While the Xbox Live Indie Game platform’s updates are scarce, they do exist — and that’s a good thing. Gnomic Studios released its first major update for Square Off, a cartoony shooter where players must protect humanity from aliens… or simply shoot their own friends in a team deathmatch game-type. The free update offers a few fixes and some new content as well. It is available for free through Xbox Live.

“We decided to work on a free update because there were a number of niggling issues with the initial release we wanted to address. This turned out to be the perfect opportunity to throw in some bonus content.”

- Aranda Morrison, lead developer at Gnomic Studios

That new content is in the form of two new deathmatch levels in addition to a “whole multitude” of tweaks to make the gameplay funner. Gnomic also added a new level for both single- and co-operative play, but it doesn’t end there. Difficulty has been rebalanced so as to accommodate “n00bs” and still challenge veterans. Each level now has a scoreboard linked to Xbox Live, so you can keep track of your ranking amongst your friends. Finally, even the sound effects have been improved and new songs have been added to the soundtrack.

Perhaps the biggest news of all regarding Square Off is that its price has gone down 66% to only 80 MSP ($1). The developer commented that they would like to experiment with this new price plan and use the data to aid future developers on the XBLIG platform when relating to pricing.

[Try/Buy from Xbox Live Indie Games.]

[Source: GamesPress]