No matter how gratuitous Positech’s Gratuitous Space Battles may be, there are some out there who would appreciate a method of controlling the madness. So this may be a turn off for those who are adept at the game and big fans of its current state, the addition of new options in-game is never really a bad thing. In its new free update, Gratuit0us Space Battles offers gamers more of a sense of stability via mid-battle control.

Given that by its very nature, the strategy title employs a turn-based system, this may annoy those who expertly destroy their opponents online. Not to worry, though, as the update only comes in handy for single-player offline play. Specifically, “the player can select ships and issue movement and fire orders mid battle, and even edit the ‘standing’ orders for ships in the middle of an engagement.” The developers stress that it’s only an “optional” update and that it will be available from patch 1.60 onward. Those with Steam copies should be able to download the update shortly.

Though the game is three years old, it still has an active fan base and — thanks to recent involvement in bundles — its community has only grown as more and more gamers have come to try the space battle strategy title. It is of course still available for purchase on the developer’s website (or Steam or Impulse or GamersGate), but players old and new who want to get a sense of the update can check out the video below.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Gratuitous Space Battles’ Free Update Adds Mid-Battle Control

With the market getting more and more flooded with bundles it can be an impossible task to keep up with all of the great games they offer and today offers yet another bundle in this week’s midweek madness sale over on Steam dubbed Best Of British Indie Bundle.

It is true that Britain has been responsible for a lot of great indie games over these past few years and this bundle attempts to collect up all the greatest indie games Britain has offered and put them into one neat bundle at a very reasonable rate. The bundle includes seven titles which are as follows:

• Defcon – A strategy title based on the classic film Wargames attempting to recapture the cold war era in game form but with actual use of nuclear warfare to eliminate your foes
• Eufloria – A compelling ambient game of space exploration via plant growth throughout the galaxy
• Frozen Synapse – A tactical turn based strategy game, taking a lot of influence from the early rainbow six tactical modes Frozen Synapse creates a highly skilled strategy
• Gratuitous Space Battles – Allowing the player to play the role of an admiral to develop the perfect strategy to guide your fleet to victory in this Sci-Fi statergy
• Revenge of the Titans – Taking a lot of influence from films of the 1950’s in this interesting approach to tower defence with a great deal more depth than most
• Time Gentlemen, Please! and Ben There, Dan That! – Two Point and Click adventure games have never been this whimsical, full of tongue in cheek jokes interspersed with puzzles to keep you busy

Although the bundle distinctly leans towards the strategy end of the market the games included stand up entirely on their own with no weak link making this bundle a must for anyone who does not already have these games in their library. Best Of British Indie Bundle is available via steam currently at the sale price of $9.99 only available until Thursday 4pm (PST) so act now to scoop up a bargain.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Fly The Flag For ‘Best Of British Indie Bundle’

Well it’s a been a bundling good week but we’re starting off this fresh one with a fresh bundle, this time courtesy of the folks behind Steam. Very recent to hit the Steam registry is a “Space Bundle” and with it all the juicy details on the contents. Five games overall are included and each of them quite stellar in their own right; ranging from deep strategy to first person shooter and a couple of simulators thrown in for good measure too.

While we don’t have the release date or price, we can give it an estimate if need be but there isn’t one – we’re more patient than that. Though in saying that we realise how good a bundle this is and can’t for its release, which we safely predict to be by the end of this week. Anyway, enough rabble and on to the contents!

• Shattered Horizon

First person shooters may be fairly stale at the current moment in time, but there is a little bit of room for something different, as Shattered Horizon proved when it was released back in 2009. This multiplayer experience allows players to float around in zero gravity with the aid of their rocket pack for some control of course. The perils of floating off into space are outweighed by your company though – a bunch of other players who have been told to kill you. Lovely. There are single player maps with bots to help you hone your skills luckily, or if the servers are empty which hopefully won’t be the case.

• Gratuitous Space Battles

A highly thought of space strategy title, Gratuitous Space Battles avoids clickfests by making the player think deeply about their set-up, from designing space ships from detailed modules to organizing a fleet to take on huge armies of the enemy. Once the orders are given it’s time to see how things work out; the result is always jaw dropping, either because the visual display or your ships are being utterly destroyed.

• Universe Sandbox

Taking god games to an entirely different scale, Universe Sandbox gives you exactly that as well as the freedom to manipulate it to your will. Place stars, galaxies, planets and moons in an attempt to build your very own galaxy and to some spectacular results. The most fun can be had by toying with the in-game physics though; galaxy-sized collisions, impossible orbits and mind-bending distortion can be had with complete simplicity.

• Stellar Impact

A fairly typical allies versus axis setup dominates the space battlefields in Stellar Impact. You’ll commandeer a battleship of your choosing – each with their own set-up – and then take out those frustration issues on the enemy in some very colorful space scenes, which are only improved with the firepower from the tussle. The listing on Steam has the DLC included with the purchase in the bundle.

• Lunar Flight

Accurately described as a space flight simulator, Lunar Flight is a modern take on Lunar Lander meaning that it comes with a series of missions to complete, experience to gain and spend and time trial challenges with online leaderboard support. As would seem logical, this is a game all about physics and the mastering of them, so it’s not going to be easy transporting all that cargo, acquiring data at survey locations and locating the lost cargo.

Look out for the Space Bundle to arrive on Steam sometime this week. We reckon it will go live either on Wednesday or more likely Friday. It’s a good bundle of games and the price is undoubtedly going to be very worthy of a purchase, even if you have a couple of these games already.

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:

• Gratuitous Space Battles (Positech Games): a space strategy.
• Castle Vox (Sillysoft): Indiecade finalist. Risk-esque conquer the world strategy.
• Evochron: Mercenary (StarWraith) space game, part of Evochron series.
• Fate Of The World (Red Redemption) Climate-change game. Our own James Murff says this is a “must own” title.
• Smugglers IV (Neils Bauer) space strategy game.

“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.

[Cliffski's Blog]

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.