Brand: A sword perhaps best left in the stone (for now)


The waiting game is often a tricky one. Sometimes an extended wait can lead to having some of your Read more

Cell:emergence Emerging on PC and Xbox on February 9


New Life Interactive's cancer-curing, voxel-based game, Cell: emergence finally has a release date. The "action surgery game" will be Read more

Little Racers STREET Review: Size Does Not Matter


EDIT: Developer Milkstone Studios informs us that an update is coming next week, which will include multiplayer mode The XBLIG Read more

Co-Optimus Founder Developing an Indie Game


Whenever someone disagrees with a critic, their first reaction always seems to be "I'd like to see you do Read more

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News

Cell:emergence Emerging on PC and Xbox on February 9

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Mike Wall in News, PC, PC News, XBLIG, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

New Life Interactive’s cancer-curing, voxel-based game, Cell: emergence finally has a release date. The “action surgery game” will be released on February 9 on Xbox Live Indie Games for $5 (400 MS Points). Cell: emergence HD will also be released for PC for GamersGate, Gamestop PC Downloads, Green Man Gaming, Playism, and Desura for $8.95. The extra four bucks nabs you almost twice as many cells to destroy, along with improved sound.

You might remember Cell: emergence as that trippy-looking game written by Sheldon Pacotti, the writer of the seminal Deus Ex. You play as a microscopic nanobot fighting against diseases inside a the body of a sick child, and you have to stunt the growth of the rapidly-reproducing malignant cells by employing a mixture of RTS tactics and good old fashioned arcade shooting. Sound confusing? Check out the developer walkthrough video (conveniently embedded above!) for a glimpse into this unique game.

For immediate release:

“Cell: emergence” Shipping February 9th, 2012

The action surgery game “Cell: emergence” will be released Thursday, February 9th on Xbox LIVE Indie Games, GamersGate, GameStop PC Downloads (formerly Impulse), Green Man Gaming, Playism, and Desura.  A free demo will be released on Tuesday, February 7th.

In the game players fight a nanoscale war against disease inside the body of a sick child.  The fast, deep simulation of tissues, antibodies, germs, nanomachinery, and other elements is achieved with a “dynamic voxel” gameworld, within which every visual detail has meaning, reacts to the player, and interacts with its neighbors.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6aJKNBxris
Tutorial and Developer Diary on “Massively Reactive” Gameplay:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOu9QhWGla0

The Xbox version of the game, selling for 400 MS Points, offers a world of almost half a million cells, and the “Cell HD” version on PC, selling for $8.95 USD, offers a world of nearly a million.  The HD version on the PC also provides higher fidelity sound and more frenetic gameplay tuned exclusively to the mouse/trackball/touchpad.

The Xbox version will be available in English and in English subtitled for Japanese, German, and Spanish.  The PC version will be available in the preceding languages plus Italian, French, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Korean.

Inspired by “hard” ’80s arcade games like Defender, Centipede, and Missile Command, Cell offers 17 punishing levels that require players to decipher a level’s “cellular automata” simulation and then battle living processes with speed and dexterity.

The game’s story, written by Deus Ex writer Sheldon Pacotti, is a first glimpse at a near-future fictional world where war is fought in code and chemistry and the inner workings of Nature.

ABOUT NEW LIFE INTERACTIVE, LLC

New Life Interactive, LLC is an indie game studio based in Austin, TX specializing in massively reactive gameplay.

http://www.newlifeinteractive.com

ABOUT CELL: EMERGENCE

For detailed information on the game and team behind it, please visit http://www.newlifeinteractive.com/games/cell.

ABOUT GREEN MAN GAMING

Green Man Gaming (GMG) is the leading UK-based independent digital retailer for PC games, selling more than 700 titles from 75 publishing partners to 146 countries around the world. Thanks to its unique proprietary technology, GMG offers consumers the ability to trade-in their digitally downloaded games for new purchases, while enabling publishers to generate on-going revenue from their intellectual property. Green Man Gaming is the only games retailer to pay a royalty back to a publisher on all pre-owned sales.

Co-Optimus Founder Developing an Indie Game

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Mike Wall in News, PC News, PC Previews, XBLIG News, XBLIG Previews | Leave a comment

Whenever someone disagrees with a critic, their first reaction always seems to be “I’d like to see you do it better.” Well, Nick Puleo is going to try and do just that. The founder and managing editor of Co-Optimus has teamed up with longtime friend Dave Paul to form Brian Shape Games, and their first release, SCHAR: Blue Shield Alliance, is due out later this year for Xbox Live Indie Games and PC.

As you might imagine, SCHAR is a cooperative experience and looks to spice up the twin-stick shooter experience by adding strategy and RPG features. Set in the year 2997, you play as one of four unique ships in the Blue Shield Alliance, which is humanity’s last hope against the Constituents of Nothing, a bunch of aliens with a penchant for antagonizing human colonies.

“I’ve always been interested in game development, and have been tinkering with it for many years. I’m a programmer by nature and have been doing it since I was 12 or 13,” said Puleo. The pair have been developing games casually together for about 20 years, and have been working on SCHAR at night and on weekends.

The trailer is heavy on story details, but light on actual gameplay. “We’re only about halfway through the development process at this point, and we have a lot of work to do on things like art, sound, and level content,” Puleo wrote on a post on Co-Optimus. We’ll have a better feel for it after we get our mitts on it this spring at PAX East.

Team2Bit Dragon Punches Their Way Onto IGN Reality Show

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Dave Voyles in News, XBLIG, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

Reality TV shows are all the rage. I mean who doesn’t want to watch short-tempered wealthy housewives duke it out in their own little worlds? There isn’t much for us gamers though. Sure, Sony has The Tester, but that’s more absurd challenges as people make their way toward simply testing games. But what about seeing the process of developing a full game, from inception to completion, along with a few kinks in the chain? Fortunately, IGN has concocted such a show, titled The Next Game Boss.

XBLIG developer Team2Bit has made the cut, and the duo of brother’s Matt and Jake Lewandowski illustrate their newest game concept in the first episode that aired yesterday on IGN’s YouTube channel. They “operate under the moniker ‘Team First Puncher,’” which is also the name of their upcoming XBLIG title, explaining “Yeah we couldn’t be ‘Team Team2Bit.’”

You can root the XBLIG developers on and follow along their progress through their Twitter account, @Team2Bit.

Source: Team2Bit.com

Brand Making its Mark on Xbox on February 2

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Mike Wall in News, XBLIG | 4 Comments

Brand has finally recovered from that nasty bug that delayed its release back in November, which means you’ll get a chance to slice up some manticores on February 2. Nine Dots Studio spent some of the extra time polishing up menus and adding in Avatar support, but we’re more excited to start shooting flame walls out of that upgradable sword. In the meantime, take another gander at that spiffy trailer.

Source: Nine Dots Studio

Latest Humble Indie Bundle Hits Android Devices

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Mike Wall in News | Leave a comment

The Humble Indie Bundles have raised somewhere around ninety trillion dollars for charity, and now the they’re bringing their humble ways to Android devices. The first mobile Humble Indie Bundle lets you pay what you want for three games: EDGE, Osmos, and Anomaly. If you pay more than the average (right now, a meager $5.04), they’ll also throw in World of Goo. The bundle includes soundtracks for each game, and it also includes copies of their big boy versions, so you can pick up the pack and play on Windows, Linux, or Mac. As always, you can choose how you’d like your donation to be distributed among Child’s Play Charity, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the games’ developers, and the bundle’s organizers. Head over to the official site now for more information, or to buy games and make the world a better place simultaneously.

 

Activision Clandestinely Releases Dark Reign Redux on Xbox Live Indie Games [Updated]

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Mike Wall in News, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

Activision might be about as indie as Metallica these days, but that hasn’t stopped the goliath of a publisher from releasing Dark Reign Redux on Xbox Live Indie Games for $5. The remake of the 1997 PC RTS popped up on the Marketplace yesterday with nary a press release or hint of marketing to support it. At least Activision got that part of the indie formula correct.

The port was handled by Magnetar Games, and there is also a browser-based version available using Microsoft Silverlight. Magnetar’s website claims that “Dark Reign Redux is a faithful remake of the original game, maintaining the same look and feel, and incorporating the many innovations that made the original game a top seller.” That’s a nice way of saying that they’ve made the game look exactly like it did in 1997. But, the game does run at a higher resolution (up to 1024 x 768) and has widescreen support. If you’re wondering how a 90s RTS handles on a console, one glimpse at the controls may make your hands fear ever gripping a controller again.

We contacted Magnetar Games and Activision for more information about the project’s origin and if the publisher has any plans to revisit its vast stable of PC franchises.

Update: According to a post on the Creators Club Forums, Magnetar Games “worked out a deal with Activision to remake the game” and the game has been “QA’ed by Activision.” It sounds as if Magnetar licensed the dormant IP from Activision rather than being contracted for the project, but we’re still waiting to hear back from both parties. We’ll update when we know more. (Thanks Michael Neel).

New Miasma 2 Footage Tactically Unveils First Person Segment

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Mike Wall in News, XBLIG | Leave a comment

Sinister corporations tend to be a bit obstinate when it comes to changing their nefarious ways or closing up shop entirely. Heck, sometimes it can take several sequels before they finally take the hint. Vilhelm Industries will return to reprise its role as the freedom-hating enterprise later this year in Miasma 2. ESP Games recently released a lengthy video walking through the combat and introducing some of the new features it has implemented in hopes to improve on its predecessor.

There’s a new first-person mode in between levels where you can walk around and talk to your squad and do other RPG things like steal everyone’s prized possessions upgrade your characters. Developer David Addis explains that they’ve remixed the combat from the first game and calls the sequel a “turn-based planning game.” Basically that means that you’ll input the commands for your team in between each round and then watch the melee unfold over the course of a few seconds and repeat until one team is zipped up in body bags. Older PC junkies might see some similarities to the D&D Gold Box games. We’ll find out for sure when Miasma 2 comes to Xbox Live Indie Games later this year.

DLC Quest Creator Documenting the Life of an Indie Dev on YouTube

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Dave Voyles in News, XBLIG News | 1 Comment

Canadians are known for thinking outside the box, being responsible for absurd things such as milk in a bag, coining the phrase “eh,” and counting our beloved writer, Erron Kelly, among their ranks. They occasionally have some good ideas too, though. One such example is that of a YouTube channel dedicated solely to outlining what it’s like to be an independent game developer.

Ben Kane of Going Loud Studios posted his first video yesterday where he highlights what’s to come, including his trials and tribulations, and he plans on rolling out updates 3 days a week. More importantly, his goal is to showcase the many hats an independent developer is required to wear and how each one is earned along the way.

Be sure to check back on Wednesday when he plans to update it once more. Kane is also documenting the process of porting DLC Quest to iOS, which you can follow on his blog. What are your thoughts on this? Are developers diaries the sort of thing that interest you? Are you curious as to what life is like as an independent developer?

New XBLIG Sales Data Analyzer Makes Tracking Sales A Breeze

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Dave Voyles in News, XBLIG News | 1 Comment

Making video games is often a full-time job, but constantly comparing sales to see how the game is doing in various international markets over time can nearly be a job in and of itself. OnekSoft, developer of the XBLIG Angry Zombie Ninja Cats, has been doing some work outside of the gaming vein and recently released a sales data analyzer for XBLIG.

The instructions are straightforward enough: simply copy and paste your CSV or tab-delimited data, select your filters (region + trials or sales), and finally click the “Analyze” button, then voilà. Have you used the tool yet? If not, what have you been using to compare your sales data over time?

Source: OnekSoft Labs

Hypership Still out of Control Announced, Released, Still out of Control

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Mike Wall in News, XBLIG | Leave a comment

Space is pretty darned big, which is a lesson the poor pilot of Hypership Out of Control! learned the hard way. The pilot’s brakes blew out back in 2010 (probably space rats chewed through some wires), and the ship has been zooming through the cosmos ever since. Now the adventure continues in Hypership Still Out of Control!, which was released yesterday on Xbox Live Indie Games for 80 MS points ($1). The sequel promises the same 4-player intense action, new levels, and new graphical upgrades that make the asteroids look significantly less like space meatballs (rats!).

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