XBLIG News

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They Bleed Pixels beats up XBLIG later this summer

Posted on by Mike Wall in News, XBLIG News, XBLIG Previews | 4 Comments

Lovecraftian lore has already proven to be popular in the indie scene, but Spooky Squid Games is trading in the menus and dialogue screens for platforming and brutal, bloody combat with a new trailer for their upcoming indie, They Bleed Pixels. You take the role of a proper-looking little lady who is haunted by a mysterious book and nightmares, and like all proper ladies, she dispatches her foes with her lobster hands.

Aside from ridiculous combos involving kicking airborne enemies into floating saw blades and ricocheting them around spiked walls, the game also touts an novel checkpoint system and one-button combat. Racking up combos and disposing of enemies in inventive ways builds up a checkpoint meter, which grants you the ability to drop checkpoints where you want them. We’ll be bleeding pixels later this summer.

New details and trailer emerge for the Indie Games Summer Uprising

Posted on by Mike Wall in News, XBLIG News | 5 Comments

New details have emerged about that upcoming hot-weather indie game promotion known as the Indie Game Summer Uprising. The event’s organizers have revealed the upcoming promotion will highlight ten games: one a day from Monday, August 21 through Friday, September 2. They’ve also released a new trailer showcasing some of the potential games that could make it into the promotion.

The games in the trailer are only a handful of the many that are vying for those ten slots in the summer promotion. The first eight games will be chosen by the developers, who will be voting on each other’s submissions from now until July 18. Each developer will have to vote for at least 8 games in order to prevent that rather awkward situation where each game receives exactly 1 vote. The final two games will be chosen by the fans, who will be able to vote for their favorite games from August 1 and August 15 on the Summer Uprising Facebook page.

We’ll keep you updated on the Summer Uprising as more details emerge and the selected games are announced.

Independent Games Festival submissions open, notoriety and cash prizes at stake

Posted on by Taylor Bliss in News, PC News, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

There seems to be no shortage of contests ready to shower the indie devs with high quality games with accolades and awards. The Independent Games Festival is no exception. Taking place within Game Developers Conference in March, the IGF showcases the best indie games submitted the previous year.

Submissions are open until the 17th of October for the main competition and the 31st for the students, giving developers about three and a half more months to polish up their games if they hope to submit this year. The entry fee is $95 and the nitty gritty details on the entrance rules can be found here. The Grand Prize is $30,000, and Finalists will receive 2 All Access passes to GDC and promotional opportunities such as an appearance in Game Developer Magazine.

Originally starting in 1998, the IGF set out to honor indie games and their developers. More than just having prizes though, they have an awards show that takes place within GDC, right before the Game Developers Choice Awards. Most notably, the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, named for the late Seumus McNally who won the award in 2001 but passed away shortly after from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, is the chief award and was presented to Minecraft’s developer, Notch, last year. There are seven other major awards to be distributed and an additional two designated strictly for student developers. It would be interesting to see from cross submissions from the Dream.Build.Play competition and the more open, and as a result, more competitive, indie festivals.

Soulcaster developer looking to license his engine

Posted on by Taylor Bliss in News, xblig, XBLIG News | 2 Comments

sweet 16 bit graphics

Are you a game designer – or maybe even a want-to-be game designer – with a great idea, but not the time or know-how of how to build and flesh out a whole game engine to support your awesome idea? Well, Ian Stocker, developer behind Soulcaster I & II and the upcoming Escape Goat, may have something that will be pretty handy for you. He’s looking for a designer or developer to put his engine to use while he’s toiling away with Escape Goat. He’s even willing to make some changes to the engine to suit your needs, supposing the change isn’t too great. Stocker has listed all the benefits and capabilities of his game engine over at his website. You can also find the form to fill out if you wish to contact him and get the ball rolling on your soon-to-be-developed game.

Oozi: Earth Adventure Episode 2 arriving in July with new gameplay features

Posted on by Taylor Bliss in News, xblig, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

Our reception of Oozi: Earth Adventure Episode 1 was a bit lukewarm. More than anything, it was a game that showed it had room for improvement, and by the looks of it, a developer that could deliver. With the upcoming release of the second part of Oozi’s Earth adventure, Awesome Games Studios will get the chance to show everyone what they’re really made of. Oozi: Earth Adventure Episode 2 has also been submitted to Dream. Build. Play., so there’s clearly some faith behind the game.

As for what you can look forward to in this sequel, you’ll be getting five new story levels with a boss fight to top it off, over ten additional challenge levels and a handful of new abilities that will help spice up the gameplay, such as wall jumping and throwing enemies. The game is slated for a July release, and there’s no word on the pricing yet, but if it follows in its predecessor’s footsteps, expect an 80 Microsoft Point price tag.

Update: confirmed 80 MS Point price

Radiangames Bizarro Sale begins June 28

Posted on by Mike Wall in News, xblig, XBLIG News | 2 Comments

so weird!

If you were ever considering making the $1 plunge of purchasing one of the excellent Radiangames shooters, you might want expedite that urge before the Radiangames Bizarro Sale begins on June 28. That’s because the studio is proving how indie it can be by defying society’s previously restricting definition of the word “sale” by raising the price on each of its 7 games from $1 to $5. That means you’ll be saving -400% on JoyJoy, Crossfire, Crossfire 2, Inferno, Fluid, Ballistic and Fireball.

“The games aren’t selling that well. If I hadn’t been completely screwed by the ratings fiasco on XBLIG, I’m not sure I would have done this because I’d probably be making 2x as much per month from the games,” said developer Luke Schneider.

Aside from the immediate impact of drawing attention to the games and the increased revenue per sale, Schneider also said he wants to see higher priced indie games that are more polished and developed.

“I actually believe game developers are hurting themselves, each other, and their players when they under-price, and I’d like to have some data to back that up. If I had priced the games higher and they made more money, I would still be making XBLIG, and I think everyone would be happier. I would have taken a little more time to make sure the game ideas were a bit better realized too, and I think the psychology of premium pricing would have made the games “feel” like they were worth it,” said Schneider.

Meanwhile, the soundtracks to all of of the games are currently available for half price – .99 each – until the Bizarro Sale kicks in and they return to their normal price.

Source: Radiangames

Dragons Vs Spaceships takes flight this August

Posted on by Mike Wall in News, xblig, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

Yankees vs. Red Sox. Vampires vs. werewolves. Red wine vs. carpets. These rivalries have defined our generation that has been oh-so marred by conflict. They’re but petty scuffles compared to the rancorous rivalry found in Dragons Vs. Spaceships. Metal monstrosities from a far away world have come to challenge The Dragons’ dominion over all things airborne; pushed to the brink of extinction, it’s up to you to help the four most badass dragons and fight back in Dragons Vs. Spaceships, a new Xbox Live Indie Game landing this August.

This Dream.Build.Play and Summer Uprising entrant was developed by Game Production Studios, and besides it’s outrageous story, it also features a weapon system that sounds reminiscent of Gunstar Heroes. Each dragon has 2 slots in which it can equip one of three elements: fire, water or metal. The first slot is the primary attack, and it can be leveled up with power-ups. It also combines with the element in the second slot to create one of six different special attacks. Two players will be able to defend the land of Dragonia this August.

Former Deus Ex writer releases baffling, but captivating trailer for Cell: emergence

Posted on by Mike Wall in News, xblig, XBLIG News | Leave a comment

It just seems so obvious: a voxel-based, Fantastic Voyage game, with a Rez-esque soundtrack in which you pilot a nanobot that’s been injected inside a dying girl to explore her 3D pixelated cellular automata while annihilating germs. Why didn’t we think of it first?

Probably because we’re not Sheldon Pacotti, the lead writer of the original Deus Ex and founder of New Life Interactive. The studio just unveiled the trailer for its upcoming indie, Cell: emergence, in which you get the opportunity to pilot that very nanobat in what could be one of the most recondite, but fascinating Xbox Live Indie Games yet. We’ll find out for sure when the game is released later this summer.