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Facebook Live will host a collaborative escape room game today
If you enjoy live action room experiences (think zombies, puzzles etc) or fancy yourself as a bit of an armchair detective, it might be worth tuning into a first-of-its-kind Facebook Live stream later today. To celebrate the launch of its new crime drama, UK TV channel Alibi will host Framed, the "world's first livestreamed escape room", at 3pm ET/8pm BST -- and it's open to all.
Best of the Rest: Susan's picks of 2014
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Framed Framed is so elegant and simple that it needs not a single word to teach you how to play. If you understand the basic function of the panels in a comic book and are able to poke things with your finger, you will swiftly understand the basics of how to make things happen in this brilliant mobile game. Arrange the panels one way, and your spy makes a daring escape from the police; position them another way, and he emerges from the wrong door right into the hands of the law. From the very first level, which uses just two panels to illustrate how switching the order of the comic can change the outcome of its events, Framed builds on its simplicity, adding more panels, directionality and timing to create more complex puzzles in its stylish spy-vs-spy thriller. Each page of the comic is a puzzle complete unto itself, making Framed perfectly designed for short bursts of inspiration, or restricted play time. It's one of those games that's so damn clever, you wish you'd thought it up yourself.
Hack 'n' Slash changes its IndieCade 2014's Grand Jury Award variable to True
Hack 'n' Slash, Brandon Dillon and Double Fine's adventure that pushes players to solve problems via hacking and tweaking variables, has penetrated IndieCade 2014's databases to grant itself the Grand Jury Award. Indie Game Reviewer's recollection of the ceremony's winners notes additional victories, including the Twitch chat-driven Choice Chamber, which won the Technology Award, and the comic book-style noir adventure Framed, which won the Visual Design Award. Alex Rigopulos, CEO of Rock Band series creator Harmonix, was also awarded the Indiecade Trailblazer Award, with N++ earning the Special Recognition Award. Hack 'n' Slash follows 2013's Grand Jury Award winner, Quadrilateral Cowboy, which beat out Towerfall, Nidhogg, Gone Home and Kentucky Route Zero (all of which still earned alternative recognition). [Image: Double Fine]
PAX 10 spotlights Framed and Duet
This year's PAX 10, a collection of games from independent developers, has been determined and will be highlighted at next month's PAX Prime convention. The ten games were hand-picked by 50 industry experts, starting with Duet, Kumobius' elegant arcade-style action game for iOS. Duet is joined by LoveShack's Framed, a narrative puzzle game trapped in a comic world. Both Duet and Framed received attention earlier this year when the games were among six total mobile titles in the PAX East Indie Showcase. Those two games are joined by an abstract 2D PC platformer from DigiPen's Neat Snake known as Flickers. Infinity Monkeys' Life Goes On is also in the mix, in which players set out to find the Cup of Life by ironically sacrificing knights to the game's deathly contraptions. Untame's amorphous puzzler Mushroom 11 will be included in the showcase, as will Funktronic Labs' sci-fi, turn-based adventure game Nova-111.
Framed gesture-controlled digital canvas debuts on Kickstarter, starting at $399
It's shaping up to be a big month for digital art displays. Electric Objects popped up on Kickstarter with its successfully funded 23-inch LCD for $299, and now a familiar face has turned to the funding site with its own rebooted version. Framed 2.0, an update to 2011's overpowered 40-inch model, includes integrated WiFi, a 720p front-facing camera and motion sensors, so you can interact with the frame using gestures. There's also a companion smartphone app, for purchasing and swapping art, creating schedules and adjusting settings. The first 250 backers can take home a 24-inch 1080p screen for $399. A 40-inch version will be available for $1,500, while a "super limited" 55-inch model will go for a whopping $10,000, including dinner with the design team in Tokyo. All three frames are available for pre-order on Kickstarter now, with select models shipping in November.
Play with the panels of a noir spy comic in Framed
Framed is a game for comic fans, noir aficionados, puzzle gurus and lovers of story. It's minimalistic; the characters are silhouettes with details in white, such as ties and flowers, and there's absolutely no text. Gameplay involves sliding frames of a comic around to create the best possible scenario for mysterious, trench-coated characters as they attempt to outrun and outsmart the police force in a big city. It's largely a puzzle game – move one panel to the wrong spot and the police officer in that frame will see your character running and shoot him in the face. Place a panel of a hallway in front of that, and your character runs up behind the cop, knocking him out with the briefcase he perpetually carries. The briefcase is a mystery. It changes hands between at least two characters, one man and one woman (both wearing trench coats), and it apparently holds something valuable. Framed comes from Australian studio Loveshack, and designer Joshua Boggs tells Joystiq that the game includes two main elements: puzzle and story.
Wayward Souls, The Spookening headline PAX East Indie Showcase
The PAX East Indie Showcase stars six mobile games from independent studios around the world: Crowman & Wolfboy, Wither Studios LLC: US Duet, Kumobius: Australia Framed, Loveshack: Australia The Spookening, Modesty: Sweden Tiny Dice Dungeon, Springloaded: Singapore Wayward Souls, Rocketcat Games: US The Indie Showcase at PAX East is a mobile-specific sampling of games, rather than the yearly lineup of higher-profile, mainly console and PC indie games in the PAX 10 at PAX Prime. This distinction is on purpose, Penny Arcade co-founder Jerry Holkins wrote in a blog post. "It may not be apparent outside of my own mind, but the PEIS has a specific mission to promote games on mobile," he said. "PAX10 is more broad. But mobile is an especially scary place to make games right now, and I think there's good to be done thereby. Unlike a lot of games at a show like this, a lot of times you can just grab your phone out of your pocket and buy something you like right there. As magic tricks go, that's a pretty good one." [Image: Rocketcat Games]
Indie Fund backs comic-style noir adventure, Framed
Indie Fund – the financier behind Monaco, The Swapper, Antichamber and Dear Esther, among others – is backing Loveshack Entertainment's comic book-style narrative game, Framed. It's a silent, noir adventure cloaked in style and story: Players move panels of a graphic novel to alter the outcome of certain scenes, ideally making life easier for the protagonist, a trenchcoated detective. Framed is due out in 2014 on Steam and iOS, and it's already received an influx of awards and nominations from IGF China, Freeplay Independent Games Festival and Tokyo Game Show.
Framed mixes up comic books, noir and action in 2014
Framed is all about the story. It asks players to move panels of a comic book to tell a noir, action story in the best way possible for the trench-coated protagonist. Framed comes from Australian developer Loveshack and is due out in 2014 on iOS and Steam.
Firemint devs form new Australian studio, Loveshack Entertainment
Joshua Boggs, Adrian Moore and Ollie Browne are three developers who formerly worked at Firemint, the venerated studio behind iOS hits like Flight Control, Spy Mouse, and (after an acquisition by EA and a merger with Iron Monkey to become Firemonkeys) the recent hit Real Racing 3. They decided to leave the studio about six months ago and form their own team, called Loveshack Entertainment. As Loveshack, the guys are working on a new game called Framed, which looks pretty good according to this concept trailer. The game is an interactive comic book page, where you can drag panels around the screen and line them up in the right order to make a certain sequence of events go down. Obviously, that video is just a concept, but we'll look forward to seeing what the game looks like when it's done -- it's due out sometime later on this year. Firemint is one of the premiere developers on the App Store, and these guys are starting their own venture with a lot of good experience behind them. Hopefully, we'll see some really great releases from Loveshack in the future as well.
Framed 40-inch digiframe for galleries, cafes, the insanely rich (video)
If a 7-inch photo frame is perfect for grandma, think of Framed as an art display for the rest of us. (Assuming the rest of us have sky-high art budgets.) This 40-inch giant is based on a Samsung LED HDTV and powered by a Core i5 processor and Windows 7. Built-in 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi connects the digital canvas to a dedicated iOS app, which you'll use to purchase static and motion art and even manipulate content for display, using a virtual touchpad. Built-in speakers aren't a surprise, considering it's essentially a modified consumer HDTV, but there's also a camera and microphone -- for making your own art? No word on pricing or availability, but judging by the sample spaces used in the demo video (after the break), we're guessing that we don't fit within the designer's target demographic.
