Castle Crashers Crashing Your Castles

By: Derek Yu

On: August 27th, 2008

Castle Crashers is now on XBLA for 1200 points! Get it while it’s hot! (Congratulations to Tom Fulp, Dan Paladin, and the rest of the Castle Crashers team!)

TIGdb: Entry for Castle Crashers

Survival Crisis Z

By: Alehkhs

On: July 10th, 2008

How is TIGSource absent of what could be the greatest independent post-apocalyptic sandbox-game ever!?

Ska Studios, the maker of the soon-to-be released XBLA game “The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai,” holds the title for perhaps the greatest free zombie game to date. Survival Crisis Z mixes the free-roaming, do-what-you-want aspects of games like Grand Theft Auto, and the post-apocalyptic zombie/infected scenario from movies like 28 Days Later and I am Legend.

The game has two main game-types: story and arcade. In arcade it is very simple: you will simply run around the streets of a city as the only survivor, facing ever increasing numbers of zombies until you die. This mode often only lasts a few minutes, and offers rewards for high-scores ranging from new mini-games available from the menu to a character editor for the campaign.

On to story mode:

As the main Character, you roam the city, trying to survive the outbreak in hopes that help will arrive. You aren’t alone either: other survivors like yourself have formed into clans, and the city’s police force has even set up a few strongholds.

For awhile, the city might seem peaceful almost, with only one ore two of the infected attacking at once. But wait until nightfall, and the streets will literally be crawling with them. Will you stay with other survivors in a stronghold? Or will you try to keep moving or hole up by yourself?

The “living city” aspect of SCZ is amazing, better even than many commercial games that have attempted the same thing: you’ll come across police patrolling the street, or even walk straight into shootouts between fighting factions. You can even interact with these factions by visiting various strongholds and ask for a job. These jobs range from simple “take this package across town” to rescue missions to even taking out entire other factions’ strongholds. As you do these missions, the various factions of the world will treat you differently based on how much they like you.

You don’t need to follow any sort of storyline however (although, if you want to escape the city, you will have to at some point), and there are plenty of things to do. You can simply explore: looting bodies as you go around the randomly-generated city, or even venture into the dark sewers and try to flush out the zombie invasion. Or you can run a personal trade-route: purchasing supplies for cheap at one stronghold, and then traveling to another where they will fetch a better price. You can use any money you get to purchase new weapons, supplies, or training. Yes, I said training. SCZ has a rpg-like system of several skills that you can develop. From personal healing to bomb-making, these skills can then be used in numerous ways to your advantage.

During all your travels throughout the city, you’ll even begin to pick up other lone survivors like yourself, who will travel along with you and even fight alongside. You’ll have to keep an eye on their health however: if they are bitten and not treated within a few hours, they might turn on you and attack.

The zombies of the game range from the fast, newly-infected variant from 28 Days Later, to the slow, shambling-yet-hard-to-kill version from the Zombie films of old. There exploding zombies, child zombies, dog zombies, giant zombies, and of course zombies that you always think you’ve killed, and then they get back up and attack again (much like those damn “magic” birthday candles).

Another fun aspect of the game is that you (and any “crew” that you have collected) can attempt to take over other stronghold for yourself. Sometimes this entails protecting it against a massive flood of the infected, and sometimes you must kill the current owners who are less than pleased to be evicted…

There are three “campaign/levels” in the game, and each is progressively harder than the last. So if you want an awesome survival-horror game for free, and you’re not a fool with Vista such as myself, look no further than Survival Crisis Z (or if you have Vista, do as I do and throw SCZ on a thumb-drive and play it on a friend’s computer with XP).

Also, although this version of SCZ doesn’t have multiplayer, who knows what lies around the corner…?

EDIT: for Vista users, there is a supposed fix, although it has only worked for some of those who have tried it. See the comments for this post if you want to try it for yourself.

TIGdb: Entry for Survival Crisis Z

Teeworlds

By: Alehkhs

On: June 27th, 2008

Take the weapons from the Quake and Unreal Series (the shotguns, the grenade-launchers, the laser-cannons), throw in swords, over-sized wooden mallets, and grapple-hooks for good measure and give the whole arsenal to a tiny, round, and colorful race of giggling cuteness that one might come across if say… Tribbles got into a large stash of food. Now force these creatures to fight each other in battles ranging from death matches to rounds of capture-the-flag.

Well, actually, don’t do that – it’s already been done, and turned into an surprisingly polished and addictive experience.

Officially, Teeworlds (originally titled “Teewars”) is a 2d multiplayer-only platform shooter available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and with its gunning and grappling cuteness it recalls memories of games like Soldat, Liero, and the cute-but-brutal landscapes of the Worms Series. Although it’s only in version 0.4.2, Teeworlds has already shown amazing progress and is perfectly playable right now.

The controls of Teeworlds are standard controls for and big-title FPS (WASD for movement, number keys for weapons, click to fire, etc) and fit the gameplay very well. Of course, the player can remap any of these keys if need be. The customization doesn’t stop there though; each player can customize the shape and color of their individual character or even make their own maps via the map maker. Another aspect of the controls I really thought was innovative for a game of this type was the emoticon system: just push leftShift, and a circular menu will appear with several choices. Simply move the mouse over the emoticon you want to appear over your character, and release shift. Simple as that.

You can even go one step further if that level of freedom isn’t enough: Teeworlds is an open-source project, which has led to many, many, custom skins and mods on the part of the community.

Game play is easy to learn, and soon you’ll be a double-jumpin’ grapple-swingin’ gun-wieldin’ machine, so be sure to check this game out.

Castle Crashers Dev Blog

By: Derek Yu

On: April 8th, 2008

Did you know Castle Crashers has a development blog? Now you know! I especially like these videos of artist Dan “Synj” Paladin making his magic in Flash. Lookin’ good!

…oh jeez, who am I kidding, this entire post (and perhaps this entire site) is just a reason to post this damn awesome BEAR who’s wielding a fish as a weapon (one of the 22 unlockable characters in CC).

Castle Crashers is still slated for a Summer release.

Berserker: How to Paint a Wall Mural

By: Derek Yu

On: February 26th, 2008

After a handful of posts about his philosophies regarding manliness and the Universe, Michal Marcinkowski has finally put up some new info about Berserker, his hand-to-hand physics-based deathmatch game that takes place in an abandoned prison. This step-by-step guide will show you how to paint a cell block in a delightful crimson red… just in time for Spring! Martha Stewart approves.

In the comments, Michal reveals in the comments that:

Let’s hope for a soon release!

Game Giveaway of the Day: Zombie Smashers X2

By: Derek Yu

On: February 6th, 2008

I just noticed that you’ve got about 9 hours left to download the full version of Zombie Smashers X2 (all 171 megs of it!) from Game Giveaway of the Day. This game is like River City Ransom plus zombies, and you get tattoos to upgrade your fighting abilities. Do I really need to say more? Get this now.

Okay, well I’ll add that the creator of ZSX2 is currently working on The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, for XBLA. The Dishwasher won Microsoft’s Dream-Build-Play XNA game competition a few months ago, and looks fantastic.

(Image Source: old ZSX2 page on I-Mockery.com)

TIG Duels: a Game for Extraordinary Gentlemen

By: Derek Yu

On: December 19th, 2007

TIG Duels is a game of urbane combat for gentlepeople of all ages! Grab a friend, duke, baron, baroness, earl, or marquis, and put your favorite TIGForums members in a civilized duel to find out who’s blood is the bluest.

Features:

– A damn fine game you can play with someone at the same keyboard (or mouse)!

– One-switch game mechanics (attacking/parrying controlled by a single button)

– 36 TIGForums members rendered in loving detail

– Advanced monocle physics engine made with steampunk technology

Between this and their extensive monocle-creation guide, the fellows at Oxeye Studios have proven themselves to be distinguished scholars of the highest calibre! Check out their latest game, Harvest: Massive Encounter, which is currently in open beta. It looks pretty great, natch.

(And join the bloody forums, already, will you?)

Toribash 3, and Free!

By: Derek Yu

On: October 29th, 2007

Toribash 3.0 has been released to much fanfare. So much that the site and forums have been down for much of this week. (But now they’re back up.)

There are many major additions to this version of the game including shaders, environments, and the possibility of 2-on-1 or 2-on-2 matches. And best of all, the game is absolutely free to play once again! Yay, alternative business strategies!

NekoFight

By: Derek Yu

On: September 10th, 2007

If Sumotori Dreams is a drunken sumo wrestling simulation, then NekoFight is a capoeira simulation going through meth withdrawal. It is not a pretty sight, oh no.

Arrow keys move. Press X and C to kick and Z to “grab,” although I’ve never managed to grab anything in this game! Hell, it’s tough just to enjoy any physical contact with my opponent before I flip myself off the screen!

(Source: dessgeega, via The Gamer’s Quarter forums)

Van Damnation

By: Derek Yu

On: August 26th, 2007

In issue #192 of Electronic Gaming Monthly, web funnyman Seanbaby penned a feature titled “”http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3141721">The Worst T.V. Games of All Time." In the intro to this feature, he made this statement:

I’m here to tell you, in the spirit of The B-game Competition, that the Van Damme game WAS MADE, and it is called Van Damnation. It was put out two years ago as a limited release, but, with Oddbob’s help, it is now being made available to the public once again. Rocky, the creator of the game, is also the mastermind behind another classic B-game – Pillar Killer.

(Now if only someone would make a game based off of either 1. Bloodsport, 2. Hard Target, or 3. both.)

ProTip: Read the readme or you will not get anywhere in this difficult game of timing and dong punches!

Download here (from Oddbob) or here (from me). The game is 2 megabytes large.