No Man's Sky: From Hype to Reality

It can be difficult to avoid hype, to avoid hope, to avoid the ceaseless marketing push of certain games. For those of us that read games-related websites, who take an interest in what is available and what is upcoming, you may see news about the current hot game every day.

Indie Gaming: Sir, You Are Being Hunted

Picture from the official Big Robot website

An experiment gone wrong has cast you into a hostile archipelago, crawling with robotic hunters keen to shuffle you off your mortal coil. Sir, You are being hunted!

The game is essentially a survival story, you must locate the missing pieces of your experiment and return them to the standing stones on the central island of the archipelago (there are five islands in total). The entire game world is procedurally generated from a selection of different templates (Rural, Fens, Industrial etc.) and populated by buildings, wildlife and of course robots.

The Swindle: Procedural Pilfering

The Swindle Title Screen

The Swindle is a steampunk sidescrolling steal-em-up, with the objective of hacking your way into the police computer system to destroy Basilisk, an AI that could prevent burglary forever! On your way to ridding the world of such a troublesome thief-catcher you'll need to amass enough cash to buy the required upgrades you'll need for your audacious attempt. Also, you have only got 100 days. Clock is ticking...

Your mission, if you want to accept it...

I'm glad I waited a while before writing this mini-review, because several changes have been made to the game since release. Originally, the game was super-hard, unbelievably so. Upgrades were expensive, cash was hard to come by, and the amount of security on each level increased rapidly. By comparison, the game today is still very challenging but feels far more fair. Now when I die I can blame the errors I've made rather than the harsh difficulty curve.