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Steam Greenlight batch: Grimm, Next Car Game, Candle, U55
Steam gave the go-ahead to 24 more games and one piece of software on Greenlight today, including Bugbear Entertainment's Next Car Game, Kickstarter darling Candle (pictured above), Spicy Horse's Grimm, ex-STALKER developers' Humans Must Answer and Lovecraftian horror U55 – End of the Line. Next Car Game is a crowdfunded return to crash-em-up racing from Bugbear, the developer of FlatOut. Grimm also comes from a well-known studio, American McGee's Spicy Horse, and is already an established game: It launched for PC in 2008, telling twisted fairy tales in short bursts. Candle and Humans Must Answer both saw success on Kickstarter, while U55 is in the process of its own crowdfunding campaign, with $57,000 raised of a $115,000 goal and 23 days to go. Check out the entire list of Greenlit games right here.
Ghosts'n Goblins Online resurfaces at Steam Greenlight
Capcom's twice-canceled MMO Ghosts'n Goblins Online may soon rise from the dead as a free-to-play online action game, pending community approval after its recent appearance at Steam Greenlight. Ghosts'n Goblins Online was originally slated as a multiplatform release in 2003, though development ceased prior to its completion. A second attempt, originally titled Magyechon Online, was seemingly canned as well. Seed 9, creator of the canceled Magyechon Online, is also behind the newly-launched Steam Greenlight campaign. Seed 9 announced that the revitalized Ghosts'n Goblins Online will feature co-op platforming, PVP combat, and frequent updates that introduce new items and upgrades. Ghosts'n Goblins set a new standard for platformer difficulty back in 1985, taunting players with its cruel enemy patterns both in arcades and on the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. The series continued with 1988's arcade and Sega Genesis sequel Ghouls'n Ghosts, then reached its apex with 1991's Super NES release Super Ghouls'n Ghosts. Seed 9 notes that series veterans will want to try Ghosts'n Goblins Online's "Demonic Dimension" mode, which retains the series' traditional two-hit-death mechanic. Capcom-licensed MMOs have faced difficulty in making it to market, as the Neowiz-developed Mega Man Online was canceled last year. If Ghosts'n Goblins Online proves successful, Steam Greenlight might be the Blue Bomber's next destination.
Timesplitters Rewind takes a second for Steam Greenlight Concepts
The fans developing Timesplitters Rewind are hoping for a launch on Steam Greenlight, probably to match the game's potential release on PS4. Timesplitters Rewind has a page on Greenlight's Concepts section, where developers can get feedback and cultivate a community prior to a full campaign on Greenlight. Timesplitters Rewind is a fan-made HD remix of all three Timesplitters games – 1, 2 and Future Perfect – with the blessing of the series' IP holder, Crytek. The team behind Rewind cautions that there are unofficial groups for Timesplitters Rewind on Steam and that the only official account can be found here. "We are perfectly comfortable with fan communities," Project Manager Michael Hubicka writes. As a group of fans remastering a game that doesn't belong to them, we figured they'd be cool with fan communities on Steam, but that's nice to know for sure.
Steam Greenlight sale takes up to 75 percent off Greenlit games
Happy birthday, Greenlight! To celebrate one year of community-voted games, Steam is giving everyone a present: A super sale on 50 Greenlit games, now through September 2 at 10AM PT. Games on sale include (big breath) La Mulana, Guncraft, Waking Mars, DLC Quest, Divekick, Kentucky Route Zero, Game Dev Tycoon, Incredipede, Primordia, Edge of Space, McPixel, No Time To Explain, Anodyne, Organ Trail, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, Shelter, Receiver, Surgeon Simulator 2013, Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, Postal 2 Complete, Evoland, Rogue Legacy, Papers Please and Akaneiro: Demon Hunters. Games range from 10 percent to 75 percent off, so release that breath you're holding, blow out the candles and view the lineup of Greenlight sale games on Steam. Also this weekend, play Natural Selection 2 for free, with the game 75 percent off, or snag Prison Architect for 40 percent off.
Valve: Steam Greenlight a year old, goal is to have 'no bottlenecks'
Valve's populist Greenlight program, which uses the Steam community to select the games available on the digital distribution platform, has aged a tender year. According to Valve, the program has helped double the number of independent games available in the system. "Ultimately our goal is to have no bottlenecks at all between developers and consumers," said Valve head Gabe Newell. "As we move closer to that, launching Greenlight and evolving our backend toolset has helped us increase our publishing throughput, pushing the number of independent titles released in the last twelve months to equal the number of titles published from all other categories combined." Newell expects the indie submissions to grow "dramatically" as the company continues to build upon the service. The program recently passed a mega-round of 100 games, compared to its standard boutique sizes.
Steam Greenlights 100 games: Black Annex, Escape Goat, Reprisal, more
Steam greenlit 100 games today in order to "stress test" its system, and maybe to mess with everyone who thought they'd get smaller batches of Greenlight games more frequently. The mega-round of Greenlight games includes 8BitMMO, A Walk in the Dark, Against the Wall, Black Annex, C-Wars, Delver's Drop, Dino Run SE, Doorways, Escape Goat, Knytt Underground, Mutant Mudds, Paranautical Activity, Ray's the Dead, Reprisal, Shadow of the Eternals, Shantae: Risky's Revenge, Signal Ops and Teslagrad, to name a few (comparatively). "This latest milestone is both a celebration of the progress we've made behind the scenes and a stress test of our systems," Steam writes. "Future batches are not likely to be as large, but if everything goes smoothly we should be able to continue increasing the throughput of games from Greenlight to the Steam store." Read through the hefty list on Steam.
Race the Sun brightens up PC, Mac, Linux on August 19
Most people will probably have to play Race the Sun over and over again to become proficient at it, so get as early a start as you can: It launches on August 19 for PC, Mac and Linux. In its most basic state, Race the Sun is about "racing a solar-powered craft toward the sunset at breakneck speed," developer Flippfly told us in July – it's a game where players literally try to outpace the sun. But that's not enough. A new mode, Apocalypse, is for the "devoutly masochistic" and it looks like it exists outside the bounds of mere practice. Race the Sun is up on Steam Greenlight, and pre-orders with instant access to the full game, including Apocalypse, are live now on Flippfly. Don't stare at the sun – race it.
Paranautical Activity takes to Kickstarter for continued development
The beta version of Paranautical Activity is already available for $10 directly from Code Avarice's website, but that hasn't stopped the developer from opening a campaign on Kickstarter to continue work on the game. The retro-styled FPS, which adds an intriguing dash of the random from roguelikes, was allegedly blocked from being published by Adult Swim on Steam in May due to having an active Greenlight page at the same time. Campaign backers can receive a 20 percent discount on Paranautical Activity by pledging $8 to Code Avarice's cause. The developer is seeking $10,000 on Kickstarter by September 3, of which it has already raised $4,301.
Divekick PC launching Aug. 20
The recently Greenlight-approved PC version of indie pseudo-parody fighting game Divekick will launch alongside its PlayStation Network twin on August 20, developer Iron Galaxy Studios announced on Twitter. Both versions of the game will cost $10, which breaks down to about $5 per button input – Divekick's controls are simply jump "dive" and (what else) dive "kick." There's a decent amount of depth to Divekick, especially considering its comical control scheme. When we played the game during this year's E3 proceedings we were charmed by its goofy, in-joke laden character design and carnival-style two button controllers that, unfortunately, have yet to be announced for retail consumption.
Deadly Premonition heads up latest round of Steam Greenlight picks
Director SWERY65's intensely bizarre action-adventure game Deadly Premonition is headed to Steam after earning community approval in the latest round of Steam Greenlight votes. Critics weren't quite sure what to make of Deadly Premonition when it was originally launched in 2010 for the Xbox 360, earning it the dubious distinction of "Most Critically Polarizing Survival Horror Game" in the 2012 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition. The upcoming Steam release is based on the recent PlayStation 3 port Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut, which features a redesigned control scheme and a new batch of bonus content. Fourteen games and two software titles were chosen in Steam Greenlight's most recent community vote, including Krillbite Studio's Kickstarter-funded horror game Among the Sleep, 2D fighter parody Divekick, and the free Half-Life: Opposing Force remake Operation Black Mesa. A full list of today's newly-Greenlit games is after the break below.
Guncraft, Cognition among eight games Greenlit on Steam
Steam Greenlight recently gave the go-ahead for eight games and three pieces of software to begin distribution on Steam. The greenlit games were Guncraft by Exacto Game Studios, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller by Phoenix Online Studios, Wild Games Studio's Day One : Garry's Incident, Homesick by Lucky Pause, In Verbis Virtus by Indomitus Games, XGen Studios' Super Motherload, Vector by Nekki and Verdun by Blackmill Games. The apps greenlit this week were Actual Multiple Monitors, FL Studio and Leadwerks 3: Steam Edition.
Greenlight Supershow live-streams 13 hours of indie hopefuls June 29
The Greenlight Supershow will capture the hottest games on Steam Greenlight for a 13-hour live-stream event on Twitch, starting at 10:30AM on Saturday, June 29. The Supershow showcases more than 25 games, each vying for a spot on Steam via Greenlight, and will include Q&As, giveaways, and sneak peeks at new things. Portions will be co-hosted by YouTubers Jesse Cox (OMGFcata) and Ryan Letourneau (Northernlion), as well as other indie-loving web personalities. The Greenlight Supershow will feature Ray's the Dead, BroForce, Girls Like Robots, Escape Goat, Black Annex, Delver's Drop, Paranautical Activity, McDroid, Dino Run SE, 8BitMMO and Tower of Guns, among others. Check out the entire schedule – including breaks with games that have already been Greenlit – right here. The whole shebang is organized by Alix Stolzer of development duo Robot Loves Kitty, who says the event comes complete with Valve's support. Stolzer's multiplayer roguelike, Legend of Dungeon, was Greenlit in April, and she wants more indies to find the same success on Steam. This weekend, consider ditching those Saturday morning cartoons and checking out the Greenlight Supershow all day long.
Steam Greenlight sneaks out six more games, one more app
Steam let six games and one piece of software through its Greenlight service last week during E3, granting each the ability to be distributed on the platform. The greenlit games were Assetto Corsa by Kunos Simulazioni, DreadOut by Digital Happiness, Benjamin Hill's Ether One, GunZ 2: The Second Duel by MAIET Games, Stonehearth by Radiant Entertainment and Ben Falcone's first-person survival horror game for Oculus Rift, The Forest. Stonehearth, a sandbox strategy game, recently raised $751,920 on Kickstarter. Heaven Benchmark by Unigine was the lone piece of software that community approval last week.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Papers, Please
It's not that there are too many indie games; it's that there aren't enough hours in a day to play all of them. The Joystiq Indie Pitch curates the best indies to play now and watch out for in the future. What's your game called and what's it about? The game is called Papers, Please and it follows the daily grind of an immigration inspector working in a fictional communist country in the early 1980s. The gameplay is based around detecting discrepancies in the documents provided by entrants. Using the limited resources provided by the Ministry of Admission, you have to sort spies, terrorists, smugglers and criminals from the flow of hopeful immigrants. What inspired you to make Papers, Please? I was inspired originally by my trips through airport immigration in the last few years. In general I try to keep an eye out for new game ideas and figured that whatever rigamarole the immigration inspector was doing behind their desk might be fun. Once that idea started to grow, I noticed other aspects of the concept that could be fun. Instead of playing the cool spy protagonist that slips through a checkpoint unsuspected, you can be the hard-ass inspector that casts their skeptical eye at every grandmother trodding through. That sort of role reversal sounded fun to me and I thought others might like it, too.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Jamsouls
It's not that there are too many indie games; it's that there aren't enough hours in a day to play all of them. The Joystiq Indie Pitch curates the best indies to play now and watch out for in the future. What's your game called and what's it about? Our game is called Jamsouls. We took inspiration from the famous tale of Pandora's Box to create crazy battles between naughty evil creatures in a vivid and colourful arena! How have sales and visibility been on XBLIG? Is $1 a good price point for Jamsouls? XBLIG has poor visibility compared to other games featured on the Xbox Marketplace. We feel that the platform is dying slowly, and that Microsoft is not really interested in this indie scene anymore, which is a shame. We chose the price of $1 because we wanted the game to have maximum exposure. The price of 80 points is very reasonable for anyone wanting to try the game out.
Game Dev Tycoon, Bleed, Riot head up batch of six at Steam Greenlight
Steam revealed today that Game Dev Tycoon, Bleed and other standout titles are featured in the latest batch of games to earn community approval and platform distribution rights through Steam Greenlight. Green Heart Games' simulation title Game Dev Tycoon earned a devoted following upon its release last month for its clever in-game approach to anti-piracy protection. Bootdisk Revolution's Bleed, a one-man effort that premiered for Windows and the Xbox Live Indie Games service late last year, combines frantically paced platforming with time-bending, quadruple-jumping gameplay mechanics. Other games to pass through the latest round of Greenlight approvals include ConcernedApe's open-ended RPG Stardew Valley, The Leonard's "playable documentary" Riot, AustinHand's survival horror title The Legend, and Aterdux Entertainment's Kickstarted strategy-RPG Legends of Eisenwald.
Steam Greenlight pulls in 2 million voters, has a chat with its indies
Getting accepted through Steam's community-voting service, Greenlight, is an ongoing, complex project for many indie developers – and for Steam itself. Valve hosted a chat with Greenlight developers this week to discuss concerns, suggestions and propose what Greenlight may look like in the future. Valve is "actively looking into" releasing the Steamworks API so developers can prepare their games prior to being Greenlit, though it has no timeframe to make that public. Currently all games go to the same Greenlight, but Valve said it would discuss the idea of separating the service by "games that are ready to go" and "games that are in development." On May 1, Valve Greenlit a mini batch of games, and this system will most likely be the new standard, the team said: "Unfortunately, we have limited resources at the moment, so we cannot ship every game that we want. We're working toward having an open platform that Gabe has talked about, but we're not there yet."
Cloudbuilt trailer hits full speed
Cloudbuilt, the futuristic platformer from Coilworks, is still in polishing stages, but it looks better every month. The new trailer shows how that fast-paced action plays out at full speed, including blasts from the main character's ray gun. Cloudbuilt is up for a Steam launch on Greenlight.
Steam Greenlight gets a mini round: Edge of Space; Papers, Please
Steam accepted a mini batch of games and software on Greenlight today, picking up four new, community-voted titles to eventually launch on Steam. The three games are Edge of Space, Venetica and Papers, Please, and the software title is Substance Designer 3, a texturing toolset. Edge of Space is a 2D terraforming experiment set on a distant, rogue planet; Venetica is an adventure set in historical Venice and starring Scarlett, the daughter of Death; and Papers, Please is an intense immigration checkpoint simulator. Steam will likely continue Greenlighting games in smaller batches so the entire process can move more quickly, this round's announcement reads. "These titles were selected on the same criteria we have been using in the past: Votes in Greenlight give us a hugely valuable point of data in gauging community interest along with external factors such as press reviews, crowd-funding successes, performance on other platforms, and awards and contests to help form a more complete picture of community interest in each title," the announcement says.
Chasm brings 'Metroidvania' action to Kickstarter
Discord Games recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring its upcoming 2D "Metroidvania-styled" game Chasm to Windows, Mac and Linux. The developer plans to take its inspiration from games such as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and The Legend of Zelda series to new heights by building procedurally-generated dungeons in six different areas into the game.In Chasm, players will control a soldier that enters a mining town coping with a reawakened ancient evil force. Along the way, players will equip weapons and spellbooks, as well as learn new abilities to reach previously-inaccessible areas. The game will include both normal and hardcore difficulty modes, as well as leaderboards that track stats such as quickest times and damage taken.Discord Games is seeking $150,000 in funding by May 12 to make Chasm a reality. The developer is already offering playable demo to fans, which is available to download through its Kickstarter page. The game is also on Steam's Greenlight service, awaiting fan approval to make it to the platform.
