Our marvellous leader, Mike Gnade, has been pining and winging and moaning about Snapshot for ages (you wouldn’t believe). “When is it coming out?” “When can I play it?” “It looks amazing, doesn’t it?” So he will be happy to find out that it’s coming to PS Vita and PS3 this Fall, thus joining the ever increasing line up of rather good looking indie games on Sony’s new handheld gizmo.

Snapshot, by the way, is a 2D puzzle platformer by Retro Affect whose lead designer is none other than Kyle Pulver of Offspring Fling fame. You play as a robot called Pic who has a rather special camera. With it he can take pictures, or rather you will be, of the environment to remove it and then paste it back in at a different position. Slightly hard to grasp that without seeing it though isn’t it? By any means, you can read a hands-on preview from Mike himself (prepare for a gushing) right here if you’re so inclined.

This is the first commercial game from the studio but it’s been looking rather polished in our eyes (or at least Mike’s) for a few years now. The main mechanic certainly appears to be unique, even for a puzzle platformer, and we’re told that this evolves and is used in many different ways as the game goes on as you might have already guessed.

We can only presume that Snapshot will still be landing on PCs as well as the PlayStation gadgets when it hits this Fall. Check out the new trailer below:

More information on Snapshot can be found on the developer’s official website.

Lantana Games are celebrating Patriots Day, quite appropriately of course, with a 50% off sale for Children of Liberty, so if you want to help them out during development and get hold of a copy of this stealth platformer then now would be a good time for that.

Despite working in a crowded genre, the 2D platformer, Children of Liberty manages to stick out. It’s early stages yet and that can be seen in places, but the gist of the game is all in place and coupled with a focus on stealth and appealing artwork, we’re sure it’s going to add up to something great. If you haven’t already, you can check out an alpha demo right here, but if you enjoy the game and want to help out the developers you can do so by purchasing the game and getting the most up-to-date version.

However, the human race is one that has become obsessed with sales and bargains, in which case you’ll probably want to purchase the game today if you’re going to as it’s currently available at 50% off. This is in celebration of Patriots Day, specifically, the 237th anniversary of Paul Revere’s Ride and The Battles of Lexington and Concord, which are the events which Children of Liberty is based around.

As you might suspect, the sale is only being staged for 24 hours, so if you’re reading this after April 19th 2012, then you’re already too late. If upon checking the date it is that day then you’re in luck – head over to Desura with $4.99/£3.49 and you can get yourself an advanced copy of the game and access to the latest build.

More information on Children of Liberty can be found on the game’s official website.

Spring is here, and what would be a better way to enjoy it than throwing adorable forest critters around? On March 30th, Offspring Fling was released for the world to enjoy

Offspring Fling is about a forest creature who loses all of her dear, little children, and it’s up to you to help her get them all to safety. You can read our full review here.

We were able to ask the developer, Kyle Pulver, a few questions on how his game came into being. He shared with us some of his inspirations and his favorite things about his latest game, Offspring Fling.

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IGM: First off, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Kyle: I’m a 25 year old guy that likes to make video games currently operating out of Tempe, AZ.  I’ve been making games, or trying to make games, ever since I got a copy of Klik and Play when I was 11 or 12 years old, and before that I was trying to make games out of notebook drawings and paper cutouts.  I think a majority of my life ever since I was a kid has revolved around playing or making games.

IGM: ‘Offspring Fling’ is a game about a forest creature that has lost her children. The presentation of the game is certainly something to look at. What are your thoughts on how this came to be? What inspired you?

Kyle: The original idea of the game was the result of a game jam.  The theme of the jam was motherhood, and the first idea I went for was a platformer where you’re picking up babies and carrying them around.  I actually added the throwing part in after playing around with the idea for an hour or so.

I think the presentation of the game is the cominbation of all of my influences and my current progress as an artist.  I’m totally inspired by games that I loved as a kid.  Specifically the games that really wowed me and made me want to make my own games.  You can probably see and feel a lot of those games seeping through when you look at or play Offspring Fling.

IGM: Any inspirations in particular you would like to share?

Kyle: Well its probably pretty obvious that I’m inspired by the Kirby games.  I played through Kirby’s Super Star probably over one hundred times when I was a kid. If I wasnt playing it, I would just leave the sound test on and listen to the music. I’m trying to think of a couple others… Super Metroid, the Mega Man X games on SNES, all the great SNES and Genesis era platformers and shmups. I may not be particularly inspired or influenced by the games themselves but by some of the decisions that the games made in their design. For example I’m always really interested in the whole wall jumping thing in Super Metroid. Everyone seems to hate that wall jump, but I love it. It’s such a hard manuever to execute, but it’s so rewarding when you pull it off… a well placed wall jump in Super Metroid can shave off huge chunks of time. I think stuff like that influences me to add things to my games that are super hard to execute, but well worth pulling off. Offspring Fling might have a couple of those.

IGM: The controls definitely felt very tight throughout the game. What was your favorite mechanic in ‘Offspring Fling’?

Kyle: I actually think that I liked the deflector bounce pads the most. There was just something really fun for me in seeing a bunch of them set up along a path and watching a baby fly through it. I think it was sort of the same feeling as setting up a big hot wheels track and sending a bunch of cars through it. Design wise though, the deflector pads let me do a lot more variety in the level design. Suddenly your babies can bounce around to a completely different part of the level, and you have to think about where they’re going to end up before you let them fly.

IGM: They were definitely a lot of fun when I had to run the mother around to press buttons or intercept the baby at one point. What did you find most interesting about developing ‘Offspring Fling’?

Kyle: I think the most interesting part was just the fact that the original idea came out of a game jam, and for the most part was totally unplanned. Somewhere in my brain the potential for Offspring Fling existed, but I didn’t realize it until a game jam forced it out of me. For a game that had little to no planning, its development was incredibly smooth. The mechanic always felt like it was leading to new ideas, and I just followed it where ever it lead me. I tried to maintain the game jam mentality for the entire development of the game, and it seems to have worked out pretty well! So if you’re a game developer, you should be jamming as often as you can!

IGM: Thank you very much for your time.

You can try out a demo and learn more about Offspring Fling on its official website, and you can keep up with Kyle Pulver’s future work on his website or follow him on twitter @kylepulver.

Kyle Pulver’s motherly loving, child flinging puzzler, Offspring Fling, is now available to buy for Windows and Mac.

If you’re in the need of a bit of cheery gaming fun then look no further than Kyle Pulver’s brand new puzzle game, Offspring Fling. Released just today, Offspring Fling has you playing as a Kirbychu (Kirby + Pikachu) and no that’s not what it’s called – we made that up. The creature you do play does look a lot like such a cross breed and if that is the case then some brain cells clearly got lost in the process because this mother to many has “misplaced” all of her children. A likely story.

She’s keen to make it up to them though and that’s where you step in, you day saver you! You’ll have to play with the game’s many mechanics (it’s not just flinging) to manipulate your babies back to safety, you’ll have to be careful as there are many hazards around despite the flowery presentation.

To grab a copy of Offspring Fling for Windows or Mac you should head on over to the official website with $7.99/

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