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Humble Mozilla Bundle: Try in your browser, redeem at Steam
Humble Bundle adopts a new approach with its featured offerings today with the The Humble Mozilla Bundle, a collection that lets you test drive HTML5 versions of featured games in your browser before you commit to a purchase. The pay-what-you-want package includes Steam-redeemable copies of Terry Cavanagh's Super Hexagon, Dejobaan's Aaaaa! for the Awesome, Hemisphere Games' Osmos, Secret Exit's Zen Bound 2, and Hitbox Team's Dustforce DX. Beat the average (currently $5.25) and you'll also get Voxatron and FTL: Advanced Edition, while purchases that exceed $8 will additionally unlock Democracy 3. Full versions of all games included in the Humble Mozilla Bundle are playable in HTML5-supported browsers upon purchase. The package will be available through October 28. [Video: Humble Bundle]
Humble Bundle offers Summer Games Done Quick bundle
Summer Games Done Quick has just granted everyone a free pass to watch a week's worth of speedruns in the name of charity, but if livestreamed gaming isn't your thing, you can still support the cause. Donations made by Games Done Quick viewers will benefit Doctors Without Borders, but this time, the livestreaming effort has brought along a teammate: the fine folks at Humble Bundle. Until the charitable event's June 28 conclusion, The Summer Games Done Quick Bundle offers 10 games for $25, with 100 percent of its proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders. The bundle includes Gunpoint, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Guacamelee! Gold Edition, among others. In the case of Guacamelee, only 25,000 copies are available for the sale, so anyone interested in brawling through an adventure as a luchador (and sometimes a rooster) should make a swift purchase. For PC users, each game can be claimed via Steam key or as a DRM-free download. Mac and Linux users should look closely at each game's dropdown menu before buying in however, since not all of them are available without DRM on all platforms, or even available on Mac and Linux in the first place. [Image: Humble Bundle]
Dustforce now clearing cobwebs from your Xbox 360
Janitors, assemble! Despite a delay and launching on the PS3 and PlayStation Vita back in February, Dustforce is now available on Xbox 360. For $9.99, Xbox players can sweep, brush, mop and clean like a ninja as they make their way through the 2D platformer's colorful worlds, using acrobatic prowess and martial arts to defeat dirt. Mr. Clean, eat your heart out. Dustforce first cleaned up the acts of PC gamers in 2012, after receiving an honorable mention at the Independent Games Festival for Excellence in Visual Design. The game sold well, but not outstandingly so. Still, developer Hitbox Team was happy for the experience, saying that "the pleasure of making Dustforce was worth far more than the opportunity cost of working somewhere else." [Image: Capcom]
PSN Tuesday: Outlast on PS4, pre-order Dark Souls 2, South Park
Outlast is out on PS4 in today's PSN update, alongside PS3 games Dustforce, Castlestorm Complete Edition, Adam's Venture Chronicles, Truck Racer and Furmins + Stardrone Extreme Bundle. Outlast, you'll remember (unless you blocked the memory to save your psyche), is the horror game from Red Barrels that places players inside a corrupt insane asylum with the broader task of discovering why everyone there is so grossly homicidal. It's $20 on PSN, but free for Plus members. A bevy of PS3 pre-orders are live now as well: Dark Souls 2, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Tales of Symphonia Chronicles and Call of Duty: Ghosts' first DLC pack, Onslaught. That last one is pre-order-able for PS4 as well. Vita gets Dustforce, King Oddball and Surge Deluxe today. See the full lineup on the PlayStation Blog. [Image: Red Barrels]
Sony kicking off PS Vita PLAY rebate promotion tomorrow
PlayStation Vita owners can earn some cash back by keeping up with the platform's latest releases over the next month as part of Sony's newly announced PS Vita PLAY campaign. The offer gives $3 in PlayStation Store credit to players who purchase two featured games between January 21 and February 17. Buy three featured games and you'll get $6 back. Collect the whole set of four and Sony will send you a $10 rebate. PlayStation Plus members get an additional 20 percent discount during each respective game's launch week. The promotion launches with tomorrow's release of the skateboard platformer OlliOlli, then continues next Tuesday with Namco Bandai's Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z. Players can further boost their rebates by purchasing the custodial side-scroller, Dustforce, on February 4 and the Tempest-like arcade shooter, TxK, on February 11.
Dustforce's acrobatic janitor tidies up Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Vita in January
Capcom announced today that it will publish Hitbox Team's custodial platformer Dustforce for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PS Vita in January. Originally released for Windows in 2012, Dustforce is a side-scrolling platformer starring an acrobatic janitor who must scale walls, chain attacks, and air-dash across deadly chasms as he tidies up his surroundings. The game demands both precision platforming and an eye for cleanliness -- players can progress only after they have swept up piles of leaves scattered throughout each level. The PlayStation 3 and PS Vita editions of Dustforce will feature Cross-Play and Cross-Save support. The Vita version also includes an ad-hoc multiplayer mode, while the PS3 gets an exclusive replay save feature. Dustforce will be priced at $9.99.
Dustforce cleaning up PS3, PS Vita and Xbox 360
Capcom will publish Hitbox Team's lauded 2D clean-em-up platformer Dustforce on PS3 and PS Vita. The game will benefit from cross-play functionality on PS Vita and PS3, Sony's Adam Boyes mentioned during the PlayStation Indie Arcade event at PAX this evening, though no exact details on how that will work have been offered. The Sony side of the publishing agreement was revealed during the PlayStation Indie Arcade event tonight at PAX, though a Capcom-Unity post notes the game is also coming to Xbox 360. Despite being widely praised and earning close to $700,000 for the developer, the game was ultimately a financial wash for Hitbox. Hopefully these new console ports will help tidy up Hitbox Team's bottom line.
Dustforce devs explain what they earned, what they learned
Developer Hitbox Studios has cracked open the financial books on Dustforce, revealing just how much the indie release made. After the game's launch in January of 2012 and some major sales with Steam and the Humble Bundle, Dustforce has earned a total of $668,490 in revenue.That may sound profitable, but that's before taxes, Valve's take, and other fees are removed, which brings the total down to $489,404. Removing various software and hardware costs, accounting fees, and other expenses lowers it even further to $295,000, says Hitbox. In the end, for every $10 copy of the game sold, Hitbox earned $4.41 – which the studio's (now four) developers must split.Dustforce began with a $0 budget, as a game prototype made with GameMaker. After an IndiePub competition win, Hitbox was able to budget the $100,000 prize for the game's development, which it says was enough to support the staff of three for about a year and a half.Hitbox's Terence Lee says the release was ultimately worth it. The game's success and "the pleasure of making Dustforce was worth far more than the opportunity cost of working somewhere else." He calls the process a "fantastic foundation for us as a studio," providing experience and funds for work on Hitbox's next title, an FPS called Spire.
Humble Indie Bundle 6 ends, earns over $2 million
316,258 individuals signed on for the latest Humble Indie Bundle, which is arguably the best Humble Indie Bundle yet. Humble Indie Bundle 6, which halted sales earlier this evening, managed to earn a total of $2,048,330.42 during the collection's sale.Humble Indie Bundle 6 initially launched with the starting lineup of Rochard, Shatter, S.P.A.Z., Torchlight, Vessel and Dustforce. A week later, the bundle expanded to include Bit.Trip Runner, Wizorb, Jamestown and Gratuitous Space Battles for purchases equal or greater to the average sale price of the set. See? Best bundle yet!
Humble Indie Bundle 6 devs ask you to ask them anything on Reddit
A few of the developers with games in the rather fantastic Humble Indie Bundle 6 are hosting an AMA on Reddit right now.In attendance is Runic Games co-founder Max Schaefer, representing Torchlight (and Torchlight 2, it seems); programmer Matt Bush and composer Terrence Lee of Dustforce's Hitbox Team; Jan Achrenius and Sampsa Lehtonen of Recoil and Rochard; Mario Wynands of Shatter's Sidhe, co-founders of MinMax Games Andrew Hume and Richard with Space Pirates and Zombies; and John Krajewski of Strange Loop Games representing Vessel.Already the developers are discussing the likelihood of their Linux games on Steam, the benefits of being in the Humble Indie Bundle, and answering programming and gameplay questions galore. If you want to know what engines these guys use, how they handle physics or what those space pirates are doing hanging out with zombies in the first place, head on over to Reddit.
Humble Indie Bundle 6 shatters spatial reasoning with torches, vessels, brooms
Humble Indie Bundle part six is live, and it's a good'un. The current bundle includes Rochard, Shatter, S.P.A.Z., Torchlight and Vessel for any price you pick. Paying more than the average (currently around $5) unlocks Dustforce as well. The bundle includes soundtracks for each game, excluding Vessel. Normally priced, all these games would cost $86, Humble Indie Bundle reminds us.As always, purchasers can decide how much of their payment goes to charity, the developers or Humble Indie Bundle itself. Humble Indie Bundle 6 will be live for 14 more days; check it out here.
Dustforce sweeping up on Mac, discounted for a limited time
Dustforce, the game about evil-vanquishing janitors that would bring Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to shame, is now available on Mac. In addition, Dustforce is this week's Midweek Madness deal on Steam. You can grab it now for $5, half the usual price.
Video: Getting down and dirty with Dustforce multiplayer
This multiplayer video for Dustforce showcases the game's local King of the Hill mode, in which a janitor battles a leaf man for control of platforms. How anyone ever managed to make a game about sweeping seem so interesting is beyond us, but there you go.
Dustforce cleaning out Steam's valves on Jan. 17 for PC, Mac to follow
The PC version of Dustforce, the sweeping side-scroller from indie studio Hitbox Team, is set to launch January 17 for $9.99 on Steam, with a Mac update to follow soon after. Dustforce has more than 50 disgusting levels for your janitor to spruce up, and will have an online leaderboard, 4-player local multiplayer modes and a soothing original soundtrack. Dustforce received an honorable mention from the IGF for Excellence in Visual Art, so even if cleaning isn't your thing, we bet you can still enjoy some pretty, stylized gameplay.
Dustforce trailer shows polish, polishing
When we saw the protagonist walk into an old stone building in this Dustforce trailer, we felt a thrill. "This place looks like it could be really dusty," we thought. "This is going to be awesome." And then the broom-wielding character walked into a room full of flying books and scrolls, trailing dust like exhaust. And then it was awesome. We'll get really hyped about cleaning again in January -- that's the new release window, according to a YouTube comment from developer Hitbox Team.
Indie game Dustforce looks so fresh, so clean
We're pretty sure you've never experienced a game about high-speed platform tidying, but you will soon. Dustforce, an indie game developed by Cincinnati's Hitbox Studios, will bring sweeping action to Mac and PC in early 2012. Be sure to watch the video -- it's a lot more exciting than it sounds. Dustforce puts players in the role of an "acrobatic cleaner" who wall-runs and jumps to sweep leaves, dust, and other detritus off of every available surface, while also defending himself with broom-based martial arts. Along with the new video (above) and screens (below), Hitbox Team released an audio sample, by composer Terence Lee. Listen to it while you clean your house!%Gallery-139163%
