The upgraded version of Joystick Johnny, Totally Tiny Arcade is available to download for free through this weekend only.

The title brings a collection of 20 mini-games inspired by 80’s arcade favorites altered a bit to add some WarioWareish flair to the games. Additional bad guys, new obstacles and other features have been coded in to give the old school games a fresh twist.

You can grab the title free from the developer until Monday, July 26. All that’s required is a valid email, with a “no spam” promise coming straight from the horse’s mouth. Trailer below.

Not to be mistaken for Unnatural Selection, Fault Line creator Nitrome has unleashed its own subversive worm-based browser game. This one, though, takes more of an arcade route and seems to follow the example of Taito’s Syvalion. Mechanically, it seems to; thematically, it’s… you know those old 8-bit games based on horror movies that got flak because you played as Leatherface or Freddy Krueger? Imagine a game like that, based on Tremors.

In Worm Food you play as a ravenous sand worm. Left and right turn; up speeds up; down speeds down. You can burrow through dirt and swim through water. Doing either speeds you up. You can also use your momentum to burst through and leap into the air. The goal is to gobble up as many villagers as possible within the alloted time, and maybe smash as much as you can along the way. As you progress the game introduces new twists, including spike traps, bottomless pits, and impassible stone walls.

Although there isn’t really a huge lot to the game, the action has a great sense of pillow fight catharsis. As you dig around, you leave a winding trail behind you that persists until the end of the level. Whatever you destroy stays destroyed. By the end of a level, you will have made it pretty much your own.

Nitrome has a pretty big back catalog of games, all highly polished, all experimental, and all based around one or two basic mechanics. Generally the strength of the game depends on the strength of the mechanic, and the tunneling/leaping action here works pretty well. It isn’t high art by any means. It is, however, a bit of a hoot. It’s got a charming presentation, it plays well, and it pretty much milks its concept as well as it might.

You can play Worm Food here.

[While our XBLIG Thursday feature fights against the main issue of Xbox 360’s Indie Games channel–gaming brilliance being lost in a sea of medicore titles and cheap apps–as good as anything out there, there’s just too many total releases for us to try them all.

That being said, we can still highlight them on a daily basis, and perhaps posting these new titles will benefit both player and developer by allowing a connection to be made before the game floats on down the river and into the backlogs of the channel. Whether it be an all-time great, a one time play-through or a complete lemon; all will have their chance to speak. Here are today’s releases.]

Overkill (80 MS Points)
“They burned your city to the ground and they killed your family. You have nothing left. You have one mission before you die, and that is to kill as many as “them” as possible. Will you be able to defeat them? Be sure to use the right and left bumpers to shoot behind you! You only have 10 lives. Good Luck!”

CoreDase (80 MS Points)
“A unique 3D platformer that starts out easy enough but soon supplies tension in gargantuan degrees! Wrestle with 50 challenging levels as new elements appear and old ones change. Take to multiplayer to experience something new where every one of 20 levels fundamentally changes play. Though your ultimate aim is to come out on top, sometimes survival takes a higher priority.”

Apparently, Elbert Perez’s Xbox Live Indie Game Scribble Defense is set to launch for the Windows Phone 7. Aside from that detail itself, the new press release is scarce of information. Perez indicates the features in the acclaimed Scribble Defense (Read Mike’s review here.) but also notes new updates for the Windows Phone 7 version.

Features:
- Addicting puzzle based levels that require more than just tower placement strategies
- Place direct damaging towers and kinetic towers that push and pull enemies at your own whim
- Waypoints can shift positions by themselves or by using kinetic towers, making the battlefield dynamic and fun

New for Windows Phone 7:
- New touch controls to take advantage of Windows Phone 7
- New art assets that bring the original game to life

Perez noted that the game will be launched hopefully on the same day that the marketplace for the phone launches. No word was given on pricing but one can assume it will be at only $1 as it has been before. Check out the video below of the game running on an emulator for the phone.

[Read Elbert Perez's development blog.]

[Source: GamesPress]

Soldak has released new patches for both official and beta versions of their action RPG Din’s Curse, now available for PC and Mac users.

The v1.002 official update brings a long list of new improvmenMediats, additons, gameplay tweaks and bug fixes to the game. The v1.003 beta patch adds more additions, tweaks and changes that haven’t been tested as much as official material has, but to that end offers new items that aren’t seen yet in the official version.

All new updates can be downloaded now via the game’s patches page. A full list of changes for both patches can be found here.

You can now snag the pirate adventure Jolly Rover for 50% off its usual price down to a price point of $10. Mike recently shed some positive light on the adventure tale in his review, so if you’ve been waiting for a chance to pick it up, there is no better time than now.

All you need to do is snag the discount code from Jolly Rover’s website and input it in the ordering page. You’ll then be sent a Steam download key in order to add the game to your library.

The sale runs from today through July 25th at midnight (though I think that’s Australian midnight which actually places the hour at 7am Pacific Standard time on Sunday, which would be 12pm Eastern and 5pm GMT).

So there’s no better time to hit the high seas than now.

Xbox Live Indie Games has become a great service for grabbing incredibly cheap games on a whim. With so many priced at 80 MS points – that’s a single dollar, in monetary terms – it’s easy to grab a game without having to care too much about whether it’s a masterpiece or not.

Kydos Studio’s Lumi has been on our radar ever since it was crowned the winner of Microsoft’s Dream-Build-Play 2010 competition. That incredible-looking trailer helped to pique our interest too. So when the game was released for 400 MS points – the most expensive price an XBLIG game can be, and a pricetag which you barely ever see on the service – it definitely turned a few heads.

Lumi has a great concept and a lot of style, with some lovely visuals and backdrops. The action gets rather frustrating towards the end, with one-hit deaths a big issue, but you’ll most likely be won over by the oodles of charm on show.

GAMEPLAY

You take control of a small bouncy creature called Lumi, and your task is to bring light back to the world by collecting fireflies and releasing them into light plants. Lumi gets around the place using him magnetism powers, and some handily-placed vortexes.

Holding the left trigger will make Lumi glow blue, while holding right will make him see red. If our hero touches a blue vortex while glowing blue himself, he’ll spin in a circle around it. Release the trigger and he’ll fly off, keeping the momentum. Red vortexes plus red glow have the same effect. This method can be used to reach higher ground, or fireflies in hard to reach places.

Initially it’s quite tricky to grasp the idea. There’s a short tutorial level, but it doesn’t fully explain how the concept works. The idea is that when you launch off a vortex, if you hit the opposite colour trigger you’ll fly much further. This isn’t properly explained, so for the first ten minutes or so, I wasn’t being very successful.

Still, once the inner workings are fully realised, it becomes a doddle and you’ll be pulling off spectacular leaps and bounds. Vortexes are all lined up in such a way that you can jump between them without returning back to the ground. It’s a simple yet brilliant control scheme that works just as it should.

Apart from vortexes, there are also glowing lines of blue and red which Lumi can travel down. These are great fun to travel, and make up a lot of the action in the later levels.

Once enough fireflies have been collected and plants been fed, the exit portal will open, allowing you to progress. Collecting every single thing in the level will earn you a 100% rating for that level. Strangely, the percentages don’t fully seem to work – on a number of levels, I did not light up every tree, and when I completed the level it told me I’d done 80% of it. Yet then when I visited the world map, it stated that I’ve 100%ed the level. Whether this is a bug or not, I’m not quite sure.

Apart from the firefly collection levels, there are some really interesting boss battles that require you dodge huge insect beasts and attack them from different angles. While these levels are cleverly designed, they are also rather frustrating. Lumi will die from a single hit, and so every leap and maneuver must be done with precision. These levels could have been the icing on the cake, but instead I found myself wishing there had been more fireflies!

There are nine levels to play through in total, and the whole game will take you around 90 minutes to complete. It’s a fair amount of content – especially for an Xbox Live Indie Game – but it’s perhaps on the short side. Still, for the relatively low price (compared to your average game, obviously), there’s definitely enough here to fill an evening.

STYLE

Lumi is really quite a gorgeous-looking thing, with beautiful backdrops and great effects. Vortexes glow as Lumi whizzes around, leaving a trail of light in his path. Visually, this is definitely one of the finest XBLIG games to date.

The only issue I had was the contrast between the art styles of the backdrops and levels versus the characters. The enemies, friends and Lumi himself are all animated in a comic-style, with huge eyes and silly bounces. Against the gorgeous background, it feels a little awkward. It’s only a minor annoyance though, and takes nothing away from the rest of the beauty.

The soundtrack is a calming blend, setting each scene perfectly, from the dark, quiet forests to the dank caves. No complaints from us.

STORY

The Lumi are minding their own business, when suddenly a huge dark vortex shallows their planet. Our hero sets off on an adventure to bring light back to the land, and get rid of the evil presence.

There isn’t really much of a story told during play – there isn’t a single shred of dialogue – but Lumi really isn’t the kind of game that needs words. It doesn’t look like the Lumi have mouths anyway, so if they started talking, that would just be rather silly.

Hence, in this case, a lack of a proper story is a good thing.

OTHER

Lumi is a lovingly crafted experience that is fun and frustrating in equal measures. The one million dollar question is ‘Is it worth the 400 MS point asking price?’.

The answer is an awkward one – depending on the value you put on games, it may or may not be. Your best bet is to download the demo and see what vibe you get from it. Chances are the price will drop after a few months, so if you don’t feel it’s worth that much, you may be best to wait.

Either way, this is a great addition to the Xbox Live Indie Games service.

[While our XBLIG Thursday feature fights against the main issue of Xbox 360’s Indie Games channel–gaming brilliance being lost in a sea of medicore titles and cheap apps–as good as anything out there, there’s just too many total releases for us to try them all.

That being said, we can still highlight them on a daily basis, and perhaps posting these new titles will benefit both player and developer by allowing a connection to be made before the game floats on down the river and into the backlogs of the channel. Whether it be an all-time great, a one time play-through or a complete lemon; all will have their chance to speak. Here are today’s releases.]

Chemical Chaos (80 MS Points)
“Dr. Ludacki tried to engineer a crop that replicates the flavor of bacon dubbed “Facon”, Scientists and bacon enthusiasts worldwide ridiculed him. Ludacki vowed revenge. He would create a steak sauce that when released into society would turn any who ate it into mutants. Help the mad scientist by carefully blending chemicals to create his evil concoction and destroy mankind.”

Blox (80 MS Points)
“Try as fast as possible to clean up the playfield, earn bonus time with speed combinations and discover all special items. Fast endless Levels with special items and great graphics!”

Runic HD (80 MS Points)
“The Exciting Runic Puzzle Game Enters the world of 3D. Play accross five different quests and over 48 levels to prove you have what it takes to enter Valhalla. Co-operatively solve the puzzles with a friend or go it alone. Earn the approval of all the norse gods and use your trophies to unlock the final toughest challenges.”

How Smart Are You? IQ Test (80 MS Points)
“How smart are you? Take this IQ test and find out! Features include a detailed IQ breakdown, question generation that allows for retesting, and a full length 50 question test.”

Digital Distributor Steam has released the new community map pack and achievements update for Omni Systems strategy title Eufloria, now available for download on the digital distribution hub. To celebrate, the game’s price has been slashed in half through next Thursday and can now be had for just $10 instead of the standard $20 tag.

The update itself hit earlier this month, but was previously only available as a manual download via the game’s official site. It brings a large amount of new content including Community Map Pack 1 and an achievements set to the title, along with a bevy of other additions and fixes.

Steam users who own the game can grab it automatically, change log here. Eufloria’s 50% off sale ends Thursday, July 29.

Mixed into the plethora of soccer-themed and soccer-centric titles, Spanish developer Mutant Games has unveiled its newest offering, Champion Striker. Mutant’s new game will give players the opportunity to play either as a striker or a goalkeeper. Strikers will use a flicking mechanic with the ball whereas the goalkeeper will use the iPhone/iPod Touch’s accelerometer (tilt). Mutant Games also spruces the features up by providing some variations in gameplay with targets, power-ups, ball types, and even a local multiplayer feature where two players can take turns striking and catching.

While lots of other games will let you take the role of the striker, very few offer the opposing viewpoint of the goalkeeper. Mutant touts Champion Striker as unique in this sense. The full list of features in the game is as follows:

- 16 different goalkeepers.
- Two player multiplayer locally, sharing the device.
- Leaderboards. Open Feint featured.
- Tons of Achievements.
- A unique captain for each national team
- Arcade style music, difficult to get out of your head!
- Link to your Twitter or Facebook accounts to auto-boast your high scores.

Champion Striker is available on the App Store for $0.99 (at a special introductory sale).

[Buy from App Store.]

[Source: GamesPress]