- AI War 2 has left early access! - 22 October 2019
Chris here! By any sane metric I can think of, AI War 2 shouldn't exist. And yet it's more than I ever imagined it could be. When we first set out to make this game three years ago, it was far less ambitious. Even that was going to be really hard. Somehow, in the process of falling down the stairs over and over again during this period, we wound up with a game that seems to be superior to the original. This game shouldn't exist, but it does, and I'm both proud and stunned. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F32938991%2Fed51420dc00461d199a437e6ece56bb118a6eb64.jpg The Secret? Community The intro to this post runs the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, but it's not actually about me. I'm not capable of making -- even just designing -- this game on my own. I don't think anyone is, really. The fact that this game exists isn't a testament to me having…
- After Two Long Years, AI War 2 Hits Early Access! - 18 October 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F32938991%2Fc6c568d45e0ac9b20ce2930db75c67179ce89f29.jpg It's been quite a saga, if you've followed along all this time. All that extra time paid off! At this point we have what fans have nearly-universally hailed as a worthy successor to the original classic. We still have plenty more to do prior to 1.0 in Q2 of 2019, but the game is ready to play now and we hope you'll come enjoy it and give us further feedback. Pick up the game now for 10% off! New To AI War? The original AI War is widely considered one of the top strategy games of all time, with a central mechanic that no other title has replicated. Humanity has already lost the war, and now you command the last remnants in a desperate campaign to take back the galaxy. More than most strategy games, your actions have consequences: taking every minor outpost you see is a…
- Arcen s Starward Rogue Released, Bionic Dues Free - 22 January 2016
Burning out on making Stars Beyond Reach, Arcen Games announced a few months ago they were putting the 4X strategy game to one side to focus on a roguelikelike they’d been toying with for a while. That game, named Starward Rogue , is now here. It’s a top-down shooter with oodles of bullets to dodge and bosses to battle, about mechs exploring a mysterious structure stuck in the side of a star. It’s colourful! Ooh, and to celebrate the launch, their 2013 tactical turn-based mech ‘em up Bionic Dues is free if you grab it now . Have you played it? …
- Have You Played Bionic Dues? - 3 November 2015
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. Bionic Dues is yet another Arcen game that I initially bounced off so hard it might as well have been a trampoline attached to a giant spring riding a pogo stick. It’s a…roguelike mech game? No. It’s a puzzle game? No. It’s Bionic Dues. …
- Bionic Dues Official 1.101 "PerformanceBot" Released! - 17 September 2014
This one includes drastically increases the graphical performance for the game. It also has a few bugfixes, and two new conducts: Shorter Campaign and Random Exos. Enjoy! Click here for the official forum discussion about this release.
- Bionic Dues Official 1.101 "PerformanceBot" Released! - 17 September 2014
This one includes drastically increases the graphical performance for the game. It also has a few bugfixes, and two new conducts: Shorter Campaign and Random Exos. Enjoy! Click here for the official forum discussion about this release.
- Bionic Dues Official 1.100 Released! - 26 August 2014
This one includes the real images for the new achievements (many thanks to community member nas1m for working on these!) and a single small bugfix for the shotgun. Steam integration for the new achievements will come soon, and won't require a further client-side update. And that will mark the end of the 1.1 cycle. Hopefully another beta cycle will start breaking things again soon, but either way 1.1 should be a good stable version for folks to enjoy until it's time for another official. Enjoy!
- Bionic Dues Official 1.100 Released! - 26 August 2014
This one includes the real images for the new achievements (many thanks to community member nas1m for working on these!) and a single small bugfix for the shotgun. Steam integration for the new achievements will come soon, and won't require a further client-side update. And that will mark the end of the 1.1 cycle. Hopefully another beta cycle will start breaking things again soon, but either way 1.1 should be a good stable version for folks to enjoy until it's time for another official. Enjoy!
- Bionic Dues Official 1.017 "Conduct Yourself!" Released! - 24 August 2014
1.017 marks the official release of the improvements from 8 separate beta releases, including: * New optional "Conducts" such as the much-requested "Dead Is Dead" (losing an exo is permanent) to the relentless "On Your Toes" (you only get 5 seconds to pick your next action in missions). * Massive rebalancing of the bot population logic so you don't run into 50 DoomBots in a single mission, and significant rebalancing of bot stats themselves (there's a lot less bullet-sponge-syndrome going on). The logic where the AI picks which bot types to upgrade between missions is now more consistent in the amount of agony it causes you. On the other hand, the Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty levels are all harder (with Casual, Expert, and Misery mostly retaining their previous positions on the pain-scale). * The Volatizer and the Shotgun have had their AOE patterns re-imagined to be more interesti…
- Bionic Dues Official 1.017 "Conduct Yourself!" Released! - 24 August 2014
1.017 marks the official release of the improvements from 8 separate beta releases, including: * New optional "Conducts" such as the much-requested "Dead Is Dead" (losing an exo is permanent) to the relentless "On Your Toes" (you only get 5 seconds to pick your next action in missions). * Massive rebalancing of the bot population logic so you don't run into 50 DoomBots in a single mission, and significant rebalancing of bot stats themselves (there's a lot less bullet-sponge-syndrome going on). The logic where the AI picks which bot types to upgrade between missions is now more consistent in the amount of agony it causes you. On the other hand, the Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty levels are all harder (with Casual, Expert, and Misery mostly retaining their previous positions on the pain-scale). * The Volatizer and the Shotgun have had their AOE patterns re-imagined to be more interesti…
- Bionic Dues 1.008 (Minor Update) Released. - 2 July 2014
This one is very very small, simply updating our Steamworks integration and fixing achievements on linux. Enjoy! This is a standard update that Steam will automatically download for you. However, if you want to force a quicker update and are currently running Steam, just restart Steam. Discussion thread on the official forums.
- Bionic Dues 1.008 (Minor Update) Released. - 2 July 2014
This one is very very small, simply updating our Steamworks integration and fixing achievements on linux. Enjoy! This is a standard update that Steam will automatically download for you. However, if you want to force a quicker update and are currently running Steam, just restart Steam. Discussion thread on the official forums.
- Arcen Return To Space: The Last Federation - 7 February 2014
Arcen, purveyors of sundry indie oddities, sent a message by pigeon post in the early hours of this morning to inform us of their new game, The Last Federation . It has one of the finest single line pitches I’ve ever encountered – “The Last Federation is a Grand Strategy + RTS Tactics game” – and in honour of the good news that she delivered, the pigeon has now been promoted to Flight Lieutenant and provided with a suitable cap. TLF places players in the role of a mercenary leader in a procedurally generated galaxy, which contains eight alien races to menace and manipulate. The closest point of comparison may well be Soldak’s Drox Operative. Arcen’s pigeon also told us that the spiffing AI War is on sale this weekend, with the complete collection (five DLCs) available for $4.25 and the little blighter didn’t stop there. More news – a…
- Weeklong Deals, January 20th - 21 January 2014
New Weeklong Deals, on sale until Monday, January 27th at 10AM Pacific Time
- Bionic Dues 1.005 "Combined Customization" Released! - 28 October 2013
This one is our first non-beta-branch update to Bionic Dues since it released, and so it comes with a plethora of goodies from 1.001 on upwards in the release notes linked above. The biggest thing, by far, are the improvements to the customization interface. The game supports a minimum resolution of 1024x720, and so our previous customization interface basically adhered to that at the expense of using the screen space of larger resolutions. Now on resolutions that are 1280x768 or higher, you get a new and easier-to-use customization interface that combines a number of functions into one screen. If you prefer the old interface for some reason, there is a settings option that lets you re-enable that. A number of balance improvements are also in this version. Sentry turrets are no longer OP. Groups of ClawBots are no longer death on wheels. Tuck now has an improved special ability. And the…
- Bionic Dues 1.005 "Combined Customization" Released! - 28 October 2013
This one is our first non-beta-branch update to Bionic Dues since it released, and so it comes with a plethora of goodies from 1.001 on upwards in the release notes linked above. The biggest thing, by far, are the improvements to the customization interface. The game supports a minimum resolution of 1024x720, and so our previous customization interface basically adhered to that at the expense of using the screen space of larger resolutions. Now on resolutions that are 1280x768 or higher, you get a new and easier-to-use customization interface that combines a number of functions into one screen. If you prefer the old interface for some reason, there is a settings option that lets you re-enable that. A number of balance improvements are also in this version. Sentry turrets are no longer OP. Groups of ClawBots are no longer death on wheels. Tuck now has an improved special ability. And the…
- Wot I Think: Bionic Dues - 11 October 2013
Five minutes of Bionic Dues was almost enough. I was attracted by turn-based tactical mech combat but swiftly repelled by confusion and comedy voiceovers. I quit. Later, just before bed, I decided to try again, reasoning that while Arcen may not be on a winning streak, their games are usually more interesting than this one had seemed. I never did make it to bed that night. Here’s wot I think. (more…)
- Bionic Dues out now, merges robots, roguelikes and corridor roaming - 10 October 2013
"Hello everybody, a roguelike has just been released," is a sentence that that I could have written on any day of the last few months and still have it be accurate. There's been a lot of them, is what I'm saying. Not that it's a bad thing: personally, I'd rather this than endless waves of DotA-likes or, *shudder* tower defence. The latest is Bionic Dues, from AI War developer Arcen Games. It's a robo-roguelike featuring a seemingly unstoppable invasion and a lot of mechs. I've only played it for a short while, but already it seems like a remarkably tactical and compulsive take on the roguelike genre. As a lone pilot of four hovering exosuits, you've fifty days to prepare for a full-scale assault on your HQ. Doing this requires you to select missions, which can either reduce the strength of the final assault, or give you better weapons and upgrades with which to improve your EXOs. Once a…
- New "Recon" music track added to the game! - 9 October 2013
Pablo has created a bonus (and really awesome) all-new music track for in missions in the game, called Recon. Next time the game updates in your steam client (and you can restart steam to force this), it will be added to your existing copy of the 1.0 version of the game.
- New "Recon" music track added to the game! - 9 October 2013
Pablo has created a bonus (and really awesome) all-new music track for in missions in the game, called Recon. Next time the game updates in your steam client (and you can restart steam to force this), it will be added to your existing copy of the 1.0 version of the game.
