State of Play 2013

Prison Architect producer Mark Morris will be giving the keynote speech at tonight's State of Play at DIT Angier Street. He works with Introversion Software in the UK.

A satirical twist on business-sim games like Theme Hospital, Prison Architect tasks players with running the most efficient privatley owned prison possible. It's currently in open alpha (an early test version) for people who want to preorder the game.

State of Play is an annual event looking at the Irish game development scene. There'll be games to play from a host of Irish indies from 5PM and a range of Irish and International speakers on stage. Coverage of last years event is available here on HackettOut.

You can still register for the event on stateofplay.ie.

Here's a terrible trailer for the Alpha version of Prison Architect.

Play this: Demon's Souls revival

Image - From Software

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Demon's Souls' approach to online play was one of the most important design decisions of the generation. These days however, it can be hard to remember why.

The game allowed players to affect other people's games indirectly through their actions. And, with the use of in-game items, to get the help of other players in their single-player game.

READ MORE:
- My thoughts on Demon's Souls from 2011.

Demon's Souls' servers were first scheduled for shut-down over a year and half ago - but they're still live thanks to fan support and the success of the game's outstanding follow-up Dark Souls. They're just not as populated as they used to be.

Epic Name Bro makes let's-play videos on YouTube for Dark Souls and Demon's Souls among other games. He's calling on players worldwide to venture back into the cursed kingdom of Boletaria over the next few days with detailed times for what areas to tackle on what days to make sure that there will be plenty of others to play with - or face off against.

If you've been finding Boletaria empty recently, or if like me, you haven't set foot there since the sequal came out, this might be the week for you.

Take a look at Epic Name Bro's video for more information: