Weekend... INITIATE! Now that your non-week is underway, it's time to fill your time with time-eating games. Not only will you learn valuable life lessons, you'll feel good that you aren't just sitting around eating cheesecake again!
Hubris (Windows, 6MB, free) - A retelling of the card game Arcomage (recognizable to browser game fans as Castle Wars) in AGS form, this delightfully old school game is all about besting your opponent by, well, playing your cards right! You have a tower, three resource pools, a wall protecting your tower, and a hand of cards. Your opponent has the same. Each of you take turns playing cards that can damage the other player, tear down structures, or tinker with resource pools. There are a number of ways you can win, including razing your opponent's tower or amassing an impressive store of resources. With over 100 cards to play and 12 ways to win, your strategies won't run thin anytime soon!
Process (Windows, 116MB, free) - A short first person point and click experience akin to a room escape game, Process is almost as much an experiment in setting and emotion as it is a proper game. You are on a dark, grungy subway car rolling down the tracks. You discover there will be a crash in 20 minutes, so naturally you set about to stopping it. Move through the cars as you search for items you can use and objects you can interact with. It's simple and short, but the emotional empathy the team aimed to create was a success, so you'll be drawn into the game right from the beginning.
Bust-n-Rush (Mac/Win, 107-137MB, demo) - As if you ever needed an excuse to break rocks and smash stalactites with your shoulder! This good-looking jump and run arcade game is built around a series of levels stocked with challenges, each becoming more and more difficult to complete. You spent your time running down hallways in different areas, leaping pits, shifting left and right to collect gems, and charging through breakable objects in your way. The more you bust, the more you score! The full version is budget-priced and features a great deal more content than the demo.
Note: All games have been confirmed to run under Windows 7 and are virus-free. Mac users should try Boot Camp, Parallels, or CrossOver Games to play Windows titles, Linux users can use Wine. If you know of a great game we should feature, use the Submit link above to send it in!
Downloaded Desura just to play Process - and the game crashes on startup. I don't think it's my PC's config that's the problem - that's one Crysis ran on, after all...
From the comments on desura it seems others have the same problem, and it seems the problem lies in the OpenGL?
Anyway, it would have been nice to give it a try, but I'm not gonna start tweaking with the PC for an unknown game...
Anyone who's played this game, please drop some feedback. If it's really a good one, I'll try my best...
bio
Tried playing Hubris but it won't load. The winsetup file says the resolution is 1280x960, which apparently my graphics card doesn't support. The error message says I should run the setup and pick "the other resolution" but there aren't any other resolution options in the setup menu.
Anyone else encounter this?
@bioLarzen: I used the Mirror download, and the game was able to run on my PC with no problems.
Even though Process was short, I loved the atmosphere in it!
Downloaded Process via mirror. Still crashes upon startup. It wasn't a graphics problem. Something about Data Execution Prevention but I can't disable it.
Hubris:
Downloaded, didn't work, deleted.
Process:
even after you do everything you can, you still crash. So boring. Also too dark (not psychologicaly). You can barely see some of the stuff you have to interact with. Too long a movie, with no skip. Also some "spooky" which isn't spooky and make you waste your time.
@DuncmanG: I had the same problem. When you run the setup, adjust the Graphics Filter dropdown; mine was set to "4x", I set it to "2x", and everything worked fine.
@bioLarzen; When I first downloaded Process it didn't work, (my PC has Windows XP) but I then downloaded it on a laptop that has Windows 7 and it worked fine. But to be honest, if you miss out I wouldn't worry.
The atmosphere is brilliant and the graphics are faultless... but playing on a laptop was frustrating because it's so dark. It was hard to see if I was missing something, but that's not the game's fault.
I would have liked some kind of narrative, no matter how small. Just a little explanation as to what was going on. And by the end, I'm still not quite sure how I finished the game. It left me saying to myself, "Did I win? Do I try again?". Still, I'd be interested in any future games made by these designers, there is huge potential here.
Thx for the info guys.
I have XP, too...
bio
I want to like Process, I really do! These escape kind of games deserve better productions. Unfortunately Process is just pixel hunt in a panoramic environment.
@Hewitt - thanks, works now. Appreciated!
Stella,
I tried the mirror site, downloaded and set the game up - same crash at startup :(
Reading comemnts agout the game here and elswhere I'm beginning to think I'm not missing out on much, though... Even the mentioning of the phrase "pixel hunt" makes me think three times, not twice...
bio
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