Harvey is struggling to adapt to his post adventure life. Days and nights no longer have any meaning. That is until his deceased brother Victor shows up at his doorstep.

Victor offers Harvey a chance to give his life purpose again. Are Victor's intentions pure or does he have something sinister planned for our hero?

- Make your own weapons with materials you collect on your journey
- Collect over 30 outfits, each with a special bonus
- Collect stickers of all your favorite characters (and Jack)
- Keep track of everything in your journal
- Tons of side quests and exciting things to do
- Start a new game with all of your weapons, armor, items and levels intact

The Last Gamers of The Old Code, Egsa SoftWorks has teamed up with new gaming imprint Egsa Press to deliver the first new book of the “Geo Age”.

The Armchair Historian’s Guide (71 pp., tpb, $12.95) gives grassroots indie gaming fans the chance to make history.  The Armchair Historian’s Guide takes readers on a world wind tour through the rich shared tradition of celebrating achievements in gaming to the new World Standings Network (WSN) - the first leaderboard for indie games.

The first edition of The Armchair Historian’s Guide will be available as a limited run signature edition. The Armchair Historian’s Guide 2010 Edition will be available for pre-order at the Egsa Outfitters (www.egsaoutfitters.com) beginning July 19th and is tentatively scheduled to be distributed by Egsa Press to global retailers in mid September.

About Egsa SoftWorks(tm)

Chicago-based Egsa SoftWorks develops video games for mobile devices, personal digital assistants, notebook and desktop based computers systems.  Devoted to the true hardcore gamer, the company’s titles include the cult hardcore hit Circuit Breaker. For more information visit www.egsa.com Egsa
SoftWorks, Egsa Press and Circuit Breaker SE are trademarks of Egsa Corp.

This game is a platform game along the lines of Super Mario Bros / Sonic the Hedgehog - a genre I'm really not very fond of, but it's fun nonetheless and there's a great sense of humour behind it.  Using your amazing science powers you gain a new power-up every level.  Graphics are nice, music is good and the speech samples are very funny.

All in all, if you like Sonic / Mario Bros style games, you're going to have a blast with this one.

Ray Ardent: Science Ninja is a high-speed platformer where you battle through dangers that only a man who is a scientist and a ninja can survive. Dr. Ray Ardent is a man of adventure, a man of the world, but most importantly, a man of SCIENCE!

Ray Ardent charges into battle with 11 different power-ups which he uses across 15 levels.

After 2 plus years of development GabCab was released today.

__________________
Russell Carroll
Airport Mania | Simplz: Zoo | GabCab | Blog-like thingy

Rune Twister is a simple variation of Tetris and match-3 game, released by Bionic Nose.  Instead of collecting only rows of blocks, focus on colors and runes too. Rotate the blocks or the whole board, remove lying blocks by matching them or collect special runes and use them to your advantage. Green bonuses are waiting to aid you in your game, but watch out for the dangerous red ones lurking in the darkness of the board. Clean up the board and get ready for the next challenge. Have fun!

Features:

• unlimited gameplay time
• online highscores
• 6 modes of difficulty
• difficulty progression
• 5 types of bonuses and 3 types of traps
• soothing sounds and music
• eye candy graphics
• share with friends (1 game key works on 3 PC's)

Requirements:

• 56 MB free disk space
  (installer size: 32 MB)
• 64MB graphic card (or better)
• DirectX 8 (or higher)
• Windows XP (or higher)
• mouse, keyboard
• internet connection

Price: $4.99

Rune Twister Trailer

Related Links:

Are We Ready For the Close Encounter of the 9th Kind? J.U.L.I.A. Game Announced.

Popuvky, Czech Republic – August 24, 2010 – From the depths of Space flies J.U.L.I.A., a logical video game built upon the story of Rachel Manners, a 35 year old astrobiologist, who was among a close group of scientists chosen to embark upon one of the most critical mission ever conceived on Earth.

Early game information can be seen at :

www.JuliaTheGame.com

”Imagine how you would feel if you were jolted out of a cryogenic sleep by an emergency alarm.  As your surroundings come into focus, you recognize the huge space probe on which you find yourself but only vaguely recollect the reason why are you there. “, said Jan Kavan, director at CBE and continued describing the game's atmosphere. “Disoriented, you rush into the control room and realize that you have been asleep for several decades already. As the probe's A.I. fills you in, you discover that you are the last surviving member of the entire crew with no ordinary mission: to encounter extraterrestrial sentient life-forms. Yet something went terribly wrong...”

In your mission you will:
- Step into the spacesuit of Rachel Manners and find out why you were singled out of the whole expedition.
- Utilize an ingenious MOBOT - mobile robot suited for planetary exploration - to discover secrets and mysteries of the solar system far away from ours.
- Solve the mystery of the mission's failure.
- Travel to six unique planets and uncover their secrets.
- Solve puzzles, gather clues and communicate with the probe's temperamental artificial intelligence: Julia.

J.U.L.I.A. will be available in Q1/2011.

For additional information about J.U.L.I.A. visit www.JuliaTheGame.com or contact CBE at
Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/juliathegame
Or see J.U.L.I.A. in motion on our dedicated YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/JuliaTheGame

About Cardboard Box Entertainment

Founded in 2006 by Jan Kavan and Lukas Medek, a duo of creative independent developers from the Czech Republic, Cardboard Box Entertainment has a clear mission: to bring to life strong stories and explore new possibilities beyond the traditional gameplay paradigm. Debuting with paranormal comedy Ghost in the Sheet, both developers also individually contributed to such games as Dark Fall 2, Barrow Hill, Tale of a Hero, Colour of Murder or The Black Circle.

August 24th, 2010 -- Experienced independent developer Ben Bradley reveals a unique new game currently in development. "Substream" is a highly animated, abstract 3D shooter which show cases multiple innovations and has already been in development for several months.

ABOUT THE GAME

--------------

The following details have been made available:

Substream is a single-player game, currently being developed for Windows PC with other platforms in consideration. Gameplay involves flying a futuristic fighter ship over a dynamic landscape, whilst attacking and defending against various and numerous enemy ships and other entities. The game is built from the ground up in order to incorporate multiple innovative new technologies:

+ Substream uses a complex new approach to music synchronization, which allows in-game events to be associated with the notes and intensity of individual instruments, melodies, drums or sounds within a song mix. The approach here is one of careful and considered human design, which allows for a much broader and stronger set of associations than are normally seen within synaesthesia games.

+ The game features a fully dynamic environment. In Substream, the entire ground below the player is able to morph simultaneously. Color schemes, shapes and lighting methods are all designed to be dynamic. When combined with its music synchronization technology this leads to a game which is able to constantly reflect the themes, patterns and emotions in its music.

+ Substream exists in a universe with a spatial distortion causing objects to appear at multiple positions simultaneously. Within the game the player is effectively controlling an infinite chain of ships that are fighting infinite chains of enemies. This requires no additional controls or understanding from the player but leads to several interesting new gameplay possibilities.

The game will be independently funded and published, and developed with a creative freedom which focuses on the quality of experience. A release is planned for 2011.

 "Musical synaesthesia has been used in several games now to great effect and I'm a big fan of it, but I wanted to take it further than automatic beat detection would allow. The best way to describe designing levels for Substream is 'choreography'. I'm creating a sequence of movements and physical changes that reinforce the themes, rhythms and moods of the music. Essentially the game is dancing." - Ben Bradley

Substream Trailer:

Substream Official Website

GravelTrain has released the permanent title of their upcoming Strategy Role Playing Game to be 'Stone Age Square Battle'.

As the title suggests, the entire game is set in the Prehistoric era. While the game's story was still in the concept stages, it was decided that the setting would be thought of as the 'first or second adventure of mankind' (which explains the '2' in the former working title), and that self-mockingly, various elements that are commonplace in the RPG genre would see their first incarnation within this game. While there remains an element of that in the current version of the script, it has been modified to be less obvious. For those who are aware of the original intention, it will be noticeable as they play through the game.

Just to bring some relief to those who are imagining an adventure where the entire premise is to live out the known milestones of early Mankind, keep in mind that the term 'Alternate Prehistory' would be more accurate. Consider the heavy influence of early JRPGs when thinking of the game. In other words, there will be wildly powered skill attacks as well as hand to hand combat with Dinosaurs and various other Megafauna. Also the game is full of creative variations on the standard RPG types such as Knight, Ninja, Samurai, Attack Mage etc.

Stay tuned for more upcoming information, and if there are any questions head over to www.graveltrain.com and send a quick e-mail. We'll do our best to respond promptly.

peas out.

Perplaxis is an intense action puzzle game where you rotate pieces around a board matching based on color, constantly battling against time to keep your board clear. The pieces that show up are based on the seasons of the year: more reds and yellows in summer, blues and purples in winter for example. There are plenty of power ups to help and even a monster named Chompo who scarfs down pieces!

Now that this is out, Walk N' Squalk Productions are going down a different route to most indies and making several smaller games to test out some ideas, rather than saying "our next game will be bigger, better, more amazing" etc.  It will be interesting to see how that idea works out for them.

Perplaxis on Xbox Live Marketplace

Hadron Games™ is please to release a new build of Hadron Game Engine™ (HGE) an advanced 2D game engine for PC's running Microsoft Windows® and uses Direct3D® for hardware accelerated rendering. It's robust, designed for easy use and suitable for making all types of 2D games and other graphic simulations.

HGE has support for use from multiple programming languages and you access the features from a simple and intuitive procedural API to allow you to rapidly and efficiently develop your graphics simulations. There is support for surfaces, textures, sprites, audio, streams, archives, configuration files, render targets, swap chains, databases and much more.

HGE comes standard with language bindings for Pascal (Delphi, Lazarus/FreePascal) and standard C++. For Pascal, simply add HGE.pas to the project uses section and for C++ add HGE.h and HGE.cpp to you project. The bindings will dynamically load and bind to the exported routines from the HGE.dll.

There is also a thin object oriented layer (optimized for each supported language binding) for fast and efficient object management. Features include Actors, Actor Lists, Actor Scene, AI, Entities and Game Management. You can create an actor, drop it on a list it will be updated and rendered automatically for example. There is enough to provide a foundation to build your own higher level object management system from this.

I've often wondered what the success was of the "Pay What You Want" promotions I've seen many indie game developers trying, and recent correspondance from Chronic Logic has given me some answers.  I think indie game developers and game players alike will find it interesting:

Our game Gish has become very popular in the indie community, and just recently we released an update for it that has a number of new features. The most notable aspect of this new release other then the great community created levels is the choose-your-own-price promotion, where gamers do exactly that! So far, we have gotten a great response and we would like to spread the word even more.

Choose-your-own-price means exactly what it sounds like. As the gamer you decide what value our game, Gish, is worth to you, and pay exactly that amount, no questions asked. A casual gamer might decide that they want to play through the content once or twice, enjoy the story and then move on to a new game. Other players might be out to immerse themselves in the community, and play classic levels again and again to challenge their high scores. We feel that players who appreciate parts of the game for certain aspects should still be able to extract that enjoyment without digging deep into their wallets. At the other end of the spectrum, players who are absolutely in love with our work and want to support us shouldn't be timid or limited.

This pricing strategy often times raises eyebrows and people ask the question, won’t everyone just pay the minimum? As an indie company the relationship we have with our customers is much different than what you would see between huge corporations and gamers. We are not just out to make money, but genuinely enjoy producing unique game experiences for our fans. Our motivation is to accumulate loyal fans and customers more so than wealth. Within the community most gamers respect the role that indie developers play in keeping content fresh and competitive. We are not out to feed the masses with top notch graphics or put out bulk gameplay with already famous icons. The content generated by indie companies gives a unique feel with every game that just can’t be created by the giants alone - sort of like that favorite song no one else knows about. Gamers are different than the average consumers, they are more aware of the roles small companies play in game development, and because of this, are more willing to support the developers who create the games they love to play.

In our own experience, the choose-your-own-price system has attracted many more gamers and customers, where a considerable amount of them pay more than the minimum. Less then half of the total  sales have been at the minimum value and the non minimum sales have an average price of almost 700% of the minimum value. The higher end sales sometimes exceed the original value of the game before the choose-your-own-price promotion (real-time stats for this promotion can be found here, http://chroniclogic.com/gish/gish_sales_stats.php).  Many of the more interested Gish players and die hard Chronic Logic fans had already purchased the game prior to this recent promotion, making us believe that the numbers could even be higher if those players had the price naming opportunity.

Chronic Logic : Http://www.chroniclogic.com
Gish : http://www.chroniclogic.com/gish.htm

We are very happy with the way our Gish promotion is progressing. You may see more Chronic Logic titles priced with this system in the future.

Rob from the rich and give to the poor! When an evil ruler taxes his people to near starvation, it’s up to Robin to save the day! Help our brave new hero rise from humble beginnings to becoming the champion remembered in history. Gather a band of merry men to help you solve tricky puzzles, master tough minigames, and win tricky archery competitions in Robin’s Quest, a Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game.

By popular demand, our original dress-up puzzle games, Fashion Cents Deluxe and Fashion Cents Gents, have both been updated with lots of new features:

* All-new voiceovers created specifically for Fashion Cents Gents (no more valley-girl voices when dressing up the guys)
* Support for Windows Vista and Windows 7
* Support for more recent Linux distributions, especially those that use PulseAudio
* A new rendering engine that doesn't use OpenGL, so the game will run on nearly all Windows and Linux computers! (Always ran fine on Mac)
* Lots of bug fixes!


Both games are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux! They are also available for affiliate sales through Plimus.

Fashion Cents Deluxe 

Fashion Cents Gents

The original Fashion Cents game was a finalist in the 2004 IGF. It was featured in the August 2005 edition of Parenting Magazine. And even after tons of other dress-up games hit the market after us, Fashion Cents was still rated the #1 casual dress-up game by Dinky Divas in 2008. Since then, we have released lots of free add-on packs, a new Deluxe version in November 2007, and the Gents sequel in August 2009. Even after 7 years, our dress-up puzzle games continue to be our best sellers!

__________________
Troy Hepfner
My Game Company
Creator of Dirk Dashing, Rick Rocket, and Fashion Cents Deluxe

August 20, 2010 – Big Blue Bubble Inc. announced today that Fighting Fantasy: Creature of Havoc has been released to the iTunes Store!

Are you ready for the most unusual Fighting Fantasy adventure yet?

You begin this adventure not knowing where you are or who you are. All you know is that you are some kind of creature of instinct, understanding little. During the course of the adventure, it may be possible for you to begin to control your bestial nature, to find out more about yourself, and even to learn your destiny. But even if you know all this, success is by no means certain, for the traps and terrors of Trolltooth Pass are many ... Are you ready — to become the Creature of Havoc?

Fighting Fantasy: Creature of Havoc is the fourth release in the Fighting Fantasy series and includes iPhone/iPod Touch support, as well as our new iPad support.

Now you can experience the books that have sold over 15 million copies worldwide, on your iPhone or iPad. Fighting Fantasy fans will love the classic story and original illustrations with a technological twist. No more dice, pencils, or bookmarks. All the special features are built in!

Features

• New! Player Achievements

• Universal app iPad support

• Scrolling image gallery of unlocked in-game art

• Tap the on screen buttons to flip pages (No papercuts!)

• Shake to roll the 3D dice using the accelerometer (or tap through with ease)

• Inventory items selectable via touch-screen

• Game-save feature allows you to retrace your steps

• Includes both original illustrations by Ian McCaig and digitally re-mastered versions

• Integrated iPod music library access

Remember to check iTunes for other Fighting Fantasy gamebooks!

About Fighting Fantasy

The Fighting Fantasy book series was born in 1982 when authors Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone created a revolutionary new idea for the fantasy genre with the first title, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. The reader became the hero of his or her own fantasy adventure in a story that was part book, part game. After each paragraph a decision must be made; which way to turn, whether to fight or flee, which mysterious character to approach, and what risks to take. Each decision sent the reader to a different page to discover the consequences of their choice, with each read-through ending either in disaster, or with the discovery of the ultimate goal. To date, the series has seen more than 70 titles published and more than 14 million copies sold worldwide. For more details, visit www.fightingfantasy.com

About Big Blue Bubble:

With over 50 high profile games in its portfolio, Big Blue Bubble Inc. is one of Canada’s leading video game developers. Each of company’s three divisions (iPhone, Console and Casual) is dedicated to making the best possible games by combining innovative designers with top calibre artists and industry leading programmers. By maintaining a strong focus on the development of technology and showcasing it through award winning games, Big Blue Bubble will continue to lead the way in becoming a cornerstone of the casual gaming world.

Alawar Entertainment have worked with several indie developers, one of the most famous releases being "Hamlet" by Mif2000.  I asked them a few questions about the indie gaming industry and their part in it.

"Pang, a small but once-popular town just within the borders of Central Land was seized by plague by the time a mysterious black-dressed man arrived.  As soon as he had come, he could feel the incessant footsteps of his enemies - those sent by the very man he wished to see, but dared not. Twisted murderers appeared in Pang, and old friends now sent as his assassins. Then came the little girl whose violent death took place before his eyes, and whose laughter haunts him still... 

He has no choice but fight back. Even so, it seems that another clue remains hidden beneath these strange proceedings; what awaits him is a plot even more complex than he could have imagined."

Name: Rainblood: Town of Death (v1.17)
Genre: RPG
Platform: PC
Developer: SoulframeRPG
Website: http://www.soulframe-rpg.com/rainblood/?p=277
Demo Download: http://www.soulframe-rpg.com/rainblood/files/Rainbloodinstaller117.zip
Email:

Three years after its release in China and about half a million downloads from the official site, Rainblood: Town of Death had its first English version(1.10) released on 12th May, 2010. It was worked out by several dedicated native English speakers, including a free-lancer English writer. It is also the first translated work of SoulframeRPG, who is China's top indie RPG developer.

After several rounds of upgrade, the final English version has become available on the official site since Aug 15th. Improvements include mouse controlling, further text revision, and some bug fixing. The price is still $9.99.

Presented with gloomy and gray hand-drawn scenes, Rainblood leads you into an adventure enveloped in darkness and myth, set in "Central Land", where similar to traditional China but with stylish designs such as a headless samurai and killing puppets. May be too "story-telling" for an RPG, the game tells a short but complex plot and a dramatic love story with darkness. The total time in story is just one day and space is limited in a deserted town, but with montages and disordered story lines, the game was made an art piece with its unique graphic and music, as well as the story and battle system that are neo interpretations of Chinese martial art culture.

The game was scored 88 from RPGfans(http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/Rainblood_Town_of_Death/index.html), which is not only the highest among indie RPGs but even higher than many commercial works. It has been defined as an artwork by many reviewers and gamers since the English version got exposure.

Features: 1. The top Chinese indie RPG translated into English.
2. An RPG, and also an art piece in terms of graphic and story.
3. Free-hand scenes making the game an interactive animation.
4. Battle system based on the spirit of Chinese martial art.
5. Cleverly arranged screenplay guiding your adventure.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 19 2010 – Independent developer Fernando Ramallo from Buenos Aires has released a trailer for his upcoming title. "Dependant" is a Flash-based abstract logic game about relationships between connected parts of an image.

Tha game takes the player to rebuild a divided image by moving or rotating the parts, wich are interconnected in different ways and behaviors. Each level has a unique logic that the player must figure out in order to solve it in the least amount of moves.

The visual style of the game is an abstract relaxing theme, with generative particle-based backgrounds that flow constantly and generate beautiful images. The soundtrack accompanies the mood with atmospheric electronic beats that fade according to the player's actions.

The final game will feature 40 different levels and is due for release in early September 2010 for sponsorship.



 
Dependant Trailer:



 
Dependant Screenshots:






 

Official Website

About Fernando Ramallo:
Fernando Ramallo is an independent video game designer and developer from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has a degree in Audiovisual Design and has worked commercialy in online, consoles and social games as a game designer for three years to then start his own independent studio.



 

About Leemus Music:
Leemus Music is a music production company based in Los Angeles, started by musicians Kingsley Hine and Dickon Maciver. They write original and atmospheric music for independent video games.

For any indie game developers who had been wondering about Activision's indie game competition (and the potential confusion / problems with this), GamaSutra's interview with Activision on this subject might clear up a few things.

Tidalis "Design A Block" Contest

For quite some time, Arcen Games has been committed to adding fan suggestions to AI War via general suggestions and our Community DLC poll in the AI War forums.  In the case of Tidalis, today's new official version 1.005 of the game continues that trend by including 12 new player-created levels, several bits of player-created art, a new player-suggested VS game mode, and a number of other updates and tweaks based on player suggestions.

So what's this contest, then?  Well, it's pretty simple: if you have ideas for new mechanics that you'd like to see in the game, submit them in our Tidalis Suggestions forum.  We'd most like to see new block ideas, but if you have ideas for new game modes, VS rulesets, or similar, those are also welcome.

Approximately every two months, we'll select one or more entries to actually implement into the game, with art and sound effects as needed, and with your name (or forum handle if you prefer to remain anonymous) featured in the release notes as well as the game credits.  Best of all, this is a contest where everybody wins, because all existing Tidalis customers always get these sorts of "free DLC" updates... for free.

Not much of one for gameplay design?  That's okay -- if you're into level or brainteaser creation, you might prefer to simply submit your custom levels for potential inclusion in the free DLC.  Twelve player levels have already become a part of the official release versions of Tidalis, and yours could be next.  Here again, we give full credit based on your name or forum handle (your preference).

A lot of games have community mods or levels, but what we're offering is a chance to affect the actual core official game, not just an obscure addon.  At Arcen, we really believe that players are full of good ideas, and we've seen the frustration that many people have with their inability to see anything come of those ideas with the larger companies.  With AI War we were so inundated with suggestions that we had to institute the Community DLC poll, and now with Tidalis we're going to handle it a bit differently with this bimonthly Design A Block contest.