Cannon Brawl is a 2D real time strategy game currently in development for Xbox and PC. The game features destructible terrain and firing mechanics similar to Worms, but is also all about building towers and expanding your influence around each stage. The player controls a blimp that handles controlling and commanding the field. Fly your airship over to your HQ and you’ll be able to select turrets, shields and other towers to build. When the towers are complete, you can pick them up and fly them to any buildable location within your ‘Sphere of Influence’ – represented by a subtle colored bubble that matches your team.
Cannon Brawl is all about your airship; it’s your general. Not only does it build and delivery structures, but you also use your blimp to enter both offensive and defensive turrets. Enter a cannon with your airship, then aim and fire Worms-style. Enter a defensive turret, and use your sticks to direct your protective shields. You’ll also use your airship to upgrade and repair units – all while cannonballs, lasers, and nukes are flying around.
The best thing about Cannon Brawl is the pace of the match. When you start off, you’ll actually wait a little bit as you take on each task one at a time. You’ll build some turrets, place them, and take a shot at your opponent every once and awhile. As more units are placed on the field, the decisions and tasks that you have quickly multiply and things become hectic really quickly. It’s one of the more manic RTS games that I’ve played. The simplified units and action oriented gameplay should draw in gamers that don’t traditionally like the strategy genre – while strategy fans may not like the fast pace of Cannon Brawl’s matches.
Cannon Brawl is very polished with bright colorful graphics and dynamic battle music. Upon completion the game will feature over 6 different airships, a single player campaign, local and online multiplayer.
The Indie Game Magazine and IndieGameStand have teamed together, and are proud to announce the first ever IGM Developer Competition! Between May 3rd and May 10th, any one signed up for the IGM Community forums will be able to participate in a contest to create small games that fit our theme. The best entries will be featured in a game bundle at IndieGameStand for a “pay what you want” price, with proceeds going to a soon-to-be-announced charity.
We will announce a theme on May 3rd, and the developers will start work on their prototypes on May 6th!
This is a great time for us at The Indie Game Magazine, and we look forward to seeing what everyone is capable of creating! If you are interested in learning more, why not introduce yourself and ask whatever questions you have over on our forums.
But I can’t do How can I enter?
People are looking for someone like you! We have a team building thread where plenty of people are posting what their skills are, and what they need. So post your own skills, and send whoever a message to ask about a team effort!
I have a great idea for a game I’ve been meaning to make. Do you think it will fit the theme?
It might! The theme is still a mystery, but if you are able to justify it to us when you submit your entry, that’s fine with me.
Where do I sign up?
Just post in this thread to let us know you’re interested. We need a proper tally of people who want to join the contest so we can plan properly.
New text-based Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck arrives for all platforms today. In this interactive fiction game, players join the crew of the starship Lady Luck, and take on the role of a hyperspace pirate or a Galactic Police operative working to stop their illegal activities. This is an interactive adventure novel by Christopher Brendel, using ChoiceScript to create interactions and reactions. Players are presented with an event in the game narrative, and chose one of several text options to proceed.
Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck follows To The City In The Clouds, Heroes Rise: The Prodigy, Choice of the Star Captain, and many other popular Choice Of Games. In this game, as in Choice of Games’ previous titles, players are able to choose their protagonist’s gender, making an accessible and inclusive IF experience. Like all over-interactive fiction titles, Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck’s focus is on game narrative, but the game also uses traditional adventure game elements like exploring different areas, collecting useful items (Translation for folks who didn’t grow up on Sierra games: That means stealing everything that is not nailed down.) and using one’s inventory to solve puzzles. Christopher Brendel’s previous indie game releases include Lifestream and The Filmmaker.
Who would’ve ever thought that one day a company would look at Lemmings and Tetris and decide to combine concepts from both games into one new style of puzzle game. It seems quite the feat to combine these two very different puzzle games, especially in a manner that works well but the team at Crunching Koalas have done just this with MouseCraft.
MouseCraft is a very interesting puzzle game in which you must guide mice to the cheese in order to complete the puzzles at hand with use of the classic Tetromino blocks.
I did cover the unveiling of Mousecraft along with a first look at it late last year, however this was just the early testing phase and since then Crunching Koalas have come leaps and bounds in the development process with the latest version scheduled to come out at the end of the month.
The next version will include many enhancements over the early alpha game including; four types of tetromino bricks (Exploding, crumbling, jelly, and voltage), the more terrifying water and acid obstacles hindering your mice even more, new game modes, crazy cat scientists, and even a level editor.
These extra additions along with various fixes to the game overall are starting to shape MouseCraft to be a very interesting and very fun new style of puzzle game. I have no doubt in my mind the level editor will be a huge boon to the game especially as you can share your maps with others in the community.
If you would like to get involved in the beta program that Crunching Koalas are currently running be sure to check out their site and sign up for all the latest. The new update for the Mousecraft beta will hit at the end of the month.
This week seem to of mostly focused on the rather simplistic pixelart arcade games and today fits into this idea rather nicely. Bat Country by Greg Sergeant is a point and click helicopter shooter that is almost entirely mouse controlled and contains a rather interesting running narrative and bats… lots and lots of bats.
In Bat Country you take control of a helicopter and must make it through the four levels whilst avoiding the rather large and sinister looking bats that keep flying at you in an attempt (I assume) to clog up your rotary blades with bat entrails.
The game follows some very basic pixelart style with rather standard simplistic backgrounds, but everything comes together rather nicely to give Bat Country a genuinely retro arcade feel that is just brilliant, showing that sometimes the best ideas are the simplest.
Average play time – 20 minutes
Bat Country is an intensely challenging game that throws everything it can at you from start to finish. Unrelenting yes, but the game does contain a suitable amount of variety and story that you are compelled to play through the levels and exterminate all these massive bats.
If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!
For just $1 or more, you can get a DRM-Free copy of Flotilla, Atom Zombie Smasher, and Air Forte, as well as Thirty Flights of Loving if you pay above the average.
Strategy games have been making a comeback after lying somewhat dormant for a few years. On the back of this we have seen several rather interesting Kickstarters and games coming out that have really added a great deal to the often forgotten genre.
Last week, Wastelands Interactive, a well-established Polish developer who has released a number of historic strategy games over the years, started their Kickstarter campaign for their latest venture, Worlds Of Magic.
Worlds Of Magic is Wastelands Interactive’s attempt at creating a spiritual successor to the great 4x Master Of Magic by setting Worlds Of Magic in a rich fantasy world. In Worlds Of Magic you will be able to choose from ten leaders to take control over, to rule the lands. However, there is an option to create your own if you would rather tailor the game more to your own personal style.
Wastelands Interactive is dedicated to making Worlds Of Magic the true successor to Masters Of Magic and feel they are the right team to do it. Their aim is capture a lot of what made the original great and to build upon its core foundations whilst adding in extras to really create a new and exciting game.
Worlds Of Magic is currently looking for additional funding on Kickstarter after Wastelands Interactive started up their Kickstarter earlier this month. Although there is still over twenty days left so far the funding has been very encouraging with the campaign currently raising a third of the total needed.
If you are interested in finding out more about Worlds Of Magic be sure to check out Wastelands Interactive’s Kickstarter for additional information. If you like what you see consider supporting the developer and help make Worlds Of Magic a reality.
Today’s game is Atomic from Amidos, a developer I have followed quite closely over the past few months due to his great innovation and ever interesting games that have largely came out of different game jams.
Atomic is a very interesting yet simple concept for a game which only requires you to use the space bar for all the actions. Following a very minimalistic approach, in Atomic you appear to be an electron orbiting a nucleus and must increase your orbit to collect squares whilst trying to avoid the bullets.
It really is a very elegant game that plays fantastically and it should not take you long to realise just where the influences come from. The whole style is very reminiscent of Super Hexagon which is great in my opinion as Super Hexagon is such a fantastic game.
Although the basic idea is simple mastering the game can be very difficult leading to a lot of fun and frustrating moments as you try to beat your last score.
Average play time – 5 minutes
Atomic is a nice and relaxing time waster that offers a lot of challenge whilst not being too unforgiving. With great visuals and awesome music expect to get a great deal of fun out of Atomic.
If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!
