Darwinia

Posted by admin on March 10th, 2009 filed in 3D, Arcade, Strategy

The first thing you’ll notice about Darwinia is the odd art design. The game features a mix of 2D and 3D characters moving about a fully 3D environment. There are no textures in the game, and everything has a sharp, geometric look to it. The vector graphics fit perfectly here though, since the game takes place in a virtual theme park populated by digital inhabitants. Even though everything is flat and undetailed, Introversion manages to pull off some pretty nice effects. For example, when you blow up some of the larger enemies, they’ll flake apart into hundreds of small, paper-thin triangles that float away into nothingness.

Another nice touch is the digital spirits that are left behind when a creature dies. These spirits are represented by tiny, colored, semitransparent squares that slowly float into the sky and fade away. It’s oddly entrancing to watch a cloud of spirits rise almost indiscernibly skyward after a battle. The game is full of these ethereal moments, and it’s easy to lose yourself in the landscape.

Once you get past the initial novelty of the art design, you’ll find that the world of Darwinia has a pretty interesting story behind it. The world of Darwinia is a virtual theme park, created by computer engineer Dr. Sepulveda. The world is inhabited by virtual life-forms known as Darwinians. These little green lemming-like creatures have lived peacefully for thousands of generations, but now a deadly virus has infected the world of Darwinia. It’s up to you to eliminate all signs of infection and save the Darwinians from extinction. You’ll learn everything there is to know about Darwinia from Dr. Sepulveda himself; he’ll occasionally transmit helpful messages to let you know what you need to do to clear each level. He also provides a bit of context at the beginning of each level by explaining the purpose of the mission and why it’s essential to the survival of the Darwinians. The story seems minimal, but it’s presented clearly; and somehow, it does a great job of making you feel a certain fondness for the tiny green blips that are the Darwinians.

The gameplay is solid here as well, and it offers a good mix of strategy, action, and even a bit of puzzle-solving. You can’t directly control the Darwinians, but you can create different programs that you can use to fight enemies, collect spirits, or herd and transport Darwinians. By holding the Alt key, you’ll bring up the task manager, which is the simple menu system that you can use to create and modify units and check the level objectives. To create a program, you simply draw a gesture with the mouse. For example, to create a squad, which you need for fighting enemies, you have to draw a triangle. The controls do take a bit of getting used to, but it’s worth it to leave the play screen free of the usual clutter of RTS games.

*Note: The directx has been ripped from this cd, 9.0c is needed*