AirBuccaneers

Hi all! We launched our first big PC title less than 24 hours ago and today is also the Finnish Independence Day (we are a Finnish studio). Thus we thought it would be cool to celebrate these both occasions to give out some Steam keys to our game.

So for the next hour or so I'll be posting out keys every 10 minutes. First come first served, so act fast. You can also ask me almost anything related to our studio and the game and I'll answer to the best of my knowledge.

And for those who don't yet know the game, AirBuccaneers is a multiplayer FPS with Buccaneers and Vikings fighting each other with airships armed with cannons. The game has a very heavy emphasis on teamwork and player co-operation. You can check out our launch trailer in here:

For your consideration as a future playdate:

is a total conversion mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, containing "intense and strategic hot air balloon fights," with "airships, cannons, air-mines and various other antiquated gadgets." The gameplay is "a combination of graceful air ballet (with explosions), fierce pirate-like action (such as sword fights and ship-to-ship grappling/boarding) and 3D tactical maneuvering."

The games journalism website when their readers played this mod together, a few times over the years. Jim Rossignol of RPS gives a compelling description of the game:

.

"You can get involved in gigantic balloon battles in beautifully bleak places. ... I’d forgotten how ludicrously characterful the game is. The strange tale of abandoned tribes and mushroom gods, and a war fought via hot air-balloon. It’s filled with entertaining ideas: aerial mines that are fired by rocket, only to hang in the sky, waiting for a victim. Or the rocket propelled glider that takes you up the critical central 'battleship' balloon, that is often the focus of any single battle.

The game itself is an interesting tension between slow-moving aircraft, and the fast paced melee/explosives combat. Watching people leap from one balloon to another, only to miss, grapple the underside of the ship, fight on deck, fall again, and up in a sword battle dangling from the bottom of an airship, really is quite something to behold. i was watching one battle where one of our pilots was fighting two enemies, hanging from the bottom of the ship on a grapple, as we bombarded the ship with cannons. He killed one, died, and then the battleship went down in flames. Heroic.

Not to mention plunging to your death is always amusing punctuation between the slow maneuvering of the balloons. The wind, it seems, is a jerk. Surviving a fall and getting back to the safety of your base without getting eaten by a mushroom is also a rather unique gaming experience." ()

• from a trailer announcing the HD version for 2012.

A retail copy of UT2004 is required for the free mod. It can be purchased for $9.99.

started out as a UT2k3 mod in which you piloted hot air balloons and air ships and fired cannons to destroy the opposing teams ships and kill their players.

The main differences to Guns of Icarus are that the teams would spawn in a base with airships there rather than spawning on the ship - this is important as it allowed for the main difference between the two games: boarding.

In AirBuccaneers you can leap from Airship to Airship (or use grappling hooks if the server allows it) when they get close and engage in melee combat with sabres and inaccurate and slow muskets. Or just gain control of the wheel long enough to run the ship into the deadly marshes below, killing everyone onboard, in a suicide mission.

This is only possible because the aim of the game was to kill the enemy team and not to destroy the ships and thus the team didn't respawn on the ships - this wouldn't work in Guns of Icarus because the team would respawn on the ship and you would be killing them forever.

This also meant you can kill all the enemy on their airship and then commandeer their airship (which is flying their team colours) to disguise yourself as you get close to and either destroy or board another enemy vessel.

You had a telescope to see long distances so you could check that the crew of a vessel actually was the correct team if you could see the crew clearly enough - but that requires time and vigilance which you may not have in the heat of battle.

All in all I feel it was just a more fun and superior game to Guns of Icarus which felt too limiting.

Interestingly if you look at the you see that most loved the game and their only complaint is the lack of players!

So why do you think Guns Of Icarus was such a success despite being more limited than Airbuccaneers and lacking the experience of coming from a mod which had already seen much improvement?

Hello everybody. I've got a few games to give away today. The games up for grabs today are:

• Zeno Clash Series ( and )

So, how do you get these lovely games?

HOW TO WIN GAMES

1. It is always nice if you upvote this post so more people can enter. It's not a requirement, since I won't know who the hell is upvoting and downvoting, but it's always nice to spread the love.

2. Comment which game you want. I will be using RedditRaffle to pick the winner for each game, so comment with the following:

• for zeno clash series, comment ZENO

• for AirBuccaneers, comment AIRBUC

• for Nuclear Dawn, comment NUKE

• for Chaser, comment CHASER

These silly little comments just make it easier to pop into RedditRaffle. There is no limit to how many games you can claim, so if you want all of them, put all four in your comment (all in one comment). I will, however, be doing a separate raffle for each game (so if you get drawn once, it doesn't mean you automatically win every game you commented).

This post is being made at 3:05 EST, and the contest will close in 24 hours. Good luck to everyone!

EDIT: I should also note that the method of distribution is STEAM KEYS so have Steam.

THE WINNERS ARE HERE!

Zeno Clash Series goes to SirSparkle

AirBuccaneers goes to Scheidecker1

Nuclear Dawn goes to rturiak

Chaser goes to Splargy

Thanks to everyone!

It just came out of steam green light, it's an flying pirate ship war game. Basically you get on a ship and fire your cannons at the enemies or rope swing to their boats. It's a really fun game for just $15 and with friends its 10x better.

It is a new game however, if you aren't into the un-polished look for a game it may not be for you. There's serious balancing issues and other problems. It isn't really visually stunning either. For a team game it also lacks voicechat.

All in all it's a great game thats new and getting patched a lot. There's supposed to be lots of new content coming out as well.

Tl;dr: Gameplays great and fun, everything else is "ehh". Worth a look