Spring is coming for Northern Hemisphere dwellers, and the Indie Royale folks know just how to mark the occasion – with a new bundle, of course.

Coming just two weeks after the somewhat untimely April Fools Bundle, the Indie Royale Spring Bundle brings us six more games at a pay-what-you-like rate. Here’s what’s up for grabs this time round:

. Unstoppable Gorg (Futuremark) OUR REVIEW

. Depths of Peril (Soldak)

. Tobe’s Vertical Adventure (Secret Base) OUR REVIEW

. Inferno+ (RadianGames) OUR REVIEW

. Slydris (RadianGames) OUR REVIEW

. Ballistic (RadianGames) OUR REVIEW

Unstoppable Gorg, Depths of Peril and Tobe’s Vertical Adventure will all be redeemable through Steam, and you might recognise the three RadianGames products as components of the Quadtastic Launch Collection. Either way, you’ve got your almost obligatory tower defense game, an RPG, a 2D-platformer, two twin-stick shooters and a block-based puzzle game, all for the minimum price of £2.61 (subject to change as the average donation rises or falls).

Donors of more than $5 will also receive Danimal Cannon’s ‘Root’ album in digital form. It’s described as “one of the most acclaimed chiptune releases of 2011,” which sounds more than just a little bit smooth. If you’re interested in making a purchase, go to the official Indie Royale site before the closing date of 25th April.

Radiangames hit the XBLIG scene in 2010 with debut title Joy Joy, and has since been on a development tour de force, releasing a myriad of slick arcade-style shooters while migrating the dev’s various offerings (whether old, new, or upgraded) onto PC/Mac and iOS platforms as well. Luke Schneider, the mastermind behind it all, stops in to update us on the just released Quadtastic Collection, some reflection on marketing experimentation, and where he’s looking to go both platform-wise and genre-wise next.

Somebody needs to tell Luke, the owner/developer behind radiangames, to slow down! I’m not exactly sure how his development cycle works, but cranking out four games has got to be taxing on one’s creative soul. Normally it would be easy to write these off as mediocre games, but with radiangames I’m inclined they’ll be similar to his past projects and by that I mean they’ll be really good.

Radian Games brings news of Inferno+, an upgraded version of the XBLIG twin-stick gem targeted for PC and Mac “soon.”

How soon? Unfortunately that’s not clear at the moment, but one might guess in the next month or so given the clues. Whenever it does arrive, it’ll be a single player affair boasting additions and improvements from the vanilla 360 version.

radiangames’ was easily one of the premeir, best of the best, Xbox Live Indie Game developers out there. He made games so slick, colorful, fun and professional for XBLIG that more often than not you could easily convince watchers that it was an XBLA game. Over the course of a year Luke Schneider released seven amazing games for Microsoft’s indie venture… and then he was done.

Unfortunately, despite the amazing-ness of the titles, XBLIG simply wasn’t a viable platform. It still isn’t for many developers. As such Luke is now bringing his expertise to another popular indie destination: iOS.

This Thursday marks the first radiangames release post-XBLIG and it’s as a continuation of one of my favorite radiangames classics: Crossfire. The appropriately titled Super Crossfire (for iPhone and iPod Touch) and Super Crossfire HD (iPad) will launch on Appl’es devices for a scant $0.99 and $2.99 respectively.

Here’s a bit about the game:

Super Crossfire is an intense shooter with a distinct twist: Players can warp between the bottom and top of the screen at any time. Combined with a massive upgrade system, intense gameplay, visuals, and audio, and a huge variety of enemy types and waves, Super Crossfire is the next evolution in the arcade shooter genre.

Personally, being a fan of radiangames and a huge Android proponent, I hope Super Crossfire also makes it’s way to the Googlier side of the smart phone spectrum. But even if it doesn’t I’m simply happy radiangames is back making fantastic games. Here’s hoping we see many more in the future.

[radiangames]

Folks, it looks like Radiangames’ Bizarro Sale, which offers 7 of Radiangames’ popular titles for 80 MSP ($1) each, will be around for a couple more days, till June 28th — so get on it! After the sale is over, all of the games will be sold at 400 MSP ($5) which, albeit kind of strange, suits us just fine considering you should really jump at the opportunity of getting the Radiangames titles for a buck each.

Developer Luke Schneider released all seven games throughout an 11-month span and managed to rack up some impressive numbers with over 155,000 downloads and over 43,000 sales. (There’s even a post-mortem on Gamasutra for them!) Also from now until June 28th, each game’s soundtrack is available at $0.99, down 50% from its regular price of $1.99. The price increases that follow the sale on June 28th will be permanent.

Again, all 7 games will be 80 MSP each and each game’s soundtrack will be $0.99 as well until June 28th. Get on it!

[Radiangames]

Well, it joined the Indie Winter Uprising weeks ago,but now it’s available for purchase and download.

Radiangames sequel to the first game in their monthly release calendar is now in the Xbox Live marketplace for 80 Microsoft Points, a mere pittance for what the game is actually worth.

Luke Schneider, the face behind Radiangames, has released one game every month for the past six months. And they’re all good. And worth more than a dollar.

Here’s the official marketplace link.

And here’s the launch trailer to get you excited:

Radiangames has announced the release of their latest XBLIG title Fireball, now available on the Marketplace for just $1 (80 MS Points). The game is an arena shooter comparable to the highly addictive ‘Pacifism Mode’ in Geometry Wars 2, but more evolved and expanded upon.

The fifth effort by the developer, Fireball has you controlling the titular flamer working to dodge the ice swarm, triggering explosions to destroy enemies and rack up combos.  As always, a trial version of the Indie Games channel release can be had as well to ensure that your dollar will be well spent.

Shame the game doesn’t include some form of co-op, though leaderboards for yourself, your friends and globally are introduced for the first time in the developer’s games.

It’s also worth note that sequels Crossfire 2 and Inferno 2 have been confirmed and are set for December releases. Before the holidays I hope, they’ll deserve a vacation as RG will have released a whopping seven titles in seven months if they stay on schedule.

Where would Xbox Live Indie Games be without Radiangames, eh? It would be missing out on a lovely range of twin-stick and arena shooters, that’s for sure. The gorgeous JoyJoy, the mental Crossfire and the wonderful Inferno – all games you should definitely have on your Xbox 360.

Now here’s comes the fourth in the series, and it’s a little bit different. It’s still an arena shooter of sorts… just without the shooting. Like a Radiangames take on Pacman, Fluid is really clever stuff, with plenty of medals and extra levels to unlock. It’s a little on the short side, but this is yet another beautiful experience to get your Xbox purring like a kitten.

GAMEPLAY

The idea on each level is simple – collect all the glowing orbs in the quickest time possible. Your only control is the left stick, moving your fish-like friend around and colliding with orbs to collect them. OK, maybe it’s not that simple – every time you collect an orb, a nice jellyfish thing spawns, and if you bump into one of these, you’re a dead fishy.

There are a few ways to deal with jellyfish. First off, you can swim away as fast as your little fins will let you. On many levels, escaping is your only option, and dodging around all the jellies can be tense stuff. Then there are a couple of powerups to collect – one of them acts as a whirlpool and sucks all the jellyfish in for a short while, and the other turns you into a huge fish, so you can crush the jellies for a few seconds.

It’s such a simple premise, and yet it feels so great to play. Levels start off stupidly easy, but by the end you’ll be engulfed by jellyfish all over the place and need to work out the best routes to take to grab all the orbs before a jelly gets you. There are also time trial levels, where jellyfish don’t appear – instead, you need to grab every orb before the time runs out.

There’s a huge emphasis on being speedy too. After completing a level, you’re given a rating out of 5 stars depending on how fast you were. Beating your times is insanely addictive, especially since some of the first levels are quite short. Grabbing enough stars also allows you to open up five special levels at the end, adding to the replay value.

Unfortunately, it’s also replay value where Fluid falls down the most. This game is incredibly short – it’ll take you around thirty minutes to beat every level, and then most likely only another thirty before you become bored of grabbing more medals. Yet it still feels well worth playing, especially for the $1 asking price, so we won’t linger on the length of the game.

STYLE

As with all the Radiangames titles, Fluid is what you’d call ‘a looker’. There are lovely ripple effects on show as your fish swims about the place, and everything glows satisfyingless. Every Radiangames title seems to be even more beautiful than the last, and Fluid definitely keeps this trend going.

There are some brilliant interface ideas as well – the level select menu sees you swimming on top of the level you want to play, rather than just having a boring menu as per the usual XBLIG title. The Marketplace needs far more developers trying out great little ideas like this.

STORY

Yet again carrying on a Radiangames tradition, there is no story. Everything is incredibly abstract – we don’t know who the black fishy thing is, why there are jellyfish, why you’re collecting orbs – but perhaps it’s better left this way.

OTHER

Radiangames Fluid is yet another gorgeous Luke Schneider title to add to your Xbox Live Indie Games Collection. It may be on the short side, but it’s an experience worth partaking in, and you’ll be fully immersed for the entire duration.

Is it the best Radiangames title to date? Possibly not – we did love Inferno a bit too much – but it’s still well worth 80 MS Points. Grab this and be happy.

Try/Buy

Luke Schneider of Radiangames has just announced that its XBLIG space shooter Crossfire has received some updates and the price is dropping down to $1 (80 Microsoft Points).

The changes include two new modifiers:  Speed Reduction and Better Damage.

“Speed Reduction reduces the enemy movement speed and firing rate by a significant amount. Better Damage increases the damage you do by a large amount (2.5x to be exact).  You can turn these modifiers on/off in the pause menu in any mode.”

Luke also mentioned that the balance has been changed: “Overall enemy movement speeds have been adjusted, so that the first 10 or so waves move faster, and the last 25 or so waves move slower.”

The ending of the game was also tweaked and arcade stick support now works better.

And the key to the whole thing is the fantastic price drop. Here’s the official Xbox page for the game.

It’s great to see developers supporting their games well beyond release. If you missed the review the first time, check out what Mike had to say about Crossfire (pre-update).

Here’s a screenshot of the new pause screen where you can access your Modifiers.