We always appreciate it when the press takes the time to cover indie developers so to return the favour check out the links below:

- For our Italian readers, VGNetwork.it just posted a great review (google translation) giving Hegemony's gameplay and longevity both a 9 / 10!

- And for our French readers, the guys at Net4War published a very thorough review of Gold in Les Cahiers de PC4War n°04 which you can preview online here. My copy is still in the mail so I don't know exactly what they said but they gave it an 8 / 10 so I assume they liked it. They're also publishing an interview with us that should appear in their July issue.

Update: Just got my copy of PC4War ... my highschool French is pretty rough but with the help of google translate their concluding line: "Hegemony Gold is a game too unknown to the public, yet it has tremendous qualities that make it truly a 'must-have' for any lover of ancient Greek history." If your French is better than mine they've done a very thorough job covering the game and you can order a copy from their website.

Hot on our return from the Origins Game Fair, we're ready to launch the boxed copy of Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece. The boxed copy includes a full-colour printed copy of the manual, and you'll also get a digital copy, so you can start playing right away. Click here to buy your copy now!

If you've already purchased a digital copy, you can also buy the boxed copy by logging into the Download Centre and ordering a "replacement CD".

Let us know what you think!

In case you missed our press release, Longbow will be heading across the border to the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio next week to launch the boxed version of Hegemony Gold. We had a great time last year talking to fans, meeting other exhibitors, and showing off the original Hegemony. This year the focus will be on Hegemony Gold but if you ask nicely we might also drop some hints about what we're working on next.

For those who haven't witnessed our travelling show, there will be multiple stations where you can play Hegemony, crazy people in costumes, big discounts (50% off) and this year our art dept has been slaving away making really cool Hegemony collector buttons which will be free to anybody who finds our booth.

Just a notice to anybody who is following our Twitter feed: if you've been following @LongbowGames, you should know that we'll no longer be posting development tweets there anymore. From now on, that feed will only be corporate tweets.

If you want to see developer tweets, follow the @LongbowGames/LongbowDevs list, which follows our personal accounts. Currently that includes me, Britt, and Rob, although he's clearly been slacking.

You might remember back in April when we released a beta of version 1.5.3 with some minor bug fixes. It was so minor, in fact, that even we forgot about it! After over two months, we haven't heard a single bug report, so we're going ahead and releasing this one. You can update by downloading the demo from the Hegemony page or logging into the Download Centre.

Better late than never! If you've purchased Hegemony: Philip of Macedon from us, and would like a physical copy with a printed manual, you can now order a "Replacement CD" when you log into the Download Centre. If you ordered Philip of Macedon from a different site, you can always register your purchase here.

Remember, this is for Philip of Macedon, although we should have news on a physical version of Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece soon.

I don't know who the guy in the photo is but our German publisher posted it to their Facebook page and I had to pass it along. To fill out the rest of the post here are some of the latest reviews for Gold:

"Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece is by far one of the best and most user friendly Strategy Wargames I’ve played in a long while ... The controls are intuitive, the interface is user friendly, the presentation is top notch and the gameplay is presented with easy to understand instructions which do not interfere with or hinder the experience."
- I-Luv-Games

"The bottom line is that Hegemony Gold expands on the original in the best possible way: by providing large-scale, engaging content and a wide open sandbox that finally gives war-gamers a reason to come back to ancient Greece for one more conquest."
-Toronto Thumbs

"85%!"*
- NextGenGamers.

* The last one's in German so I don't know exactly what it says but I can't argue with an 85%!

Looks like Rob found time in his busy schedule to track down some minor bugs in Hegemony. In fact, these are so minor that nobody has ever complained about them, but Rob's a bit of a perfectionist like that. We still like to play safe with these updates, though, so please download the update and let us know if you find any bugs. Keep reading for more details. Continued →

We've rolled another beta, and this time it includes even more portraits, more special units are now available in the sandbox, and the usual spattering of minor bugs has been fixed. As always, our patch betas tend to be very reliable, so don't hesitate to download the beta now, or keep reading for the changelog. Continued →

Looks like no news is good news. With no bug reports since the beta, we're officially releasing 1.5.2. For the change list, see last week's post.

Click here to download the latest version.