It’s a treacherous life being a pixel. Imagine being so small and fragile. Being another brick in the wall would be a luxury when compared to being just another pixel on the monitor. Though, saying that, the pixel character in A Pixel Escape looks pretty happy. Maybe even too happy. Creepy.

From the minds of an Italian student group attending Politecnico di Milano, A Pixel Escape is a first person puzzle game with a fair amount of ambition behind it. We say that because the game uses a random level generator, giving the game a high replayability, as long as there is some kind of structure to it of course. Interestingly, the game has you playing as a pixel who is attempting to escape from the world inside the monitor. Even more bizarrely, there seems to be a human trying to help him from the outside.

All of your fellow pixels can be punched out of the way or dealt with but each of them react differently: “red pixels explode, pink ones float while gray collapse down, and so on”. There are some darker pixels which will come at you as well and seem to be the main enemy – nothing a few punches won’t sort out. There’s a few different game modes to try out on top of the many different ways you can play the puzzles, the picture mode has caught our eye.

Check out some gameplay from A Pixel Escape in the video below and look out for its release on XBLIG and PC very shortly!

You can seek out more information on A Pixel Escape over on the official website, but you won’t find any. You’re better off, at least for now, heading over to the Facebook and Twitter pages.

One thing can be said about Exato Games, and that is that they seem to be having fun as they blend elements from Minecraft and Call of Duty into one game. While their previous trailer for Guncraft aimed squarely at the shooteriest of first person shooters, this one announcing the start of the closed beta of May 21st decides to blow the head off of Minecraft, in quite a literal sense.

If you’ve played Ace of Spades before, or the two aforementioned games and then imagine them together, you already know what Guncraft is. If you’re not sure what we’re getting at then imagine a first person shooter which utilizes building structures block by block, in fact, imagine the whole game made up of 1

With a single swish of the sword, Brand has jumped from XBLIG to PC via Desura, where you can now pre-order this sidescrolling action platformer, or try our the free demo if you prefer.

Traversing an ancient castle in order to restore power to a magical sword – not the most original idea ever but certainly a competent one. Initially titled Swordcraft to people’s distaste, you’ll be visiting a Mage, a Chemist and a Smith to upgrade that sword in a number of ways; replays are required to discover them all. Brand, as was said in our review of the XBLIG version, sticks out for its in-game architecture and fantasy fuelled tale most of all, and only slips due to a lack of polish in a some areas of combat and performance in general.

While we can’t confirm whether the extra time since release has caused Nine Dots Studio to invest some extra elbow grease in the game’s mechanics, we can tell you that for a price of £2.99, this PC version should be worth the money. Brand isn’t to be released for PC until May 29th but, like we said, you can place your pre-order now over on Desura.

More information on Brand can be found over on the game’s official website.

Archifishal Software, developer of Inferno, has announced their next game intended for release on XBLIG – Aqualibrium looks to be a madcap platformer with plenty going on to test your wits.

Call the graphics retro or whatever you prefer, Aqualibrium isn’t going to blow you away visually but the water trickling effects are quite pleasant to look at. Anyway, we’re here to inspect gameplay here and with 40 levels, two levels of difficulty and (hopefully) online highscores/best times for each level; there should be plenty going on during your time spent with the game.

The idea of Aqualibrium is that you must make your way around your ship which has submerged under an alien ocean after an unavoidable crash landing. The pressure is starting to build up so you’ll frantically need to rush around and rid the water trapped in each section. While doing this sounds hectic enough, you’ll have to also worry about the number of exotic aliens which have found their way into the ship – just hope your guns don’t malfunction at the wrong time.

There’s no release date for Aqualibrium as it is still under development but it should be soon and it will definitely be on XBLIG. Check out the game’s trailer below:

More information on Aqualibirum can be found on the developer’s official website.

Going Loud Studios’ parody platformer, DLC Quest, made quite the splash with its release on XBLIG and even more so when it hit PC and Mac not so long ago. With its friendly but critical approach to the state of DLC in the industry, it holds quite the reputation. If you haven’t played it yet then there’s no better time to do so, especially now that it has hit the Mac App Store with a discounted price.

DLC Quest takes the traditional approach to the platformer by having you collect coins and save a princess. Those coins, however, are used not to claim extra lives but to buy DLC in the game. This starts off simply with adding sounds, animations and the ability to move left. Later, the DLC can get you bikini packs and zombies added to the game. It’s tongue-in-cheek fun and won’t cost you a penny apart from the initial purchase.

So, if you do have a Mac and don’t own DLC Quest, then now would be a good time to head over to the Mac App Store and pick it up for just $0.99 as from May 14th onwards that price will increase to $1.99 – it’s not going to break the bank but who is going to argue with a discount?

More information on DLC Quest can be found on the game’s official website.

Thanks Armless Octopus!

If you’ve ever felt that the shooter genre could be saved from stagnation by the insertion of miners, you’re on the same page as HeartBit and Benjamin Ficus, creators of Miner Warfare.

Originally released on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel, and now coming to the PC, the game is a laugh-a-minute 8-player multiplayer romp in which the objective is to accumulate as many diamonds and items of gold within a four-minute time limit. How’s that achieved, you ask? Well, by digging, digging and digging some more, squire.

Oh, and you can also shoot stuff. 28 different weapons are ripe for the picking in your quest to unleash untold fiery doom over ten unique mining landscapes, ranging from such modern day firearms as the humble rifle to a rift of futuristic, blaster-tastic explodey things. And I always thought miners reserved their latent violent tendencies for their beleaguered wives when they got home.

How much will this set you back? That’s a question that can be responded by another interrogative rebuttal: how long is a piece of string? That’s because Miner Warfare is available at a pay-what-you-like rate for as little as nothing at all. So, for the bargain hunters/cheapskates out there, the game can potentially be snagged for free, but don’t do that, lest you wish to make the developers weep.

Milkstone Studios have released Firing Range 2 on the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace – stack ‘em up and rack ‘em up people!

The rather prolific indie game developer, Milkstone Studios, are still going strong as they release their 17th title on to XBLIG with Firing Range 2. A sequel to the top-selling Firing Range, this new title features 12 weapons – including sniper rifles – customizable weapons and camos as well as a 1v1 online multiplayer mode. With all of these added features, your time spent on the range should be increased significantly.

Oh but you want to smell the smoke and feel the hot barrel of a freshly fired gun, huh? You’re never satisfied are you? Cor, Milkstone – you’re going to have to make Firing Range 3 a full on scratch ‘n’ sniff experience to follow up this one!

You can purchase Firing Range 2 over on the Xbox Live Marketplace for just 80MSP/$1.

More information on Firing Range 2 can be found on the game’s official website.

Supersoul Studios, the kind of game development team in which you insert chicken nuggets and fries and get a twin-stick shooter as a result, have just released a gameplay trailer of Compromised.

Despite Compromised being another twin-stick shooter for XBLIG – groan, winge moan etc – it does have a striking style about it that casts one’s mind back to time spent as a youth playing similar games on the Sega Genesis. What on earth are you taking about? Well, Compromised has a lovely grubby industrial look to it and it slightly induces nostalgia.

One of the things about sci-fi environments is that too often people imagine a future in which everything is clean and square and perfect. Humans are sloppy so that’s a disparate reality. It was Ridley Scott when outlining the look of his 1979 classic Alien, who said he wanted a “truckers in space” feel to it all. None of those shiny, all-white walls and matching glitter space suits so frequently seen in the 60s. That is what Compromised captures and that is what has caught our eye about it.

Luckily, its gameplay seems fairly entertaining too and who can deny that, well, twin-stick shooters are very well matched to analogue controls after all. In Compromised, you’re tasked with shooting down waves of enemies who are attacking your base. There’s also boss battles which look very epic and some environmental hazards to dodge too. We’re not sure of a release date for Compromised but we’ll be on the look out. For now, here’s the game’s release trailer – meaning it’s got to be out very soon, right?

More information on Compromised can be found on the game’s official website.

No Static Software, makers of Block Zombies, are to be releasing their next title Quiet, Please! on to XBLIG but we thought to highlight it just before then.

Bearing No Static’s distinctive blocky graphics, Quiet, Please! looks quite different to the many other titles that exist. Why? Well simply because it’s a mundane story really, set around first world problems – mainly that everyone around you won’t shut up. Despite that simplistic outset, the game comes across as fairly quirky and with any luck No Static have gone out their way to make the puzzles in the game worth solving.

The best thing, of course, is that there are three kittens that run around the game’s environment as you explore and interact with various things, piecing together a way to make everyone be quiet. Kittens, we should add, are one of the best things in world and all who disagree shall be drowned in kittens until they admit they are.

Quiet, Please! is due to arrive on the Xbox Live Indie Game marketplace on Thursday 12th of April for 80MSP/$1.

More information on Quiet, Please! can be found on the game’s official website.

One man developer Simon Jager has submitted his platformer, Evaporated, to XBLIG and is working on the PC version, but wait a minute…isn’t that Limbo?

There’s been a fair amount of hot air about clones in the indie game scene, especially in the mobile market where many games are either clones of previously successful titles or just straight rips from the original game with a fresh price tag and developer label.

Here’s one for the console/PC market then. Simon Jager is a student who has been hard at work on his latest project which is a sidescrolling platformer with monochromatic visuals. In your journey through a forest as a dark figure with bright glowing eyes (come on now), you’ll encounter bear traps that will cut you to bits, spikes and some very weird little critters that will roll towards you. When you see this in action in the game’s teaser trailer you’ll not be hard pressed to see the similarities.

Is this a clone of Limbo though? Pretty much, if we’re honest. Even though it’s going to be sold on XBLIG and on PC, we doubt that it will cause much of a riot. If anything it’s nice to see that so many people are inspired by indie games to make their own. Though, you might try being a little more original with your concept – the bear traps really are the cherry on the top though.

Evaporated: Episode 1 has apparently been submitted for review on XBLIG so it will probably show up there soon and the PC release is slated as April 22nd.

Thanks Armless Octopus!