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Valve have greenlit another 75 games for release via Steam. If you're a writer covering game news, this poses a problem. Do you only mention the games readers might already heard of? This current batch includes the Kickstartering Chaos Reborn, the (also Kickstartering) Duelyst from former Diablo 2 and Rogue Legacy devs, the fiddly platforming roguelike Catacomb Kids, plus Hero Trap, Lemma, and a few…
The trailer for Mind: Path To Thalamus is a dream-like series of beautiful landscapes, with a backing of melancholy piano and sorrowful synths. Promising environmental manipulation as well as a jolly good stroll through the corridors of memory and (of course) regret, it reminds me of Linger in Shadows, the demoscene project that broke through onto PS3. It all begins with a voiceover, which I…
(It should be noted this story was written moments before the Facebook/Oculus announcement.) We already know the Oculus Rift is the perfect tool for immersing players within cockpits, but I was unsure until I played SuperBike TT whether they might similarly benefit motorbikes. The narrow straddle-rockets can cause problems with positional awareness even without a head-mounted display, but the indie project currently on both Greenlight…
I first heard about Boon Hill from a friend while we read epitaphs in a graveyard. That's only fitting, given that Boon Hill is a game about exploring a graveyard and reading epitaphs. It's been successfully funded on Kickstarter, and its creator recently climbed in bed with Nathan. It seems only reasonable that we now give it its own post. Trailer below.
Lethe is currently seeking votes on Greenlight and two teaser trailers have been released in an attempt to win over the public. I'm entirely comfortable describing the contents as 'Psi-Ops meets Amnesia'. The player character can levitate objects using a magical scab on his hand, throwing them across the room in a fit of rage or using them to activate distant pressure plates and the…
Why are the trains in Britain always late? Here is one possible reason: efficiently connecting train routes is flipping hard. I only realised this while playing Mini Metro, a Ludum Dare entry turned alpha for a full game which arrived right on time when I needed something to play this weekend. It's a neat strategy game, as visually clean as the finest tube maps, and…
Seems like only yesterday that we were posting about Crawl's spiffy new hot-pink-emblazoned Steam Greenlight page, and that's because it was. In what has to be some kind of record, it's already emerged from Valve's crowd-run dungeon with keys to the Steam kingdom in hand. Why, before you know it, Crawl will probably be learning to drive, graduating from college, and serving minimal time for…
The infernal Greenlight machine rolls on, devastating the environment and breaking hearts without missing a beat. It doesn't care what gets in its way. It knows only one pursuit: middling-to-popular indie games. Its main fuel source? People. Well, their votes, anyway. And also some arcane fusion of press reviews, crowdfunding successes, sales on other platforms, angel dust, kitten tears, and a signed copy of The…
BeamNG.drive reads like someone is attempting to talk after a visit to the dentist, though I've no idea what they'd be saying or what the context would be. "Brian, Drive!", maybe? Now that Brian has the wheel, I can pay more attention to what BeamNG.drive actually is: a game about the joy of realistically crumpling cars. It's been out for a while, though it still…
Valve have pushed another 50 games through the Steam Greenlight system, which by my count finally pushes us over the limit. There are now officially too many games. Please cease and desist all game manufacturing immediately. This is not a drill.
Valve's developer-only Steam Dev Days summit has begun, but that doesn't mean corrupt, malformed press types like us can't be there in spirit. And by spirit, I mean Twitter, because this is what my life/career has become. So then, what's going on behind the iron veil of Valve's Seattle warfortress? Tons of stuff, honestly. But so far, the biggest announcements concern Steam (it gained another…
The best thing about Ludum Dare is the regular avalanche of tiny games that people produce during the event. The worst thing is discovering a brilliant concept or idea, and waiting for a larger continuation to be released. Porpentine spotted Taquito Tower during Ludum Dare 27 and described it as follows:A tower of cube mazes filled with burritos and sassy enemies. Semi-turn based, so actions…
Every day, approximately 43 billion new indie games spring into existence from mysterious ethers far outside the realm of human comprehension. We approach these portals into The Beyond with great apprehension, then we scuttle away with our bounty, arms and hearts full of excitement and terror. We call this process "game development," and it will probably bring about the end of the world. Until then,…
Whatever Arranger is, and it appears to be many things, it has something in it called a "Turpato Peeler". That is such a beautiful mangling of the term that I laughed for about a minute. The rest of this strange adventure game seems no less silly and wondrous: it's set in a world of music and inspired by classic point and clickers, and a game…
After a potentially disastrous misjudgment last time around, the Greenlight train appears to be largely back on track. And by that, I mean it's knocked out another 100-strong batch in a single go, some parts of which are even vaguely recognizable. I'm especially glad to see The Stomping Land, Krautscape, Paper Sorcerer, Stasis, Driftmoon, and The Girl and the Robot get Valve's lambda-shaped stamp of…
You can keep your self-driving cars, Amazon delivery drones and cryptographic currencies. The future I'm excited about is the one in which I get to play Master Spy. The 2D evasion platformer is about sneaking past guards, cameras and dogs using a an invisibility cloak to a soundtrack of '80s synth. It has unaccountable floating platforms, unaccountably beautiful pixel art, and it understands the power…
Maybe Valve should put a yellow light in front of Steam Greenlight, because it needs to slooooooooow down - for just a second or two, anyway. I mean, don't get me wrong: I'm all for tons of games getting the go-ahead to drown in sweet, sweet Greenlight green, but this week's batch included - among a few other questionable/forgettable picks - Neal Stephenson's CLANG. You…
Once upon a website, weary, while I pondered weak and sweary, Over many a dull and tedious release of forgotten bore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some colleague gently rapping. Alt-tabbing to my inbox door, `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `emailing about The Last Door - Only this, and nothing more.'Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the…
By criminy, Steam's daft Greenlight is letting a lot of games through at the moment. 100 more after the 37 a couple of weeks ago. That makes a total of 262 games cleared for entry in the last three months. That's a lot of games. Does it mean Greenlight is finally working? No, of course not. But it does mean there's a long, long list…
"This is hard. Hard and stupid." You are correct, Probably Archery. You are both those things, because that is your reason for existing: to be hard and to be stupid. Probs Arch, as I like to call it, is another of that breed of games that gives you an intimate level of control over bits of your body. In this case, you manipulate both arms…
