Roguelike is a subgenre of role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most roguelikes are based on a high fantasy narrative, reflecting their influence from tabletop role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
Introversion Software Limited is a British video game developer based in Walton-on-Thames, England.
Darwinia is a 2005 real-time tactics and real-time strategy video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is the second game developed by Introversion Software, and is set within a computer environment that simulates artificial intelligence. It received favourable reviews and won three awards at the 2006 Independent Games Festival. A multiplayer sequel, Multiwinia, was released for Windows in 2008. Darwinia and Multiwinia were released together as Darwinia+ for the Xbox 360 in 2010.
In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated assets and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. In computer graphics, it is commonly used to create textures and 3D models. In video games, it is used to automatically create large amounts of content in a game. Depending on the implementation, advantages of procedural generation can include smaller file sizes, larger amounts of content, and randomness for less predictable gameplay. Procedural generation is a branch of media synthesis.
Psygnosis Limited was a British video game developer and publisher headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Founded in 1984 by Ian Hetherington, Jonathan Ellis, and David Lawson, the company initially became known for well-received games on the Atari ST and Amiga. In 1993, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and began developing games for the original PlayStation. It later became a part of SCE Worldwide Studios. The company was the oldest and second largest development house within SCE's European stable of developers, and became best known for franchises such as Lemmings, Wipeout, Formula One, and Colony Wars.
DEFCON is a real-time strategy game created by independent British game developer Introversion Software. The gameplay is a simulation of a global nuclear war, with the game's screen reminiscent of the "big boards" that visually represented thermonuclear war in films such as Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe, and especially WarGames.
GameShadow was a gaming community website and an advertising-supported software utility that kept PC gamers up-to-date with patches, game demos, trailers, mods and other content for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 games. GameShadow identifies the product version of supported games installed on a user's PC, then compares them to its database to locate updates for those games. The site also offers gaming industry news, an industry blog, and a Gaming Network. It is available for Microsoft Windows only. GameShadow is based in Over Norton, Oxfordshire, England.
In video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. Notable games in this category include The Legend of Zelda (1986), Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Minecraft (2011).
Project Milo was a project in development by Lionhead Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. Formerly a secretive project under the early code name "Dimitri", Project Milo was unveiled at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in a demonstration for Kinect, as a "controller-free" entertainment initiative for the Xbox 360 based on depth-sensing and pattern recognition technologies. The project was a tech demo to showcase the capabilities of Kinect and was not released, despite conflicting reports that the project was an actual game.
RollerCoaster Tycoon World is a theme park construction and management simulation video game developed by Nvizzio Creations and published by Atari for Microsoft Windows. It is the fourth major installment in the RollerCoaster Tycoon series. The game was released on 16 November 2016 to largely negative reviews.
Prison Architect is a private prison construction and management simulation video game developed and published by Introversion Software. It was made available as a crowdfunded paid alpha pre-order on September 25, 2012 with updates scheduled every three to four weeks. With over 2,000,000 copies sold, Prison Architect made over US$10.7 million in pre-order sales for the alpha version. Prison Architect was an entrant in the 2012 Independent Games Festival. The game was available on Steam's Early Access program, and was officially released on October 6, 2015.
No Man's Sky is an action-adventure survival game developed and published by Hello Games. It was released worldwide for the PlayStation 4 and Windows in August 2016, for Xbox One in July 2018, for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S consoles in November 2020, for Nintendo Switch in October 2022, and for macOS in June 2023. The game is built around five pillars: exploration, survival, combat, trading and base building. Players are free to perform within the entirety of a procedurally generated deterministic open world universe, which includes over 18 quintillion planets. Through the game's procedural generation system, planets have their own ecosystems with unique forms of flora and fauna, and various alien species may engage the player in combat or trade within planetary systems. Players advance in the game by mining for resources to power and improve their equipment, buying and selling resources using credits earned by documenting flora and fauna or trading with the aforementioned lifeforms, building planetary bases and expanding space fleets, or otherwise following the game's overarching plot by seeking out the mystery around the entity known as The Atlas.
Dragon Fin Soup is an action role-playing video game created by the independent development studio Grimm Bros. It is the studio's first title and was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita. It is influenced by roguelike games and uses procedural generation for parts of the game. The game has two modes: Story mode follows a story and is more like a typical role-playing game, while Survival mode skips the story and focuses on the surviving within the game and constrains players with permadeath—once the player character dies, the game must be restarted from the beginning.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is a strategy action role-playing video game developed and published by TaleWorlds Entertainment, and co-published by Prime Matter. It is a prequel to Mount & Blade: Warband, a stand-alone expansion for the 2008 game Mount & Blade. Bannerlord takes place 210 years before its predecessor, with a setting inspired by the Migration Period. Bannerlord was announced in 2012. A Steam page for the game was created in late 2015; the following year, TaleWorlds began releasing weekly developer diaries detailing elements of the game. An early access version of the game was released on March 27, 2020 and quickly became the largest launch of the year on Steam, achieving nearly 250,000 concurrent players on Steam. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on October 25, 2022.
XCOM 2 is a 2016 turn-based tactics video game developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games. It is the sequel to 2012's reboot of the series, XCOM: Enemy Unknown; it takes place 20 years after the events of Enemy Unknown. XCOM, a military organization trying to fight off an alien invasion, has lost the war and is now a resistance force against the occupation of Earth and the established totalitarian regime and military dictatorship. Gameplay is split between turn-based combat in which players command a squad of soldiers to fight enemies, and strategy elements in which players manage and control the operations of the Avenger, an alien ship that is used as a mobile base for XCOM.
AdvertCity is a business simulation video game developed and published by VoxelStorm. The game was released on 17 April 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Linux, OS X. The player takes on the role of an advertising magnate in a dystopian future city with a cyberpunk aesthetic.
Wild is a survival game that is being developed by Wild Sheep Studio and to be published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game was announced in 2014 and had infrequent updates during development, with the game eventually being rumored to be cancelled after game director Michel Ancel retired from the game industry in 2020.
Crackdown is a series of action-adventure video games created by David Jones and published by Xbox Game Studios. The series takes place in a futuristic dystopian city controlled and enforced by a law enforcement organization called the Agency. The games center on the Agency's supersoldiers, known as 'Agents', as they fight threats ranging from various criminal syndicates, a terrorist group known as 'Cell', and zombie-like monsters called 'Freaks'.
Scanner Sombre is a cave exploration video game developed by Introversion Software.
