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Hire thieves for your dirty work, reap the rewards in The Swindle
Heists can be exhausting – all those break-ins to plan, bags of money to haul and the mounting stress of getting caught, not to mention the extensive leg work involved. Thankfully, the recently-relaunched The Swindle instead lets you coach hired men through your master plans, and should your wit lead to their demise, well ... at least you didn't learn your shortcomings firsthand. Any cash your goons escape with can be spent on upgrades (which stick with you beyond a thief's eventual death), but The Swindle's lucrative structures are procedurally generated, so you'll never know a route like the back of your hand. There aren't random perks or chance-based rewards though, so you'll need to get by on your hacking, thieving and whacking skills rather than luck. The Swindle is planning a break-in within early 2015, and while platforms have not been announced yet, Size Five Games' Dan Marshall notes that "PC is a good bet" and that he's talking to Sony about PlayStation's platforms, including the Vita. Marshall once described The Swindle's physics-based platforming as "Deus Ex meets Sonic the Hedgehog." The project was eventually canceled due to Marshall feeling its elements "didn't hold together properly," but after tinkering with a procedurally-generated reboot earlier this year, Marshall decided to give The Swindle another chance. [Image: Size Five Games]
Zombie Cow becomes Size Five Games
Let's face it: Zombies have become oppressively mainstream during these past few years. Let's also face the fact that cows have equally over-saturated civilization ever since somebody figured out that the milk they produce tastes totally awesome. We assume that these two undeniable truths are the major reasons behind Ben There, Dan That and Privates developer Zombie Cow's recent decision to change its name to the much less predictable Size Five Games. "I've always hated the name Zombie Cow," founder Dan Marshall explained in a blog post. "You only get one life, and there's no point going through it unhappy with something if it's well within your capability to change it," he added. "So I'm changing it." That's ... that's inspiring. So inspiring, in fact, that it's leading us to our very own name change. That's right -- we're rebranding ourselves as "Joystick." We've been too proud for years now to admit that we spelled it wrong, but we just can't hide behind the lie anymore.
Privates deemed too sexy for Xbox Indie Games
In a not-so-stunning turn of events, it seems that the battle to release Zombie Cow's genitalia-based shooter Privates on Xbox Live Indie Games has been lost. Zombie Cow announced as much this morning, saying, "The guys at Xbox have been amazing. They've been really helpful and supportive throughout, but ultimately have advised that the game wouldn't pass the Indie Games Peer Review process." Given the previous warnings saying as much, Zombie Cow wasn't exactly blindsided by this news. "It's a shame, but it's something we'd always pretty much assumed would happen," says ZC's Dan Marshall. He also assured fans that, since releasing the game on PC, the studio has been "improving it and getting it running on as many different systems as possible" as to fix various bugs. For its part, Microsoft told Joystiq, "This game has not been approved for distribution on Xbox LIVE Indie Games. We have guidelines in place that closely track requirements of content ratings boards worldwide and, among other things, prohibit the publication of strong sexual content."
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Zombie Cow Studios
Being a giant, beloved video game blog has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. To kick things off we're, unsurprisingly, turning to one of our favorite indie developers: Dan Marshall of Zombie Cow Studios. How did you get started? I started my career working in TV, and making games was my naughty little hobby on the side -- a way of expressing my creativity when my 9-to-5 was making terrible reality shows. When Time Gentlemen, Please! started to get great reviews, I took a good long look at TV and where it was likely to go over the next 30 years (with the death of the traditional broadcaster, and people on YouTube being exponentially more entertaining than most of the grot I'd been involved in) and took a good long look at where gaming's going ... and it's a pretty easy decision to leap from boat-to-boat.
Zombie Cow's Marshall: All journos should have to make a game
Zombie Cow's Dan Marshall has always walked in two worlds, writing editorials and reviews for PCZone as he programmed his first game, Gibbage. As he (and partner Ben Ward) went on to create adventure games like Ben There, Dan That, he found the experience extremely helpful. So helpful, he told Gamasutra, that he thinks every journalist should have the same experience. "As a developer I think you're slightly more understanding of the process involved, but as a gamer you know whether or not you're having a good time," Marshall said. "I think all games journos should be forced to make a game somehow, see how they get on. It gives you a more rounded perspective." Luckily, we've got Marshall's request covered.
Zombie Cow to make episodic Dan and Ben games
Well, this is the perfect way to start a Tuesday morning. Zombie Cow Studios, the guys behind the brilliant Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentlemen, Please have told Rock, Paper, Shotgun that they're working on new, episodic adventures for Dan and Ben, prompted in part by the game's ridiculously good critical reception.Chunks of the new series will be short -- hovering around an hour -- and self-contained, so newcomers can hop on at any point. Well, "newcomers" is Zombie Cow's Dan Marshall's language. We prefer to call people who haven't played Ben There, Dan That "bad people."
Review: Time Gentlemen, Please!
I have a tough confession to make, so try not to judge me. Most adventure games that are supposed to be funny ... they don't really make me laugh. I mean, I get that they're amusing, which, combined with the joy of solving the occasional clever puzzle, is enough to keep me playing. There's humor in them, but I always just sort of "get it," instead of it getting me. Time Gentlemen, Please! gets me. In fact, it slays me. The new PC adventure game from Zombie Cow Studios has not only some really brain-wrenching puzzles but humor that feels as sharp and inventive as I'm sure LucasArts classics felt back in the day.
