Mandible Games

I've got another megapost percolating, but I saw something from Warren Ellis and had to quote it:

Sometimes it works like this. You can’t choose what part of a story comes to you first. Sometimes you think of a setting first. Sometimes an interesting plot progression drops into your head and you find yourself looking for somewhere to put it, instead. Sometimes it’s the title first, or a character name, or even a line of dialogue from nowhere that kickstarts the whole thing. There’s no hard and fast method, no laws about how this works. Every job is different.

Quite, quite true. You get inspiration where it shows up and you don't complain about it.

Windows (.zip version available)
Mac OSX
Linux (32-bit only)

"Wait, Nieuwe Aarde? What's going on? Didn't we already see this game?"

Well, yeah. You did. And you'll be seeing more of it, too!

I've decided to turn Nieuwe Aarde, along with one other game yet to be announced, into a longer-term project. I've got ideas on how to improve it considerably. This isn't really an improved version – this is just a re-release of the version you've played before – but it does have a few improvements.

First off, and most noticably, it has music! I've been collaborating with Robert Seaton with music for a few of my games (and I'll be posting them with music as well, though they won't be getting a long-term treatment.) We did a really neat thing with the music in this game. I'm not going to spoil it, but you should go play it to find out. Seriously it's pretty dang cool.

Second, a common complaint was that increasing your metal and magic in the lategame took far too long. I've added +1000/-1000 buttons as a small hack fix for that.

Third, the rendering engine is far more efficient – the original renderer was quite shockingly bad. Sometimes that's just what happens when you have 48 hours to write a game in. I regret nothing.

Overall, this is the same game . . . but keep an eye on this journal, because I'm going to be making some major changes to it.