Developer/publisher Format Origin
Release
Noio PC Netherlands 2020
No one could accuse Thomas van den Berg of being unambitious. Looking at the delicately hued, lo-fi dioramas scattered across these pages, you might find the following hard to believe: Cloud Gardens started life as a massively-multiplayer online game. “I do often have ideas on paper, but then I already don’t want to start on them because it’s too big, it’s already some crazy plan,” van den Berg grins sheepishly.
While teaching himself Blender by modelling various plant life, he was also experimenting with Improbable’s cloud-based multiplayer game platform, SpatialOS. He ended up building a prototype for a persistent world construction MMO, which he entitled Garbage Country: players across the world would construct towers from junk, and help each other transform them into beautiful hanging gardens. “It was way too big for one person [to make],” he admits. “But the plants were cool, so I was like, ‘Can I not save some part of this year-long experiment, and have something to show for it?’”
This story is from the November 2020 edition of Edge.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 2020 edition of Edge.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Anyone familiar with the concept of kitbashing is already halfway to understanding what Tomas Sala’s open-world builder is all about.
Children Of The Sun
René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).
Post Script
What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?
Rise Of The Ronin
Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything
Post Script
The pawn and the pandemic
Dragon's Dogma 2
The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.
BLUE MANCHU
How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock
THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA
How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game
COMING IN TO LAND
The creator of Spelunky, plus a super-group of indie developers, have spent the best part of a decade making 50 games. Has the journey been worth it?
VOID SOLS
This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas
