From the Designers of World of Goo and Henry Hatsworth, comes Little Inferno!  The game just went up for preorder and early paid beta access over on Tomorrow Corporation’s official website.  Unfortunately, there is no real information on the actual gameplay mechanics but it is described as a game where you throw your toys, credit cards, screaming robots, etc into the fire and play with them as they burn.  It certainly sounds interesting and experimental, but what else could you expect from Kyle Gabler (2D Boy – World of Goo), Allan Blomquist, and Kyle Gray (Henry Hatsworth) – a small division of the Experimental Gameplay Group.  Tomorrow Corporation was kind enough to post a teaser video for their paid Beta / pre-order announcement:

The game is planned to release on Windows, Mac, Linux and Nintendo’s next console the Wii U, but for $15 you can get first crack at it.  There’s no playable build yet, but the Windows Beta should be coming soon.  You will receive an early look at the game’s soundtrack immediately after purchase with beta builds of all the versions and the final game to eventually follow.  Are you feeling adventurous? or are you like me and want a playable beta or at least some gameplay footage before you cough up any cash?

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – World of Goo “Sequel” – Little Inferno goes up for Beta Preorder

It looks as though the guys at the Humble Indie Bundle aren’t content with merely offering games that work on PC, Mac and Linux as today they’ve announced a brand new bundle that’s also Android compatible. This is especially interesting because Android doesn’t employ a Steam-like service and downloading non-market apps can be a bit tricky for the uninitiated.

Ron Carmel, one half of 2D Boy, has passed along word that indie darling World of Goo’s iOS version has hit a million downloads since originally arriving on the App Store in April of last year.

We knew it was coming and, well, here it is! World of Goo is now officially available on Android as 2D Boy has finally decided to bless those of us who prefer Google’s flavor of phone and tablet operating system. There’s also a demo for those of you who want to try before you buy (given that Google’s 15 minute period is often too short to do anything).

Everyone’s favourite gooey puzzle masterpiece, 2dboy’s World Of Goo, was supposed to have been squeezed out onto the Android Market by now, but it seems they’ve had to delay it. It’s been pushed back five days, so now we have to wait until November 28th. Here’s a message from a friendly World of Goo Corporation Associate PR Representative, explaining the Goo shortage:

Not much information available just yet, but the guys over at 2D Boy (who’ve been having a busy day!) have announced that World of Goo is officially heading for Android. This means that for the millions of us who have opted for Google’s smartphone flavor will soon have access to one of the best indie games of all time.

According to the duo they’re simply working on some of the final kinks before submitting it.

My big question is whether it will also work with Android tablets or not. As somebody who currently owns an ASUS EeePad Transformer I’m constantly on the lookout for great games, but have found few that actually make the experience on Android palatable.

Finally, pricing on Android is always a point of contention for the platform. We saw last year with Angry Birds’ release where Rovio opted to ignore pricing altogether instead going for an ad supported method which reportedly brought them millions of dollars in revenue each month. I’m not saying the same will happen with World of Goo, but certainly these types of market dynamics can’t be ignored.

I guess we’ll see soon as 2D Boy is offering up fore info on “GooDroid” soon.

[UPDATE: 2D Boy confirmed GooDroid for both phones and tablets.]

[2D Boy]

According to World of Goo developer Ron Carmel, the XBLA service needs a heavy overhaul to make it more appealing to developers and better known to users to thrive, otherwise it’s looking at continuing a trend of losing out at least to PSN, if not most of the digital arms race.

Ron states that “Having unlimited shelf space is, after all, one of the great benefits of digital distribution” and yet consoles’ digital stores, both the PSN and XBLA, fail to use this unending shelf space. In a sense, he makes the argument that 7 years ago when the service was launched such a curated selection was appropriate because there wasn’t a lot of good content out there, however, as the market matures there is less of a need for such a tightly controlled market.

He even goes so far as to poll around 200 indie developers (of which about half responded) on what platform they’ve developed on before and which they will develop on in the future with regards to XBLA and PSN. The result? 2011 was a turning point for XBLA and PSN where traditionally more developers would create games for Microsoft’s service, many are now switching to Sony’s…

And these aren’t run of the mill developers either. Ron cobbled together the Metacritic scores for these developers’ work and got an average of 78. That’s hugely impressive coming from a large group and should make Microsoft a bit worried about where the bulk of their developers might be heading.

Ultimately he boils down the results to largely having to do with Microsoft’s lack of ease in working with developers. Essentially they seem like a real pain in the ass.

0% rated Microsoft as “very easy” to go along with a generic “cell phone carriers” or companies who have in almost no capacity before worked with game developers. As a software company you’d expect Microsoft to perform better than that.

It really is a fascinating article and Ron really, really did his homework on the subject and provides a compelling argument as well as a list of ways to alleviate the current situation by doing such things as:

• Creating a fair contract without the need for negotiation.
• Stop requiring indie devs to publish through Microsoft. (XBLA requires a publisher)
• Removing exclusivity requirements for independent developers

Among other things.

All in all, I largely agree with him. Microsoft has this nasty habit of controlling too much when there’s no need to be controlling. We’ve seen it already in the mainstream game space where developers aren’t allowed to give away DLC for free or when they refuse to allow Valve (who used to be their staunchest proponent) access to some interconnectivity a la Steam.

XBLA is merely the latest noted area where Microsoft is strangling itself. I’ll admit that XBLA in 2008-2009 was one of my go to hubs for indie games. Today it’s mostly the PC. Is that due to what Ron has been seeing? Quite possibly. It definitely seems like XBLA is pushing passed its prime…

What are your thoughts? Do you like XBLA the way it is? Do you agree with Ron’s analysis?

Check out the full, very interesting article via the link below.

[2D Boy]

Two Midweek Madness sales are going on right now through Steam, with both focused on indie games. Each bundle contains five games for the price of one, and their sale has less than 48 hours remaining.

One of the bundles is aptly titled the Indie 2D Bundle and have some of the best 2D games all rolled into one from Gaijin Games, Nicalis, Over the Top Games, Ronimo Games, and 2D BOY. This bundle is $9.95, which makes each game less than $2!

The 2D titles are the following:

• Swords & Soldiers HD (RTS)
• World of Goo (puzzle)
• BIT.TRIP.RUNNER (action platform)
• Nightsky (action-puzzle)
• Nyxquest: Kindred Spirits (platform)

The Indie Strategy Bundle also works out to being less than $2 a game, with hits from 11 Bit Studios, Hidden Path Entertainment, Puppygames, Cadenza Interactive and Coffee Stain.

The five strategy titles are the following:

• Anomaly: Warzone Earth
• Defense Grid: The Awakening
• Revenge of the Titans
• Sanctum
• Sol Survivor

$20 for ten games!? I hate to sound like an old fart, but that was unheard of in the olden-timey cartridge/retail only generation. Thank Asura for indie bundles!

Source: IndieGames

UPDATE: Unknown to me at the time of this writing, it appears that the Humble Indie Bundle guys merely set to requirement to activate the first bundle to whatever the overall average is. As of now it costs $7.43, but expect that to rise incrementally over the remainder of the bundle’s life.

Well this is certainly and interesting turn. In an attempt to get their average price per bundle up the Humble Indie Bundle guys are now offering the first Bundle for free to anybody who pays more than $7.37 (the current average) for the second Humble Indie Bundle. Basically, this ups your haul from 5 games to 11 (World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, Penumbra Overture, Samorost 2).

I gotta say, I’m impressed with the way these guys handle this bundle. I mean, above and beyond a normal level of “impressed.” They move fast and they’re constantly thinking about their next move to increase awareness of the bundle.

Anyway, so there you have it, pay more than  $7.37 and get 11 games instead of 5. That’s a great deal.

[Humble Indie Bundle]

The goo balls make an appearance in ilomilo.

So, after my recent post about ilomilo, the adorable puzzle game from SouthEnd Interactive I decided to give the game a try. It’s a neat little game, but the puzzle aspects didn’t pull me in enough to warrant a purchase for myself. Note that I said myself. Upon seeing the game my girlfriend demanded to own it and so I’ve been watching her play it since then.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic, you see, as I watched her play from the comfortable glow of my laptop somewhere around the tenth level I noticed something, a goo ball. Yes, those goo balls. I’m not sure what the relationship between the developers/games are but make no mistake about it, the World of Goo goo balls make an appearance in ilomilo. Not really news worthy, but I always enjoy these types of things.

I wonder if anything else will make an appearance.