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?
I’m not sure I could explain, in words, what Benzido’s Qwop is about any better than the above screenshot can. This must be what it’s like for a baby to try and walk!
Happy day! A new build of Cortex Command is out! This version features a ton of new additions, not the least of which is a completely new campaign mission that has you infiltrating a cave full of zombies to retrieve a data disk. Arne’s custom background graphics for this level are a-mazing.
Other additions include a 2x scaled-up windowed mode, a ton new actors and weapons, and improved AI. The movement and HUD seem to be a lot smoother to me, as well, although I think I missed a couple of builds in-between. Overall, though, it just feels a lot more polished.
But yeah, God, everything about this game – the style, the complexity – captures a lot of what made PC gaming fun for me back in the day. It’s great to see all the pieces really start to come together. Go grab it!
In dock’s Tumbledrop, the goal of each level is to drop the pink star onto the island by pulling out the pieces from underneath it, one by one. It’s a simple and fun game that benefits from having a sharp design aesthetic (dock did character art for the WiiWare platformer LostWinds). If you want to see conceptual work for Tumbledrop, check out his development blog.
Definitely one of the few puzzle games I’ve played where I actually enjoy the anthropomorphic pieces. I’m hoping that if I play Tumbledrop a hundred more times then the Snood creatures will finally stop visiting me in my nightmares. I swear to God, if anything is slumbering in the dead city of R’lyeh, it’s those horrific beasts.
Tumbledrop is made in Unity, for the Unity Awards 2008 competition, and as such, requires the Unity browser plugin to play. It’s a very quick, and painless, installation, so I think you should just do it, okay! The full version of the game will be updated over the coming months with more levels, and medals that you can win for each stage.
People who pre-ordered the PC version of World of Goo will receive a download link tonight, at midnight (along with a hearty thank you!). The final deadline for pre-orders is 11:59pm PST, so there’s still time. For everyone else, the game will be released simultaneously on WiiWare and PC a week later, on Monday, October 13th. OSX and Linux versions are forthcoming.
