Indie Game News: December 2011

Friday, 30 December 2011

IndieDB and ModDB indie and mod of the year announced

2011 INDIE GAME OF THE YEAR ANNOUNCED

After 20 days of voting, the player's top 2011 picks have been unveiled

Melbourne - December 30, 2011 – At the beginning of this month, IndieDB and ModDB commenced their search for the best of 2011 by inviting gamers and developers to vote for their favorite indie games and mods.

170,000 fans voted and now just before we enter 2012, it is time to celebrate the winners in 2011. Scott Reismanis, the Founder of ModDB and IndieDB, commented "For the first time in a long time, it was hard to argue with the 2011 winners, with even the staunchest critics agreeing every game featured deserved its place."

2011 Indie of the Year is Terraria

Runner Ups:
Frozen Synapse
Trine 2
Bastion

2011 Mod of the Year is Multi Theft Auto

Runner Ups:
Third Age – Total War
No More Room in Hell
CoH: Eastern Front

Thursday, 29 December 2011

CaptainD Interviews Kan Gao of Firebird Games

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what summer’s like
On Jupiter or Mars…

Erm, yes. Well anyway:

There once was a man called Kan
He thought “a computer game to make I can"
An epic story to span
And an indie game reviewer came up with a plan
To interview this man called Kan

Can Kan fit in with the plan?
He certainly can!
Kan can...

All of which leads me rather neatly into an interview I did with Kan Gao, creator of the story-driven game “To the Moon”, of which you might also want to read my review.

1/ "To the Moon" took 1.5 years to complete - can you describe the process of taking it from an initial concept to released game?

What I initially intended to make was a short that would be completed in about 2 weeks. Then it went to a month, then months, then a year, and then over. Feature-creep at its prime, I say!

While I was as fortunate to have many talented people helping with the project, most of the time it was just me chipping away at it – so I pretty much just did whichever task that was required on the given day; be it composing a BGM, writing a scene, or coding a system. Then one day, I woke up, and it was time to make the ending.

2/ Were you trying to create a game that was quite unique from the outset, or did it just develop into something different to most games?

I don’t think I really considered what to make it as; I just wanted to tell a particular story. The rest just unfolded spontaneously as the project went on. Since I didn’t have anyone telling me that I should stick to a set genre to help making selling it easier, I just did what I wanted, and it turned out to be this oddball.

3/ What was the most challenging part of creating To the Moon?

Balancing time and staying motivated. When there’re so many tasks to be completed, it’s easy to be intimidated by the fact that the finish line isn’t in sight for the majority of the process. Dividing it into chewable chunks really helped.

4/ What would you say your main influences have been, both in terms of game design and your story writing?

Perhaps the classic RPGs I’ve played all those years ago, as well as a few films. Eternal Sunshine, Up, and Memento definitely had some impact on how the project unfolded. I was also reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at the time, and I’d like to think that it had an effect as well.

5/ I take it we're going to see more of Dr. Rosaline and Dr. Watts in future episodes?

Yep. Wherever there are serious, sentimental life stories in To the Moon’s universe, you can count on them being right there, ruining the precious moments with their pointless banters.

6/ How important do you feel the music is to building the atmosphere in a game like To the Moon?

Vital. Sometimes when I get stuck writing a scene, I’d go and work on the music first – and once that’s finished, the rest of the scene flows much easier. I think the music’s almost like a buffer of what I wanted to do and what actually gets articulated on the screen.

7/ Is there anything about To the Moon that you're particularly proud of?

Definitely the fact that it got finished!

8/ Anything you wish you could have done better / differently?

The infamous zombie segment of the game. It started out as a tongue-in-cheek attempt to pun Plants vs. Zombies, since you’re literally throwing plants at them and all, but the mini-game ended up being quite messy and off-paced. Otherwise, I think the gameplay overall could’ve melded better with the story.

9/ Can you give us a hint as to what your next game is going to feature?

It’ll be the 2^nd episode of To the Moon’s series, and it’ll probably feature The Lion King.

10/ If you could give aspiring indie developers one piece of good advice, what would it be?

Put together a schedule on a spread sheet or Google Calendar, and then cut some slacks into it before following through. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when working on a relatively giant project with a small team, and it’s better to steadily finish a bit at a time than to get exhausted and take week-long breaks every other day.

Thanks Kan for the interview, and all the best with your future as a pioneer of story-driven games with Drs Rosaline and Watts messing up people's sentimental life stories!

Eldevin: First In-Game Screenshots

Eldevin is the latest 3D Free-to-play browser-based MMORPG from Hunted Cow Studios.

Featuring a massive world to explore, hundreds of creatures to fight, a competitive PvP combat system, an intricate trade skill system and much more! The closed beta is coming in the second quarter of 2012. In the meantime you can visit the Eldevin Website and check out the screenshots below:

Sentou Gakuen is Now Open Beta

The upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online Visual Novel Sentou Gakuen is now entering Open Beta phase.

Jakarta, Indonesia -- December 30, 2011 01:00AM -- Sentou Gakuen is now in Open Beta starting from today. This is a temporary opening for hopeful users to join the community. The users of Open Beta will be able to see how the world of Sentou Gakuen functions before those who join on the opening day of January 1st. There may be exclusive events hosted in-game particulary for the new players, and throughout the day. Go check it out!

About Sentou Gakuen:

Sentou Gakuen is the very first anime-styled Online Visual Novel that is combined with MMORPG elements.

You are free to choose your own path. You can work and study, be a delinquent, protect the weak or even exploit their weaknesses. Get a part time job for money, or steal exam answer keys and sell them. Spend money to help your friends, or horde it for your own well being. Defend yourself by equipping various weapons such as pencils, rulers, or pepper spray; and get a hold of armor for extra protection. You can form a club with a group of people for a common purpose, and become the most respected group of students in the school.

-Make friends or foes, the choice is yours-

About PST Team:

Formed in early September 2011, we are the group of people that is currently developing Sentou Gakuen. Our team consists of small number of people from all over the world that trying their best to realize this project into reality. If you would like to contact us or anything, don’t forget to visit our official homepage to see our progress here: http://gakuen.org

Wednesday, 28 December 2011

Indie Game Dev PR 101

Indie adventure game supremo Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games cogitates on a recent public relations disaster (not his own!), and relates 3 instances of his own experiences of dealing with customer complaints. Pretty important reading for start-up indie developers with no experience of PR / handling customer complaints.

Read the article on Dave's blog

Monday, 26 December 2011

PC Indie Game Review - Water Galaxy

Water Galaxy takes an interesting and relatively simple (in terms of the gameplay mechanics) concept – using gravitational fields to send water from one planet to another – and turns it into a really fiendish puzzle game. There is a plot to do with helping an alien race whose planets are running chronically short of water, and a representative of this race pops up occasionally to give you advice or to thank you for your efforts.

You have only two things to do – place the gravity wells, adjusting both their size and location, and choose an angle to shoot the water off your base planet from (on some levels you have a restricted angle, others let you go through 360°). Each level has a limited number of gravity wells for you to use; usually you need every one you’re given to complete a level, though I did find one level where I found a way of doing it with just one of the 2 gravity wells. You need to get 100% of the water transferred to the other planet to complete a level (though if you get 99% it will let you off the last percent!).

The music is good and the graphics, while pretty functional, have some nice effects. There are quite a few different objects that can affect the water and gravity on each level, and you can clearly identify these on the game screen. The different objects are slowly introduced over the course of the levels, and it’s done in a nice progression that keeps the game feeling fresh while not complicating things too much. There are 52 levels in all, including a 7-level tutorial mode.

Water Galaxy plays very well, but it’s certainly no pushover. Whilst it may be fairly obvious immediately on some levels what you need to do, it requires some very precise placing and sizing of the gravity wells to get things right, not to mention getting the angle you shoot the water out of correct too. The best puzzles to me were those that involved the use of the gravity effect from moving objects. It’s certainly a challenging game, and a pretty original concept. I have to admit that there were one or two levels that I just couldn’t quite get right (try having a level where you can get 92% but not manage that last 7 or 8% to actually complete the level – frustrating!), but this is largely offset by the fact that you don’t have to play the levels in order or complete levels to unlock new ones, so you can just skip a level that’s really bugging you. (At least, I think this is true apart from the very last galaxy.)

While 52 levels is pretty respectable anyway, Water Galaxy comes with a built-in level editor; levels can be easily shared for anyone to play once you’ve done them. There are already a fair number of user-designed levels available via the “Online Levels” feature of the game. This is a really good move by the developers, who have added a great deal of longevity to the game by doing this. The level editor seems easy enough to use, though I haven’t really spent a great deal of time with it. At least a few people have managed to create playable levels with it, at any rate.

Overall, if you like puzzle games, you’re going to enjoy Water Galaxy (obviously if you don’t like puzzle games anyway, it’s probably not going to do much for you). Without the level editor I would have had to query its long-term appeal, although for just $4 / £2.50 it would have been pretty good value for money anyway. As it is, with extra levels being made, it could be outstanding for those who really like easy to play but difficult to master puzzle games (and Water Galaxy really is difficult to master!).

Water Galaxyon IndieVania

IndieGameReviewer.com's Top 10 of 2011

An interesting mix in their Top 10 Best Indie Games of 2011 selection - I've only played one of them myself and have only actually heard of 4 of them.

Saturday, 24 December 2011

Sorry Guys...

... I had changed my Google Ads at the top of the page to a less intrusive size, but the result was that it started displaying weird ads that had absolutely nothing to do with the site, video games etc. So I've changed it back and yes, it's a game that's being advertised now. Sorry if anyone finds the ad intrusive!

Friday, 23 December 2011

PC Indie Game Review - The Wreckless

The Wreckless is a single-player, mission-based space combat game that reminded me a bit of Wing Commander. You control a drone fighter ship operating out of the base ship “The Wreckless” and must help your corporation in a universe of cut-throat industrial espionage. There are 16 missions, with duties ranging from simple search and destroy and protecting a convoy to more complex operations. If you lose your ship, as long as there’s another one available you can jump back into the game and still have a chance to complete the level. The first couple of levels are tutorials, which aren’t too bothersome too complete but which give you the chance to get used to the controls without too much pressure.

The interface, using keyboard and mouse, never quite felt completely intuitive somehow, but to be honest it felt reasonably comfortable after just a couple of minutes. The voice acting, music and sound effects are pretty good, although the sound levels were set a bit oddly and didn’t appear to be changeable, resulting in it being just a little difficult to hear the speech at times. There’s also a warning sound which overrides everything else – understandable perhaps but this gets a tad annoying at times.

The graphics are reasonably good - the ship models are very simple, but since quite a lot of the time you’ll be in the middle of a pitched battle with ships moving around with lasers and missiles all over the place, you really won’t notice that! Most missions begin with a wait – until a target ship jumps out of hyperspace, a drop is made, a convoy ship moves off etc – and it’s really only in these moments that the graphics don’t look good. When there’s a lot of action on screen, it actually looks pretty great.

The missions are well thought-out, interesting and varied – it would have been nice if there had been more of them though. Each mission begins with a briefing, and the chance to change the ships your fleet is using; there is a briefing after the mission too, which explains where you failed or if you succeeded. Successfully completed missions earn you “Research Points”, which you can then use to expand the range of ships you can use – a nice extra feature. There is maybe a bit of replay value to using different ships for the various missions. As well as the missions, there is also a “combat simulator”, which lets you set up battles with whatever ships you’ve researched already. This adds to the longevity of the game.

The Wreckless was developed by Duct Tape Games and is available for PC and Mac, and costs $9.99. At this price it’s definitely quite good value for money, and if for instance new missions are ever added as a free DLC, it could become excellent value for money. (If this happens you will of course hear about it on www.IndieGameNews.com!) If you liked Tie Fighter, Elite (albeit without the trading) and that sort of game, you’ll definitely enjoy The Wreckless.

Ah, Sweet Lily!

Sweet Lily Dreams Now Available

A Heartfelt Adventure for the Family!

Dec 22^nd, 2011 – Rose Portal Games (www.roseportalgames.com), creator of the acclaimed Whisper of a Rose, brings a new adventure straight from the heart, Sweet Lily Dreams. With combined elements from RPGs, hidden object games, and traditional adventure games, Sweet Lily Dreams represents the culmination of over a year and a half of work. Craft magic, furnish your house, join guilds, solve puzzles, and customize your character, because nothing is impossible in the world of dreams! Sweet Lily Dreams will be available on Dec 22^nd from their websitewww.roseportalgames.com.

Lily is your typical 11-year old girl with some not-so-typical dreams. When her dreams mix with reality she sets out to prove herself by fighting her nightmares. But while exploring vast worlds that draw inspiration from stories such as Doctor Jekyll and Dracula, she begins to question her ideas of righteousness. With a cast of loveable characters, Sweet Lily Dreams will make you want to be 11-years old again, when even the most mundane task could turn into an adventure!

Take the journey. Dare to dream. Find our more at www.roseportalgames.com

ABOUT ROSE PORTAL GAMES

Rose Portal Games is a young company that specializes in creating imaginative and fantastical adventure games. While keeping their games fun and light, they focus on depth and artistic merit to push the standard for modern casual games. They love to dream and put these unique ideas into their products.

Soccer Up Released for Wii

22th December 2011, Barcelona, Spain. Soccer Up now available in America and Europe for download on WiiWare™ service.

Julio Moruno Game Designer of EnjoyUp Games

“Soccer Up offers an alternative to actual Soccer games. In Soccer Up you are the protagonist and decides everything. With "After Kick" you'll control the effect, height and force of your shots, give to the ball the most impossible effects, and dribble your opponents like the most famous football star. And the most important: only with the pad and two buttons.

If you miss Sensible Soccer, Kick Off or Match Day, Soccer Up is your game.”

Pricing: 500 Nintendo Wii Points™.

Soccer Up (Football Up Europe)

The ultimate Soccer comes back to Nintendo Wii^TM!

Soccer Up is a funny soccer game that allows you a total control of any action of your team players: Control the ball, dribble and shoot with effect to confuse the goalkeeper and score a goal!

The ball has inertia and will move freely over the field. Show your ability to control it and make short and long passes. Choose the height, effect and power before shooting to the goal. Become a soccer master and make your rival defenders tremble!

Each country has its national team. You can create your own team with the in-game editor: give it the name you like, choose its equipment and the most important, play with your Mii^TM.

Soccer Up features:

-Free Control Ball, the ball has inertial free movement and you’ll need to control it first.
- Total control of height, direction and effect in each pass and shoot you make.

- Create your own teams using your Mii^TM.
- Play the World Cup!
- Local Multiplayer option up to 4 players in cooperative or rival mode.
- Choose any available National Team.

About EnjoyUp Games

Innovative developer in the gaming industry, EnjoyUp Games born with a team with more than 15 years of experience on the entertainment sector and the idea of revolutionize the concept of video game, a young company with strong principle of contribute with new and fun game forms.

Our philosophy is create new products that give new sensations to the player. We have

achieved this with our ambitious and original project Chronos Twins, a game never seen were the action runs on two screens at once with a new concept of time.

With these projects, EnjoyUp achieve his short-term objectives. With a look on the future on new and fascinating challenges, becoming a promising studio on the video game sector.

Thursday, 22 December 2011

Indie Game Review - Battlemass

Battlemass is a multi0player online turn-based strategy game that features maps made up of hexagonal cells. It looks and sounds pretty good, and although the number of maps and units is rather small, you definitely need a strategy and it plays well – especially if you’re on-line at the same time as your opponent and can play it more or less as real-time. The maps are well designed and although the number of units is small, they are different enough to make it necessary to deliberate on which to build. As usual you need to harvest resources; one twist in Battlemass is that the areas you harvest slowly disappear afterwards, reducing the game map. Use this feature carefully and you can increase your defensiveness by destroying enemy attack routes.

Everything about Battlemass is simple and pretty well designed; its main problem at the moment is a distinct lack of players. The game only costs $9 but the free version to try first is very limited in what you can do – perhaps too limited. Also the game doesn’t send any reminders when it’s your turn, and there is no penalty for not taking your turn for days; the game simply gets abandoned after a while. It definitely has potential, but the free mode perhaps needs to be expanded so that players can get a proper feel of the game first. I’d recommend it if you like strategy and definitely have one or two people that you would regularly play against; otherwise it needs a bit more development and a greater number of regular players. The game seems to only allow for 2-player matches at the moment.

The game can be played directly on the website or through a client. For more information see http://www.battlemass.com/

Dino Palooza - The ultimate action-based defense game

Florianopolis, Brazil - Independent development studio Cat Nigiri today is proud to announce the release of Dino Palooza for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, a touch-based tower defense game with great focus on action, precision moves and tactics. Dino Palooza aims to put another spin in the popular tower defense genre.

Set in the late Cretaceous Period, the game tells the story of a small team of scientists (from the future), imprisoned in a prehistoric jungle, struggling to both fix the timeline they broke and surviving the wrath of Professor Nigel Racik, to whom dinosaurs should have ruled the earth forever. In Dino Palooza, the player does more than watch the guns take care of the bad guys. Players actively fire the cannons, place the barricades, slow the enemies down, and much more.

Feature Highlights:
* Gather resources, build mazes and place traps on more than 18 levels
* 16 dinosaur species
* Earn credits and unlock tons of new weapons
* Game Center leaderboard support
* Full Retina Display support
* Amazing soundtrack
* In-game comics

Device Requirements:
* iPhone 3GS or later, iPod touch 3rd gen or later
* iOS 3.2 or later
* 44.5 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Dino Palooza 1.0.1 costs only $1.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and will be available worldwide on the App Store in the Games Category. Launch Special Price $0.99 USD is being offered for a limited time.

Located in Brazil, Cat Nigiri is a startup indie games development studio focused on quality mobile apps.

Shadowgun - The Left Over: DLC released and it's for free

Brno, Czech Republic - Going back into the skin of John Slade, the most feared intergalactic bounty hunter. There's a new threat. Enemies are back and John Slade must take an another dangerous mission. What's new?

Four New Levels:The story expansions is directly connected to the events of original SHADOWGUN. But now, you can look forward to four new levels! Again, you will fight face to face with cyborgs and droids, blast genetically-enhanced humanoids and fire aerial drones and other lethal foes into the air.

New Enemy, New Weapon And Even Much More:Besides the already known enemies, there is new enemy creature that is ready to take you down. While you will face the new madness of Dr. Simon, new weapon will be ready to help.

You can enjoy new graphics, animations and cutscenes that will take your breath away. A new type of gaming interaction brings new experience of playing and all this against the background of a completely new background music. Datadisc is equipped with a completely new soundtrack.

New Or Improved Content In General:Datadisc also brings many new components that appear in the original version. In addition to traditionally professional console-quality graphics and advanced lighting effects you can enjoy new features, such as camera shake due to explosions, bullet trails.

All original SHADOWGUN lovers will surely be delighted with new control element - Roll, which enables the players to make rolls.

Even Better Gaming Experience:With datadisc, SHADOWGUN is now even better. "We just wanted to give some really gorgeous Xmas present to all our fans," agreed whole Madfinger team. Datadisc brings tuned difficulty, weapons and enemies.

Expansion Details - Datadisc Content:* the story directly follows the events of original SHADOWGUN

* free for all original SHADOWGUN owners

* 4 new levels

* new enemy creature

* new gun

* new type of gamimg interaction

* new soundtrack

* lot of new graphics, animations and cutscenes

New or improved content in general (with impact also on original Shadowgun version):

* new effects such as camera shakes or bullet trails

* new element in the control - Roll (player can now do rolls)

* tuned difficulty, weapons and enemies

* better, more intensive gaming experience

Device Requirements:* iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad

* Requires iOS 4.1 or later

* 239 MB

Pricing and Availability:Shadowgun 1.1.0 is $2.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Games category.

Located in Brno, beautiful city of Czech Republic, Madfinger Games brings together a team of veteran console game developers. Their goal is to create console-quality games for iOS, Android mobile devices with a major emphasis on complete customer satisfaction. Their Samurai series has been downloaded over a three million times and received rave reviews across the web. Their most recent game, Shadowgun received outstanding reviews and high ratings, became Number One Game in 25 countries and has been included in "App Store Rewind 2011."

Avernum: Escape From the Pit - New Macintosh Game - Out In Mac App Store

Seattle, Washington - Spiderweb Software's newest indie fantasy role-playing game, Avernum: Escape from the Pit, is now available in the Macintosh App Store. The first game in an epic trilogy, Avernum tells of the struggle for survival in an enormous prison far below the surface world. As a new prisoner of the pit, you will struggle for survival, look for a way to escape, and even dream of revenge on the surface tyrants who cast you there.

You have been banished to this underworld, never to see the light of day. While the surface continues to suffer under the iron fist of Emperor Hawthorne, you will enter into a battle for survival in Avernum, a hungry and fragile nation deep in the underworld. The people of this world have not given up, however, and they are forging a new nation of their own with steel, magic, and dreams of returning to the sun. Join them, explore a huge game world, hunt for hundreds of magical artifacts, choose from hundreds of quests, and become the hero of the underworld!

Avernum: Escape From the Pit is an epic fantasy role-playing adventure in a unique and deadly world. Fight to complete up to three game-winning quests. Explore a massive nation of tunnels and caverns, seeking out eighty towns and dungeons. Master over 50 spells and battle disciplines and hunt for hundreds of magical artifacts. Originally known as Exile: Escape From the Pit and released in 1995, this remastered version of Avernum: Escape from the Pit will contain immense overhauls to the system, graphics, compatibility, and interface of the indie classic.

System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.6 or later
* 144 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Avernum: Escape from the Pit 1.0 is $14.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide through the Mac App Store in the Games category.

Spiderweb Software, Inc., an independent game company based in Seattle, WA, is fanatically dedicated to creating fun, exciting fantasy role-playing games for Windows, Macintosh, and the iPad. Past titles include the award-winning Exile, Geneforge and Avernum series. Copyright (C) 2011 Spiderweb Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Meme Kart - An Old-School Kart Racer Launches on the App Store

Calgary, Alberta, Canada - Rocket Splash Games Inc. today is pleased to announce the launch of Meme Kart, a new kart racer for the iPhone and iPod touch. This racer features eight of the most popular meme characters, re-imagined for a mobile generation. Complete with a nostalgic feel, this game is similar to the amazing kart racers of the 1990's. Join your favorite meme characters across 12 tracks, four Gran Prix's and battle it out on the track using special abilities. Meme Kart is available now on the iTunes App Store.

Join Courage Wolf, Advice Dog, Hipster Kitty, Inglip Minion, Insanity Wolf, O Rly Owl, Socially Awkward Penguin and Longcat in the race of the forever! Race across twelve different tracks with your favorite racers. Complete four different Gran Prix's and additional mirror mode for each Gran Prix's as well.

Battle it out to race ahead of your enemies using fireballs, oil spills, lightning and other abilities you pick up. Gameplay has been developed so the game is easy to pick up, but difficult to master. Three different difficulty settings are included to help all players succeed, yet create a challenge for themselves. Play through many different race modes, including Gran Prix, Mirror Mode Gran Prix, Time Trial Mode and Free Play Mode. Tracks offer an old-school feel, with raceways, ice tracks, dirt tracks and more:

* 8 Meme Characters: 8 of the top meme characters are included and rendered in 3D. Including specialized karts, like a scooter for Hipster Kitty and a Red Golf Kart for the Inglip Minion. Every character corresponds to their own acceleration, top speed, handling and weight classe.

* 12 Tracks To Master:
Including themes like raceways, ice tracks, swamps, dirt tracks and castle tracks.

* Special Abilities:
Including oil slicks, fireballs, and lightning.

* Gran Prix:
Four different Gran Prix's, and once you finish those there are Four Mirror Mode Prix's.

* Difficulty Setting:
Choose your difficulty: Easy (50cc), Medium (100cc) or Hard (150cc).

* Time Trial Mode and Free Play Included:
Compete your race times, or just race on the tracks solo with these two modes.

Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad
* Requires iOS 4.0 or later
* 17.9 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Meme Kart 1.0 is $0.99 and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Games category.

Located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Rocket Splash Games Inc. was founded in 2011 by Ben Cousins. Rocket Splash Games makes games for gamers on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices.

IndieGala makes its first pay-what-you-want indie game bundle even bigger, extending support to independent music artists.

December 21, 2011, Rome, Italy, IndieGala is is pleased to announce that the music album Love As A Dark Hallway" and "Terra Firma" new web-only EP from the Chicago electronic band The FlashBulb, And the two albums "Good Luck" and "Doodads" of the Californian artist Robot Science, have been added to the IndieGala christmas bundle.

Who already purchased it, beating the average, can simply click the resend button on IndieGala website and obtain the download links of the new albums.

If you haven't bought IndieGala yet, you can grab this electronic dream by setting your price higher than the average.

With the IndieGala bundle, customers not only decide themselves how much they want to pay, but also how much of the proceeds shall go to the Save The Children and Child's Play charities. All games in the IndieGala bundle are made available in form of game codes that are redeemable at the Steam digital store.

Included in the very first IndieGala bundle are the following awesome indie games:

Zombie Shooter 2, by Sigma Team. A unique blend of two game genres - Action and RPG. Every player can choose a character to his liking, get experience to develop skills, earn money and spend it on weapons, medications and useful devices. All of this will be used against thousands of enemies.

inMomentum, by Digital Arrow. A minimalistic sci-fi platform racing game that challenges the players to think in both horizontal and vertical perspectives while racing against each other or against the clock in a puzzle-like environment.

Hacker Evolution: Duality, by exosyphen studios. A hacking simulation game, based on the successful Hacker Evolution game series, completely redesigned to offer an impressive and new gaming experience.

Your Doodles Are Bugged!, by Spyn Doctor Games. A magic explosion in the studio of Doodleus, the Master Doodler, has hexed his pet bugs into his doodles. Grab the magic pen and help Doodleus to free them again. Do you have what it takes to be a Master Doodler?

Saira, by Nifflas. A puzzle platformer with non-linear gameplay and a whole universe for you to explore. The game is heavily influenced by classic puzzle adventure games and uses a new unique graphical style combining high resolution photography into a lush and mysterious world.

Plus, included as bonuses exclusively during the first two days of the gala:

Bonus game: Zombie Shooter 1, by Sigma Team. Where is the line between life and death? How far can human science go, trying to understand this? Take part in the great battle to rescue humanity and find out what's happening! The human race is in danger again.

Bonus game: Hacker Evolution: Untold, by exosyphen studios. You play the role of Brian Spencer, a young computer programmer who has to prevent computers from becoming the next dominant species!

inMomentum Original Soundtrack. The official soundtrack of inMomentum, composed by Gareth Coker. ( coming from bundle day 2 )

the complete album Doodads by Robot Science

the complete album Good Luck by Robot Science

the complete album Love As A Dark Hallway by The Flashbulb

the complete album Terra Firma by The Flashbulb

Your Doodles Are Bugged! Bonus Doodles. An exclusive DLC which contains five bonus doodles.

Zombie Shooter Main Theme. The official theme of the Zombie Shooter series.

"We believe that there is a close link between music and video games. They are two forms of art that often complement each other. With our initiative we want to give to many talented artists the opportunity to have a wider audience" says Riccardo Rosapepe, of IndieGala Srl, the organizer of the bundle "And we are very happy that part of the proceeds from this bundle will go towards supporting the valuable work of Save The Children and Child's Play."

IndieGala will end the 27 December at 23.00 GMT

For additional information, visit www.indiegala.com or contact Riccardo Rosapepe.

Unity 3.5 Open Beta

Unity Technologies Begins Unity 3.5 Open Beta With Flash Player Deployment
Developers Can Now Enter the Unity “Flash in a Flash” Creation Contest with a $20,000 USD Grand Prize

San Francisco, CA - December 22, 2011 – Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity development platform for game, app, simulation and interactive 3D for the web, iOS, Android, consoles and beyond, is happy to announce the release of the Unity 3.5 open beta including a developer preview for the highly anticipated Adobe® Flash® Player deployment add-on. To celebrate the sneak peek of this add-on, Unity Technologies will be hosting a Flash platform game development contest where contestants can enter their Unity-based Flash titles for the chance to win the $20,000 USD Grand Prize.

The Flash deployment add-on, one of the most eagerly awaited features within the Unity development community, empowers developers to push their interactive 3D content to the web through Adobe Flash Player. Unity Technologies constantly seeks to provide the best avenues of deployment for developers using Unity and this release gives those developers an exciting peek at months of hard engineering work to make Unity compatible with Adobe Stage3D web technology.

“Our vision has always been to let developers take their games to as many places as possible – and Flash deployment greatly furthers that,” said Nicholas Francis, Chief Creative Officer at Unity Technologies. “While we normally wait to ship our software until it’s rock solid, the Flash publishing option is just so awesome that we had to do a developer preview. I can’t wait to see where our new and existing users will now take Unity.”

Unity Technologies is also thrilled to introduce the first Unity “Flash in a Flash” Creation Contest, which will start when the open beta begins on December 22, 2011 at 16:00 GMT. The fast-paced competition challenges developers to create and submit a Unity authored Flash platform game between December 22, 2011 and January 5, 2012. The best entry will be awarded the Grand Prize of $20,000 USD with more prizes going to the runners-up. Find all the contest rules and details at: http://unity3d.com/preview/contest

Anyone can download the Unity 3.5 open beta and help test the technology starting December 22, 2011 at 16:00 GMT. Those interested can find the beta download at: http://unity3d.com/preview

To download the high-res version of the Unity Flash deploy screen below please visit:-

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/1322788418/aba8603c98277295f545f9dd28a2dc03

About Unity Technologies
Unity Technologies is the creator of Unity, an intuitive and flexible development platform used to make wildly creative and intelligently interactive 3D and 2D content. The “author once, deploy everywhere” capability ensures developers can publish to all of the most popular platforms. Unity Technologies boasts a thriving community of 750,000 registered developers including large publishers, indie studios, students and hobbyists. Unity Technologies aggressively re-invests in its award-winning 3D development tools and democratization initiatives, such as the Asset Store digital content marketplace and Union game distribution service, in order to remain at the forefront of innovation. Unity Technologies is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Canada, Denmark, Lithuania, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Japan and Korea. For more information, visit: http://unity3d.com.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/unity3d
Twitter: http://twitter.com/unity3d

Adobe and Flash are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Adobe is not sponsoring nor is in any way affiliated with the contest.

Wednesday, 21 December 2011

First Look at GlitchSoft's new Star Marine: Infinite Ammo for iOS

Ottawa, Canada - Developer GlitchSoft, famed and renowned for some of the most awesome and popular retro-games, including the award-winning Destructopus(TM), and the classic Bar Star(TM) are at it again! 'Star Marine: Infinite Ammo' for the Apple iPhone(R) & Apple iPod touch(R), is currently in the final stages of its development, and interested journalists are awarded an exclusive sneak-peak at this retro run n' gunner. And dude ... this game is like .. WOW!

'Star Marine: Infinite Ammo' can be defined as the definitive Run n' Gun experience. Set in the distant future and in the darkest corner of the universe, a tyrant race captures and oppresses all living creatures within their realm. One-by-one the race acquires control over all - that is, until they cross paths with one man. He goes by the name of Arc, and he is a battle hardened drifter with no set course. Untamable, unforgiving, and unstoppable, he will bring apocalypse to the evil race in a fiery charge rampant with bullets and explosions... it's safe to say they Eff'd with the wrong Star Marine!

'Star Marine: Infinite Ammo' is a side-scroller that is inspired by, and features comparable gameplay, to popular titles like Contra, Rapid Reload, and Metal Slug!. The game is completely original and designed from the ground up for iOS, and features a familiar dual stick control schematic with a single button to activate Arc's propulsion pack. The controls are extremely responsive and allow Arc to run, dash, jump, hover, hang, climb, and prone while delivering a continuous rain of bullets upon his enemies!

As a studio, GlitchSoft has always strived to develop games that push the boundaries of mobile gaming and fill the commonly overlooked micro niches of the App Store. Bar Star(TM) was the first casual time management game to feature dual protagonists, and a scrolling playable area for more drink serving mayhem! Similarly, Destructopus(TM) features a screen spanning gigantic monster and allows players to rampage on behalf the planet! In keeping with the studios tradition, 'Star Marine: Infinite Ammo' takes iOS gaming to a whole new level.

Official launch details for Star Marine: Infinite Ammo will be announced in early January.

GlitchSoft is an independent studio in the business of building mobile games. Founded in late 2009 by a passionate and dedicated team of mobile game industry veterans, GlitchSoft creates cool original content for Apples iPhone, iPod touch, iPad platform, and Mac OSX platforms.

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Indie Devs - if you are selling your game on itch.io, how many copies have you sold?