In the last few days, the Tidalis beta period has begun, and we're already in the process of making more updates to it. Things happen fast with Arcen Games! Our initial release of 0.400 ran into a couple of snags with our automated patching on Mac OSX, but considering we are brand new to that platform I was really pleased to see that was the biggest problem there.

As of our new 0.402 version, which is now out, those updater issues should be a thing of the past, and we've added updatable keyboard bindings, more levels and tutorials, improved trial mode functionality based on player feedback, and more! Lots more additions will be arriving nearly daily during the coming weeks.

You can download the demo of Tidalis for free, or the game is available for preorder through the main Arcen store, or through GamersGate. Many of our other partners will be coming online with the beta version of the game in the next month or so, or else will be waiting until the official release, which is currently expected to be in early July.

Not familiar with the game? Here's our spiel about it:

What Makes Tidalis Unique?

What happens when a notable indie strategy developer makes a puzzle game? We have no idea. Our first game happened to be a notable indie strategy game, but we’ve never considered ourselves tied to any particular genre. Truth is, we made Tidalis because we like puzzle games and we wanted to take our opportunity to innovate in that space.

The "streams" mechanic employed by Tidalis is what makes it so unique -- chain reactions with a dozen blocks are trivially easy to create. This makes the game really easy to get into, but also makes the creation of advanced multi-stage combos more challenging than in other block-based puzzlers. At an advanced level of play, it’s the difference between Chess and Checkers; with Tidalis in the hands of an expert, there are more variables to keep in mind as you set up truly elegant interactions.

But never fear: the easier difficulty levels are quite relaxed, and our Zen mode provides a particularly no-rush style of gameplay. The core mechanics are so simple that the two-year-old daughter of one of our staff enjoys playing along with him. And we suppose it goes without saying that many of our mothers are hooked on it, too.

Whether you’re just looking for a casual fun time, a deep and strategic puzzle experience, or a series of brain-bending puzzles, we’ve got you covered. About half of the five staff members working on this game are the hardcore puzzle types, and the other half have completely casual tastes. We’ve approached this with our usual attention to detail: the mechanics of the timing, chain merging, and other mechanics have been refined to a ridiculous degree to provide an optimal experience in all play styles.

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