Tag Archive

IF Comp 2008: Violet

Written by Kieron Gillen on November 19, 2008.

Yeah, screenshots totally don’t work with Interactive Fiction, do they?

The IF Comp 2008 awards‘ results were announced a couple of days back. It’s… well, I don’t pretend to be anything other than a casual observer of gaming’s one true art-subculture, but seeing their yearly competitions is something which always makes me happy, even if I barely touch any of the actual games. That said, I was following Emily Short’s takes on the entrants, and given her rep, I wasn’t surprised that her three stand out games ended up comprising the top three (Albeit not in her chosen order). Namely: Violet, Nightfall and Everybody Dies. I’ll try and give the two runners up a proper play in the next few days, but here’s my take on the victor. It’s really rather neat.
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A Cry For Help - Edmund McMillen Collection

Written by John Walker on November 13, 2008.

Edmund McMillen is either celebrating ten years of independent game development, or planning to mysteriously disappear. Either way, the result is the creation of a CD containing everything artistic he’s made over the last decade, from games like Aether, Meatboy and Triachnid to the doodles in his sketchbooks. We like Edmund McMillen lots, so this seems like a rather good thing.

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Crayon Physics Deluxe Pre-Order - At Last!

Written by John Walker on November 11, 2008.

I first played Crayon Physics Deluxe just under a year ago, when sniffing around the IGF entries, and adored it. Then the waiting began. Finally, nearly a year later, Petri Purho’s Seumas McNally Grand Prize winning creation is available for pre-order.

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Multiwinia Multiplayer Now

Written by Kieron Gillen on October 26, 2008.

We’re a little late with this, but Introversion have released a new demo of Multiwinia. And, listening to the major complaint about the last demo, they’ve released it with online multiplayer. In other words, download it and you can play any of the demo levels. Also, if joining a LAN game set up by a player with a full copy of the game, you can play anything. Also, they’ve included Rocket Riot as a new demo game mode. And finally - which is why being a little late is bad - they’re also offering a special deal on Steam where you can buy it for a mere $9.99, and it comes free with the splendid Darwinia. This weekend only though, so hurry if you fancy it, like.

Anyway - gotta run. Back later for the Sunday Papers. You’ll find the press release - including an admission of being wrong on the demo point - beneath the cut.
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The Dog’s Pollocks? The Unfinished Swan

Written by Kieron Gillen on October 22, 2008.

We’re weak for many things at RPS. Robots. Booze. Skaven. Slightly Sappy American Indie Music You Can’t Dance To. Eve. Pink Pink Sunshine. And, relevantly, fancy indie tech demos which have a good idea and are riding that thought-steed so hard it’s going to be fit for the knackers yard when they’re finished. Such is the case with the forthcoming XNA game The Unfinished Swan. Its conceptually simple - you’re trapped in a maze and have to find your way around via throwing black paint splats. And bar the actual paint-impact noise, it’s genuinely spooky. I look at the following footage and think there’s definitely room for an Indie-Silent-Hill-esque atmosphere fest…
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Spectraball Enters Steam’s Pipes

Written by John Walker on October 21, 2008.

Spectraball has arrived on Steam, from indie devs Flashcube Studios. For a mere $9 (plus taxes), it’s somewhere between Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball, with more bloom effects than the Chelsea Flower Show. We’ll have more thoughts on it once we’ve had a chance to play it.

I See What You Did There: Consume CULTure

Written by Kieron Gillen on October 21, 2008.

I picked up this from another one of my trips to Retroremakes. It’s called Consumer CULTure and it’s basically an agit-prop version of Robotron, minus the guns. And, yes, I suspect I could go off on a deconstruction ala Mighty Jill Off, but I’ve got to go cook so you’ll have to use your imagination or go and crib AuntiPixelante’s. You can download it here
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Souper Trooper: Soup Du Jour

Written by Kieron Gillen on October 20, 2008.

Yes, I know this is old, but i) it came out before RPS existed. Therefore it’s new. Nothing exists until we say so and ii) I just don’t care. The brilliant Star-Trek-as-Solitaire Weird Worlds came up in conversation today, and I realised bar the Eat Electric Death boardgame I had no idea if Digital Eel had done anything since. And they have. It’s Soup Du Jour and it’s basically a Physics-based Tetris-style game. The tiny - both in size and length of play - demo is here.
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Oh Ye-Of-Little-Faith Special: World of Goo Demo

Written by Kieron Gillen on October 15, 2008.

This is mainly of use to the cynics (and the evangelists, of course). Anyone who’s even slightly vulnerable to purple-prose will have already worked out how to buy it and done exactly that. If you haven’t - well, what are you waiting for? A demo? Well, wait no more. It’s currently spreading across the net, but let’s point at Filefront for this 33Mb slice of splendidosity. It’s the whole of chapter one, which made me start ranting about it all those months ago. You will too.

Well, almost probably. A couple of tiny thoughts plus some more Goo-in-action-video-footage follows…
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Portal Prelude Mod Sort Of Released

Written by John Walker on October 9, 2008.

Portal Prelude has been released. The uber-mod that everyone seems jolly excited about is officially out tomorrow, but is already ready for download. Hurrah! Except it’s one of those 24 hour preview deals with FilePlanet. So if you want it today, you’ll have to crawl through their tunnel of blades, spikes and fire, ending in a half hour wait for the download to start. Man! Anyway, rise above it: good news. We’ll offer thoughts on it soon.

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