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Super Meatmortem: The almost-death of Team Meat
Crunch time is just part of game development. When the deadline is looming, it's not uncommon for developers to pull 12-hour shifts (or longer). For Team Meat, crunch time nearly killed half of the duo. Tommy Refenes (pictured left) told GDC attendees that he would "be dead if we put Meat Boy on everything," explaining one of the reasons why Super Meat Boy has only been released for Xbox Live Arcade and PC thus far. In the two months leading up to SMB's XBLA debut, neither took a single day off, let alone slept for more than five hours a day. Refenes recounted feverish "development dreams" -- a sort of Groundhog Day scenario where he was squashing bugs only to wake and discover more.
GDC 2011: GameSamba's Remnant Knights hosting special week-long beta
Game conventions are normally all about the big guns, and this year's GDC is no different. We've talked to them all (as you'll see as the week rolls on), but sometimes it's the little guys that provide the really interesting nuggets. Take GameSamba and its whimsical free-to-play Remnant Knights title, for instance. While the game is currently in closed beta (with a true open beta to come at an as-yet undetermined future date), Massively editor-in-chief Shawn Schuster learned about a special one-week beta test after speaking with GameSamba earlier this afternoon. The testing phase starts tomorrow and is open to anyone and everyone. You can sign up, as well as learn more about the game's Priests, Gunners, and Crashers, at the official website. While you're at it, have a look at the Remnant Knights trailer after the cut. Finally, don't forget to check back later in the week for an interview with the GameSamba team.
Shadows of the Damned and Alice: Madness Returns get June release dates
Halloween is in October, EA. It looks like the publisher has forgotten that, pegging June as the month to release two of its upcoming horror games. Shadows of the Damned, a "psychological action thriller" from Shinji Mikami and Goichi Suda, is the first slated for release: June 7. CVG notes that this is a "worldwide" release date. A week later, on June 14, is Alice: Madness Returns, EA's sequel to the classic American McGee platformer. Two horror games, two weeks. But we can't help but wonder: will one be a trick while the other a treat?
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP preview: Swo engrossing
Deep immersion into games is pretty hard to achieve even in the best of circumstances. You'd never expect to experience it when playing on a portable device ... in a hotel lobby ... with the guys who made the game surrounding you. Yet it was so easy to become fully engrossed in Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, the new action-adventure title from Clash of Heroes developer Capy, artist Craig "Superbrothers" Adams and musician Jim Guthrie. The game manages to combine very disparate elements to create something special -- epic fantasy imagery with goofy humor, point-and-click gameplay with Punch-Out and, yes, immersion with an iPhone.
Seen(through)@GDC: The official shutter glasses
Some developers are making 3D games that require active shutter glasses. Some are making games that make use of (passive) polarized glasses. But all of the devs who attend GDC will have the opportunity to take home these static shutter glasses from the GDC shop, for $7. The 3D effect is stunning when looking at actual three-dimensional objects.
Infinity Blade update coming 'very, very soon,' Chair still has 'lots of content' to build
During the Q&A portion of today's Infinity Blade-focused GDC panel, Chair co-founder Donald Mustard was unsurprisingly asked about plans for future updates for the dev's iOS hit. "We have an update coming very, very soon," Mustard said, acknowledging that he wanted to get that question out of the way, "and it will add a ton of new content to the game and expand on some of the themes and story that you've already started to see." The game's first free update was released less than two weeks after the game's debut. The next question from the audience? Yup, asking what Chair is working on next. "We're working on something ... cool," Mustard teased. "Actually, right now we're very busy supporting Infinity Blade. That's actually one of the things that's a cool opportunity with these iOS games, is you have an opportunity to put out your game, and then to continue to support it easily." "It's so easy to make these content updates, and at least we've decided we're going to give our content away for free," he added. "So when you initially buy the game for $5.99 you know we're going to continue to give you content, so we still have lots of content we're building to support Infinity Blade." Of course, considering Infinity Blade -- the entire game! -- took the team just five months to make, and it was released nearly three months ago, we're guessing there's more going on at Chair's Salt Lake headquaters than just free update development, but we're heartened to hear it nevertheless.
Google gifts Xoom tablets to game devs at GDC 2011
Google's notoriously generous at developer events, tossing out free devices like candy on Halloween, but here at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco it's letting them flow like wine. Each attendee at Google's Web Developer Day yesterday got a free Cr-48 laptop, and today the company dished out even greater prizes -- either a free Motorola Xoom tablet or a Nexus S smartphone to every soul listening to some exceedingly well-attended technical sessions on Android. That's certainly one way to attract game developers to your platform.
Ms. Splosion Man gameplay footage & screens are awfully frantic
We'd be hard pressed to think of platforming more frantic and dynamic than Splosion Man's most difficult segments -- though, to be fair, we hadn't seen these Ms. Splosion Man screenshots and video (after the jump) until, like, two minutes ago. The followup looks even more hectic than the franchise's first, masculine installment, and here's the kicker: The trailer was clipped from the game's first level. We shudder to think what those later levels are going to look like. We only hope that Ms. Splosion's library of pop culture quips and, um ... other quotes ("Do I look fat in this?"; "Who left the toilet seat up again?") is extremely expansive. Those sound bites, if repeated too frequently, could approach Gex 64-esque levels of abrasiveness. %Gallery-118014%
Spelunky on XBLA will have four player local multiplayer (update: we've got an image!)
Roguelike fans need not spend their time in dank, dark dungeons all by their lonesome. During a panel here at GDC 2011, Andy Hull confirmed a multiplayer component is in the works for the Xbox Live Arcade game, Spelunky. "We'll have more information about the multiplayer modes closer to release," he said, revealing a lone screenshot to attendees showing four different spelunkers on the screen at once. Sadly, the shot was up only briefly, so we were unable to snap a photo. We've contacted Andy Hull and the game's creator, Derek Yu, and will update accordingly when we hear back. Update: We've got a thrilling four-player co-op screen for you just past the break. %Gallery-104645%
PlayStation Home version 1.5 bringing new game tech, realtime multiplayer
The first of Sony's GDC 2011 announcements isn't a new piece of hardware or a major sequel, but rather a new version of its virtual world, PlayStation Home. Version 1.5 of the core Home client, due this spring, is the most significant since the service's launch in terms of new technology. Specifically, Sony is making new features available to developers looking to make games that run within Home. The most significant improvements involve low-lag realtime multiplayer gaming, paving the way for first-person shooters, racing games and other fast-action genres within Home. To (literally) drive this home, Sony showed off an early glimspe of Sodium Two: Project Velocity from Lockwood Publishing, which unlike its arena-shooter predecessor is a Wipeout HD style racing game. We'll be getting our hands on Sodium Two later this week on the show floor, but we're already impressed with its fast, super-smooth framerate -- the result of new graphics engine capabilities. Its gameplay should provide a sense of the improved physics client Home 1.5 will offer. We have a sneaking suspiscion it will play a lot like Wipeout, but you never know.
Magicka: Vietnam expansion announced (no joke!)
Well, this is certainly unexpected. We guess Magicka publisher Paradox Interactive wasn't kidding when it said developer Arrowhead Studios would be "a bit daring" with the title's first expansion. Said add-on was revealed today -- and it will take the game's magic-mashing protagonists and drop them into the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. Just check out the debut trailer after the jump! We've got an appointment to check out Magicka: Vietnam today at GDC, and we'll make sure to let you know if it's just as bizarre as we're assuming it is. Update: Vietnam was not on hand, but we talked about it with Arrowhead. Stay tuned for our coverage.
GDC 2011: Building the Angry Birds franchise
Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka hosted an entertaining panel on the first day of the 2011 Game Developers Conference here in San Francisco. Rovio's app, Angry Birds, is the runaway hit of Apple's iOS platform, signifying both the potential reach of iOS games and the chance for indie mobile developers to create gigantic hits. Vesterbacka, speaking in his Finnish accent, was almost arrogant at times during his talk, saying that after last year's GDC, Rovio is "a bit more popular now for some reason," and that while people laughed at his predictions of 100 million downloads for the game across all the platforms, Rovio is basically there. But he was also informative and helpful, and he thanked Apple multiple times during the talk. Rovio's made 52 different mobile games so far, and Vesterbacka credited Apple for changing the tempo around the mobile games market. Before Apple, mobile carriers held all of the power, and carriers both a) wanted a lot of games for their specific platforms, and b) didn't care about the quality. Vesterbacka joked about pitching Angry Birds to a carrier before the App Store: "It's a game where you slingshot birds at three pigs," he said, and then he mimicked the reply to the crowd's laughter: "It's not a poker game? Not interested."
GDC 2011: ArenaNet's Adam Vance talks localization for Guild Wars
Ask the average Guild Wars player what makes the game so enduring, and "localization" is probably not on the top of the list. But the game is truly a masterpiece of blending players across an international community, with a single multilingual client supporting a wide range of communities across the entire world. ArenaNet's Adam Vance hosted a panel on the localization process for the game at GDC, discussing the many trials and tribulations the game faces from both a business standpoint and a cultural standpoint. It certainly doesn't seem like a difficult task from a conceptual standpoint -- even just running a block of text through secondhand solutions such as BabelFish can produce something that looks somewhat translated. But as Vance explained, simply changing the text from one language to another is an issue, and linguistics only scratches the barest element of what's needed for adapting a game. "Localization should be as much a science as an art," as he put it during the panel. While the focus remained on localizing Guild Wars from a business standpoint, players will still find interesting facts within the discussion.
Swarm preview: Extensive expendability
From the premise of Swarm -- guide a group of identical, stupid creatures through trap-filled worlds -- and from screenshots and video, it's easy to assume it's a Pikmin-style action-strategy game, with one player character wielding a small army of critters to fulfill goals. At least, it was easy for me to assume that. But there's a lot more action and a lot less strategy than you're thinking. In fact, Swarm is pretty much a platformer, albeit a platformer in which you control 50 avatars simultaneously. Now you might be thinking that it would be pretty much impossible to control 50 avatars simultaneously -- and you would be right. In fact, your little Swarmites are constantly dying off due to traps, environmental hazards, and good old-fashioned failed jumps. Not only is this okay, it's necessary; each death increases your score multiplier, and interesting deaths result in in-game awards.%Gallery-117836%
GDC 2011: Smule's retrospective
Our friend Dr. Ge Wang of Smule kicked off the 2011 Game Developers Conference with a panel providing a nice overview of all of the company's apps so far. The theme of his talk was basically what we spoke with him about at CES earlier this year: as computers grow from mainframe to personal computer, and now to smartphones and mobile devices, the technology is disappearing into the background, and the connections it creates between us are coming to the forefront. Lately, he said, "technology is so personal, it's pervasive." That's the realm Smule has tried to enter into with its apps, from the early Sonic Lighter up through Magic Fiddle. "Old computing is about what computers can do," said Dr. Wang, "and new computing is about what people can do with them."
Super Meat Boy 'Ultra Edition' comes to retail in North America this April for $20
During a postmortem on Super Meat Boy, Edmund McMillen, the hairier half of Team Meat, gave GDC attendees a lengthy peek at the box art for a special "ultra edition" of the PC game. "Here's the Walmart box," he told attendees as he gave a Skype video call tour of the North American retail package -- it will be available in other retail stores, not just Walmart, as well as on Amazon. Later, the @SuperMeatBoy Twitter account provided an image of the boxart (hop over the chainsaws and past the break to see it in full), a much more crisp and higher-res version of the boxart than seen in McMillen's video call. In following up with McMillen, we were able to secure additional details: it'll launch in April for $20; it includes a 40-page booklet including never-before-seen art, behind-the-scenes info and an extended version of Team Meat's comics, with new pages; the soundtrack and additional audio samples; and a mini-poster of that disturbing Super Meat Boy fan art seen last year. You know, in case you have a room that you need to make sure nobody ever sleeps in. Ever. Hop past the break (mind the chainsaws!) to check out the "Ultra Edition" boxart.
The Humble Indie Bundle: Leaving no customer behind
The charitable, almost casually presented collection of indie games, The Humble Indie Bundle, was born from an earnest approach to customer service. Wolfire Games offered a user-determined price point, ditched DRM, shared earnings with charity organizations and targeted multiple platforms -- including Windows, Mac OS and Linux -- when it launched the first Humble Indie Bundle in May 2010. "It was very relaxed and very good for the customer," said Jeffrey Rosen, co-founder of Wolfire Games and Humble Bundle Inc. "We didn't want to leave anybody out." Rosen and Wolfire's John Graham elaborated on their "leave no customer behind" approach at a GDC panel on Monday morning, emphasizing the importance of including platforms like Mac OS and Linux in addition to PC. The decision to spread beyond Windows was informed by Wolfire's prior experience selling its own games, with anthropomorphic bunny basher Lugaru HD racking up doubly strong sales through Mac and Linux support. Linux users seemed particularly grateful for the support -- when the first bundle concluded after racking up $1,273,613, Linux users had spent the most with $14.44 on average. "If you reach out to them, they want to take care of you too," John Graham said.
Overheard@GDC: Credit where credit's due
"What physics engine did you use for Angry Birds?" --Man "Box2d" --Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio "Would you be willing to credit it?" --Man "Yes" --Vesterbacka "I'm the creator of Box2d." --Erin Catto, creator of Box2d Following this exchange -- which took place during Rovio's panel on its multi-million-dollar franchise -- a smiling, caught-off-guard Vesterbacka said that the company would credit Box2d as the physics engine it uses if Catto would see him after the Q&A session. [Image: The Clock Blog]
Angry Birds getting St. Patrick's Day update
Rovio's "Mighty Eagle," Peter Vesterbacka, announced during his day-one GDC panel that -- unsurprisingly -- all major holidays will eventually be worked into themed updates for the company's mega-hit Angry Birds, including the upcoming St. Patrick's Day. According to Vesterbacka, the new content will be "very green" and "filled with more pigs than ever." The millions of Angry Birds addicts should be tickled pink by this news. Speaking of addicts, Vesterbacka says that you (yes, you!) really like the option to buy the Mighty Eagle power-up. He reports that 40 percent of all players who've purchased Angry Birds since the "smart bomb" style, level-skipping item was introduced last December have bought it at least once -- at 99 cents a pop.
Team Meat confirms 3DS development, Super Meat Boy sales approaching 400K
During a postmortem on Super Meat Boy here at GDC 2011, Team Meat's Tommy Refenes spoke at great length about the plight of developing the most punishing game of 2010 -- a long stretch of development Hell that has since seen nearly 400,000 copies sold across Xbox Live Arcade and Steam, he revealed. As part of Microsoft's Game Feast program, as well as several impressive Steam sales, Super Meat Boy was afforded a lot of time in the spotlight, though Refenes also attributed its high Metacritic rating as another catalyst for the rise in popularity. Later, Edmund McMillen, who participated in the postmortem through a Skype video call, confirmed that Team Meat has procured a 3DS development kit and is currently working on something for the platform. "We dont know if that'll be Meat Boy or something else, but who knows?" McMillen concluded coyly.
