Arevan: The Bitter Truth Now Available

Over Cloud 9’s first independently produced RPG game for PC players has been launched.

29th September, 2010 (Kolkata, India): Over Cloud 9 (www.OverCloud9.com) is pleased to announce the debut of its independent production, Arevan: The Bitter Truth, for PC players. It is a DRM-free role playing game, designed to cater to both the casual gamers and RPG veterans.

The Story - Mysterious murders are taking place in various kingdoms. Solemaun, the king of Arevan, decides to start a covert investigation with other world rulers. By his order, Prince Maurean, his son, sets off on a journey to discover the identity of the murderer and any ulterior motives he may have. Travel with Maurean as he makes his way through challenging puzzles, gut-wrenching monsters, and intriguing side quests (Where is Harry Potter?). Join him and his adventuresome companions as they explore pyramids, battle mummies, rescue underwater mermaids and many other exciting events. There will be many shocking revelations for our hero until he is forced to face...the most bitter truth.

Arevan’s appearance, feel, and gameplay are similar to RPGs like Final Fantasy, Zelda, and Eternal Eden. It features mouse control, in-game help for new players, a unique skill pill system, the ability to skip difficult battles or puzzles, game altering choices and high quality 2D graphics. This game is created by a collaboration of two female RPG enthusiasts. Their extensive PC gaming experience and input from veteran RPG players helped them to make the game equally appealing to players of all ages and gaming experience. The focus of the game development has been on a deep storyline with doses of humor and interesting gameplay featuring original artwork of the main characters, beautiful sound tracks, and a front-view- turn-based battle interface.

For more information about the game, you can view the game features, screenshots, video and demo link given at the end or visit http://www.overcloud9.com/games/our-games/arevan/.

ABOUT OVER CLOUD 9:

Over Cloud 9 was founded by Moumita Paul in 2009 and is devoted specifically to cater to a niche genre of computer RPGs. Arevan is her first RPG game project inspired by her original storyline. During the development of Arevan, her sister Priyanka joined the project as a co-developer and also helped her in managing the website’s community (www.overcloud9.com/forum ). Over Cloud 9 is well known for offering free RPG walkthroughs and official strategy guides, game help, game developer tools, beta testers and many other products and features pertaining to RPGs.

Demo Download

GAME FEATURES:

Story: Original and in-depth story, exploring the many facets of human nature and its idiosyncrasies. Non linear choices throughout the game make it highly replayable and interesting every time you play it.

Characters: Seven playable characters from different and varied backgrounds are available. The game offers sudden choices and unexpected decisions which controls the life and death of some characters. Your decisions can wipe out some of your party members entirely.

Skill system: A unique skill system where your party learns a skill or spell only when they consume the skill pills. Acquire unique skills like Steal, Immortality, Nuclear, Inescapable Curse, etc through these skill pills. Characters don’t gain skills on levelling up but acquire skills by using these pills. Each pill can be consumed only once by a team member, so they need to be invested wisely.

Battles: You have the option to opt out of the boss battles when you lose the fight and proceed with the game. Players who love a challenge will enjoy defeating the bosses while those who are keener on the story can continue the game without the frustration of a continuing battle. The monster encounters are all visible and the battles feature a front-view and turn-based interface. You also have the option to scan your enemy to take note of its strengths, weaknesses, drops and items which can be stolen!

Puzzles and minigames: Highly rewarding and challenging puzzles are present only in secret and special dungeons for those who love puzzles. Puzzles include a Football match, Pool, mazes, time management, etc. There is also a ‘pearl gathering’ mini game where you collect pearls from Oysters.

Side Quests: Engaging side quests that make you explore interesting civilizations and enjoy funny incidents.

Game options: Extra game options include – adjust volume, enable speed walking, disable battle animation, zapping through dialogues. You can also use custom window themes like - Aqua, Strawberry, Oriental, Dark Cloud and Bamboo.

Additional features: Like single-click menu access from map and character HUD, quest journal, mouse and key board controls, auto-save, in-game help, auto-battle system, enemy scanning function, unlimited save slots and ‘save anytime anywhere’ will perk up your overall gameplay experience.

Acropora is a procedural voxel modeler for creating complex, organic mesh topologies that are useful for all types of 3D modeling applications. This new release brings voxel modeling to a whole new level, with animation of modifiers and primitives.

Theta Warriors Online is an online Strategy MMORPG. Currently available on Myspace, Facebook, or Enigma Games as a free to play browser based game. The game features 4 vs 4 turn based combat using the Wargod Engine, 4 base classes with dozens of configuration options, and a raging 3-way war between the Myspace, Facebook, and Enigma Empires.

There are four small generic voice packs available for free at http://www.topleka.net/

They're suitable for RPG / fighting games, CD-quality audio, and the site's author can be contacted for custom work. 

From the site itself:

Didgery is a casual single player card/puzzler game set in an epic fantasy atmosphere. The Earth has been doomed by an unforgiving curse, and you have been summoned by the ancients to maintain Earth’s harmony by skillfully manipulating the Forgotten Cards. Only these cards have the power to restore the mysterious energy that drives the Four Sacred Elements (Heart, Spade, Diamond, and Club) and bring Earth back into a balanced state. Allowing the Earth’s harmony to fully deplete will send the Earth plummeting into Hell. The full game mechanics can be read here.


Didgery has a depth to it that not many casual puzzlers can lay claim to, yet it is still simple enough to be learned by the average player. Unlockable items such as Special Cards and Forbidden Parchments add an extra dimension to Didgery and keep it interesting and fun for hours to come.

You can follow this link to download a free demo of Didgery onto your Xbox 360.

You can find more information on Didgery over at www.didgerycardgame.com
 

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada – 27 September 2010 – Complex Games has announced the impending release of their latest iPhone game, but the game’s name is a total mystery! Further details about the title will be released in the following weeks, but in the meantime visitors to the game’s site can for a limited time win prizes by guessing the name of the mystery game at http://www.complexgames.com/mysteryproject . The game will be available on both the iPhone and the iPad.

Although there are no details available yet regarding the title, the Canadian-based game developer has promised that a game trailer will be available shortly after the winners of the contest are announced: “We expect this game to make #2!”, says Complex Games Lead Programmer Frano Sailer in his usually cryptic way, “once this game launches, it’s really going to hit the fan!”

Complex Games is a Canadian development studio based in Winnipeg. They are the largest video game company in the city and have been working on titles since 2002. They have released 2 iPhones games titled Skipping Stones and Cyber Circuit, and recently worked with SkyVu Pictures to release their smash hit Battle Bears -1.

http://www.complexgames.com

Follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/complexgames
Become a Fan of us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/complexgames
Check out videos of our work on YouTube at: www.youtube.com/complexgames

Download the Playable Demo

here

Melbourne based application publisher Zeta Games in collaboration with Silhouette Studios launch their new game – Derailed for the iPhone and iPod Touch; and Derailed HD for the iPad on September 23rd.

Derailed (US $1.99) is an action-packed train navigation and passenger collection game.

The game takes advantage of the iPhone’s touch screen, allowing players the ability to achieve their objective of collecting all the passengers in the level by dragging rail track down with their finger.

While you ‘lay the foundations’ in an effort to prevent your train from derailment, your duties as train driver command you to collect all the passengers through the games’ nine different levels.

The more passengers you collect, the longer, faster and more intense the train becomes. Some of Derailed’s main features include rich graphics, cool sound effects and a catchy soundtrack.

Also, Openfeint leader boards maintain high scores and unlock achievements as the game progresses.

Derailed HD (US $3.99) has been designed specifically for the iPad, taking advantage of its crisp resolution and wider screen space, which in turn has made the game even more engaging with additional obstacles and passengers to pick up.

Derailed HD offers an incredible 20 levels of game play, allowing players the opportunity to test their skills through a range of new and exciting worlds, which includes the frosty ice-worlds, wet water worlds and undulating mountain worlds. Navigate and zigzag your way through forests, over bridges and across mountains to achieve your objective of collecting your passengers; all while your train gets longer and faster.

The rise and rise of casual games had been a bit of a mystery to me, especially the myriad similar "match 3" and "hidden object" style of games.  However I'm come to the conclusion that casual games are simply the fast food of the video gaming industry - sure there's no comparison between a hamburger and a T-bone steak, but a hamburger is quicker to make and eat, cheaper to make and eat, and sometimes you're just in the mood for a hamburger.  Ergo, the casual game market appeals to both developers and many game players because development time is shorter, and the game can be played in snack-sized portions - without the controls and strategy learning curve that most complex games have.

In addition, while hidden object games in particular seemed a complete waste of time to me, I've played some now because they've been sent to me for review - and I have to admit, I rather enjoyed them.  This is largely because developers have cleverly integrated simple features of other genres into them, they usually feature attractive visuals and engaging soundtracks, often funny storylines, and are simply fun to play in a very demanding way.

In short, they are not "proper" computer games as such, but they have a place in the market - and they've very much here to stay.

Bayo Bongo iPhone - Codeminion

Bayo Bongo iPad - Codeminion

Innovative dynamic logic game Bayo Bongo from Codeminion with native support for iPhone and iPad is immediately available for purchase in the AppStore. Review redeem codes available as well.

Warsaw, Poland - September 22, 2010 - Codeminion, a renowned developer and publisher of high quality casual gaming titles such as StoneLoops! of Jurassica, Ancient Quest of Saqqarah, Brunhilda and the Dark Crystal, announced today the release of Bayo Bongo, a brand new puzzle game for the iOS platform. The game is immediately available for purchase in the Apple AppStore. Redeem codes are also available for reviewers wishing to learn more about the game.

View trailer and learn more about the upcoming game:

http://www.bayobongo.com

Bayo Bongo is an innovative puzzle game featuring original and highly addictive gameplay mechanics, smooth graphics and social features such as Facebook integration. The objective in Bayo Bongo is to gather golden coins by bringing them to the bottom of the game field filled with multicolor domino-like tiles. A simple, innovative and very dynamic matching mechanic is used to clear the board of obstacles - gamers have to tap as many same colored tokens as possible in a given time limit. This results in a very quick, aggressive gameplay but still with a strong strategic component. "There's a lot of similar games on the AppStore and we wanted to create something that would give a different experience. We're very proud of the Bayo Bongo game mechanics as they clearly are addictive, challenging and innovative. Combined with all the graphical effects, power-ups, explosions and obstacles this makes Bayo Bongo a game unlike anything else" - said Maciej Biedrzycki, Codeminion co-founder.

Bayo Bongo features:

- Gripping, fast paced strategic gameplay
- 15 increasingly challenging levels over 5 stages
- Boost your score in the diving bonus rounds
- Universal app with native support for iPhone and iPad
- Online leaderboards - post your score for everyone to see
- Share your victories with friends on Facebook

Bayo Bongo iPhone - Codeminion

Bayo Bongo iPad - Codeminion

http://rocketpack.fi/

Melbourne, Victoria/Australia - Sector3 announce the imminent release of FruitZenHD 1.0 game for Apple iPad and FruitZen for iPhone is available on the iTunes App Store this Thursday 23rd Sept.

Fabulous fruity fun features for FruitZen:
FruitZen is a wonderful fruit-a-licious, zen-like state inducing puzzle game featuring a variety of delicious dropping fruits. Specifically designed to cater to the game player who craves for a game that challenges the brain rather than the trigger finger. Easy to play but hard to master this true fruity fun!

Fruit keeps dropping from the top of your screen, simply tap groups of three or more of the same fruit that are bunched together to remove them from the board for the highest score. Clear the board for even more points. To aid you into a Zen like state of mind slide rows left and right, re-arranging the fruit to achieve greater matches & higher scores.

Play the way that suits you:

Survival - Can you take on Survival? You must survive 8 rounds of progressively harder fruits dropping, introducing more complex & challenging game play elements at every new round.

Timeless - No clock, no pressure just play on as long as you can until the fruit hits the top.

Countdown - You versus the clock, each time you make a match you are rewarded with more time, how long can you play?

Rewards await the patient, match more bunches of fruit and get rewarded with great power-ups like wild fruits or row & column insect eaters but watch out for acorns! They cannot be matched, move tiles around to get row or column insect eaters to remove those pesky acorns from your play area.

Your high scores can be automatically tracked via OpenFeint© and posted to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. There are plenty of achievements to play for and share with your friends.

Pricing and Availability

FruitZenHD for the iPad is only US$1.99 on the iTunes App Store.
FruitZen iPhone is only US$0.99 on the iTunes App Store.

• FruitZenHD on The App Store 
• FruitZen iPhone The App Store 
• FruitZenHD Website: 
• FruitZen Website 
• FruitZen Video (YouTube) 

Located in Melbourne, Australia, Sector3 Games was founded in 2007. Sector3 is a successful publisher of desktop games such as StuntMANIA, HyperTankz, Turret Wars, Circuit Defenders, Elevens & PileUp and successful iPhone games including Tankz, Elevens, Turret Wars and Circuit Defenders and now ElevensHD and FruitZen for iPad. Sector3 Games is a division of TrickStar Games.

MobRule Studios is proud to announce the release of Combat Drop, the fourth expansion for their massively multiplayer turn-based strategy game Drop Shock (www.drop-shock.com).  Combat Drop brings over thirty new vehicles, modifications and buildings to the game allowing players to create even more strategies for defeating their opponents.  Developed to be played entirely from a web browser, Drop Shock allows easy access to a persistent world of player vs. player battles and faction wars for entire planets.

Drop Shock features a high degree of player customization through the modification of vehicles, a completely player-driven economy and RPG-style leveling system.  In an era of style over substance; Drop Shock is a thinking gamer's online simulation.  Featuring over 10 million vehicle customizations, player vs. player combat, faction vs. faction battles, and twenty different planets to fight over Drop Shock is the ultimate massively multiplayer turn-based strategy game.  Lastly there are no subscription or cost to sign-up, Drop Shock is free to join and play.

*****

MobRule Studios (www.mobrulestudios.com) was founded in 2004 with a focus on massively multiplayer games which could be played from a web browser. Drop Shock is MobRule Studios' second online game in this genre, its first (TinyWarz) was launched in 2005 and has seen over 100,000 sign-ups since release.

Gun-X is the new release from G.I.N.D.O.C., and is described as a solo or multiplayer shooter.  [Description on website: Gun-X is space shooting game, both singleplayer and multiplayer (LAN and Internet) The main feature is an immediate experience, with no loading time, fast and fun encounter. The game should run smoothly on almost any PC.]

See this page on their site for more infor or click here to download the demo.

(Payment processing is done by Allopass, who I'm not familiar with myself.  Couldn't find the price.)

System Specs:

Werdna World Games' first commercial game is now available. In Ping Pong Battle, you must save the

world from darkness by winning a tournament.  A Ping Pong tournament to be exact!  (Well... what else?!?)

Ping Pong Battle features several game modes, 21 unique powerups, 33 characters, and over 100 special attacks to pummel your foe with!

See the Werdna World Games Website for more details.  They also have a number of free games to download.  If you think the plot for their commercial debut is crazy, you should see some of the plots these free games have...

New Facebook Game „Spoing“ is now available. It is the very first game from the independent Swiss game developer „games2be“
 
Spoing is all about launching a ball all over the place using floating slingshots. It is a fun game, easy to pick up, fun for the whole family and very addictive.

Setting
Trapped in a cave the only hope for the player is to search the exit. Spoing plays in a wonderful looking and amazing underground world.

Game
Spoing is all about launching a ball from floating slingshots until a goal is reached within a limited time. The player can create slingshots by himself by clicking twice. This has never been done before in a Slingshot game and is a unique and very nice feature. In advanced levels the player creates his own path through entire levels with nothing but self created slingshots.

Sound
The player creates his own unique music by playing Spoing. When shooting the ball, the slingshot acts like a piano-string and produces a sound. Big slingshots create deep sounds and short slingshots higher ones, hence when moving through a level the player creates his own little melody.

Features
- Slingshots can be created by the player
- Interactive sound
- 50 unique levels
- 8 soundtracks
- A high-score for each level
- An overall high-score

Spoing is also soon coming to the iPhone.

About games2be
games2be GmbH is a new independent Swiss game developer founded this summer.
games2be wants to discover new game-concepts and new playgrounds. The focus lies on
easy to pick up fun games on various platforms (Facebook, iPhone etc.) suitable for the whole family.

Homepage: http://games2be.com/

Spoing on Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/spoinggame/

Spoing Trailer:

Black Chicken Studios Announces the Release of College Aranaz: The Honor of Mallen Field, The First DLC for Academagia: The Making of Mages

San Diego, CA – September 15, 2010 – In the dark days before the Exile of Man, the courageous host of King Durand marched against the well-prepared, well-provisioned and vastly stronger Army of the Emperor at Mallen Field, and despite all the odds, vanquished it. Thus was secured the freedom of the men of Cyve.

But to whom lies the Honor of that victory?

This DLC includes:

Academagia: The Making of Mages retails for $24.95 and includes all the fun and adventure of the original game with all new content from College Aranaz: The Honor of Mallen Field. It is available from www.academagia.com as well as through digital distribution at Beamdog, GamersGate and Impulse.

About Academagia

Academagia is a 2D life simulation PC game for audiences ages 9+, and is parent and child friendly. Our game rewards relationship building, research and knowledge, and encourages the player to create their own individual story each time they play. Role-playing, thoughtful choices and a bit of whimsy permeate game play, and is intended to provide a refreshing alternative to the more violent, destructive and derivative titles in the marketplace.

About Black Chicken Studios

Black Chicken Studios, Inc, was formed in 2007 to provide interesting and novel alternatives to mainstream games, offering experiences which promote creativity, reward knowledge and inspire imagination. It is especially our goal to create games wherein challenges can be overcome by study, diplomacy and character. Our company has an inclusive content philosophy, and makes a practice of incorporating as much work as possible from independent writers and artists.

Well... one or two people have agreed with me, others simply think I'm insane.  I thought PuzzleBots designer Erin Robinson looks rather similar to kooky singer Paloma Faith, so I've done a quick side-by-side comparison.

What do you think - am I crazy or are they similar?  At any rate, both are very talented ladies whose work I'm very fond of (in case anyone wondered).  Apart from obviously the hair, I think the bone structure is very similar.