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Puzzling first-person platformer Tri-ing to gather Greenlight votes
Rat King Entertainment recently launched its Steam Greenlight page for 3D puzzle-platformer Tri. The game, a first-person platformer in the same vein as Antichamber, has players exploring towers and dungeons, building platforms and solving puzzles along the way. Tri's alpha version, composed of 12 levels, is available now through the Humble Store, Desura and Indie Game Stand for $10. Buying the PC, Mac and Linux game now amounts to a pre-order, as players will receive an upgrade to the full version of Tri when it launches somewhere between Q4 2013 and Q1 2014.
Super Hexagon creator unveils free browser-based puzzler Naya's Quest
Terry Cavanagh recently released a new flash-based game, Naya's Quest. The enjoyable little adventure game has players traversing through an abandoned town to "the edge," an isometric world full of puzzling rooms. The attractive, challenging platformer also has a catchy soundtrack, which Cavanagh created and released on BandCamp. Cavanagh is best known for crafting VVVVVV and Super Hexagon. Naya's Quest is one of six free games listed on Cavanagh's site, and one that you should probably spend time with right now.
Dreamy indie game Pavilion coming to PS4, Vita in Spring 2014
Visiontrick Media's "exploratory" game Pavilion will launch in spring 2014 on PS4 and Vita, as announced during Sony's recent pre-TGS conference. The game features hand-painted, surreal 2D environments and "dreamy ambient music" by composer Tony Gerber. Visiontrick Media describes Pavilion as "a fourth person exploratory experience about guidance, influence and subliminal control." In it, players manipulate the main character's surroundings as well as his "sense."
Where is my Heart? Oh, it's on PC and Mac next month
Die Gute Fabrik's indie platformer Where is my Heart? will arrive on PC and Mac in September through Steam and the Humble Store, and then on Linux at a later date. The game launched as a PlayStation Mini in November 2011 for PS3, PSP and Vita. Where is my Heart? has players guiding a family of forest spirits that live in a tree whose roots hold the world together. The game's environment is also broken into square segments that shuffle around, adding a puzzling element to the family's journey. The PC/Mac version will include a new menu system and levels. Die Gute Fabrik hasn't listed a price for Where is my Heart? yet. It will be playable in the meantime at PAX Prime in Seattle this weekend, at booth number 866 located in the Indie Megabooth (along with over 80 other games).
Beautiful adventure game Candle seeking Kickstarter, Greenlight approval
Spanish developer Teku Studios is hard at work on its introductory game Candle, and is seeking $40,000 on Kickstarter by Friday, August 16 to pay for development costs. Candle is a platformer-meets-adventure game in which players guide a "shaman pupil" named Teku, rescuing fellow survivors of his village following an attack from a rival tribe. Teku Studios' project video shows off some of the hand-painted watercolor backdrops for Candle, and discusses the "dynamic graphic adventure" style inspired by games like Out of this World and platforming elements from games such as Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. Teku Studios has raised $14,944 so far in its crowdfunding efforts, and is hoping to bring Candle to Steam through Greenlight. The developer plans to launch the game in January 2014 on PC.
Rayman Legends Video Preview
Ubisoft has constructed a charming new gauntlet for Rayman to run through, filled with sights so vivid you nearly forget it's all a string of perilous pits and narrow escapes. In our new video discussion of Rayman Legends, we quickly cover the game's glut of content (earned after several delays), its clever incorporation of other genres, and how its fast-paced platforming is paired with the Wii U's gamepad. (Note: The Vita version also supports touchscreen co-op, but across two systems.) Rayman Legends will be available in North America on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and Wii U on September 3.
Badland gets new levels in Day 2 update
Badland is a wild little platformer from Finnish developer Frogmind, and it now boasts 10 new levels thanks to a new update. The developers have been working on delivering a set of content they call Day 2, with 10 levels of "Dawn" released about a month ago. Now, they've added the "Noon" levels for Day 2, which adds 10 new areas for you to explore with the game's little flapping hero. There are also 30 new missions and five new achievements to try and conquer. Frogmind has even released a new trailer for the additional content, so you can see it in action. Badland is an excellent little game that's US$3.99 right now, and with new content like this coming all the time, that price just keeps getting more worth it.
Daily iPhone App: League of Evil 3 stays on the high-quality path
When it comes to virtual controls on a touchscreen, it's hard for developers to pull them off right. Either they're just not responsive enough, or they block the touchscreen, or your finger ends up sliding off of the "touchable" area at just the wrong second. The League of Evil is an example of touch screen controls done right. This game started out as one of the best platformers on the iOS App Store, and it's only gotten better. The latest version, League of Evil 3, just arrived last week. Unfortunately, it doesn't really offer any new moves. You can still jump, wall-jump and double jump as before, and each level has plenty of obstacles to sneak past and a special briefcase to collect. But the graphics have been updated to look better than ever, and if nothing else, this sequel offers over 80 new levels to play through. There are also new ways to watch replays, including ghosts and an Everyplay tie-in. This release also comes with iCloud saves (to track your progress across multiple devices) and a new bit of story told with hand-drawn cutscenes. Plus, the controls are smooth as silk, as you'd imagine. League of Evil 3 is yet another excellent platformer by Ravenous Games, and you can grab it right now for US$1.99.
Navigating the Castle of Illusion with a 3D Mickey Mouse
When players look back on the platformers of yore, it's easy to forget one important thing about them: They're tough. Modern platformers allow infinite retries and plentiful checkpoints, but old-school platformers, like Disney's Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, required precise jumps over one-hit enemies and sent you back to the beginning of a level, or even the game itself, when all your lives were lost. Sega has preserved that difficulty in the remastered version of the game, as seen on the floor of E3 2013 last week. Sega Studios Australia has teamed up with the original game's creator, Emiko Yamamoto (who still works for Disney in Japan), to recreate the game in 3D and add new elements. %Gallery-191375%
Jack the Reaper harvests all the souls, looks adorable while doing it
Jack the Reaper, from indie developer Dream's Bell, is a SNES-inspired platformer for Windows PC with an anime art style where you vanquish enemies and harvest their souls for health and power. The actual harvesting is reminiscent of Kirby's gobble-and-clone mechanic. In Jack the Reaper, the moon has suddenly fallen and crashed into the Earth, discarding its souls all over the planet. Jack, as a reaper, answers a call from God and goes about harvesting all of the errant souls. Simple. Jack the Reaper is a work in progress, with creator Rakugaki-Otoko having recently shared a demo (.zip link) with the public. He's also been sharing his incremental improvements and changes over on TIGForums, if you want a more granular look at the development process.
Guild Wars 2 gets a retro 2D platformer, thanks to an April Fools' joke
ArenaNet, the developer behind Guild Wars 2, has released a 2D platformer called Rytlock's Critter Rampage, available to play for free in your browser.The game's derived from an '80s-style commercial the company made as an April Fools' joke earlier this month. The commercial itself was for a 3D platformer called Super Adventure Box, which ArenaNet also created for real inside its popular MMO.ArenaNet says Rytlock's Critter Rampage was going to be cobbled together from a few sprites for the sake of the joke, but cinematic artist Delly Sartika had wanted to build a retro platformer and did the whole thing in about three weeks.
Castle of Illusion teaser trailer is all dark and stormy
Sega sent out a teaser trailer for what could only be a re-release of Castle of Illusion, the classic Disney platformer developed by Sega's Shinobi Team for the Sega Genesis. Ratings for the re-release surfaced last month, a mere week before Capcom announced WayForward's remake of another classic Disney platformer, Ducktales Remastered.In the trailer above, we can spot the same wind-up soldier toy enemies from the original, not to mention Mizrabel herself, the main shape-shifting villain of Castle of Illusion. The teaser trailer ends with "summer 2013," presumably as a launch window and not the time when Sega plans to announce what we already know.
Disney's Mittens, Dream Chaser and more now available
Today saw a number of big releases on the App Store worth trying out. Here's a quick roundup of some of the biggest new app releases. Disney has released a game called Mittens, which looks impressive. It was put together by a company called Metrogames, so it's not a fully internal product. But most of Disney's work lately has been putting their own brands on titles like Temple Run, so it's good to see something with an original spin. It's available for US$0.99. Dream Chaser is Chillingo's latest title, a very flashy endless-running game, also for 99 cents. Lie Swatter is a new trivia game by Jellyvision, the makers of You Don't Know Jack. It's free to play. Wraithborne is an impressive new free-to-play action RPG from Crescent Moon Games. As mentioned yesterday, there's a new app based on Injustice: Gods Among Us, the upcoming console game featuring DC superheroes battling each other. It's also a free-to-play game. Some excellent titles in there for sure. We'll have closer looks at a few of these coming up later on TUAW, but they're all available to go pick up right now if you're interested already.
Everplay Interactive plans a solid lineup this year
Developer Kris Jones started out his iOS game design career at a company called Thunder Game Works, which made a popular early App Store game called Trenches before the company connected up with EA as a publisher. These days, Jones runs his own studio of twelve people called Everplay Interactive, and they've created some really great games for iOS, including Spell Sword (one of my favorites), Free 2 Die, and the simple but devious 1001 Attempts. Jones met up with me at GDC last week to chat about what he's working on now, and he and Everplay have a full plate of different titles incoming. Ace of Blades is probably the highest profile release he's working on: It's a Spell Sword followup that turns the original arena-based survival game into a full action adventure title. Ace of Blades has you exploring a 2D platforming world, fighting new enemies and facing down puzzles, as you collect a number (probably four, says Jones, but that may change) of blades with different magical abilities. Ace of Blades looks very impressive -- Jones admits that he and his team did "bite off a lot," as obviously a full action platformer game takes much more content than Spell Sword's more focused arena levels. But the title does look excellent, and it should answer a lot of the requests fans have sent Everplay about being able to explore the world that Spell Sword hinted at. Ace of Blades is due out sometime later this year, probably around May or June, according to Jones. Before that, Everplay has another game called Lumber Jacked, arriving later on this week. Lumber Jacked is a more hardcore speedrun platformer, similar to (though even a little tougher than) the excellent games Mikey Shorts or League of Evil. You play a lumberjack (obviously) who can punch and jump his way through a series of levels, aiming for the fastest time possible. We'll have a closer look at Lumber Jacked when it arrives this week. And finally, Jones showed me one more game Everplay is working on, called (at least tentatively) Bill Killem. The name is obviously a joke on Duke Nukem, and the game is somewhat similar to Duke's early 2D adventures, with one major difference: It's endless. With the world ending in the background Canabalt-style, Bill Killem runs along a 2D foreground, jumping gaps and shooting enemies as quickly as he can. There's an explosion chasing Bill the whole time, but grabbing collectible items in the environment will keep that explosion back and allow you to keep playing (similar to crossing through checkpoints in older racing games). This title is relatively early in development, still -- we'll probably see it out sometime after Ace of Blades, says Jones. It seems like fun, and Jones says it might be free-to-play as well. Most of Everplay's titles are releasing at a premium price of 99 cents, so Bill Killem (if that's what it's called) might be an interesting experiment. All three of these games look like solid titles. We'll look forward to seeing all of these games and anything else Everplay is putting together for the rest of 2013.
Daily iPhone App: Cling is a platformer that will grab you
Platformers are a tough genre to pull off on a touchscreen. There are a few solid core platformers out there for iOS (Mikey Shorts is probably my favorite), but in general, the lack of tactile buttons and relative shortage of screen space make really precise, strong 2D platforming games hard to do on Apple's devices. Cling, however, is a platformer put together by a team called First5 Games, and it slickly dodges the whole problem of imprecise virtual buttons by using a virtual joystick instead. The hero of the game is a little toy creature similar to the old "wall-crawler" rubber toys popular a while back, where you could stick them on a surface and they'd slowly "climb" down it. Edgar is this creature's name, and he can get around in the game by grabbing on to different pegs, and using those to move through the game's various levels. There are a few different varieties of pegs (some attract, some repel), but the main mechanic here is that if you're not near a peg, you can't control your little guy, which means that some of the levels have to be approached very carefully. It's a really interesting concept, and it turns the idea of a platformer (a game where you jump from platform to platform) upside down. "Jumping" in this game means vaulting yourself from a series of pegs, and if you go off at the wrong speed or angle, it's game over, time to restart the level. In that sense, Cling is a really interesting experiment, and it's well worth a try, especially if you're a fan of platformers, for the price of just 99 cents. The game just got an update recently and unfortunately it seems to have introduced some bugs. But that issue should be fixed soon, and even until then, it shouldn't prevent you from giving this one a look.
Daily iPhone App: Relic Rush is a one-touch beauty
Man, if there's one thing Apple's iOS platform is good at, it's this: A really great, simple idea made beautiful. That's exactly what Relic Rush is, and that's why I bring it to you highly recommended as a US$0.99 purchase. Relic Rush is a one-touch game in which your tap on the iPhone or iPad's screen simply makes the little hero stop in place, for as long as your finger is held down. That's it. We've seen this idea done a few times before (This Could Hurt is probably the most memorable example), but I've never seen it done so simply and elegantly as Relic Rush. Each level takes place on one screen, and you just need to navigate your little guy through a series of obstacles by timing his run just right, trying to reach through five of them to a trophy waiting to be collected. The game's timing puzzles start out as just regular intervals, but of course as you proceed through the more than 100 levels, things get more and more ingeniously complicated, requiring you to figure out loopier and loopier schedules to navigate through. But just like all great "hard" games, you never once blame the game for messing up -- everything is there on the screen for you to dodge, and it's up to you to get the timing right. Relic Rush is a great title. It might be a little tough for extra-casual gamers, especially in the later levels. But the game is so meticulously well-crafted that anyone who sending Mario through those old castles past fireballs should find the same fun here. You can get the app now for 99 cents.
Robotoki's platformer starring a narcoleptic child, The Adventures of Dash
Robotoki is keeping busy: It's working on a zombie survival romp called Human Element, a prequel to that game for the Ouya, and now has a Kickstarter for a cute 2D platformer, The Adventures of Dash. The Kickstarter has 30 days to raise $400,000. If it reaches its goal, Robotoki wants to launch the game in seven months, in November of this year.Led by former Infinity Ward man Robert Bowling, Robotoki's The Adventures of Dash is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer – for PC, Mac, Linux, Ouya, iOS, Android and consoles – starring Dash, a 9-year-old boy with narcolepsy.Dash falls asleep anywhere and for any reason, including at school, in his lunch, while on a walk and in all manner of slightly dangerous situations. When he dreams, the art style of the game changes along with the gameplay. The Adventures of Dash pulls art from a range of 2D artists and throws it all into one game under a semi-seamless plot device.Robotoki hopes to launch Dash on PC, Mac, Linux and Ouya in November, and will then work on building touchscreen controls for mobile. Profit from these initial sales will fund console development, though if the Kickstarter raises more than $400,000, the extra cash will be used to develop and ship console versions day-and-date with the first group.%Gallery-180410%
Daily iPhone App: Food Run wants you to play with your food
If the name Food Run sounds familiar, you've got a good memory. We featured it about a year ago (via the developer's blog post) as a gorgeous example of Retina display graphics. Now, a year later, the game is available from Pixels on Toast, and you can see those gigantic graphics in action. The game is a nonstop platformer, similar to (though less inventive than) the great Run Roo Run. You play as a piece of food running along the screen, and you simply tap to jump at the right times, with the game doing everything else for you. Along the way, you can grab stars, dodge obstacles and jump up to grab other food items, which will run along after you. The game's fairly simple, and the clean and clear graphics do make the whole affair very smooth. Personally, I prefer a little bit more action to my platformers (Mikey Shorts is another great iOS platformer, if you haven't played that one yet), but Food Run has a nice Zen quality, and of course all of those stars across the levels do well in pushing you to replay each one until you hit it perfectly. You can pick up Food Run on the App Store now for just US$0.99.
Daily iPhone App: Wave Trip flies through a musical world
Wave Trip is the newest title from developer Lucky Frame, probably best known for the underrated rhythm-meets-tower defense game Bad Hotel. In the same way that Bad Hotel is a tower defense game, Wave Trip is sort of a Jetpack Joyride-style platformer, in that you're navigating around the screen trying to collect coins of a sort. You can hold down a finger on the right side of the screen to move a little ship up or down, and then holding down a finger on the left side gives you a temporary shield, which you can use to knock away obstacles as you go. Hitting obstacles or collecting coins makes a musical noise when you do it, and that's how each level's "song" is constructed, with you earning multiplied points for interacting the right way with each type of object. Unfortunately, while Wave Trip's songs are plenty rhythmic and interesting, I personally didn't think they were all that great or catchy. Plus, the game can be very hard, especially if you're trying to nail down a really high score (the game tells you the global best at the beginning of each level, which is usually a tough bar to try and top). Still, as a sort of experimental music platformer, Wave Trip is a wild little ride, and the ability to both create your own levels and play others' means there's no shortage of content. The game's available as a universal app now for $1.99.
Fez going half-off on XBLA for one day only
Phil Fish's mysterious, beautiful puzzle platformer, Fez, will be available for half off on Xbox Live tomorrow, for one day only.That means it's down from the usual 800 Microsoft point price to 400 Microsoft points, or $5. At that price, you'd be crazy to pass up the game we said "burns with a brilliant, red-hot, yellow-tasseled flame."
