Daniel Remar, who is well-known for Castle of Elite, Hero, and Garden Gnome Carnage, has just released a trailer for Iji, his latest project. Iji is a platformer that’s reminiscent of Out of This World and Flashback. The game is slated for a September 1st release and will be freeware.
Great video! I especially like the part where the Iji “sabotages” her opponent’s gun. Makes me wonder what else she can do with her hacking skills!
As part of Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade, Jonathan Blow’s Braid is hitting XBLA on August 6th, with The Behemoth’s Castle Crashers following soon after on August 27th. August is going to be a good month!
Braid won two of IGN’s “Best of E3” awards this year, including “Best Xbox Live Arcade Game” and “Best Puzzle Game.” It’s also been getting some great reviews from the gaming press.
Procedurally-generated world. Procedurally-generated characters. Deformable terrain. Day/night cycles and environmental effects. Massively multiplayer and online. ONE developer.
Do I even need to mention that he’s a Swede? ...I imagine that Eskil Steenberg, like hearty Obelix from the Asterix comic books, might have fallen into a cauldron of Swedish magic water when he was a kid.
But perhaps I’m being too presumptuous, seeing as the game is still in development. In any case, Love certainly looks beautiful, with computer-created graphics that look painted with a brush. And its cooperative gameplay, though vaguely outlined at this point, sounds very different from your average MMOG.
Eskil’s development blog is full of interesting musings, too, so check it out. I like his latest post, in which he defines his own independence:
Why am I making this game alone? Its a question I get over and over and sometimes ask myself. I think I could get a job at a Game developer, maybe even a big name one. Many people dream of working at Valve, id, Blizzard or Nintendo, but i don’t see what I would do there. They do fine without me, and I would rather play their games as they are, then trying to change them. Sure It would be cool to have a biz card from one of those companies, but isn’t it the people who built those companies who deserve hand them out?
...Like everyone else, I have game design documents, scripts, pilots, deigns [sic], books, and ideas lying around, but at some point you have to be asking yourself, Do I want to spend my time trying to convince the world that I have potential, or do I want to spend my time actually doing something.
Do my eyes deceive me, or is that Romeo on a mobile phone? Could Juliet and the Pie Devil be nearby? Could this mean the long-awaited Multimedia Fusion 2 Java runtime, which François announced at last year’s Click Convention, is finally nearing release? Daddy, why is there hair growing where there wasn’t hair before?
Whoa, hold on there, young buckaroo (Kyle Pulver)...
Yes, before there was RomeoPie Software, there was Romeo and the Pie Devil, a simple platform game that came with the original Klik n’ Play. Ostensibly the brainchild of Clickteam Overlords François and Yves, this game stole the hearts of many a Klik’er, what with its charming graphics and… Pie Devil. Seriously, we love Romeo and the Pie Devil.
Now The Daily Click (the premiere Click website) is purporting that the images and video of this game was brought to them by a “source who claims is on the inside” (cybernetic ninja spyssasin). Is it real? No one knows for sure, but you can check out another image here, and there’s also some in-game footage in the latest Klikcast (at around 6:40 minutes left).
But now that I think about it, there’s no way François and Yves would allow such a thing to be leaked, unless…
Unless they wanted it to be leaked! Good Pie Devil, they’ve been orchestrating this entire thing from the very beginning!
thatgamecompany’s fl0wer was shown at E3 this week. The game, which is slated for a “soon” PS3 release, has you guiding flower petals over lush landscapes by controlling the wind. The game purportedly uses a similar dynamic difficulty adjustment (“DDA”) system to fl0w.
You can see more screens here (Kotaku), and there are two gameplay videos after the jump. It looks (and sounds) lovely.
Josh Whelchel wrote to inform me that you guys helped raise over $800 for his cancer drive. That’s wonderful news!
And there’s more: The Spirit Engine 2, the long-waited sequel to Mark Pay’s much-loved RPG, is slated for a July 30th release, as revealed by the teaser above. There are also two older videos (1|2) that demonstrate the game’s combat system.
TSE2 will not be freeware, like its predecessor, but the final price is unknown. For more info, head to the official website.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s own Kieron Gillen has penned a hands-on preview of Multiwinia, the multiplayer version of Introversion’s hit real-time strategy game Darwinia. Hmmm, that sentence certainly sounds strange with all the “versions” and “winias” in it…
Anyway, in the preview Kieron plays a “King of the Hill” match against four computer opponents. From the preview and the comments following, the general consensus seems to be that the game’s mechanics are simple and relatively standard (which isn’t necessarily a slight). The game also continues to look quite good.
Multiwinia is slated for a PC release in September. It will also be included with the original game as part of Darwinia+ for the Xbox 360 – also due out in the Fall.
Touch My Pixel sent me this preview of a Scarygirl Flash game they’re working on. It looks like fairly standard platforming action, but boy, is it pretty! Love those underwater levels, natch.
The Chronicles of Doryen is an experimental roguelike-in-development that touts “real-time gameplay” and “2.5d perspective” (i.e. limited z-axis) as two of its biggest features. While some might argue over whether the game’s real-time gameplay discounts the game as a roguelike… well, who really cares! The important thing is that the characters in the game are represented by (very colorful and pretty) letters, numbers, and the ever-present ”@” symbol.
There’s no playable version yet, but you can see a video of the game in action, or follow the blog (which is updated fairly regularly). The developer, J.C. Wilk, has also released a sub-game, called The Doryen Arena, that lets you test out Doryen’s combat system in a gladiatorial setting. In the arena you face off against waves of increasingly stronger opponents until you meet an appropriately grisly demise.
As simple as it is (and still v0.5), TDA definitely shows off some of the potential of the real-time thing. It still feels like a roguelike despite having a basic, timing-based combo system(!). I’m interested to see where it goes from here! A multiplayer roguelike with this system seems like it could work!
(C/C++ roguelike developers may also be interested in The Doryen Library.)
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Gish Cryptic Sea wgah’nagl fhtagn.”
