Today’s game of choice is from Codebrush Games, a small South Korean indie development team who have been working tirelessly on Archeblade, a brand new style of MOBA game.

The company manage to cross elements from beat em up titles like Street Fighter with MOBA elements found in games such as Bloodline Champions. Although initially these genres may not seem a likely pairing after you give the game a go you will see just how well they can fit together under the right circumstances.

The game is fast paced and is a great deal of fun from start to finish with a rather wide selection of characters to pick the variety here is just great. Although the current map pool is a little limited the game in its current incarnation really is a great deal of fun and if you enjoy beat em ups or MOBAs then this might just be fore you.

Average play time – 30 minutes

Archeblade has been in development for sometime and I have followed the development quite closely so I am very happy to see Codebrush Games finally release at least an early access version of the game. Due to the game still being in development expect a lot of updates and no doubt a fair amount of changes but none the less Archeblade is a great new style of multiplayer game.

Archeblade can be downloaded Via Steam for free now, if you would like to find out more about Codebrush Games check out their site.

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 – ‘Archeblade’ Not Your Average Beat Em Up

Today, Ronimo Games revealed the tenth member of the Awesomenauts team to be Skølldir, a melee-tank brute.

Formerly known as, “Skølldir the Terrible Space Viking,” he raided his way across the galaxy, leaving spaceports, cargo ships, and grocery stores smoldering in his wake. His legendary thirst for battle is unquenchable. Because Skølldir subscribes to the tradition that a great feast should follow a great battle, Skølldir eventually became renamed to ” Skølldir the Terribly Overweight Space Viking” by his peers. Needless to say, this nickname doesn’t fly with this Viking.

To make up for such a depressing title, Skølldir has set out, to reclaim his original title by proving to the galaxy that he still is a capable, and agile, combatant. Anyone foolish enough to tell him otherwise quickly finds themselves crippled and thrown aside.

Ronimo Games warns: “If you find yourself on the battlefield, and hear the sound of crushing bones and thunderous farts in the distance, flee, as Skølldir’s fury is upon you!”

Skølldir is voiced by Simon Lane, from The Yogscast gaming channel. Simon used his Space Dwarf/ Viking impression for the voice of Skølldir. Just like all of the other Awesomenauts, Skølldir comes with his own soundtrack, powerful items, devastating attacks, and unique Honeydew skin.

Awesomenauts was released last May on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and was brought to Windows August 1st. Skølldir is the second character to be added to Awesomenauts, following Gnaw, the alien-dog-thing.

Follow the developers on Twtter: @RonimoGames

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – New ‘Awesomenaut’ Revealed: Skølldir the Space Viking

Good news for fans of Ronimo Games’ Awesomenauts: The self-described “3-on-3 sidescrolling MOBA” and one of the contenders for “Game With the Best Title Ever” award has just recieved a set of DLC skins that add even more character to the already pretty crazy combatants in the game. Since everyone knows that talk is so cheap as to be basically worthless – like the German Papiermark, in the 1920′s – you can see the skins in action in the Youtube trailer below, instead of taking just my word for it that the skins are all pretty darn cool.

Awesomeness is subjective of course, But seriously, you don’t get to have a name like Awesomenauts without at least someone thinking what you do is pretty rad, right?

You can buy the skins individually for $2.50 apiece, in packs of 3 for $5.99 (Froggy G’s Grandmaster Splash, Gnaw’s Bumble Gnaw and Derpl Zork’s Hotrod Derpl as one pack, Voltar’s Disco Voltar, Leon Chameleon’s Mousquetiere Leon, and Yuri’s Kosmonaut Yuri as another, and Lonestar’s Officer Lonestar, Coco’s Coco Hawaii, and Clunk’s Replaceable Clunk rounding it out in the final pack) or a bundle of all nine skins for $14.99.

If you only have one character you play as, then $2.50 will have you covered; but if you have multiple characters that you dig, the $14.99 bundle works out to about a buck less per character, and if you play your cards right, that $9 you saved can keep you eating like a king off of your fast food dollar menu of choice for another few days.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Awesomenauts DLC Skin Packs Released, Are Appropriately Awesome.

Archeblade is the first game by South Korean Developer Codebrush Games which has recently started its closed beta proving to be shaping up rather well as i mentioned in my previous article. After having a great deal of fun in the beta I found I was left with many questions about where this game was going and how it would end up looking by the release next year, so I shot Codebrush Games an e-mail contain many of my queries. I was shocked when they got back to me almost immediately with every question answered so I can not commend them enough for getting back to me so promptly, below are the questions I asked along with the resposes from Codebrush Games.

The first point I noticed whilst on the beta was how you would gain experience points in game from kills and captures but in the beta these points had no apparent use, I theorized that these points could contribute to a leveling system or matchmaking potential.

Codebrush Games We have not yet settled on how the experience system will factor into Archblade although we do not intend to have a leveling system, the most likely use for the experience system will be for achievements or player matchmaking. However use of experience for matchmaking will completely depend on the size of the player base, as it makes sense to use it for great numbers of players but feels irrelevant for a small player base.

The beta currently contains 10 character choices however I was curious about how many we will expect to see in the release build, especially as the current selection seem to of been developed to contain a lot of depth within each character.

Codebrush Games As we are still only an indie company the resources are already quite stretched, however we do intend for at least some additional characters to be implemented into the final build. The numbers depend greatly on how other important areas develop prior to release.

As Archeblade takes a leaf out of MOBA style games, which commonly publish new heros frequently I did wonder if it would be the same with Archeblade especially as this is often a source of revenue along with being a common way to retain the player base.

Codebrush Games Many games offer this dynamic and we will be no different, we will be developing a wealth of new characters each with their own unique abilities to help factor into ever more dynamic teams. We will be adding way to heal your team along with stealthing abilities allowing you to sneak up on unprepared enemies, with more ideas constantly being formulated.

One of the biggest take aways for me from Archeblade was how each character seemed to feel very unique, containing vastly different mechanics yet the gameplay felt rather balanced, clearly this takes a lot of development but how was it achieved.

Codebrush Games We play the game a lot and discuss character balance continually. Balance is always hard and a key factor in any competitive game however we test every possibility of the characters from longer, shorter, stronger, weaker, larger continually back and forth until we start to see balance. The beta of course will provide much more information on how we can better balance Archeblade and we hope the community will give us some very constructive feedback.

I couldn’t help but feel that Archeblade could easily lend itself to a passive talent system or a way to alter the load out, to perhaps add a little bit more variety into the game.

Codebrush Games We currently have no plans to add a talent system however we are currently working on special skills for each character that factor into the F key rage skills, creating an even more unique feel to the characters. An example of one these abilities can be seen below.

The current beta build has only two maps available to play each with only one game type I was curious to find out if the final release build would have more maps and if the maps would be less specialised and contain more than one game type per map.

Codebrush Games We have plans to add additional maps when possible though being an indie developer it can be difficult to produce all the content at once. As for the maps each map contains a different game goal, working on a similar concept to that of WOW’s battlegrounds.

The idea to cross Beat ‘Em Up’s with MOBA gameplay seems quite an inspired one and one not many people would think of, I was very interested to know what really inspired Codebrush Games to cross these very different genres.

Codebrush Games The simple answer is we all love to play both fighting and MOBA, the thing we had to keep in mind was which factors from both genres would work together and which had to be dropped allowing us to create the current hybrid in Archeblade.

As i mentioned in my beta preview article I believe Archblade has potential to be a new E-Sports title due to the short duration; the fact it is from a South Korean development team and the LAN support, would this factor into Archeblade.

Codebrush Games The short duration of the games makes for very intense gameplay and we believe that Archeblade has potential to become an E-Sports title. However for this to occur we may need to add or optimize many aspects in the game to fine tune it for the E-Sports market, though if the day does come for Archeblade to making the leap into E-Sports we’ll be performing a Gangnam style dance.

With the gameplay of Archeblade being a cross of MOBA and fighting I couldn’t help but look at this game and think controller support may be a nice additional feature for players to have, considering how many fighting games are produced for controllers over keyboard and mouse.

Codebrush Games We have tried and tested controllers within Archeblade but have came to the conclusion that controllers would not be a viable solution. The fact of the matter is controllers seemed to leave the players at a distinct disadvantage compared to keyboard and mouse players. We noticed this to an extent that in our tests no players using controllers ever won against a keyboard and mouse player.

Due to the nature that many of the games that Archeblade is modeled off offer microtransactions and with Archeblade being released as a free to play game it seemed almost inevitable that it would indeed follow this popular model.

Codebrush Games We are currently working on the game store which works in conjunction with Steam money. We expect it to offer various items for purchase such as character unlocks, skins and so on.

The current beta system for matchmaking has very much a casual feel drop in, drop out model which works perfectly for the more casual end of the market. This said Archeblade feels like it is a game that will have a strong hardcore competitive market so will there be more of a tournament system to cater for this market.

Codebrush Games As we are only a small indie team and we are currently working to get as many features implemented in the game before the release next year the idea of a more hardcore competitive mode is something we would be willing to work on and implement if and when the players want it.

I hope that this session sheds more light on Archeblade and explores a little more about the direction Codebrush Games are moving with their game. Archeblade is scheduled for a March release of next year on Steam and will be free to play. I would like to greatly thank Codebrush Games for the prompt reply along with the seeming full disclosure about Archeblade and hope this answers some of the communities questions. Be sure to check back to The Indie Game Magazine for all the latest on Archeblade as and when it develops.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – IGM Exclusive Q&A Session with Codebrush Games on ‘Archeblade’

Archeblade is the debut title from new indie developer CodeBrush Games attempting to take the next step in the fighting games genre with this interesting re-imagining of the system moving over to a third person perspective in this free to play online title coming exclusively to the PC. It seems the market CodeBrush Games is aiming for is going to be players of classic fighting games such as Tekken and Street Fighter but will no doubt attract may gamers from the Action-RTS scene as well.  CodeBrush Games  founded by S.B Jin in 2008 is a South Korean based indie developer made up of 12 employees who have been developing Archeblade for almost four years with an estimated release date in March of 2013. Below is the Archeblade trailer showing some very interesting in game footage:

From the outset Archeblade will have 10 characters available, each of which will be able to perform combo skills in a similar way to that of conventional fighting games drawing on the use of nine keyboard and mouse buttons to fulfill these varied attacks. A major selling point in Archeblade is a focus on the characters strong personalities based on the novel also called Archeblade and as you would expect from a game which draws heavy influences from a novel the game will contain a strong story line engrossing the players and drawing them into the game’s world creating a very compelling gaming experience.

The battles are estimated to last only 10 – 20 minutes allowing for even the most busy and casual gamers to get in a good few games daily whilst still allowing them to have a great deal of fun with in the game, yet still allowing the more hardcore scene room to grow in a fast paced battle experience. The battlegrounds themselves will contain game modes including: Team Deathmatch, Capture the Pylon and Free for All making for a more diverse selection of battles similar to traditional FPS titles.

Archeblade looks a promising new concept in the fighting game genre drawing on new and different ideas and will be available via Steam in March of next year, there is however a closed beta running at the end of this month though the keys were snatch up in just two days of its announcement so anyone lucky enough to of received a key should enjoy looking at this new imaginative idea. For more future information on Archeblade be sure to check back to The Indie Game Magazine for news as it develops.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – A First Look at ‘Archeblade’ A New Style In Fighting Games

We reported on this revelation earlier in the month when the announcement came of a new PC-specific playable character for MOBA crowd pleaser, Awesomenauts. Well, that time is now come. Patch 1.3 brings with it today, amongst other things, the delightful Gnaw.

This creature is certainly not one that you’d invite round for dinner (unless you were suitably prepared for blood on the ceiling and vomit in your trifle). Nope, this one is built to menace, infesting the place with ‘slimy goo and flesh eating plants’. Delicious. Here it is in action:

The patch press release shines a light on a particularly fun development for those players feeling compelled to cheat online. In a move seemingly popularised by the latest Max Payne release, Ronimo Games have jubilantly announced that their ‘ima-cheater-and-I-wanna-play-against-my-cheating-buddies-league’ is up and running and enforced in matchmaking for those looking to spoil the fun for others.

There’s always a warm feeling when free DLC comes to town, warmer still from the PC gamers who are getting it alone. So, it’s worth noting that Ronimo aren’t planning on stopping. The Steam release appears to have been an overwhelming success with over half-a-million games played within the opening three weeks. It seems that this will be rewarded as the developer promises further characters and features on a regular basis. Should keep things very interesting indeed.

For further info, check out the main site, here. And, if you haven’t yet made the jump into Awesomenauts, feel free to do so, right here.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Awesomenauts’ Gets Awesomer – Patch 1.3 Adds Gnaw

Kiz Studios has announced that their free-to-play MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena), SmashMuck Champions, will be entering closed beta on May 29th.

The arena has long been a place of ferocious battle, of death and decay, but SmashMuck Champions adds a bit of sparkle to such a symbolic battle pit. With a cartoon visage, 10 playable characters and four different game modes; SmashMuck Champions might be the best zero dollars you’ve ever spent. Yes, it’s free-to-play but it’s only in its beta stage at the moment and as such you’ll need a beta key if you want in on May 29th when players can have a bash at each other.

We’ve told you about the beta keys before so hopefully you already have one. If you don’t, then there are to be some giveaways over the next few days on MMOBomb, MMOSite, FreeToPlay and other sites so keep an eye out. If you want to get a better look at the game then you can peer through the CGI of the pre-beta trailer below and see some decent looking gameplay.

You can register for SmashMuck Champions and find out more information over on the game’s official website.

PlayStation have confirmed that Awesomenauts will be released on PSN tomorrow as was planned despite the earlier uncertainty caused by the publisher’s unfortunate news.

In the words of Professor Farnsworth, “good news everyone”! Your faces may have sagged earlier when we reported on the uncertainty of Awesomenauts release tomorrow due to its publisher, dtp Entertainment, filing for insolvency. However, some of that sad tale has been elevated as PlayStation tweeted that the game will still be released on PSN as was originally planned.

That means it will still be free to PS Plus subscribers too. Of course, those who own just an Xbox 360 have no reason to breathe a sigh of relief yet as no news of the game’s planned XBLA release on May 2nd has arrived. Hence, whether it will also be released for the Xbox then or sometime further down the line, is still something no one can confirm or deny – we’ll just have to wait and see.

UPDATE: Awesomenauts will release on XBLA on May 2nd as planned. It seems that all of the commotion has been sorted out. No need to worry yourselves. Carry on!

More information on Awesomenauts can be found over on the game’s official website.

Thanks Joystiq!

Ronimo Games have announced the PSN and XBLA release dates for their upcoming, madcap 2D MOBA Awesomenauts, are we excited? Of course we are!

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na…AWESOMENAUTS! For some reason that seemed absolutely necessary. So Awesomenauts has a release date but before we get to that, let’s explain what the game is all about. Awesomenauts is 2D Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game which is designed for hyperactive and rather explosive 3v3 matches.

Each player will take control of one of six elite, intergalactic mercenaries in their battle with the opposition; battling with guns as well as the more exciting backstabbing chameleons, giant exploding robots and laser-wielding flying monkeys. Awesomenauts supports online and local multiplayer and features a very handy drop-in/ drop out system and will not require players to do any waiting in lobbies as AI will take the place of missing opponents or team mates.

You’ll be able to get your hands on Awesomenauts on May 1st for US PSN or on May 2nd everywhere else for PSN and XBLA. If you’re at PAX East over April 6-8th then you’ll be able to play Awesomenauts at Booth #754.

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