Plot Twist, a Melbourne-based games studio, has announced that the visual novel Ashes will launch in Early Access this May, with a full launch planned for December. This period of time will be used to finish the story, refine the existing minigames/add new ones, and provide new narrative content. The game blends graphic novel panels with interactive puzzles.…
I don’t really play all that many games at Tokyo Game Show. This is in part because I’ve got too much else to do, in meeting contacts and observing trends. But also it’s because the lineups for most of the interesting games tend to be so long, and I really…
In a world that is as toxic, complex, and fundamentally unpleasant as…
Most 4X and empire-building strategy games are focused on building an empire…
I know that this is something of an unusual article for DigitallyDownloaded.net, but it has been such a weird week I felt compelled to write it. It truly has been a surreal week for political discourse here in Australia. Four days ago, our national broadcaster published an article about how…
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Today, the Australian Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke, announced the Revive National Cultural Policy, which outlines the new(ish) Labor government’s position on the arts and the investments that it will make as part of that. Buried within it is some support for the games industry, but calling it a…
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Siralim Ultimate is the biggest and most expansive Siralim game yet. The three predecessors to this indie Pokémon-like offered a relatively modest 300, 600 and 700 monsters to collect and battle. Siralim Ultimate ups the count to 1,200. And that’s just one of many areas where the game aims to…
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We’ve got something a little different for you today – we don’t often do interviews with folks from outside of the games industry, but the opportunity arose to have a quick chat with Glitch Productions, the Australian animation studio that has been turning heads with the quality of its Web…
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Wayward Strand is such an odd little game, but that is by no means a criticism. Despite its utterly fantastic concept, and ironically given that it takes place in a floating airship, this game is sweet, meditative, and very grounded. It’s also incredibly Australian, but not in the over-the-top, Crocodile…
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This is a bit outside of video games, I must admit. It’s even a bit outside of Japanese art and culture, as we cover in the magazine. However, an absolutely amazing subscription service has just launched here in Australia. As DDNet readers know, I usually rage about subscription services, but…
Read MoreDefiant Development was a favourite Aussie studio. Responsible for the excellent Hand of Fate, and the even better Hand of Fate 2, this team of game development veterans were doing amazing work to build the local industry and create a franchise that had real potential. Unfortunately, Defiant couldn’t survive a…
Read MoreReligion is one of those topics you’re never meant to discuss in polite society. When it comes to video games, it’s one that’s historically either been airbrushed out of games to avoid offence, or dealt with in very broad brush strokes to define it away from existing real-world religious groups.…
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Today was a pretty woeful day in Australia. I don’t want to bore the non-Australians here, but here’s the short version: we’re a country that will be at the forefront of climate change devastation. Today, our Greens political party (who went to the last election on the promise of hard…
Read MoreAustralians should make more visual novels. I don’t just say that because I make them and need to kick myself into actually finalising my latest one (it’s getting there, day by day!). It’s just that whenever an Australian produces a VN, it’s typically gold. Max’s Big Bust is a hilarious…
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