DevLog Watch: Cogmind, Fritz, Tiny Wizard

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> Sorry, I had caps lock on. I've been trying to contact you for a fortnight, but a sinister threat has kept us apart. These "bank holiday Mondays" can only be the work of the Indie Cabal, hoping to keep their ranks closed by preventing the dissemination of hot, new GIFs and links to in-development games. But they can't stop our work. Come, dive quickly below. This message is beyond their reach, but not for long.

> Self repairing robots! The Great War! Unshitty wizards!

Cogmind

If you're going to assault the iron curtain of indie developers, it helps if you can blend in. There's no better way to do so than making a roguelike.

Cogmind swaps the traditional fantasy setting of most turn-based adventurers in favour of science-fiction, and finds plenty of interesting features in the mix. A Captain Forever-style build system for one, where you can "find (or take) power sources, propulsion units, utilities, and weapons, and attach them to yourself to create a slow tank bristling with weapons, or a fast-moving flyer zipping past enemies before they even have time to react, or a stealthy sword-wielding assassin bot, or whatever else you can come up with from the salvage you find."

You can even use these discovered (or stolen) parts to construct your own allies. If I'm prone to bonding with monkeys in Brogue, imagine my sadness when a robot buddy of my own creation crumbles to useless parts by my side.

While that image above from the first-page of the game's TIGSource devlog is just a mockup, there's plenty more work being done. The game's own site is another devlog full of lengthy updates, explaining the function and design of the game's audio system, and its designer's attempts to accomodate those with colour-blindness. Sterling work. If you're interested in a colourful, combat-optional, roboroguelike, add it to your watch list.

Tiny Wizard

Could any secret club turn away a tiny wizard from its door? I don't see how, not when it looks to cross the structure of The Binding of Isaac with the screen-shake and crunchy destruction of something Vlambeery.

Tiny Wizard is only 10% complete, but is being made with Unity's new-ish 2D tools. That's allowing for rapid progress. In the five weeks since the devlog began, the game has gained duel-wielding, a new weapon UI, and a lot of polish and new items. It'll probably be finished by the time I've written this paragraph.

Fritz

This column exists to cover games which might not be ready for their own dedicated frontpage post. On those grounds, there's no game that's too embryonic to be covered. I'll send babies up against the barriers built by the exclusionary brood, if that's what it takes to finally allow anyone to make videogames without constant fear.

That makes Fritz fair game, even if its subject matter is anything but. The "experiment in interactive storytelling and atmosphere" doesn't yet have a programmer, which means its Great War setting is currently rendered only through the hopeful efforts of an artist and writer.

Is this the indie game equivalent of an untextured weapon render? Yes. But there was a point in every weapon's life when it was untextured, and this game may be one set of eyeballs away from finding the programmer it needs. Do you wish to wander the pixellated trenches of World War I and be more concerned with killing time than killing soldiers? Do you wish to make Sensible Software's Blackadder a reality? This could be your chance.

In briefs

Covering different games in each week's DevLog Watch fails to capture something intrinsic to this column's subject matter: devlogs should be updated regularly. Consider this your weekly set of patch notes for the.

• Citybound's week 9 update goes into detail about a day in the life of the citizen, and shows new footage of the city management game's residents heading to and fro work, eating lunch, and otherwise living out their new lives.
• Rain World continues its transition from Game Maker to Unity, and progress seems to be moving at a rapid pace. The latest update deals with how the level editor recognises shader information.
• The Hit is a multiplayer stealth-shooter set in an open-world city, in which you're directed to assassinate individual targets without being caught. It now has a trailer to go along with the screenshots we posted a month back, and the Kickstarter project is still on route.

From the archive

DevLogs have many brothers, sisters and cousins, but among the best are readme.txt files. These documents can be DevLogs which follow their games out into the wild, listing patch notes, offering friendly advice, giving glimpses of unfettered madness. Our own Alice is rather fond of them, collecting readme.txt's from across the world of videogame modding. I'm sorry to repeat myself from two weeks ago and return to Counter-Strike, but... No, I'm not. And anyway, this is what Minh "Gooseman" Le did before that. From 1997.

While the technological improvements of most other warfare equipment has gone on at a feverish pace, the real of small arms fire has remained stagnant for the past 3 decades. The M16 remained the staple assault rifle for the western civilization. Going through few modifications it was considered by many in the world to be THE assault rifle of choice. In the late stages of the year 2010 the US Army was issued a new breed of assault rifle.. The M-16A3 !!!! Fa la la la ll al Da ad adad ad l a lala (que dramatic music)

Definitely unfettered som

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