The Unmechanical Team is proud to announce that their game, Unmechanical, has sold over 100,000 copies since its release, last August.

To celebrate this milestone, the team has made room for a number of promotions.

Currently, Unmechanical is being promoted on Indie Game Stand, for a pay-what-you-want price. With a little less than two days left, buyers can get Unmechanical at whatever price they feel is fair. Buyers who beat the average (currently $1.24) will get the game’s original soundtrack and two unique early-build prototypes.

A more permanent discount comes in the form of Unmechanical Begins, an iOS exclusive version that is broken into four parts. Players can download and try the first chapter absolutely free, and if interested, can opt to pay $.99 for the remaining chapters.

Unmechanical is a puzzle platformer that features over thirty logic/physics/memory-based puzzles. We previously reviewed Unmechanical, and gave it a 70%, enjoying its challenging puzzles, dark atmosphere and soundtrack, but finding fault in the game’s lack of story direction, overall length (too short), and some physics-based bugs.

From the review: …despite its flaws, Unmechanical is worthy of a night of gaming. No, it will not have you yearning for another playthrough, but it is a pure puzzle game. Those riddles are coupled with an outstanding soundtrack and awe-inspiring visuals, and if you can overlook the flaws and focus on the ideas you are in for a great experience, because most important is that the game is enjoyable, even if it is not motivational.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Unmechanical’ Sells 100,000 Copies, Celebrates With Sales

Kachina was one of my favorite games that I played at the Media Indie Exchange Mixer during GDC.  The game is made by Ben Esposito, who helped with the visuals of Unfinished Swan.  He opted to leave Giant Sparrow after he put together the prototype for Kachina during Molyjam.  The game is described as a physics based toy drawing from Hopi Native American culture.

The game has a unique look that blends Katarmi Damacy’s bright 3D look with a flat minimalist 2D color palette.  Kachina can best be described as a sandbox puzzle game.  In the game, you control a hole.  That’s right you play as a magical hole in the ground.  You move the hole around with the mouse or by touching the screen and eat up objects in the play field.  As objects plummet into the pit, the hole increases in size.  The challenge of the game is figuring out how objects interact with one another and solving each scene’s puzzle.

Each level has its own unique objective. Sometimes it’s as easy as swallowing up everything in sight, but most are more complex. One puzzle required me to help the chickens cross the road.  In Kachina, this is achieved by sucking them down into your magical abyss and then spitting them out on the other side of the road.  Don’t let the simple mechanics fool you, Kachina does a good job of introducing new objects that keep things interesting and fun.  Frogs latch onto things or can eat flies with their tongue and later you can even fill your hole with water and spit it up to saturate a cloud.

Kachina is being developed for PC, Mac and iOS in Ben’s spare time.  Check out the official Kachina page to keep up to date on this game’s progress.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – GDC Preview: Kachina – Sandbox Physics where you’re the Hole

Kudos to the sagely Pixel Prospector for spotting this one. If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt over the past decade of gaming, it’s that physics make everything better. From the earliest, wobbliest ragdoll death animations to splooshy fluid dynamics and even just small details like sparks from impacts skittering across the floor. I’ve also learnt that retro mash-ups are rad. Frank Force’s Faster Blaster (formerly known as Mother Lover) is doubleplus extra badical, for these reasons. Take one part Metroid, one part Blaster Master and 9.8g’s of physics, shake (not stir) and serve on the rocks.

There’s no plot to speak of here, but let’s just assume that the miraculous super-tank Sophia The 3rd got lost (should’a taken that left turn at Albuquerque) and ended up on Planet Zebes and decided to explore a little and maybe kill Mother Brain. Also, physics. I don’t really know how to explain the lack of abstract 8-bit movement, but let’s not think too hard about that. Faster Blaster is still officially in development, but the current beta build is largely feature-complete and well worth playing. What you’ve got here is a great big non-linear game-world filled with critters to shoot, platforms to jump on and secrets to find. Metroid, really. But with a tank. And physics.

You’ve also got a lot more to master, controls-wise. Clearing larger jumps is a matter of building up speed and ramping off ledges, and landing needs to be controlled with your brakes or you can end up overshooting the mark. You have semi-limited ammo for your main gun, too. It continually recharges, and the first shot has a little extra kick to it, but every shell launches in an arc affected by your momentum. Later, you get your standard range of Metroid-style upgrades, from basic health extensions to extra weapons. The classic Metroid missile launcher has been upgraded to a manually guided fly-by-wire design, and there’s an even more physics-oriented ‘digger’ gun to excavate your way into new caverns.

The concept is solid for the most part, although controlling your tank takes some time to master, especially given the floaty (jet-assisted?) jumping, and just how easy it is to snag yourself on the corner of a platform and bounce helplessly off. Still, for every moment of frustration there’s one of equal satisfaction. Nailing a fast-moving flying enemy by accelerating your own shot through movement is strangely reminiscent of Starsiege: Tribes. While the game boasts full analogue gamepad support, it’s probably best to use mouse and keyboard. The extra precision with aiming matters when your ammo is semi-limited and that first shot counts more than the rest.

Faster Blaster is available (in beta) now, weighs in at a tiny 8mb download, and should run on just about any PC from the past six years. The engine the game runs on seems smooth and well-optimized, although that shouldn’t be too surprising, given the retro nature of it all.

Now here’s a question for you eagle-brained (and presumably elephant-eyed) folks in the community: Are there any other retro + physics mash-ups that you can think of? Mario-Portal blend MariO springs to mind, but are there any other notable hybrids that we might have missed? Feel free to share, comment, heckle or otherwise make noise in the comments box below.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Freeware Game Pick – ‘Faster Blaster’

Often players are limited to the set functions of the surrounding world. There are those nagging realities of gravity, physical limitations, an inability to traverse intergalactic distances by the snapping of fingers.  Even if one of these limitations is taken away, we are then subject to the limitations of which limitations are not given to us. Make any sense? No? Well, the traditional linearity and limits of the world around us are obstacles to which 3 Core Studio do not make themselves vulnerable with Pulse Shift.

In Pulse Shift, a 3D puzzle platformer, the players are given one goal, which is to reach the arrow at the end of the stage as quickly as possible; however, the way to get there is entirely up to the player. Players are given the tools to manipulate physics to reach a destination.  The world becomes a physics play toy as players reduce the affects of gravity, turn the world, visualize the invisible, and reverse or freeze time. Players can thus conquer levels through these different means.

Enemies in Pulse Shift are more environmental than they are true physical enemies. Lasers and falling pose the most serious of threats, but are avoided through the manipulation of time and space. If players do happen to fall or hit they must reverse time so as to avoid death. The time reversals are limited though by a regenreative bar in the upper left hand corner of the display. If the bar is not full players cannot reverse time and if that fateful moment comes as the player is plummeting into infinity, then the level must be restarted.

Pulse Shift promises to be a mind-warping 3D puzzle platforming experience and you can check it out at multiple places. First of all, look at 3 Core Studio’s official website. Second, go to Desura and download the alpha demo. Then if you dig it purchase the alpha version for 6.99 (30% off).  For future info on Pulse Shift, as well as all your indie gaming news, reviews, editorials, and interviews keep your internet dial tuned in to Indiegamemag.com. What’s that? There are no internet dials? Then use the remote.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Pulse Shift’: Screw Physics, Let’s Platform

While the game is likely going to be available in classic DRM-free format via the Humble Store, it has already been confirmed that if you bought the game previously – either via the Humble Bundle it was featured in, or direct from the developer – that you’ll be getting a Steam activation key, too. One feature that won’t quite make launch, but is due shortly afterwards is Steam Workshop support, providing a built-in infrastructure for distributing and downloading the hundreds (if not thousands) of mods the game has already spawned.

No matter your feelings on the game, it’s been a long time coming, and there’s undeniably a strong and dedicated fanbase behind it, already producing everything from small weapons mods to full total conversions, complete with their own campaign structures and stories. You can read more about the game on the official site here, and see the developer himself explaining the ins and outs of the dynamic campaign mode in the extensive gameplay video above. We’ll be picking apart the finished product when it releases sometime in the next week or two.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – The Final Stretch – ‘Cortex Command’ V1.0 Releasing This Month, Also On Steam

Little Dragon 3D is described as a physics-based gliding game, but from the looks of the trailer, this is hardly a typical flinging-objects physics game. Instead, players learn to master the effects of wind resistance, lift, gravity and drift in the air as they learn and improve at dragon flight. Once the adorable little dragon is a competent flyer, players will have new flying challenges, with different maps and obstacles. Some are pre-existing levels, and some are randomly generated, but allare  composed of these eye-catching cell-shaded environments.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Take Flight With Sweet ‘Little Dragon 3D’

As PAX prime approaches, more screens and info about Klei’s puzzle sequel have started to emerge.  Like it’s predecessor, eets looks to be a physics puzzle game where you must help eets devour some delicious cake and acquire the puzzle piece of each level.  New screens and concept art reveal that a lot of similar game mechanics will return such as the inhale whale.

The game looks to boast very similar mechanics where you can pause, play and fast-forward time but will not be controlling eets directly.  Instead, you place objects in the environment to influence eets and the path that he will take around the level to reach the goal puzzle piece.  The game has not been officially announced on any platform, but we’ve seen demos on iPads, Google machines, etc.  Our guess is that it will be coming to tablet devices along with PC/Mac.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Eets: Munchies coming to PAX Prime

Chucklefish’s Starbound has been rapidly clawing its way up my ‘most wanted’ list, and this latest development video makes me want it even more. Billed as being kinda like Terraria, but going much further with the idea of procedurally generated worlds and creatures, they seem to be trying to cram in everything and the kitchen sink as far as features go. One key feature has been mentioned a few times, but never really demo’d until now. Here’s some teaser footage showing off how water behaves in the game:

Impressive stuff, with the flow of water able to drag players around, and pressures of various levels being possible. With sufficient mechanical parts, you could probably create some impressive water-powered machinery. You can read more about it in this official dev-blog update. The developers are also keen to point out that they were running that test online, and despite the players being spread out across three countries and two continents, nobody was experiencing any lag.

The ‘blocky’ look of the flowing water is just a placeholder effect, and apparently it’ll look a little more liquid-like in the final build. On that note, there’s no release date set on the game yet, although I’d be quite surprised if we didn’t see the first publicly playable builds released by the end of the year. We’ll be keeping a very close eye on this one as it develops.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Terraria Successor ‘Starbound’ Boasts Fluid Dynamics, Slick Netcode

At first there was Tiggit, and now there’s Indiegame Garden which takes the principal idea of collating free indie PC games into one place for your downloading convenience. The difference? Well it’s a lot prettier and as your games download they “grow” as if blossoming flowers. The downloader essentially attempts to win us over by playing soothing music in our ears and offering a flowery pink interface before our eyes. Has it won us over? Um, yes actually. It’s quite lovely. Needs a few more games in the library and a way to download them without having to be in the program at all times, but other than that, yes.

Not only does the Garden help out you bored lonely types who can’t find a decent free game to interest your a period of time, but it also does the developers of these games a service too. It does this through displaying a little bit of information about the game and a direct link to the website for those interested further either in the game or the developer. They even help promote artists of the musical variety as they play some of their music to you, and give information about it and the rest of the music on offer for you.

The games are what matters though and there’s quite the range in there, including MineStein (a Wolfenstein 3D/Minecraft mashup), the classic 8-Bit Killer, Mario and some spin-offs, Crayon Physics, a couple of Vlambeer titles and plenty courtesy of Glorious Train Wrecks as well. The interface needs a mention too. You use the arrow keys to move around but the cool part is holding down Enter to make your game/flower grow – not sure why but it’s quite satisfying, as if you were watering a dried up indie game or something.

You can download Indiegame Garden for Windows by clicking on this link. Do remember that it’s still in alpha though and more updates are on the way. More information on the official website.