Tin Man Games is well-known for its Gamebook Adventures series, an interactive narrative experience in which the reader-player chooses his/her own path. The series newest entry, Temple of the Spider God, was written by gamebook veteran Jonathan Green. Green is perhaps best known for his work in the Fighting Fantasy series, but his involvement stretches beyond to gamebooks and novels based on Star Wars Clone Wars, Doctor Who, and Warhammer 40k.

[It's not very often football/soccer fans have the opportunity to take their love of the game online -- in a whole new way. Sure, we've got our FIFAs and our Football Managers, but as Netsports' Tom Heller explains, there is a huge void where a football-management MMO should be. That's not for too long, though, as the Netsports team is hard at work on Ultimate Football Live, or UFLive for short.

Although it is ways away from release, UFLive has us excited. It is a project that boasts great promise, but that requires a tremendous amount of hard work and determination. So we will monitor it closely, ensuring we keep you up to speed on its development... in the hopes that you're perhaps a fraction as excited as we are. Forgive the lack of screenshots, there really isn't much to show off just yet, but read on to find out the story of how Netsports came to be and what it is trying to do.]

Turtle Cream (still the best developer name pretty much ever) have unveiled a brand new trailer for their upcoming debut commercial title, Sugar Cube: The Bittersweet Factory, and damn, it looks sweet! — Pun intended… Anyhow, if you’re ready for a 2D platformer where you play a sugar cube, you should get really excited right now. Of course, that’s not all the game is about.

Much like Where-is-my-Heart?, Sugar Cube provides a different take on the platformer. As you traverse through the levels of the game, the grid-like background will flip as it is two-sided and — depending on the side it’s on — will reveal new details in the environment. What this means is that you may play through the game several times and experience it in different ways. In fact, with 90 unique levels, 2 endings, and an IGF award in 2010, Sugar Cube really does seem a perfect recipe for a new indie darling platformer.

Danish and German indie devs Die Gute Fabrik are releasing their extraordinarily quirky Where-is-my-Heart? this month. Their debut title will be available for PS3 and PSP via the PlayStation Network. The game is currently available for PlayStation Plus subscribers in Europe (as of November 2nd), but will see an official release for the region on November 16th. In the Americas, Where-is-my-Heart? will come out on November 8th for PS Plus gamers and November 22nd for the rest of us.

As part of the Copenhagen Game Collective and an oft-mentioned standout indie title, Where-is-my-Heart? truly has its own art style and existential feel. Although the main objective is, essentially, to find your way (as is so often the case in platformers), it puts a spin on the traditional platform model.

One very noticeable aspect of IndieCade 2011 was the involvement of 3D — which, to be honest, I had not foreseen whatsoever. Generally speaking, us “hardcore” gamers tend to look down on 3D as a gimmick. But that’s all about to change. This is a fact; I am not saying this as an opinion. Among the 3D delicacies available for oogling and ogling, such as Terry Cavanagh’s VVVVVV in 3D and the 3D mobile game jam games, Big Pants’ (best indie dev name ever) The Depths to Which I Sink caught my eye on the showfloor — or fire station, rather.

The game itself doesn’t have a specific purpose. You’re essentially flying around as this worm-like creature going through hoops and tunnels. Though there is no set “purpose” as we so often seek in gaming (e.g. kill the terrorists, cut fruit, fling birds, etc.), The Depths to Which I Sink is all about exploration and letting go of your comfortable grasp on depth. As the developers themselves describe, it’s not about thinking in just X and Y, it’s also about thinking in Z. Though there’s no real purpose in the existential sense, there is certainly a purpose in terms of levels and progression: there are four levels in the demo.

The overall set-up at the IndieCade fire station helped the game greatly: projected on a large white screen, with headphones to ease with shutting-everybody-else-out, and a 360 controller with which to control the experience. The gist of Depths involves using the analog stick to move around the empty space-like environment, occasionally pressing the A button to shift in the direction of forward to backward (I mean this in the sense of depth, not in a 2D plane). It may not be the most elaborate gaming mechanic, but it ultimately proves to be challenging and meaningful.

I almost instantly felt comfortable but entirely too uncomfortable with the experience right off the bat. The 3D glasses (the red/cyan ones) may not be the most effective as compared to the extravagance of, say, a 3D TV, but it certainly works once your eyes adjust. Depths is likely to feel pointless to some as there is no point structure, no real goals to attain and no achievements to achieve, but Big Pants assured me that’s exactly what they’re going for. The Depths to Which I Sink isn’t meant to be the next addictive installment of Call of Duty or Gears of War, it’s meant to be something one tunes out to (or trips out to).

So what are the plans for Big Pants’ 3D title? Well, it seems the developers are really into the idea of bringing it to 3DS — which would work almost seamlessly. I say almost because the impression I received from the big-screen projection may have been slightly more intense than one would feel on a 3DS. But who knows? There was also some talk of bringing it to iOS (somehow I always manage to bring this up to devs since I want to play all these games on my phone), and Big Pants said they had thought about it but didn’t really have a concrete answer for me just yet.

At the moment, The Depths to Which I Sink has a demo available for play. So grab your 3D glasses and throw ‘em on and see what you think of this one!

[Big Pants]

DIYGamer exclusive footage from IndieCade:

Official Teaser Trailer:

Though the LG awards show took place Thursday night, the full list of IndieCade winners (including the Audience and Developer Choice awards) was recently emailed to us indie media. We are extremely excited to see these (now) big names up on such a list but likewise surprised that a number of other games we had pegged to win top honors (AntiChamber anyone?) were absent from the list. In any case, many thanks to the judges and staff at IndieCade as well as the developers themselves for crafting some fantastic gaming experiences that give us hope for a brighter future filled with absolutely no work and tons of play.

Here goes:

“Grand Jury Award: FEZ, Polytron Corporation – The award distinguishes the game that cultivates artistry and embodies complete passion for game development. This year the jury chose from 36 game finalists from 14 different countries.

LG Mobile Innovative Game Award: Hungry Hungry UFOs, Asher Vollmer, Sam Farmer and Ben Bharier- The nominees for this award were brought together and established the prototypes for consideration at the IndieCade 3D Mobile Game Jam, presented and sponsored by LG Mobile.

Visuals sponsored by Nvidia: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Superbrothers, Capybara Games, Jim Guthrie

Audio: Proteus, Ed Key

Impact sponsored by G4: Johann Sebastian Joust, Douglas Wilson and Friends

Interaction: Ordnungswissenschaft, Till Wittwer, Marek Plichta and Jakob Penca

Game Design: Deepak Fights Robots, Tom Sennett

Technology sponsored by Transgaming: Johann Sebastian Joust, Douglas Wilson and Friends

Story/ World Design sponsored by BBC Worldwide: FEZ, Polytron Corp.

Special Recognition: The Swapper, Facepalm Games - it’s a game specially selected by the Jury for being a stand-out game, but not one that could fit into any other category very well.

The Trailblazers Award: Megan Gaiser

Developers Choice Award: Way, Coco & Co (Carnegie Mellon)

Audience Choice Award: The Depths to Which I Sink, Bigpants”

If you’d like to read more about IndieCade or check out other finalists, visit the official IndieCade website.

[IndieCade]

Cold Beam Games revealed earlier today that its successful shmup, Beat Hazard, will be arriving on Macs as well as iOS sometime “soon” and “later in the year.” Beat Hazard Ultra allows you to experience your music collection as an arcade shooter. Each song plays uniquely and differently from the other, meaning every time you play Beat Hazard, you’ll be having new experiences altogether.

The game has received a relative amount of acclaim, having earned a Metacritic score of 70. It is a testament to the innovative and worthwhile ideas some indie game developers work with because, after all, Cold Beam was a one-man-team that once asked, “Damn, wouldn’t it be cool if you could play an arcade shooter to your favorite music?”

Granted, some songs are going to be funner than other ones. Generally speaking, I’ve found that more technical tracks like stuff by Meshuggah and other progressive rock bands tend to be challenging and fun. But of course, throwing in some Daft Punk and electronica can also prove to be effective. Whatever your taste in music, as long as you like arcade shooters, you will enjoy the shit out of Beat Hazard and it makes me happy to announce that the game is coming to Mac and iOS (meaning iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad, making it one of the first games to utilize your iTunes library on the App Store), courtesy of D3T.

No word on pricing, but I gather it should be the same as the PC version already available ($9.99, perhaps with a sale promotion of $4.99 to start off with). Stay tuned for more details!

[Beat Hazard, Cold Beam Games]

For those signed up for an account with New Star Soccer 5, it’s a good idea to check your recent emails because you will have received a discount code for 50% off on the game. As New Star Games states, it’s “Who needs FIFA week?” Though I’ll admit some of us still do, if you haven’t tried New Star Soccer 5, it’s a good idea to sign up for a new account and get yourself one of these awesome discount codes and buy the game for just $10 / £6.49 / €7.49.

New Star Soccer 5 was released this August, and it is an exciting blend of simulation and football/soccer gameplay. In it, you will guide your player to celebrity stardom by choosing when to train, what to train, what to buy, who to hang out with, how to hang out with them, and so on and so forth. It is a very fun game that will likely keep you glued to your computer screen saying “just one more game.”

With the season back and an oncoming international break after Sunday, New Star Soccer 5 will keep you company. The offer will be good until October 7th. Make an account, log in, check your email, and get yourself onto Premium!

[New Star Soccer 5]

I just read an article yesterday that said Rovio Mobile is now worth $1.2 billion (“Angry Birds is Bigger than Mario?“). I don’t know what that implies for the rest of you, but when I first heard this statistic, my jaw dropped. Rovio is worth almost as much as my favorite football/soccer team, Arsenal FC (which has been around since 1896). So is the story of Rovio an overnight success that other developers can strive for?

Well, not exactly. What is true is that the market for games has changed drastically in the last few years. The iOS and Android being the biggest proponents of this change, of course, but not the only ones. The mobile platform has become huge. With talk of whether console gaming is dying and where the industry is headed, it’s always important to take a step back and analyze to the best of our abilities what we have seen unfold before our very eyes.

Thomas Killen, one of the minds behind renowned Australian devs The Voxel Agents, has published a very revealing research study into the mobile market. Granted, as the humble Tom will admit, he’s not exactly a market analyst and expert in the field, but given his experience with the Voxel Agents (and the fact he put in an effort to finding out as much information as possible about the topic at hand), it’s fair to take his rather unbiased approach respectably.

There are a number of interesting findings from Tom’s article, like the fact that “every day 500,000 Android phones are activated” and how if every developer received a piece of the mobile pie, they would only end up with around $8,500 each (take into account outliers like Chillingo and Rovio and you’ll understand how skewed this statistic is).

Indeed, Tom’s study answers some burning questions I myself had for the mobile marketplace, but it also important raises new ones. Where do we go from here? What have we learned? I’ll leave those judgments up to you, the reader, consumer, or aspiring developer, because the answers certainly involve all of us. Check out Tom’s research right here. And yes, there are graphs, plenty of them, so do yourself a favor and give it a looksee!

[The Voxel Agents]

Mousechief Co’s quirky Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! RPG is today’s Daily Deal on Steam. This means gamers on Windows and Mac can pick it up for only $4.99. Described as a lite “mid-core” RPG, the game is a satire of the sort of treatment adolescent girls were exposed to in the 1920s. It has been acclaimed a number of times, including a nomination for the “Writers Guild of America for Outstanding Script of 2008,” winning the Casual Game Association’s prize for Innovation, and it was also selected as an IndieCade finalist in 2008. Even more so, Game Tunnel awarded it the Adventure of the Year and Most Innovative awards. Finally, the game currently has a score of 81 on Metacritic, which in and of itself is quite the accomplishment!

The player assumes the roles of a party of girls attempting to explore the shadier side of their hometown. Through mini-games, the girls progress from stage to stage and earn experience. With a great art-style and a whole list of accolades, Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! is a very compelling buy for $4.99.

[Steam, Mousechief]

[Source: GamesPress]