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The Room's Tommy Wiseau stars in new animated sci-fi series
Tommy Wiseau's 2003 film The Room is known as one of the best worst films of all time -- both awful yet strangely alluring. The filmmaker's awkward mannerisms, impossible to place accent and incredible lack of self-awareness is considered strange even by Hollywood standards, and even inspired an Oscar-nominated film, The Disaster Artist. Now Wiseau and former co-star Greg Sestero have released a pilot for SpaceWorld, a new sci-fi cartoon, on the YouTube channel of animation studio Octopie. You can watch the full episode below, which runs just under six minutes:
The Room opens up to Steam next week
The Room will launch on PC via Steam on July 28, Fireproof Games announced this week. The PC edition of the game is a "fully-enhanced HD version," which the developer said has been "many months in the making and has involved recreating almost every asset in the game from the ground up." Fireproof's puzzler launched on iOS in September 2012, arriving on Android in March 2013 before achieving two million total downloads in May of last year. The game's sequel, aptly dubbed The Room 2, carried on the lock-breaking mystery in December. As for a third game in the series, Fireproof Games only noted that "all we can say is stay tuned." Head past the break for a video comparing the visuals of The Room's mobile and PC versions. [Image: Fireproof Games]
The Room Two among free apps on Amazon App Store through tomorrow
Amazon is offering 31 paid apps for free in its Android marketplace today and tomorrow. Of the premium apps available for free through Saturday on the Amazon App Store, 14 are games. The discounted games include Fireproof's puzzler The Room Two as well as Sega's Android version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, both previously $2.99 each. As for the sale's other apps, Android users can download media library management app Plex and Appgenix Software's thrilling Business Calendar app for free, both usually running $4.99 each. Once your calendar is filled out for the next few weeks, you can check the weather endlessly with Accuweather's premium "Platinum" app, originally $2.99. [Image: Amazon]
Barely Related: Star Wars puts Harrison Ford in the hospital
So that was E3. The week was wild for everyone at Joystiq, but now it's time to take a step back and look at some news that isn't within the confines of the gaming industry. Cheers! Welcome to Barely Related, a conversational Friday Saturday column that presents the non-gaming news stories that we, the Joystiq staff, have been talking about over the past week. And no, we're not stopping our focus on industry and gaming news. Think of this as your casual weekly recap of interesting (and mostly geeky) news, presented just in time to fill your brain with things to discuss at all of those weekend shindigs. Grab a fresh drink, lean back in your armchair, and get ready to talk nerdy with us.
The Room series unlocks sales of 5.4 million copies
Indie developer Fireproof Games has revealed that the two entries in its gorgeously designed mobile puzzle game, The Room and its sequel, The Room 2, have sold more than 5.4 million copies to date. "[T]oday Fireproof received word The Room Two has sold 1.2m," tweeted Fireproof Games co-founder Barry Meade. "Combined with The Room we're at 5.4m sales over 14 months." Following this revelation, Meade ruminated on the unorthodox path Fireproof took to reach this impressive milestone. "[T]his all happened without Fireproof spending any money on marketing or PR or analysts or analytics," Meade wrote. "We had no experience of mobile, we made it up as we went along, our game wasn't a service & we believed in gamer word of mouth." Finally, Meade left his Twitter followers with something of a moral to this story. "[M]aybe what mobile games needs is less databollocks and more devs who believe in gamers & what gamers want." If you're now suddenly curious about The Room and its sequel, pay a visit to Fireproof's website. There you'll find everything you need to grab a copy for your mobile device of choice. [Image: Fireproof Games]
The Room 2 hits iPhone this Thursday, Android by Valentine's Day
Fireproof Games will launch The Room 2 on iPhone this Thursday and will arrive on Android "on or before" February 14, the developer confirmed to Pocket Gamer. Fireproof supplemented the news with a tweet today that the Android version will be out "within three weeks." The Room 2 first landed on iPad in December. Smaller iOS device holders will need either an iPhone 4S or fifth-gen iPod Touch or better to crack the game's puzzles. The developer also added via Twitter that it doesn't have plans to support Windows Phone at the moment.
Unlock The Room 2 on iPad today, play the original for free
Normally news of a second The Room would tear us apart, Lisa, but this is Fireproof Games' follow-up to last year's mysterious, acclaimed puzzler, and it's out right now. You, Lisa, and everyone else can enter The Room 2 on iPad, provided you have the key - the key being $5 spare in your App Store wallet. iPhone and Android users will have to sit and wait outside The Room 2, as it won't unlock on their devices until sometime next year. The game's App Store description doesn't give too much away in terms of plot, asking players to "follow a trail of cryptic letters from an enigmatic scientist known only as 'AS' into a compelling world of mystery and exploration." It doesn't require a detective to work out that fans of the first game can expect more elaborate mysteries to decipher and plenty more fiddly locks to open, all rendered in a tactile 3D engine. Fireproof will be hoping to repeat the success of the first game, which picked up Apple's iPad Game of the Year award and sold over 2 million units. To celebrate the second game's release, Fireproof is making The Room free on the App Store for a limited time.
The Room unlocks 2 million sales
The Room has cracked 2 million sales since its launch in September 2012. Speaking at the Game Horizon conference in the UK, Fireproof Studios Commercial Director Barry Meade revealed the new milestone. The iOS and Android puzzler hit 1 million sales in January, shortly after earning Apple's iPad Game of the Year award. Meade put down the ex-Criterion devs' success to The Room being featured on Apple's store, and this generating word of mouth. He also noted originality as significant. "We did not want to do a better version of someone else's game, or an update of a genre," Meade told the audience at Game Horizon. "We thought we're not doing our jobs properly if we don't add to what's out there. As a game creator that's your responsibility. If you're not doing that, if you're chasing what other people are doing, you don't deserve success because you're not showing respect to the audience." Interior detectives can look forward to The Room getting a sequel this fall, with a free chapter due beforehand.
The Room opens up for Android end of summer, a sequel this fall
Fireproof Games has announced a sequel to its iOS safe-crackin' sim The Room, coming later this year – not to be confused with that other room. "A new, more spectacular setting to continue the story," the announcement tweet promises. A free chapter will be released this summer, leading into the launch of the sequel in the fall.Fireproof Games also promises an Android version of The Room, slated to launch on the platform "by the end of the summer." The Room is currently available for $1.99 on the iPad – or in The Room Pocket, a free version available for iPhone 4, fourth generation iPad devices and above.
Daily iPhone App: Interlocked puts lots of physical puzzles on a digital touchscreen
I am a big fan of The Room, an iOS app which has gained plenty of accolades here and elsewhere already. One of the most charming things about The Room, I think, is how well it replicates real-world objects on a touchscreen platform. The Room expertly turns the touchscreen interface into a series of mysterious puzzle-boxes, all very fascinating and ingenious to play with. Interlocked is another app that does that, although without a lot of the extra mystery and setting that The Room adds to things. The app is published by Armor Games, the same company that published the great Kingdom Rush, and like Kingdom Rush, it's based on a popular Flash game you can play for free online. Also like Kingdom Rush, the iOS version has been polished and cleaned up a bit. The game is simple: You're given a puzzle with a set of interlocking pieces, and then you can drag or swipe around the screen to try and pull all of the pieces apart. The game starts off easy, and quickly gets difficult -- just a few levels in, I had some frustration trying to figure out just how these pieces on screen fit together. If you're a fan of these kinds of manipulation puzzles, you'll love this setup for sure. As I said, Interlocked is a pure puzzle game, so it doesn't have any of the mysteriousness that made The Room so popular (and if you haven't played that one, you should). Still, if you like these very physical puzzles, Interlocked, with plenty of content and a nice clean interface, should offer up lots of fun. It's available right now as a universal app for US$0.99.
Apple announces the App Store's Best of 2012
Apple has posted its top picks for the entire year of 2012 in the App Store, and you can browse through all of the choices right now. On the iPhone, Action Movie FX has picked up the App of the Year award, and Ubisoft's Rayman Jungle Run has earned game of the year, with music app Figure and social word game Letterpress picking up the runner up slots. Over on the iPad, FiftyThree's Paper has won app of the year, and the spooky The Room has earned game of the year, with Action Movie FX's iPad version and Tiger Style's great Waking Mars as runner-ups there. There are also a ton of great apps listed in other various categories, and Apple has also listed the top downloaded (Angry Birds Space has nailed both top spots in paid) and top grossing apps in each category. Obviously, with any list like this, there are some favorites missing (and if you want to see TUAW's choices, follow along with our own Best of 2012 coverage). But it's definitely been a great and busy year on the App Store, and Apple's collection is chock full of very well-done apps and games for sure.
Netflix adds people search to Xbox 360 app
Netflix recently announced that its people search feature has landed on Xbox 360. The searching method, which is already included in the PS3 Netflix app, includes actors and directors among its search results. It's especially useful if you like having Julia Roberts movie marathons (and really, who doesn't?). People search also works with Kinect, but good luck getting the system to understand "M. Night Shyamalan."Also, we discovered that "Tommy Wiseau" does not turn up any results using people search. You're tearing him apart, Netflix.
The Room adventure game is tearing us apart, Lisa
So, here's the thing: If you're not in on the cosmic joke that is Tommy Wiseau's impossibly bad masterpiece The Room, you're probably not going to grok anything we're about to talk about. Everyone else, brace yourself: Newgrounds founder Tom Fulp released The Room Tribute earlier this morning -- an adventure game which recreates the aforementioned film scene for scene from the perspective of its nigh-unintelligible protagonist. What could have been a quick and easy Flash game is actually a pretty lengthy experience, with collectibles (like hidden spoons tucked all throughout San Francisco) and expansions of The Room universe not present in the film, such as the haunting interior of Denny's apartment. Oh, also much like the film upon which it's based, The Room Tribute features frequent, thoroughly unerotic nudity -- so don't play it at work. But do play it at your earliest convenience. It is simply wonderful. Unless, of course, you haven't seen the movie. You monster.
