Darwinia is a game I've been salivating over for almost a year, with a unique abstract look (imagine Virus merged with Tron) and gameplay pitched somewhere between Cannon Fodder and Syndicate. As I'm too lazy to put it into my own words, here's the mailout they just sent around and a screenie:
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Greetings from Introversion Software!
We are very pleased to announce that the Playable Demo of Darwinia is now
available for download from our site. The demo contains a single level of the
game - the Pixel Mines - and will give you a wonderful flavour of the game. We
really do hope you enjoy it. Please show it to all your friends and tell
everyone you know about it...we need your help to spread the word.
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/downloads/ (http://www.darwinia.co.uk/downloads/)
If our site is too busy, try this mirror:
http://www.3dgamers.com/games/darwinia/downloads/ (http://www.3dgamers.com/games/darwinia/downloads/)
The game will be launching on 4th March 2005. If you can't wait until then, you
can pre-order it from our site and we will aim to ship it to your house by that
day. This really is the quickest and safest way to get the game...pre-orders
will be handled in priority to normal orders.
http://www.darwinia.co.uk/store/ (http://www.darwinia.co.uk/store/)
Have fun!
Chris, Mark and Tom
Introversion Software
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(http://www.darwinia.co.uk/screenshots/image5_medium.jpg)
Finished the demo now, and after some initial confusion (the game doesn't tell you very much about how to play it) I think it'll totally rock. One of the things I like most is that it's impossible for it not to look cool, thanks to the way they've rigged up the camera and controls.
If you're finding it far too confusing, here's my (pathetic) guide, intended solely to get a person feeling like they know what they're doing:
1) make squaddies to blow up arrow beasties with
2) harvest the souls from destroyed beasties with engineers
3) make officers to tell darwinians (created from souls) where to go, e.g. to operate the refinery
And your objectives:
i) start the refinery
ii) mine some primitives (to get to the mine island you can either cross the water with an engineer or align the radar dishes to teleport squaddies over), by making darwinians and telling them to work in the mine
iii) clear out the other island and capture the processor plant thingy
Decent UK mirror: http://www.gamershell.com/download_8128.shtml (http://www.gamershell.com/download_8128.shtml)
Its by the same people that made Uplink, should be good:)
Have you given your squad some rockets or made them do airstrikes yet!
They clear the pesky little blighters up! :devil:
Oh and don't move the radar dish whilst your people are in transit..... Its not healthy! :whistle:
Full game is out today. Hop to it people, save them!
(http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif) (http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/templates/Cobalt/images/folder_new_big.gif)