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See Ascent's warp effect in action
While it may look like a Photoshop paint smear effect, Ascent's new warp animation is certainly an improvement over nothing at all. The one-man team posted a short video showing various ships going through warp gates and bending the very fabric of reality as they lunge across the universe. Ascent is fresh off a successful Kickstarter campaign. You can watch the warp video after the jump.
Ascent squeaks by its Kickstarter funding goal
The race to fund Ascent: The Space Game through Kickstarter came down to the wire, but in the final moments, the community came through and passed its $35,000 AUD goal by $334 AUD. This is obviously good news for the game's fans and for Fluffy Kittens Studio (and no, we will never get tired of typing that name). The money will be put to good use, says the lead dev: "The $35,000 Kickstarter goal will allow us to add four months to Ascent's development, resulting in a total of eight months of development time. We strongly believe that the added time will allow us to greatly expand the game's user base by polishing the visuals and fixing the user interface."
First-person platformer Deadcore is a sci-fi speedrun
First-person platformer Deadcore is now available on PC, Mac and Linux. Developed by the five-person French studio 5 Bits Games, the game costs $10 on Steam and Desura. Set in a mysterious sci-fi world, Deadcore has players climbing to the top of a labyrinthine tower, shooting at mechanical enemies and triggers in the twisted tower's security system to open new pathways. Deadcore features a Speedrun mode with online leaderboards, allowing players to challenge their friends' best times in the fast-paced levels. Bandai Namco handled the distribution of the independent platformer, as announced back in April. Head past the break to check out the game's launch trailer, which shows off Deadcore's jumping abilities. [Image: Bandai Namco]
Ascent adds in a colonization city-building sim
The galaxy is now open to colonization in Ascent: The Space Game -- and there's plenty of room for everyone. Developer James Hicks has added in a colonization system to the sandbox MMO, allowing players to engage in a city-building sim among the billions of star systems. Colonization is intended to be the endgame for industrial players, with a great amount of complexity and no upper limit on the number of buildings or colonists. Every planet can be colonized, although ones with hostile environments will require more work and protective domes. To build up their colonies, players will need to recruit colonists, bring them to the planet, and task them with farming and mining the new world. "My intent from here is to expand on the city building aspects -- giving the population more complex needs and desires, making the recruitment aspect deeper and more meaningful, and adding new production types, new structures for interacting with other players like starport facilities and stock markets, and expand on the 'out of ship' play," Hicks wrote.
Indie Royale's Joystiq reader-named 'With Cheese' bundle out now
Indie Royale has launched the "Royale with Cheese" bundle, a beat-the-minimum PC game compilation named by contest-winning Joystiq reader bourbumchickum. The DRM-free package includes indie PC standouts Continue?9876543210, Cognition Episode 3: The Oracle, Yelaxot, Rogue's Tale and Too Many Me. Three featured games include Steam keys, and all included titles are redeemable at Desura. The release of the "Royale with Cheese" bundle coincides with the 20th anniversary of the first Cannes showing of Pulp Fiction, the film that inspired our contest's winning entry. The "Royale with Cheese" bundle is currently available for a minimum purchase price of $4.46. [Image: Indie Royale]
Ascent: The Space Game on building a better sci-fi sandbox
You'd be forgiven for not having heard of Ascent: The Space Game before. EVE Online is the sci-fi sandbox dominating headlines, and Star Citizen and other upcoming games are breathing down its neck. Is there room in the genre for, well, an indie space MMO that isn't all about cutthroat politics or hardcore ganking? James Hicks, the founder and CEO of Fluffy Kitten Studios and the man behind Ascent, says yes. He took the time this week to answer our questions about his already-playable-but-still-in-development game in deep detail, focusing on the game's complexity, player feedback, business model, mechanics, and how Ascent can truly expand the genre.
Second Life developer Linden Lab picks new CEO, Ebbe Altberg
Linden Lab announced Ebbe Altberg as its new CEO today. He joins the company following former CEO Rod Humble's departure late last week. Altberg was previously COO of professional networking company BranchOut and SVP of Media Products for Yahoo. Linden Lab is best known for developing Second Life, a Sims-like online virtual world for PC, Mac and Linux that first launched in June 2003. It also acquired the indie-focused game distribution platform Desura in July 2013. [Image: Linden Lab]
Indie Royale 'Debut 9' bundle makes first-timers available on the cheap
Indie Royale has posted a new bundle of tempting indie delicacies from first-time developers, all of whom are currently fighting on Steam Greenlight for placement on Valve's digital distribution service. The Debut 9 bundle, available for little over the next five days, tosses together six indie debuts: Airship Dragoon, Little Trus Man, Sky Nations, Inescapable, Dark Gates and Chronicles of a Dark Lord: Episode 1 Tides of Fate. Airship Dragoon, from YorkshireRifles, is a turn-based squad combat game that takes place across two campaigns, while Little Trus Man is a side-scrolling puzzle game with stacking elements from PRC Production LTD. Sky Nations is a multiplayer sandbox game from MrBenjammin where players create airships and wage war, and Inescapable is a 2D sci-fi action-adventure game set on a remote interplanetary mining operation from MagneticRealms. The last two are DFour Games' Dark Gates, a top-down homage to paper RPG games, and Chronicles of a Dark Lord: Episode 1 Tides of Fate – a strategy game, set in a dark world, with an Active Time Battle system not unlike the one popularized by the Final Fantasy series. An additional unknown game will be revealed later. The current minimum for The Debut 9 bundle is under $4 – so if you just want the games, you can throw that much in and get to playing. Pitching in $6 or more will guarantee a bonus chiptune album, which you can sample here, from artist WMD.
Humble Weekly Sale collects Galaxy on Fire 2, Jagged Alliance series
The latest Humble Weekly Sale spotlights publisher bitComposer Games, offering a range of classic and modern releases from the Jagged Alliance series, among other featured games. The bundle includes the iPad-ported space exploration game Galaxy on Fire 2, World War II flight sim Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers rail shooter Thunder Wolves, and the DRM-free compilation Jagged Alliance Classics, which includes Madlab Software's 1994 tactical RPG Jagged Alliance, the follow-ups Jagged Alliance 2 and Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games, and the standalone expansion Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business. Pay more than $6 for the package and you'll also get Coreplay's 2012 series revival Jagged Alliance: Crossfire, as well as the historical strategy game Expeditions: Conquistador. The collection will remain available through November 21.
Desura gets spooky with indie-focused Halloween sale
Not to be outdone by Steam's ongoing catalog-wide sale, rival online storefront Desura has launched a week-long Halloween promotion of its own, dropping the price of many featured horror games in a most spooktacular fashion. Today's sale brings a 75 percent price drop for Matt Cohen's first-person haunting sim Paranormal, along with additional discounts for Screwfly Studios' Zafehouse: Diaries, 9heads' Damned, and the "Trash Game of the Year Edition" of Homegrown Games' Into the Dark. Additional price drops will be revealed as the sale continues through November 5.
All nominated IndieCade games offered Desura distribution and promotion
Linden Lab is offering free Desura distribution and promotion to all IndieCade finalists, the Second Life developer announced. The offer extends to all PC, Mac and Linux nominees in the games festival, which takes place this weekend in Los Angeles. According to IndieCade's website, 21 of the 36 nominees are eligible for the offer, which includes a spot on the indie game distribution platform without any listing fees as well as "promotional advertising" as part of Desura's partner program. The promotion and placement of the IndieCade finalists' games isn't a huge challenge for Linden Lab, as it acquired Desura in July. Still, it's the thought that counts.
Golden Jubilee Bundle offers indie value, keys to newsletter subscribers
Indie Royale has launched its 50th bundle, The Golden Jubilee Bundle, and has included two redeemable keys within the bundle's related email to all of its "regular email newsletter" subscribers. The keys also include a digital copy of Cold Storage's Tik Tak album. For newsletter-less gamers, paying the minimum price ($2.20 at the time of this writing) will grant you keys for Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites, Star Hammer Tactics, Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, Bird Assassin, Amazing Zombie Defense and Zombie Football Carnage. Patrons should note that Akaneiro is a free-to-play game, but that the Jubilee Bundle includes a key for "$4.99 worth of in-game items." Donating $5 or more will also net you Tik Tak. Every game included in the bundle is playable on Windows via Desura. Akaneiro is also available for Mac and Linux.
Hand-picked Xbox Indie PC ports in new Indie Royale bundle
Eight PC ports of what Indie Gamer Chick, a site devoted to Xbox Live Indie Games, calls "the best Xbox Live Indie Games ever made" are all available in the latest Indie Royale bundle. Throwing down more than $8 will guarantee three soundtracks in addition to the games. Dead Pixels, a zombie shooter with a hard survival slant from CSR-Studios, headlines this latest Indie Royale bundle and is joined by Brilliant Blue-G's 2D platformer with light RPG elements, Chester. Gravity-flipping side-scroller Antipole from Saturnine Games leaps into the fray, as does Monster Jail Games' quirky retro romp, Lasercat. Rounding out the bundle are espionage puzzle game SpyLeaks, space-age shmup Orbitron: Revolution, top-down racer Little Racers Street and Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos, a game where players create and manage their own call center. A handful of the games are also vying for Steam Greenlight support, if you feel like tossing a few votes their way. As of now, the current minimum is around $4 for this Indie Royale bundle. As with all Indie Royale bundles, this one will be available for a week.
Second Life's Linden Lab expands with digital distribution service
Second Life's Linden Lab has announced this week that it has acquired the digital distribution service Desura. What's Desura? Think of it as a lesser-known version of Steam, yet without the DRM headaches and more focused on player mods. So, not really like Steam. Linden Lab's CEO, Rod Humble, is optimistic about Desura's offering to the 14-year-old virtual world company: "This acquisition gives us a global platform for serving creative developers of all kinds, and we're looking forward to growing both Desura's global community of gamers and its fantastic portfolio of thousands of games, mods, and other content. Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world."
Second Life developer snaps up indie game distribution service
Linden Lab, developer of the 3D virtual world Second Life, announced today that it has acquired the indie-focused PC game distribution service Desura. Desura, notable for offering a publishing platform with a lower barrier for entry than its competitor Steam, is a DRM-agnostic service employed by the Humble Indie Bundle and Indie Royale, among other organizations. The service was created by the PC modding hub Mod DB, and currently serves as a high-profile distributor of user-created PC game mods. The Desura purchase is Linden Lab's second major acquisition this year, following up on the company's recent purchase of Blocksworld, an upcoming iPad game. "Desura's talented team, thriving business, and impressive technology are a great fit for Linden Lab," said Linden Lab's CEO Rod Humble. "Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world."
Jamsouls jumps from XBLIG to PC, pick it up and play with friends
Jamsouls, the 2D multiplayer arcade game previously launched on XBLIG, is out now on Windows via Desura. It's available for $2.39 on Desura, or $1 (80 MSP) on XBLIG. Jamsouls comes from the development duo at Chromatic Dream. In May, co-founder Pierrick Cheminade told Joystiq the game was inspired by classic arcade titles Bomberman and Joust, and that each character featured a vivid personality. "You can give a group of friends Jamsouls and within a few seconds they will be having lots of fun," Cheminade said. "The diversity of game modes we have included provide variety and ensure they continue playing for the rest of the evening." Jamsouls is up for a bid on Steam Greenlight. We're hopeful for it there: Dreams do come true, even Chromatic ones.
Indie Royale 'Hammerhead' bundle includes Richard & Alice, Primordia and more
The latest Indie Royale bundle is now available for the current minimum price of $5.68. The Hammerhead bundle includes Owl Cave's Richard & Alice, Primordia by Wormwood Studios, Pressure by Chasing Carrots, Forge by Dark Vale Games and Pandora Studios' Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage. The bundle seems immediately worthwhile to us just for the inclusion of Richard & Alice alone, per our recent review of the game. Those that pay at least $8 for the Hammerhead bundle will also receive MY OK BBS' chiptune album It's Not Great. There's also a mysterious sixth game in the bundle, likely to be revealed at a later time. The Indie Royale bundle is available on PC until June 7.
The Howler is a voice-controlled game with hand-drawn art
The Howler is a puzzle platformer with a twist. While it's possible to control the game with a good ol' mouse and keyboard, it can also be controlled entirely by voice. The goal is to guide a hot air balloon through wind currents in order to reach different objectives. Players can raise and lower the balloon by modulating the volume of their voice, and even drop bombs by making short, loud noises (yelling "bomb" seems ideal). Watching the trailer, we think we might know where developer Marcelionis came up with the game's name. You can pick it up from Desura on PC or Mac for $5. Side note: If you've been looking for a game to help you practice that one scene from Aimelie, The Howler is perfect.
Debut Bundle debuts on Indie Royale with Cognition
Every new Indie Royale bundle comes with a theme. This time around, the six-game Debut Bundle features four "new games or versions debuting on PC," while two are the first games from their respective developers.Available now, the Debut Bundle includes episode one of Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller by Phoenix Online Studios, McDROID by Elefantopia; DarkWave Games' Master of Alchemy: Rise of the Mechanologists, CloudPhobia by Marsbound, Wimp: Who Stole My Pants? from FlexileStudio and 6180 the Moon from Turtle Cream and PokPoong Games.All six games can be purchased for the pay-the-minimum price, which started at $3.99, through Friday, March 15. Players that pick up the bundle for $8 will also receive the chiptune album Motorway by Fearofdark.
Chosen Bundle chooses Hard Reset, DLC Quest
The latest Indie Royale bundle went live earlier this week, and includes five games at the dynamic "pay the minimum" price, currently just under $5. The Chosen Bundle features DLC Quest and Lair of the Evildoer by Going Loud Studios, Hard Reset by Flying Wild Hog, Brog's Vertex Dispenser and Jolly Rover by Brawsome. All games in the bundle are for PC and Mac via Steam and Desura.By paying at least $8 for the pack of games, players will receive Daniel Capo's chiptune album O.S.T: Original Soundtrack. The Chosen Bundle is available for purchase through Wednesday, February 27.
