Humble Bundles truly are the gift that keeps on giving. Clearly not content for launching his new shooter in a ‘Pay What You Want’ sale, Lexaloffle has added a trio of bonus games that’ll pop up in your bundle, even if you’ve not paid over the average – all three of his previously retail titles. The block-sliding puzzle game Chocolate Castle, contemplative spatial puzzle Zen Puzzle Garden, and 16-bit style platformer Jasper’s Journeys. It seems that Edmund McMillen has chipped in a little as well, throwing his physics-platformer Gish into the mix, too.
While Cryptic Sea slaves away at the IGN/GameSpy Open House, developer Alex Austin trades his balls for pucks in this quickly thrown together, fun experiment. He says Hockey? took about a week to create. After seeing it in motion, I walk away surprised that the concepts of two games I play very little could combine to catch my interest.
For this reason, I post about this hockey game and publicly ask more devs to experiment with lesser combined concepts to give everyone new ideas to entertain. Check out the game in motion:
I’m hoping DIYGamer’s resident hockey fan (Geoff, I mean you) checks this out to give it a more in-depth impression along with you readers. Tell me what you think after you try Cryptic Sea’s free first person Hockey? title.
Aimee Seaver of Cryptic Sea sat down with me on the GDC floor to discuss the furry frenzy that is Invasion of the Balls. The story is that small alien balls are invading the earth in attempt to find something that was lost. The balls, each about the size of a mouse, are willing to die for their queen in this quest.
Invasion of the Balls is essentially a 2-D platformer that will allow up to 100 players online and 4 players locally to join the invasion. The balls can select one of a load of abilities during each level to maximize their rampage of Earth while exploring for what was lost. Money results from the rampage of destroying stuff, and players can purchase upgrades for each of their abilities up to three levels. There will be no in-game purchasing,but there may be random drops of abilities in the game.
The balls have to work together to destroy some of the bigger objects. Aimee explained an example. With a grandfather clock in one level, one ball can’t do it by itself. An anti-gravity enabled ball makes the clock float a little, then an explosion empowered ball makes it slowly tip over, and finally the anti-gravity ball makes it crash down.
Above the four player split screen, there is a mini-map so that players know where they are. Aimee said that a future build will have larger boxes that match the color of the players’ balls to make their relative location more pronounced for quicker glancing at the mini-map. Each stage also has a timer. Taken from the developer’s blog, there are currently five stage types:
Destroy: Break as many things as possible, everyone smashes, everyone wins.
Race: First one to the end gets all the cash.
Elimination: Two teams, last team remaining wins the round, first team to 3 wins gets the money.
Harvest: Collect food for the Queen!
Rescue: Save your fellow spawnlings from devious human clutches.
Destroy: Break as many things as possible, everyone smashes, everyone wins.
Race: First one to the end gets all the cash.
Elimination: Two teams, last team remaining wins the round, first team to 3 wins gets the money.
Harvest: Collect food for the Queen!
Rescue: Save fellow spawnlings from devious human clutches.
The game is playable on keyboard or game pad. Aimee said the game pad was way more fun. When the character first spawns, players make a choice of which power up is best suited for the type of stage. Aimee described most of the abilities and their usefulness. The balls can have an enhanced jump, run to go faster, heavy to make them grow and squish enemies or knock over large objects (and also help propel other balls if they jump into each other), big to throw stuff around with ease, and explosion to suicide and blow up almost anything.
While Invasion of the Balls doesn’t have an exact release date, Aimee mentioned that Cryptic Sea will release another game soon that is an action puzzle game, called Triaxia. She stated that a demo of the Balls will be included. The Invasion of the Balls will be available for PC, Mac, and Linux.
Early beta demo of Invasion of the Balls
[GDC 2011 media by Steven Bardales]
UPDATE: Unknown to me at the time of this writing, it appears that the Humble Indie Bundle guys merely set to requirement to activate the first bundle to whatever the overall average is. As of now it costs $7.43, but expect that to rise incrementally over the remainder of the bundle’s life.
Well this is certainly and interesting turn. In an attempt to get their average price per bundle up the Humble Indie Bundle guys are now offering the first Bundle for free to anybody who pays more than $7.37 (the current average) for the second Humble Indie Bundle. Basically, this ups your haul from 5 games to 11 (World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, Penumbra Overture, Samorost 2).
I gotta say, I’m impressed with the way these guys handle this bundle. I mean, above and beyond a normal level of “impressed.” They move fast and they’re constantly thinking about their next move to increase awareness of the bundle.
Anyway, so there you have it, pay more than $7.37 and get 11 games instead of 5. That’s a great deal.
This is a GREAT deal from Steam. For a mere $5, you can get some of my own personal favorite indie games. Games which, by themselves, would easily be worth $5. Instead you’re getting all five for $5. Amazing. The games included are:
And Yet It Moves
Gish
Jolly Rover
Puzzle Agent
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
The cream of the crop of this batch of games has to be Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale. It’s a great game that really showcases an traditional JRPG from a different perspective. Our own review of it was quite favorable, and our helpful walkthrough has proven very handy for many indie gamers. If you’re looking for a fun treat for yourself this Thanksgiving day, then look no further.
Sale last until tomorrow, November 26th, at 10:00am PST. Get it while the gettin’ is good!
Remember the content packed Gish 1.6 update we caught a few days back? Turns out Chronic Logic wants to celebrate a bit over its release, offering their excellent 2D platformer for a price of the buyer’s choosing from now on. No limited-time sale, just name your price now, or whenever you want.
It’s a growing trend that has sparked some controversy from loyal players who pay full price closer to (or a lot of times prior to) the title’s official release; but I still believe it’s been warmly received by most and certainly has some new blood checking out indie games. (Can’t beat those prices!) I certainly believe that we’ll see more developers take to this model earlier in their game’s lifespan–perhaps someday even at or before launch–as most of these experiments so far have ranged from decent to fantastic results.
Chronic Logic includes in the press release an excellent explanation as to why they believe the “pay-what-you-want” model can work not just as a sale, but as a long term price point for indie games. It’s a must read on the subject:
This pricing strategy often times raises eyebrows and people ask the question, won’t everyone just pay the minimum? As an indie company the relationship we have with our customers is much different than what you would see between huge corporations and gamers. We are not just out to make money, but genuinely enjoy producing unique game experiences for our fans. Within the community most gamers respect the role that indie developers play in keeping content fresh and competitive. We are not out to feed the masses with top notch graphics or put out bulk gameplay with already famous icons. The content generated by indie companies gives a unique feel with every game that just can’t be created by the giants – sort of like that favorite song no one else knows about. Gamers are different than the average consumers, they are more aware of the roles small companies play in game development, and because of this, are more willing to support the developers who create the games they love to play.
My thumbs are all sorts of up. Grab Gish for your price here, or try the new demo available for PC, Mac and Linux. If you already own it, you can download whatever update you need here.
Award winning 2D platformer Gish has recently been updated with a large content patch to what appears to be no fanfare, and well not much of an explanation of how the content was put together.
The update–available now for PC, Mac, and Linux–adds community campaigns that total 40 new levels along with four new community versus levels as well. Though I can’t find any literature to back this up anywhere, I wonder if this could be the first of several content updates for the game that relate to its recent source code release following the Humble Indie Bundle success. Regardless the new community created additions are all there.
A download link, instructions for how to update your game to 1.6 and all patch notes can be found here. From the change log:
Version 1.6
Added community campaigns totaling over 40 new levels
Added 4 new community vs. levels
Changed file saving locations in Windows and OSX to be in user folders
Direct2Drive has announced the rebirth of its Indie Games Bundle sale. Through next week, interested parties can grab 10 quality, well known indie games in one pack for just $29.95. Compare that to $134.50 if you were to purchase the games individually.
The games in the bundle include World of Goo, Machinarium, Puzzlegeddon, Gish, The Maw, Braid, Cogs, AAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, Osmos and Crayon Physics Deluxe. All of the above games are good in our opinion and some are true classics. It’s a deal that you don’t have to steal.
Keeping with their Humble Indie Bundle promise, Cryptic Sea has released the source code for their award winning platformer Gish, which can be downloaded here.
The dev notes “Most of this code was hacked in in the last 3 or 4 months of development, so it’s not very clean,” but that shouldn’t hold modders back from jumping in and coming up with some interesting alterations.
Four of the developers participating in the HIB agreed to release their game’s source code if the goal of $1 million in sales was reached, when the dust finally settled $1.27 million was the figure and the devs have been following through one by one since. So far, Lugaru and Penumbra Overture have already gone open source and now with the release of Gish’s code we’re just waiting on the excellent Aquaria’s release which should be soon.
Remember the content packed 
Award winning 2D platformer 
Keeping with their 
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