Beleaguered Fez developers Polytron have had the game’s most recent patch update pulled by Microsoft amidst a slew of technical hitches that arose in recent days.

With the downloadable update having launched last week, numerous players began to experience several game-breaking bugs upon resuming their in-game progress, not least of which being the potential failure for the game to recognise save files pre-dating the patch’s installation.

Today’s Developer Links include links about many aspects of game development, from funding to feedback.

Botanicula Soundtrack Vinyl Edition (Amanita Design)
“Botanicula Soundtrack is released on 12″LP in edition of 1000 copies, whilst 300 copies are on turquoise vinyl, 300 copies on amber vinyl and 400 copies on standard black. Each copy features three large format inserts [30x30 cm] with art reproductions by Jaromír Plachý, author of the game artwork, and as always, a coupon with a code to download MP3/FLAC versions of the album.”

Indie Tools: Inform 7 (IndieGames.com)
“Inform 7 is being described as a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language. Shockingly, it does exactly what it says on the tin (and quite a bit more), while simultaneously being a truly powerful tool for creating intricate pieces of interactive fiction on most platforms you’d care to mention.”

For Indies, With Love: TIGA Releases a Guide to Self-Publishing (IndieGameMagazine)
“The TIGA Guide to Self-Publishing: Liberating the Developer is designed to help out with the business side of game publishing for the small developer. In their announcement, TIGA recognises the growing trend sparked by the growing opportunities for developers to release their games without a publisher, particularly in mobile gaming and the social media space.”

A DRP Picture’s Worth a Bunch of Words, Part 2 (Dejobaan Games)
“Continuing our discussion of our first-person arena shooter prototype Drunken Robot Pornography, we discuss here the abstract HUD and the power-ups that affect it and the player.”

Swordfight is Good Art (Mommy’s Best Devlog)
“The experience here is only possible because of a game. Photos or videos don’t do it justice. No amount of reading about it (don’t quit reading! or watching conveys the full experience, it must be played. Interaction being the defining distinction of games.”

Frictionless Feedback (Cliffski.com)
“One thing that a lot of companies don’t get is the importance of frictionless feedback.
All companies perpetuate the myth that they want to hear from customers. They pretend to value their feedback, and want to hear from them, regardless whether or not the feedback is good or bad. In very few cases is this really true. I’m not referring to actually abusive or threatening feedback, which obviously just gets binned.”

The Kickstarter Video Game Report – Week of May 4 (Zeboyd Games)
“Shadowrun Returns finished up with a solid $1.836 million. Leisure Suit Larry finished with $655k. Yogventures! is up to $514k with 2 days left. Grim Dawn is almost funded with $256k ($280k goal) and 2 weeks left to go. Jane Jensen’s Moebius is up to $266k of its $300k goal with 2 weeks left. Republique is at $221k, about $100k more than they had last week, but unless something amazing happens, they’re not reaching $500k in the next week. Is snagging David Hayter and Jennifer Hale the miracle that will turn this kickstarter around? We’ll see this week.”

Luftrausers Devlog #1 (Vlambeer)
“LUFTRAUSER was about feeling like the coolest person in the world. You sat behind your computer but really you’re a pilot going 5 million miles an hour shooting enemies and making water splash up behind you and doing loopings all while smoking multiple cigarettes at once and reading the newspaper.  In the highly anticipated superlative sequel, we are bringing you more of that & we’re letting you do it your way. You will be able to get dirty and build your own RAUSER from the ground up. By destroying enemies, completing missions and all that you will unlock new parts. Parts come in 3 types: weapons, bodies and engine.”

Microsoft has announced that Minecraft has sold one million copies in just five days on the Xbox 360, which breaks just about every record known to man or something.

We knew it was going to be big. Minecraft has sold upwards of six million copies since debuting on the PC and understandably there were a lot of non-PC players eager to check out what this phenomenon was all about. Despite being an older and limited version of the game, the Xbox 360 Edition of Minecraft has been a big seller, in fact, THE biggest selling XBLA title in a 24 hour period.

One million copies in just five days. Well damn. You really wanted to play Minecraft, didn’t you? The announcement comes from Major Nelson’s blog where some other “fun facts” were also released regarding playtime on Minecraft. As follows:

Total Online Hours: 5.2M
Multiplayer sessions: 4M
Total Multiplayer gaming hours: 2.4M

Like we said, that’s the older version of the game – we also found out today that there will be many updates in the future for the Xbox 360 version of the sandbox crafter, so that it gets closer to the most up to date version on the PC.

More information on Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition can be found on the game’s official Xbox Live marketplace listing.

With the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft releasing on May 9th, a launch trailer has been released which shows plenty of gameplay of the splitscreen variety.

For those few people who haven’t played Minecraft before due to waiting for its release on the Xbox 360, your time is nearly up. Minecraft will be released on Microsoft’s console on May 9th and will cost 1600 MSP, which works out to about $20/£13.20.

This console version of the hit title from Mojang will come with 4 player splitscreen and will support 8 players online in a single map. The main thing missing from this edition of Minecraft is the modding support and other customisation features, but these may be added at a later point.

Though the wait is nearly at a close, you’ll no doubt want to see some gameplay, in which case you should consult the just released launch trailer for the game. You can see that everything looks about the same, there’s a few tweaks to adjust to the gamepad controls in the crafting screens by the looks of it, but that’s about it. Enjoy!

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

Christine Love’s visual novel, Analogue: A Hate Story, has now been coupled with its soundtrack on Steam, for a price of course, but it’s worth it. Honest.

A large part of a visual novel is its soundtrack, so you may already be familiar with the aural extractions from Analogue: A Hate Story presuming that you’ve played it. Let’s make another assumption and say that you even quite like it. So, why don’t you go and buy it – the game’s soundtrack by Isaac Schankler is now on Steam for $5. If you haven’t already purchased the game the soundtrack belongs to, then you can also now bung them together for a price of $13. That’s, as Christine said, pretty rad.

If you haven’t purchased the game itself on Steam, but want to buy the soundtrack, then you’ll actually have to buy the game in order to get hold of the soundtrack on there too – just a warning. Also, if you don’t like Steam or are a Linux user then you should grab the game from the developer right here. Then, you can get the soundtrack from BandCamp, plus you can hear previews over there too.

More information on Analogue: A Hate Story can be found on the game’s official website.

Toxic Games have got in contact to tell us all about a few news things concerning their first person puzzler Q.U.B.E. – the soundtrack release, the 1.2 version and a Collector’s Edition release in Germany.

It’s been a while that we’ve heard anything Q.U.B.E. shaped, apart from our interview of course, but Toxic Games have made up for that by bringing three pieces of hefty news for us to tell you. First of all, they’ve announced that they will be releasing the Q.U.B.E. soundtrack on May 4th for $5.99/£4.99/€5.99 on iTunes, Amazon and Steam. This will contain over 30 tracks from the game (that’s quite a lot!) and some special tracks to go along with that too.

Secondly, they will be releasing a Collector’s Edition of the game in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in collaboration with Headup Games, which will come with some special extras including the soundtrack. A release date hasn’t been announced but it’s expected in Summer 2012.

Lastly, Q.U.B.E. has been updated to the 1.2 version which fixes many of the bugs in Sector 7 of the game and allows you to customize your keyboard layout. Oh ans they want you to see this:

More information on Q.U.B.E. can be found on the game’s official website.

Discord Games are back, and they’re unleashing 48 Chambers on PC and Xbox 360.

The American studio, best known for developing Take Arms, a constituent of last year’s Xbox Live Indie Games Summer Uprising, has made 48 Chambers available for 80 Microsoft Points via the Xbox Live Indie Games channel, and for $1.99 via its official site and on Indievania. The latter price is part of a temporary post-launch offer this weekend only, after which the price will rise to $2.99. A Supporter Edition is also available on the official website for $4.99, with all proceeds for this version going towards the development of Discord’s next title.

Discord describes 48 Chambers as “an old-school indie challenge,” in which players must navigate a series of chambers by collecting orbs and dodging projectiles, all whilst striving for the highest possible score. Online leaderboards are also present in the PC version, but they aren’t yet included in the Xbox 360 release.

Jasper Byrne of Superflat World has announced the release date and price oh his highly-anticipated side-scrolling survival horror Lone Survivor!

We’ve been waiting for ages but now the news has arrived at last! Lone Survivor will be released on March 27th 2012 for PC and Mac. There will be two editions up for grabs: the Standard Edition will cost $10 and will grant you the game and DRM-free updates for life.

While the First Aid Edition will cost $50 and will not only allow for Superflat World’s future games to remain as freeware, but will give you the Lone Survivor OST, an exclusive short game to be finished afterwards (LS3D – a side adventure to Lone Survivor) as well as a couple of mystery gifts, such as scans of designs and artwork from the game, to be decided. Below is a picture from LS3D (Lone Survivor 3D obviously):

Jasper says he would like to add some more endings to the game in the future to make replays worthwhile. He also adds that the first 1200 purchasers will receive the Soul Brother OST for free, which is priced at $5 otherwise.

You’ll be able to purchase Lone Survivor via its official website which isn’t live yet. There will also be a demo that you can play in your browser over there too. An official launch trailer is on the way but for now this one below will have to do.

More information on Lone Survivor can be found on the official Superflat World development blog.

The ‘Be Mine Bundle REDUX’ Bares All, New Incentives AnnouncedBackFebruary 24th, 2012 | By Chris PriestmanTagged in: be mine | bundle | dream aquarium | incentives | redux After a very shaky start, the Be Mine Bundle did manage to launch and so far it’s been pretty darn successful. In light of this it seems that the organizers have dreamt up a REDUX edition of the bundle which reveals what that fish clue was all about and adds an entirely new incentive to work towards.Available already with the $1 minimum Be Mine Bundle are the 5 base games as well as the first incentive which included another game and 3 bonus DLCs (more details here). The next incentive will unlock a bunch of albums for you all to enjoy, but it was the third incentive that piqued our curiosity as the only clue as to what it may be was the word “fish”.That clue is to be taken quite literally as that third incentive has been revealed to be a Be Mine Special Edition of Dream Aquarium which is a virtual aquarium for your desktop.The REDUX update for the bundle also introduces a fourth incentive.

Original Source: The ‘Be Mine Bundle REDUX’ Bares All, New Incentives Announced

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

Our pals over at Merge Games have just opened up their online store where you can find Collector’s Editions of great indie titles, including Terraria, The Binding Of Isaac and Gemini Rue.There’s one thing about indie games as great as they are – they’re not something you can hold in your hand at any point, most of the time you can’t even flaunt your fandom with a gimmick keyring. Luckily, Merge Games have sought to change that by releasing the Collector’s Editions of both Gemini Rue and Terraria and the The Unholy Edition of The Binding of Isaac. If you’re a die hard fan of these games then being able to hold the games in your hands and get some extra goodies inside and outside the game is a pretty exciting prospect.While our previous announcements of these editions of the games raised the heart rate, we can now tell you that you can order them through the Merge Games Store – head over there now to check it out!This is what they have in store at the moment:Terraria – Collector’s Edition [REVIEW]The Binding of Isaac: The Unholy Edition [REVIEW]Gemini Rue – Collector’s Edition [REVIEW]You can find out more information about Merge Games and their products over on the official Merge Games Store.You may be interested in: Terraria & The Binding of Isaac Heading to Retail ‘Gemini Rue: Collector’s Edition’ Coming To Retail February 10th You Could Win A Copy Of ‘The Binding Of Isaac – The Unholy Edition’! The Binding Of Isaac Gets Unholy Edition ‘Terraria: Collector’s Edition’ Coming To Stores March 16th, Lots Of Exclusive Goodies

Original Source: Merge Games Open Up Their Store – Retail Indies Up For Grabs

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