Uh, it seems, that Jonathan Lavigne is growing into my all time pixelartist toplist, not only, because of his game “Ninja Senki”, that should be released at the 21 December 2010. He also did the artworks for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and other games, mostly for Ubisoft. Ninja Senki is his first indie-game. His graphic-style combines a modern and fresh approach with very classic 8-bit styles, that is absolutely unique. Less is more! You can follow his blog Pixeltao. Feel free to also read an interview with Jonathan. (via)
Based on the success of the first “Humble Indie Bundle”, that raised over 1 million dollars in a “pay what you want” manner, it is time for a second edition. Same concept: a bundle of great indie-games are bundeling together. This time it is Braid, Osmos, Machinarium, Cortex Command, Osmos and Revenge of the Titans. Plus bonus-features like soundtracks. The games are DRM-free and are available for all platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux. Some games have their debut on Linux in this bundle. Once again you can choose to give your backs away for charity and spend some amount to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) or Childs-Play. Don’t hesitate, get the bundle here.
Flee is a neat game for Android-devices, that I want to call the “most complete LCD-handheld emulating game” that probably ever was. You use the touch-display to control a LCD-Handheld game. There is almost nothing to report about the gameplay itself, if you are familiar with this kind of games. But something to highlight is the focus on details, that try to mimic the “hardware-feeling” as much as possible. Like the video above shows, they even simulated dirt on the “plastic case”, that you can wipe and clean again, if it gets too dirty. Really refreshing point-of-view on software-handheld gaming! Also have a look at the website of the creators Frugal Games.
Zach Gage is about to release another fine app, this time for the iPad. It’s a neat puzzle-game, that can be called a little bit of “one step further” to his first game Unify. Zach answered some questions in an interview at CreativeApplications. He said about the app some interesting design decisions:
I borrowed management systems of drawing lines like in Flight Control, but reduced them to the simplicity of control in a game like Tetris. In Flight control you have to manage pixel perfect collisions, meaning a plane can be in hundreds of thousands of unique positions. Tetris (and other similar puzzle games) work so well because a piece can be in one of only a few unique positions on one axis. In Halcyon pieces can only be in up to 9 positions on the vertical axis, so instead of making dozens of tiny tweaks to individual objects, the player has to make one tweak to dozens of objects.
When you look at the preview-video, you will notice the elegant fine line between playing game and playing music. Most of Zach Gage apps have this kind of “precise poetry”. Sometimes I miss a little bit of that extra, extra mile of polishing, to have absolutely awesome apps.
We look forward to Super Crate Box, a fast paced arcade-shooter game, that looks like a wild ride on hot weapons. The mix of retro-graphics and that pushing music is booting the disk! The webpage about the game:
Super Crate Box is coming to bring back the glory of the golden arcade age, when all that really mattered was getting on that high score list. Grab your baseball cap and loosen your pants, it’s time to fight endless hordes of enemies and collect every weapon crate you can.
Let’s do it! Although the trailer doesn’t look like this, it totally seems to me, that a 2-player mode would highly increase the fun in front of the keyboard! The game should be released at 22. October 2010 is here. (via)
Oozy and the Tower of Wulu is a nice casual game, that throws a couple of game-mechanics into a jar, to make them a cool mix of fun, arcade and puzzle. Some elements remembers on Sokoban, other on arcade-classics from the 1,5 birds-eye perspective.
The aim of the game is, to explode energy-bubble with slime. To do so, you have to first throw worm-slime. Not on all fields it’ll explode. That’s why you will have to build longer slime-explode ways with stronger energy sometimes, otherwise the energy-bubbles won’t burst. Best try a round, then do the tutorial level. Cool and convincing game, like it!
Spaces of Play are coming back with a lovely new “handcrafted game”, called “Spirits“. The gameplay is, let’s name it, somehow derived from the good old Lemmings, but there are also many other games, that use the same game mechanics. The plus on that game are the handdrawn-styled, athmospheric graphics and the soundtrack, that tries to avoid sounding computerized. Sounddesigner Martin Straka used a libary of “orchestral sounds” to achieve that effect. I think the best aspect of that game overall will be the gameplay in itself. I still enjoy the first iPhone game “Mr. Bounce” from Spaces of Play: clean designed and still one of the best “Arkanoid variants” that are on the market. In other words: this guys know their craft!
Spirits is also IndieCade 2010 finalist. Let there be indies!!
