“We’re on the road to nowhere…”

The team responsible for acclaimed indie mood piece Dear Esther has unveiled Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.

As reported by BeefJack, this first person project from thechineseroom will examine how the inhabitants of a small town respond to an apocalyptic event. Though the story takes place in an expansive open world, each instance of the game will be limited to one hour, ensuring that it you’ll need to play it multiple times in order to experience everything it has to offer.

As you explore a town lovingly constructed with CryEngine 3, you’ll encounter six different personalities. Creative director Dan Pinchbeck told BeefJack that these characters are actually “almost kind of memory traces of people that were there”. Apparently these mysterious figures will “go about their lives regardless of your presence, but you can interact with them, influencing their actions and effects they’ll have on the world.”

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is expected to arrive on PC in 2013.

Image credit: BeefJack

A new Dungeon Keeper style strategy game is in production at Cyanide. Impire will see you step into the boots of a once great demon now trapped in the body of a lowly imp. In order to reclaim your place at the top of the villain food chain, you’ll need to construct a dungeon hideout and populate it with all manner of gruesome beasts and diabolical traps. Your aim is to slay any adventurer foolish enough to set foot in your domain.

Cyanide is the developer of Pro Cycling Manager, Horse Racing Manager and Pro Rugby Manager. That’s probably a mite misleading, as Cyanide also has plenty of experience in the fantasy genre, having worked on licensed fare such as Game of Thrones and Blood Bowl, as well as original content like Dungeon Party and Loki. The studio is also hard at work on Of Orcs and Men, due on multiple platforms later this year.

According to Publisher Paradox Interactive, Impire will arrive on PC in Q1 2013.

Quantum Conundrum contains some great mind bending gameplay elements, but a myriad of flaws prevent it from reaching the lofty heights of lead designer Kim Swift’s previous work on Portal. To be brutally honest, the story here is as shallow as a puddle and ends more abruptly than any game you care to remember. It feels almost as if everything else in the game was produced before the plot was cobbled together. As the credits roll, you begin to suspect that a barrage of DLC will soon follow in order to address this particular issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Concept art from the previously announced Human Element game.

If one thing was conspicuous by its absence at the recent launch of the OUYA Kickstarter, it was the games. Some may even regard this as a glaring oversight. Fortunately, steps are afoot to remedy the issue, the first being the announcement of a new title from former Call of Duty creative strategist Robert Bowling and his team at Robotoki. Furthermore, the new game will be exclusive to little silver box that has captured the imagination of the gaming public.

The as yet untitled project will serve as prequel to the studio’s upcoming multiplatform title Human Element. The previously announced game will take place around 35 years after the now ubiquitous zombie apocalypse. The OUYA title, on the other hand, will explore events in the weeks, months and years immediately following the horrific event. The content will apparently be delivered episodically.

Robotoki is yet to reveal gameplay details about either title in the Human Element series.