This is an great video by Brian Provinciano explaining how he developed the NES prototype that eventually became Retro City Rampage (available now on XBLA, PSN, WiiWare, and Steam). In the video, Brian shares tons of insights into the constraints of NES hardware and the heroic effort to make a complex game for it. It’s a must-watch for fans of homebrew.
Here’s a link to NESHLA, the NES assembler that he wrote for the prototype.
This is the first official trailer for The Witness, a first-person puzzle game by Jonathan Blow and his new team. It was shown today at a Sony press event where they unveiled the PS4, the only console that the game will launch on. The other two launch platforms for The Witness are PC and iOS.
Robit Studios and Chucklefish are collaborating on Treasure Adventure World: a commercial, HD remake of Treasure Adventure Game (a wonderful, freeware Metroidvania from 2011). Their press release shares some of the main changes to expect from the new version:
– New engine, smoother gameplay, HD widescreen mode
– High-res, hand-drawn art by Christine Crossley
– New music and sound by Robert Ellis
– More treasures and collectibles, remixed puzzles and new equipment
– Improvements to enemy AI, more intense boss fights
– More tightly-focused story, intriguing cutscenes, charming NPCs and new multiple endings
There is also some info in the Indie Statik post on TAW, which helps to expand upon the press release.
Additionally, those curious about experiencing the game’s earlier incarnations can download Karma as an exclusive bonus from the GOG.com release of TAG. The games in Karma aren’t as fully polished as TAG was, but they are great samples of how drastic development can be from one iteration to the next.
Desperate Gods is an open source “digital board game” developed by Wolfire Games for Fuck This Jam, a week-and-a-half-long game jam based around making games in genres you generally dislike. In his design overview, Wolfire’s David Rosen describes how he enjoys board games but feels that their video game counterparts lack a lot of what makes them fun. Check out the video above to see how he and artist Aubrey Serr tried to overcome these problems while developing a unique board game from the ground up.
Here’s a new trailer of Joakim Sandberg’s Iconoclasts to whet your appetite. Although nowhere near finished, it does look as though the game is progressing nicely.
After months of effort, Underrated Indie Games II was wrapped up a little while ago. It is part of moshboy’s endeavor to bring attention to overlooked indie games. The videos in this new addition to his series cover a 100 games of a wide variety to give you a glimpse of what you might have missed.
To continuing working in this direction, moshboy has also released Oddities, which is “very much a continuation of Underrated Indie Games in blog form.” It already has a hearty selection of games that has been growing over the weeks. And if you like anything in Underrated Indie Games II or from the original series, Oddities should be worth your while to keep a tab on.
Even though the following three Kickstarters have been fully funded, I thought you might still be interested in hearing about the projects or getting in at the last moment to obtain prizes and help the developers reach their “stretch goals”.
The first game is Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, a first-person action title centered around medieval melee combat. Developer Torn Banner Studios, who previously created the Half-Life 2 mod Age of Chivalry, says the final release will have a deep melee system and over 60 weapons and siege weapons to play with, as well as a “dynamic objective system” to provide some higher-level strategy to the team-based battles. But unfortunately the single-player portion of the game sounds like it will be limited to practice for online multiplayer.
Chivalry is slated for a Fall release as a PC exclusive.
This is a new trailer for Colin and Sarah Northway’s Incredipede, which features artwork by Thomas Shahan. Slated for a late October release, Incredipede is a physics-based platformer where you control Quozzle, a little creature that can be built and rebuilt using jointed limbs and muscles. According to the game’s website, it will come with 60 levels and a level editor.
This is a trailer for an upcoming horizontal shoot ’em up called Heaven Variant, by the three-man team at Zanrai Interactive. Zanrai has made it clear on their FAQ that the game will not be bullet hell, but nonetheless aims to appease both hardcore and casual players. It currently has no release date.
Note: this video was released in February, and since then the developers have made some changes to the basic game mechanics, including dropping mouse control for precise 360-degree aiming. In the latest trailer you can see that weapons now lock to a few set angles:
This is a video that mashes up quite a few trailers for doujin games that will be available at this year’s Comiket (Comic Market), a Japanese self-published comic book festival (and the largest in the world, with half a million attendees last year). The video was put together by Edelweiss, a doujin game developer that created Ether Vapor and is attending Comiket 82 with a new shoot ’em up called Astebreed. The festival is taking place this weekend on August 10-12.
Links to each of the games featured in the video are available here on Edelweiss’s website.
(Source: Elixir)