Good afternoon.  Below is the captain's log from the recent Jupiter test of the prototype Emdrive MK I.  As a reminder, all information concerning the Emdrive remains classified.  Please return your Aug glasses to the front counter when you have finished this briefing. Captain's Log: March 2, 2086… There are 69 known moons of Jupiter.  Jupiter is the first planet we’re sending Star Control’s prototype ship to visit. Powered by the Darius Robotics E...

Brad recalls the days of Elemental's rough launch, what we learned from it, and how we did our best to make it right for all of our future games. Check out Episode 3 in Ars Technica's "War Stories" series here.  

The war continues...and this is Brad's biggest battle yet! Check out part 7 of "Humans vs. The Multiverse" and see if today is victorious...or if today is bloody. It's entirely possible it's both!  

We live in an age where developers actually brag about creating random quests as if that’s a good thing. In an age of gigabytes of memory the challenge isn’t in how many worlds you have, it is how to make those worlds compelling. In Star Control: Origins, there are no random missions.  No episode of Star Trek ever ended with Captain Kirk receiving 14 Dilithium crystals for his troubles.  Star Control is about telling stories in which you are the central character. ...

The new Star Control is moving swiftly!  We expect to release Fleet Battles Beta 2 within the next several weeks as most of our work is focused on the adventure game. We have been listening to feedback from the fans and incorporated that feedback into the project. For example, below is a screenshot which shows the updated home solar system: Our home solar systemSimilarly, the ships themselves have gotten the material system in early.  Originally, this was going to be added lat...

Every few months I write something that incites a twitter mob.  There are people out there are compelled to right the smallest of wrongs by hurling days of abuse at the villain. As the said villain, I’ve developed many different strategies for dealing with these mobs. This week’s outrage: A pronoun joke (someone demanding to be referred to as "they" instead of "he" or "she" while referring to the other person as "honey" and siccing her (sorry their) followers on him in whi...

For many of us who work with computers all day, it can get a bit boring to look at the same bland desktop all day long. While Windows has made some improvements to the user interface over the years, it's still the same as everyone else's in your home or office. I like to customize things, especially items I use often, and my PC is no exception.  You can customize your desktop as much or as little as you would like with a variety of custom themes and skins found at WinCustomize.com. I wan...

One of the biggest challenges we have faced in developing Galactic Civilizations III has been map sizes and the memory they require. On a number of occasions, we have tried to reduce the the largest map sizes down to improve performance and shrink memory requirements.  And each time we have attempted to do that, we have ended up with a very vocal outcry of anger. But large map sizes come with a significant memory cost to be aware of. Galactic Civilizations, like its inspiration...

Our core marketing team here at Stardock consists of a small group of very dedicated, very busy people. Because of how many products on both the software and game side we handle on a daily basis, an organizational system is absolutely integral to our success. Katie, our marketing operations manager, is the glue that holds our team together. Because of her diverse skill set, she tackles a lot of different tasks for our team, including keeping all of us and our individual assignments on track! ...

Farming I'm not liking the farming mechanic.  It seemed like a good idea on paper but in practice, it's just tedious and exploitive.  Here's how I'd like to see it work: Some planets would have a Arable land tile including all starting planets.  Building on these tiles produces food. The tech tree would have a path for players who want to get the most out of those resources to get a lot of food.  The arable land resource be destructable -- you can destroy it (like you ca...

CEO Brad Wardell is trying every strategy he can think of to repel the attacks of the Centauri Republic in Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade! Check out Episode 6 in "Humans vs. Multiverse" today. 

Valentine’s Day is approaching and this is another good opportunity to add some related skins and themes to your Windows desktop. One of the great things about holidays is that WinCustomize usually has a great selection of ways to spruce up your desktop, from WindowBlinds skins, animated wallpapers, cursor themes, and more. The best way to get the ultimate desktop experience is with Object Desktop. This is our suite of desktop enhancements and includes apps like WindowBlinds, DeskScapes...

Build new units, conquer challenging scenarios, and engage in massive multiplayer battles on enormous maps in Secret Missions! Support for the DLC and additional fixes and changes available in the free v2.7 update today. See the changelog at the bottom of the post for all of the details. Also available from Steam Exciting new scenarios, new units, and huge maps await you in Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation’s largest DLC yet! Take on the role of a PHC leader and conquer dangerous mi...

Every year or so I take a look at my reoccurring monthly expenses and see what I don’t really use or need any longer. One of the biggest expenses I was tired of paying each month was the cable TV bill. I have thought about completely cutting cable before but always backed away for some reason, but it was time to finally make the cut. I was paying nearly $150 a month for cable and internet which was just ridiculous considering we just didn’t watch TV like we used to. About $10-15 of t...

A gift for our community: Enjoy these Offworld Trading Company Desktop wallpapers  Click the thumbnails to view the full resolution images. Download these HD wallpapers to your PC and enjoy!   Which faction do you like to play?www.offworldgame.com