What do you want to play on the next Armless Octopus Community Game Night?

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Dave Voyles in XBLA, xblig | 4 Comments

The next Armless Octopus Community Game Night is Monday May 2nd, and here is your chance to vote on what game we’ll be playing! Games start at 9PM EST, where we’ll meet on the Xbox Live Dashboard. Four-player games can be played in groups of 4 while we all remain in party chat (if the title allows it).

The poll will run until Sunday, when we’ll announce the winner to be played on Monday. Each week we’ll throw throw up a new poll with additional titles, so check back and place your votes.

Have a suggestion? Comment below and suggest future titles, or search the Pivot database for other online games.

Gamertags:
Startingline117 – Dave Voyles
Saturn III – Mike Wall
SawerOfBones – Taylor Bliss
SkrattyBones – Erron Kelly

Edit: Corrected the date

Armless Octocast Episode 49: Armless Octopublishing

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Dave Voyles in Podcast | Leave a comment

The Armless Octocast is nearly at full strength again. Mike is still MIA, supposedly watching sports or something. Dave and Erron are back though, and there’s news to talk about. Dave’s been playing some indie games, and Erron… well Erron’s been playing Minesweeper, which is close to Minecraft, but not really.

ITunes: Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes
PodOMatic: Subscribe through PodOmatic
RSS: RSS Feed
MP3: Direct download
Hosts: Taylor Bliss, Dave Voyles, Erron Kelly
Music: Paul Weinstein - Chipocrite
Twitter: @TaylorBliss, @DaveVoyles, @SkrattyBones
Join the Facebook Page

Click through for all of this week’s news links.

Vote now to decide the winner of the ‘Design Many Robots’ contest!

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Taylor Bliss in News, PC, PC News, PSN, PSN News, XBLA, XBLA News | 1 Comment

At the end of March we let you know that Demiurge Studio’s “Design Many Robots” competition was coming to a close. Now, Demiurge is giving everyone a chance to help make the final decision on which fan-designed robot is going to be showcased in the game’s first expansion pack through popular vote. There are five finalists out of the hundreds of initial entries. On top of having their creation shown off in the expansion, the winner also gets a free trip to Boston to help Demiurge “bring their design to life.”

If you need catching up you can take a look at our hands-on preview of Shoot Many Robots from PAX East. Visit the Demiurge blog to cast your vote on which metal monster you’d like to shred to pieces!

XBLIG new release round-up for April 19 – April 26

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Mike Wall in News, xblig | Leave a comment

Every week, Dave, Mike and Taylor play all of the new Xbox Live Indie Game demos and give you the lowdown on what is worth playing, and what will make your eyes bleed.

Play it

Ultraviolet - demo - Mike
I thought this was going to be the official game to the Milla Jovovich movie vaguely having something to do with vampires, but instead I was treated to a futuristic tug-of-war board game of sorts. You have to collect gems faster than your opponent on the other side of the board by roping them in with your laser lasso. The action heats up when the board starts to tilt back and forth and of course, when bombs are introduced. Definitely a weird game, but promising.

Starzzle review: Snacking on stars

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Mike Wall in Reviews, xblig, XBLIG Reviews | 1 Comment

Mario might go bonkers for stars, but he’s got nothing on Starzzles’ red, rotund hero. This guy gobbles up five-pointed celestial objects like E.T. gobbled Reese’s Pieces, so luckily Starzzle has an abundance of the delicious yellow stars. His appetite for stars makes for a quirky indie puzzle game that sadly runs out of ideas before the game is complete, but definitely is worth checking out for fans of the genre.

Starzzle’s bite-sized levels are set up like a grid sprinkled with stars. The two goofy heroes are enthusiastic about their star collections, but they aren’t exactly the most agile creatures; pressing the D-pad in any direction sends the selected character dashing across the screen until he encounters an obstacle. Since you can’t stop in the middle of the dash, navigating the levels is a bit trickier than it looks, which provides the challenge and thus the fun. The apparently random obstacles are actually cleverly designed to provide blockades that allow you to change direction and align your character with the next star to be munched.

New XBLIG sales intervals allow indie games to dominate Xbox Live ‘best selling’ lists

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Dave Voyles in News, xblig | 3 Comments

Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best Games reported today via Twitter, “XBLIG Top Downloads now factor in 1 week of data. Compare to 1 day for all other games…and tons of XBLIGs are on top!” This then lead us to some information posted on the App Hub forums yesterday, stating:

“Previously games were selected and ordered based on the previous day’s sales information. This caused an illusion of the channel being frozen if sales data was delayed as well as exposing an instability in the channel due to occasional daily spikes. To improve this experience, we have changed the time interval from daily to rolling weekly. What this means is that the top downloads channel will show games based on the previous week’s data each day. Though it will be slightly more difficult to get on the list in the first place, the top downloads channel will be more reliable and less likely to be affected by daily delays or issues.”

The photo above is a screenshot of today’s Xbox Live Marketplace, featuring the “Best selling today” tab as seen in the top right corner. Despite the label “today,” it now reflects the weekly downloads for XBLIG titles, and the daily downloads for XBLA and retail titles. This is a breath of fresh air for those on the indie platform, especially coming off of the ratings sabotage business in the recent past. Just last week, Microsoft had taken measures to rectify the situation by banning Live silver accounts from rating games on Xbox.com.

Contest: Win NLL 11 for Xbox!

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Dave Voyles in Contests, xblig | 5 Comments

We’ve been having a blast playing the various iterations of lacrosse titles released so far, so we’d like to give one of our readers the chance to join the fun. The game is out now on the XBLIG channel, and we’re celebrating by giving away a copy, courtesy of Crosse Studio.

Read our full review to find out why we were so smitten with NLL 11.

There are two ways to win, and you are encouraged to enter both ways! One random winner will be picked Friday April 29 at 7 PM EST.

1) Post in this thread about your favorite 8-bit sport game, and why.

2) Follow @armlessoctopus on Twitter and tweet the following:

Visit @armlessoctopus to win the Xbox Indie NLL 11, an excellent lacrosse game on #XBLIG now! http://bit.ly/gqrhka

Final Fantasy meets Minecraft in the 2D PC Indie, Terraria

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Taylor Bliss in News, PC, PC News | 3 Comments

Minecraft may have gotten a recent update and FortressCraft might be hitting up the XBLIG charts, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for some 2D sandbox goodness. Terraria takes the concepts we’ve seen time and again in Minecraft, as well as all the games before it – mining, gathering, building – and adds in a solid action-RPG flavor.

It’s only been in development a short time, since January 2011, but by the looks of their recent video, development is going well. A release is expected this year on Windows, and possibly iOS and Xbox. There’s no exact date or price tag on Terraria yet, but if we get any word, we’ll be sure to pass it along.