Multiwinia is the fourth video game made by Introversion Software, the creators of Uplink, Darwinia and Defcon. It is a real-time strategy game. An Xbox 360 version of the game is planned and will be called Darwinia+. The Xbox Live version will include both the ported version of Multiwinia and its predicessor, Darwinia.

Plot

Multiwinia follows its predecessor Darwinia, in which a computer scientist, Dr Sepulveda, created a digital world that existed within a computer network. This world, Darwinia, was inhabited by a digital life-form called Darwinians and was to become "the world's first digital theme park". In Darwinia, the player eradicated a computer virus that infected the world and threatened the life of the Darwinians. After this, Dr Sepulveda deemed the world safe again. However, the virus had changed something in the Darwinians, and over time they became more aggressive, dividing into factions and fighting. Now labelled Multiwinians, the tribes continue to fight each other.

Gameplay

Multiwinia is a real-time strategy game with six different modes. Each mode is designed to support between one and four players (human or CPU) and up to 50 unique maps of varying difficulties.

• Domination

Each team fights to control the entire map.

Teams fight over the spawn points dotted around the map in order to capture them and achieve a dominant position that will enable them to control the entire map. This game mode will continue until one team is victorious, or a timer can be used to limit the game to a set time limit. After that time the team with the most spawn points will win the game.

• King of the Hill

Two multiwinia tribes battling in the King of the Hill game-mode Occupy key tactical zones around the map to score points.

On each map there are a fixed number of Scoring zones - for a standard sized two-player map there are up to four zones. Each team can score points by occupying these zones with Multiwinians - scoring one point per second for every zone under their control.

Scoring zones often become areas of heavy fighting, and are frequently occupied by several teams at once, all in intense combat. In this case, the team with the largest share of the zone will be scoring the points, and this is shown by rendering the Scoring zone as a "pie chart", showing the team colours occupying the zone and their relative percentages.

• Capture the Statue

Multiwinians must lift the giant stone statues that appear in the Statue Zone, and carry them safely back to their base to score points.

Large numbers of Multiwinians are required to lift the heavy statues, and they move very slowly. If the Multiwinians carrying a statue are killed, it is dropped and remains where it is until more Multiwinians pick it up. If it is dropped heavily (e.g. on the edge of a steep hill) the statue shatters, and re-appears randomly in one of the Statue Zones.