“Game #3” In Action

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: August 13th, 2009

The Behemoth, creators of indie hit Castle Crashers, have uploaded the first of hopefully many development videos of their next XBLA game, which they are still calling “Game #3.” The video shows that co-op, multiplayer action which I am down for. So down.

Most prominently featured is “Soul Mode” (again a tentative title), where each team must beat the souls out of the other team(s) and hold on to them as long as possible, racking up points over time. Customization is also talked about, with custom appearances and weapons promised for each player. Even this early on the gameplay and presentation look top notch. Keep watching The Behemoth’s dev blog for more tasty updates.

(Source: Offworld, natch!)

GearToyGear

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: August 11th, 2009

GearToyGear is a new crazy-fast tunnel shooter from shmup deity Kenta Cho. The instructions are: “Avoid incoming bullets/lasers/obstacles and destroy enemies. Hold the right trigger to speed up and earn more score.” It might be prudent to add a seizure warning as well.

Download here. (Requires XNA Framework)

(Source: TimW!)

Dust: An Elysian Tail – Trailer

By: Xander

On: August 6th, 2009

Dust is just one of a number of projects being created under the ‘Elysian Tail’ franchise, which includes an independent animated feature film and of course this very pretty game. Dean Dodrill is the man behind the animation, and the programming, and the sound and.. well everything except for the music.

There isn’t much to go on currently beyond this trailer, but it seems to divulge a fair amount of the gameplay, where the majority of the action is reminiscent of a side-scrolling beat’em up with a dash of platforming thrown in for good measure. So far it looks pretty damn exciting, with special note of course going towards the animation which just makes everthing look wonderful, even if you find the character designs a little offputting at first.

Definitely the biggest barrier the game will face will be trying to cross that strange ‘furry threshold’, as so long as the controls and hit-detection feel satisfying this could be the one of the best games to hit.. actually, what is it coming out on?

As it is being entered into the Dream Build Play competition it maybe a full Xbox Live Arcade title. If not though it may end up as an ‘Xbox Indie’ title. No official word, but expect more soon!

(Source: Destructoid.com)

The Behemoth Comic-Con News

By: Derek Yu

On: July 24th, 2009

The Behemoth dudes are always at San Diego Comic-Con, and this year is no exception. I couldn’t make it this week, but thankfully Gamespot was on hand to take videos of Game 3 and interview Dan Paladin for me. (Thanks, gents!) Something tells me that 2010 is going to be another huge year for independent games.

Also, Castle Crashers is hitting PSN.

(Source: Brandon Boyer, via Offworld)

‘Splosion Man

By: Xander

On: July 24th, 2009

Independent Developer Twisted Pixel’s previous effort Maw was a fun if flawed experience. Undeniably charming it lacked any real amount of depth to keep you playing after the credits rolled.
Their new game Splosion Man just hit the XBLA this week for 800 Makeshift points and, given the amount of people involved in the production according to the credits might possibly be the last one I could get away with calling ‘indie’. However at the very least I wanted to see how their follow up to Maw fared, and it must be said it’s pretty damn fun.

Strangely, while Maw didn’t have much of a story there doesn’t seem to be any story to ‘Splosion Man whatsoever. I think he must be some kind of escaped experiment, but nothing is literally described to the player, so lets just say you play a man made of explosions ’because videogames’. So now the story is out of the way we can talk about the game itself. It’s pretty much a standard platform/action/puzzle game where dexterity is generally more important than lateral thinking. There’s about 50 stages in the game, each about 5 minutes in length and the entire campaign can be run through in about 4-5 hours.

You only have one button that really does anything beyond the movement commands which is ‘Splode’, causing your character to rocket jump and blow up anything around him. This can be used as you would expect for regular jumping and wall jumping, but also means you can blow up different forms of explosive barrel to give yourself a much more powerful leap. It’s a simple mechanic which only really gets more complex by increasing the number of successive jumps between safe ground or checkpoints. Sometimes however you will have to press a button to cause a barrel to appear for a limited time as it fires out a depositor, in which case you’ll have to time a jump accurately in order to explode the barrel at the right time to push you in the right direction.

The game only gets more complicated from there, and that’s where the first act of the game really shines. Each level manages to introduce new and imaginative concepts to work around, with either crushing ceiling spikes or rising cryogenic goop requiring quick thinking and fast action in order to avoid. The problem here is that for the most part this is impossible. At least on the first try. Trial and error is certainly the method you’ll be using to be able to pass through each stage of the game. Again it isn’t so bad in the initial act, but in the two successive ones they stop adding in new elements to the game meaning you’re just introduced to some insane construction of earlier puzzle pieces. Which will cause you to die. Repeatedly. If you’re a fan of ‘Nikujin’ or ‘IWBTG’ this probably wont be too much of a problem for you, but any prospective buyers need be aware of the sheer amount of death traps in the game. Plenty of times you will simply not be able to work out what you have to do in a room before it kills you, or worse yet you’ll figure out what you have to do but because you hadn’t started doing it immediately upon entering you’ll die anyway.

I don’t exactly call this a fault, although certainly an imperfection, because the times when this works right (as in any time you don’t die) ensures some incredibly tense platforming. When the walls try to crush you and you only just manage to wall jump between them and blast the barrel that saves you by the skin of your teeth its immensely satisfying. It’s just a shame that not all the puzzles in the game are tweaked to such an extent, leaving others as a frustratingly repetitive chore rather than a self congratulatory triumph. It’s strange because the game otherwise seems designed to always charm the audience, from the great animations of SM himself where he might start running as if he’s a dangerous monster or spread his arms out and make noises like he’s flying a plane, to the abundance of cannon fodder scientists who are simply there half the time to be blown to pieces causing meaty chunks to blast forth from severed appendages, often times falling off the foreground of the otherwise flat 2.5D stage. Special note also needs to be made for the music, which is great throughout, but also ramps up extra elements when you’re busy blasting yourself through the air for some great auditory feedback. There are also some great songs in the game, and the first time you pick up a fat guy eating a doughnut is easily one of the stand out moments of the title.

The boss fights aren’t such a great idea due to the instant-kill nature of pretty much all their attacks. You almost have to execute a perfect routine against their attack patterns or face repeating the whole thing again. Once you’ve fought through them it makes sense but the process of actually getting to that point is rather frustrating. The final boss however isn’t the same, simply because of the satisfying feedback you’re provided with, as each time you detonate a part of him an awesome guitar chord blares, again and again each time you further mutilate him. The ending is simply bizarre, but worth seeing for the awesome live-action dance routine and original music, including a schmaltzy ‘Sixteen Candles’-esque credits track. No, seriously.

Overall it’s a pretty fine game. It’s perhaps a little slower than it could’ve been, and it really isn’t pushing the system as far as we’ve seen in other XBLA games but it’s a definite step up from ‘Maw’, and for £6.50 there’s an awful lot of content to subset the slightly lacklustre visuals. On top of the single-player game there’s four-player local and online coop on an entirely different set of 50 levels. It’s reminiscent of the PDA games from ‘Alien Hominid’ and they’re well worth a play through on the same console, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to complete them online as lag between matchmade players can make it impossible to time explosions correctly. It might be better with friends online, but for the sake of this review it’s not all that important.

It’s great fun, and I definitely recommend it for the asking price. I was initially a little iffy on the concept but I think it was well executed here even if the entire product isn’t quite as cohesive as I would’ve liked. I also now can’t wait to play Explodemon which was announced around the same time if not before, to see just how far it can take this idea further. Curve Studios? Please be bringing it on!

Miner Wars

By: Alehkhs

On: July 16th, 2009

If there is one game type that I love, it’s a free-roaming space sim. Games like Elite or Freelancer come to mind, where the player has the freedom to explore a universe unbounded, to etch out a living through trading, piracy, transportation, and even mining asteroid fields.

As much as I enjoy playing the miner route in these games, the experiences is hardly ever more than a 3D Asteroids clone, where you continually shoot spinning rocks into smaller and smaller chunks. I always wanted a game with a more detailed mining simulation; similar to the suddenly popular games Infiniminer or Minecraft.

Seems like Miner Wars is gonna be my kind of game.

Inspired by games like 1991’s Tunneler, where players dug tunnels to infiltrate their enemies base, and Descent, where they flew spaceships through cramped tunnels, Miner Wars allows players to dig their way through massive asteroids in an effort to uncover precious ores and investigate alien artifacts.

Don’t be afraid you’ll roam the stars alone though, Miner Wars is an MMO. Players will be able to join guilds and work together. Will your team mine ore from the kilometer-wide asteroids? or perhaps you will lie in ambush and snatch the ore out of the hands of another hard-working miner. You are free to make your living as you please, and there is a main plot to entertain you along the way, which will evolve with future game updates.

I talked briefly with Marek Rosa, Miner Wars Game Director, about this interesting project. “The player has several factions to choose from, and this choice determines who is his friend or enemy,” explains Rosa. “This faction’s bases also act as respawn locations for the player, and he can return to these bases to upgrade his ship with new weapons, engines, shields, etc.” I was told that currently there are ten ship-types for the player to choose from, varying in things like size, cargo capacity, armaments and power.

The factions also provide NPCs for the players to interact with, and Rosa gave a few examples of missions the player might receive, “It may be rescue, fighting, exploration, mining and harvesting ore, patrolling space, stealth missions or something else entirely.” Fighting will no doubt occur between players, and faction control of various sections of asteroid field will likely be one of the driving forces in the evolution of the game’s universe. “If you dig a tunnel, and the leave and go across the universe, another player can still come across your tunnel,” said Rosa. Every interaction you have with the physical world of the game will leave a permanent effect.

Although Miner Wars has an infinite world, with asteroid fields scattered forever in every direction, players don’t need to worry about flying for hours just to complete a mission. Rosa explained that players can travel instantaneously between various ‘transportation ships,’ which will be spread throughout the game’s universe. That’s not to say that players can’t strike out on their own though, and explore the places between these transport hubs. In fact, it’s this kind of exploration that will allow the player to discover alien artifacts among the asteroids, which can be collected and sold for a high profit.

The current distribution plan for Miner Wars is a release for PC in August, with updates and expansions of the game’s story and world expected to come every few months. Shortly after the PC release, it’s planned that Miner Wars will be coming to XBLA, and there are even whisperings of a 2D version headed to handheld devices like iPhone…

Game Website

Surprise Surprise

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: July 2nd, 2009

Fez. XBLA. 2010.

Kodu Game Lab

By: Derek Yu

On: July 2nd, 2009

Microsoft Research has released Kodu Game Lab to Community Games ($5). It’s a game-making tool with a very high-level iconographic programming language for making simple games using only the Xbox 360 controller as input. Geared towards kids and non-programmers as young as seven, Kodu allows players to modify terrain and preset objects to create games. The games can then be shared to with friends on XBLA.

To get an idea of what Kodu can do, check out this video from CES 2009, or this post on the Kodu blog. Sounds pretty nifty, actually! If only they could somehow combine this with the editors in Spore…

Update: Here‘s Rob “Oddbob” Fearon’s take on Kodu. (He really likes it but is worried it will get buried because of the 8-minute-long demo!)

Xbox Live Community Games renamed. Now – Xbox Live Indie Games

By: Xander

On: June 11th, 2009

As well as the XNA Creator’s Club Package being updated to version 3.1, one of the changes being brought about will be how Community Games will no longer be titled as such. Instead they will be headed by the title ‘XBox Live Indie Games’.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. It does seem to be part of a much wider movement to try and promote the more interesting XNA titles out there with a new User Ratings system which will hopefully give Hexothermic and its kin the recognition they deserve.

However, if this new branding is to include titles like “Clock 24-7” and “Remote Masseuse” then I can’t help but feel conflicted on this, as if this rebranding is simply using the wake of recent indie successes to make the questionable content of the Community Games catalogue somewhat more respectable in the public eye. I don’t mean to suggest any kind of ‘ownership’ of that word specifically, however after all the work from many communities across the world who have given the word such a prestigious weighting behind it, I just want to see it treated respectfully.

So, should we be concerned? Or do you think there could be some other positive to the name change after all?