Well that certainly didn’t take long. In 24 hours since the Humble Indie Bundle 4 launched it has seen some amazing numbers proving, once and for all, that the sequentially numbered bundles are far more successful than the independent game bundles. Although that’s not to say the former bundles were unsuccessful in the slightest.
Update: Breaking all records, the Humble Indie Bundle 4 has sold 100,000 units, and raised over $500,000 before the two week countdown even begins. I think I can hear the champagne corks popping already.
Guess the leak was accurate. What nobody could predict was that the bundle itself would be out just hours later. Five of the best indie games out there (Jamestown, Shank, Bit.Trip Runner, Super Meat Boy & NightSky HD) for whatever you want, although paying above the average will get you the updated classic Cave Story+ and Positech’s impressive asynchronous fleet-construction puzzle/strategy game Gratuitous Space Battles. It’s an amazing pack, and it’s here, now. The average price is around the $5 mark right now, and – as always – Linux, Mac & Windows versions of everything are available in both Steam and direct-download formats, and a sizeable portion of the takings goes to the American Red Cross and Child’s Play charities. Announcement video after the break. Go nuts.
From the same source as the earlier Introversion leak (people poking around the Steam content registry), it looks like the Humble Bundle are going to end this year with a megaton bang: Seven of the most impressive indie games in recent years, including some downright legendary ones. Brace your wallet – this one is going to be big.
Santa is going to have to be working overtime to make this coming Christmas seem anywhere near noteworthy. The past month or two has seen a chain of Humble Bundles, Indie Royales and more dumping dozens of great discounted indie games on us. Now, indie co-operative Show Me The Games is hosting a 21 game sale for the next two weeks. Check it out.
This indie bundle comes from Cliff Harris’s side project ShowMeTheGames website, and so it is aptly named the “Show Me the Games Bundle.” The five games included are on sale for $28.50, which is a savings of $81.33. The games seem to mostly be centered around a space or sci-fi theme. If any of that’s of interest, here are a video preview and list of the games included:
“This isn’t a humble bundle, but it’s a self-confident and proud one,” states Cliffski on his blog. The sales of the bundle go directly to the developers themselves. Interested parties can pay using a credit card, debit card or with PayPal, by ordering using this link through the payment company BMTMicro. This bundle will end on June 12.
Cliff Harris of Positech Games has announced his space strategy title Gratuitous Space Battles has recently crossed over the half million mark for battles played online. Some 501,934 (at time of writing) online “challenges” to be more precise…imagine the sheer amount of space pollution–gratuitous indeed!
Cliffski also reports there are currently over 40,000 uploaded player challenges and over 100,000 campaign battles already. Not bad for a one-man developed indie launched just over a year ago.
In other GSB news, a new update (v1.55) is available now automatically via Impulse and through the in-game updater. No change log to be found, but Impulse reports “fixes, performance improvements and more.”
The developer is also working on what he’s referring to as “G4″, hoping to put some good mojo on the title as he has, in his own words, made three good games thus far and is determined to make his next effort the fourth. We’ll be keeping an eye out for a concept reveal, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Cliff Harris states that Positech Games’ Gratuitous Space Battles (GSB) has invaded the iTunes store and is now for sale. For those waiting until they could buy GSB from a Steve Jobs approved ‘app’ store, the day has come. The developer warns that the app-store version doesn’t have the online challenges, due to Apple’s restrictions. GSB can be purchased here.
The version of GSB on the iTunes store is listed as 1.48.1, an apparent update from the balances of version 1.48 that DIYgamer’s Erik Johnson reported on two months ago. The campaign add-on for GSB, Galactic Conquest, can be grabbed here to begin conquering the galaxy immediately. This expansion will go on sale through Steam by the end of the month, for those who would rather get it there.
Cliff Harris reports that it is slightly quiet at Positech HQ, as he is in the early stages of work on the next Positech game. All he can say now is that if gamers liked GSB, they should like the next game, although it’s not simply GSB 2. Tantalizing in a teaser trailer sort of way without all the fancy CG or trailer, for that matter, Positech fans await more details anxiously. Well played, Mr Harris.
Positech Games has announced the release of the latest update for Gratuitous Space Battles, bringing the space strategy game to v1.48 and adding new improvements, fixes and balance tweaks to the title.
The patch emphasizes performance improvement, specifically noting the major rewriting of several areas to reduce memory usage. Balancing focuses both on the nomads and some general boosts and nerfs.
Mr. Harris says the update is live and to expect the auto update sometime in the next 24 hours. From the full change log:
version 1.48
1) Performance: Major rewrite of tons of areas to reduce memory usage and squash lots of small memory leaks.
2) Bug fix: Tractor beam turrets are no longer drawn when a ship should appear cloaked.
3) Bug Fix: Limpet launchers and Plasmas are now fired from the correct position when placed in multiple-hardpoint slots.
4) Bug Fix: Fixed a few minor miscalculations that meant ship damage looked (purely visually) like it was being repaired faster than it actually was, especially when cloaked.
5) Bug Fix: When you leave the ship design screen, any open module stat comparison windows are now closed.
6) Some playbalance tweaks
7) Bug Fix: Imperial fighters with tiny engine glows (also a nomad fighter) now no longer get drawn when the parent ship is docked at a carrier.
The balance stuff:
nomads:
Awazem loses its cost boost, gets 8% armour boost
Duwasir loses its armour boost, gets 10% speed boost
Majali reduces speed penalty from 22% to 12%
Abbadi gets an 8% armour boost
Nomadic dogfight laser damage increased to 8
Nomadic beam laser power usage reduced to 13
general:
guidance scrambler beam weight increased to 147
EMP Shield ecm strength increased from 66 to 82
All frigate armour maxdamageabsorbable increased by 20%
EMP Missile launchers, (both types) missile speed 25% faster. fireinterval reduced 10%, ecm strength increased 10%
Decoy missile launcher weight reduced to 70
order:
Limpet launcher limpetweight increased to 8.2, cost reduced to 110
It may not be the smörgåsbord of offerings it’s been in the past, but there are still some real nice sales on indie games this weekend. As always, if we’ve missed a deal like a developer sale or something of the sort let us know by commenting below or emailing.
Impulse
Stardock’s hub boasts the best offer for your money, knocking nearly $20 off the standard $30 tag of action RPG Mount & Blade: Warband. The Gratuitous Space Battles Collector’s Edition is still going for $25 instead of $40.92.
Steam
A couple of offers on Valve’s digital distribution center this weekend including the aforementioned half-off sale for adventure game Big Brain Wolf, and 20% off the just released strategy RPG Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes.
GamersGate
GG is offering a 60% off sale on N3V’s aptly titled train sim Trainz Simulator 2010: Engineers Edition.bringing the price down to $16 from $40.
Independent Sales
If you already own GSB but lack the add-ons, Positech Games is offering all four DLC packs for just $10.
I’m not going to sugarcoat this, there are a lot of indie sales that popped up today resulting in an extended weekend of absolutely excellent discounts. With the amount we have to cover, I can’t really afford to chit-chat. Instead of continuing to write in this overwhelmed state, it’s best I just share all that I can:
Top Picks
Steam is back at it again with another one of its monster weekend deals, this time offering up huge savings on all things Serious Sam HD. The First Episode goes for $3.75 instead of $15, The Second for $5 instead of $20. Get them both in the double pack for $7.50 or get both plus their original episodes released 2001/02 in the recently released Gold Pack for just $10 instead of the $40 tag.
Not to be overlooked in the slightest, Gratuitous Space Battles and its DLC are all on sale in some form through a couple of distributors. First and foremost, Direct2Drive is offering the $23 title for just $6, read Geoff’s review if you’d like some persuasion, but I can tell you myself that its a top quality indie and a steal at that price. Impulse is offering a less tempting sale for the full game at $11.50, but also extends the discounts onto the game’s DLC and bundles. All four DLC packs are now $3 each instead of $5, and the GSB Complete bundle offers an even better deal, offering the full version of the game plus the first three expansions (The Order, The Swarm and The Tribes) for just $12.50. If you throw in the newly released ‘The Nomads’ add-on for $3, you can get the entirety of what’s available for the game for just $15.50. That’s $7.50 less than the base game costs standard. Better than if you go with the D2D $6 sale and all expansions for $3 each which puts you at $18. However you end up mixing and matching is up to you in the end, but don’t get yourself so confused that you forget to take part period.
Sales
Impulse is also offering some other great deals on top of the aforementioned sales. Din’s Curse is 50% off at $12.50 instead of $25–Geoff’s review and our coverage of the graphical update. Academagia – The Making of Mages is $10 off, Aztaka is $7.50 instead of $15.
GamersGate has a couple of good deals as well. Max & The Magic Marker is 75% off and goes for just $5 instead of $20 and air racing sim Ikaro is just $7.50 down from $30.
Garry’s Mod (which apparently is now available for Mac as well) is going for half-off on Steam, and is available for just $5 through the weekend.
Pre-Order/Launch Discounts
Star Ruler launched on digital distributors this week at $5 off its $25 tag on Steam, GamersGate and Impulse.
Subsoap’s Faerie Solitaire launched recently on Steam with a 30% off discount and is currently going for $3.50.
Other Offers
Joel Cappelletto, co-designer for ArchRobo: Robotic Annihilation, has informed us of a giveaway for LPS’s freshly released XBLIG title. Just email lps_inc[at]hotmail.com and make sure you enter ‘Contest’ in the subject line for your chance to win one of ten copies of the twin-stick shooter.
[Did we miss something? Comment below or email erik.johnson[at]diygamer.com so we can add to the list.]
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