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IGM Let’s Try- ‘Anomaly 2′

David Johnson — Fri, 24 May 2013 22:54:49 +0000

IGM Let’s Try- ‘Anomaly 2′

May 24th, 2013 | By David Johnson

Anomaly 2 is a sequel to the critically acclaimed Anomaly: Warzone Earth. Maintaining the core elements of the original, Anomaly 2 adds new features to the single-player campaign and puts player’s skills to a test in a completely unique experience: the tower defense vs. tower offense multiplayer mode!

Anomaly 2
Steam

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Indie Intermission – ‘PaperCoaster’ Sometimes The Theory Is Different To The Reality

alex wilkinson — Thu, 23 May 2013 23:00:02 +0000

Today’s pick of the web is a rather interesting roller-coaster designer that goes by the name of PaperCoaster. PaperCoaster was created by Elisée the whole idea is to create a roller-coaster which both scores you a good score whilst functioning.

PaperCoaster is a game of two halves as you must first draw the roller-coaster on the paper and then run it in real-time to ensure it works correctly. The drawing stage does take sometime to get use to, but after you get the hang of it the idea is rather straight forward.

The next stage where you must test the coaster is a little bit more difficult as you quickly begin to see flaws in your design as you try time and time again to get your coaster to the finish intact.

The concept is genius and brings about many very straightforward ideas which when put together make for a very fun game.

Average play time – 15 minutes

PaperCoaster is of such a high standard that it’s hard to believe this was designed in just a weekend. It’s a game with a great deal of potential and with some added development I could see this taking prime position on mobile devices, as the controls are very simple I feel it would be suited well to touch devices.

Of course the mobile version would need more levels and the ability for users to create and share their maps with others. Be sure to download PaperCoaster now and see what you think.

If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!

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The Indie Game Magazine Now Available On Google Currents

Tom Christiansen — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:16:36 +0000

The Indie Game Magazine Now Available On Google Currents

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May 22nd, 2013 | By Tom Christiansen

Just a quick announcement to let you know that The Indie Game Magazine is now available through Google Currents!

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To learn more about Google Currents, visit the official website. Apps available for both Android and iOS devices.

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Indie Links Round-Up: New Heights

Erik Johnson — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:29:43 +0000

Indie Links today has freeware before commercial, personal instead of professional and hot Monaco on Monaco action.

Four perspectives on personal games (Gamasutra)
“The personal games movement is providing an important, exciting new avenue for expression and a new understanding of design, many believe. At the Different Games conference in New York this weekend, four panelists presented on the theme of personal game-making and why it matters to them.”

Review: Starseed Pilgrim – A Game of Discovery by Droqen (IndieGameReviewer)
“You could be forgiven for initially dismissing Starseed Pilgrim as little more than a curiosity. Droqen’s latest endeavor is a strange, abstract title that does little to endear itself to new players; spending ten minutes with the game might leave you with the vague impression that something is missing. Spend an hour with it and you may come to the conclusion that it was designed with the specific purpose to bewilder and confuse its audience. If you stay a little longer though, you’ll begin to see something compelling and altogether worthy of your time emerge from the blankness.”

Analog Investigations in Arkham (Gnome’s Lair)
“Deduction, despite what Sherlock Holmes would have you believe, is not a science. It’s a method. A method that could arguably make the life of all fictional investigators much easier and can definitely be applied to board-games as the classic Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective so effortlessly proved over 30 years ago. What’s more, deduction is what you’ll be using when playing the freshly released and rather excellent Arkham Investigator.”

Why Vlambeer won’t stop making freeware first, products second (Polygon)
“Earlier this week, Vlambeer — an independent developer who receives as much ink for their critically acclaimed titles as they do for unscrupulous developers’ tendency to copy them — got hit once again. SkyFar, an iOS game from Bangalore’s Rubiq Lab, was criticized for nearly duplicating Luftrausers, a browser-based Flash game Vlambeer released in 2011, which the studio later planned to turn into a full retail release.”

Live Free, Play Hard: The Week’s Finest Free Indie Games (RPS)
“Heterosexual narc. More than a few games about the demise of balls. CANDY ANT PRINCESS.”

Two Game Developers Travel The World, Playing Games And Helping People (Kotaku)
“Earlier this year, Battlefield producer Daniel Matros and former colleague Tim Kjell set up something called Charitystream. The idea was simple: stream games online, raise money for charity. It’s a noble goal, yeah, but it’s also something countless others are engaged in.”

Monaco made good on Indie Fund $100K before launch, what it means (Joystiq)
“Since 2010, Indie Fund has helped launch high-profile games such as Dear Esther, QUBE and Antichamber, each one recouping investment within days or even hours. The first game in which Indie Fund ever put its faith (and money), Monaco, launched last week and made back its $100,000 investment in negative time, before the game went live on April 24.”

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine offers the thrill of the heist (Shacknews)
“Andy Schatz’s IGF award-winning Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is all about staying in the shadows and avoiding detection. In fact, it’s succeeded almost too well, remaining out of the spotlight since it first took the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at IGF 2010. After years of tireless work and dedication, Monaco has finally been released and like a fine French wine, it was worth the wait.”

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IGM Let’s Try – Mini Motor Racing EVO!

Zephyr Moore — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:06:15 +0000

IGM Let’s Try – Mini Motor Racing EVO!

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May 16th, 2013 | By Zephyr Moore

An overhead racer that plays out with a bumper car vibe as it aims for some serious racing fun without actually taking itself seriously. Mini Motor Racing EVO lets you nitro boost your way across sunny beaches, rainy city streets, and everything in between. Combined with a track editor, this one comes with nearly unlimited multiplayer mayhem in a non-chase cam racer!

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About the Video:
Created by Zephyr Moore

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Find The Killer In ‘Cognition: The Oracle’ This Thursday

Sam Adonis — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:11:05 +0000

Find The Killer In ‘Cognition: The Oracle’ This Thursday

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May 13th, 2013 | By Sam Adonis

Tagged in: cognition the oracle | phoenix online studios

Phoenix Online Studios have recently announced the release date for the third episode of Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller. For those who haven’t read our previous coverage on the games, Cognition is a point and click series about a psychic FBI agent named Erica Reed. We were very impressed with the first two episodes of Cognition, giving them solid scores of 86% and 93%.

Releasing May 16^th, we have been told Cognition: The Oracle will put the players in the shoes of the Oracle – the serial killer who has been paying an awful lot of attention to Erica in the past two games. The teaser for The Oracle (below) makes me feel a good part of the episode may be a ‘whodunnit’ style of story.

You can follow Phoenix Online Studio on Twitter, vote for Cognition on Greenlight, or attend the team’s launch-day stream at 2pm Eastern on their Youtube channel. I attended the last episode’s launch party, and it was quite fun.

Cognition: The Oracle will be available for PC and Mac when it releases this Thursday. The game will be available for purchase alongside the first two episodes on the Phoenix Online Store.

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‘Teslagrad’ Preview – Mad Magnetism

Kim Berkley — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:28:43 +0000

Slated to be Norwegian developer Rain Games’s first release, Teslagrad is a steampunk-styled 2-D puzzle platformer currently in development for the PC, Mac and Linux. Set in the titular capitol city of Elektropia, the game promises to be an electrifying escapade full of perilous puzzles designed specifically to test and tantalize one’s brain.

This is technically Rain Games’s second game; their first project, a multiplayer game titled Minute Mayhem, was put on hold in favor of finishing Teslagrad first. Despite vastly differing gameplay, both are set in the fictional universe of Chroma, and the developers have hinted at a desire to continue exploring Chroma in future releases.

The tale of Teslagrad, which comes first chronologically, is told through “voiceless storytelling,” in which bits and pieces of the narrative are subtly revealed via visual clues as you make your way through the game. These scattered hints recall a not-so-distant past when Elektropia was ruled by an apparently beloved king (at least, that’s what the adoring masses in the posters seem to say), whose reign came to its end when a new, somewhat less loving leader rose to power by dark means and – presumably – with darker motivations.

In the game, you play as a young boy who, for reasons not immediately known, appears to be on the run from very Russian-looking guards. If they catch you, instead of being arrested and thrown in jail for the remainder of your miserable days you will be automatically sent back a few feet to try again. These aren’t your average walking-obstacle type guards, either. When you jump, they jump, and are happy to pursue you relentlessly until you manage to climb up out of reach (apparently, they don’t like heights), at which point they will shake their fists furiously while you continue prancing across the city rooftops on your merry way to Tesla Tower – which is where the real fun begins.

The tower is a steampunk fanatic’s fantasy, combining dark Victorian-esque architecture with climbing vines, rusting gears and contraptions, and the crackling delight of high-voltage electricity. Tesla Tower is also where you’ll finally pick up some power-ups. So far, these include a glove that allows you to punch either a positive or negative charge into certain conductive objects (and creatures), a suit that allows you to change your own charge at will, and a staff that emits, as the developers say, a “long range beam of magnetized death.”

Animate curiosities of both organic and mechanical origins prowl the premises, and some are more malignant than others. While fighting or fleeing from enemies such as shadow-lurking Grues or creepily skeletal mechabirds (not to mention big baddies like the aptly-named Fernus), players must also muster their wits and resourcefulness in order to solve mind-bending puzzles and progress through the tower. Some solutions are obvious, like punching a blue charge into an obstacle to cause it to rise up (and out of the way) to stick to a red, oppositely charged object above. Others are more intricate, involving spatial reorganization, precise timing, and, often, a little bit of creativity.

Why are you risking life and limb to ascend this dangerous (and seemingly abandoned) tower, and what on Chroma did you do to get the police on your case? The current alpha build poses many questions and few answers – but from the way development is progressing, chances are good those answers will prove to be well worth the wait when the final game is released. There is no set release date as of yet, but Rain Games are working toward putting out a demo sometime in the (hopefully very near) future. Meanwhile, there’s the alpha, and if you’re interested in keeping track of updates be sure to keep an eye on the developer’s blog and the official Teslagrad Indie DB page.

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Indie Links Round-Up: Killer Screen

Erik Johnson — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:25:46 +0000

Today’s Indie Links include games you should have on your radar. Which, to be honest, really isn’t different from any other day.

25 indie games that should be on your radar (ArsTechnica)
“One of the best things about travelling to shows like PAX East and the Game Developers Conference is the chance to check out titles from off-the-beaten-path, independent developers. While shows like E3 are overwhelmed by the presence of multi-million dollar booths from huge publishers, the early-in-the-year shows make a point of highlighting some of the most original and promising game ideas from game makers without big contracts or salaried positions behind them. Freed from the financial responsibilities of the major AAA publishers, these are the titles that are most likely to truly break new ground in gameplay, aesthetics, and subject matter.”

Anna Anthropy and the Twine revolution (The Guardian)
“There’s a growing realisation that games can be as much about personal expression as they are about shooting stuff. We talk to prolific designer Anna Anthropy about her reluctant role at the centre of an emerging scene based around free game making tool, Twine.”

Tigsource Devlog: Dom2D’s Visual Showcase of Awesome New Games, Issue #14 (Venus Patrol)
“This week’s selection shows some love for pixel art, with fourteen games in development showing true skill with the pixel brush! We have Chasm in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign, Tale of the Stolen Rainbow creating an epic Zelda-like adventure with minimalist black and white pixels, and then there’s The Bitter End.. oh wait, it seems to have been made in Hexels!”

Recommended Game: Reunion, A Short Horror Experience (Independent Gaming)
“Explore a dark forest and the darkness of the human mind. In these woods, nothing is as it seems. Reunion is a short horror game that surprised me with its creepy atmosphere, genuine scares, and shocking ending. You control a father searching a forest at night for his son, Waleed, who has fled from home. You must navigate the darkness, using the circle of light surrounding you and the sounds of the things in the woods to stay on a safe path.”

The Long And Brainy Road: An Organ Trail Diary Part 3 (RPS)
“The Organ Trail: Director’s Cut is a zombie pastiche of the old favourite edugame, The Oregon Trail, where you had to get a family of settlers to Portland, Oregon, past the perils of the unconquered western USA. In the Organ Trail, players must get themselves and up to four friends all the way to Portland Oregon without losing any of their innards to rampaging zombie hordes. They’re both mainly asset management games, with bastard-hard minigames included. “

Kickstarter Katchup – April 21st 2013 (RPS)
“Two $100,000 winners this week and a few other projects close to the finish line.”

Itano Alpha Flight and Heart Breaker (Indie Gamer Chick)
“Here’s some quick thoughts on a pair of recent XBLIG titles, Itano Alpha Flight and Heart Breaker. They suck. My boyfriend says I’m not allowed to leave it at that, so I guess I’ll explain why.”

Humans Must Answer (PixelProspector)
“Humans Must Answer is a really promising horizontal shmup with fine visuals and fun looking gameplay that features a nice selection of weapons.”

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Dev Links: Natural Wonder

Erik Johnson — Sun, 12 May 2013 03:38:03 +0000

Quality-of-life, DRM, Piracy and other discussions reverberate in today’s Developer Links.

Indie Fund Now Backing “Panoramical” (IndieFund)
“We are super excited to announce our support of Panoramical, a collaborative project by Fernando Ramallo, a game developer from Argentina, and David Kanaga, best known for his work on Proteus and DYAD. Panoramical is something really different from what we’ve funded in the past, and its difficult to describe it in words. It uses an input device like an iPad or MIDI controller to explore hand-crafted musical landscapes, allowing the player to alter the visuals and music to their touch.”

Game Developer Quality-of-Life Survey (Gamasutra)
“”Game Developers: How are you doing?” That’s the question we asked approximately 1,000 of you at the end of 2012. We know that between the long hours, frequent layoffs, and crunch phases, the game industry can be a notorious grind. While we perform a yearly Salary Survey every April to check the pulse of developers’ financial health, we thought we’d supplement that with a quality-of-life survey to see how you’re doing in ways not measured by dollars and cents. Are you satisfied with your pay? Are you confident in your current project? Do you want to be in this industry five years from now? Read on to find out how your colleagues responded.”

Meat Boy dev: DRM hurts more than piracy (Games Industry)
“The troubled launch of EA’s SimCity due to its always-online requirement has raised the issue of digital rights management and the effectiveness of anti-piracy measures once again. In a post on his own blog, Super Meat Boy developer Tommy Refenes gave his own take on the subject, arguing that developers’ attempts to keep their games from being pirated are hurting themselves first and foremost.”

Vlambeer: Mobile devs mustn’t be scared of charging more (Develop Online)
“Mobile developers should not be scared of charging more for iOS and Android games, a developer from Vlambeer has said. Speaking in a Reddit Q&A, developers from the Super Crate Box studio said that indies needed to be sell a countless number of titles at the standard $0.99 (£0.69) price just to survive on the platform, and encouraged more developers to start charging more.”

Sony easier to work with as an indie, Guacamelee dev says (Shacknews)
“With Guacamelee’s release on PS3 and PS Vita imminent, developer Drinkbox Studios took a moment to praise Sony’s continuing efforts to reach out to developers–smaller indie studios, in particular.”

Democracy 3 development blog video #2 (Positech Games)
“Another short video showing off new color schemes and some new features.”

Overgrowth a198 video changelog (Wolfire Games)
“Here is the new Overgrowth alpha video!”

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 Trailer! (Zeboyd Games)
“Our first trailer for our upcoming new game, Penny Arcade’s on the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 is now live! “

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IGM Under Construction – ‘Chasm’

David Johnson — Wed, 08 May 2013 01:07:36 +0000

IGM Under Construction – ‘Chasm’

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May 7th, 2013 | By David Johnson

Tagged in: Chasm | discord games | IGM Under Construction | IGM Video

Chasm is a 2D action RPG platformer currently in development for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The game features procedurally-generated Metroid-style dungeons and authentic 16-bit pixel art.

Website
Kickstarter
Greenlight

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Created by Wouter Swusten

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DIYGamer » featured

IGM Let’s Try- ‘Anomaly 2′

IGM Let’s Try- ‘Anomaly 2′

You may be interested in:

Subscribe Now

Indie Intermission – ‘PaperCoaster’ Sometimes The Theory Is Different To The Reality

You may be interested in:

The Indie Game Magazine

The Indie Game Magazine Now Available On Google Currents

The Indie Game Magazine Now Available On Google Currents

You may be interested in:

Subscribe Now

Indie Links Round-Up: New Heights

You may be interested in:

The Indie Game Magazine

IGM Let’s Try – Mini Motor Racing EVO!

IGM Let’s Try – Mini Motor Racing EVO!

You may be interested in:

The Indie Game Magazine

Find The Killer In ‘Cognition: The Oracle’ This Thursday

Find The Killer In ‘Cognition: The Oracle’ This Thursday

You may be interested in:

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‘Teslagrad’ Preview – Mad Magnetism

You may be interested in:

The Indie Game Magazine

Indie Links Round-Up: Killer Screen

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Dev Links: Natural Wonder

You may be interested in:

The Indie Game Magazine

IGM Under Construction – ‘Chasm’

IGM Under Construction – ‘Chasm’

You may be interested in:

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