Dan Paladin Basically Rules

By: Derek Yu

On: June 19th, 2007

Good ol’ Dan Paladin sez: "Online, the sky is the limit, that’s what so exciting as an independent. That just sounds so much more appealing than a publishing deal; they’re a big mess. I would like to see the traditional publishing deal change. I would like to see publisher act more as distributors than publishers.

All developers will tell you the same thing – a publisher has taken away something of theirs that they felt really needed to be there, or they changed something in a way they didn’t agree with because they own the money and the IP. That’s why we risk everything up front, so we can take it in and it’s all there; we trust our own judgement." (Link)

(Source: Kotaku)

Castle Crashers… 2008?

By: Tim

On: March 10th, 2007

Infiltrate! Storm the gate! 2008!

IGF Winners

By: Tim

On: March 7th, 2007

(Source: Kotaku, Joystiq)

Winners in bold.

Student Showcase finalists are:
Base invaders, Invalid Tangram, Opera Slinger, Gelatin Joe, And Yet it Moves, Toblo, Euclidean Crisis, The Ball of Bastards, The Blob

Excellence in Audio finalists:
Aquaria, Bone: The Great Cow Race, Everyday Shooter, Fizzball, Racing Pitch

Finalists for Excellence in Visual Arts:
Aquaria, Golf?, Samorost 2, Castle Crashers, Roboblitz

The finalists for Design Innovation Awards:
Aquaria, Everyday Shooter, Armadillo Run, Toblo

Finalists for Technical Excellence:
Arcane Legions: A Rising Shadow, Armada Online, Bang! Howdy, Blast Miner, Band of Bugs

Best Web Browser Game finalists:
Bubble Islands, Gamma Bros., Samorost 2

Indie GameTap award. The three winners of this prize will share $50,000 and have their game published on the service.

First runner up: Blast Miner
Winner: Everyday Shooter

The Audience Award winner is Castle Crashers.

The Darwinia team introduces the finalists for this year’s SMAs:
Aquaria
Armadillo Run
Bang! Howdy
Roboblitz
Everyday Shooter

And the winner this year is: Aquaria.

Quote Gamespot:

The 2007 Game of the Year prize went to Aquaria, the previously unhonored 2D fantasy game from indie shop Bit Blot. After stumbling verbally, one of its designers admitted, “This is a terrible speech.” But the massive applause proved the audience didn’t really care.

Alien Hominid HD

By: Derek Yu

On: February 26th, 2007

Alien Hominid is hitting Xbox Live Arcade this weekend for 800 Live Arcade Points. That’s $10 US dollars! But THAT’S NOT ALL. The Behemoth is also planning on giving away some real life pseudo-metallic trophies to people who climb their leaderboards every week and every month.

And since I’ve still got a lot of vertical copy to fill, here’s a haiku:

New Castle Crashers Trailer

By: Derek Yu

On: February 23rd, 2007

It’s short, but pretty sweet! Despite my earlier reservations, the “flash”-style art is really growing on me now… those little characters are really endearing. Have the lines gotten more crisp since the last time I saw it? I love the part where they’re fighting in the middle of a big war!

I hope there are less cheap hits in this game than there were in Alien Hominid.

Links: Official Site, “Racist Piece of Equipment”

New Indie Games XBLA Bound

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: February 1st, 2007

Microsoft recently announced ten new games planned for Xbox Live Arcade in 2007, including a few indie titles such as The Behemoth’s Alien Hominid HD, NinjaBee’s Band of Bugs, and Klei Entertainment’s previously-unannounced (big) update of Eets, Eets: Chowdown. But that’s not all!

Friends of TIGSource Metanet Software announced a couple days before this announcement an announcement of their own: In collaboration with aforementioned Klei Entertainment, they plan to bring an upgraded incarnation of N, called N+, to the Arcade as early as Fall this year. Hooray!

Now that I think about it, all these games probably deserve their own separate previews. So, erm… perhaps I’ll do that soon.

Racist Piece of Equipment

By: Derek Yu

On: October 26th, 2006

The first GooTube video posted on TIGSource! Golly!

I always knew Dan Paladin, the artist behind Castle Crashers, was in the Klan (and a pervert – c’mon “Castle Crashers?”). Now we have proof! This game should be banned, pronto.

Also, yes, I know this is old as hell.

Castle Crashin’ at PAX

By: Derek Yu

On: September 10th, 2006

Joystiq has some reportage going on about Castle Crashers, the new XBox 360 (and maybe PS3?) beat-em-up by Behemoth.

The game definitely looks like some oldschool fun, and I was heartened when I saw the first demo at San Diego Comicon a couple years back and talked to Tom Fulp a bit about it. Tom was like, “did you catch the reference at the beginning of the game?” (He was referring to the opening cutscene where the evil dark knight walks up to the princess, punches her in the stomach, and then carries her off on his shoulder.) And I was like, “Yeah, man! Double Dragon!”

And then we both looked into each other’s eyes and I swear to god, we were about to kiss, but then we both quickly turned away and I awkwardly stumbled off, mumbling something about “going to check out some booth babes.”

It’s the kind of thing that probably happens at fraternity houses all the time.

Castle Crashers

By: Derek Yu

On: July 20th, 2006

Behemoth, the company that made Alien Hominid (and was founded by Newgrounds creator Tom Fulp), has put up an official site for Castle Crashers, their second game. It’s a 4-player sidescrolling beat-em-up in a medieval setting. You could say that as Alien Hominid was to Metal Slug, Castle Crashers is to Knights of the Round. Or maybe Capcom’s D&D arcade games.

I had a chance to play the game briefly last year at San Diego Comicon and it was pretty fun (although buggy as hell at the time). I’m looking forward to playing it again at SDCC this year to see how things have progressed.

What do you guys think of the graphics? I’ve always like Dan Paladin’s work with Flash, but I was hoping that his console stuff would be a little more “polished.” To me, this still looks like a Flash game, albeit a very, VERY nice one.

EDIT: As far as I know, the game has been confirmed for XBox Live Arcade in 2007 but nowhere else right now.