Around a year ago I published a Gotta Play article about PixelJunk Eden. It is a game that provided me with incredible amount of inspiration in my work, as well as hours of fun in my free time. A brainchild of Japan-based independent studio Q-Games and art director/DJ/multimedia artist Baiyon, Eden features possibly the most contemporary design I have ever seen in a video game.

Until yesterday, the game was exclusive to the PS3 platform, but now is available for all PC users through Steam. As a designer you owe it to yourself to check it out!

Check out and purchase Eden on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/105800/

Read my review of PixelJunk Eden here:
http://qubahq.com/2010/02/gotta-play-pixeljunk-eden/

For the first week, the game is offered at a 20% discount, bringing it to ridiculously low price of $7.99. You can also purchase the soundtrack. It’s well worth it.

Similarly to my 2005 piece entitled Demographix, AE64 is a tribute to the demoscene and to the legacy of world’s most popular microcomputer: Commodore 64.

While this video was created using the typical contemporary arsenal of tools (mainly After Effects and Cinema 4D), it conforms to most of the basic graphical limitations of the C64 such as a limited 16-color palette, low resolution, use of the overscan area etc. To maintain the spirit of the demo, I also created most of the effects using various scripts and code snippets, procedurally automating many of the tasks typically animated using keyframes.

The idea for this video (or, if you prefer, a “wild demo”) came to me a few weeks ago, during the 7DX demoparty. Seeing how this nearly 30 year old system still has people coding for it, developing new tools and techniques as well as actively participating in various demo competitions – really stroke a note of nostalgia in me. I remembered my first C64, countless hours of games, graphic programs, chip tunes… I even recall creating some zine with my friends and printing it on a noisy dot matrix printer. (To be technically correct, my first computer was an Atari 65XE, but for the sake of the story, let’s ignore it.)

For the soundtrack of this piece I chose “Katana Blaster (Constantly Playing Mix)” from the album “Impostor Nostalgia” by Big Giant Circles. The piece was composed by Mick Gordon and since I pretty much had it playing on a loop for several weeks now, I simply had to use it. The song manages to beautifully mix the classic chip tune sounds with contemporary electronic vibes and dubstep rhythm – and Mick was kind enough to give me the rights to use it for this video.

To learn more about Mick Gordon and his music, visit his site at: mick-gordon.com.

If you ever owned a C64, I am sure you will enjoy this piece. Happy new year!

Concept, Design, Animation & Scripting: Quba Michalski
Music: Mick Gordon
Tools: After Effects, Cinema 4D

This video can also be viewed on YouTube

It’s been a few days now since the launch of Portal 2. Looking back at the events leading up to the release I can’t help myself but awe at the skill and imagination of the Valve team. First came Portal (1) – an amazing game, introducing completely new gameplay mechanics to the FPS genre. It spawned cult following, multiple memes (The cake is a lie anyone?) and made countless players fall in love with a gray box with a pink heart painted on it. On March 1st, 2010 the first ARG was launched, eventually leading to the announcement of Portal 2.

The second ARG, running between April 1-18, 2011 sent users on a crazy scavenger hunt throughout 13 indie games (as well as real life locations) in search for the new clues about the sequel. The event culminated in a GLaDOS@home event where thousands of players contributed to releasing the game early. Finally came the game itself. I am not going to dwell on how good Portal 2 is – there are dozens of reviews all over the Internet that evaluate the game in-depth. All I’m gonna say is: if you haven’t done so yet, get it, play it. It’s well worth it. Hell, it is probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I had in a long time.

But is that it? The game is launched, single player and co-op campaigns are played through… I believe not. In this article I am going to speculate on what I believe is yet to come. Please, keep in mind that I am writing it assuming you have finished the game and therefore all matter of spoilers are to be found in the following paragraphs. If you haven’t played Portal 2 yet, do yourself a favor and do it first. If you don’t mind, however, hear out what I think is coming soon.

Before I start, I’d like to remind you once more that the following is a pure speculation, based on some clues and my interpretation of things found throughout the game. The developer did not announce any of the following features either directly or through leaks or hidden messages. The theory does make sense, and if I am right, we are all in for an awesome ride. If not, well, then it will remain just a wishful thinking.

So there it is: I believe that in the near future Portal 2 will receive a massive update including an easy-to-use level editor allowing players to create and access user-made levels for the co-op (2 player) campaign. The feature will most likely be announced at E3. Let’s have a look at the evidence that lead me to this conclusion.

Portal 2: Robot Enrichment

The inclusion of Robot Enrichment center (A place where you can purchase additional accessories and gestures for your avatar) created a massive outcry from some of the players. Many accused Valve of trying to over-capitalize on the game with day one paid DLC. There’s even been a coordinated effort towards lowering Portal 2 Metacritic score as a “payback” for this feature. Where others saw the ugly face of capitalism however, I’ve seen a clue towards the future of the franchise.

Let’s think about it for a moment. Currently the co-op campaign is a finite experience. It spans six courses, each featuring multiple test chambers and will last you (and your partner in science) anywhere between 7-10 hours to complete. If you are absolutely in love with the game, you may play it again. Perhaps maybe even a third time. After a while though, it loses its charm. The joy of playing Portal is solving the puzzles. Once you know the solution to the chamber, the enjoyment diminishes rather quickly. Sure, you can create your own challenges, trying to beat the level in a record time, use less portals – but honestly speaking, there isn’t really that much replay value beyond perhaps 1 or 2 extra playthroughs.

At the same time we have the game offer the player quite expensive extras for their avatar. If I was to fully outfit my robot with a new paint job, a hat, a flag, funny eyeglasses and a full set of extra gestures it would cost me a grand total of $32. That’s over half of the price of the game itself (Portal 2 sells on Steam for $50). Quite excessive price for a bunch of useless items for a game I will play no longer than 30 hours total, isn’t it? That’s either some really bad marketing sense, or we are only seeing a little part of a bigger, yet unannounced picture.

Let’s look further. Each player’s backpack spans 6 pages, offering a grand total of 300 item slots. Even if I was to purchase every single item offered by the store at the moment, I would not be able to fill it up. There’s also trading area, currently not active (coming soon). By the time trading becomes available most of the players would have finished playing and re-playing co-op levels. Why would Valve go into such effort creating all the props, shop and trading if they weren’t expecting the users to be playing the game beyond the estimated 30 hours? In the current state it really makes no sense whatsoever.

The natural conclusion we can all arrive at is: DLC levels are coming. That could solve the entire mystery, but I think there is more to be found here. Let me elaborate.

In-game avatar customization can be found in another Valve title: Team Fortress 2. Over nearly four years since the release, the game received unprecedented amount of updates and free DLC packs. New maps, game modes, avatar customization options and weapons have been steadily added to the title, extending its playability way beyond the typical lifespan of an FPS. The gameplay of Team Fortress 2 however, is a completely different experience. With 9 different player classes and up to 32 players in a match a single map provides infinite number of ways in which a match may evolve. Releasing an update with just 2 or 3 new maps guarantees endless hours of new gameplay for the users.

Portal 2 is a different kind of game. A new map can be played a few times, but as I noted earlier – once the solution is known, it loses its appeal rather quickly. In order to keep users playing, Valve will have to supply them with a constant stream of new test chambers to play through, and I honestly doubt they do have the manpower to keep creating them in-house. If we look at TF2′s example again, the latest updates typically feature maps created both by Valve itself as well as user-made ones. Valve in fact actively encourages and promotes user-generated content and even allows players to donate money to the modders / map makers through the purchases of the in-game virtual items.

Currently mods and maps for all games using Valve’s Source engine need to be created using Hammer editor (a part of Source SDK). The program is quite robust, but has a fairly steep learning curve and definitely is not targeted towards an average player, but rather towards serious indie developers. Original Portal supported user-created maps, but due to the intricacies of content creation in Hammer, only a handful of mods and maps were created and even fewer were actually known to the general public. Provided I am correct with the assumption that Valve expects a massive influx of new levels into the game, they will need to offer players a simpler solution for creating new content.

Portal 2: Wheatley Test Chamber 00

Now here is where you may accuse me of overextending my theory, but since it is all one big speculation, I don’t see why not. The two screenshots (above and below this paragraph) show two of the test chambers designed by Wheatley in Chapter 8: The Itch. Note the giant “test” written on the walls of both of the chambers. Of course the running joke in the game is that Wheatley is a “dumb moron” and cannot come up with his own test chamber designs. But there is, possibly, something more to it.

Portal 2: Wheatley Test Chamber 01

If you have ever downloaded extra user-created levels for the original Portal, you probably stumbled upon at least few chambers that bore the very same mark of inaptitude. Someone would plan to modify an existing level, mark it as test (often in a very similar fashion), completely fail at the task but still release it to the public. I have played multiple user-created levels in Portal 1 looking exactly like Wheatley’s creations – simple, uninspired, with a giant word “test” written on the wall. Hell, I possibly even created one (but never released it).

It is a possibility that these two chambers of the single player campaign are not just a joke on the Wheatley’s poor A.I. but rather a reference to the poor user-generated content that was created for Portal (1) and will undoubtedly be present should an easy level editor be released for Portal 2.

Why not announce such a major feature before the launch, you may ask. Well, look at Starcraft 2. Months before the release, Blizzard Entertainment announced that the game will feature a map/mod shop where the users will be able to upload and even sell and purchase new content for the game. As the launch grew closer, the announcement was made that the shop will not be available at the shipping time but included in a free update shortly afterwards. It’s been nearly a year since the release of StarCraft 2 and that feature has yet to be implemented. Many players hold it against Blizzard to promise such a feature and then take such a long time implementing it, a lot of them feeling they have been lured to purchase an incomplete product.

Valve is known for its fantastic interaction with the community and I seriously doubt they would risk antagonizing their fans by making them wait for such a feature. It makes much more sense to keep it unannounced and then release it when it is ready. They might have been planning to have it ready at launch (keep in mind that the original release of Portal 2 was planned for late 2010) and decided to delay it in order to implement it. When the April launch drew near and “map editor and marketplace” were still not ready, they might have decided to let the game out and keep the extra features for a post-launch release.

Finally, keep in mind that Valve was very clear about Portal 2 supporting user-created content. One of the marketing points for the game was the fact that both PC, Mac, PS3 and Xbox360 versions will have access to this content (while the editing tools will only be available for PC). We know it is coming, we just don’t know what form will it take.

When should we expect the announcement? May 1st (International Workers Day) would be a pretty cool time to release it, but I seriously doubt it will be so soon. My guess is that we will hear the official announcement at E3, detailing the editor features and the rest will be up to infamous Valve Time…

…so let me summarize my thoughts in a nice, simple bullet-point list:

• We do know DLC is coming and user-generated content will be supported on all platforms
• The inclusion of the Robot Enrichment center hints at Valve’s expectations towards longevity of Portal 2
• In order to support longevity, Portal 2 will need constant stream of new test chambers
• Developing new maps in-house would not be efficient for Valve
• Editing maps in Hammer is not for everyone and will not generate large influx of new levels
• Many other games have proven user-generated content helps extend lifespan of the title (Little Big Planet, Super Meat Boy, Team Fortress 2, Mod Nation Racers, Starcraft)
• People need easy tools to create massive amounts of content
• The design of Portal 2 test chambers is very modular already
• Ergo (in my humble opinion) we will soon hear the announcement of a non-Hammer level editor and map marketplace for Portal 2

That’s my 2000-word 3 cents on the subject. Hope you enjoyed the read. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Update:
At the time I wrote the above article I haven’t yet completed the co-op campaign. Now that I have it seems even more certain that Valve is planning to deliver us the means to create a lot of new content. While my guess about new, easy editor is still just that – “a guess”, I don’t really see any other way to seed multitude of new levels on a scale envisioned by the final co-op animatic.

Portal 2: All the new test subjects

In the final animatic, the two bots (Atlas and P-Body) to the delight of GLaDOS, open a vault filled with thousands of new test subjects. It clearly indicates that the real multiplayer experience is going to come. It is not clear if it will be a part of Portal 2 update, a totally new Portal 3? Hell, it may even be a Portal MMO ;)

My bet though is on the theory above – thousands of users creating and playing thousands of new levels, and I don’t really see it happening any other way than providing the players with simple tools for creating new content. There, you have me on the record. Come E3 either congratulate me on my extremely accurate prediction and hire me as a presidential advisor, or come back here to mock me. Just keep in mind – if I am right, we all win.

That is unless Valve surprises us again with something nobody thought of!

Update (October 19th, 2011)
Well, it seems that while I was way off on the timing (though I attempted to compensate for valve time), my speculations were pretty close to Valve’s plans. In the recent update to the iPad and Steam App The Final Hours of Portal 2, Geoff Keighley added a new chapter entitled Unlikely Architects. In there he describes the process of developing new DLC content for Portal, as well as provides us with a sneak peek at the new user friendly level editor, currently in development.

Geoff Keighley: An exclusive look at Portal 2′s simplified level editor

According to Keighley, “In this new program it will be as easy to create a test chamber as it is to build a small level in LittleBigPlanet or Minecraft.”. Hell yea. We can’t wait!

My Collector’s Edition of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm contained two guest passes for Starcraft 2. If you still haven’t played this amazing RTS, here’s a chance to give it a try. Each guest pass will allow you to download the game and play it for 7 hours or 14 days from activation (whichever comes first).

I have two of those to giveaway. Simply post a comment below for your chance to get one. You will have to be a registered user of this site in order for me to be able to send you the activation key. The two winners will be randomly chosen on Friday evening (GMT).

Update!
Thanks to the generosity of Michael Hoskins (http://www.pixelbath.com/), I now have one more key to give away! (that’s total of 3) I am going to extend the deadline to Monday, so all you less frequent visitors get your chance, too.

I have been hard at work these past several days weeks months. My collector’s edition Starcraft 2 box is sitting right next to the computer, but I still could not even find time to finish the campaign (not to mention the multiplayer).

I usually manage to shell out half an hour a day or so, to watch some replays (comentated by Husky and HD Starcraft) of top tier players. This is my impression of how my game would look like.

Hello Mac people! It is not too late to still grab your free copy of Portal – probably one of the best games ever made, now available for OSX.

To celebrate the launch of Steam platform for Mac, Valve software made Portal free to all the Mac users until May 24th. They also produced this cute little infographic announcement animation, promoting the… promotion.

Free Portal for Mac: Trailer

So what are you waiting for? Head over to http://store.steampowered.com/, install Steam and get yourself some free cake game!

A while back, I have created a set of spray images for Valve’s Team Fortress 2. It was released as the q3c’s custom sprays for TF2, but has since been taken offline. During the data recovery after the recent HDD crash, I came across these graphics, and decided to re-release them here at QubaHQ.

The pack contains a total of 11 sprays: One for each to the 9 Team Fortress 2 classes, with one extra medic spray and a little something for all the World of Warcraft players. Well… the ones who play the Horde, at least. All the installation instructions are included in the download.

Team Fortress 2 Spray Pack 1 preview

Download the QubaHQ TF2 Spray Pack 1 below:
http://downloads.qubahq.com/QubaHQ_TF2_SprayPack1.zip

…and yes, in case you wonder “Spray Pack one” is named this way on purpose. In the near future I am planning to release some more of those :)

If you ever played classic 8-bit platformers, you know the drill. The hero fights monsters, defeats the boss and saves the princess. But what’s next? In video games you simply get a congratulatory message (“The Winner Is You”), but you never get to see how does “Happily Ever After” look like.

Well, thanks to Australian studio JOHO, now we can all learn. Their hilarious animation DAN the MAN is one of the best takes on the 8-bit gaming I’ve seen in a while. And, according to the YouTube comments, the sequel one is on its way! Video after the break.

DAN the MAN

If you like gaming, have a PC that’s not yet a museum piece, but you don’t yet own The Orange Box (or all the games that comprise this amazing collection), do yourself a favor: Stop reading this article, go to the Steam page of The Orange Box, purchase it for for $30 and let it download in the background while you continue with this post. It’s that good.

Released in October 2007, The Orange Box is a compilation of some of the best titles produced by Valve Software: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes One and Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. They even throw in a tech demo Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, just in case the rest is not enough for you. You will be playing this stuff for months.

Half-Life 2: Combine terrorizing City 17

I don’t like to use numbers as an incentive for promoting my favorite gaming titles, but this time I pretty much have to. Typically a new game will run you for 50 or 60 bucks (that’s already twice more than TOB). Slightly older titles may drop to half of the price over time. In here you are getting one full-length title (HL2), three medium-length ones (HL2 episodes and Portal) as well as one of the best online multiplayer games (TF2), all for $30. If that isn’t an insane bargain, I don’t know what is.

Sure, games in the box are not the latest ones – but that’s only if you look strictly at the release date. Valve has been always known for unprecedented support for their games. Other studios typically release the game, then a bunch of DLC content, perhaps a patch or two if something is really broken and go on to their next title. Valve continues patching, improving and expanding their games with free updates for many years, creating game lifespans unseen anywhere else, with possible exception of MMOs.

Some of the more notable updates include the addition of the Achievement system to all the titles, upgrades to the Source engine, introducing HDRI and upcoming Mac OSX support, eight massive Team Fortress 2 updates containing new maps, weapons, items and even class mechanics and many more. On top of that, Valve’s Source SDK included in the package spawned huge amounts of user-generated content, from small mods changing the existing titles all the way to full-length games, all available for free download.

Half-Life 2: The Citadel slowly crushing through the buildings

While the original Half-Life 2, included in the box is almost 6 years old, the engine holds surprisingly well against the test of time. It may not be able to push as many polygons as CryEngine or whatever the id guys come up with, but beautiful and smart art direction in all the games in this package proves that it’s not the amount of polygons, but how you use them – that matters.

Let’s talk about the games themselves.

Half-Life 2 and the two episodic installments follow the ongoing saga of world’s best physicist-turned-badass, Gordon Freeman on his quest of surviving and understanding the dystopian reality of Combine-occupied world. Sci-Fi? Check! Zombies? Check! Fantastic script and acting? Check. What else do you need?

Half-Life 2: Episode 2: Cinematic building destruction

Without spoiling too much of the story, a lot has changed since the Black Mesa incident in the original Half-Life. While Gordon was suspended in stasis, the world has surrendered to the alien invasion and only small pockets of resistance remain fighting to take it back. Armed with an arsenal of weapons, a trusty crowbar and (slightly later in the game) the gravity manipulator gun, Freeman’s journey will take you on a crazy ride throughout good 35 hours of content spread among the three games.

While the gameplay is great, it is hard not to mention a deep and involving story that drives the actions of our protagonist. Full of twists and turns, it really enhances the immersion and gives the player a reason for playing much deeper than the usual (you’re the sole survivor, kill everything) scenarios of first person shooters. The ending of Episode 2 is one of most surprising and shocking developments in the story so far, leaving millions of fans hanging in the wait for long-delayed Episode 3.

Portal: A world in a world in a world in a…

Once you finished all the Half-Life 2 content, or when you need a break from it, you can grab Portal – a second title in The Orange Box collection. This mind-bending first person puzzle game will put you in a role of Chell, a subject of Aperture Science experiment involving a device that allows you to connect any two given spots in space using portal technology. Guided by the artificial intelligence computer GLaDOS, you will navigate a devious obstacle course (and beyond) lured by the promise of a big party and cake.

As with Half-Life 2, the writing and voice acting is absolutely superb – this time however, fueled by seemingly endless reserves of dark humor. While Portal was added to The Orange Box as a sort of experiment, it became one of the most famous titles in this collection, building up a cult following and springing to life numerous Internet memes.

Portal: Puzzle room

With the pending holiday 2010 release of Portal 2, you owe it to yourself to get familiarized with this title, especially since it’s setting is placed within the Half-Life universe and the story may intertwine with both the future Portal project as well as Episode 3.

Single-player content of The Orange Box concludes with the tech demo of Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast. This short chapter in the story of Gordon Freeman is one of the stages cut from the Half-Life 2 and concentrates on showcasing the (then) newly-added HDRI lighting techniques in the source engine.

Team Fortress 2: Blu team

Multiplayer component of The Orange Box comes in the form of Team Fortress 2 – a class-based FPS that despite its age (game years are even tougher than dog years) still boosts as strong a following as it did in the months following the launch. Looking at Team Fortress 2, it is hard to believe the game runs on the very same Source engine as the rest of the box. Instead of the realistic look, the game has been art directed in a cartoony, comic style, reminiscent of Pixar’s The Incredibles.

In TF2, player selects one of the 9 available classes and together with the team-mates competes in various gameplay modes against the team of the opposite color. Each class plays very differently from one another and players are encouraged to dynamically switch them depending on the current battle situation. Recent additions (expansions) introduced additional maps, weapons, gameplay modes as well as an entire crafting system for new items.

Team Fortress 2: Red Pyro

Team Fortress 2 is immensely fun to play, not only due to its depth but also because of the humor and style. It is hard not to laugh at Pyro’s muffled screams or Heavy’s love relationship with his gun. And if you get bored with the original content of the game, there are tons of user generated maps, mods and other additions, always keeping the game fresh.

It is really hard to sum up the entire Orange Box experience in one short article. Four amazing single-player games, months of online fun with the multiplayer TF2, endless supply of free mods for each of the titles as well as a very strong machinima following based on the Source engine make this collection an absolute must-buy for everyone.

The Orange Box is currently available for Windows PC, XBOX and PS3 with Mac OSX support coming soon. Personally, I have only played it on a PC, but I hear the XBOX port is pretty good. While I haven’t tested it myself, word on the street is, however, that the Playstation port is quite… iffy and I would recommend caution and perhaps some research when considering it.

Additionally, the PC version gets most regular free updates, great content delivery through Steam, and myself I always think first-person games are best controlled using a mouse and a keyboard. Once the OSX support launches, all the owners of the PC version will be automatically entitled to download the Mac version free of any extra charges.

The Orage Box: Trailer

The Orange Box (PC) is available for purchase at:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/469/

- Shall we play a game?
- Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?

You might remember a certain 1983 movie entitled WarGames. I was a little kid when it came out, but I got the message: War is bad, computers are awesome. Well, that’s the message I got anyway.

Produced at the height of Cold War, WarGames told a story of a young computer hacker gaining access to the A.I. controlling American nuclear arsenal and almost annihilating the entire planet in the process. The final stand-off took place in a military facility and featured (then) state of the art CGI simulation of a Global Thermonuclear War. It is this segment of the movie where Defcon gets its inspiration from.

Global conflict erupts with a series of co-ordinated strikes

Just like all the other games produced by UK-based Introversion Software, Defcon has a very specific look and feel rooted in the old school game culture, instantaneously appealing to all the geeks. While compared to other strategy games it may be relatively simple – it engages the player on multiple levels and is a very hard game to put down.

Right from the get-go you will know there is something different about this game. The tag line reads: Defcon: Everybody Dies – quite untypical for a game in which you command your country’s nuclear arsenal in a global war. But that’s the whole idea. There are no real winners in Defcon – there is only one player that loses less than the others.

Pre-emptive airplane attack as the nuclear subs close in on America

The atmosphere of the game is something everyone (gamer or not) should experience. The haunting music (generated procedurally depending on the escalation of the conflict), vector graphics and cold statistics appearing on your screen (Tokyo: 14M dead, New York: 6M dead, Warsaw: 4M dead…) give you a feeling of isolation and detachment as the world gets slowly annihilated at your fingertips. While you may enjoy playing the game itself, you will clearly get the anti-war message Defcon conveys.

The game takes player through the five stages of DEFCON (the defense readiness condition). Starting at DEFCON 5, where only troop movements are allowed, the conflict slowly, but steadily, escalates towards DEFCON 1 – an all-out engagement with all your forces working to annihilate the opponent. You will need to deploy your armies, set up offensive and defensive installations, control the attack patterns and hope to remain the last nation standing.

Russia and America in the midst of a full-scale exchange

Defcon can be played solo against computer opponents, or in multiplayer mode over the Internet. Feeding off the Cold War paranoia, the players are encouraged to create alliances, which in the course of each match will inevitably have to fail sooner or later until only one nation prevails.

The game also features an old school staple – an office mode, where the game is played without the sound and can be hidden with a single press of a “boss button”. In office mode the conflict unfolds in real time and a single match can easily last an entire day. (Standard “accelerated” match takes approximately 15 minutes to complete).

Defcon: Gameplay video (click to play)

Defcon is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux and can be purchased directly from the Introversion Software store (£15/$22.50/€17.25) at:
http://store.introversion.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=55

…but you will be probably better off buying it on Steam (PC version, possibly OSX too) for just $9.99:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/1520/

There’s also a demo available both at the official site and on Steam.

Official Defcon: Everybody Dies website:
http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/

Official Introversion Software website:
http://www.introversion.co.uk/