DIY Gamer first took a look at Wild Shadow Studios’ brilliantly original F2P arcade-shooter MMORPG Realm of The Mad God back at the end of 2010, and the game has only grown since then. The developers are probably dancing naked in the streets with glee right now, as what started out as a development-jam contest entry over at TIGSource (amusingly only winning 3rd place at the time) has now grown into the latest game in the rapidly expanding free-to-play library on Steam.The game has been polished, refined and generally tuned up quite a bit from when we last saw it, too. Hardware acceleration now comes as standard, so those those folks with fancy GPUs will be able to run around the (formerly very CPU-dependent) 8-bit world and zap critters without a hitch. Netcode seems to have been improved somewhat as well, which is good, as the last thing you want to lose a character to is a bite from the dreaded lag-monster. The game now also boasts a range of official Steam achievements, and integrates with your Steam account, meaning you don’t have to remember an additional login anymore.Loot ahoy!

Original Source: ‘Realm Of The Mad God’ Hits Steam

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

Whew! After about a month of accepting nominations and about an hour putting together my bracket we finally have ourselves a nice little tournament running.

So, who will take the Rocket Trophy? Looking at the bracket set up I can already foresee quite a few big match ups like:

1. Dwarf Fortress/Trine
2. Shattered Horizon/Crayon Physics
3. Braid/Runman
4. Cave Story/Torchlight

Keep in mind that these brackets were chosen at random. I know it may seem unfair to put some of the larger games against each other ensuring that one of them won’t move passed the round of 32, but that’s just how we are doing it this year. Next year we can see about doing it a bit differently if it turns out to be a true problem.

Here’s how this is going to work:

Every weekday (no weekends) I’ll be posting a new matchup, going straight down the left side and then the right side. From that time you have exactly one (1) week to vote on which you want to be taken to the round of 16. This process will last, roughly, 3 week, after which we’ll begin the round of 16 which I’ll explain when we get there.

We’ll be using an outside polling service (PollDaddy) to ensure that people can’t vote twice.

Sound good? Everything kosher? Good!

So, if you had to guess, who do you think will make it to the finals? Of those two teams, which do you believe will win?

P.S. Yes, I did draw the bracket myself, thank-you-very-much. I even included the parachuting stickmen, castle, and rocket ship.

P.P.S. Click to enlarge the image.

P.P.P.S. Just a reminder, the winner gets this bitchin’ Rocket Trophy!

Subscribe to our tournament feed to keep up with all the rounds!

Here are currently running match-ups. Vote now!

Shattered Horizon vs. Crayon Physics
Knytt/Knytt Stories vs. Altitude

Some DIY news as Microsoft has released a free PC version of its Xbox 360 game development tool Kodu, all that’s required is a Windows Live ID.

The tool is made for those interested in making casual titles or those just interested in tinkering around a bit with developing a game of their own, as it’s designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone.

The download along with much more information (tutorials and the like) can be found here.