With a bit of time to do some extra searching, this week’s Indie MMO Spotlight has some new blood (aka no Gloria Victus update filler). Along with some updates to previous mentions this week, we have a robot MMO that just won’t die, a pre-alpha game already going free to play, and not one but two old-school-inspired MMOs.Pictures are worth a thousand words, and I’ve one-upped that by packing in multiple videos this week for you to watch as well.
Getting Punked
This week brought some news - both good and bad - for Corepunk. With news video #4, developer Artificial Core announced yet another delay for the upcoming Corepunk Closed Beta. The Beta is now expected to arrive in December 2021, and you can still sign up (no guarantees) on the Corepunk main page.
On the positive side, the team is making progress. To show off some of what they’ve been working on, Artificial Core released a new gameplay video featuring the character customization interface. You can check it out below.
A Township Patch
Alta posted a quick message on the A Township Tale Reddit on Thursday to highlight their most recent patch for the Quest version of ATT. Patch 0.0.1.3 is a minor update, with belt dock accessibility, the addition of a Quick Access Menu to mute players, and firebugs helping to bring light to the darkness as the primary fixes and additions. Although this patch was small, Alta did hint that they are working on some of the more significant problems affecting players and plans to bring these changes to PCVR.
Genfanad Streamer Showcase
As mentioned last week, Genfanad has an upcoming Streamer Showcase, and this week we got some more details. The showcase will be held on August 20 and will be a closed event limited to a few streamers. If you’re a streamer wanting to test out Genfanad and help get the word out about the Runescape-Esque browser MMO, you can contact the developer through the Genfanad Discord. If you aren’t a streamer and are interested in Genfanad, they hinted there might be some code giveaways during the showcase.
Free 2 Reach
In an attempt to broaden its audience, TitanReach, another re-imagining of old-school MMORPGs, went free to play on August 1. Anyone who already purchased Early Access is being compensated with some exclusive rewards (a Founder title for your characters, a cosmetic cape, and an early access badge for your character inspection screen).
With early access removed from the TitanReach store, players who want to show their support can now purchase one of three Closed Alpha packs. The Bronze, Silver, and Gold packs offer a variety of items and will only be on sale until October 1.
OPP
When the Perpetuum Online official servers shut down in 2018, the sci-fi sandbox MMO lived on through the Open Perpetuum Project. While the servers are entirely community-run, players still had to purchase the PO client on Steam. Until now. A short blog post states a very simple reason for making the client free to play over three years after the official server shut down, “It no longer seemed fair to ask for money for a multiplayer game that’s essentially entirely operated by the community itself.” If you want to take one of the giant robots in Perpetuum out for a spin, you can download the client from Steam.
Up In The Sky…
It’s finally here. A month ago, Missing Worlds Media gave an overview of how travel powers would work in their superhero MMO, City of Titans. With the latest patch released this week, players have gained access to their first travel power - flight. The new patch also included some user interface updates for the Avatar Builder along with revamped costume materials, so players will be able to take to the skies of Titan City looking spiffier than ever.
2 Videos, 1 Game
Developer Might and Delight are busy preparing for the August 30 Early Access release of Tiny MMO Book of Travels, but that didn’t stop them from releasing a pair of ‘Inside Book of Travels’ videos this week. The first video covered Endeavours, the core of co-op play in BoT. In the second video, programmer and game designer Arvid Edstrom details character creation. With a focus on roleplaying, everything from the Form (BoT’s classes) you choose to picking personality traits and writing your own backstory is designed to help players create a detailed character.
