We've featured Advent calendars as a gaming theme before, but this one appears new. Started by Juuso Hietalahti, the owner of Finland-based Polycount Productions (who also writes at GameProducer.Net) each day reveals one or more Indie games, some with YouTube trailers. Of course there are links to download or play the games, be they application or browser-based. All carry the reminder that buying them supports devs directly.

There were four games behind Door No. 20 today, and there are four more days to go.

The Indie Games Xmas Calendar [site]

Judging usually means playing around with early builds of an eclectic mix of games from unheard of developers, some of whom go on to have a very profound impact on the industry.

Each year, as one of many, many judges, I play a dozen or so good, bad and ugly games. And each year I come across at least one that I fall deeply in love with.

This year that game is The Swapper. It's not without its bugs, but the heart of the game is deeply intriguing to me.

From the developer's site:

"The Swapper is about treating human beings as objects. It's also a puzzle and a platformer. And a piece of weirdness."

The game plays with the idea of cloning, lights and shadows and the ability to transfer control between copies of yourself. More interesting is the notion that an old copy of you, the original, the one that you used to control, is seemingly disposable. It's a little chilling on some level and makes me want to keep a close eye on The Swapper in the future.

The Swapper

"A lot of people have been demanding this in a video game for a very long time," said Carlo Sunseri, 25, a former midfielder for Robert Morris University. "But the market simply isn't that big yet. It's just not possible to do a full blown multimillion dollar game for lacrosse."

But that didn't mean Sunseri couldn't publish a full-blown lacrosse video game for about a multimillion dollars less. Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 - hey, the game has a title sponsor, is that bigtime enough for you? - hit the Xbox Live Indie Games channel two weeks ago, a rarity even among that service's eclectic title selection. The game offers a full-featured sports simulation, with a season mode, roster customization and live human announcer, largely what you'd expect in Madden or NBA 2K10 if, you know, either were about lacrosse.

Through the years, a lacrosse video game has often been a why-don't-they-do-that topic in publications or message boards devoted to the sport, Sunseri said. "If you look on the Internet there's always petitions, forums full of kids screaming for a lacrosse video game," he said. Microsoft's rollout of the Indie Games channel last year seemed to be the best shot for such a thing to happen. Sunseri went to work, writing up a business plan built on game sales as well as in-game advertising. It was enough to get a loan, and enough to get him to step down from his coaching gig at his Pittsburgh-area alma mater, forming Crosse Studios to handle the project=

Sunseri needed a developer, of course. For that, he turned to Fritz Ackerley, a 14-year veteran of the games business whose Triple B Studios had recently published the Indie Channel hit Fitba, a soccer simulation. Sunseri figured Fitba's engine could be the foundation for a lacrosse game and he was right, with just one catch: Ackerly knew absolutely nothing about lacrosse.

But, "I've done Formula 1 games and I don't know what like to drive F1 car," Ackerley said. "I've worked on World War II shooters; I don't know what it's like to shoot someone in World War II. So you just have to get the feel for what the sport is about, and Carlo would fill me in on things I had not seen."

Sunseri sent Ackerley video of old lacrosse matches to demonstrate the game's flow, positioning, and concepts such as "forming the L," the game's fast-break offense formation. Passing was built on Fitba's mechanics, as it was a game touted for allowing player motion in one line with passes going along another, something critically important to lacrosse realism.

Shooting was assigned to the right analog stick to allow for more complex shot placement, a demand Sunseri got from potential gamers thanks to buying up ads on Facebook that pointed lacrosse fans to surveys. The surveys alone point to the sport's strong following; Sunseri boasted of clickthroughs topping 80 percent. A Facebook page for the game presently has more than 50,000 fans.

As Ackerley worked on the game, Sunseri pursued sponsorships for it, securing the title endorsement of Inside Lacrosse, the leading publication covering the sport, and other deals from sporting goods makers and sellers.

Players were hand-rendered by animator Joseph Daniels and brought into the game. Sunseri couldn't get collegiate or professional licensing, and had to make the game's 40 teams from scratch without emulating any existing club. His girlfriend consulted on much of the style and color choices.

Originally Sunseri figured on offering the game for $10, with college and professional indoor-rules variations, but he and Ackerley decided late in the development cycle to limit this version to a collegiate outdoor format, name it College Lacrosse 2010, and halve the price to $5. When it released in November, Sunseri held his breath. But Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 clocked 40,000 trial downloads in its first two weeks, and today is in the top 5 among highest-rated and downloaded indie games.

It might be too early to declare financial success - Sunseri demurred when asked for development costs or sales figures - but when it comes to evangelizing for the game he loves, College Lacrosse 2010 is a hit,.

"I think the game has the potential to push lacrosse more into the mainstream," Sunseri said. "You look at the youth numbers, they're exploding. It's kind of at a tipping point now, and I hope through video games we can push it over the top, and start getting everyone to notice the game of lacrosse."

Sunseri said work's already begun on a successor version - the professional-rules version, which is played indoor and has different scoring options, is due for January he said. After that he hopes to have a college lacrosse 2011 sequel out around the time of the NCAA lacrosse finals, contested in late May.

"It's amazing, the opportunity Microsoft's built for indie developers here," Sunseri said. ‘I remember back when they announced it. I was still in college, and they said, ‘We're going to be doing the YouTube of video games.

"I said back then it would be perfect for doing a lacrosse video game, finally," he said, "and it ended up working out."

Stick Jockey is Kotaku's column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

Inside Lacrosse College Lacrosse 2010 hit the Indie Games channel. While it does not feature actual, licensed college lacrosse teams, it does have the title sponsorship of the sport's top magazine in the United States. The game costs 400 Microsoft points, and lets you choose from 60 teams (or create your own side) in single-play action or in a simulated season of up to 14 games with a two-round championship. It features Xbox Live and LAN support, stats tracking and more.

"In the 12 years we've been publishing Inside Lacrosse, there is one topic that's been addressed in letters to the editor, probably more than all the other individual topics combined: When is someone going to produce a lacrosse video game?" Bob Carpenter, the Inside Lacrosse founder, said in a statement announcing the game. "Producing a multi-million dollar game just isn't going to happen for a sport our size, so this Indie format – particularly when it can be played online against others – is the way to go."

The game is the product of a year's worth of development begun by Dundee, Scotland studio Triple B Games and Carlo Sunseri, a Pittsburgh-area businessman and lacrosse coach. College Lacrosse 2010.

Like Audiosurf, Symphony allows you to search your music collection in order to create a unique game experience for every song. Instead of a rollercoaster puzzle game, however, Symphony creates colorful 3D arcade shooter levels based on your musical tastes. A slow song might transform into a slow, relaxing shooter experience, while a fast electronic track with heavy beats morphs into something much more challenging.

Your music collection is the key to unlocking the full potential of Symphony, with hidden powers and unique enemies lurking inside your MP3s, waiting to be unleashed.

Symphony is still several months away from its 2010 release, but all the elements are in place for a truly unique shooter experience. I've already started building my playlist, and I've a feeling my psytrance collection is about to get a whole lot less relaxing.

Hit the official website for more about Empty Clips Studios and Symphony.

The Best of Indie: Volume 2 includes Crayon Physics Deluxe, Aquaria, Aaaaaa!, I-Fluid, And Yet it Moves, Project Aftermath, and Acceleration of Suguri. All told, these seven games go for $94.65 purchased separately, but until November 16 you can get them all for $25. And DRM-free, to boot.

Crayon Physics is almost worth that alone, so yeah, this is a good deal.

Some of the shame-they're-not-real-games we have to look forward to include tranScEEnD:

You are a seed, the manifestation of potential. The wind is your means of transportation - and the deliverer of your fate.

Embark on a relaxing journey through a visionary world unlike anything you've ever seen before.

tranScEEnD features a one-of-a-kind gameplay experience that blends time manipulation with gravity. In the end it turns out you weren't really a seed at all, but an alien ship and the whole thing was a metaphor for sexual abuse.

Little much? You may prefer the more down-to-earth inspiration behind Cosmope:

I woke up. The dawn had scrubbed her scent away. All these mistakes, all these regrets were as nothing and somehow... I knew they were everything.

When lives take different directions, it is as a starling bursting forth from infinite realities. Each different. Only one way back to her.

Best part? Were this not a list put together by Something Awful, you'd be forgiven for thinking these were actual, real, upcoming games.

2010's Most Promising Bullshit Indie Games [Something Awful, via GameSetWatch] [image: listen to me]

Maybe I'm not to be blamed for my morbid curiosity. Tale of Tales is known for its creepy, upsetting games and from what I understand of the parts Christianity added to the Torah, the Salome's story is certainly both of those. She dances what passed for a striptease back in those days and then demands the head of some guy on a silver platter. Talk about heavy tipping.

Here's what the developer has to say of the 3D adventure game:

Explore a living tableau filled with references to the legendary tale and enjoy the moonlit serenity of a fatal night in the orient. Fatale offers an experimental play experience that stimulates the imagination and encourages multiple interpretations and personal associations.

You can check out the trailer and pick up the game for a dollar seven dollars here.

The GameStop Casual Digital Store, located at http://www.gamestop.com/casual, features the hottest and not-so-hottest casual PC games for purchase, download and play. Powered by RealNetworks, the store features casual and independent titles, from Nancy Drew to Plants Vs. Zombies, with thirty-one titles available for half-off to celebrate the launch of the new service.

"As the leading video game and entertainment software retailer, we continuously look for ways to bring our passion for gaming to the customer visiting us online," said Tony Bartel, executive vice president of merchandising and marketing. "The new Casual Digital Store accomplishes this goal by appealing to an ever-expanding customer demographic looking for value in addition to trusted guidance to ensure they receive the best gaming experience possible."

It sounds a great deal like the casual game download service Amazon.com launched in February, perhaps indicating that while GameStop isn't worried about Amazon's trade-ins, it isn't too keen on being left behind when it comes to digital distribution and the casual market.

If you don't own an iPhone, you might know the game from a panel I covered at a Game Developers Conference 2009 called "No Publisher? No Problem! iPhone for Indies." Fieldrunner developers Sergei Gourski and Jamie Goch both spoke at the panel along with Wurdle co-creator, Adam Saltsman. Gourski had a lot of good advice to would-be indie iPhone devs, but it was Saltsman who made the panel memorable with a statement about quality being largely irrelevant for iPhone games.

Clearly, though, Fieldrunners is quality indie gaming. If you accept Penny Arcade as an arbiter of indie quality, anyway. Their other nine picks do include games that snagged Independent Games Festival awards at GDC this year, like Osmos, Machinarium and Tag: The Power of Paint.

Here's the whole list:

CarneyVale: Showtime
Closure
Fieldrunners
Liight
Machinarium
Osmos
Puzzle Bloom
Tag: The Power of Paint
Trino
What is Bothering Carl?

The PAX 10 [via IndieGames]

Indie developer Tale of Tales is known for their creepy and often upsetting story games such as The Path and The Graveyard. With their game, codenamed Fatale, the developer aims to tell the story of Salome using the inspiration of Oscar Wilde's creepy and upsetting* play of the same name. IndieGames reports that the point of the game is freeze a "historical" moment in time and allow players to experience the emotions that the characters feel in that moment.

My question, then, is which moment in Salome's sad tale the game will depict? The striptease she dances for her stepdad, her mother's marriage to a total jerk or the part where she smooches a dead guy's head?

Look for it October 5.

Tale of Tales Announce New Game 'Fatale' [IndieGames]

*I base that statement on the fact that the play was banned when it first debuted. That and the fact that Oscar Wilde is good at being creepy and upsetting.

The seal, called App Treasures, will direct users who bought a game carrying the seal to other games listed under it. It wasn't immediately clear if the games' pages within the App Store would carry a graphic branding, or if they would be linked together by keyword.

Selection criteria were not specified, only that additional devs will be "carefully considered and hand-picked."

"This is our way of combining resources to become a bigger player, while retaining our independence and without any of the drawbacks and strings attached that come from working with a publisher," said Keith Shepherd, the CEO of Imangi Studios, which has published three games to the store.

The charter devs, in addition to Imangi, are The Blimp Pilots, Snappy Touch, Streaming Colour Studios, and Veiled Games. The move was announced June 4, and the developers will be in attendance at Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference, where iPhone/iPod gaming is expected to dominate the news.

App Treasures [Site]

Diana Hughes from the University of Southern California created Pluff to function is a combination Furby/Tamagotchi pet that's both a controller and a virtual pet. Petting him makes him happy, slamming his head against a desk makes him sad. The better you treat him, says Hughes, the easier it is for the user to teach him tricks.

All I can say is "Want!" And I can say it as many times as I like because I'm a chick and feel no shame in loving fuzzy things.

Meet Pluff, The 'Stuffed Animal Controller' [IndieGames]

Yesterday I wandered over to the quiet indiecade corner of E3 to check out Snapshot and talk to its two man development team, Kyle Pulver and Peter Jones.

The game is a side-scrolling platformer with a unique twist. At any time, you can take pictures of objects in the environment to capture them, and then re-release them from the photos to assist you in completing the levels.

For example, you can take a picture of a walking purple elephant and then re-release it, by positioning the photo on the screen, to help you push a heavy box onto a button switch. You can then recapture the elephant by simply taking another photo.

The same mechanic applies to moving crates, doors, and almost anything in the level. You can even stack items into a pile and snap a shot to hold multiple objects in one picture.

Gameplay is made more challenging with "no photo" zones and limits put on how many photos you can hold at a time.

The game is currently a PC demo that Kyle and Peter are showcasing to gain enough support to make a full blown version of the game, hopefully on multiple platforms.

"Snapshot" has unlimited gameplay possibilities and I can't wait to see this game progress.

By Kotaku Contest Winner Josiah Munsey

This will be the first U.S. preview of games for IndieCade, whose inaugural festival was last year. Stephanie Barish, the IndieCade president, touted the entries by noting last year's expo showcased game makers who reached deals with the big three console makers, so, expect to see more of the same quality.

"This year there will be even more opportunities to inspire the industry and cultural institutions with games that turn our idea of play inside out, that keep fans engaged – and do it passionately, on small budgets, and in innovative ways," she said in a statement.

No games were specifically mentioned for this event, but if they're any indication, you can get a look at last year's selections here.

Warner, 25, an environmental artist who had worked at Relic Games on Dawn of War II, expected to lose copies to piracy. He'd already begun pondering what might be a third option in the ongoing zero-sum struggle between keeping gamers happy and ensuring they give you money for your work. But if nothing else, the torrenting of Raycatcher provided a good argument that someone in the indie sector should try building a game supported by product placements and in-game advertising. And after this experience he figured, why not him?

"I think people are voting - they're just not interested in paying for games any more," Warner said. "The DRM is getting cumbersome, and everyone hates it. I think we're at a point where indies have to consider a new revenue model. Because it takes a long time to make a game."

Warner and another partner, Mitch Lagran, 22, formed Vancouver-based Greener Grass Games to explore just that - a free, browser-based and ad-supported game. The thought of in-game advertising may make the skin crawl for the gaming cognoscenti who form the most evangelical constituency of independent development. The practice may be, on the AAA retail level, a disappointment so far, with slender prospects until a terrible economy rebounds. And browser-based games may have yet to catch on in North America the way they have elsewhere. But games are not built for free, and these two developers- and others - think it can be done at this smaller scale.

"I don't want to do anything The Man-ish," Warner said, acknowledging the stereotypical disconnect between an indie developer, who's supposed to be making better games because he's freed from corporate trappings, and product placements, a nakedly capitalist practice.

"But in order to make games consistently, we need to make money," said Lagran (left). "Otherwise, we can't pay the rent. And if people pirate a lot, advertisements make sense."

Warner had no illusions that Raycatcher (built with another partner) was going to make him rich. Just getting it onto Steam was a learning experience and an accomplishment, he said, akin to a writer getting one's first novel published. But the aftermath - from piracy to patching - poses disincentives to the independent developer, who began wanting to make the cool game he always dreamed of making, and finds that he's inherited a lot of problems and obligations he hadn't imagined.

"The money we're making off Raycatcher, it doesn't justify working on a project for a long period of time; I can't support myself on it," Warner said. Especially when you release a game, and it has bugs, and you have to fix them. In a certain sense, when you release something for money, it's almost like you create a liability for yourself."

The way Warner (right) sees it, the game he and Lagran really wanted to make - a narrative, 3D first person adventure set in an alternate reality - can be done quicker, more cheaply, and with fewer of the headaches that come from a commercial downloadable release like Raycatcher.

In their development histories, Warner as an artist, and Lagran as a programmer, shared the same zeal for the immense back story that is created during a game's design, and only partially revealed during its play. The game they are building, untitled as of now, opens that faucet of creativity. Through exploration and observation, players uncover how they got where they are, what they're supposed to do, and advance the story to its conclusion in a game reminiscent of the Sierra and LucasArts adventures of those companies' 1990s heyday, with elements of Myst.

Such a dependence on observation lends itself to advertising. What kind will players see? Their game, still untitled, will be a 3D, first person adventure, so everything you might see in the real world is on the table, Lagran says. Unity 3D, the engine they're using, supports video texture mapping, so a television displaying a video ad is one example. Outdoors, billboards are a given. Product and brand placement could show up as a poster in a character's bedroom.

"If there's going to be a poster on the wall, and a brand on that poster, you might as well make it a real one," said Lagran, a programmer whose experience includes work as an artist on PowerUp's Night of a Million Billion Zombies. Other possibilities include getting a link to a magazine article, targeted to their player demographics. Or opening up a laptop in a university setting in the game, and getting directed to the web site of that university, in real life.

For all of these, however, Lagran and Warner have to make separate and sometimes competing sales pitches, to gamers as well as advertisers. For advertisers, they're hawking a new and effective way to reach a targeted audience's eyeballs. For gamers, they're saying in effect, don't worry, if the advertising is done well, you'll barely notice.

"I've definitely played games with (in-game advertising) and it's never bothered me," Lagran said. "The only time it does is when it's out of context, the random logo that doesn't fit, like you're in a sci-fi world and you see the Apple logo."

So it's clear that the sponsors are going to have to fit organically into this story, somehow, says Warner, who offhandedly confesses a "seething hatred" for pushy, repeated or conspicuous advertising, probably because he's studied hypnosis. "I don't hate products or people making me more aware of products - I buy my clothes the same places as everybody else. But people getting leverage on me emotionally - Axe (body spray) makes people insecure about their sexuality for example - it's very manipulative and a form of bombardment. There are more tactful ways."

And that's where his and Lagran's sensibilities as artists will help an indie developer do it better.

"I could be delusional, but I haven't seen anybody else, really, doing it at this level," Warner says - meaning advertising within fully-rendered 3D games played online.

That points to another condition of the gaming market they hope to exploit: Low expectations. Casual flash games with advertising, while showing an audience increase (67 million in 2007 to 86 million in 2008, with a 28 percent bump in ad views, isn't looked to as any kind of a memorable gaming experience. "They're almost so casual that they're not considered real games," Lagran said. "We want to capitalize on the idea that these browser games are nothing, and make one that feels like a full-fledged game that you'd download…. I think that's where the industry is going to go."

Of course, it already has, notably in Asia, with North America lagging behind. One portal under development, also based in Vancouver, is Dimerocker, and it too envisions enough potential for in-game indie advertising that it has secured venture capital and is building an API to serve ads to developers that list games there.

J. Joly (he goes by his first initial), Dimerocker's founder and VP of content, considers his venture very much borne of the indie-scene aesthetic, envisioning a portal where users and developers communicate with no middlemen, in a give-and-take of release, adoption, feedback, revision and re-release. The portal is also geared toward distributing games built with the Unity 3D engine, which Greener Grass Games is using. Both studios consider it the fastest way to get a professional quality game into production.

"A great Unity game can be done with a 2 or 3 man team and $100,000," Joly said. That translates to considerable development agility and, by using the advantages of browser-based games, can target them to specific emerging markets such as, say, Brazil, skipping the overhead of traditional retail or downloadable releases, while making money back using Joly's API. Lagran and Warner contend they don't need eye-popping numbers to do well. "I think we're looking at between 50,000 and 100,000 impressions in a month, and we should be pretty good."

That's the concept, anyway. It's not something so ahead of the cutting edge that everyone's shooting it down, but it's not to say in-game indie advertising is unqualifiedly the next great thing.

"I'm a venture capitalist; I support the little guy," said Jeremy Liew, managing director of Lightspeed Venture Partners, with an expertise in social media and casual gaming. "The short story here is in-game advertising has been a little bit of a disappointment. It's not lived up to expectations as a major driver of revenue. That was true even when the ad market was strong, and obviously there's an advertising recession going on right now."

Even though recent (and not exactly disinterested) research projects a $2 billion in-game ad market by 2012, the company releasing that sort of figure, IGA Worldwide, is itself in trouble, trying to secure additional funding but also exploring selling itself off, after losses of $11 million in 2007 and $26 million in 2008. Microsoft also just laid off a quarter of the workforce at Massive, its advertising service.

Sure, the scale of the ad sales operation undertaken by an indie game house might not be so large that it needs to hit the kind of numbers larger publishers want to see. But "I guess it depends on what you define as a success," Liew said. "The challenge still is one of demand. And if you're smaller and more targeted, you do have fewer things to offer."

Liew understands Lagran and Warner's instinct to shift to web-based games, but wonders if the in-game advertising is even necessary. "Piracy is what led people in Asia to shift to free-to-play games with digital distribution models," Liew said. "This is a solved problem. Perhaps we can consider using the solutions that are out there."

Dimerocker would be one of those solutions, with plans for a traditional model of free play leading to premium content, with some microtransaction capabilities. But that doesn't particularly differentiate that portal from the others in that space, which is part of the reason why Joly's pushed into it.

This of course is the business plan; what it may meet in reality bears watching.

"Most marketers characterize in-game advertising as experimental," Liew said. "Given the major budget cuts people are seeing, they're not feeling super experimental. And given the context that this has not lived up to expectations, in a recessionary environment, it's going to be a tough challenge for them."

Perhaps, but at least the price of failure, if it comes to that, will be comparatively low. The episodic nature of their project allows them to either continue a successful IP, or cut their losses without having wasted time and development on a full game nobody really preferred.

"Right now, we're 10 grand in the hole, and it's all borrowed money, friends and family," Warner said. "Even if the first episode is a bomb, my mom isn't gonna get the repo man after us."

And they're banking on the goodwill of gamers who will give a game a chance and understand the tradeoff - that free content has to be supported some way. It's true that their exploration of advertising came about, in a sense, because gamers would not support a previous effort with their own money, and worse, pirates stole it. But gamers shouldn't feel that in-game ads are some form of punishment.

"DRM," said Lagran, "would be a punishment."

Says Blow, on the official Braid Blog:

The delay is just to fix some problems that came up in testing with various versions of Windows.

Also, we have a special surprise planned concerning the music in Braid.

So, sorry for the delay, I know folks have been waiting a long time for the PC version and it's not so great to have to wait an extra 10 days, but it's only so that I can try to ship you guys a version that works well (which frankly is impossible in Windows, but the best I can do is make it work for most people most of the time).

When it does roll out, you'll get it through Steam and download services Greenhouse, Impulse and GamersGate. And, "If I have some more time to do the appropriate discussions, it may appear in one or two other places," Blow says.

Braid Release Slightly Delayed [Braid-game.com via Joystiq]

GDC '09: Fez Trailer II [TIGSource]

Now that Maxis has been swallowed by Spore and the guys who made Sim City Societies have moved onto bigger, better things Children of the Nile, indie developer Monte Cristo is free to snap up what little market there is for city-building sims in the wake of their 2006 game, City Life (which is, you guessed it, another city-building sim).

What sets XL apart from both City Life and from the Sim City franchises is the online component. This is problematic for an early look at the game because none of what makes an online community pass or fail really exists yet. But the gist of it is, when you buy the single-player game (that you'll burn through in about four months), you can register for the online service at 5 Euros a month. The online service is really an online multiplayer mode, like an MMO along with a social networking site a la Facebook where you can interact with other people that opt to sign up for the online account.

Through the online mode, you can build a city near your friends' cities or on a completely different planet so they can't visit. But if you do that, you won't be able to trade with them – which is where the appeal of vity-building online really comes from.

Because XL features a persistent environment, you can actually work with the cities around your city to balance the needs of all the whiny townspeople that need jobs and not to die of pollution. So you could build a city that's entirely made up of amusement parks, stadiums and tourist attractions while your buddy builds a stale, totalitarian state and then just send the citizens back and forth between you so they're never really unhappy, but they continue to grind away at soul-sucking factory jobs.

In addition to sharing balancing duties, you can also trade resources with people online. So say you want to build that new stadium and you don't have enough oil or water resources to build it. You can use the site's search engine to find someone nearby your city (with the appropriate shipping capacities like airports or docks) with a surplus of those items. Then you can offer them whatever you have extra of (cement, electricity, etc.) or absolutely nothing at all and see if they'll accept a trade or just give you what you want out of the sheer goodness of their hearts.

The key to any simulated city game is maintaining balance; which is even more crucial in an online environment where seasoned MMO players already know all the tricks (twinking, gold-farming, etc.). To keep unfairness to a minimum, Monte Cristo has changed a few minor things that city-building pros might take for granted. For example, excess resources don't accumulate over time in the online mode. So if you've got 10 extra energy, you'd better spend it or trade it – or lose it when the week the ends. This keeps the online environment mostly equal without letting players that have been there the longest gain any unfair advantages. Also, special blueprints for stuff like the Eiffel Tower or that giant statue of Jesus Christ in Rio are given randomly to online players in a sort of lottery – they require a ridiculous amount of resources to build and usually give your city a major stat bonus (like attracting more tourists), so it encourages trading between gamers.

Monte Cristo is also introducing Facebook-style tie-in stuff. The singleplayer and online modes will both have Achievement-ish rewards that you can display on your XL profile or possibly on whatever social network site you use. And like Facebook, the XL site also features friend lists, news RSS feeds and ways to track the stats of your city. To go along will of this is your personal avatar – a cartoon-y incarnation that you can use to walk the streets of your own city (even in singleplayer mode) or other people's cities (although I'm told you can't do anything besides observe).

That stat-tracker will come in handy if you decide to leave your city alone for a long time. Because the online mode is a persistent environment, your city keeps on living while you're gone. So an earthquake can wipe out half your population and leave construction stalled out on your new monument and you'd never know it ‘til you logged in again. But, says Monte Cristo, you'd be warned well in advance before you built over a fault line – so it's your own damn fault if it happens, really.

To me, that's what sounds the most interesting about online mode in Cities XL: there will be different planets with different conditions for you to build cities on. One planet might have absolutely no fossil fuel resources; which means you won't have to deal with as much pollution, but you'll have to look at alternative energy sources. Or another planet might have tons of fault lines but a lot of fossil fuel, so you'll have to weigh earthquake risk against drilling for oil. Singleplayer modes in many city-building games have scenarios like this, of course, but it's how you and your online buddies work around it that could be vastly entertaining.

The last thing that Monte Cristo has done to make XL stand out from its predecessors is tack on "gems" – Gameplay Extension Modules – that can be bought and plugged into your online or singleplayer game for extra mileage. The two the developer plans on releasing when the game launches are a "Beach Gem" and a "Ski Gem" where you get to play resort tycoon with either a beach or a ski slope. These gems are a more detail-oriented layer of gameplay where you can get as specific as designing a black-level ski trail or a beachside cabana with one of those bars in the middle of a pool.

That's where Cities XL will show its strength (if it has any): switching between micromanagement on the street level of your city (where you can watch citizens walk to work or get mugged) and the godlike view where little flashing icons tell you how much money a business makes or how many people have been brought to the hospital. Monte Cristo built an entire engine from the ground up to handle this view-switching and – buggy though it was in pre-beta – it looks fairly decent.

The three key problems with Sim City-style games are 1) overwhelming the player with too much to keep track of, 2) boring them to death by not throwing them enough curveballs and 3) boring them to a second death when they run out of motivation to keep building stuff. Time will tell if Cities XL address all of these problem – but I think the online mode (if it works like it's supposed to) will definitely take care of the latter two. And that first one? Well, it's the kind of thing that becomes a mark of pride for hardcore gamers ("You couldn't get past the tutorial? N00b!") so perhaps it's no big deal.

Cities XL is gearing up for a closed beta sometime between the end of this month and mid-April and is looking to release retail copies between Q1 and Q2 (sorry, not for download – you actually have to go use a CD key and stuff). Keep it here on Kotaku if you want to score a beta key.

To look at these screens and videos, you might almost think that they've done it – right down to the shiny top on the Chrysler Building. But maybe Cities XL will amount to more than what Sim City Societies accomplished.

To find that out, sit tight for our first impressions. And do enjoy the screens – there are a lot of ‘em.