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The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Rotor'scope
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. This week we talk with Mauricio Garcia, one of the programmers of Nivel21, about how their game Rotor'scope proves that nothing is impossible. How did your company get started? Nivel21 Entertainment was born in 2005. At that time, some of us were working in software development and enterprise consultation. We were lucky to get to know each other some way or another, a group of videogame aficionados sharing the common dream of becoming professional game developers. So we decided to join forces and immediately began working together, trying to establish our own studio, or, at least, learn enough so that we could end up working in some other studio. We never gave up hope to finally get where we are now, and we spent a lot of time and effort to learn just by ourselves everything that there is to know to make videogames. Even though it all started out as a hobby, we're pretty damn serious about it. Since our first "learning" projects, we've tried to work as professionally as we possibly can. After all these years, we finally see our dream come true in Rotor'scope.
Dream-Build-Play puzzler Rotor'scope now on Xbox Live Indie Games
We got to check out Rotor'scope: The Secret of the Endless Energy at PAX last year, and it nearly broke our minds. Of course, our minds were quite fragile at that point, weakened by long nights of tireless writing and frequent coffee binges -- still, the fact remains that Rotor'scope was one of the most original concepts for a puzzle game we'd played in a good long time. Fortunately, we now have the chance to give the game another go -- it was recently added to the Xbox Live Indie Games platform for 400 ($5). Check out the Rotor'scope trailer after the jump to see the game's cog-flipping puzzle mechanics in action and to get a sense of the title's overarching story. With create-a-level modes, hand-drawn graphics and even some Facebook integration, it looks like you'll be getting a lot of bang for your buck. Or five bucks, as the case may be. Shortcut: Add Rotor'scope (trial / full game) to your Xbox 360 download queue [via Xbox.com]
Snap Judgment: XNA Dream-Build-Play 2009 finalists
While nearly all of my demo appointments at PAX required me to absorb information about new games at blinding speed, the XNA Dream-Build-Play Finalists booth demo tasked me with getting a feel for six games in just under an hour. It would be difficult for me to develop any kind of deep analyses on these brief gameplay slivers -- instead, I've collected my initial, hastily acquired thoughts about the games after the jump.Here's the short version: They're all pretty fun, but Dust: An Elysian Tail is clearly the leader of the pack.
2009 Dream-Build-Play winners announced, Dust takes top honor
It must be nice winning $40,000! We imagine Dust: An Elysian Tail developer Dean Dodrill will be drinking his fair share of shirley temples this weekend with all those extra duckets, after winning first place in this year's XNA Developer Dream-Build-Play competition. As you can see in the gallery below and video after the break, Dust is a beautiful, hand-drawn side-scroller that features action-RPG gameplay in the vein of Castlevania ... but with furries.Second place (and $20,000) went to Panya Inversin from Coin App who created Max Blastronaut, which looks to be a mix between Super Stardust HD and ... Double Dragon? We're just as confused as you are, but see for yourself after the break, below the Dust clip. Third and fourth place went to Mauricio Garcia's Rotor'scope and Hu Ling's HurricaneX2 Evolution, respectively. Congratulations to all of this year's winners!%Gallery-72019%
