Prison Architect “paid alpha” planned for later this year
We met up with Introversion at A Bit of Alright last week to talk about how development is going on their new project, Prison Architect. Creative director, Chris Delay and managing director Mark Morris told us about their plans for a “paid alpha” later this year.
The alpha could be released “maybe half way through/two thirds through of this year, so maybe September time,” says Chris. The paid alpha will give players the opportunity to pay for a pre-order to get immediate access to the build that Introversion are currently working on.
Indie Gala 2 is live, includes Greed Corp, InMomentum, Roboblitz and more
The second Indie Gala bundle is go! It includes three escalating indie game packages. The Carebear Bundle contains Critical Mass, Fortix 2 and Bunch of Heroes as well as three music albums, Casey Lalonde’s Skitter EP, Comfort by Giraffage and the Beautiful EP by The Numbers. You can choose to pay between $1 and $5.55 for that lot, and can choose how your payment is distributed between the developers, charities (Save the Children and Child’s Play), and the Indie Gala organisers.
Musical puzzler AVSEQ gets a demo, out now
AVSEQ stands for Audio Visual Sequencer. It’s a puzzle game in which you must draw links between descending orbs to vapourise them and unlock new notes on an audio sequencer cycling through the background. The idea is to build up massive chains to gain mega-points and unlock new notes for the gradually building musical score. You have to collect every note before the time runs out to beat the stage. It’s join-the-dots against the clock with the added satisfaction of a swelling musical accompaniment.
There’s a catch, though. If those orbs touch the bottom of the screen, they evaporate and break any chain they’re hooked into. Each level becomes a frantic but absorbing game of risk vs reward as you try to sketch more and more ambitious webs over an increasingly kaleidoscopic backdrop. A two-mission demo is available now on the AVSEQ page of the Big-Robot site. If its musical tendrils manage to snare your attention, you can grab the full game here for a mere $5.
Dear Esther trailer has beautiful island vistas
The first official Dear Esther trailer has appeared on the Dear Esther site, celebrating its four IGF award nominations and upcoming release on Steam on February 14. It offers a short but haunting glimpse of the island that you explore for the duration of the game. As you move over its hills and through its caves, you’ll uncover scraps of narration that resonate with the environment, resulting in an interactive letter of “love, loss, guilt and redemption.” It also looks as though it’s going to be the most beautiful thing ever made with the Source Engine.
Q.U.B.E. recoups Indie Fund investment in four days
Q.U.B.E. is the first project released to be bankrolled by the Indie Fund, an organisation made up of a series of successful indie developers looking to provide hands-off financial support to exciting new game makers. A post on the Indie Fund blog, spotted by Joystiq, says that they have recouped their $90,000 investment after just four days.
“In the short time that it’s been available on Steam, Q.U.B.E. has sold over 12,000 copies,” say the Indie Fund. “Indie Fund recouped its investment in Q.U.B.E., and now we’re looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Toxic Games.”
PCG Plays: Dungeons of Dredmor
In this edition of PC Gamer Plays, Evan and Chris spread the randomly-generated joy of one of our favorite games of 2011: Dungeons of Dredmor. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, watch the video above to find out what it is and why Chris still won’t stop talking about it, then spy on the duo’s misadventures in the videos that follow…
IGF finalists announced: Dear Esther, Frozen Synapse, Spelunky and Gunpoint nominated
The finalists of this year’s Independent Games Festival have been announced. A wide range of promising indie titles have received nominations including Dear Esther to Frozen Synapse, Spelunky and Gunpoint, made by our own Tom Francis, who is several feet behind me watching looking very happy and watching videos of bees.
It’s a fantastic line-up across the board. It’ll be a very tough task for the judges to pick out victors. Until then, have a look at the list below, and let us know which games you think should take awards.
Ludum Dare 22 won by Frostbite and Midas
“Alone” was the theme of the latest Ludum Dare indie game contest. Anyone who fancied joining in had 48 hours to create a game based on the theme. Then, everyone got to play each other’s games and rate them based on categories like humour, fun, innovation, graphics, audio. The game with the highest overall score takes the top spot.
Project Zomboid to get new lighting system, improved NPCs and carpentry
Project Zomboid developers, The Indie Stone have enjoyed more than two months of development time in which nothing has caught fire or exploded. A robbery in October wiped out weeks of progress, but the team is back on track and have been teasing some new features that players can expect to arrive in upcoming updates, including a new lighting engine and new ways to interact with Zomboid’s NPCs. Also, carpentry!
Indie Royale New Year’s Bundle goes live, includes Nuclear Dawn, Fractal and more
The Indie Royale New Year’s Bundle was announced coyly earlier this week. You could pre-order it without knowing what the four games included were. The deal has now gone live, lifting the veil on FPS/RTS hybrid, Nuclear Dawn, Max & The Magic Marker, a puzzle platformer in which you can draw objects into existence, lovely musical puzzler, Fractal and mad arcade shooter, Super Crossfire. You can pay what you want above the current asking price of £2.66 for all four games.
Because this is an Indie Royale bundle, the price will change every few seconds depending on the amount of money each buyer puts up for the pack. The handy graph on the Indie Royale front page shows that it’s been slowly increasing in price since it went live yesterday, so you might want to snap it up quickly. Here are trailers of the four games, to give you an idea of what they’re like before buying. The bundle will close in four days, six hours and counting.
Binding of Isaac “Wrath of the Lamb” expansion announced, coming “when it’s done”
Or at least, it’s as officially “announced” as an indie game can get. Brilliant madman Edmund McMillen’s been gradually revealing gore-spattered bits and pieces via Twitter, allowing a few particularly interesting tidbits to slip out. Foremost, the expansion will increase the total item count to 205 (up from 131) – thanks in part to a new “trinket” item category that grants passive bonuses. Also, it’ll go for a mere $3 when it’s ready for primetime. Sadly, there’s no release date beyond “when it’s done” at the moment, but there are worse fates. For instance, being chased into a monster-packed death dungeon by your crazed mother. So that’s… comforting? Well, I tried, anyway.
Super Meat Boy hits one million sales, Bastion passes 500,000
Great news for two top indie games. A Team Meat tweet announces that “Super Meat Boy past the million sales mark last month!” The spattery plaformer recently featured in the superb Humble Indie Bundle 4, which took more than two million dollars in total donations before it closed. “PLATINUM BABY!” said the devs, understandably pleased.
Mystery Indie Royale New Year’s Bundle available to pre-order now
Being able to see the thing you’re buying before buying the thing is an important part of buying things, but if you really enjoy being surprised, the Indie Royale New Year’s Bundle is available to pre-order now. It will include four unknown games including an “innovative single-player puzzle game,” an “award-winning 2D platformer,” a “world premiere on PC/Mac for an acclaimed arcade shooter with a twist” and a “premium blend of FPS and RTS.”
Monaco multiplayer movie musters merriment
Top-down indie heist ‘em up Monaco: What’s yours is mine has a new trailer, according to those lovely chaps over at RPS. Soundtracked with an authentic-sounding plinky-plonk piano, it highlights the multiplayer portion of the game. It’s definitely best viewed in full-screen at 1080p, otherwise it just looks like something a nine-year-old made in the 1995 Micro Machines engine. It still looks like damn good fun, though, and it’s hugely impressive due to the fact that it was born of the depression of one man.
Dungeons of Dredmor adds Emomancy, danger, Veganism in “Realm of the Diggle Gods” expansion
Gaslamp Games has released a $2.99 expansion to Dungeons of Dredmor, a roguelike we’ve come to cherish through 2011. For the price of a small hamburger, you can inject new skill trees, items, monster types, and more ways of being killed by one of our favorite indie games of the year. Buy it on Steam here.
I’ve pasted a breakdown of the expansion’s major content within. I think I’ll roll a vegan, vampire Emomancer tonight when I get home. Finally, an RPG that lets me build a Twilight character.
