Jason Rohrer’s next game Sleep is Death is heading towards release in just two weeks time.

If you’re a fan of his prior work, you may already be amped for this next game, which pits two players against each other in a creation / reaction versus match. One player weaves the story and the backgrounds while the other both acts and reacts to their surroundings. While it’s currently only going to work with local multiplayer, if you have any creative minded friends, it is sure to spawn some interesting combinations of stories.

Rohrer has made the game available for preorder for $5 off its launch price. So until April 9th, you can go ahead and order the title for just $9. Once the April 16th launch hits, the price rises to $14.

If you’re curious about what the fuss is about, Brandon Boyer wrote a great in-depth preview of the title over at Boing Boing.

Tomorrow releases one of the most coveted technology gadgets to be released since the last real game console was released back in late 2006. I am, of course, talking about Apple’s iPad. Just like when Apple released their iPhone/iPod Touch App Store games instantly became a huge hit on the device propelling some developers to instant fame and fortune. As such, developers are now rushing to make the iPad their own fortune maker. So all I can say it… prepare for the onslaught of iPad game coverage over the next week because there’s gonna be a lot of it.

Anyway, let’s kick this coverage off with a classic PC game favorite that surely everybody loves… Snake! Well, to be more specific, Angry Snake.

The game seemingly plays exactly like all other snake games ever created. You control a snake and have to collect small apples in order to extend the length of your snake and earn more points. If you run into a wall or yourself you’ll lose. To control your snake you simply swipe in the direction you want to move. Sounds fairly simple.

The game ships with leaderboard and Twitter features (posts your high score so all your followers can revel in it) and costs a mere $0.99 on the iPad app store. For those keeping count this is actually a pretty big bargain for the service as most other games have crept back up to the $10 range.

Screenshots:

Keen Software announced today the addition of some new team members and some new information about their upcoming fully-destructible mining shooter Miner Wars.

The game is played in an asteroid belt in outer space flying a mining ship that can blast and tunnel its way through rock and competing mining crafts. The game’s selling points are its 6 Degrees of Freedom, it’s completely destructible game world and its combination of story and MMO elements.

“Game play is led by an epic story and is a combination of a single/multi-player game, cooperative, or you against everyone.”

The official site has some videos and info on the game, but the release has been pushed from early this year to late this year as changes and improvements are made.

The gameplay video reminds me of the old tunnel shooter Descent, but in an open environment. With its physics and destructibility, this could hold some real promise. We’ll follow its developments throughout the year.

This just in from Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, apparently the system’s oft maligned and ignored channel, Xbox Live Indie Games, is going to shutter and close down within the next few weeks.

As many have probably noted over the past year and a half, no game on the service has ever done terribly well, in either sales volume or consumer market penetration.

Microsoft’s PR spin on the whole situation is laid out clearly and succinctly.

“At Microsoft we are always looking ahead to further empower our devices and the services we offer. The Xbox Live Indie Games service, while a good effort by all those who have invested into it, was not in line with our future vision of the Xbox platform. As such we have decided to end the service over the next few weeks. We’ll have more details about the closure in the next few days.”

This, obviously, leaves open a lot of questions that have to be answered. For one, what’s going to happen to all those indie games on the service now? Will they be removed, or will they be folded into Xbox Live Arcade? Will there be any sort of “indie” gaming service in the future?

Needless to say Microsoft has a lot of explaining to do over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, however, you can rest assured that the channel’s spot in the Games Marketplace will not sit vacant for long as Microsoft has already announced that Xbox Live Retro will be moving in shortly after the Xbox Live Indie Games channel closes down.

“In continuing with our determination to give gamers multiple levels of entertainment we are announcing today a new channel aimed to cater to those of us who fondly remember games from the past. Just like we announced Game Room, today we are announcing a new channel called Xbox Live Retro which will serve as a hub for games consumers loved in the past but are no longer available to play in today’s digital world.”

“Xbox Live Retro will constantly update with fan favorites from the NeoGeo, Sega Genesis, Commodore 64, Virtual Boy (as per negotiations with Nintendo), Atari 2600, Jaguar, and other as yet to be named retro devices.”

So there you have it. Xbox Live Indie Games is out and Xbox Live Retro is in. To put it mildly, this irks me more than you can possibly imagine. I mean, not only did Microsoft never, ever support a damn game from the XBLIG service, but they rarely ever advertised the channel at all. And now they’ve just decided to ditch it after all the hard work that not only they put into it, but also the literally hundreds of developers who’ve made the service possible.

Microsoft better have some good plans laid out for keeping those games already developed in distribution or I’ll be selling my Xbox 360 as soon s I can.

We’ve put in an email to Microsoft to see if we can get some further answers for you guys. We’ll update as soon as possible.

[press release via Microsoft]

Petroglyph Games has announced plans to release Guardians of Graxia, a PC strategy game with a fantasy setting, with a board game version to be launched alongside the title. Petroglyph is also the developer and publisher of the free-to-play action-RPG Mytheon, currently in beta testing.

Both versions of GoG take place on the planet of Graxia, a place that has land masses that mysteriously float in the sky. Armies controlled by Guardians transport their forces through portals to other land masses. The PC version of the game will use over 240 unit and spell cards as part of the gameplay and include both single and multiplayer modes.

Guardians of Graxia will be arrive via digital download along with the board game this fall.

A new update has been released by Sidhe for the recently released PC version of its brick-breaker Shatter, now available for download.

Among other items, the update brings an improvement to the Steam Cloud feature that allows users to play saved games on different computers by keeping the data accessible online. Now all in-game progress can be accessed via whatever computer you’re currently at.

The patch also brings a handful of fixes and other additions to the game, the file can be picked up via auto-download on Steam, if you own the game and don’t immediately receive the patch, restart the client.

From the change log:

Shatter

• Added steam cloud support for all in-game progress
• Fixed a bug where following a link to a web page from a popup within the game would make all other in-game popups attempt to take the user to the same web page
• Updated the readme to include additional known issues
• Fixed a crash that would occur when detecting certain input devices. A warning is now shown when Shatter detects an incompatible device
• Fixed an issue with leader board times for boss rush where times over 40 minutes would wrap back around to zero
• Added detection of modified game data. When the user has local modifications to their data Shatter will enter offline mode and will not upload scores
• Fixed an issue where Shatter would incorrectly enter offline mode if the user had set their Steam account to appear offline. Shatter will now enter offline mode if Steam is offline

Cold Beam Games has revealed that their extremely well rated Xbox Live Indie title Beat Hazard is heading to PC via Steam.

Similar to Audiosurf in that it uses your own music collection to fuel the gameplay, the arcade sci-fi shooter puts your catalog to use by pacing the difficulty depending on the song, creating power ups for your ship and more. The Steam version will have some additional goodies including a new boss ship, Survival mode, a new rock album, Steam achievements and more.

Beat Hazard is available now on Xbox Live for 400 MS Points ($5) and will hit PC sometime next month, no pricing has been announced as of yet.

New features for the PC version include:

* New bad ass super boss.

* Survival mode! Can you last a whole album?

* New kick ass rock album.

* 25 Steam achievements to get your teeth into.

* Compete with the worlds best on Steam Leader Boards.

Cadenza has released a new update for its strategy title Sol Survivor, now available for download on Steam.

The patch brings co-op campaign multiplayer mode, allowing users to play alongside one another through a campaign. The update also brings a list of bug fixes along with some balancing tweaks for the turret defense title.

The file can be downloaded by owners of the game simply by restarting the client. From the change log:

Sol Survivor

Bugs fixed:

• Fixed crash bug when attempting to upgrade silos.
• Fixed rendering artifacts from forced driver MSAA on NVIDIA cards.
• Fixed invisible terrain on Shader Model 2.0 hardware.
• Fixed text chat on international keyboards.
• Fixed unsupported hardware crashing instead of displaying a message window.
• Fixed survival balance causing bosses to come in too early.
• Fixed prebuilt turrets not counting in player records, blocking Equal Opportunity Constructor.
• Added fallback music engine for systems that do not have Windows Media Player.

Enhancements:

• Added Co-Op Campaign multiplayer mode.
• Added promotion message archive, viewable by clicking rank on main menu.
• Tweaked radiation and railgun turret damage.
• Tweaked difficulty on some Versus and Co-Op maps.

This is a hard review for me to write, and it’s all Penny Arcade’s fault. By the time I had played the game to the point where I was comfortable reviewing it (beating it and then some), I had time to either pull my notes together to and sit down to write or prepare for PAX. Thinking (because I’m a fool) I’d have plenty of time to write while in Boston, I put it off.

Now I’m back and decompressed, but more than a week away from the last time I summoned souls to save myself from a bat, so we’ll see what emotions I can pull out of these notes. Because Soulcaster is a love letter to the games of my youth, and yet the actual game is nothing like what I remember. The retro graphics disguise a deeper complexity.

Gameplay

You control a wizard that stumbles on the souls of the three immortal spirit guardians of Averica. First you meet Shaeda, the archer. His arrows are strong, but his body is weak. Before long you stumble across Aeox, the knight. He’s the bruiser with a tough hide and a sharp stick. Finally you obtain Bloodfire. He throws explosive potions — even over walls, but he’s even weaker than Shaeda, and explodes when he dies.

The game works like this. When you meet each guardian, they give you a soul. You can then buy two more at the shop, giving you five souls to work with. You can use the souls however you like, summoning the three heroes in any combination.

As you move through Averica, looking for a chalice to cure the land’s ills, the dead come after you. They spawn when you cross certain tiles, and you have to summon your souls to protect you. If the souls die, they take a few seconds to become unsummoned and usable again. A few seconds you usually don’t have.

It plays a bit like a mobile tower defense game. Your wizard can summon souls anywhere he can stand, though he can’t pass through them (so don’t trap yourself). He can also unsummon the souls. The most basic strategy is to put an Aeox or two between you and the monsters, then place Shaedas or Bloodfires in sniping or bombing positions.

Earlier stages give you plenty of gaps in walls to plug with Aeox and impassable rivers for Shaeda to snipe over. Later in the game, the environments are mostly open, and you have to make your own cover. The open fields for you to be constantly on the move, rapidly summoning and unsummoning souls. If you get in a jam, there are scrolls the wizard can use to damage everything nearby, but you can only carry three and they don’t kill everything outright.

That’s really all there is to the gameplay. But there are a dozen or so monsters, each with different attributes. Some are fast and fragile, others slow and powerful. They come at you in combinations, so you have to prioritize your targets. You have to decide when to engage and when to retreat.

It’s thrilling and hard, but totally worth it.

Style

Soulcaster hearkens back to an older generation, right down to the 4:3 aspect ration, the 16-bit graphics and the passwords. Keep a pencil and pad nearby, because if you want to stop playing you’ll have to write down 24 characters. Given the self-imposed limitations, the graphics look great, and they suit the simple grid-based gameplay.

Going into the store starts off some heavy rocking. I don’t know why the developer went in that direction, but I’m not complaining.

Story

The story really only serves to introduce the game’s central mechanic. But it does have some charm and some amusing moments. There isn’t much text, but what is there is worth reading.

Everything Else

I’m a pretty big fan of the tower defense genre, and Soulcaster has probably supplanted Defense Grid to take the No. 2 spot in my heart. Aside from the passwords, which are a pain to enter, I can’t think of anything bad to say about this game.

Go buy it, it’s worth the 240 points.

[DIYgamer.com was provided with a copy of this game for review purposes. This in no way affected the outcome of the review. More information can be found at the Xbox Live Marketplace]

For the first week in April, 10 Xbox Live Arcade games are going on sale. Among those 10 are Hidden Path Entertainment‘s Defense Grid and Torpex Games‘ Schizoid.

Both games will be sold for 400 points, which is half the normal asking price. If I didn’t already have Defense Grid on the PC, I’d jump at the chance to own it. It’s one of the best tower defense games I’ve ever played, up there with Desktop Tower Defense and Soulcaster.

I don’t know much about Schizoid, but it sounds a bit like a co-op Ikaruga, with each player controlling a color. At 400 points, it’s probably worth picking up.

The sale runs through April 7, and also includes: Age of Booty, Lumines LIVE, Mad Tracks, Rocket Riot, South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!, Super Street Fighter II HD, Track & Field and Wallace & Gromit Episode 1.

[via Facebook]