Closure Coming to PSN

By: Derek Yu

On: September 17th, 2011

The puzzle-platformer Closure is coming to PSN in 2012, according to creators Tyler Glaiel and Jon Schubbe. The game, which began as a Flash project on Newgrounds, treats darkness as empty space, and all of its puzzles revolve around that concept.

The team is planning on released PC and Mac ports of Closure some time after the PSN release.

Trailer: Kenshi

By: Derek Yu

On: September 8th, 2011

Here’s one to look out for: Kenshi, a free-roaming, squad-based strategy RPG that takes place in what looks like a large-scale (400 sq. km) post-apocalyptic world inhabited by samurai. Its developer, Lo-Fi Games, is putting a lot of emphasis on the fact that your character starts out as a weakling and must suffer losses as he works his way up to faction leader (or badass lone wolf). The combat looks like a unique hybrid of real-time and turn-based systems, “based on motion capture and developed by an actual martial artist and sword practitioner”.

Kenshi is at a very early stage in development, but a playable demo is planned for supporters ($10) some time next month.

(Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

HACK9 & HACKER9

By: ithamore

On: September 8th, 2011

HACK9 by wahiko is a relatively old Cave Story inspired platformer that is more difficult than it should be. I liked the basic gameplay and the variety of music, but grinding shouldn’t be a core requirement for getting through a Metroidvania. Additionally, there is so much Japanese dialogue in the game that it’s easy for players of other first languages to not know what to do next.

For months it sat ignored on my hard drive after I gave up on exploring the game’s world, since I couldn’t unlock any areas beyond the default availability. However, one dedicated player (nintendofan100) made a video walkthrough, with aid of some helpful comments on the Indiegames.com Blog post on HACK9, which has made the game much more accessible and has allowed me to appreciate the game more.

The video at the top, however, isn’t part of the walkthrough linked before but was chosen to present how confusing the game’s language and design barriers can be and because it contains the game’s audio (unlike the walkthrough).

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New Hawken Vids

By: Derek Yu

On: September 2nd, 2011

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Trailer: Legend of Grimrock

By: Derek Yu

On: September 2nd, 2011

Legend of Grimrock is an upcoming first-person dungeon crawl from the four-man Finnish studio Almost Human, whose developers have previously worked for Remedy (Max Payne) and Futuremark (Shattered Horizon). It’s slated for an end of 2011 release, on Windows, Mac, and iOS.

Owlboy Demo Launch Trailer

By: Derek Yu

On: August 6th, 2011

D-Pad Studio has announced that a demo for its 2d side-scrolling platformer Owlboy will be released on August 20th.

TIGForums: DevLog for Owlboy

Indie Game: The Movie Debut Trailer

By: Derek Yu

On: June 20th, 2011

Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky have released an official trailer for Indie Game: The Movie. It focuses on the stories of Edmund McMillen, Tommy Refenes, Phil Fish, and Jonathan Blow. The filmmakers also announced that musician Jim Guthrie (Sword & Sworcery) is doing music for the movie, which has been shot but still requires post-processing. If you would like to help them fund this final push, head over to Kickstarter.

Hawken on G4

By: Derek Yu

On: June 16th, 2011

Here’s an interesting G4 interview with Hawken art director Khang Le, where they show off a new stage from the game as well as a new mode, “Siege”, where players vie for resources to launch battleships against each others’ bases. According to Khang, the game will be more casual than mech games like Mechwarrior, but it won’t just be “just an FPS with a mech skin over it”. There are three types of mechs – light, medium, and heavy – and you will be able to configure your right and left-hand weapons as well as collect power-ups during the match. There are seven maps planned for the game, with five of those having unique scenery. The tentative release date is early-to-mid 2012 on various platforms.

The interview:

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Fract Beta

By: ithamore

On: June 14th, 2011

The beta for Fract has been out for a while, but the news of “official” production beginning on the full game and the addition of Henk Boom (of Pax Britannica fame) to the husband and wife studio has gotten me all excited about it again (even though it isn’t expected to be finished until early 2012).

It’s a first person adventure game with an electro, Tron-ish theme in both look and sound that hooked me from the beginning. The beta is short if you can quickly figure out the puzzles, but Richard Flanagan says it’s only a “slice” of what he has envisioned for the full game. Also, I hope the final puzzle wows you as much as it did me the first time I hit the play button.

Fract’s beta was  made in Unity and comes in Mac and Win flavors. However, it is only downloadable, since it’s a hefty 117 MB (a heads up for those of you who have to consider bandwidth caps).

Preview: Wizorb

By: Derek Yu

On: June 14th, 2011

Wizorb is an upcoming Breakout/RPG game from Jonathan Lavigne, the creator of Ninja Senki. It will be released on XBLIG and PC, with the price to be determined. Paul Robertson is helping out with the animations in the game.