark. Babies being thrown out into the street, people trying to pelt you with stuff, dogs, an arena of death where you toss papers at targets.. How's that not dark?

[Greendingbat]

Lol, i never really thought of those things as "dark"
I was thinking dark like Bioshock, or Half-Life
so, yeah i guess multiwinia is "dark"
but dark in a funny way
ok, that just sounds twisted and sick
umm...
DEVIL FACES!

[Nimbus]

Lol, i never really thought of those things as "dark"
I was thinking dark like Bioshock, or Half-Life
so, yeah i guess multiwinia is "dark"
but dark in a funny way
ok, that just sounds twisted and sick
umm...
DEVIL FACES!

Black humor?

[Aegis Tyra]

Typical. It's twisted, sick, and evil - what shall we call it?
Black humour. This racism offends me.

[Greendingbat]

wow
this topic got derailed
first we're talking about dark games
and now we're talking about racisim
THAT is fail
there has been no post in this topic that was meant to be racist
except for Nimbus

[Kuth]

I like multiwinia for being an arcade strategy guide, cutting all the crap out and leaving in pure gameplay.

Paralleling my arguments on the Relic board about a potential Homeworld 3, I'm happy to see no resource system here. No babysitting of harvesters for one. For another, Multiwinia gathering is directly related to combat success. I.e., you need to fight and capture those spawn points to get more.

Introversion games always get my attention because they are light on the details and cut to the core of game play. Multiwinia is my favorite out of the games I've touched (haven't touched Uplink...) because it's being a light strategy game, and is more forgiving than Defcon's game play and tone.

[Ripfang]

I do think Multiwinia is dark..... and honestly its really refreshing.

Little cartoon, gimmick-ish themes in games tells me one thing, and one thing only. This game is about money. The old games were never like that. Games and movies today by the big companies are all about making as much money as possible. Its understandable, businesses need to make money, but it should never get in the way of quaility... like it usually does today. I'm not going to point fingers... *cough*SPORE*cough* .... much.... but I want a fun game that someone put real thought and non-money motivated effort into... So far Darwinia and the other Introversion games are the only ones to really satisfy me on that.

[allen]

I do think Multiwinia is dark..... and honestly its really refreshing.

Little cartoon, gimmick-ish themes in games tells me one thing, and one thing only. This game is about money. The old games were never like that. Games and movies today by the big companies are all about making as much money as possible. Its understandable, businesses need to make money, but it should never get in the way of quaility... like it usually does today. I'm not going to point fingers... *cough*SPORE*cough* .... much.... but I want a fun game that someone put real thought and non-money motivated effort into... So far Darwinia and the other Introversion games are the only ones to really satisfy me on that.

every time someone mentions spore it reminds me of all that time and money i wasted. thanks.

also I agree about Multiwnina being dark. I think defcon is darker though.

[Mas Tnega]

Multiwinia is rushedly herding cats with lasers into other cats with lasers, while they scream and run from danger whenever you don't have a cat with a flag telling them to get their shit together. Each individual death is so meaningless that the only time you really get annoyed about it is when a grenade stops you from getting more kills than otherwise could have. It's a great loss for your assault/defence, but you're 3 minutes in, 7 minutes to go, and you can recover so easily...
Multiwinia is addictive because no matter how deep overall strategy will grow to be, it's still that game you can have another shot at it in 10 minutes time and that one big mistake isn't wasting too much of your life.


Defcon is carefully placing your pieces around the globe, praying that any trade-off ends in your favour, that you have very few battles that aren't heavily stacked in your favour, and number enough your airports can clean up anything that does get through. Each individual hit is such a big failure on your part that the only time you don't get quite so annoyed about it is when you've finally been rendered completely helpless, because you just can't agonise over 50 simultaneous failures. Your 3 hours of gambits, hit and runs, and whatever have been for naught; that's the entire game suddenly ending for you right there in that instant.
Defcon is addictive because... actually I don't know, considering how I *lost* interest in that game well over a year ago. It's probably the depth discovered thus far, running as far as exploiting code oversights that IV will likely never dream of fixing, because while they're not totally game breaking, they will set excellent players apart from good ones.

[allen]

....

that first paragraph is the best run-down of Multiwinia I have ever heard. I'm actually going to use that to try and get some of my steam friends to play the game.