Here are a couple of good-looking old-school 2d games coming from teams known for FPS’s:
Capsized is a platform game that’s reminiscent of Exile. Coming in 2010 to Steam and XBLA, from the creators of the multiplayer FPS Nexuiz.
Locomalito, best known for their chunky FPS 8-bit Killer, are working on Hydorah, a Gradius-style shmup. It will be released as freeware at some indeterminate date.
The indefatigable Brandon Boyer has posted some lovely concept art by Amanita Design. These are sketches for Machinarium, their adventure game which is coming to the PC and Mac this Friday. You can download a short demo and also pre-order the game from the Machinarium website.
Having played it, I can safely say that it is a must-buy for fans of adventure games.
My silence should not be mistaken for inaction, in fact the opposite is true. Today I start the first stage of the open Alpha for Love. At this stage you wont be able to log in and play but you will be able to see the engine run on your machine, giving you an idea of how well your machine will handle the game. This will let me work out any compatibility issues.
Some lovely new screenshots of Love here. (The characters kind of creep me out, though. In a Xenu sort of way.)
I’ve been meaning to mention that the Gratuitous Space Battles beta is open for people who pre-order the game for $19.95. You can follow the development of the game at Cliffski’s blog.
Klei Entertainment (Eets) takes a step in a decidedly more brutal direction with its upcoming XBLA title Shank. I had a chance to try it at PAX, and it’s really fun. The controls are fluid and you can pull off some Desperado-like moves very easily.
Super Meat Boy was shown at a Nintendo press event in London recently, where it was met with acclaim. But honestly, you can’t say anything bad about two guys who look like this.
I realize there have been a lot of previews and trailers and expo stuff lately. But they are cool, no? Don’t worry, more great playable games are coming!
I am excited about this! Aquaria co-creator Alec Holowka, now of Infinite Ammo fame, has released the first teaser for his upcoming adventure/exploration game Marian. (Which was first announced a while ago.) As he’s said before, Alec is all about crafting a deep, personal experience for the player. And I wouldn’t pick anyone else for the job. I am sure his style of holistic game design will result in something truly special.
This is quite an ambitious endeavor, and one that Alec cares more about “than any other project” he’s worked on. If you’re interested in supporting him, head over to the Infinite Ammo site. Godspeed, Alec!
Chris Heckerhas announced that he’s been laid off from Maxis, where he was a major contributor to Spore. In the announcement Chris reveals that he’ll be working on Spy Party, a game which he demoed at this year’s Experimental Gameplay Workshop. In the game you play a sniper watching a cocktail party from another building, trying to figure out which of the partygoers is the spy by looking for various tells. I saw it at EGW and it’s a cool take on the spy genre.
Chris isn’t new to indie games by any means, having helped organize the Indie Game Jam and The Experimental Gameplay Workshop for several years. He also infamously ranted about the Nintendo Wii at GDC 2007, which – even though he was speaking for himself – ended up becoming the rather lurid headline “Spore Developer Calls Wii a Piece of Shit.” Good times!
It’ll be exciting to see what Chris comes up with now that he’s gone ronin! Good luck, man!
Yo, I’m in Washington right now for PAX (first time)! The show starts tomorrow, but today I got to attend a Microsoft event where some indies were in attendence. Slick Entertainment was one of the teams present, and they were showing off Scrap Metal, a “cars with guns” racing game that’s coming out to XBLA next year. As a fan of Rock n’ Roll Racing, RC Pro AM, Off Road, etc., I’m very excited about this one. The handling and physics felt great, and the action was raucous.
The inimitable and cheeky Introversion guys were also present and had Darwinia+ available to play. This game includes both the IGF award-winning Darwinia as well as Multiwinia (shown in the video above). I enjoyed Darwinia a lot but hadn’t ever played Multiwinia, mostly due to my aversion to multiplayer-only games (this might change now that I’ve tried Left 4 Dead 2). But hell, Multiwinia is great fun in singleplayer mode against the computer, too. I’ll be looking forward to grabbing D+ for the full experience.
And finally… Fez wasn’t on hand at the event, but it is coming out for Live Arcade in 2010 and there is some new footage of it in this episode of G4’s Electric Playground (around the 6:00 mark).
