Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:56:00 GMT
78641: A TARG ADVENTURE is “the hit Esperanto interactive simulator ‘Pato Viro Simulilo’ available in the English Language.” “Dedicated in loving memory to the late Patrick Swayze…”
In 78641 you play as a frying pan named Doug (full name: Dougleskoy Fluoride Beachanowicz) who crashes his convertible and dies, but is sent back before the accident by the Time Genie to… pay his insurance premiums?
Okay, your guess is as good as mine. I just started playing. But so far this the best adventure game I’ve seen in a long while. Definitely check it out!
So I’m happy to announce that Indie Brawl, one of our two community projects (the other being BMcC’s Balding’s Quest), is seeing a public release today. IB puts many of the virtual heroes of indie games together in a multiplayer fighting extravaganza. This build has three “complete” fighters to choose from (Naija, The Golden Knight from Bonesaw, and Liero) and several WIP ones (The Dwarf, Trilby, Nikujin, Xoda Rap, and Iji).
One of the things that makes me really proud to be a part of the TIGSource community is that our collaborations and projects see fruition. It’s not an easy task to complete a project over the ‘tubes with so many disparate people – it requires a lot of dedication from the community and management on the part of the project leaders. That we have people who are passionate enough to take a “hey, that’s a cool idea!” and turn it into something real is nigh incredible.
Big props to Soulliard, the tireless team leader and programmer, without whom Indie Brawl would not exist. And also to godsavant, Oracle, and Clemens, who put a ton of work into the pixel art. And Josh “TwiTerror” Whelchel for the music. And everyone else who contributed! Hope you enjoy the build! Remember, the project is always looking for more help!
Here’s a preview of Minecraft’s Survival Mode, which paid customers will get to try out in a week’s time (September 1st). A lot has been added since we first posted about the game, like swimming cave pigs. That’s right, swimming cave pigs. And they have a taste for flesh, but only if it comes in a Hot Pocket.
Anyway, read more about the upcoming release here.
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:16:00 GMT
Bombie Zombie is a lofi action game from forum member Codemonkey, “made in a couple weeks just to see what a zombie game with only landmines would be like.” It also seems to be some sort of a commentary on swine flu? I had trouble following the storyline.
Run around with the arrow keys, jump with Z, place mines with X. Avoid getting swarmed by zombies and other hazards. It’s quite fun!
Download Bombie Zombie here, in the forum release thread.
Fig. 8 is a new browser game from Intuition Games (Dinowaurs, Effing Hail) where you control a bicycle through a city displayed as a technical diagram. I really enjoyed it – it gave me a great reminder of how relaxing it is to ride a bike through a suburban neighborhood (something I haven’t done in a long time). Somehow this wouldn’t have worked without the graphics, audio (great music), and the way the bicycle’s wheels leave tracks.
I’m not sure if it was the right idea to add highscores and combos to this game, however – it’s a lot more fun to do loops and draw pictures on the ground than to maintain a straight line or “grind” edges. Similarly, I think the checkpoints put too much emphasis on finishing rather than simply enjoying the biking.
In the end, I guess I’m uncertain whether it should have been a race at all. I got more enjoyment out of the game once I dropped that pretense. Otherwise, it’s a really wonderful experience.
Trine’s been out for awhile, but you’ll forgive me for being late to the party since I only just now took the demo for a spin. Developed by the Finnish studio Frozenbytes (Shadowgrounds), the first thing you’ll notice about this game is that the production values are very high. The graphics are fantastic, and I enjoyed the spot-on high fantasy voice narration that accompanies you during the game.
The gameplay video above should give you a good idea of what Trine is about – it’s a physics-based puzzle-platformer where you control three heroes with different abilities. In the single-player mode you can switch between the characters at any time. There’s also an offline co-op mode available from the options that lets you play with two or three people.
The game seems really polished all around, although I’ll probably pass on the full version, since neither the narrative nor the level design in the demo really hooked me. Everything, from the character’s personalities to the overall pacing and challenge, felt languid (maybe “casual” is the right word). Still, I think Trine does as advertised – if the video looks good, give the demo a spin.
The full version, which is usually $30, is available for $23 right now on Steam. It’s also coming soon to PSN.
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:07:00 GMT
Sean Maher has quit his day job at the age of 35 to make indie games. Dead Panic is his first release—a strategy game where you must position your troops to defend against oncoming hordes of zombies. You can find screens of the game and more information in his post on the forums. It’s never too late to go indie, I say!
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:01:00 GMT
I should have seen this on either Heather or Renaud’s blog, but of course I saw it on Offworld.
Stimergy is a game by Kokoromi’s Heather Kelley and Polytron’s Renaud Bédard (Team EMERGENCY HAMMER), created in under 36 hours for the Bivouac Urbain game jam in Quebec. In the game you must guide ants toward a picnic blanket using attractive and repulsive pheromones. According to Renaud:
“The game was made from scratch in C# 3.0 using the Truevision3D engine with no prior design, graphics or sound work. All the graphics in the game are procedural, and the gameplay itself is based on AI rules, basically a cellular automaton plus the notion of “stigmergy” from the insect world.”
You can find Stimergy here, along with a postmortem and time-lapse video of the creation of the game. And on the forums Renaud was kind enough to post a link to the rest of the Bivouac Urbain games, which includes entries by Anna and Messhof, among others. Pictures of the event can be found here.
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:13:00 GMT
You may remember the original Swarm Racer from Lexaloffle Games. Well this new version looks more polished and sexy than ever. And it provides a good excuse to start tagging the old Lexaloffle posts here on TIGS. (They’ve released some real gems, if you aren’t familiar!)
