Caldwell, New Jersey - Game designers Casey Gatti and Benjamin Cole are nostalgic for the electronic games of their youth. Ben has experience in the game industry, while Casey has toured the indie game development circuit. This time around, they are are looking to tap into the collective of the people to help finance and shape their newest iPhone/iPad game project called Star Saver during its development. So, Gatti and Cole are trying sometime quite new. Today, they're launching their project on a web site called Kickstarter. Most uniquely, Kickstarter allows people to "pledge" toward a creative project. A pledge equates to financial support and will help Casey and Ben get the right equipment, software, and external support to complete this project.

However, Gatti is primarily focused on getting "outside" feedback of the game during it's development and using that collective information to strengthen the game. "We want the game to be a lot fun to play and realize that it needs to be in other's hands to make sure we're on the right track. Being featured on Kickstarter not only allows people to help us get the finances to finish the project, but also gives them access to pre-release beta versions of the game before anyone else. This will allow our pledgers to submit feedback to us during the remaining development of Star Saver. This feedback will seriously help "shape" the game and gives incredible power to the pledger. We've already been sharing Star Saver with gamers at a local video game store called Digital Press (in Clifton, NJ) and the feedback has been incredibly beneficial to us," says Gatti.

Now, of course, Cole wanted some other fun "rewards" for people that pledge. The lower pledges allow you to basically pre-order the game and receive a thank you postcard. A mid-range pledge will get you autographed posters and your name added to the game credits. However, for the higher-range pledges, Gatti will be hand-crafting animation cels, sculpting figurines, and even allowing you to "name a stage". Talk about giving a pledger super influence into the game design recipe!

Gatti and Cole's secondary goal for using Kickstarter is to help raise awareness of active game development in New Jersey. New Jersey has an eclectic mix of creative game designers, programmers, artists, 3d modelers and musicians. There are also a number of colleges with dedicated game development curriculums. Gatti and Cole's goal is that New Jersey and NYC becomes a stronger hub for the next wave of game development and design.

PxlPlz: http://www.pxlplz.com
Star Saver: http://www.pxlplz.com/star-saver/
Kickstarter Project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pxlplz/star-saver-charming-indie-game




PxlPlz is an independent game company driven to producing fun games for iPhone, iPad, Windows and Mac

Collegeville, Pennsylvania, USA -- April 29, 2011 – Reflective Layer today announced the release of Lizardry, its latest casual game for Android, Windows and Mac.


What is Lizardry?
Lizardry is a game where the goal is to catch and eat as many flies as possible. The Player controls a Lizard and for each fly caught the lizard will advance a step closer to the finish line. Periodically items will fall from the sky that can either help or hurt the player. Items such as mousetraps will freeze the player's movement for a few seconds while others like the hot chilly pepper will give the lizard the power of fire. 

A statistics screen is available at the end of each round to help the players gauge their performance.

 
Lizardry main features

• Special powers like fire and ice
• Stats at the end of each round
• New rounds and environment available after release

Availability

Lizardry is available now for $0.99 for Android, Mac and Windows, and may be downloaded through the following sites:

(This is a guest post by Kostas Mihailidis.)

Planeshift is a free to play, open source fantasy 3D MMORPG by Atomic Blue. The game is being developed by indie game developer Atomic Blue. Although the game is still in it's alpha stage, it is already absolutely playable. It features 12 races, a large variety of magic spells, many weapons, two types of mounts and two more pets. The most notable aspects of the game are its unique storyline and great role playing. The game takes place inside a giant stalactite where the player will be able to choose his own role in the game world, whether that be as an evil genius or a common farmer. Some examples of the role playing inside Planeshift are: an ingame newspaper created by players, a player operated tavern, many role playing events every month e.g. markets, PvP tournaments e.t.c.

One of the most important ideas about Planeshift is that everyone can help. If you have the skills needed you can easily join the developers team; if not you can give the developers your ideas on how to improve the game, join the Shunkworks / Game Masters / Testers team, or translate the GUI to your native language. If you are an indie game developer yourself you can download the Planeshift source code from the official website. Last but not least, Planeshift is available for Windows, Linux and Mac with game support but will play on other operating systems too.

Website: http://www.planeshift.it/

Planeshift Screenshots:

Tenlin Studios today introduces Licking Letters for iOS, their new game where kids ages two to eight are challenged to spell words by having Hoppy the Frog catch the correct letters using his lightning-fast, long-range tongue. Letters float across the pond where Hoppy rests on a lily pad. Touching the screen causes his tongue to dart out, lick, and swallow any letter overhead until the required word is spelled. Players win Leapin' Loot coins and play Bonus games between spelling rounds.



Chicago, Illinois - Tenlin Studios today is pleased to introduce Licking Letters for iOS, their new game where kids ages two to eight are challenged to spell a word by having Hoppy the Frog catch the correct letters using his lightning-fast, long-range tongue. At the start of each round, the narrator announces the word to be spelled. For example, "Find the letters for Dad, D-A-D." At the same time, the word appears at the top of the screen. Letters, encapsulated in bubbles, float across the pond where Hoppy rests on a lily pad. Touching any spot on the screen causes his tongue to dart out, lick, and swallow any letter overhead until the required word is spelled. For each word spelled, players win Leapin' Loot coins that can be used to purchase in-game clothing to dress their frog. Bonus games add to the game's replay value between spelling rounds.

Recognized by Apple in their prestigious "New and Noteworthy" listings, Licking Letters is much more than just another iOS spelling game. Tenlin Studios has carefully crafted a game that successfully teaches word recognition, letter recognition, and how the difference of a single letter can create a new word. Audio and visual elements reinforce each other to produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Equally important, they have created a game that works as a game. It is fun, challenging, entertaining, colorful, amusing, and stimulating. Eye/hand coordination is strengthened, artistic imagination is given an opportunity to make its contribution, and reaction time is improved.

The always-encouraging narrator guides the player through every stage of the game. Following several rounds of spelling words, play is varied by a quick round of one of three bonus mini games: Frog Pond, Alligator Alley, or Leapin' Loot. Players stay in the game, enjoy fast paced play, and continue winning gold coins. Then, it's back to spelling words with the help of Hoppy's letter licking tongue. Players may pause at anytime and use their treasure to outfit Hoppy in a wide variety of clothing and accessories (each one costing a specific number of coins).

Incorporating beautifully produced and rendered graphics, animation, music, narration, and sound effects, Licking Letters is played in landscape mode and fills all screens, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, with equal clarity and vividness. The game saves the level of progress automatically, and music can be toggled on/off while maintaining the voice of the narrator. The background scene changes from day, to night, to morning after every six words spelled.

Feature Highlights:
* 150 words to spell - many hours of gameplay
* Inspires creativity with thousands of outfit combinations to dress your frog
* Cute and whimsical graphics
* Kid-friendly music and sound effects
* Unique "Hoppy Help" system guides your child along the way
* Difficulty auto-adjusts based on the child's skill
* Bonus rounds offer opportunities for more coins
* No in-app purchases

"Licking Letters is an action/spelling game that will teach children to spell words in a very unique way," commented Tenlin Studios' J. McCabe. "The object of the game is to help Hoppy the Frog spell words by licking letters that float across the sky. With bright & beautiful graphics, great sound effects, and easy one-touch controls, Licking Letters has mass appeal with younger players. Children will learn 3, 4, and 5 letter words as they progress through the game."

Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
* iOS 4.0.2 or later
* 18.5 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Licking Letters 1.1 is $0.99 (USD) and available worldwide through the App Store in the Games category.





Located in Chicago, Illinois, the Tenlin Studios, LLC team is an independent game development studio founded in March of 2011. Tenlin Studios is dedicated to creating wonderful iOS games that will entertain the whole family and make learning fun for children. Copyright (C) 2011 Tenlin Studios, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod, and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

New Star Soccer 5 will be officially released in August 2011. The game is currently in a very playable state and the feedback from testers has been extremely positive but there is still a lot of work to be done before it is complete. So rather than rush things I have decided to keep the game in beta until the start of the 2011-12 English football season. That will give me plenty of time to update all of the league and competition data, add new gameplay features and give the game a level of polish never seen before in a New Star Games product! If that release date seems a long way off don't worry - I will be opening up the beta testing to everyone before the end of May. And newsletter readers will be the first to hear about it!

Someone sent news to me about a browser-based Pong Remake called pn0gst0m.  Hardly the sort of idea to set the pulse racing, with it having been done so many times before - and the game starts off really slowly, making me think it was a straight remake of the original - for about 5 seconds.  Then the fact that the ball splits every time you return it started to make the game very fast indeed and utterly mad - which I liked!  As you can see from the screenshot, it can get a little hectic... The game goes on until there are no balls left at all.  So to get a high score, you not only need to win, but also to keep the game going for a long time.

Other things to note: there are two game modes (the second, shown in the last screenshot, seems to limit the variance of vertical movement of the balls - the weird effect of this is that it looks / feels rather more like a shoot-'em-up than a Pong remake!), and the game appears to be open source.

London, UK Apr 24, 2011 - Indie development duo Honey Tribe Studios are set to release their debut iphone game this spring. Honey Tribe: Colony Collapse uses simple, fun gameplay and likeable characters to tell a story that is based around the facts of colony collapse disorder (CCD).

The Premise

As you may already know honey bee populations have been declining globally. Research is ongoing as to the causes but several main factors have been identified as precursors to CCD. Pollinators account for at least 30% of the earth's crops and bees are by far the most prominent pollinator. If honey bee populations continue to decline, that's seriously bad news for us humans.

As the story of the game progresses you find out some of the causes behind CCD and also reveal facts about honey bees and other wildlife.

The Story

All the female worker bees are ill! If nobody can go out to collect the nectar there won’t be any honey to feed the brood. The hive won’t survive the winter! Help Corbee to venture out into the forest and learn how to collect enough nectar to keep the hive alive. It’s been his dream to go out exploring but the real thing might be scarier than he imagined…!

Colony collapse disorder is a real phenomenon and bee populations are declining around the globe. Play the game, have fun, and find out some real life facts.

The Game

Easy to pick up, hard to put down gameplay. Simple tap-to-fly controls. Watch out for all the predators, there’s a lot of things out there that want to eat you! Feel the wind rush past you as you hit max speed and skilfully fly past everything that tries to get in your way.

Featuring beautiful hand drawn art and atmospheric, event-based music that is always changing as you play.

The Studio

The development duo write on their 'about us' page: “Over here our main TV network is the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation. Their original mantra was 'to inform, educate and entertain'. That sounds pretty good to us. So that's what we want to do with our games.

As you read this we're probably experimenting with different ideas for blending fiction and non-fiction: storytelling, art, music, interaction, facts and... fun!”

Release Date

Honey Tribe: Colony Collapse will be out this spring and summer for iphone/ipod/ipad and mac. The exact dates are to be confirmed. Subscribe to the newsletter at www.HoneyTribeStudios.com to be updated.

Honey Tribe: Colony Collapse Screenshots:

All iOS devices Supported! iOS 3+, iPhones/iPods/iPads... Full retina/HD support...

Toki Tori is an award winning, mind-bending, brain-teasing puzzle platformer starring the worlds cutest chicken! Guide Toki Tori through 80 fun and fiendish levels, chock-full of traps, puzzles, ghosts, and evil slugs, collecting all the eggs along the way. To help you through, you'll have an arsenal of useful items such as the Telewarp, Freeze-O-Matic or the indispensable Slug Sucker!

Toki Tori Android Screenshots:

"Trickyleaks” puts you in the hot seat of one of 8 big, bad evil mega-corporations with plenty of secrets to hide from the world. You’d have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for Julian and those darn TrickyLeaks! 

You’ve got to stop him and get all your secrets back through your pipes before the world uncovers all your dirty laundry! Watch out though, your series of tubes isn’t safe: Julian is wandering around, and he stole himself a huge bulldozer. So quick: you’ve got to get out there and stop TrickyLeaks!

Throughout the course of the game, you'll play as parodies of real companies like Pear (Apple), Sawwit (Reddit), and Mineshaft (Minecraft), and you'll even get to see real (fake) secrets leaked from these companies!

Android Marketplace Link

Happy Monster Games Website

Age of Fear: The Undead King is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy setting; the game uses a slightly different approach to most TBS games I've played, and as a result offers a refreshingly different gaming experience, though it does have its faults as well. Without going into too much detail about the storyline, you have two campaigns to complete - one as the noble Sir Edward, defender of all that is right and just in the kingdom, and that of Krill, a Necromancer and generally pretty vile individual. The two campaigns feel very different indeed; with not only different objectives and unit types in each, but two unique sets of strategy needed.

Age of Fear is all about the strategy; although some features I'd expect, such as terrain affecting the outcomes or being able to select and move a group of units, were missing (at least, as far as I could see), the unique game mechanics made up for this. The interface works very well, albeit sometimes the game runs a bit sluggishly for no apparent reason. At first glance the game seemed rather a second-rate strategy game, but once I'd started to suss it out a bit, and especially when more unit types came into play, it became pretty engrossing.

The game basically works by each unit having a field of vision / attack range and a field of movement. Carefully maximising any potential advantage of your army's position and relative positions to each other and the enemy units are crucial to succeeding in Age of Fear. There is perhaps a bit too much randomness in whether a unit succeeds in hitting an opponent or not - meaning that potentially (as an extreme case) the same strategy can either succeed or completely fail on different occasions - but generally you feel that your actions have a direct bearing on how well you're doing.  If you win a level but suffer heavy losses, the game warns you that this may make the rest of the campaign too difficult - it's generally well worth replaying the level in that case with different tactics, and in fact even if you don't lose too many troops, it can be worth your while trying a different approach so that you're in a better position for the next level.  You don't always have the opportunity to replenish your ranks between levels, and later on you might not be able to recruit the most advanced units you've already encountered, depending on where your character finds themselves at the time.  (Little points like this really add to the atmosphere of the campaigns and make them feel more realistic.)

The army size is small, starting off with a handful and slowly rising as you complete scenarios - also units are never grouped. The upshot of this is that while it feels somewhat small scale compared to most TBS games, the fact that each character has a name, can gain experience and be levelled up etc means that you actually start to care about all the members of your army (in the good quest only - after all as a Necromancer you have an undead army, you don't really start to get pally with them!!). The campaigns themselves, with well-written narratives between the different scenarios, do have a somewhat epic feel to them despite this small-scale approach.

The graphics are functional - they're not exactly pretty, but they do the job okay - and the music is good. The ambient sound effects are nice enough; the speech samples have a rather homespun quality to them, and this is where Age of Fear lets itself down at little. However this is a small quibble really in a game that, while I didn't take to it immediately, I've actually found to be very addictive over time. My review relates solely to the single-player game modes in Age of Fear; multiplayer and other features are currently in the works. (My review copy was v1.0.3)

For trailers see the post below:

Curse of Slate Rock Manor Screenshot:

TellTale Games have announced 50% off all their full seasons (apart from Back to the Future) until 1st May 2011.  I don't seem to see these offer prices on their site yet though, so perhaps the discount is applied when you check out?

Paris, France - Coladia today is delighted to announce a special Easter promotion on their Mac Games. Until Moday April 25, 2011, customers will receive a free game when they buy 2 games. The deal applies to all games including the following Mac games (available for download on Coladia's website.)

Dracula 3 - The Path of the Dragon:
September 1920, the Vatican appoints Father Arno Moriani, the "Devil's Advocate", to investigate a potential candidate for sainthood in Transylvania. But in the shadows of the disturbing ruins that were once Vlad the Impaler's castle, his investigation takes an unexpected turn.

Nostadamus - The Last Prophecy:
The court of king Charles IX is making a grand tour of France. Catherine de Medicis, his mother, victim of strange curse, decides to pay a visit to her doctor and astrologer, Michel de Nostre-Dame, better known as Nostradamus.

Return to Mysterious Island 2:
Return to Mysterious Island 2, the sequel to adventure game Return to Mysterious Island, and inspired from Jules Verne's novel The Mysterious Island, offers the player an experience comparable to that of Robinson Crusoe or one of Verne's characters. But in this new installment, survival is not all!

The Secrets of Da Vinci:
Valdo, an ambitious young apprentice working for Leonardo Da Vinci's disciple, Francesco, is least happy when the scholar suddenly dismisses him. However, shortly afterwards, he receives a letter from a mysterious patron, asking him to locate one of the great master's missing codices.

Return to Mysterious Island:
In this first-person survival adventure, players will encounter recognisable locations from the famous novel, including the granite house, the volcano and the Nautilus. However, Return to Mysterious Island goes beyond Jules Verne's storytelling as players take on the role of Mina, a courageous young woman on a solo round-the-world sailing expedition.

Cleopatra: a Queen's Destiny:
Alexandria in Egypt 48BC. The country is divided by civil war pitting Cleopatra's supporters against those of her brother and husband, Ptolemy, who is ravaging the country. In this climate of terror, Thomas, a young apprentice to Akkod, Cleopatra's astrologist and astronomist, falls in love with his master's daughter. One day, in horror, he discovers that both master and daughter have been kidnapped.

Destination: Treasure Island:
Four years have passed since the end of the adventure recounted in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel. Jim Hawkins has become an upstanding adventurous young man, attentive to those around him. Imagine his surprise when, one morning, he sees a parrot enter his bedroom window: none other than Captain Flint, Long John's own companion. The bird brings him a message from his master.

Secret of the Lost Cavern:
In 15,000 B.C., strange symbols found while hunting remind Arok of an encounter with a charismatic traveler a long time ago. In order for him to find his long-forgotten friend, the most brilliant painter of Prehistoric times, Arok begins a long and perilous journey.

Language Support:
* US English, French, German, Italian and Spanish

Pricing and Availability:
Games costs between $6.99 and $19.90 USD each, Customers have only to add the 3 games they want in the cart, and the third will be automatically marked as free. Free demo versions are available for download.

Coladia Games: http://www.coladia.com
Purchase: http://www.coladia.com/en/games/mac

The Snark is back, and as elusive as ever, in Snark Busters: All Revved Up! The all-new adventure tells the incredible story of Jack Blair, a world famous racecar driver who puts his career on hold to catch the Snark. Join Jack as he jumps between the real world and the inverted realms inside of mirrors in an attempt to catch his quarry. Solve dozens of whimsical puzzles to open the doors that lead to a bizarre fair, a steam punk airship, and a dinosaur museum; explore worlds of exquisite detail; and keep your eyes peeled for hundreds of cleverly hidden objects.

As you charm a snake, stop an airship from crashing, and feed a T-Rex, Jack will entertain you with his humorous quips, the story about his missing grandfather will tug at your heart, and his race to catch the Snark will keep you on the edge of your seat. Packed with mini-games, animated cinematics, and clickable surprises, Snark Busters offers a ride you'll never forget!

Price: $9.95

Snark Busters: All Revved Up Screenshots: