Multiwinia!

Anyone who's spent any considerable amount of time with me in the past week will know I'm going pretty crazy over Multiwinia. For anyone in the know it's basically multiplayer Darwinia, and it's absolutely awesome. The gameplay is so simple, yet there are millions of different tactics and ways of doing things. The levels and gamemodes are extremely well thought-out and I urge anyone who's not tried it yet to download the demo from the website right now!

My Multiwinia Limited Edition Tin arrived in the post today, and that's equally awesome. Created as a tribute to both Darwinia and Multiwinia, and coming with CD versions of both games, it was pretty cheap at £30, so I just had to pre-order it. And because Introversion are so awesome, they let you download the games from their site ad infinitum - no DRM rubbish!

The surprisingly large tin in all its glory. It did suffer from a few dents in the mail, but I think that just adds character!

The "Digital Dreamscapes" photobook is crammed full of interesting screens from throughout the development stages of Darwinia. It shows how it started out as a wargame, using the now iconic Darwinians as placeholder sprites, and evolved into the fractal landscape and retro graphics we know and love.

And now, the Foam Multiwinians!

These guys are incredibly likeable, and they're sure to retain a position on my desk for a long time to come. You can stick them together in all sorts of different ways and they stand up by themselves perfectly. Now I want red and yellow ones to complete the set!

Also included were the funny postcards that a very artistically-talented fan drew up prior to the release. I didn't take a picture of them, but that's because they're all available as normal images on the Multiwinia site.

Finally, in the bottom of the tin, the CDs of Darwinia and Multiwinia! I do like downloading games from the likes of Steam and Introversion, but nothing beats a good, well-designed DVD case to put on my shelf. And as an added bonus, the tin holds 6 DVD cases, perfectly cushioned against the foam stuck to the sides.

Seeing an image of a hard worker at Introversion busy putting these tins together to send to obsessive people like me (Pre-order number 71, woo!) really puts their hard work into perspective. They've managed to succeed where massive corporations have hopelessly failed, and I hope they carry on doing so for a long time to come.