The onward march of the bundles of March

[alms]

let me say that I do consider the Kindle Fire a tablet

Noone's ever said the Fire is NOT a tablet, but is more of a tablet which happens to run Android than the other way round. There's no way the Fire could be The Reference Android Tablet, unless Amazon is really Google in disguise.

The average Android Tablet, until the Nexus is out, is still a Samsung: it's available mostly everywhere, and offers a basically unadulterated Android experience. Unlike the Fire which must be rooted to access the Play Store, comes with its own proprietary web browser and it's only sold in the US

I'd love a decent tablet for games, but £5-600 is completely out of my price range.

The TF300 runs on a Tegra 3 chipset and is currently selling in the 4-500 € range (315 - 390£). It's still slightly expensive compared to the entry level iPad 1 @ 400 €... but nowhere near 500£.

[RobF]

J, I don't know how you put up with android dev, I really don't. I looked into it a month or so back (now I can get a module to build for the things if I want to) and oh god, all those devices. I'd go bonkers! And the refunds! However, a mate of mine is doing -ok- on it three or four releases in so I dunno... gnnng, tempting!

No way I could bring my stuff across as is though, I'd have to make new things lest I get the same lecture on ill considered ports ;)

Interesting stuff about the KF though, I'd have never thought it.

So I'm sticking to my point that these bundles are featuring games which are generally ill-suited to the mobile platform they're being touted on...

They're a bit of a mixed bag, sure. I think that's the perils of aiming for indie/mobile big hitters. They're really not always suited to the format. Wasn't Avadon in the last one? I couldn't imagine trying to play that on a tablet unless they've done some serious surgery.

But I think it's not as bad as it could be considering. At least there's a hefty clump of straight-from-iOS with Fieldrunners/BTB/Spirits and stuff to compliment the higher end stuff. I guess I'd just have more of a problem if it wasn't PWYW with Steam stuff too though, I can forgive a lot of things for that.

I wonder though because throwing in stuff like, I dunno, a port of Skullpogo or something would make the bundle stronger gamewise but I doubt it'd make people do a pissywee like Uplink or Spacechem. And therein lies the mess of bundling, sometimes it is about the names. Which is the longest way round of saying maybe having that stuff makes sure that there's enough rolling in to encourage more people to port to android for the next bundle and there's a knock on effect of more games making it and some of them will be unsuited because some people shouldn't be allowed near mobile devices with a barge pole but that's the price you pay for getting more games. Probably.

[alms]

Looks like IGVII is not going to receive any more extensions, which usually means the next one is round the corner.

[alms]

I've finished my second game from the Summer Batch: Patchwork, and I'm gonna share my thoughts. Let's begin with the premise: a young mathematician, Daniel, decides to test his newly finished invention, a teleporter, on himself. Quite predictably, it won't work as its proton stream gets crossed or something, and our reality gets intermixed with an alternate, parallel version of earth. This fairy-tale book world, called Soil, has no science, but magic instead and a student of magic is Lin, a young female elf (is there a word for that?), whose house Daniel ends up being transported to, with half of his lab.

So now parts of our world show up in Soil (hence the title). Our heroes will have to join forces (you play both as Daniel and Lin) and use science and magic to restore the two worlds to their original states.

This idea is put to good work here, helping to make the most out of the (limited) assets, without making the puzzles too bizantine. Actually, they are pretty easy and very logical. It also means it's a bite-sized snack of a game: with about 6 rooms, I finished it in no more than 90 minutes, and it left me hungry for more. If you're better than me at logical puzzles (and if you hate em, don't give up, there are only a couple), you'll probably finish it even quicker.

Unlike most AGS games, Patchwork's author, Ivan Ulyanov, decided to go high-res (800x600), and this is good because the character design and art style are definitely the high point of the game: Patchwork is delightful to look at. The other side of the coin is the only way to fully appreciate it, is to play it full screen, as most monitors won't be able to accomodate a 2x window.

A promising show from an author who, as far as I could gather, has released, with Patchwork, his first complete game.

[trjp]

J, I don't know how you put up with android dev, I really don't. I looked into it a month or so back (now I can get a module to build for the things if I want to) and oh god, all those devices. I'd go bonkers! And the refunds! However, a mate of mine is doing -ok- on it three or four releases in so I dunno... gnnng, tempting!

Going off-topic but I've spent about 18 months developing for Android (native, using AndEngine and using libgdx) with one hand whilst the other hand was looking into cross-platform stuff (Unity, UDK, Corona, Stencyl etc. etc.)

and you know where I've ended-up after all that time and effort? HTML5! @)

HTML5 is head-shoulders-arse-and-elbow the best solution for 2D games/App development on mobiles - I learned a hell of a lot from working on Android 'native' but I'd never - ever - go back (nor would I even touch XCode other than to sign and upload an App!) :)

The hardest part about switching was moving from 'proper' OO (Java) to 'moody' OO (Javascript) - but I've put together some proper OO stuff (including multiple inheritance!!) using Resig's JS frameworks and jQuery and I managed to port a simple Android (AndEngine) game to HTML5/JS in 2 days. Well, 2 days to get the code working and a week to get it looking right - but hey!

[alms]

And there's a new one: The Greenlight Bundle. Goes live next thursday. PWYW, games:

Ichi (IR &IF? repeat)
Paper Monsters
Muffin Knight
Guerrilla Bob
Samurai II: Vengeance
Syder Arcade
Dino Run SE (IR/IUP repeat)
Gunman Clive (IUP repeat?)

http://www.greenlightbundle.com/pressrelease.html

[mzlapq]

Be Mine 4 games revealed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgRXoqgPci4

Guns of Icarus
Revelations 2012
Laxius Force
Metal Drift
Zero Gear

And according to IndieGala twitter, IG8 is being prepared, as expected.

[Rauten]

Wow, BeMine 4 is... really weak. And seriously, Revelations 2012? It's like they're specifically trying to bunk.

[johnki]

Any idea when BeMine 4 starts?

[Anthile]

Wow, BeMine 4 is... really weak. And seriously, Revelations 2012? It's like they're specifically trying to bunk.

Yeah, what the hell are they thinking.

[Kodeen]

World of Goo, Osmos, Anomoly, and Edge added as bonuses to HIB, all from previous Android HIB's (and some again from regular ones).

[alms]

At this point I've lost count how many times the Humble Bundle has given away WoG!

[alms]

Updated top posts, except for the greenlight bundle which I'll do later. The metacritic page for Revelations 2012 is worth a check!

[LTK]

World of Goo, Osmos, Anomoly, and Edge added as bonuses to HIB, all from previous Android HIB's (and some again from regular ones).

I guess they're really hard pressed to find good, multiplatform games to sell in the bundle, because this one now has four of the five games that were in the first humble bundle for Android. I guess with most mobile games costing an apple and an egg, indie bundles in that market aren't very feasible.

[alms]

I guess they're really hard pressed to find good, multiplatform games to sell in the bundle, because this one now has four of the five games that were in the first humble bundle for Android. I guess with most mobile games costing an apple and an egg, indie bundles in that market aren't very feasible.

It's kind of a tradition for HIB to include a previous bundle in the current one, it started with HIB2. And you're getting Steam keys too which makes it great value for money.

PS: IR Gone Fishin' ends in less than a day and I've updated post #2.

[Anthile]

It does have a kickass soundtrack, though.

[LTK]

Yeah, I like it too.

[Heliocentric]

Yeah, what the hell are they thinking.

[video]

Wow..... Just Wow

[tjv]

Really hope that they bring back the games from the 2nd Android HIB bundle as well. Missed those.

[alms]

BeMine4 has gone live a few hours ago:

http://groupees.com/bm4