Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:32:00 GMT
Crane Wars, the eighth and latest web game from Phoenix-based Flashbang Studios, is now playable on Blurst, continuing their proud lineage of fun, funky, free, and (often) physics-based games. Crane Wars is a game of dueling construction sites, and the classic battle of Union vs. Scab. Using the crane, stack your buildings high before funding runs out, but beware of sabotage (or should I say scabotage, ho ho). As with other Flashbang games, it starts with this simple, clever mechanic, but quickly turns to madness, with burning rubble covering the ground, trucks flying through the air, and so on.
This post took hours to write cuz I couldn’t stop playing it. You too may play it right here.
Oh yeah! Excellent music by the similarly excellent Alec Holowka. It quite reminds me of Rare’s games on the N64… must be the tuba?
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Tue, 19 May 2009 04:33:00 GMT
Look: In-game beta footage of Hitlers Must Die!, the first track off Cryptic Sea's upcoming game album, No Quarter. Seems to be coming together rather well! (Those shadows... *swoons*)
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Wed, 13 May 2009 18:26:00 GMT
Oh. My. Goodness.
Blaster Master meets Bionic Commando, with sexier physics and disturbing visuals? Yes, please. Not only is this the best XNA Community game I think I’ve ever seen (though, I’ll admit, my experience with XNA games is limited), it may be the best game ever? (Sure, I’m exaggerating here. But only slightly.)
My very first thought when I saw this was, “Hey, that looks like one of Arne’s concepts!” Could this be the dream game he’s been waiting for? I mean, supposedly it “features dynamic decision branching, and multiple, story-driven endings.” Does that mean free-roaming exploration? I sure hope so.
Find more at creator Nathan Fouts’ website, Mommy’s Best Games.
Also, his dev log can be found here, and is now added to the DevRoll, natch.
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Tue, 12 May 2009 16:30:00 GMT
Moving on, then! Here is a trailer of the latest in the PS3 PixelJunk series from Q-Games, tentatively titled 1-4. It looks floaty and physicsy and fun! Think Solar Jetman (one of my favourites), or Oids or something, but with impressive liquid physics, destroyable terrain, and slick, modern visuals. I dunno if the music in the trailer is from the game, but it seems cool too!
There was a contest going on to pick the name of 1-4, but it looks like the entry period is now over. (Sorry, folks!) Anyway, you can still find more about the game here.
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:50:00 GMT
Cactus has released his first ever (?) sports game, suitably titled Ping Pong. Battle Dino, Bunk, Pasztor, Hoff, and Noir by pressing Z and sometimes the arrow keys!
For being a platformer called “Jumpman,” this is one of the freshest games I’ve played recently. The most obvious comparison is messhof’s Punishment series, but this feels much more multidimensional (in more ways than one). There are some really interesting ideas at play here, and some of the best ones are in the later stages.
To quote the author:
The hope is to try to make you believe that every 2600-era platformer would have looked like this if only you’d pulled the camera back about 4 feet. Like, every old game had something where you could walk off one side of the screen and suddenly appear on the other, right? What was actually happening there? Did space in the world where Pac-Man lives just happen to loop back on itself every ten feet? What would happen if you just took the camera and turned it a little bit to the right, would you see Pac-Man duplicated every 10 feet stretching off into the distance forever…?
Jumpman makes me think that being a character in an Atari game is like being a character in the movie Cube. Disturbing!
Here’s something to be super excited about: Petri Purho’s long-awaited Crayon Physics Deluxe is finally heading to the PC on January 7th, and he’s doing a week-long series of daily updates to celebrate the release! Fans who pre-order the game before tomorrow will receive the game a few days earlier, on January 4th. It was also announced that CPD is now being published on the iPhone by none other than Hudson Soft (the creators of Bomberman and Adventure Island).
Crayon Physics Deluxe was the grand prize winner of the 2008 Independent Games Festival, and is undoubtedly one of the best indie games I’ve ever played. Congratulations, Petri!
Speaking of Mac, Cortex Command has finally hit the clean, mean Apple machines! Like its PC brother, this version comes with a demo. The $18 license should work for both Mac and PC of the game.
Image courtesy of CherryT from the Data Realms Fan Forums, via the Epic CC Moments thread. The giant mech in the screen is a mod made by one of the users. This is your brain on Cortex Command…?
Quick note: Data Realms is having a Black Friday sale for Cortex Command. The popular squad-based action/strategy physics game is $9 over the weekend, which is half-off its normal price. And with build 22 having just come out, there’s no better time. Buying the game now will entitle you to all the updates through the end of the first campaign.
Hope everyone who got to eat turkey last night enjoyed it. There’s a lot to catch up on and I promise I’ll get to it soon!
There’s a brand spankin’ new website for Crayon Physics Deluxe. You can now pre-order the IGF award-winning physics game through PayPal, for $14.95 ($5 off the full price). That will also get you into the beta, whenever it starts. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that Petri can get this game out in 2008! That would pretty much cap off what I feel is the best year for independent gaming yet. Wouldn’t it?
