Indian developer RealAxis Software first announced Stained back in January of 2012; the developer had also slated an “early 2012″ release date, but you know how these things go. The silence with the public — although, it should be noted the developer has written several blog and news posts about development — has finally been broken as RealAxis released a brand new gameplay trailer for the upcoming PC side-scrolling/platforming/action effort.

Stained is set in a sprawling yet seemingly uninhabited castle. The player controls a grim reaper-like creature dressed in black robes and wielding a scythe. This character is given no motivations or goals until it comes in contact with the King’s Journal, which eventually guides the player through the castle’s walls, revealing hidden secrets in a place that punishes those who attempt to disturb it.

In the new gameplay trailer, the gorgeous environments and colors of the game take center-stage in addition to reveals of the side-scrolling action and platforming.

There is no exact release date for Stained just yet, but you can visit its official website for more details.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – New Gameplay Trailer for Upcoming PC Side-Scroller ‘Stained’

Walking around, mining rocks is all played out. What we need more of is SPACE! And mining up there, too, but in spaceships! With guns! Miner Wars 2081 has been in alphafunded development for what seems like an eternity, but every time I take a glance at it, it’s grown bigger, better, stronger and more polished. Keen Software seem to be happy with the latest build, as they’ve officially rolled out part of it as a playable public demo, including the first mission from the singleplayer, story-driven campaign mode. Rather than put out a traditional trailer, they just recorded a bunch of real gameplay footage. See how it tickles your fancy:

It’s nice to see them using the terrain deformation in the story missions – kinda reminiscent of Red Faction, spliced with Descent. The full game will have both story-based missions and open sandbox gameplay, with you running a mining operation across a shattered solar system. There’s also an MMO ‘spinoff’ that early adopters of the Alpha version (such as myself) get free access to, although it will be sold separately for most customers later on. It’s been a while since I’ve really dug into this one, and it looks like the game has grown an impressive amount since I last played around with it.

Miner Wars has put out public pre-Alpha demos previously, but this is the first Alpha build, and the first one to feature any scripted content, so head to the download page and grab it if you’re at all interested in a 6-Degrees-Of-Freedom space shooter with a whole lot of fully deformable space-rocks. We’ll be putting nose to the grindstone for a more in-depth hands-on preview of the preorder Alpha build soon.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – School Of Hard Rocks – ‘Miner Wars 2081′ Story Mode Demo Released

Shortly after taking the screenshot above, my character managed to slay the angry giant bees he had encountered in their forest hive. After waiting a while for the worst of their poison stings to wear off, he wandered deeper into the woods. He then found a strange mushroom, and ate it without successfully identifying it. My character began to hallucinate, and ended up being assailed by hallucinatory visions of his mother – attacking them caused morale damage. And then passed out and got eaten by ants. Yep, Cataclysm is a bit different.

You wait what feels like an eternity for a serious post-apocalyptic survival game, and what seems like a dozen come along all at once. Rogue Survivor, Project Zomboid, Neo Scavenger and others all spring to mind. The latest on the block is Cataclysm – a post-apocalyptic, semi-zombie-themed survival roguelike with a respectable level of depth and an impressive degree of modding support. Oddly enough, you might be best off skipping on the latest official release and go straight to the modding page on the official forums. The reason why? Despite being an ASCII-based game by default, there’s already an unofficial tiled graphics version.

As mentioned, while there are zombies, they’re more of an urban threat. Go off wandering into the deep woods in search of natural food and supplies and you’re far more likely to be accosted by giant mutant bugs or other such living abominations. Still, as a fresh character, the best thing to do is look for some nearby civilization as you stumble out of your poorly stocked fallout shelter. While it’ll take ages to bash through a door with your bare hands, a window can easily be passed through at the risk of some small injuries. From there, it’s just a matter of looting whatever you can, and getting the hell out of dodge once the zombies start stumbling into view.

In addition to the usual Roguelike open-world mode, there’s an ‘arcade’ survival mode where you have to fortify and defend a well-stocked structure from increasingly dangerous waves of enemies, which is a good introduction to the construction options offered. At higher levels (which I haven’t survived to see yet), the game apparently gets rather weird, with improvised bionic upgrades becoming an option, and self-mutations, vehicles, drugs and mental illness all playing their part. It’s not terribly gritty and realistic beyond needing food, water and sleep, but it’s good fun. Defence mode even offers the option to disable natural needs entirely and play it as a straightforward combat-oriented game. 

My main gripe at this point in development is that the UI is quite unintuitive, and that I would much prefer something along the lines of Brogue, which is an utter masterclass in Roguelike UI design, managing to cram in a huge amount of information and allow precise mouse control despite the ASCII graphics. Still, Cataclysm is still fairly early in development, and while you’re undoubtedly going to encounter some bugs (of the software kind, not giant and mutated), there’s quite a lot to like here already. The game even has a handy tutorial built in for newbies to learn the ropes with. Can’t say fairer than that; The game does at least teach you how to walk before it tears your legs off.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Survive Another Roguelike Apocalypse In ‘Cataclysm’

Not owning a PS Vita, I have been tormented by news that there’s some rather clever little indie games on the platform. One of the highest-rated (a respectable 86 Metawotsits, allegedly) is Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, by Drinkbox Studios, which has always looked to me like a hybrid of Chronic Logic’s Gish and Katamari Damacy all glued together with a thick, gelatinous green layer of B-movie silliness. Fortunately, market forces swing in my favour yet again, and the game is jumping ship from the poor-selling handheld to the booming PC market. Here’s the announcement trailer:

It’s not all absorbing stuff and smashing puny earthlings and their tiny, weak cities – there’s apparently a strong puzzle element to the game, aided by your ability to telekinetically manipulate certain objects. What this meant on the Vita version was using the fancy touch-screen functionality to drag stuff around. On the PC, you’ll likely be using your mouse. We’ll be trying to isolate a sample of this gloopy platform/puzzler for examination and review, although who knows what’ll happen. If you hear any reports of IGM Towers being devoured by sentient alien slime, you’ll know who to blame.

If it’s anything like the Vita version, the PC version should cost around $10, and will be available via Steam on August 14th. Windows PCs only, as far as we can tell.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Mutant Blobs Attack’ Coming To PC via Steam August 15th

I must be slipping – a visually creative game with quirky genre-blending gameplay, developed by a crew of ex-Demoscene folks responsible for the particularly stylish/trippy Masagin? How this one got by me, I have no idea. Project Ginshu by Duangle Games is billed as primarily a ‘defence game’, but with aspects of farming, puzzling and adventure, all apparently set in a strange universe known as the Doubt Field – home to the lost (and faintly familiar-sounding) treasure of Dora Do’El.

The game in the early phases of public alphafunding, and those that buy in early at the current price of $20 will get access to builds as and when they’re released. Much like Wolfire, the alphafunding trend-setters that they are, Duangle are making the whole process very open, with a full development blog and regular video updates showing off each new feature as it’s added. Here’s the latest, showing off the first generation of building-devouring critters, and some of the early defences you’ll use against them:

Looking pretty interesting so far, and navigating between the abstract planetoids looks to be a weirdly dizzying experience, but I guess that’s what they’re shooting for. My only reservation at this point is the price tag – while $20 (or more) is a fine price for a finished indie game, I’m just concerned that very few people are going to bite at that price, given that the game is still in Alpha. That aside, I’ll be keeping a beady eye on this one – it could be big.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Space Oddity – ‘Project Ginshu’ Has Building, Defending, Cosmic Weirdness

Always nice to hear from The Narrator again. We last heard from the delightful fellow early last month, along with an announcement that he’s hard at work on an updated remake of Source-engine mod The Stanley Parable. Well, in the time since he last graced us with his presence, he has received some interesting e-mails, including a particularly insightful, emotional and logical piece of feedback. Always one to take creative critique to heart, here’s his video response:

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t wait! Of course, being the hardcore sort that I am, I’ll be playing through exclusively in full-logic/full-emotion mode. There’s no word on when the new version of The Stanley Parable will be released, but if it’s even three-quarters as emotionally moving as the teaser footage we just saw, it will probably be good enough to make your cat cry.

In the meantime, do yourself a favour and grab the original version from Desura. While not nearly as emotional or logical as you might hope, it’s still entertaining enough, and surely on the right path. You don’t need Half-Life 2 or any specific Source engine game, just any Valve title on your Steam account will do.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘The Stanley Parable’ Will Touch Your Heart Exactly 176 Times

Here’s one from the Public Service Announcement desk. We had a long, hard look at Path of Exile not too long ago, and were very impressed with Grinding Gear Games’ take on the Diablo-esque action-RPG. Owing far more to the original Diablo than its sequels, it’s a grim, dark, bloody and tough bit of gaming. While the final version of the game is going to be free to play, the developers are slowly ramping up player access so as not to completely crush their servers. Well, that changes this weekend. Sign up, grab the client and get ready to crush – it’s server stress-testing time.

At the time of writing, there’s four hours until the floodgates open. Plenty of time to get signed up and the game itself downloaded. Unlike most games in the genre, Path of Exile takes no prisoners – it’s even possible to die to the tutorial boss if you’re careless. Remember to chug those potions (they’re a self-renewing resource, unlike most games in the genre) regularly, and feel free to experiment with character builds. Don’t be afraid to start a character in Hardcore mode, either – dying once merely registers your high score and drops the character back to the regular player-league, rather than permanently killing you.

As with any stress-test, don’t be surprised if you experience lag, disconnects and other problems inherent with cramming a whole lot of virtual people into a small, hot room. Still, the last such test they ran was remarkably stable, so you should be able to treat this event as an extended demo. And again, just in case you missed it, check out our full and detailed preview if you’re still wondering what all the hype is about.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Indie Hack N’ Slasher ‘Path Of Exile’ Open Beta Weekend Starting Soon

Shades of Newgrounds’ famous Madness series here. Worlds is a third-person shooter by small French studio Curious Planet. While wrapped in almost pointedly early-2000s style graphics, there’s a little more going on under the hood than you might expect. Putting you in the combat boots of Reyk, an agent tasked with hopping between dimensions and doing whatever it takes to make sure the various linked worlds never discover each other’s existence. This apparently involves a lot of shooting, some sneaking and even a bit of conversation.

Originally released in French only, the English version of the game has just been rolled out via Indievania, or you can buy it direct from the developer if you so wish. The game isn’t complete – only about a quarter of the missions are currently implemented – although the developer estimates that’ll still take you a solid 5-8 hours to chew through. When new builds are released with further missions, the game will auto-update and bring you up to the latest version.

I had a quick poke around the preview build sent my way, and found something pretty interesting. I wasn’t too impressed at first with the tutorial. Too many cutscenes and not enough hands-on action. The gunplay seemed solid enough, and the stealth was interestingly presented as a two-way street, with the end of the tutorial segment ending in a gunfight against a rival agent trainee that can also hide in the shadows and snipe you as you blindly run past. It added an interesting cat-and-mouse element to the gameplay that I hope is explored more later.

What seems to be a fairly clean-cut, low-fi shooter with some stealth elements expands impressively after the tutorial ends. From there, you’re given an equipment budget, and tasked with investigating a missing agent on an icy world, meaning that you first have to buy yourself some cold-weather gear. The mission is just equipment recovery – the agent is dead, but he had some sensitive gear on his body – but rather than shooting everyone in my path, I found myself talking to the locals and slowly piecing together clues as to who killed the agent, and where I might find his stolen equipment. Stumbling into a random house got me a torrent of verbal abuse from the surprised inhabitant, too – a cute detail.

It seems that there’s quite a bit to the game beyond sneaking and shooting. If the trailer above is to be believed, then things keep getting bigger and weirder as the game goes on, with special powers, gravity-flipping, more abstract dimensions and the occasional bit of low-res brutality. Shooting a guy in the feet and stomping on him as he tries to crawl away is probably not kosher under Queensbury rules. I guess that’s another element that it’s carrying over from the Madness animations and games – if abstract, grey pseudo-people dying violently offends you, this might not be the game for you.

The translation is workmanlike for the most part, although a couple of French words seem to slip through the cracks here and there. Nothing that makes it hard to understand, but it doesn’t feel like a final version yet. Understandable, really – it isn’t. The work-in-progress price tag of 5 Euros (or $6) seems quite reasonable, especially if you consider that if the missions continue to be as long as the ones included in the current build, the final game should be 15-20 hours long.

While I can’t really recommend it or not until I’ve played a bit more, you can (and should) grab a demo over on the official site, and if that tickles your fancy, then the full game is only a few bucks direct or on Indievania.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Third-person Stealth Shooter ‘Worlds’ Launches In English With Demo

Now here’s a Kickstarter that I’ve no problem pointing people to. I’ve been a long-time fan of bizarre Russian indie studio Ice-Pick Lodge. They’ve only made a few games to date, but they’ve been three of the most creative and interesting I’ve seen in years. Pathologic was a game about desperation, plague and decay, and despite a cripplingly bad translation (outsourced by the publisher, apparently), a genuinely interesting story. The script won awards in its native Russian, at least.

Their second outing, The Void, was an intense first-person action adventure set in a nightmarish purgatorial realm filled with hideous and twisted guardians known as the Brothers, and a chain of beautiful, siren-like figures known as the Sisters. Neither side is to be entirely trusted, and neither is what they first seem to be. Great translation, too – done in-house by the studio itself.

The third game was the downright loopy Cargo: The Quest For Gravity. Probably their most derivative title (it played a lot like Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts), but held together by a gloriously odd setting, with you playing as a gravelly-voiced female engineer, building machines to navigate the landscape and trying to help the Buddies – the new successor race to mankind after a grand god-spawned funpocalypse – find their way in a potentially lethal world.

Today, Ice-Pick announced their fourth game, Knock-Knock!, and are apparently going fully independent this time. The small Russian outfit aim to raise a fairly small $30,000, and are already just shy of $5k, with a month and a half left on the clock. Interestingly, while the final retail price is set to be $10, a $5 pledge will get you the full game when it’s released, as well as some bonus perks. There’s also a bit of a story behind this one, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Described as a cartoonish, 2D game of horror hide-and-seek, in Knock-knock! you play as a strange, scraggly-haired hermit living in a shack deep in the forest. Each night, the Visitors come a-knocking. Strange, twisted creatures, ghosts and other forest-dwelling things of weirdness. They don’t seem to be too hostile, given the teaser video above, but coming into contact with them erodes at the protagonists sanity and health, so they’re best avoided.

The strangest part of this whole Kickstarter project is that the concept of the game doesn’t belong to Ice-Pick. Rather, they were supposedly mailed a package containing video clips and notes, detailing a failed and possibly cursed game development project. Along with this nightmare diary, there was a request that Ice-Pick take up the gauntlet and complete the game, and release it to an unsuspecting world. Whether this story is made up or true really doesn’t matter – it makes for a fascinating bit of backstory to the development of the game itself.

As an additional twist to the tale, this archive of spooky data is going to be bundled in with the game. Apparently yet another requirement as stated by The Originator – the name given by the developers to the mysterious malefactor that roped Ice-Pick into this bizarre little bit of game development history.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m quite interested in this. It’s a bit corny on paper, but never underestimate how a clever bit of high-tech haunting can get under your skin…

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Ice-Pick Lodge Seeking A Chilling $30k Kickstarter Funding For ‘Knock-Knock!’

Before Rare were known as Rare, they were called Ultimate: Play The Game, and they were one of the UK’s more prolific developers during the earliest eras of home computing. Along with their more famous releases such as Jetpac and Knight Lore was Atic Atac. While it was before my time (released in the year I was born, to be precise!), it was a favourite among gamers of the era. Yesterday, a Windows remake of the game was released. Naturally, it’s freeware.

A comparatively simple game by modern standards, Atic Atac is a maze-puzzle game with some shooter elements. Playing as one of three generic fantasy sorts, you’ve got to explore a ~200 room complex in search of the Golden Key Of A.C.G, which will open the exit and secure you a place on the high score board. By modern standards, it’s pretty baffling at first – any attempt to just jump in and figure stuff out is likely going to be met with death, confusion, and more death. Eurogamer have a retro review here that might help explain it, but it’s best seen in action, so check the authentic Speccy gameplay video below, colour-clash and all.

In short, it’s a game of inventory and resource management. The various items scattered around the rooms are required to access new areas, but you can only carry three items at any given time, meaning some careful planning on where to stash your gear and mentally mapping out exactly the safest route to backtrack. Enemies constantly spawn and bounce randomly around the rooms, and will chew away at your health (represented by a tasty roast chicken) for every moment they’re in contact with you. It’s tricky and old-school in a way that most gamers won’t even comprehend these days, but it’s well worth a look, especially if you want to get an idea of what videogames were like almost 30 years ago.

Thanks to Rob Fearon of Retro Remakes for pointing this one out.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘Atic Atac’ Remake Released