Today’s Developer Links pass on more good PS4 vibes from indies, along with updates from games including The Witness, Clockwork Empires, and Democracy 3.

PS4 will support indies, agree optimistic devs (Develop Online)
“A number of developers have stepped forward to state their optimism about the PlayStation 4′s support for indies. Speaking to Develop individuals from companies as diverse as Gearbox and nDreams have expressed hope and positivity that, in contrast to previous sony consoles, the PS4 will be accessible and affordable for indies. Their views appear to reflect comments made to Develop by Sony Worldwide Studios SVP Michael Denny, who insisted indies are set to be core to the PS4.”

A Little Something For The Pipe Fanciers Out There (Gaslamp Games)
“From just about the beginning we’ve been into the idea that Clockwork Empires should involve running giant assemblies of pipes and cog-laden axles across settlements to transmit energy and water and completely harmless high-pressure superheated steam between various machines and factories. The basis for this came early: if we’re to embrace the aesthetic we desire we need to fully embrace the visuals of mechanization, of machines and factories and the wonders of technology of this Age of Progress & so forth. If we hide the machines inside the factories then you won’t be able to see any of the Fun gears and pipes. So, the breakthrough: put the machines, the pipes, the gears on the outside of the factory.”

Low-Light Combat Art Asset Overview (Wolfire Games)
“We recently made a charity jam game called Low-Light Combat. In this jam, I wanted to try cutting out the most time-consuming steps of the traditional art asset workflow, to see if it would make any real difference in the final product.”

iPad video update #1 (The Witness)
“Andy’s got the iPad port far enough along that you can sort of play the game now. Here’s a short video…”

More Democracy 3 simulation fun and games (Positech Games)
“The core mechanic of Democracy 3 is going to take a lot of careful explaining in tutorials and tooltips and help windows. Essentially, it’s pretty simple, in that you implement policies, and you can adjust the intensity of a policy using a slider. So with a policy like income tax, the slider adjust the rate of tax from low to high. A series of bars show you the effect this policy has on everything, such as voter happiness, GDP, and so on. Sounds simple so far right? This is where it gets complex because there are three additional factors, which are implementation times, effectiveness and inertia. I’ll explain each one…”

Even Ugly Babies Need Hugs (Dejobaan Games)
“Our good friends at Zapdot and Hybrid Mind have been working hard on Ugly Baby. Ichiro continues to rest as evidenced by this picture from yesterday. This is most excellent news because a rested Ichiro is worth at least 3 times as many points as a tired Ichiro! This week we look at visualizers and also the in-game HUD that tells you when your stunts are X-Games worthy.”

Managing Risk in Video Game Development (Gamasutra)
“How do you best manage risk when creating a game? Using this article and the attached spreadsheet, you can better identify the problem areas in your game and get a sense of whether any decisions you are making actually make business sense.”

The Language of Monetization Design (Gamasutra)
“Automobiles and computers were so simplistic in their first 10 years that today we have a hard time looking back and appreciating just what a leap in technology they were at the time. Like all technology, they benefited from the iterative process, slowly adapting to changes in allied technologies, consumer demands, and infrastructure. Today both cars and computers have components in them that did not even have names 10 or 20 years ago. Before they could be added to these products, they had to be thought about and given names so that they then could be optimized and adapted to various uses.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Dev Links: Pipe Dreams

Games based on depression, an award winning game we’ll never get to play, and other interesting titles in today’s Indie Links.

How Jason Rohrer Won The Game Design Challenge (RPS)
“A real high-point of every GDC is the Game Design Challenge. Well, was. Sadly the tenth year of this annual treat was the last, with organiser Eric Zimmerman bringing proceedings to an end. And wow, did it go out in style. With the apposite topic, “Humanity’s Last Game”, some of the biggest names in the industry put forth their pitches for the last game we’d ever need. And one man entirely stole the show. For a second year, that man was Jason Rohrer.”

Voiceless and forgotten: facing depression through play (VG247)
“Depression Quest and Actual Sunlight are two games based on depression. Dave Owen speaks with their creators to find out how they can help.”

The Cat that Got the Milk sequel revealed, leaps from freeware to commercial (IndieGames.com)
“The Button Affair super stylish developers, now called Modern Dream, have announced The Cat that Got the Milk will receive a sequel. Titled Abstract No.3, it will expand on the series’ twitchy, path-weaving gameplay and will be the team’s first commercial release.”

Mobile review: Ridiculous Fishing (Shacknews)
“Fishing is a tough endeavor, one that isn’t as easy as it looks on TV or in the movies. Homer Simpson once had an idea to dump a plugged-in bug zapper into a lake and it resulted in a whole lot of easy-to-catch (if somewhat high voltage) fish. That’s a ridiculous idea. Yet it’s not as ridiculous as some of the heavy artillery that’s used in Ridiculous Fishing, the latest iOS title from Vlambeer (Super Crate Box), Greg Wohlwend (Puzzlejuice), and Zach Gage (Halcyon).”

Storyteller preview: In the eye of the beholder (Joystiq)
“”Wait, save that. No one’s done it that way before. You made it more complicated.” Daniel Benmergui reached out to grab the mouse and save a screenshot of my panels in his comic-book narrative game, Storyteller, where I had just concocted a tale of love and loss based on the page’s prompt, using a trio of static characters. One click and Benmergui let me regain control – he resumed his place over my shoulder in a quiet room off of the main GDC concourse, paper and pen in hand, taking notes on my visible thought processes as they played out on-screen.”

Preview: Hiversaires (TIGSource)
“After years of releasing engaging short-form games, prolific digital artist Aliceffekt is nearing completion of his first independent commercial project, Hiversaires, for iOS. Committing himself to full time development at the beginning of February, Aliceffekt has worked solo on the game, handling design, code, art, and music.”

Little Inferno scores big sales (Destructoid)
“Little Inferno didn’t have a lot to help it become a financial success. A fireplace simulator made to parody and critique current trends in videogames isn’t exactly what the big publishers would call “a surefire hit with a huge pre-installed fan base.” Thankfully, word of mouth, positive reviews, and the reputation of the game’s all-star development team seemed to have made up for any lack of marketability.”

Second Thoughts with the Chick – Terraria (Indie Gamer Chick)
“I reviewed Terraria for PlayStation Network/Xbox Live Arcade. I said that I did have fun playing the title, but I didn’t recommend it because it was too glitchy and unfinished. I also said that I had lost interest in the game. Since then, there hasn’t been a review up at my blog. Why? Because I’ve been busy playing Terraria. So allow me to eat some crow and do a 180 here. Terraria IS worth your time, glitches and all.”

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Links Round-Up: Intangibles

Remember the days before online multiplayer? Your group of friends would huddle around the television screen with wired controllers, trash talking and laughing while giving you the occasional, jovial shove. With online multiplayer changing how we play our games together, few games have been able to achieve the same level of comradery as the pre-internet console era did. But the Columbus-based start up Multivarious Games aims to change that with their game on Kickstarter, Dangerous.

Dangerous is a two-dimensional action platformer and shooter designed for local multiplayer on the Xbox 360. With an ancient island realized in watercolor as its landscape and local multiplayer as the vehicle, Dangerous is aiming to bring back the best in competitive gaming: with your friends in your living room.

Multivarious Games’ design sensibilities are inspired by the best competitive classics such as Worms, Goldeneye, Mario Kart, and Bomberman. With this competitive attitude in mind, development started in 2012 with the creation of a  physics engine that would support the amount of adaptability the developers wanted for the action. The environments feature destructible terrain to allow the unique world to play an important role in the game. If you’re trapped, you can channel water to push your enemies back. If you’re pinned by a sniper, you can shoot off a tree limb or cropping of rocks above them to take them out. By allowing so much freedom in each level and adding in other dynamic elements in the environment, the action is sure to keep you on your toes.

Dangerous also boasts a hand-drawn, watercolor art-style. The game is still running off of place holder assets at the moment so it’s hard to gauge what the final product will look like, but what the developers have shown so far in their videos looks promising. This visual style will make the set of customizable characters even more exciting. After choosing one of the two factions, either the outsiders or island natives, you build up this character’s strength through multiple fights. During battle, you can acquire new weapons, power-ups, and other character altering items which will alter your character over time as they become stronger, but also let you specialize in different abilities like the use of heavy weapons or lighter, quicker weaponry. At the same time, the character modifiers can be disabled so that everyone can join in the fun at the same level and enjoy a purer experience.

Black Annex from Man Fight Dragon is an upcoming isometric espionage action game. Currently, the developers are seeking support through Greenlight, and developer Lance E. McDonald’s Twitter feed is always full of Black Annex media.

Black Annex official website

Announced last May, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing has received a promotional “Pre-order and play the Beta” trailer, for the game’s impending May release. Neocore Games put The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing through a make-over last fall when they announced that the original concept of playing as young Van Helsing didn’t feel adequate. They allowed fans to choose from three new character-concepts (The Mysterious Stranger, The Chevalier, and The Veteran) and fans ultimately chose The Mysterious Stranger concept.

“Being indie is a great challenge and a very exciting experience with incredibly long working hours and plenty of difficulties,” Neocore says on their developer’s blog, “but it’s worth it! We consider it a gift that we can create something permanent and fun. Independence allowed us to keep you up to date during every phase of the development. Thanks to you, now we already have a very supportive and active community who are eagerly looking forward to the launch of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing.”

Visit the official website, where pre-orders are being taken. Pre-ordering gets access to the current Beta-build as well.

Gunpoint Gadget has been floating around for awhile now. For at least two years, Tom Francis has been developing this quaint spymaster game that relies on player’s cunning to successfully complete the missions presented. A recent trailer, narrated by Francis, demonstrates a number of the tools at the player’s disposal, to solve the various puzzles in each level. In the trailer, Francis also reveals that Gunpoint Gadget will be coming to Steam, when the game launches. Steam contacted him awhile ago, but now is the first time he’s been allowed to say anything about it, Francis explains in the video.

Visit the official website to learn more, and follow the game on Twitter.

In today’s game you take control of a somewhat unheroic child caught out in a storm. It is your job to guide him away from all the rain and keep him dry for as long as possible in Don’t Rain On Me by Matthew38940.

Along with the basic movement controls you also get power-ups in the form of rain coats and umbrellas which will give you more chances to hit the rain before failing. Of course it will be important for you to get all the power-ups you can as after a short time out in the rain it will start to literally rain cats and dogs.

The added animal obstacles really make the game ramp up in difficulty as you must also jump over the frightened dogs and cats along with avoiding the rain falling from the sky.

Don’t Rain On Me is a delightfully simple game that offers a great distraction from you day as a fun arcade game with some simple yet fun mechanics.

Average play time – 5 minutes

If you are looking for a minor distraction from your day Don’t Rain On Me may very well be what you are looking for as it offers a short yet fun arcade game.

Don’t Rain On Me can be played on Kongregate.

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!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission – ‘Don’t Rain On Me’ The Exploits Of The Least Heroic Child

Although not really a conventional game Cow Clicker is more of a commentary on the casual Facebook game market that has grown over the past couple of years.

Cow Clicker distills the fundamental mechanics down from Facebook games and puts them into a new setting that involves the mundane activity of clicking on cows.

Like every social game in this genre you must wait a predefined length of time before you can click your cow again and of course you are encouraged to invite friends so you can click their cows to improve your own game play.

Cow Clicker was created by Ian Bogost as his take on Zynga and their style of games found on Facebook. He has even included numerous microtransactions for speeding up the time in between clicking on the cows along with various cosmetic items for your cow.

Average play time – 20 minutes

Cow Clicker really is a very ingenious game that helps to sum up what the whole industry is about by showing the genre in its true mundane light. Cow Clicker really is quite the eye opener showing Ian Bogost’s true genius.

You can play Cow Clicker on Facebook for free, however if you would like to find out more about the game check out Ian Bogost’s site now for more insight into why he created this very interesting title.

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!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission – ‘Cow Clicker’ A Cynical Look At The Causal Game Industry

Discord Games is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter for Chasm, a 2D action-RPG featuring procedurally generated Metroid-like dungeons and stylish pixel art. A demo is available for Windows/Mac/Linux on the Kickstarter campaign page, and Discord Games plans to release the game in early 2014, if the campaign is successful. Chasm is inspired by the 2D platformers of the past, and will utilize gamepad support to compliment the game’s retro art-style.

“…this game can not be made without your support,” Discord Games says on the campaign page. ” We’ve been waiting forever for a game like this, but game publishers today just aren’t interested in projects like this one. With your support, we will be able to finish the game ourselves and give you a truly amazing experience.”

Welcome to the weekly roundup of free indie games, this week I’ve found quite a few awesome retro inspired titles to have fun with. The games this week have ranged from zombie shooters to side scrolling shooters and pretty much everything in between.

As always clicking the title will take you to the original article whilst clicking the image will take you to the game.

Monday: ’Atomic’ A Minimalistic Fast Paced Arcade Game

Atomic is an interesting arcade game that has taken a great deal of influence from Super Hexagon along with bullet hell games. Atomic combines the two very different styles of games together to create this fast paced arcade title that is a great little time waster.

Tuesday: ’Zombie Grinder’ A Lovingly Created Zombie Arcade Shooter

Zombie Grinder  is a great little multiplayer zombie shoot em up in which  you must battle through the unrelenting hordes of the undead to try and reach new high scores and unlock new items. Although still in the beta stages Zombie Grinder already offers a great deal with a great selection of maps and modes to keep you busy for several hours.

Wednesday: ’Maldita Castilla’ A Supernatural Sidescroller

This one is for all of you who played the classic side scrollers back in the 80-90s as Maldita Castilla aims to bring back what made this decade of gaming great. Along with awesome visuals expect compelling gameplay that really does throw back to the golden age of gaming.

Thursday: ’Bat Country’ Giant Mutant Bats Can Put A Damper On Your Day

Who would’ve thought that a helicopter could get taken down by a swarm of giant bats? Although this may sound implausible it does end in some rather interesting results. Bat Country is all about the old style arcade flight games with strange stories and a distinct pixel art style that although  rather simplistic is also elegant.

Friday:  ’Endless Forms Most Beautiful’ A Beautifully Recreated Spectrum Game

Endless Forms Most Beautiful is a PC port of the original Spectrum game and  thus feeds into the retro vibe of the week. Each level consists of just one screen in which you must pick up all of the mushrooms before the enemy get you. Although the idea is simple actually obtaining  all of the mushrooms can be very challenging especially on the later levels when ranged enemies get introduced.

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This brings us to the end of another week in indie gaming. I hope you have all enjoyed the games that I have selected this week. Please come back tomorrow for an all new game and the start of a new week of Indie Intermission.

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!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Intermission Sunday Round Up – A Mostly Retro Week

New text-based Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck arrives for all platforms today. In this interactive fiction game, players join the crew of the starship Lady Luck, and take on the role of a hyperspace pirate or a Galactic Police operative  working to stop their illegal activities. This is an interactive adventure novel by Christopher Brendel, using ChoiceScript to create interactions and reactions.  Players are presented with an event in the game narrative, and chose one of several text options to proceed.

Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck follows To The City In The Clouds, Heroes Rise: The Prodigy, Choice of the Star Captain, and many other popular Choice Of Games. In this game, as in Choice of Games’ previous titles, players are able to choose their protagonist’s gender, making an accessible and inclusive IF experience. Like all over-interactive fiction titles, Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck’s focus is on game narrative, but the game also uses traditional adventure game elements like exploring different areas,  collecting useful items (Translation for folks who didn’t grow up on Sierra games: That means stealing everything that is not nailed down.) and using one’s inventory to solve puzzles.  Christopher Brendel’s previous indie game releases include Lifestream and The Filmmaker.

Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck is available for iOS devices, Android, Kindle, and for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can get Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck on the Choice of Games site, the App Store or Google Play.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – New Text-Based Adventure ‘Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck’ Out Now