I need to take this opportunity to give a quick shout out to Alex and Rudolf, who have just released Eufloria, the updated, commercial-quality successor to their game “Dyson”, which was created for (and took second place in) the same Procedural Generation Contest at TIGSource for which I created the first version of MMORPG Tycoon. I always knew that they’d beat me to market! ;)
Eufloria is basically a space RTS, in which colonies of spores fight against other colonies of spores for possession of asteroids within an asteroid belt.
Now, people who know me will tell you that I have a thing about RTS games. I want to love them; I eagerly await their release, purchase them, install them, and then play them up to about level four, at which point I remember that I don’t actually like RTS games, and then I never play them again. This cycle repeats about every four months or so, whenever a new RTS is released. But Eufloria is the most laid-back, casual-friendly, and atmospheric RTS game that you’re ever likely to see, and I’m still playing it. It’s one of the few games released this year that I honestly wish I had created myself.
Anyhow, check it out. There’s a demo and everything, so you have no excuses! Eufloria can be purchased directly from the developers’ site, or via Steam. Mac and Linux versions are in the pipe, but haven’t yet dropped.