Ants Long For Combat, Too

Magnant is a charming little indie real-time strategy game in which you control a colony of intelligent, technologically sophisticated ants waging battle against other ant colonies and the evil bees and beetles. It has all the usual RTS tropes--resource extraction, building construction, and real-time combat--as well as a pretty cool version of online play.

It has one innovative and unique aspect, too; virtual "cards" let you build special units or buildings. They're earned through play, and as with a trading card game (like Magic: The Gathering), you never know what cards your opponents will deploy when you play online--which creates a greater degree of variety. Your carefully-planned strategy may be upended or need to adapt quickly when an opponent deploys a special unit you hadn't anticipated.

Pretty neat.

Who Says Turn-Based Strategy is Dead?

1. Did you love old-school turn-based combat games like The Perfect General and Panzer Generals, and prefer games that reward careful planning and actuall strategy games over RTSes, which tend to reward fast action and mastery of interface instead?

Or:

2. Do you love real-time strategy, but chafe at the unreality of resource gathering and tech trees, which surely have nothing to do with the actual problems faced by military commanders? Would you prefer something where combined-arms tactics, use of terrain, and other concerns of actual military strategy dominate?

In either case, welcome to Massive Assault.

Defense is boring, right? Attacking is action, advance, and victory; defense is static. You sit there and hope for the best. No war was more boring than World War One--unmoving defensive trench lines for four long years. So a priori, you might think a game named "Master of Defense" would be, ah, less than scintillating.

Actually, it's quite cool.

You purchase defensive towers and place them on the map. Initially, you have a choice among three types: ones that attack walking critters, ones that attack flying critters, and ones that attack both but do far less damage. Each tower has arange of attack, which you can see as a circle about it by selecting it.

If you yearn for the days of Ultima (round about VII or VIII) or the King's Quest games--or if you've plowed all the way through Oblivion and aren't willing to wait for years until the next great, big-budget fantasy RPG gets released--you've just stumbled on a game you will like a great deal. In fact, stop reading now and go play the demo. Maybe I need to insert a rotating spiral GIF here and a deep hypnotic voice intoning "You Will Like It," but it hardly seems necessary. No mental coercion needed--the game speaks for itself.

Morning's Wrath is an isometic "2-and-a-half-D" fantasy RPG, a sassy (if tragic) female protagonist, a story that not only makes sense but you will actually care about, excellent music, and a great deal of fast-paced combat, along with an original and well conceived spell system.

For a small indie team, Ethereal Darkness has produced a surprisingly polished little gem of a game in Morning's Wrath--and yes, the graphics are a little retro, but for that we make no apologies. Gameplay over glitz, remember?

And for a mere $10 bucks. Hard to beat that.

Cute, Zany and Engaging Arcade-y Play
Reduced Price for a Limited Time (Regularly $19.99)>

Developed by Steve Ince and based on his own web comic, Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso is a cheerfully arcade-y 2D game with strong "adventure game" aspects--that is, success is dependent more on solving puzzles than on mastery of the interface. It boasts attractive comic-style graphics, well-written and often amusing dialog, and surprising depth of gameplay -- light-hearted gaming madness.

The Developer Says

A hugely fun arcade adventure, based upon the online comic strip, Mr. Smoozles, it boasts a cast of 50 characters spread through 60 exciting and varied locations and has an original soundtrack by talented young composer, Josh Winiberg. With an addictive mix of gameplay and humour, this game is a delight for gamers of all ages and tastes.

Old Favorite Updated--And now $9.95

Mudcraft was the Central Commitee's choice on the day we launched--and has now been updated to version 1.3, and the price cut in half. We thought we'd feature it again.

A Non-Violent RTS?!

Dune II, WarCraft, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, and Empire Earth--real-time strategy games have always been about warfare and conquest, right? How could you possibly do a peaceful RTS?

That's the challenge a team at Michigan State University set themselves... and quickly found that their inspiration outgrew their dreams, attracting contributors beyond the university, becoming an Independent Games Festival finalist in 2006--and expanding from a freeware student project with a handful of levels into today's commercial game with 45.