Mobile games studio Engineous Games, Inc., the creators of puzzle game Tatomic,  announced today that their new game,  Sketch Nation Shooter, is now available for $0.99 in the App Store. Sketch Nation Shooter blends doodling with shooter games and takes advantage of the iPhone’s camera, and touchscreen to create a game where players turn their own drawings into good guys, bad guys and obstacles in classic shmup battles.

From the press release:

Sketch Nation Shooter is a powerful, easy-to-use tool for users to create their own games, either by taking a picture of their drawings with the iPhone camera or by importing drawings through the photo library. Once imported into the game, users can choose where to place enemies, power-ups and level obstacles and pick weapon patterns using the simple in-game editor. Players who are not in a drawing mood can use the preinstalled art packs or simply download other users’ games.

The social networking features in Sketch Nation Shooter allow players to download games from users across the world, share their own unique games, compare scores with their friends and even rate other users’ games, all through Facebook Connect.

“Sketch Nation Shooter was created to revolutionize the gaming experience. We wanted to give the power back to gamers, allow their imagination to run wild and be game developers regardless of their age or technical abilities,” said Nitzan Wilnai, CEO of Engineous Games. “Aside from creating your own game in just a few minutes, to me, the social features make the game complete. Users will always have new games to download so they will always have something new to play.”

And the Sketch Nation Shooter trailer:

[Source: Vertical Wire, Sketch Nation blog,

Republic of Fun, my neighbors here in Raleigh, NC, are releasing Pinheads Party, a new Cranium-meets-iPad multiplayer game at the App Store today. Although the Republic of Fun’s manifesto decries genre-ism and the casual gamers vs. core gamers divide, this looks like an all-ages casual game to me. (Sorry, el presidente, but without some genre descriptors, I’m left telling you all that it’s um, blue. And pretty!)

Republic of Fun, developers of radically fun games, today announced the release of Pinheads Party on the App Store.

“We are more than excited to have Pinheads Party available for the launch of iPad,” says Mike Rasmussen, el presidente, Republic of Fun. “As a gaming device, we believe iPad is where it’s at, and that with our wildly fun games, Republic of Fun can enjoy great success in the App Store. This revolutionary device has really opened up our minds to the limitless gaming possibilities that it affords.”
Pinheads Party is a revolutionary game built just for iPad that utilizes the device as a digital board game. Pinheads Party has four categories of challenge activities that draw inspiration from the most popular board games of all time:
• Wonder Words: Can you speak, read and write? How about backward?
• Mega Mentals: Do you know enough about anything?
• Partial Arts: How well can you draw on that iPad screen?
• Ultra Physical: Can you act that out please?
Pinheads Party for iPad is now available from the App Store on iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

[Source: Vertical Wire, Local Tech Wire, and Republic of Fun website]

Puzzle Bloom, a short web-based puzzle-adventure game, was created by students at DADIU, the National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment in Copenhagen, and became a 2010 IGF finalist. I really enjoy puzzle games (especially when puzzle isn’t secret code for another match-three clone), and I was interested in Puzzle Bloom’s premise.

Players take on the role of Canotila, an adorably plump, glowing nature sprite who travels a sad, gray world full of machines, defeated slaves and robot masters. Your goal is to destroy the machines and bring nature back to the world. To do so, Canotila takes a ride on a friendly NPC creature and moves him around to solve puzzles and reach her goal.

Gameplay:

This is a puzzle game based on the interactions between items. Standing on colored panels controls the operation of elevators, doors and more, and you’ll need to manipulate NPCs and items to avoid danger and reach your goal. Canotila needs to open a path to her goal point, but that path is usually blocked by doors that open from inside other rooms, lasers, and angry robots. Canotila doesn’t move on her own, but she can jump between creatures, ride them to move, and even destroy hostile bots. This arrangement forces players to think about their planned route in terms of individual moves, instead of walking around on autopilot.

Although the first couple levels are pretty basic, the difficulty quickly progresses to an engaging puzzle challenge. A good puzzle game gives enough challenge to create that brain-tickling enjoyment of problem-solving, without running into frustration. Because the game relies on a few interactions between items, and the rules of those interactions are quite clearly explained in early challenges, it’s hard to get stuck. (If you feel stuck, you’ve overthinking it — the solutions are often quite simple.)

The mechanics reminded me of the equipment- and object interaction puzzles in Wonderland Adventures: Mysteries of Fire Island and similar games, although I found the Wonderland Adventures forced players to save after every decision at the risk of making a mistake that left the puzzle unsolvable. Puzzle Bloom is more forgiving. I don’t mean it’s easier,  just that remembering to save every couple of seconds isn’t one of the puzzles to solve. If you do run into danger, you’ll be restarted at the beginning of the puzzle, and since each puzzle is pretty quick, this isn’t a huge setback.

Unfortunately, your progress can’t be saved exactly (I’m not sure if this is a function of Unity or a design choice. Anyone know?), but the game can be be navigated by moving to any checkpoint. This also allows you to skip a puzzle you find too hard or too dull. The game only offers nine levels, but you can purchase more if you haven’t gotten enough of the machine-breaking puzzles.

Style and Story:

The story really is the style in Puzzle Bloom. The game’s story is the conflict between nature sprite Canotila and the dull machine world, and each solved puzzle turns more of the world from grey to green. It’s hardly a deep or complicated storyline, but destroying the machines makes a believable background for the item and equipment puzzles.

And without sounding too much like the girl reviewer likes the pretty flowers… well, I like the pretty flowers. The shift between grey concrete and lush vegetation really gives a sense of accomplishment.

Everything Else:

This is a free browser game (with paid extra levels, if you’d like to support independent developers with your wallet), and well worth checking it out.

Indie game studio Playbrains, the team behind Madballs In…Babo:Invasion, announces the release of their new match-3 Babo Crash for the iPhone, the iPod Touch and — finally, some love for Android users — the Android phone. There’s also an upcoming iPad version, ready to launch when the iPad does. (How often can you say that the game is ready and waiting for the platform to be released?)

Babo Crash uses the characters from Madballs In…Babo:Invasion in a classic match-3 puzzle. The twist on the Bejeweled, Popnus, or other games with the combo-and-bonuses gem-matching mechanic, is the ability to turn the phone to change the direction of collapsing pieces and refill gems. Players will also be able to take on the roles of characters from Madballs, each with their own special game abilities, to defeat new objectives and new twists in the match-three challenge.

From the press release:

Playbrains, an independent game development studio, today announced the release of Babo Crash for the iPhone, iPod Touch and Android mobile devices. The game takes the tried-and-true match-three formula and adds new levels of depth with fast-paced action, destructive power-ups and evolving objectives. A free demo of the frenetic puzzler can be found inside Playbrain’s indie hit Madballs In…Babo:Invasion on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/25710/

A reinvention of the ubiquitous gem-swapping puzzle game, the game excels with explosive action that requires lightning-quick decision making. Babo Crash features native support for the iPad, so day-one Apple tablet users will enjoy even more eye-popping graphics – rather than simply up-scaling, Babo Crash was re-engineered for the iPad’s vibrant screen and designed to take advantage of the device’s advanced hardware. The independent game development studio released the critically-acclaimed Madballs In…Babo: Invasion for Xbox Live Arcade and Steam, and are now crashing into the mobile market.

Babo Crash starts out with familiar gem-swapping gameplay, but doesn’t stay in that comfort zone for long. As players progress they’ll utilize steerable hero characters with their own distinct special abilities. Then it ramps up the intensity one level at a time, adding challenges like real-time enemy combat, destructive powerups, chain reactions and evolving objectives. Even better, players can actually rotate the screen to shift the direction of gravity – an important part of detonating bombs and ridding the battlefield of obstacles.

BaboCrash brings frenetic match-three action and tons of fun features to the iPhone, iPad and Android phones:
• Addictive, high tempo match-three puzzle action
• 21 levels to ramp up the madness
• Unleash heroic abilities to destroy tons of gems at once
• Vibrant visual style with over-the-top special effects
• Multiple control schemes suite various styles of play
• Rack up huge scores in Overtime, a hyper-speed bonus round
• Strategically rotate your device to control collapses and navigate bombs
• Combo/multiplier system – the faster you match, the higher you score
• Leaderboards and Achievements via OpenFeint

Babo Crash is out now for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android mobile devices for an unbeatable $0.99. To download it for Apple devices, visit: http://itunes.com/app/babocrash

The iPad version will be on the App Store when the device launches, April 3. For additional details, visit: http://www.playbrains.com/babocrash

[Source: Vertical Wire and PlayBrains]

Indie Brazilian developers Aleph Games will launch their very first game, AntBlox, in the App Store on March 30th. AntBlox is described as a physics puzzle game, that takes full advantage of the iPhone’s touchscreen. Players select and drop geometric blocks to build a path from the protagonist, a hungry ant, towards its goal of an apple.

If you don’t have an iPhone, or just want a peek at the game before the official launch, you can play the web version of AntBlox here.

From their press release:

Focused on games and 3D applications, with playful interface that seeks to introduce innovative gameplay, Aleph Games launches on March 30 its first game for the platform of the iPhone and iPod Touch. The game was already accepted for sale in AppStore.

Through a series of games in the curious world of ants programmed for the future, Aleph, a technology enterprise from Brazil, choose for first release the game AntBlox, a set of physical simulation for iPhone and iPod Touch. One reason for the choice of the physical puzzle with ants was the success of this type of game, which is modeled on the World of Goo and Crayon Physics.

The history of AntBlox is simple — the focus of the game is the gameplay, the experience of gameplay. In it, the ant Antonia feeds on special apples. But apples are in different places, and build a path to it is not always easy.

The goal in each stage is to help the ant to reach the apple. For this, the player must build the road blocks. When you release the blocks, they fall to the ground, so when they are released is important. In addition, phases with earthquake, mud, among many others, make it more difficult to mount the path.

“The game takes advantage of the innovations of the iPhone / iPod touch, using the accelerometer as a method of interaction, with which the player controls where the blocks are falling,” said Maicon Brauwers, one of the creators of the game. But the Aleph Games team is already thinking about the next game “where the player will have to grow your nest, fight other insects, and even dominating other holes,” said Brauwers.

[Source: GameRelease.net and Aleph Games]

Peter has a great post about playing PlayDead Games’ Limbo at GDC, but I couldn’t resist sharing these pictures as well. Limbo is this year’s IGF winner for Excellence In Visual Art, and it’s hard not to like these screenshots and concept art, even as players are finding new and usual ways for their characters to die.

[Source: VerticalWire]

If you watched the tragicomic documentary King Of Kong, you’ll know just how important the Twin Galaxies scoreboard is. Gamers battle for high scores in games from Donkey Kong and Pac-Man to Gears of War, and competition for that top spot in Twin Galaxy’s Book of Records is fierce. Now, top scores from Dead Pixel Arcade‘s indie shooter You Will Die will be included.

Right now, the highest You Will Die score is close to 8 million.  Think you could do better than that? Submit your video to Twin Galaxies and find out!

From the press release:

Dead Pixel Arcade’s indie hit ‘You Will Die’ has become the first of over 800 titles from the Xbox Live Indie Games platform to be added to the world famous Twin Galaxies Scoreboard.

Mar 17, 2010 – Dead Pixel Arcade’s indie hit ‘You Will Die’ has become the first of over 800 titles from the Xbox Live Indie Games platform to be added to the world famous Twin Galaxies Scoreboard. Players of ‘You Will Die’ can now compete for worldwide recognition and to gain a spot beside the best gamers in world like Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, and Todd Rogers. Twin Galaxies has been chronicled in critically acclaimed films such as ‘Chasing Ghosts’ and ‘King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters’ and had its listings included in the Guiness Book of World Records.

“Being added to the Twin Galaxies scoreboard is a huge accomplishment for You Will Die and it’s a testament to the hard work put in by everyone involved in creating the game.” said Derrick Hopkins, lead developer and head of the Dead Pixel Arcade studio. “Twin Galaxies has been around for nearly 30 years and it’s an organization that is recognized worldwide as the highest level in competitive, skill based games. A hardcore, brutal game like ‘You Will Die’ fits in perfectly with the high level of challenging gameplay that play that the Twin Galaxies scoreboard is famous for. We think its addition shows that Xbox Live Indie Games have shed whatever stigma they may have had in the past and can stand next to other competitive games.’

You Will Die is an intense 2D shooter where the player is a lone ship battling against a single enemy. Each time the enemy ship is destroyed, it returns bigger and meaner than before. The player does not receive any power-ups and the only aid given is a shield, and the ability to regain health. Although using either of those aids will cause an immediate and substantial decrease in your score. It’s a delicate balancing act between survival and the accumulation of points where only the most skilled players will be able to hold their own.

Dead Pixel Arcade has tracked players scores using both the in-game highscore table and the online scoring system on its website, http://www.deadpixelarcade.com. Mr Hopkins said “Right now, the highest score we’ve seen on the latest version is around 8 million points. It will be very interesting to see how long that score stays at the top now that literally the entire world will be aiming for it on Twin Galaxies.”

[Source: IndustryGamers Press Release]

Graduate Games‘ new Flash platformer, Minina Time, was written in five days for March’s Experimental Gameplay Project. March’s theme was 10 seconds, which becomes the basic question of survival in Minima Time. Players are greeted with the announcement that they have10 seconds before they die — although you can extend your time with special items which stop or slow down the death count – so players have to make the most of those few seconds!

Flash platform games are hardly a new genre, but the interesting shift here is from an indefinite amount of time that the player ends by making a mistake, mistiming a jump, or otherwise failing to complete the games’ objectives, into an incredibly short lifespan, making thirty seconds of survival feel like a massive accomplishment and not the glaring failure it would be in another WASD platformer.

Developer Mike Gnade says that he was struck by March’s challenge asking developers what they could bring to the player in just ten seconds, which immediately brought to mind speed rounds for platform games. Gnade claims he twisted “EGP’s challenge of creating something interesting in 10 seconds, and instead said to the player, here’s 10 seconds, see what you can do with it.  There’s a finite time and a finite number of power-ups so it’s inevitable that everyone explodes into a bloody mess – the question is how the player can make the most of it. “

Right now, the highest scoring players have managed to turn their allotted ten seconds of life into twenty minutes or more of playing time. (The Grad Games blog warns that some of the portal sites are reporting occasional issues with the high score list, but I didn’t encounter any problems.)  You can check out this free flash game now on Graduate Games and also on various Flash game portals.

I have to admit that Beatnik Games‘ upcoming Plain Sight interested me from the start — what’s not to love in a game about suicidal ninja robots?

Plain Sight’s point-banking mechanic also interested me. Players can save their accumulated points whenever they’d like (by committing robo-suicide), but the longer a player goes without saving their points, the higher bonuses they would receive… Of course, until you bank those points, there’s always the risk that another player’s suicide will take you down, and you’ll lose all those great bonuses.

Anyway, Plain Sight is due out later this month, and Beatnik Games is letting us in one some of the features their new game will have:

LONDON, ENGLAND – March 15, 2010 – Beatnik Games, an independent game development studio, are revealing more details on the myriad of game modes for its labor-of-love debut, Plain Sight, set to release via Steam and other digital download platforms on March 22nd for $9.99.

First up are ‘Deathmatch’ and ‘Team Deathmatch’ with up to 20 people, all vying for valuable energy. The more energy they accumulate, the bigger, better and more badass they become, but there’s a catch: they must blow themselves up to earn points, multiplying the score with each enemy you take out in the process. Risk and reward baby!

Next, the uniquely titled ‘Ninja! Ninja! Botzilla!’ has a team of tiny ninjas working together to bring the gargantuan Botzilla down to size. Easier said than done!

‘Lighten Up’ is a time-based turf war mode in which players must detonate on a glowing target area with as much energy as possible; the best detonation collects the points for that round.

Rounding things off there is the familiar favorite ‘Capture the Flag’, the usual rules still apply but with that self-destructive Plain Sight panache!

That should keep you all busy for awhile!

Key Features:
• 13 multiplayer maps
• Battle up to 20 players
• 5 self-destructive gameplay modes,
• ‘Deathmatch’, ‘Ninja! Ninja! Botzilla’, ‘Lighten Up’, ‘Team Deathmatch/Weakest Clink’ and ‘Capture The Flag’
• In-game power-ups
• 30 different robot upgrades to spend your experience points on
• Perfect your skills against AI ninja robots in the offline practice mode
• Dedicated server software included

Plain Sight will be out on March 22nd, and it will be available on Impulse, Steam, Gamer’s Gate and others.

Indie studio Incubator Games is looking for feedback on the concept  art for their upcoming puzzle adventure game, Tribes of Mexica. Tribes uses the mythology and history of Mesoamerica as the setting for a new combat-heavy puzzle game. Players will travel Mesoamerica, help the Nahua tribe, and fight mythical beasts and gods.

Incubator has four competing designs for boss Cipactli, an Aztec crocodile monster. Here’s one version:

Head over to their site to check out the rest of the concept art and cast your vote.