Unreal Development Kit

By: Derek Yu

On: November 5th, 2009

Wow. Shit. Epic Games just launched Unreal Development Kit, putting their extremely expensive Unreal Engine 3 in the hands of the masses – the kit is free to download for non-commercial use! Otherwise, there are two licensing options available (coming soon):

1. If you use the kit internally at your own company, it costs $2,500 per developer seat per year.

2. If you sell a game or application made with the engine, the first $5,000 you make is royalty-free. After that, Epic Games gets 25%.

With Unity Indie going free last week and now this… dang, the level of tools available for independent developers just rose dramatically. Good times!

Stonesense – Dwarf Fortress Visualizer

By: Derek Yu

On: November 3rd, 2009

Now this is a dream coming true right here! Stonesense (alpha) is an open source isometric visualizer for Dwarf Fortress, created by jonask and Solifuge. It can run side-by-side with the venerable roguelike/sim to provide a graphical view of the game. The sprites are being contributed by various members of the DF community.

Here’a video of the mod in action:

Thanks, Michael Komalarajun, for the heads-up!

IGF 2010 – 306 Entries!

By: Derek Yu

On: November 3rd, 2009

A record number of entries were submitted to next year’s IGF Main Competition – 306, to be exact! This year there were 224 entries. In 2008 there were 173. In 2007 there were 143… you get the picture! Soon, the 2010 entries will be checked and distributed to 150 judges (the most ever), and the finalists will be announced in January. In March we’ll find out which of those finalists will win prizes at the illustrious IGF award show.

Man, I love seeing the new entries each year. As much as we enjoy stereotyping independent games as being one type of game or another, the IGF entries are always a really diverse bunch. I think it’s awesome (and I eagerly await whatever controversies come up in 2010!).

Congratulations to all the entrants!

Hammerfight

By: Derek Yu

On: October 30th, 2009

Hammerfight came out unexpectedly on Steam this week. Formerly known as Hammerfall, the game is set in a unique fantasy world and puts you in control of a flying machine that can be equipped with various knives, swords, flails, hammers, axes, and guns. Use the mouse to fly and to fight – Hammerfight employs a physics engine to let you swing weapons using the motion of your machine.

This game is strong and very manly in an ancient sort of way, kind of like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. Because of the direct control you have over swinging your weapons, getting a solid hit in Hammerfall feels REALLY good, and you’ll be doing a lot of it during a variety of manly activities like hunting giant cave worms with a ball and chain or fighting for your life as a slave in the arena. After each battle, a victory screen will pronounce your glory and say things like “You are now known as Derek the Barbarian,” or “You are the Worm Slayer,” or something like that. Also, as you progress, you’ll get decked out with all manner of sweet flying machine armor, and have banners hanging off of you that flap around as you kick ass. It’s awesome.

When the game was still called Hammerfall there was a playable demo available. Hammerfight is still the same great experience, but with all the polish it needed to be a full commercial release. (For one thing, the English text has been cleaned up considerably, making the storyline much more easy to follow.) It’s just as gorgeous, detailed, fun, and challenging as it was before, just better.

Hammerfight is a masterpiece, and $9.99 is a bargain. Go grab it!

TIGdb: Entry for Hammerfight

Unity Indie: Now Free

By: Paul Eres

On: October 28th, 2009

Unity is a middle-range game engine (cheaper than the million-dollar ones but more expensive than things like Game Maker) which has been used for indie games like Dock’s Tumbledrop, Derek Yu’s Diabolika for iPhone, Tale of Tales’ Fatale, and many more.

Unity Indie, previously around $200, has been renamed to just “Unity” and is now free. You can read more information on the whys on Gamasutra. Apparently Xbox 360 support is also in the works. To quote David Helgason from the Gamasutra interview:

“The thinking was that Unity Indie isn’t generating a significant portion of our revenue, and we’ve always had this vision of democratizing our tools. We have over 13,000 customers using our product, so we figured, let’s take Indie and just give it to everyone. Whether that becomes a cash flow positive or a cash flow negative – and some people will upgrade – is not really important. What’s important is to get this in the hands of as many people as possible.”

Small Worlds

By: Paul Eres

On: October 27th, 2009

Small Worlds is an exploration game in which, as you explore, the world gradually zooms out and is revealed. It is quite short and charming, even though there’s no enemies, upgrades, collectibles, or actions besides moving and jumping.

For those too tired to play through it, here’s Ortoslon’s playthrough (warning, spoilers).

TIGcast #1

By: Paul Eres

On: October 27th, 2009

TIGcast is a podcast, on TIGSource. They talk about Bob’s Game, Love, Flash on mobile phones, and other things. Speakers are Dock, YagerX, godsavant, and C418. You can download the MP3 or listen to it online on zShare.

There was also a TIGcast #0, which I don’t actually recommend anyone listen to due to how hard it is to understand anything. That one had Dragonmaw (who also edited TIGcast #1 and is the driving force behind these), malec2b, Dock, Cthulhu32, godsavant, and myself, and we talk about RunMan, Canabalt, “achievements”, and finishing games. It’s a pity the sound quality is so bad for #0 though.

TIGSource Presents: Assemblee Competition!

By: Derek Yu

On: October 24th, 2009

Calling all artists, musicians, and programmers! A two-part TIGSource Competition is beginning! In Assemblee, artists, musicians, and coders will work separately to create games together.

The first part is a month-long art and music competition, where entrants submit as many cool art and music assets as possible. Anything your febrile creative mind can come up with – characters, backgrounds, user interfaces, random icons, crazy tunes, sound effects, and who knows what else. We’ll cheer you on as you dump your brain onto the internet for us to look at.

In the second part is for you design monkeys and code wizards. You guys will have one month to make games using only the assets created for part 1. Could that sprite be used as a character for my game, or maybe as something else entirely? What kind of game does this song make me think of? You guys and gals better cheer the loudest for the artists and musicians, because whatever they make, you’ll have to use!

This is a competition about interpreting game artwork (both 2d and 3d) and music and finding interesting uses for them. It’s also about sharing – all the art and music will be made freely available to the public for non-commercial usage. Part 1 is beginning RIGHT NOW! Join the fun!

Eufloria – Released!

By: Xander

On: October 23rd, 2009

“It’s bloomin’ great!” – Xander

Sorry for that. Anyway as you should be aware Eufloria, previously ‘Dyson’, has been released on Steam, D2D and through the official site. If you didn’t know this then I’m afraid you’re simply not cool. However in reading this post you now DO know this, and have automatically been saved from an awkward moment of self-doubt and an accusing glare. It’s fine, no need to thank us, we’re just doing our job. If you really do want to show your gratitude then why not pick your favourite digital distributor and play one of the most elegant strategy titles of recent memory.

If you’re still on the edge, you can also play the demo to find out if nothing else just why we needed to tell you that you could.

TIGdb: Entry for Eufloria

Fatale

By: Derek Yu

On: October 23rd, 2009

Fatale is the latest mystical experiment from Tale of Tales. It’s inspired by Oscar Wilde’s interpretation of the biblical character Salome, although, in my opinion, knowledge of the story is not required to enjoy the game. I wasn’t familiar with it before I played.

I think the game captures the spirit of the story very well. I don’t think it’s meant to retell the story, per se, but to give it a certain added richness by letting you explore a few of the critical scenes in interesting ways. It’s worth mentioning that Takayoshi Sato (of Silent Hill fame) did the character design, which is perfect considering the sensual and macabre nature of Salome’s tale. Overall, the graphics and audio are quite good.

I enjoyed Fatale and came out of it thinking about its implications and intrigued by its source material. However, I still feel that it’s a good game that’s shy of great. For it to be great would require more detail in the simulation, which sometimes feels clunky and uninspired. Whereas these flaws might go unnoticed in the games of “seasoned gamers” (a phrase playfully cribbed from the website), in Fatale they really stand out for the simple fact that looking around and taking in the environment is the game’s primary focus.

TIGdb: Entry for Fatale