Brendon Chung of Blendo Games has emailed over several new bits of info regarding a couple of the devleoper’s titles. First off, the PC and Mac versions of Blendo’s latest offering Atom Zombie Smasher are heading to Steam–this news should be nothing short of spectacular for Steamheads* everywhere.

My preview does it some justice, but I’ve logged many more hours of playing time since then. It’s actually quite amazing and ridiculously addicting–I just finished a first to 20,000 campaign (that’s rescued versus infected.) That was my first overall winning effort against the zed outbreak, and damn it felt good. But now that it’s over, where do I go from here?

Oh, apparently the dev has been adding updates which include new game modes including permadeath, alt. spawning, and using the same merc multiple times, along with new mod parameters and a ton of bug fixes. Not only that, the mods from the game’s community have been rolling out since release, which Brendon describes as “crazy.” Question answered.

No release date or pricing info was mentioned for the Steam release, but what we do know is those who have already purchased the title will be able to get their copy onto Steam no problem and the version will contain Steamchievements, Steamstats and more Steaminess.

Lastly, Mr. Chung also shares that his turn-based space combat title Flotilla has been selected as a finalist for the D2D Vision Award at this year’s IGF (along with Hazard, NightSky, Amnesia and other indies we love.) Arsen reviewed the XBLIG version and was rather taken by the game. As always, good stuff pouring out of Blendo.

[Blendo Games]

*Person posting “Waiting for it to come out on Steam…” in the forum/comment thread = Steamhead

Blendo Games (Flotilla, Air Forte, Gravity Bone) has announced the release of its top-down, procedurally generated undead destruction and survivor evacuation game Atom Zombie Smasher, available now for purchase/demoing for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

As typical with Brendon Chung’s efforts, AZS is gung-ho for establishing its own weird and funny style. It takes place in a world where zombies are dealt with as a military enemy. After the zed’s resurgence in the early 60′s, it’s up to you to slow and eventually stop the bleeding wounds of humanity by rescuing and rebuilding the remaining human race. This is done by evacuating survivors and of course, blowing-up lots and lots of zombies.

From the features list:

Mercenaries for hire: Hire and upgrade your ragtag group of snipers, demolition teams, orbital bombardment crews, and more.

No two cities are the same: Cities are procedurally-generated, giving a unique experience with each playthrough.

Destructible environments: Yes, you can absolutely blow up everything.

Play with friends: Up to three people can cooperatively play together.

Mod support: Modify the game rules however you like, and share your mods through the Online File Share.

I wasn’t able to get my hands on a review copy, so I’m making my way through the demo now. I’ll report back soon with a preview, as this looks like a title worth its $15 price tag. Check out the trailer:

[Blendo Games]

Indie sales at it again this weekend. Don’t forget about the aforementioned Zeno Clash, Frontiers Pack and Eschalon II discounts. Did you enjoy your extra hour today?

GetGamesGo

GetGamesGo has an excellent special offering Trine and VVVVVV together for just $9.50, a great deal for a couple of fantastic games.

Impulse

Stardock’s service has a few nice offers this week including 50% off Hacker Evolution – Untold (includes ‘Flight Zero’ expansion), 75% off Fort Zombie, $5 off Star Ruler and $3 off Tidalis.

GamersGate

Flotilla has been given a solid 60% discount, while Armada 2526 and Power of Defense are both half-off.

Brendon Chung of Blendo Games has released a new update for his animal of a space shooter Flotilla, bringing the turn-based strategy title to version 2.4.

The patch brings improvements to the game’s AI, camera tweaks, added control options and more. From the patch notes:

Crash: Fixed crash in audio initialization.

Game: AI now chooses enemy targets on a more random basis.

Game: Fixed issue with Bruja Heart item not working.

Game: Camera no longer automatically zooms out after all ships have orders. Player can manually invoke camera reset by clicking mousewheel.

Game: Fixed Adventure issue where player has no more planets to visit.

Controls: Q and E now lower/raise the camera.

Controls: can now use numpad for camera control.

The file can be downloaded now automatically for owners of the game on Steam, with a manual patch available via Blendo.

You can check out the Flotilla demo on both PC and Xbox 360, with the title running $5 on the XBLIG channel and $10 via the developer and digital distributors for PC. Arsen had plenty of good things to say about the game in his review way back in April, so read up before you get beat up foo.

[FLOTILLA]

Developed with accessibility to kids, Air Forte brings three different game modes, multiplayer support for up to four players, an original soundtrack, and online rankings to submit your high scores to.

The game runs $15 on comps but just 400 MS Points ($5) on Xbox Live Indie Games (presumably because that’s the price cap for an XBLIG.) Demos for each of the supported operating systems are available from the official site as well as the 360 trial on Xbox Live. Check out the trailer:

Lots of interviews, in depth coverage of current/upcoming games, and in the end, ten awesome links from ten different sites.

The Big List Of Indie Game Sites (Pixel Prospector)
From the guy who brought us the 200 (or so) free indie games in 10 minutes videos. A comprehensive and categorized list of all the indie sites and coverage out there, DIY included of course. Super love!

Hands On: Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Eurogamer)
“I think a mark of quality in a game is whether you can return to a room you’ve previously been in, and know you were there earlier by the destruction you wrought. Amnesia, the new first-person adventure from Penumbra developers Frictional, does not paint rooms in the blood of your enemies, but rather in strewn desk drawers, boxes and broken glass. And light. Amnesia is looking to be an extremely dark game, but rather than offering you the opportunity to sneak silently in the welcoming shadows, here darkness is your enemy. It is the path to insanity.”

Interview: Loved’s Ocias Seeks Depth, Player Confrontation (Gamasutra)
“While E3 dominated games industry headlines in recent weeks, an unexpected candidate for people’s attentions in June has been Loved, a browser-based game by Australian artist and designer Alexander Ocias.”

Gryzor87′s Retro-Inspired Sound: Hydorah Music Q&A (IndieGames)
“Freeware game Hydorah is the brainchild of Locomalito of Andalucia, Spain. For the soundtrack, whose cover art is by illustrator Marek Bayej, musician Gryzor87 drew on the established audio styles of retro sidescrolling shooters, while also infusing his own rock and classical-inspired tastes.”

Review: Fault Line (TIGSource)
“This month Fault Line was released. I don’t know if you’ve been following Nitrome. I know I sure wasn’t. Their game Tiny Castle got a plug on the Indie Games Weblog as well as the AV Club’s Sawbuck Gamer column. And it was an interesting game, more for it’s idea that for how well it pulled it off. But Fault Line has got me digging into their backlog.”

Interview: We chat with the founder of Joystick Labs (Big Download)
“There are a number of ways game developers can find money to help fund their projects; through publishers or awards, grants and more. But what about actual help during the development process to make the game better and to establish contacts in the game industry that will allow the developers to sell the game? That’s the plan of the newly announced Joystick Labs, a Durham, North Carolina-based company that was officially announced this week. The company will not only pick games and development teams to help fund their creations but also to mentor them in various aspects of game development and business.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: iBailout (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Nick Marroni, who, after deciding he’d had enough inferior games that combined Ms. Pac-Man and the Federal Reserve, set his mind on making his own.”

Interview: Brendon Chung of Blendo Games — What did the Rastafarian cat say to the Glowing toucan? (Level Forty-Two)
“I had the chance to interview Brendon Chung, a videogame developer and the founder of Blendo Games. We talked about his future endeavours, his games Flotilla and Gravity Bone, the nature of game development and the origins of Blendo Games.”

June 2010 Video Spotlight — UFO: Alien Invasion (IndieDB)
“Just when you thought it was safe to walk in tall grass again a wild Spotlight appears! Introducing the first IndieDB Spotlight video, jammed packed with umm well Indie games.”

Interview: Hothead Games on DeathSpank (GamingNexus)
“”When confronted with the idea of developing Ron Gilbert’s DeathSpank character introduced by his Grumpy Gamer comic series, the Penny Arcade duo gave the go ahead to Hothead to transition gears from their series to start work on the action RPG game. We had an opportunity to delve more into the back story of both the development of DeathSpank, as well as the details behind the gameplay itself via a roundtable discussion with Executive Producer Vlad Ceraldi, Lead Designer Darren Evenson and RPG Designer Dennis Detwiller.”

The v2.332 patch brings a few fixes including a trio of crash issues along with an increase in the online scoreboard listing, which now lists the top 1,000 player scores. Additionally, how score is calculated is more intricate as well, though it’s vague exactly has been added or adjusted to make this so.

The file can be downloaded now automatically via Impulse and can be had manually from the game’s official site. From the change log:

Flotilla

Fixed crash in audio initialization

Fixed crash in scoreboard

Fixed soft crash in online scoreboard when no Internet connection is available

Added more granularity to score calculation

Increased online scoreboard listing to top 1000

On Steam, Altitude, Killing Floor and Madballs are all 50% off to celebrate Mac releases (you can play the games on either OS.) Quantz is still $3, Flotilla is a dollar off, and a ton of RailWorks DLC is on sale at a variety of discounted prices.

Impulse has a nice discount for the just released RPG Eschalon: Book II that I touched on here, taking the $25 title down to just $18.72 through the weekend, Bob Came in Pieces is 50% off at $5.

GamersGate has the same 50% off deal for Altitude and 25% off of Max and the Magic Marker throwing in both PC and Mac copies of the games. Puzzle Bots gets a slight pre-order discount as well.

While far and away the best sale out there, SiD is not the only offering of Indie discounted goodness this weekend; oh no, not by a long shot. Oh and remember, if for whatever odd reason you haven’t come across and donated to The Humble Indie Bundle, it’s still on until midday tomorrow, Saturday May 15. The rest of the offerings from across the web:

Sales

AI War: Fleet Command, its expansion The Zenith Remnant, and an already discounted bundle of both have been slashed in half on GamersGate as part of the distributor’s Space Battle Week promotion.

Come to think of it Gratuitous Space Battles (along with its ‘Complete’ bundle), Flotilla, Armada 2526, Light of Altair and Evochron Legends and Renegades are all half-off with the promotion with other smaller discounts offered up as well, check out the full list here through the weekend.

Bob Came in Pieces is 50% off on Direct2Drive, bringing the ship rebuilder down to just $4.95 as the distributor’s Deal of the Week. The sale runs through May 21, check out Peter E’s review.

Both Steam and D2D are offering Torchlight for 50% off. Note that’s $10, not the $5 which the game has been discounted to before and probably will again.

Gamerizon’s puzzle game Quantz is 70% off on Steam, bringing the title down to just $3, you can check out my review if you wish.

Steam is offering The RailWorks Glasgow Airport Rail Link add-on at $10 off its standard $40 price (25% off), with those who have purchased the Class 380 add-on for the train sim title receiving a much better discount at nearly 75% off.

Mode 7′s (The guy’s working on the much anticipated Frozen Synapse) sword-fighting multiplayer title Determinance is $11 down for $17 on Impulse.

Pre-Order Discounts

Frictional Games’ upcoming survival horror Amnesia: The Dark Descent is being offered for 20% off on GamersGate for those who purchase before its release on August 15. The title will run $20 but can be had for both Mac and PC for just $16 prior to launch.

Other Offers

Impulse is offering up Quantum Flux Games’ Make Something Unreal Contest stand-out Prometheus for free, as in no munnies.

Vote for Your Favorite Indie Game!

We here at DIYgamer.com have started our very own bracket-styled tournament to find the best indie game, as voted on by you, the gamers. So head on over to our tournament page to vote on your favorite games!

The Tournament
Cave Story vs. Torchlight
Braid vs. Runman: Race Around the World
Spelunky vs. 5 Days a Stranger
Dwarf Fortress vs. Trine

In Flotilla, you take on the role of Captain (insert your name here) and discover that you’ve only 7 months to live. In spite of this, your character takes to the skies and you trek through space–encountering some crazy, crazy characters along the way. Flotilla is most certainly a challenging experience and restarts every time you play the game. Feel like you’ve got what it takes? Check out the demo.

[Source: Blendo Games]