Previews// Rezzed Round-Up: Carmageddon, Convoy and Guild of Dungeoneering

Tireless reporter and Sausage Factory host Chris O'Regan has been abroad again, haunting the halls of Rezzed and playing anything he could get his paws on. Below we've got the first three previews from his time spent taking a whistlestop tour of the best indie games EGX Rezzed 2015 had to offer...

Carmageddon Reincarnation
Developer: Stainless Steel Games
Format(s): Windows PC

Tucked away along the back wall of one of the many rooms that made up EGX Rezzed 2015 Stainless Steel Games were showing off the Kickstarter funded reimagining of Carmageddon Reincarnation. This is an update to Carmageddon, the violent racing game from 1997 that was initially released on PC, but also found itself on the original Playstation and N64.

Its key hook was that the player could do what they wanted as the tracks were pretty much free of those annoying invisible barriers that so many racers boast in order to prevent the player going 'off-piste'. Carmageddon was never about barriers, nor was it about taste, either, as it rewarded players for running other cars off of the track as well as pedestrians.

Carmageddon Reincarnation takes the premise of the original and brings it up to date with a current engine and online multiplayer. The visuals have improved massively when compared to the original, but the sense of destruction still remains the same.

Many would regard 'anarchic' as a somewhat trite adjective to apply to Carmageddon Reincarnation, but it doesn't make it any less accurate. When playing Carmageddon Reincarnation you do get a bit of a rush from breaking the rules other racers impose upon you. Especially the more simulation based ones like Forza 5 for example. The actions encouraged in Carmageddon Reincarnation would have you banned very quickly in a multiplayer match of Forza 5.

I had a great time with Carmaggedon Reincarnation and spent a lot longer on it that I had originally intended to. As I have mentioned several times in this preview piece, the sense of destruction is palpable and Stainless Games has put a great deal of effort in keeping that spirit within Carmaggedon Reincarnation while dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

Carmaggedon Reincarnation is due out for Windows PC later this year and is currently available on Steam via Early Access.

Convoy
Developer: Convoy Games
Format(s): Windows PC, Mac and Linux

On the face of it Mad Max 2 wasn't a particularly good film. The first one was set in the deserts of Australia, but not in a post-apocalyptic world, just somewhere on the brink. This made things a little more interesting in my view as the post-nuclear environment is just so oppresive. The second film suffered from this and its only saving grace was the climax scene that involved a convoy being attacked by bandits. Convoy, a game I discovered at EGX Rezzed 2015 in the Left Field Collection brings back a lot of memories of that particular filmic sequence in an otherwise mediocre film.

Convoy is a strategic combat and exploration game in which players much guide a truck across a landscape on the alien world their spaceship has crash-landed onto. In order to escape they must search the planet for parts that are needed to repair the ship. Sadly, the planet's control is subject to a continuing war between a variety of factions, which the player must avoid, fight or even work with if they are to have any chance of getting off of the world they find themselves on.

The action takes place over two interfaces; one concerns the navigation of the truck as it moves across the landscape and the other is a much more focused view of the truck itself and the vehicles that escort it.

The truck does have some weapons and these can be upgraded as the player progresses through Convoy. However, it is the escort vehicles that are the most heavily armoured and manoeuvrable as they can tackle the enemy vehicles head on. The truck cannot deviate much from its passage and therefore must rely heavily of the more agile escort cars that trundle alongside it. Combat is real-time but can be paused to allow the player to change tactics and targeting priorities on the fly. Those familiar with games like Baldur's Gate and the Mass Effect series will be very much at home with this concept.

I found Convoy to be a very intense game to play, as the need to make strategically important decisions during the combat is somewhat stressful. There is, thankfully, a relatively shallow learning curve, so I did get to grips with the controls relatively quickly.

Convoy is due out later this year on Windows PC, Mac and Linux.

Guild of Dungeoneering
Developer: Gambrinos
Format(s): Windows PC and Mac

Ask any game/dungeon master of a pen and paper RPG what the toughest aspect of the job is and they will likely say 'the making of adventures'.

While fun to do, they are very difficult to make as it's a balance between reducing it to a set of combat encounters and actually experiencing the world the DM/GM has created. It is this very aspect of pen and paper RPGs that developer Gamebrinos has turned into a video game in the form of Guild of Dungeoneering.

The player takes control of a single character that takes on missions, most of which require them to venture into dungeons and retrieve items from them. All of it is presented via a series of cards that the player uses to lay out the dungeon they are exploring, place enemies and treasure and attack foes within it. This means the player can balance the risk of encountering beasts and traps against acquiring treasure.

As the player moves through their dungeon they gain items and treasure, some of which can be equipped and used to fend off the beasts that lurk in the underground realm. Combat is dealt with via a series of cards that are played from the player's virtual hand of cards. The stronger they become the more cards they have at their disposal. The timing and placing of these cards is critical to the player's success and I found Guild of Dungeoneering to be a very fun and challenging game.

Guild of Dungeoneering is due out in Q2 of 2015 and will appear on the Windows PC and Mac.