The IndieGala guys and girls are at it again. Not content to offer as many as nine games as part of its latest bundle, they’ve now seen fit to add DeadEnd: Cerebral Vortex, a surreal first-person adventure set in a labyrinth, into the mix.

DeadEnd, developed by Lithuanian studio Membranos, arguably prides itself on challenging players simply to retain their sense of orientation within its bizarre game world, rendering confusion and clueless losses of direction side effects to its quirky visual design. Still, with its challenging gameplay and visceral atmosphere in tow, it’s generally been well received by critics, including our own Mark O’Beirne, who reviewed the game a couple of months back.

Sadly, even though DeadEnd will be available on a “pay-what-you-like” basis, its activation key, much in the same vein as Wake and Lunnye, will not be redeemable through Steam, Desura or any other third-party client. Still, it’ll be DRM-free, so silver linings ahoy!

With DeadEnd now joining the lineup, the latest IndieGala bundle now contains the following ten titles:

At this point in time you’ve probably heard of the multiplayer airplane shooter Altitude. Nimbly Games released the title in May of 2009 and it was later picked up by Steam that December. While it originally fell under a lot of radars before the digital distributor behemoth picked it up, Apple actually helped the title by pushing it’s availability on Mac as well. But it really took off once hitting Steam almost a year ago.

Based in New Mexico, Nimbly Games is made up of the duo of childhood friends Erik Weather and Karl Sabo. Erik took a pretty standard route into game design by studying physics in school and moving into a software job, but Karl came from a job with Lockheed Martin before jumping into the development of Altitude. But they’re both coders so it’s not that much of a stretch, and that Lockheed Martin connection makes sense turning into an airplane game.

Altitude is the product of around a year and a half of development, which means they began creating the title around three years ago. Karl and Erik were prototyping the game in their spare time while they still worked other jobs, but were able to jump into independence and bring the title to life after realizing they had something great on their hands.

The community has only risen since the game launched, with a core group jumping in at the beta and a few key people spearheading the growing community of addicts. And if there’s anything that can kill a multiplayer indie game, it’s lack of community. But Altitude has hung on strong. And Erik states that the key to the game’s success has been the ability to “get eyeballs” on the game. Steam’s enormous numbers do just that. This PAX weekend the game went up for a free weekend promotion, and the numbers jump exponentially with people just wanting to see what the game is all about. And when it’s then available for 50% off its usual rate, the game does a decent turnover rate. Because after all, fun is fun and all game players realize that.

Here we are sixteen months after the game was unleashed on the world. Erik and Karl have unleashed over fifty patches on the game and do their best to handle the “juggling act of community feedback.” Because for any change they make to the game, there’s “lots of cross-talk.” For every person that loves it, there are people who hate it, and then there’s the small insane-contingent that will always try to get the developers to do something crazy to benefit just themselves. So it’s up to the developers to decide which feedback to take and which is going to take it down the wrong path.

They’ve considered porting the game to other platforms, but there are a lot of upfront costs that the developers don’t want to deal with. And with the success its found online and with user-genereated content, other platforms don’t necessarily make as much sense.

But Altitude is doing okay, as Nimbly have been able to pay the rent and have made enough money to bank roll their next project. While they haven’t announced their next project just yet, they’ve been busy exploring games to create next and making sure Altitude is still the best experience it can be. They want to do more with a heavy-multiplayer focus, but have also considered trying to do some kind of single-player game using the Altitude engine. Perhaps a 2D side-scrolling action game. But these were just ideas off the top of his head that Erik threw out to us. But we’re looking forward to what they have to offer next. But as Karl pointed out during Nimbly’s appearance in the PAX 10 panel discussion, Erik’s ranked somewhere in the top 200 of American Starcraft II players, which may lengthen the development time of their next title. Even indies need diversions.

Regardless of how long their next game takes or what it’s going to be, Nimbly Games deserve your “eyeballs” on what they’re up to. You can read more about them at their official website and snag yourself a copy of Altitude from Nimbly or Steam.

So many great indie deals, offers and sales this weekend it simply won’t let us slack off and not tell you about all of ‘em. Everyone is getting in the mix today, a couple of developers are taking the initiative themselves along with all four major digital distributors offering something for the indie connoisseur. Let’s take a look around.

Also remember that MMO Love and multiplayer shooter Altitude are free for anyone to play this weekend only.

Use the coupon code”PUZZLEPAX” and get 50% off Wadjet’s Puzzle Bots in celebration of the adventure game earning a PAX 10 Finalist spot.

Use the coupon code “INDIEPOWER” when pre-ordering Frozen Synapse and save $6.50, bringing the price down to $19.50. Remember they’re giving an extra copy to give to a friend seeing as its a head-to-head multiplayer title.

GamersGate is offering all of the Penumbra titles and bundles at 70% off (PC/Mac). Air racing sim Ikaro is 75% off and goes for just $7.50 instead of the $30 standard.

Over on Steam, Altitude is half off and goes for just $5 (PC/Mac). Railworks is $20 off with two pieces of DLC discounted as well. King Arthur is $18 cheaper and King Arthur – The Saxons goes for $6 off. Puzzle Dimension sale is supposedly expired but it’s still going for 33% off its $10 tag.

Impulse is still offering the Gratuitous Space Battles Complete bundle (Game + All Available DLC) for $15 off.

Direct2Drive has a couple of deals on top of the same discount as GamersGate with the Penumbra Collection. They also offer Defense Grid for $6 instead of $10 and have slashed the Mount & Blade: Warband Bundle down to just $18 from $60.

Nimbly Games has announced a free weekend on Steam for their flying multiplayer title Altitude, which has already officially kicked off. If you want to get in on the action, head over to your games section on the Steam client and you’ll have the option to download and play the game for free through Sunday. The multiplayer-heavy title is available on PC and Mac and includes cross platform play.

If you find yourself having a good time, your mood will be bettered by knowing the game goes for half price through the event. $5 will net you both PC and Mac versions of the game.

The goodies appear to be in celebration of the currently in motion Penny Arcade Expo, as the game is a PAX 10 Finalist for this year’s event. Both the sale and free weekend end early Monday, September 6.

Nimbly Games has released a new update for their flying arcade action game Altitude, now available for both PC and Mac.

The patch brings updates to maps tbd_asteroids and tbd_underpark, a slight buff for reverse thrust, and other balance tweaks, improvements for Offline Mode and other miscellaneous additions and fixes.

The file can be downloaded automatically on Steam/Steam OSX by restarting the client or loading up the game. From the patch notes:

Updated Maps:

• tbd_asteroids
• tbd_underpark

Balance:

• Reverse Thrust – increased acceleration by 10% and reduced energy consumption
• Miranda’s Reverse no longer temporarily disables Repair Drone
• Miranda’s Reverse and Time Anchor now reduce Repair Drone’s recharge rate by 50% (time between repairs is doubled for the 1.35 seconds following Reverse/TimeAnchor activation)
• Biplane (All Forms) reduced afterburner energy usage by 5%
• Biplane (Dogfighter) secondary weapon increased range from 80 to 90, added piercing (second hit deals 80%, third 50%), increased damage from 27 to 28
• Biplane (Recoilless) secondary weapon increased range from 80 to 90, added piercing (second hit deals 70%, third 40%)
• Biplane (Heavy Cannon) primary weapon increased piercing second hit damage from 50% to 67%

Offline Mode:

• Plane configurations are saved between sessions
• All downloaded maps (not just official maps) are available for play
• FFA and TDM games end after 7 minutes

Misc:

• Added “Lock Gamepad Config” to Options -> Controls: check this box to prevent reinitialization of default gamepad bindings when controllers are temporarily unplugged
• Added friend count to friends list window
• Added account creation date to Hangar Deck
• Added “Local Time” and “Altitude Time (GMT)” to bottom of in-game scoreboard (hold TAB to view)
• “Mouse Navigation: Turning and Throttle” – can now override the mouse-based throttle at any time by pressing the Throttle-Up/Down keys (allows mouse users to utilize the “Reverse Thrust” perk)
• Adjusted “Mouse Navigation” trigger to prevent accidentally entering mouse mode when switching to Altitude from another application
• Server Launcher now writes a PID file containing server_launcher’s process identifier to ~Altitude/servers/server_launcher.pid upon startup and restart
• Servers that are running an outdated version are automatically filtered from the server list
• Bug Fixes

Altitude runs $10 on Steam and there’s a demo out too.

Nimbly Games has released a new update for its airborne multiplayer arcade game Altitude, now available for download via Steam. The new patch adds several new items including an offline mode which allows players to take part in training and skirmish modes without an internet connection.

Additionally, a list of new additions and changes to the title have been listed with the update as well. You can check out the demo for free here.

From the change log:

Altitude Update Released

Added “Offline Mode” for convenient access to training and skirmish modes when playing without an internet connection

New mouse control configurations available under Options -> Controls -> Mouse Navigation:

• Turning and Throttle — control orientation and throttle using the mouse (default)
• Turning Only — control orientation with the mouse and throttle with the keyboard (best for mouse+reverse thrust)
• Disabled (prevent accidental switches to mouse mode)

Added configurable bot count to Training -> Skirmish

Added “Reconnect” option when disconnected from a server

Added (reason) to “has left the game” chat notifications for unusual exits (connection lost, ping kick, banned for )

New console command “connect” (ex: press F1 to open console, type “connect 75.102.27.114:40004″ to join the server at that IP:Port)

Server Configurator: added tooltips for “HTTP Map Download Source” and “Admin Account IDs

Added server log warning “LAN mode — only servers on local area network will see this server” when running with “LAN server” enabled.

JSON server log message “clientAdd” — added ‘aceRank’ and ‘level’ attributes

Fixed visual artifacts when wrapping around map edges in spectator mode

Fixed rendering issue along bottom of ball_lostcity

Fixed a few bugs

Just dropping by quickly to let you know what’s going on with those discounted indie games this weekend. The major digital distributors provide the lion share of the oomph today, but if you know of any developers running their own personal sales, please comment or email them over so we can add them to the list. Oh, and on that note: remember that Jason Rohrer’s pay pretty much what you want sale for Sleep is Death is still going on.

On Steam, Altitude, Killing Floor and Madballs are all 50% off to celebrate Mac releases (you can play the games on either OS.) Quantz is still $3, Flotilla is a dollar off, and a ton of RailWorks DLC is on sale at a variety of discounted prices.

Impulse has a nice discount for the just released RPG Eschalon: Book II that I touched on here, taking the $25 title down to just $18.72 through the weekend, Bob Came in Pieces is 50% off at $5.

GamersGate has the same 50% off deal for Altitude and 25% off of Max and the Magic Marker throwing in both PC and Mac copies of the games. Puzzle Bots gets a slight pre-order discount as well.

Nimbly Games has announced a free weekend on Steam for its arcade flying combat title Altitude, now available for everyone to play for free through Sunday. To celebrate, the game has been slashed by 50% during the event, taking the title down to just $5.

Additionally, the developer has released a new update for the game, adding a new map and updating the tutorials along with some fixes and additions to the map editor. The file is available for automatic download for owners of the game and can be had by restarting Steam if the patch isn’t received initially.

The free weekend goes through Sunday, May 23. From the update change log:

New Maps:

Added ball_asteroids map (thanks Boko)

Updated tutorials

Added “Export -> Collapsed Screenshot” to Map Editor

Fixed rendering bug with Map Editor -> Edit Hull

Fixed automatic update issue when multiple server launcher instances are running on one computer

Nimbly Games has released a large update for its multiplayer-heavy flying combat game Altitude, now available for download on Steam.

The patch brings the new map tbd_underpark, with an updated tbd_cave map released as well. A list of feature additions accompany the update including exporting screenshots in the map editor and an improved tutorial. Several balance tweaks and bug fixes are packed alongside the new additions.

The file can be downloaded automatically via Steam for owners of the game, a demo of the title is available to try as well. From the description:

Altitude

New Maps:

Added tbd_underpark (thanks Mandrad)

Updated tbd_cave

Balance:

Biplane (All Forms) increased turning rate by 1.5% (6.5 -> 6.6)

Biplane (Dogfighter, Recoilless) increased primary weapon ejection velocity (17 -> 19, note: reduced lifetime so that max travel distance is unchanged)

Biplane (Dogfighter, Recoilless) slightly increased primary weapon damage (38 -> 39)

Biplane (Heavy Cannon) slightly increased primary weapon damage (109 -> 112)

Bomber (All Forms) decreased turning rate by 2.9% (7.0 -> 6.8)

Feature Additions:

Mouse Control: press F1 to open the console and type “mouse true” to activate

LAN Servers tab added to server list

Improved “Pilot Certification” tutorial

Export -> Screenshot added to map editor

Hangar Deck -> Community Points now allows you to hover your point total for a points-by-source breakdown

Bots that just spawned and are pursuing a stationary objective powerup (e.g. the ball after a goal was just scored) will fly at half throttle to give non-bot teammates a chance to grab the powerup first

Bug Fixes:

Tightened Miranda teleport collision check to prevent exploits

Fixed bug that would sometimes prevent dunks from scoring (dunk = flying directly into the goal while carrying the ball)

Fixed rare bug that allowed more than one ball to enter play

Fixed team switch bug in 1-life modes

Fixed console auto-completion bug

Fixed rare bug that caused objects near the edge of the screen to flicker

Fixed incorrect badge display on award screen caused by players leaving while the awards are showing

Fixed a bug that prevented nickname changes

Fixed a few miscellaneous bugs

Putting up our tournament match up this morning between Knytt Stories and Altitude really got me thinking about the latter title. I think it’s safe to say that we can all agree that it’s a fun and extremely addictive game. In fact, it’s almost too addictive for where I’m currently playing it, my PC.

This ultimately lead me to a fruitless search for any news or discussions that would have me believe that this game is heading somewhere that could really take advantage of it’s instant playability, a mobile platform.

For those that don’t yet know, Altitude is a simple, yet extremely charming, multiplayer shmup that has you flying planes around in various multiplayer matches. There are various game modes which include a type of goal scoring game, typical deathmatches, and, sometimes, even a little base destroying.

While the game may seem incredibly simple, it offers a wide variety of tactics and variations of gameplay. It’s also one of those games that is remarkably easy to pick up and play from the get go, but can still take a while to master. This combination of gameplay can seem incredible alluring to those of us with a DS, PSP, or iDevice… but which one?

Before I begin, let me say that Altitude is currently not planned for release on any of these devices, at least nothing announced. So please don’t take this as an announcement. This is merely an argument for such an event to take place, for each of the three primary mobile devices:

1. Nintendo DS

The DS is currently my least favorite mobile platform for Altitude for a number of reasons. First, I don’t believe that the screen has either the resolution, nor the actual size to accommodate a game such as Altitude. While the touch interactivity could provide some neat uses and the dual screens would be nice to use as well (if only for points tracking and score keeping), thedevice, overall, probably lacks the necessary horsepower to really make this game as charming as it’s PC counterpart.

Likewise, the distribution of the game itself would seemingly be a hassle. The DS currently has three systems available: the DS Lite, the DSi, and the DSi XL. While the latter two offer a digital distribution method for downloading games, the former, and most popular device of the three, does not. This means that the game would have to either be a retail DS game (which wouldn’t sell for less than $20) or a DSi game where only a fraction of the users would have access to it.

Needless to say, I would only want Altitude to come to the Nintendo DS if it were the last possible option.

2. iPhone/iPod Touch

Coming in second place, I believe Altitude would fit pretty well with in the iEcosystem, with their ever expanding user base and bountiful game store. Likewise, the devices screen resolution and the hardware underneath would seemingly be able to keep the game in almost the same form as it’s PC counterpart, albeit a bit smaller.

Still though, the iDevice isn’t perfect for this game. While form factor is definitely important, the game’s controls would be quite a difficult problem to take on. Currently on the PC you use about 7 different buttons on the keyboard. While you can artificially create seven different “touch” buttons on the iDevice, you’re doing so at the cost of screen real estate. While I don’t doubt it can be done, I do wonder if the end product will suffer because of it.

That said, however, with the right price ($3.99) the iDevice would make a great second choice, if I had it my way.

3. PSP/PSPgo

Finally, we have my favorite option of the bunch. Son’y oft forgotten and near-dead handheld just seems to have everything lined up for the perfect Altitude experience.

First, the device’s screen (on both the Phat and Go) is more than big enough to encompass all that is Altitude, with a high enough resolution to boot. This also means that the hardware underneath would also be able to keep the game look and gorgeous as ever.

But even more important than either of those things (which if you’ll remember, the iDevice has as well) is that the game isn’t muddied up by flimsy touch controls. With the PSP you have the ability to have an actual joystick along with more than enough buttons to handle all the weapons. This, ultimately, makes it the best device for Altitude.

Of course, there is one small hang up. While the PSP does feature the PSN store, the prices aren’t as friendly as we’ve come to expect out of the iDevice App Store. And unless this game is sold on the PSP Mini section (doubtful) we can expect at least a $10-$15 incarnation. Not saying it’s not worth it, but that cheap-o App Store price is looking mighty tasty at this point.

So yeah, there’s my argument. Now we just need to convince the developer, Nimbly Games to investigate such an option. Ultimately, if they do go mobile, I believe they’ll choose the iDevice, simply for the fact that it’s easy to develop for, there is no ESRB certification required and Apple doesn’t require you to have a dev kit like Sony or Nintendo do. It’s, overwhelmingly, a more inviting place for indie developers.

Still though, Altitude on PSP, I’ll buy it Nimbly. If that helps convince you at all.

Speaking of Altitude…

Did you know we are currently running a 32-game bracket tournament to vote on which indie game is the very best? As it so happens Altitude is currently competing in a match up right this very second, against Knytt Stories no less. Tough!

If you’d like to help vote for the best indie game, where the winner will recieve a kick ass Rocket Trophy, head on over and cast your vote now!

Knytt Stories vs. Altitude

[buy from Altitudegame.com]