What makes Ludum Dare special, indie RPG combat mechanics and abandonware on today’s Indie Links.

Indie Corner (RPGamer)
“Greetings, and welcome to the newest RPGamer column, Indie Corner. This is not a weekly column, but will instead be a sporadic look at the indie RPG development scene. And again, it’s not a typical column. Instead of directly reporting about indie RPGs, we’ll be bringing in the actual creators to talk about development and other aspects of the RPG scene. Interviews, in-depth discussion, talk of inspiration, and other editorial content directly from indie devs will be highlighted here. To start things off, we’ve gotten a few RPG devs to share how they feel about combat and battle systems. We talk about the most important aspects of a battle system, their inspirations, and what combat pitfalls they most worry about falling into and how best to avoid them. Today, we talk with AckkStudios, Sinister Design, Breadbrothers Games, Muteki Corporation, Zeboyd Games, Eden Industries, and Experimental Gamer.”

Surgeon Simulator 2013: death in your hands (VG247)
“Surgeon Simulator 2013 is a strange, almost morbid game that proves VG247′s Dave Cook should never be trusted with a person’s life under any circumstances. Get disturbed here.”

Unfinished Business: Super Hexagon creator reveals his abandonware (Joystiq)
“This Vine represents eight of VVVVVV and Super Hexagon creator Terry Cavanagh’s unfinished projects – the first of three like it recently posted to the game designer’s Twitter account.”

Thomas Was Alone review: Mastering the inverted fall (Joystiq)
“On the surface, Thomas Was Alone appears unremarkable. It breaks platforming mechanics down to their most basic levels, quite literally, replacing characters with colored rectangles and environments with precarious arrangements of black rectangles. To reiterate: Thomas Was Alone is a platformer starring a cast of little, colored blocks.”

Indie Pleas: Indie game crowd funding roundup for April 26, 2013 (IndiePub)
“This week’s Indie Pleas include: A.N.N.E., a metroidvania pixel art adventure; Rex Rocket, a retro sci-fi adventure; My Temple, a fun iOS fitness game; and Ghost of a Tale, where you play as a mouse in a medieval world.”

Andy Schatz talks Monaco’s delay and fan reactions (Edge)
“Last week, Andy Schatz, founder of Pocketwatch games, found a bug in the Xbox 360 build of his game Monaco that caused players to consistently get dropped from multiplayer matches. As a result, he decided to delay its release mere hours before it was slated to come out. We talked to him about the aftermath and how player reaction shapes his development process.”

Piracy or baiting? The thorny legal question of Game Dev Tycoon’s honeypot (Ars Technica)
“Earlier this week, the developers at Greenheart Games distributed a crippled version of its new game Game Dev Tycoon disguised as a “cracked” version of the full game. The little Internet experiment served as an ironic and humorous poke at software pirates and a smart way to call attention to the challenges indie developers face with piracy.”

Here’s what makes Ludum Dare so special (Gamasutra)
“Whether you’re an indie developer or not, you’ll likely have heard of the Ludum Dare 48-hour competition and game jam. Three times a year, hundreds of developers come together online to create games based on a set theme over a single weekend, and subsequently vote for a winner in the weeks after.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Links Round-Up: Grandfather Clock

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.

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.

Today’s Developer Links cover one week of game development, 30 weeks of game development and a plea to avoid too much development.

30 Weeks of Game Development (AltDevBlogADay)
“Outland Games is an iOS game I’ve been working on at Uber Entertainment since late last summer. We just released the game to the app store this week (iTunes – $0.99). This post is the first in a short series on it’s development.”

Overfunded Kickstarter Projects – Please Avoid Feature Bloat (Zeboyd Games)
“We’ve seen a number of video game kickstarters raise a lot more money than they requested. Inevitably, these projects take this extra money and drastically scale up the ambition of the project with the result that they miss their projected release date by a huge amount.”

Seven Day Roguelike, Day 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6- 7 (Distractionware)
“So, I’m making something for 7 day roguelike. This compo has an uncanny knack for clashing with other things, so this is the first year I’ve ever actually been able to do it!”

Forbidden space (Auntie Pixelante)
“my friend andi was really excited that nasa was hosting a game jam on her birthday. she wanted to rope a bunch of us in to making games with her thirtieth birthday – then she found out that you had to book tickets months in advance. BULLSHIT. not to be deterred, she had a bunch of friends over to my place for a KICKED OUT OF NASA GAME JAM. (they’re still here. it’s still going on.)”

Making wrong choices (Winter Wolves)
“I’m at one point where I fix a plot hole, and a new one appears. I check a variable, one path works, the other doesn’t. A scene that before was fine, now plays out of order. I’ve worked like crazy in past 3 days, I’m stressed like never before and then I came to a simple conclusion. There’s no hope to make this work. Every time I open the script I have a headache now. Writer doesn’t have time to help. So I’m thinking what to do. It’s really embarrassing for me. Despite all the efforts, I know that I can’t make this work, unless I make some really big changes.”

Races #2: The Empire (Purple Orange Games)
“Nobody knows the origins of the Empire, how it was formed or by whom. Scientists speculate that a once peaceful race, the Lirri, endured some kind of disastrous genetic disease which made them seek salvation by means of complex genome modifications. Unfortunately, the process went wrong, and the newly created creatures turned on their masters and, not encountering any resistance, quickly conquered the planet. Soon, there were no Lirri. There was only the Empire.”

The Metrics Aren’t the Message (Gamasutra)
“Metrics can rule you — but should they? The Workshop Entertainment’s new design director and Free Realms veteran Laralyn McWilliams explains how a pivotal moment in her life showed her that overreliance on analytics and friction in social games isn’t the answer.”

Port Wine, Live-Streaming, Drunken Robots and Ugly Babies (Dejobaan)
“This week’s blog post is brought to you by the letter T and the number 2! It has been a fun week for all of us over at Dejobaan. Ichiro is in Portugal taking a much deserved vacation. We are laying on the beach did our second live-stream on Twitch (more on that below) and we continued working hard on Drop That Beat Like An Ugly Baby, Drunken Robot Pornography and Monster Loves You. Did I mention that we are working HAAAAAAAARRRRDDD! But first Ichiro drinking port, because everyone should drink port!”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: Lost In The Woods

Cannon Brawl is a 2D real time strategy game currently in development for Xbox and PC.  The game features destructible terrain and firing mechanics similar to Worms, but is also all about building towers and expanding your influence around each stage.  The player controls a blimp that handles controlling and commanding the field.  Fly your airship over to your HQ and you’ll be able to select turrets, shields and other towers to build.  When the towers are complete, you can pick them up and fly them to any buildable location within your ‘Sphere of Influence’ – represented by a subtle colored bubble that matches your team.

Cannon Brawl is all about your airship; it’s your general.  Not only does it build and delivery structures, but you also use your blimp to enter both offensive and defensive turrets. Enter a cannon with your airship, then aim and fire Worms-style.  Enter a defensive turret, and use your sticks to direct your protective shields.  You’ll also use your airship to upgrade and repair units – all while cannonballs, lasers, and nukes are flying around.

The best thing about Cannon Brawl is the pace of the match.  When you start off, you’ll actually wait a little bit as you take on each task one at a time.  You’ll build some turrets, place them, and take a shot at your opponent every once and awhile.  As more units are placed on the field, the decisions and tasks that you have quickly multiply and things become hectic really quickly.  It’s one of the more manic RTS games that I’ve played.  The simplified units and action oriented gameplay should draw in gamers that don’t traditionally like the strategy genre – while strategy fans may not like the fast pace of Cannon Brawl’s matches.

Cannon Brawl is very polished with bright colorful graphics and dynamic battle music.  Upon completion the game will feature over 6 different airships, a single player campaign, local and online multiplayer.

Stay up to date on Cannon Brawl, by checking out the game’s official website.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Cannon Brawl Preview – Worms meets Real Time Strategy

Currently in development by Discord Games for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Chasm is a 2D action-RPG platformer featuring procedurally generated, Metroid-like dungeons for players to explore. Discord Games has a screenshot Tumblr blog for people to follow or browse through, something which other developers would be wise to emulate. Earlier in the week, the developers revealed the first gameplay trailer for Chasm, in anticipation of this year’s Game Developers Conference. Discord Games is in attendance, located at kiosk #7 in the play area.

Visit Chasm‘s official website to find out more about the game, and follow the developer on Twitter.

Learn in today’s Developer Links why to use the Lua scripting language, what kind of social media policy to decide on, and how a developer raised money from pirates.

Mew-Genics Teaser Week 17, Cat Fight! (Team Meat Blog)
“As many of you might have guessed from the song “Cat Fight” in the Ridiculon video post, Cat fights are a large part of Mew-Genics. How will these fights go down?  How will the game actually play?  Why have i been using faked graphics for all the cats ive posted in the past 17 weeks of updates? find out next week! when we finally announce what this damn game is!”

The Video Game Kickstarter Report – Week of Feb 15 (Zeboyd Games)
“Not much this week in terms of new kickstarters to look out for, but I did spot two that I thought sounded interesting. The first is Throw Trucks With Your Mind – a multiplayer FPS where ‘you’ll fight entirely through NeuroSky’s MindWave headset peripheral that reads the electrical activity of your brain.’ It’s up to $11k of its $40k goal with 26 days left to go. The second is Genocide Dolphins. I have no clue why it’s called that, but it’s a FPS with a really trippy visual style. It’s only at £417 raised of its £5k goal with 12 days left to go, but the goal is modest enough that I could see a last-minute recovery.”

Democracy 3 Development Blog #1 (Cliffski.com)
“A short video with me going through the new stuff in Democracy 3:”

Why Lua? (AltDevBlogADay)
“A question that I get asked regularly is why we have chosen Lua as our engine scripting language. I guess as opposed to more well-known languages, such as JavaScript or C#. The short answer is that Lua is lighter and more elegant than both those languages. It is also faster than JavaScript and more dynamic than C#.”

Drafting A Social Media Handbook Policy For Developers (Gamasutra)
“Big companies have recently gotten into hot water by trying to govern employee social media use — but the right way to do this is even more complicated than you might expect, so Gamaustra presents this article, written by an attorney, to help put you on the right track.”

The Witness Audio: 1000 Subtle Layers (The Witness)
“I didn’t think Witness was going to be an easy project by any stretch, but I certainly didn’t expect it to be one of our biggest creative challenges. I’ve worked on nearly 80 projects spanning feature film, games, ads and other sorts, and my job as sound designer had always been to broaden the experience in every possible way. The Witness inverts this notion.”

Indie Dev Makes $12k Through Piracy Promotion (Develop)
“An indie developer has made more than $12,000 after advertising its game through the Pirate Bay. In a blog post, Sean Hogan wrote a post-mortem of the experiment to advertise action-adventure RPG Anodyne through piracy channels, and noted a significant upturn in website hits, Steam Greenlight votes and sales.”

Rocket Report #6 (Rocket Bear Games Blog)
“Last week was quite exciting, development-wise. Guess what?  Those helicopters that I added to the game last time can now do airstrikes.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: Interest Groups

In today’s Developer Links: web design, video game websites, and serial cross-platform development.

Bastion‘s Argument For Doing Away With Cross-Platform Development (Gamasutra)
“In a talk at the DICE Summit on Wednesday, Supergiant Games co-founder and studio director Amir Rao (Bastion) talked about the year-plus his team spent taking Bastion to different platforms. Along the way, he urged the audience to get away from the concept of simultaneous ‘ports’ and ‘lead SKU’ and towards a thoughtful, non-parallel multi-platform development process.”

Apple Pie Chart (Mommy’s Best Devlog)
“Serious Sam Double D XXL is super close! Go go go! Time to let people know! What’s so cool about it? Let’s tell everyone! That’s what most of my time is devoted to currently and it’s getting very exciting! We’ll be heading to PAX East to promote the game and we’re even throwing a pretty big Mid-West game dev launch party here in Louisville on March 1st!”

What’s In The BattleBlock Theater Beta? (The Behemoth Development Blog)
“The BattleBlock Theater Closed Beta will be here sooner than we think. We’re still locking down all the details, including the beta testing dates, but we do have an exciting update to share! In addition to story levels and the level editor, we’ll be giving Beta Testers access to all the arena modes!”

A Week As Webdesigner (Computer Games)
“Probably not many of you know that before going indie, I was a (rather poor to be fair) webdesigner. Many people probably think that being a webdesigner is a creative job but the reality is that after you do the 100th website, you start to have enough… Anyway, this week I was waiting for some people to send me assets (writing, art, music, etc) so I was idle. If wasn’t Winter I would have use this unexpected “free time” to do some trips around here to relax, but since it is, I thought to finally begin the redesign of my website, something I’ve been procrastinating for too long!”

Going Forward With Drox (Soldak Entertainment)
“First off, we have Drox Operative on Steam’s Greenlight. If you haven’t already, go vote for Drox Operative on Greenlight so we can get the game on Steam. Please tell all of your friends, family, and anyone else that will listen to do so also.”

The Video Game Kickstarter Report – Week of February 8 (Zeboyd Games)
“Big week for new kickstarters! Let’s get started!”

Good Morning Gato # 109 – Warm Kitty (Ska Studios)
“PAX East is 42 days away! Ska Studios will once again be exhibiting, keeping with our trend of showing at every single PAX East there has ever been. When will this dang Charlie Murder game ever be done?! You’re asking, our friends are asking, and even our moms are asking. We still can’t tell you but we can sure show you what we’ve done so far. Come see us and play and listen to us expertly dodge the “when will it be done” question! We may just have a different answer for you by the end of March (disclaimer: we also may have the same answer for you by the end of March).”

Big List of Top Video Game Websites (PixelProspector)
“I have just updated the Big List of Top Video Game Websites. All ~130 sites offer now some basic info (Country, Platforms, Coverage, About). Furthermore I have also created a spreadsheet that you can download here.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: Candy Stripes

Earlier today, Steam released a list of ten games which have passed through the gauntlet of approval that is Steam Greenlight. Some of the games listed, were not surprising. Anodyne, for example, just finished a large Pirate Bay promotion campaign that undoubtedly boosted popular opinion of the title. You may remember we featured Distance in an IGM Greenlight feature awhile back. We knew once people knew of Distance, they would have to get their hands on it.

I was surprised to see Receiver on the list, considering the game has been out since late last Summer, and I had not heard of any updates from Wolfire Games since Receiver’s game-jam conception and launch.

The full list of Greenlit games are as follows; we will be examining each of these games closer, in the coming weeks.

Anodyne – Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka
Distance – Refract Studios
Evoland – Shiro Games
Huntsman: The Orphanage – Shadowshifters
Kingdom Rush – Ironhide Game Studio
Legends of Dawn – Dreamatrix Game Studios
Organ Trail: Director’s Cut – The Men Who Wear Many Hats
Receiver – Wolfire Games
Surgeon Simulator 2013 – Bossa Studios
War Thunder – Gaijin Entertainment

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Anodyne’, ‘Surgeon Simulator’, ‘Organ Trail’, And Others Selected For New Greenlight Batch

Today’s Indie Links include a hundred indie game picks from the Independent Game Festival submissions, ten notable indie strategy games from 2012, and nine games that weren’t finalists in the IGF awards (but at least one judge thinks should have been).

100 Indie Game Picks for IGF 2013 (PixelProspector)
“Well…I’ve browsed through the 800+ Entrants (~580 Main Entrants and ~300 Student Entrants) and picked 80 100 games. All those games can be found on 100 Indie Game Picks for IGF 2013 (with links to: homepage, igf entry page and trailer)
The shown games are either picked because I have tested them personally (for example: Awesomenauts, Syder Arcade, Gas Guzzlers, Iconoclasts, Super House of Dead Ninjas…) or because they look promising.”

Top 10 Indie Strategy Games of 2012 (IndieGames)
“Strategy gaming, despite being one of the most demanding genres for players and developers alike, is also one of the areas indie devs seem to excel at and gamers seem to love. What’s more, 2012 was an excellent year for the tactically thinking masses indeed, what with its impressive selection of strategy offerings appearing on most platforms. What follows are our picks of the very best strategy games of 2012 and, as you will soon discover, it’s a list covering everything from RTS and turn-based games to tower-defense and rogue-like variants. It even sports some excellent freebies!”

Indie Studio Takes Stand Against Over-Priced Games In Australia (GamePolitics)
“Melbourne Australia-based indie game developer Endgame Studios is tired of the high prices that gamers in the region have to pay for video games (compared to Europe and other regions) and has decided to voice their opinion about how much they think it sucks. In a post entitled ‘A stand against exorbitant Aussie game prices!,’ the studio says that Australian gamers are asked to pay 50 – 100 percent more than American consumers due to – according to publishers and distributors – currency exchange rates. Endgame Studios says that now because of digital distribution of many titles (there is no physical product to haul) and because the Australian dollar is stronger than the U.S. dollar the old justification for higher game prices no longer works.”

3DS Game Review – Fluidity: Spin Cycle (Curve) (IndieGames)
“Curve has shown its platformer breadth and expertise once again, having previously mixed physics and blasts in Explodemon and stealth and speed in Stealth Bastard. The dev’s latest, Fluidity: Spin Cycle (or Hydroventure: Spin Cycle in the EU), is so slick with its water-based physics and puzzle platforming that it easily becomes one of the best games on the 3DS, retail or digital.”

Hit List Q&A: Supergiant Games Studio Director Amir Rao (Joystiq)
“Amir Rao is the Studio Director for Supergiant Games, the team behind the AIAS award-winning downloadable game Bastion, which was released on Xbox Live Arcade, Steam, Mac, Linux, Chrome and iOS. Prior to Supergiant Games, Amir worked at Electronic Arts Los Angeles as a designer on Command & Conquer 3 and Red Alert 3.”

The Inaugural Horace Awards For Forgotten IGF Entrants (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“The IGF 2013 finalists were announced yesterday, with many worthy nominees up for the trophies. But as a judge in the first round of voting, I spotted a bunch of games I’m disappointed to not see get further. Disappointed, and with my own website. So to fix this, I’ve pulled together the inaugural Horace Award For Forgotten IGF Entrants. The winners are below.”

Game The News Project Developer Interview (Independent Gaming)
“While surfing the web I came across an interesting concept. A group was putting together (indie) games to help people better understand the news and the world around them. I was so curious as to what the developers had to say that I contacted them and landed an interview with the creative director, Tomas.”

Playgrounds: Gaijin Games’ Jason Cirillo (Polygon)
“This is our very first installment of Playgrounds from outside of the Polygon staff and it’s with great pleasure that we introduce Mr. Jason Cirillo, a designer at California-based Gaijin Games (makers of the BIT.TRIP series), and host of retro gaming web series Bit Museum. If you’re a collector, developer or super fan with a collection worth sharing on Playgrounds, let us know at playgrounds@polygon.com! Take it away, Jason!”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Links Round-Up: Developer’s Lair