Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:27:00 GMT
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.
Thanks to Pixel Prospector for the news!
Posted in Windows, Xbox 360, Steam, Videos, Previews | Tags Alientrap, Locomalito | 21 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:28:00 GMT
The latest version of DoomRL has been released. The last version was released over a year ago, so this is nice surprise for fans of the fast-paced roguelike. Version 0.9.9 has a lot of neat additions, including weapon and armor mods, unique items, new levels, new traits, new alt-fire modes, and a badge/medal system, among other things. Lots of balancing and tweaking has been done to the game, too.
This is the coolest version of one of my favorite roguelikes, so I recommend it.
TIGdb: Entry for DoomRL
Posted in Roguelikes, Demakes, Windows, Linux | Tags KornelKisielewicz | 18 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:31:00 GMT
20 new screenshots on the official blog. Looking very, very good! I really like the direction they’re going with the artwork.
Posted in Previews, Wii, Platformers | Tags Nicalis, NIGORO | 41 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:34:00 GMT
I haven’t been able to access the 2dBoy blog for some reason, but I trust that Rock, Paper, Shotgun has reported this accurately: Kyle and Ron have released sales stats for their birthday sale experiment. During the week-long sale you could pay whatever you wanted for World of Goo.
Not surprisingly, the vast majority of people paid $2 and under. But I think things worked out well for 2dBoy in the end – they made 57,000+ sales and generated $100,000+ in one week. Not a bad present for the young game (and its proud papas)!
A survey that players could take after purchasing the game reveals more interesting information.
Posted in Community, Business, Developers | Tags 2DBoy | 19 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:46:00 GMT
Amanita Design’s Machinarium was released last Friday. The game is superb. It’s a beautiful adventure game set in a unique world populated with all kinds of lovable, crazy robots (the protagonist is especially endearing). In my opinion, the visuals are peerless – every room is gorgeous, and filled with little details and surprises that ignite the imagination. The puzzles can get pretty difficult, but by and large I found them to be relatively intuitive and well-done. They’re quite varied, too, and include a mix of hotspot-hunting, inventory-management, timing, and mini-games.
Machinarium marks a very high point in the adventure-gaming and I highly recommend it. Even people who are put off by the slow pacing of most adventure games should try it, as there’s no dialogue in Machinarium and you are sucked into the game itself very quickly (even the title screen is fun!). You can play the demo right in your browser on the game’s website. The full game is $20.
TIGdb: Entry for Machinarium
Posted in Highly Recommended, Adventure, Puzzle, Windows, Macintosh, Linux | Tags AmanitaDesign | 20 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:18:00 GMT
The first ever IGF China wrapped up last week in Shanghai, and our friend Farbs took the top honors with Captain Forever! Congrats, man.
According to Simon Carless, the finalists “came from multiple different Chinese provinces, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia, and over 15 countries were represented in the over 100 entries in the first-ever year of Independent Games Festival China.” You can see all the finalists here. The winners were:
Best Game: Captain Forever, by Farbs (Australia)
Excellence In Art Direction: Donovo, by Magic Day Studio (China)
Technical Excellence: HurricaneX2, by You Yun Tech (China)
Excellence In Audio: Armor Valley by Protege Production (Singapore)
IGF Best Student Game: Autumn Dynasty: Paper Generals, by students from National University of Singapore (Singapore)
IGF Excellent Student Winner: INK, by students from Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore)
IGF Excellent Student Winner: Bumper Halloween, by students from Beijing University (China)
A lot of the other winners look pretty cool, but unfortunately, there’s not a lot of information about many of them. I could only find videos for HurricaneX2, Armor Valley, and Autumn Dynasty. They’re after the jump:
Read more...
Posted in Community, IGF / GDC, Competitions, Developers, Videos | 23 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:21:00 GMT
World of Goo has turned one year old and is having a big sale this week to celebrate. Until October 19th, you can pay whatever you feel the game is worth! Yowza!
Posted in Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Community | Tags 2DBoy | 31 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:05:00 GMT
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.
Posted in Previews, Comics, Cartoons, and Illustration, Adventure | Tags AmanitaDesign | 16 comments
Posted by Xander
Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:30:00 GMT
So it’s not quite the season yet, but what would an MGS game be without a little bit of hype? Arthur Lee will be once again providing a swish parody of the famous series, featuring a suprising amount of gadgets/weapons which seem to mix functionality and the funnies quite nicely.
Release date should be fairly obvious, which hopefully will give some time to improving the music which isn’t quite as accomplished as the rest of the game’s presentation appears to be. The puns however are fantastic enough that I will completely ignore that this isn’t ‘The Underside’.
Posted in Freeware, Action / Arcade, Windows, Videos, Stealth | Tags ArthurLee, MrPodunkian | 19 comments
Posted by Xander
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:40:00 GMT
Star Guard is a short and sweet action-platformer from Vacuum Flowers available for either PC/MACs. Set in a minimalistic and dark world, you play a green guy fighting red guys who are controlled by an evil wizard. You shoot the red guys with X and jump over their cowardly bullets with Z, though a gamepad is recommended if you’ve one available as you’ll need to squeeze off a lot of bullets in quick succession.
This is especially true in the later of the game’s nine levels, each featuring the same charmingly simple aesthetic, although the larger enemies feature some slightly more stylish flourishes. It’s a rather strange game because the pacing and difficulty doesn’t quite mesh with the infinite lives given to you on a normal playthrough. Where as typically mines/traps would require caution and dexterity, these will simply not respawn so even if you die you can just get through the section without worrying about the consequences. Which is fine, however I would’ve preferred if they came back when I did so I could effectively ‘beat’ that section rather than skip it.
That’s literally my only problem with the game and other than that it’s a wonderfully conceived platformer, and if more games could do plot exposition in such a seemless fashion so as to not even slightly interrupt the action then I’d be pretty damn happy with that.
Posted in Action / Arcade, Platformers, Windows, Macintosh | 49 comments
