In BIG news -- really, this is the kind of thing that could change the landscape of casual and indie games for ever (and for good!) -- the Unreal Developer Kit (UDK) is now available from Nvidia.

The Unreal Engine has historically been very hard to get your hands on with large license fees and other barriers to entry. And now, just like that, it's being made freely available to everyone. Whether for educational or non-commercial purposes, or to make your own commercial game, you can now use the UDK and get started with the fun bit -- the game creation -- immediately.

The catch? For non-commercial purposes: there is none. Students and those of you that are quietly working away on the next Big Thing in a garage or basement somewhere -- REJOICE!

For commercial developers: it'll cost you 25% of your royalty on any revenue revenue over $5,000 (see the full licensing details for more info).

And for everyone else -- the gamers! -- be ready for a lot more Time-Waster games powered by the Unreal Engine in the next few months!

What's 20 megabytes, has awful graphics, awful sound, and is vaguely reminiscent of Super Mario Brothers 3?

Why it's RunMan: Race Around The World of course! The website, you assume, is trying to be ironic. 'The game can't actually look like this, surely...' But... well... it does.

The game's visuals look like they were created in MS Paint. In fact, they probably were.

So it looks bad, and the sound effects are pretty awful. But the gameplay is actually quite good. You play as a little star-thing who runs around. Your job is just to make it to the other end of the level at the highest speed possible. The faster you go, the higher the score multiplier. You lose points for falling in holes and hitting enemies, just like in real life.

Maybe I'm old, but I remember back when arcade games were not powerful enough to do 3D video. Then one day along came a new technology called vector graphics, and 3D games became (sort of) possible. Instead of seeing a fully rendered 3D model of the various objects in the game, you instead would be presented with wireframe representations. Still, in its day vector graphics were amazing.

Fast-forward to today, and you can play a modern game based on classic vector graphics. Vector Conflict: The Siege is a shooting game where your goal is to protect your outpost from an ever-increasing onslaught of enemies. You are literally surrounded on all 4 sides, and need to carefully plan your movements between views (north, south, east, and west) to ensure that none of the baddies sneak up behind you when you are not looking.

Playing Vector Conflict is made quite enjoyable by the forgiving shooting mechanics. As long as you are aiming near an enemy, your weapons will lock on and make destroying it easier. If it sounds like the game is easy, think again. The sheer volume of enemies attacking will make sure that you are never bored.

Make sure you play Vector Conflict with the sound up, as it has one of the most engaging soundtracks of any time waster I've played. In fact, you can download the tracks if you enjoy them as much as I did.

With Halloween out of the way, it's now officially time to look towards CHRISTMAS!

Stop right there! Let me turn those groans of yours -- those Scroogeish grunts of displeasure -- into smiles and laughter! For this year, how about giving the gift of game with Valve's Steam? OK, so they might not be your smiles nor your laughter, but what feeling of joy is greater than seeing someone's face light up with happiness and the glow of a widescreen TV)?

For $10 to $20 you can give someone a game that will provide hours and hours of pleasure and fun this festive season. Think about how much your son would love you if you gave him an excuse to leave the dinner table early, to play with his new toy? Or if your wife could bus virtual tables, rather than real ones? Perhaps you just want to treat yourself to some brain-scratching, finger-contorting goodness. Any way you want it, the best Christmas presents this year will be video games.

Read on for the five best games currently available on Steam. They're all cheap. They're all fun. They're all a complete steal.

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I have no idea if Egoboo's original creator named this thing, or if the name came later on after the mantle had been handed down a few times -- and I had absolutely no idea what that word meant... until I punched it into Google! Check out the definition, if you feel the need to know. If not, read on!

Egoboo is a (90 megabyte!!) 3D Rogue-like game. Rogue is a very, very old game -- the original adventure game, really -- and Egoboo builds on its legacy, throws in a little hack-and-slash... and it's even a bit of a RPG! There is loot, there are gribbly monsters that are out to eat your face, and there are plenty of pretty zones to explore (plus there's a map editor!)

To top it all off, it's fully cross-platform (Windows, Mac AND Linux) and has a thriving forum community. It's free of course. Oh, and It's quite brutal. I died several times very quickly, so I'd recommend reading the guide before you jump in.

Download Egoboo (yes, their site is so old it even uses frames! OK, iframes, but still...)

Did you know that four million Chinese play World of Warcraft?

You probably knew that a lot played it -- and that WoW has 13 million subscribers or so -- but four million? That's almost the population of Denmark or Scotland. And they're all having to go without their Warcraft fix... again!

After a relaunch in September, the operators NetEase have been forced to shut down the realm of Azeroth yet again. Now, this isn't Blizzard being indecisive or something: no, it's two wings of the Chinese government getting their panties in a knot. Y'see, there's a department that deals with PR -- the General Administration of Press and Publication... comrade!! -- and the more-sensibly named Ministry of Culture. Neither of them seem to be able to decide whose jurisdiction WoW actually falls under -- and until they stop swaggering around and one actually backs down, we may not see WoW return to China.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard are losing the subscription fees provided by one third of its player base. But not to worry... Modern Warfare 2 is out this week! A lot of people point to the 13 million subscribers and marvel at the amount of money that WoW must make for Activision Blizzard -- but their MMO revenues only account for 35% of their total takings. The rest come from their huge COD and Guitar Hero brands.

Thanks to the magnificent, circumventable behemoth of the Internet, WoW players in China are just logging into the servers over in Taiwan anyway. Hooray!

[via VentureBeat]

Small Worlds is a beautiful and uniquely relaxing pixel-art platform game created for the Casual Gameplay Design Competition. The point of the game is to move around exploring each level to find he exit.

Though Small Worlds uses the typical side-scrolling view of a platform game, what makes it unique is that you start each level zoomed in tightly on your very simplified character, and you can only see the area immediately around you. Moving about reveals more of the level to you, and the camera pulls back and back so that you can see the big picture of the level you are exploring.

Small Worlds is all about exploration. You're not dealing with the plethora of bad guys that most other platform games have. Instead the enjoyment of the game comes from discovering just where you are, in a relaxed, distinctly non-anxious state.

If most video games make you feel agitated, Explore may just be the game for you. It's a charming little distraction.

Have you ever wondered just how big a red blood cell is in comparison to a grain of salt or the influenza virus? Now you can, visually, using the Cell Size and Scale page on the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center's site.

To be honest, I wasted a bunch of time using this page to look at the various sizes of things, though I can't in good conscience call it a Time Waster. It's too edumacational for that.

I'd love to see this same approach extended to things at a macro size, so that you could zoom from a carbon atom all the way out to the universe. But for now, I'll take this.

Pandemic 2 is a strategy game where you play the part of a virus, bacteria, or parasite. The goal of the game is to infect and then kill all of humanity.

At the start of the game you choose to be either a virus, bacteria, or parasite. Each has their own unique characteristics, like being more or less virulent, and mutating slowly or quickly. Once you've chosen the type of pandemic you represent, you move into the gameplay.

The game starts with you infecting a very small number of people in a specific country. You can then increase the rate of infection by purchasing symptoms, resistances, and modes of infection like airborne and waterborne. You can also slow things down by getting rid of a symptom or resistance, but doing that also costs points, so you need to be careful not to waste your moves.

Pandemic 2 ends when either you win by wiping humankind off of the face of the planet, or the humans successfully develop a vaccine and prevent you from infecting everyone.

There are two modes of play, the traditional simulation mode, and a shorter, simplified mode. The short version of the game can be played in about 10 minutes, making it a good coffee break game.

Unsurprisingly, you start off in a room with nothing. It's the de facto rule that all of these Room Escape puzzles share: you don't know how you got there, or why you're there, but damnit -- you're there, and you need to find a way out!


Inculcation is the first room escape game that I've played with real-time combat elements. There are actually monsters -- zombies? -- that pop up and require shooting. Fortunately it's very easy to shoot them dead, but it does mean that you occasionally lose health. There are syringes about the place that can restore your health.

Mostly the gameplay is what you'd expect from such games -- pick up objects, open doors, solve rudimentary riddles that involve some observation skills. It is nothing special in this regard -- in fact, some of the puzzles feel a little random and rely on guesswork rather than applying your knowledge of the game.


I played through the first house in Inculcation, and I can tell you this now: the enhanced elements of music, artistic direction and creatures that can actually kill you really add to the tension, the danger. I admit I yelped out loud a few times. I admit my hand slipped off the mouse a few times when attacked by zombies. I admit I'm a wuss when it comes to the horror genre.

There's one part in the first house where a door shakes -- as if something is behind it, desperately trying to get out -- and it keeps shaking. Over and over. Louder and louder. And when it finally comes to open the door... well... you're in for a big surprise. Give it half an hour of your time at least -- you won't regret it...

[via JayIsGames]

Good for only a few days, until 2 November 2009, PlayFirst are offering great prices on most of their games.

You might not even have heard of PlayFirst, but perhaps you've heard of their world-renowned games? Diner Dash, Wedding Dash, Dream Chronicles or Chocolatier? Either way, if you're looking for some fun, casual games -- usually ones with a great story too! -- either for you, your kids, or a loved one, now is obviously a great time to pick up a few of their games.

I would recommend you start with Diner Dash or Chocolatier if you've never played their games before. You can even give it a go for an hour, for free! The discount is applied at the checkout stage, if you're wondering why the discounted prices are not shown on the game's individual page!

[via GameZebo]

Red Remover is one of the all-time classic casual puzzle games, where the object is to remove the red blocks while keeping the other ones from falling. With Halloween coming up, the game is getting into costume as Pumpkin Remover: instead of blocks, you've got rotten pumpkins to get rid of, and fresh ones to defend. It's not just a reskinning of Red Remover, though, it also features some new levels.

Just like Red Remover, Pumpkin Remover presents a lot of physics-based challenges. Some of the obstacles you'll face include ramps, barricades, and weird directional gravity. It might not be the spookiest Halloween-themed game out there, but Pumpkin Remover is a fun expansion for anyone who just can't get enough of this particular style of puzzle game.

Pro Tip: Definitely play through level 5 for a cheesy Halloween joke. I LOL'd.

At long last -- and some would wonder why now, after the release of Windows 7 -- DirectX 11 is finally available for Windows Vista.

This means, while still taking a performance hit for running Vista, you could in theory divert that $100 you would spend on Windows 7 into a new, DirectX 11-enabled graphics card!

To obtain it, you need to download the 'Platform Update' which includes a lot of other updates for the Windows Vista and Server 2008 operating systems -- but other than the addition of DirectCompute (which I discussed in my previous feature on DirectX 11), there isn't a whole lot to report. Currently there is also no redistributable package -- something they have always done for previous versions of DirectX. I'm sure it will follow soon.

[via DailyTech but by God, be warned: their site takes about 5 minutes to render...]

You'll never guess what the primary purpose of this game is. OK, OK, stop guessing! I'll tell you: you gotta push pumpkins!

But it's not as simple as that. It's not just a Boulderdash clone with Halloween-skinned baddies and pumpkins for stones -- no, it's like some kind of fantastic mash-up of Boulderdash, Mega Man and Pac Man. In Pumpkin Push you play a plucky pumpkin-pushin' protagonist whose primary objective is to clean the world of various undead ghouls. Vampires, ghosts, robot-pumpkins... they're all here and waiting to be vanquished.