Defcon

[DeZmond]

Defcon
By Introversion Software

A preview
by DeZmond

Official Website

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Just to give you a heads up on this game, which looks set to be an office favourite...

Defcon, by Introversion Software (of Uplink and Darwinia fame), is a wargames-style strategy game. The interface strongly reminds me of Uplink, but with some of the retro feel of Darwinia. You take control of a country, and then have to try and win a nuclear war... you may have seen this from the movie 'Wargames'!

As for the gameplay, it's both single and multiplayer. Expect to be playing either against some pretty smart AI bots or workmates over LAN or the internet.

One truly interesting feature of this game is it's ability to completely minimise and be playable from the system tray. Just press the panic button twice and the game switches to the taskbar, flashing to show events as they happen - perfect for an office environment.

More info on this one as it arrives.

 

[BiG D]

Been watching this one for a while, can't wait. If you people haven't, play Uplink and Darwinia in the meantime...

 

[Tetsuo_Shima]

Kool. Its like, Command and Conquer. Except it'll give you an epilectic fit every time someone launches a missile. Mad.

 

[thatbloke]

I have a best friend (who may be coming to join us soon) who is a beta tester for introversion... he did Uplink and Darwinia WAY before they were released, so rest assured, soon as he gets it, i'll break his NDA for him

 

[elDiablo]

THATS ME!

Sorry for the bumping of oldish threads, but DeZ just told me about this. Indeed, I tested Uplink and Darwinia (evening in the printed manual for Darwinia, and on IMDB! \o/). Anyone can test Iv's games, as they usually have an open tester subscription, which they then randomly pick people from. So, keep your eyes peeled, and you too could test Defcon!

This public service post was brought to you in part my elDiablo.

 

[BiG D]

Be sure to give us a heads up when they open testing

 

[elDiablo]

And time for a small update!

Recent news from the Iv guys show that they are going to the US of A for the IGF. After that, Defcon will beginning beta testing (in April, hopefully). So watch this space!

 

[DeZmond]

Oh yeah . Can't wait for this one!

 

[Taffy]

Been watching this one for a while, can't wait. If you people haven't, play Uplink and Darwinia in the meantime...

Is Darwinia free?

 

[thatbloke]

Is Darwinia free?

No but the demos are... Darwinia you can now get through Steam. Including the demo, which if you like you can then use Steam to download the full game!

 

[DeZmond]

I'd say yay at this point, but I think the version you get directly from IV is much better .

Also get the Darwinia soundtrack. Oh yes.

 

[KillCrazy]

I loved the demo for Darwinia so I purchased it through steam and I thought the game was great. You can use programs to access the data files and get all the music from within if you like....who needs soundtracks these days

 

[elDiablo]

I loved the demo for Darwinia so I purchased it through steam and I thought the game was great. You can use programs to access the data files and get all the music from within if you like....who needs soundtracks these days

I bought the sound track. Mostly because I have met the Iv guys in person. There are 5 of them. Thats it. 2 games that are better then most of the crap that big games companies put out in years. However, Iv dont get a lot of money. Not many people buy their games for some reason (compared with big names), mostly as people dont hear about them. So £5 was worth it, IMHO. Especially as when I bought it, it looked as though Iv were doing to go bust =(

Luckily, releasing Darwinia on Steam got more money for Iv (even though they only get 40% of the profits) in the first week then the whole 3 months it was on sale on their website before! Which is good!

And yay for more people buying it! You people make me happy

 

[DeZmond]

Yeah people need to start actually buying IV's games! Uplink for steam!!! (I'd buy it... again )

 

[elDiablo]

Heh. They may well be about to do that. They have some "interesting releases" (or some paraphrasing of that) coming up, according to their news posts.

 

[elDiablo]

A very important post from Chris himself (the man behind Uplink, Darwinia and Defcon). And for those you can't be bothered to click links:

After much debating we've decided to arrange the launch of Defcon for the end of September 2006.

We had initially planned an April 2006 launch, but Defcon is our first multiplayer game and the networking code has been driving us slowly nuts. It's really a wonder games work over the Internet at all. We now know far more than we ever expected to know about NAT firewalls and UDP data protocols, and the multiplayer code is the reason everything has been delayed.

We'll have more news about exactly how Defcon will be distributed soon.

Not long to go!

 

[elDiablo]

Being posted on the Iv forums here, there are now some videos of Defcon's gameplay available at eurogamer. As it's publicly posted, I'm not breaking the NDA!

If I were to say something like, "watch out for some new news and developments within the next few days, even if it won't be the release it's something interesting maybe", now that would be breaking the NDA. But I didn't say that. Did I?

 

[DeZmond]

Teh uber video W00t!

Or, in proper English, damn that looks amazing. Just wish they'd release it sometime soon... and that it'll work on my system.

 

[elDiablo]

ModDB preview of Defcon. Some interesting screenshots from it also show how the interface works. However, if you look in the top left corner, you see "Defcon dev-1", meaning this is the development version, and not the alpha or beta, so you can't tell how old/new the screenshots are.

But then, why would I post old screenshots for you lot?!

Also, DeZy, Defcon is pretty much the Uplink world map, but a lot better optimized, so don't expect this to be a resource hog like Darwinia. I mean, they are making an "Office mode", to run at work, and the average office PC isn't made for games, unless you work in a games company I suppose... Or a game review magazine... Hmmm...

 

[DeZmond]

Stupid question I suppose, but do you need a 3D card to run it? Also does it make use of any pixel shading or whatever?