Brawsome’s new title, MacGuffin’s Curse, has clawed its way onto the iOS, Mac, and PC. Today marks the release of the cross-platform werewolf puzzler.

In MacGuffin’s Curse you are Lucas MacGuffin, “fugitive magician”. When a job goes awry, Lucas finds himself with an ancient medallion stuck to his chest that gives him the ability to transform between man and wolf. Using these two forms, you must guide Lucas through 150 challenging puzzles and help him lift the curse.

Each form Lucas can take has its own strengths and weaknesses. The clever and sly Lucas can swim, open doors and squeeze through smaller openings while his werewolf counterpart can move heavy objects, break through bits of rubble and intimidate the other characters.

If you purchase the game soon, you can take part in some wolfishly delicious discounts. You can buy both the PC and Mac version via Steam at a 20% off discount for $3.99 (offer ends April 26th). The PC version is on sale for the same discount on Brawsome‘s website. If you buy it here, your money will go straight to the developer. If you purchase the Mac or iOS version, you can get it for a whopping $1.99.

Brawsome have announced that their werewolf comedy puzzle adventure, MacGuffin’s Curse, is getting a Steam release on April 19th and the App Store version will be available “soon”. You may not know what a werewolf comedy puzzle adventure is, that’s fine. No one does. Apparently Brawsome have decided to label their upcoming game just that though, so perhaps they can enlighten us as to the exact requirements for a game to bear the title of such a promiscuous genre.

The first step, they say, is to mix one part wolf knuckle and two parts human foot (note: you may need a mallet). Next, you should grab adventure game powder and throw that in while gradually pouring warm water in.

Original Source: ‘MacGuffin’s Curse’ Puzzles Its Way To Steam On April 19th

This Article was originally posted on our sister site, The Indie Game Magazine written by Chris Priestman.

Well in our last post about MacGuffin’s Curse we told you the release date would be after GDC and, well, now we know the exact date: April 19th! That’s just about a month after the world renowned conference. We’re still missing things like a price point and other tidbits of information but it’s nice to see that the adventure puzzler has a solid release date that we can look forward to.

Brawsome, the awesome guys who created Jolly Rover, are back with their next big game, this time is the form of a top-down adventure puzzler! Our own, former manager Peter Eykemans covered the game at this past year’s GDC and, since then, it has grown into something that we’re quite excited about!

Jolly Rover struck the adventure game scene with appealing characters, funny writing, and a helpful interface that allowed players of all ages to take on its challenges. Brawsome, the Australian company behind the experience is on to their next project and taking things in a completely different direction. Their new game is called MacGuffin’s Curse and will be hitting PC, Mac, iPhone and iPad this fall.

The game focuses on the main character Lucas MacGuffin who’s resume calls him a magician and a thief. During his adventures, he steals a mystical amulet that changes him into a werewolf. Where the game comes in is on the period in his life where he’s forced to utilize both human and wolf form to solve puzzles and steal more treasure.

From the pre-alpha build we saw using placeholder artwork (mainly from Jolly Rover), the game is a series of push-puzzles where MacGuffin must move batteries into power outlets to open doors and reveal treasure. MacGuffin will be sent on missions by his landlord and battle the puzzles set forth by the main villain who has locked down the city.

The most striking aspect of this new game from Brawsome is the fantastic comic-style. Their artist has created wonderful characters that feel unique and interesting from all sides. The game’s story is told through portrait cut-scenes that are beautifully hand-painted. The game’s developers claim the style is so unique because they pulled the artist from outside of the games industry, thus bringing in a fresh perspective. From the early portrait work and concepts, they’re absolutely right. The new style in the game is great.

Once the full game is pieced together, this puzzle title will clock in at around 8 hours to complete. The experience will be chock-full of unlockables like developer commentary, collectible items and more.

Keep an eye out for this puzzling title later this year.

A month back Arsen posted on Freeplay IGF announcing the inaugural Freeplay Awards, an indie competition running alonside their August festival in Australia. Now, just over two weeks away from the event, the finalists for the competition have been revealed.

Several of our down under developers (and friends) check in as finalists for multiple awards including The Voxel Agents for Train Conductor, Brawsome for Jolly Rover and Farbs for the Captain Forever series. Other stand-outs that we’ve seen before include Alexander Bruce’s Hazard: The Journey of Life (mentioned in our E3 Podcast.)

The winners will be announced during the Freeplay Indie Games Festival 2010 taking place August 14 and 15 at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne. Congrats to all the finalists recognized, the full list follows:

Best Australian Game

Up Down Ready (Sword Lady & The Viking), Jolly Rover (Brawsome), Colourbind (Finn Morgan)

Best International Game

Bo (Mahdi Bahrami, Iran), TryFail (Anders Højsted, Denmark), Last Hope (Yellow Jam, Brazil)

Best Design in a Game

Up Down Ready (Sword Lady & The Viking), Hazard: The Journey of Life (Alexander Bruce), Train Conductor (The Voxel Agents)

Best On-Paper Design

Epic Adventure (Tobye Ryan), iCrazy Man (Timothy Ryan), Galaqua (Katie Murphy)

Best Art in a Game

Captain Forever series (Farbs), Hazard: The Journey of Life (Alexander Bruce), Doodle Find (KlickTock)

Best Concept Art

Exodus (Fiasco Studios), City Ruins (Evan Raynor), Speed Demon (Catbus Interactive)

Best Technical Innovation

Captain Forever series (Farbs), Colourbind (Finn Morgan), Up Down Ready (Sword Lady & The Viking)

Best Game Writing

Captain Forever series (Farbs), Hazard: The Journey of Life (Alexander Bruce), Transumer (PVI Collective)

Best Audio

Train Conductor (The Voxel Agents), Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes (Tin Man Games), Jolly Rover (Brawsome)

Our latest set of Indie Links gathered from far and wide consists primarily of conversations and connections between developers/enthusiasts and gaming journos/bloggers. There’s really nothing more easy going out there than those who work in the indie slice of the industry. Often, both sides reach out to one another often to form both a business and personal relationship and we all benefit for it. Check out today’s picks.

The Worth(lessness) of NDAs (IndieFund)
“It’s been almost two weeks since we opened up the submission process and the response has been fantastic, if somewhat overwhelming. We’ve gotten over 70 applications so far and we’re working through them as best we can. Please be patient with us… we will get back to you. One thing that has come up a couple of times is a request to sign an NDA, and that’s actually the focus of this post. We do not sign NDAs and would like to share the rationale behind this decision.”

Inteview: Andrew Goulding on Jolly Rover (Martin Mulrooney, Philip Jong/Adventure Classic Gaming)
“Jolly Rover is the debut adventure game from indie developer Andrew Goulding and his company Brawsome. Goulding is no stranger to the games industry, having worked for years as a game tester, programmer, and producer. Although comedy pirate adventures are certainly not unique to the genre, Jolly Rover seems to have taken on a new twist to an old theme by casting all of the game’s main characters as canines. Indeed, it is this unique design choice that makes Goulding’s game different from the competition.”

Unity Giveaway Contest Winners (Henley/IndieDB)
“Our Unity contest has come to a close, with over 50 entries and 10 amazing finalists, the quality of entries has been amazing. We asked for original concepts and we had an amazing response but in the end there can only be 2 winners.”

Interview: Dejobaan Games’ Lambe, Jaitley On Doing Things A Little Different (Mike Rose/GameSetWatch)
“Mike Rose sits down with two of the principals from super-quirky independent developer Dejobaan Games — creator of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity and The Wonderful End of the World – to reference upcoming title ooo! ooO! oOO! OOO! and their unique way of approaching game creation.”

Talking Shop: Carpe Fulgur On Recettear (Alec Meer/RPS)
“The demo of Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is one of the best things I’ve played in a while. A Japanese indie game pitching an RPG shopkeeper as the star… well, you can read all that in the last post. Given the slightly unusual nature of the project – it’s only available here thanks to a third-party translation company- I thought I’d chat to said translators about the why, how, who and what next. Interesting stuff – there’s this whole vein of (slick) indie gaming that we otherwise hear nothing about. Take it away, Carpe Fulgur’s Andrew Dice.”

LIMBO Review (Jeff Mattas/Shacknews)
“Playdead’s action-based, puzzle-platformer, LIMBO, [is] out for Xbox LIVE Arcade and to put it bluntly: prepare to die!”

Tom Jubert Talks Projects, Plots, Penumbra (Lewis Denby/RPS)
“At the Develop Conference in Brighton last week, I had the opportunity to sit down for a beer and a chat with Tom Jubert, perhaps most famous for writing the excellent horror adventure series Penumbra. They’re dark and sinister games whose writing, and the structure of their storytelling, were often their strongest asset. Read on for Tom’s thoughts on the writing process, tales of game design tribulations, and his involvement in a major new title.”

Alhóndiga Bilbao Announces International hó Play Competition (Eric Caoili/GameSetWatch)
“Spanish culture and leisure center Alhóndiga Bilbao has announced hó Play, a new project that aims to present and promote video games that “stand out for their originality, creativeness, and innovation.”"

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Delve Deeper (Justin McElroy/Joystiq)
“This week we talk Lunar Giant Studio’s Adam Eidukas (Lead Developer) and Neil Wickman (Creative Director / Lead Artist) about how Adam FULLY beat Final Fantasy with just the thief. … Oh, also they made a game.”

Interview: Riot Games’ co-founder talks about Season One of League of Legends (John Callaham/Big Download)
“The game didn’t get a lot of attention from the mainstream game industry or the media when it launched last October but today it looks like League of Legends has been a huge success for its developer/publisher Riot Games. The company made the free-to-play multiplayer RTS-action game with some of the people behind the popular WarCraft III mod Defense of the Ancients.”

You can now snag the pirate adventure Jolly Rover for 50% off its usual price down to a price point of $10. Mike recently shed some positive light on the adventure tale in his review, so if you’ve been waiting for a chance to pick it up, there is no better time than now.

All you need to do is snag the discount code from Jolly Rover’s website and input it in the ordering page. You’ll then be sent a Steam download key in order to add the game to your library.

The sale runs from today through July 25th at midnight (though I think that’s Australian midnight which actually places the hour at 7am Pacific Standard time on Sunday, which would be 12pm Eastern and 5pm GMT).

So there’s no better time to hit the high seas than now.