La-Mulana is going to be a great contender for WiiWare’s 2011 Game of the Year, if not Wii’s Game of the Year. Not to trivialize it, but Wii’s having a less than stellar 2011, as most developers seem to have moved onto the HD machine Nintendo will reveal at E3. Fortunately, WiiWare is seeing some great games while on its last leg. La-Mulana, one of those destined greats, is a archaeological historic ruin exploration action game, so it says in Japanese.

The enemy sprites look amazing: smoothly animated, colorful, and, at times, huge. The platforming action looks intense, as well. Check it out:

The trailer reveals that Japanese Wii owners can download the game on June 21 for 1200 Wii Points. Interested in up to date information on its release? Follow La-Mulana on the official website. Otherwise, check out some of the DIY coverage of the game, and go ahead and try the original version for download here.

What do you think of La-Mulana?

Source: Indie Games

One of the weird and wonderful main bosses from La-Mulana Wii.

Things were looking up late last year for the Wiiware port of Nigoro‘s classic PC platform/adventure/puzzle/exploration game La-Mulana, but things fell apart at the 11th hour as issues were discovered, and Nintendo rejected the submitted version. It’s been a few months, but the developers seem confident that they’ve got the kinks worked out. In a recent development blog post, they proudly proclaim ‘We will finish soon!’.

Sydney’s NNooo recently announced a new IP for the Wiiware service releasing in the second half of 2011. The story for the first chapter in retro arcade title escapeVektor is that Vektor has been imprisoned inside the Wii’s CPU. It must escape the CPU using the abilities it hacks. As the game progresses, old code and memories are unlocked which reveal more about Vektor’s past. This chapter will be the first in a series of escapeVektor games which will follow the adventures of Vektor inside the player’s Wii. There are 30 levels to the CPU each contained within 5 different worlds, filled with different enemies and obstacles.

The wiimote controls look delightfully simple: the directional pad controls movement, button 1 boosts, and button 2 detonates. Nnooo’s blog takes care to explain each button’s function. Boosting is somewhat easier to explain. Vektor builds boost by claiming new line sections, completing a line, and fully bordering a cell. Vektor uses boost to escape enemies and complete levels faster; completing a level faster yields a higher score.

The detonation ability builds when Vektor borders all the sides of a cell.The ability releases a shock wave that destroys enemies caught in its blast, and any fully bordered cells will be filled. Parts of this sound like an old arcade game called Qix.

Detonation should be used sparingly if players are going for a high score. The more cells filled at one time, the higher the score. However, if players border all the cells in a level without detonating, they will get a very high score.

If high scores aren’t enough to entice gamers, escapeVektor incorporates a medal and badge system, as well. The badges are a clever way to counteract Wii’s lack of achievement or trophy support. The game also has several modes: normal, eraser, and timed mode.

Will this be the next Bit.Trip-like WiiWare sensation? Probably. The game looks like it has been dipped in some zesty retro sauce; every element of this game looks covered with creativity and intrigue.

Dev Blog | Follow NNooo on Twitter @_Nnooo

James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot of BlinkWorks Media in Winnipeg, MB, Canada began advertising their project called Indie Game: The Movie last year. The film crew earned $8,000.00 over its Kickstarter target of $15,000.00 in just 48 hours. Needless to say, the indie community and beyond wanted this documentary to happen. The film is not only about indie games themselves, but also the developers and their craft. The team has chosen a select few indies to follow thoroughly their journeys and present them to the rest of the world.

The team is currently asking fans where screenings should be held. They have posted a specific screening blog post for interested persons to fill out. They seem to also encourage people who know anyone that can host such a venue or those persons in charge of such venues to leave contact information to make this screening dream a reality. They would like to have post-screening Q&A sessions, with hopefully a few developers from the movie tagging along.

The timing for all this indie stardom seems perfect. Big wigs IGN/Gamespy have taken some indies under their wings with Indie Open House. The current generation of consoles have paved the way for indies into millions of consumers’ homes thanks to WiiWare, XBLA/XBLIG, and PSN. Digital download services like Steam and Desura support indies even more today, as well.

But before all of this excitement and industry attention, there were indies making games for the love of games. The documentary crew picked up on this devotion. The film has been a critical success already in award shows. It won $5,000, taking home Pitchfest‘s Best Pitcher Award at the Westdoc Conference in Santa Monica, CA last year. There are several high profile indies featured in the film, as listed in Indie Superstar’s follow-up, including Adam Saltsman (Canabalt) and Jon Blow (Braid).

Do you want to see these guys on the big screen in your home town? Fill out screening blog post.

Source: Indie Game: The Movie

New Zealand-based Stickmen Studios has ported Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time for the WiiWare service at the cost of 1000 Wii Points. The game released on January 17. Those gamers who don’t play on the PC or missed out on buying Doc Clock on sale in Steam’s Indie Clever Pack last year can now enjoy the Doc’s crazy contraption building, platform traversing adventure on the Wii.

Players can immerse themselves in the Doc’s world of ingenious inventions with his contemptuous robot backpack Sack, time travel while dodging madly misguided techno-phobic hippy robots in a bid to save the Doc’s cat Franklin from being turned into a potted “catcus.” The last part makes for an incentive to lose at least once!  Check out the bizarre contraption building:

Some features of Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time include:

• INFINITE POSSIBILITIES… of building things.
• PLAY WITH TIME…  with the Time Slider.
• TROPHY COLLECTING… every good game needs these nowadays for the kids.

I was curious about the time manipulation, so I found this video:

Both videos boast similar BGM, so I can only assume that is representative of the in-game music. Based on the videos, I am both interested and scared by what I can build. The possibilities seem limitless, but certain parts seem to add very specific functionality. I’m hoping for a thorough tutorial or at least an explanation of each each piece’s attributes which will help me accomplish what I want it to do.

[WWWWW is a new recurring feature on DIY in an effort to support other consoles' download services. Fortunately or not, Nintendo has a much stricter release policy, so the wacky WiiWare weekend coverage may not happen as often. Stickmen Studios delivered us in the hands of their promotions company, so we should have a preview/review of the game soon.]

Stickmen Studios homepage
Doc Clock‘s own website, which even has tasty recipes

I had originally meant for this review to go live last week, but, unfortuantely, the holidays just got the better of me. I do hope that you didn’t take that to mean Frobot wasn’t a good game, however, as I’ve just finished playing my review copy and I came away thoroughly impressed with not only the gameplay, but also the aesthetic, characters and story… yes this game most certainly has a story.

Frobot, for those of you who haven’t seen it, can be summed up in a single word: funky. Everything about this game oozes with that sort of jive 1970s vibe that was so pervasive 40 years ago. While it might seem dated now, you can rest assured that reliving this fabled time of gold chains and jive turkeys is actually well worth the entry price, particularly if you always found yourself fond of a certain American detective named Shaft.

But enough about that let’s tackle what you’re probably really interested in, the gameplay.

I’ve mentioned this previously on this site multiple times, but I’ll say it again: the entire gameplay of Frobot is very similar to playing a the classic 2D Zelda temples. This, in my opinion is a fantastic gameplay structure as it creates a fun, puzzle atmosphere but without getting overly complicated for people who just want to play a game and not worry a third dimension as is now customary in modern Zelda titles.

The primary difference between Frobot‘s puzzle “temples” and Zelda‘s is that Frobot‘s puzzles aren’t contained to a singular room. What I mean by this is that you’ll habitually be dragging items from one screen to the next and back again in order to solve a puzzle. This ensures that no puzzle is too easy, aside from the very first few, of course.

Now, naturally, being a badass Frobot, the game hooks you up with an impressive arsenal to dispose of any enemies that you most definitely will come into contact with. You’ve got the traditional “pew pew” energy blast gun, remote mines, a rocket launcher, the “Jive Stalker” which follows your Wii pointer, and a grenade which can be thrown over walls. Each weapon provides it’s own use and functionality within the game that will allow you to proceed through the levels. Note: the grenade is for multiplayer only.

Beyond the weapons, Frobot also has a a shield with which he can block energy blasts as well as a dash that allows Frobot to quickly move out of the way should you require it. These two items are fairly standard within this type of game.

My favorite part about the game, however, isn’t really the puzzles but rather the bosses for each section of the game. During these fights, the game’s camera zooms out and gives you a much wider perspective from with which you can view everything. Each boss has a unique hook to it that makes fighting them different from traditional games where you’re usually just required to hit them ‘x’ amount of times.

Frobot also comes with a local  multiplayer mode. It’s pretty fun, although nothing really spectacular. It’s just you and 2-3 friends blasting each other with all of Frobot’s arsenal. It can be particularly fun if you’re with the right people. Sadly, however, beyond that there’s just not much to it.

Stylistically, Frobot is a double edged sword. On the one hand, the aesthetic and setting of the game are great. I love how colorful and funky the game feels. On the other side, Frobot is a glaring reminder at the Wii’s inadequacies when it comes to graphics. Colors are dimmer and everything is rougher than what you’d expect on even most Xbox Live Indie Games. A PC version of Frobot is supposed to be coming out soon and I can only hope that it doesn’t suffer from similar issues.

Finally, we come to the story. As you can imagine Frobot absolutely has quite a ridiculous plot line. But that’s okay because being set in the same vein as Shaft entitles you to have a ridiculous plot even if it involves jive robots from a dystopian future. I won’t delve too deep into it, but suffice it to say “the Man” has decided to abduct Frobot‘s women, an entirely unacceptable proposition.

Overall, I was impressed with Frobot‘s simplistic yet addictive gameplay that had me returning for more time and again. There’s a lot of gameplay to be had here, especially for fans of the old Zelda games.

Frobot can be had today on the Nintendo WiiWare store for 1000 Nintendo points ($10).

[Frobot, WiiWare]

Wii owners waiting patiently for Team Meat’s fun, tough bastard of a platformer Super Meat Boy have been stuck with the proverbial coal in the stocking as the developer has announced on twitter (I’m real tired of ‘tweeted’) the cancellation of the WiiWare version. The dev added that a retail version appears “grim” but is still being looked into.

We reported in November a delay due to Nintendo’s strict 40 MB or less policy for WiiWare titles putting a strain on what could actually be included in the version of the game. Flash forward to today and Joystiq’s Ludwig Kietzmann has posted the response they received from Edmund McMillen which pretty much sums up why there’s no chance the game will see release on the console:

“If Super Meat Boy were to launch on WiiWare today, it would have no leaderboards, no Dark World levels and no support for downloadable additions. Boss fights and cutscenes would have no musical accompaniment, and only six music tracks (including just one for retro-themed levels) would be present. In the words of designer Edmund McMillen, it would be “a piece of shit version of Super Meat Boy.”

When McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes, who together form Team Meat, tested a version of their loopy platformer that could fit under the (previously disputed) 40MB file-size limit imposed by Nintendo’s WiiWare service, they weren’t satisfied with the compromises and decided to cancel it.”

An unfortunate situation to be sure, and one that I have a hard time pinning any piece on the developer. Sounds like they tried to work with the limitation any way they could, but bottom line the game would be a mutilated version of itself. That’s just not something Edmund or Tommy are willing to have on their records going forward.

Well, some good and bad news for fans of the upcoming Retro City Rampage game. The good news is that the game is now definitely coming to a platform other than WiiWare, in fact it’s actually coming to my preferred platform of XBLA. The abd news is that the game has been delayed significantly to the summer of 2011. For those that recall, the game was originally slated for this month.

Some other off putting news for Wii owners is that the game isn’t set to launch on WiiWare until fall of 2011, a significant delay from when it was supposed to launch exclusively onto the service.

Still, it’s not all bad news as it appears that Retro City Rampage could be in the running for inclusion into Microsoft’s coveted “Summer of Arcade” event that they hold annually. No specific word on it yet, but I’d be surprised if such a high caliber game wasn’t included.

Our own Peter Eykemans previewed the game recently and found it to be a fantastic gaming experience even 6 months out from release. Even I can attest to the fact that the game is certainly shaping up quite nicely given my play time at this past year’s PAX 2010. So, with that said, let the waiting game begin.

[Retro City Rampage]

I honestly had my doubts about it getting released this year, but it appears that Andrew from Fugazo has kept his promise to get Frobot out by the end of Q4 2010 and, just 11 days away they’ve made it so.

For those who haven’t heard of Frobot, just imagine the old top-down Zelda formula mixed with a dash of funk and you’ve got yourself a fantastic looking game in the same vein. Seriously, the game looks and plays great. You can check out our own preview of the game earlier this year from PAX 2010, or you can wait until our official review later this week or early next.

There is a demo available right now and, should you decide you want more, the game will cost you 1000 Nintendo points ($10).

[WiiWare, Frobot]

The news had been heating up that we were nearing a release date after the development team had submitted their build of LA-MULANA to Nintendo, but after it was rejected and they’ve gone back into testing, LA-MULANA has officially been pushed into 2011.

With countless apologies, the team stated that they’re going to need more time to finish it because “it’s better to enhance the completeness instead of completing it roughly in a hurry.”

I completely agree with them. Don’t needlessly rush a game out. Give it the attention and bug-fixing it requires.

We’ll have more on LA-MULANA in the new year. You can read the official explanation of the delay from the developer.