Multwinia for Mac: manic, immense pixel warfare

Tomorrow, after many months of painstaking porting, the retro, Tron inspired RTS Multiwinia by Introversion, will be released for Mac by Ambrosia.

I was supposed to receive the final candidate of Multiwinia a few weeks ago, but sadly the internet conspired against me and ate the email with the download details. Although that email was devoured, a kind renegade Multwinian delivered the message today and I was able to download and play thirty solid minutes of Multiwinia for Mac. Hooray!

Here’s what Introversion say about Multiwinia in short:

Challenge your opponent to a game of stick-man slaughter and witness devastating digital-war unfold. It’s fast, it’s furious and only the flattest will survive!

And largely, that’s it. But the depth of Multiwinia is downright stunning. Green, cell shaded landscapes, rolling digital waters, glowing trees and ancient heads of some forgotten race resting on the edges of islands.

Roaming the landscape is a noisy affair. Your Multiwinians (the digital people you control) chatter away, radar dishes used for transport click and chirp, tanks splutter away as they bumble over the landscape. Scrolling your way upward, to the darkness, you hear only the soft murmur of the digital breeze. Multiwinia, for all it’s retro, Tron inspired (just check out the bombers) simplicity is a marvel of sound and vision. David Bowie would be pleased.

Running through the tutorials, you’re presented with the controls for controlling your green pixel armies across these war torn lands; all simple, intuitive, that make commanding your armies a breeze. I particularly love the simplicity of left clicking to select your Multiwinians. Holding down the button increases the range of your selection. This kind of interaction lets you focus on the mindless slaughter of the invading red and yellow Multiwinian armies, rather than micromanaging. It’s satisfying that Introversion have got this just right.

There’s a good range of games to play too:

• Domination - kill all of your enemies.
• King of the Hill - capture flags around the map, raising your score.
• Capture the Statue - capture statues around the map, carrying them back to your base.
• Assault - attack a heavily defended location, attempting to disarm a WMD.
• Rocket Riot - collect solar energy to power your rocket. First to charge and launch, wins.
• Blitzkreig - capture key flags around the map.

I look forward to exploring these over the next couple weeks.

Pixel based holocaust. It’s guilt free. It’s fresh. It’s bloody funny too. Tiny green soldiers jumping into barely rendered tanks, lasering their enemies, beaming themselves through the air to distant islands. It’s easy to send your armies up against your enemies, capturing key points and holding others, and it’s easy too to view the battlefield. Satisfyingly simple, but I have a feeling that the real battles will be online and won’t be as easy as conquering your CPU. I’m happy to say that the Mac version will play against PC and vice versa.

Multiwinia really seems too cool for school. Retro style brought in the 21st century, addictive gameplay with a focus on the holocaust of hordes of pixel invaders! Marvelous!

Head over to Ambrosia tomorrow, download the demo, arm yourself with some pixel warriors and prepare for combat!