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Serious Sam Double D XXL adds 30 more guns, new things on Steam
Serious Sam Double D has evolved into Serious Sam Double D XXL on Steam, now with new missions, weapons and enemies. The upgrade is free to current owners of the game, and XXL is on sale through October 28 for $2.50, 75 percent off the standard price. Serious Sam Double D XXL includes two-player local co-op, a new campaign and challenge missions, three new enemies and more than 30 new guns primed for your stacking pleasure. Seriously.
Indie developers discuss the Ouya experience thus far
With Ouya developer kits now out in the wild, our friends at Engadget decided to see what developers think of them so far. Nathan Fouts of Mommy's Best Games praises the system for its open development system. As an example, he noted the "brutal" certification process Mommy's Best had to overcome in order release Serious Sam Double D XXL on Xbox Live Arcade. "I'm happy to release the game there, but it's a nice break to have fewer restrictions," he said.Meanwhile, Jerrod Putnam of Tiny Tim Games is excited by the prospect of a unified, widespread Android platform. Whereas Android development usually requires developers to worry about compatibility across multiple devices, all with different specs, Tiny Tim can develop for Ouya "without having to also target thousands of other devices." He does admit that the Tegra 3 chipset in the Ouya will quickly be surpassed by newer chips, but that is simply the nature of consoles. Along the same lines, however, the static nature of the Ouya will allow developers to maximize its potential.Right now, the biggest question is how the Ouya's business model will play out. "There are still a few unknowns that will ultimately decide how Ouya pans out," said Rami Ismail of Vlambeer. Much will depend on curation, he said. "Too strict risks alienating creative developers and too loose and you end up with a minefield of terrible apps similar to the Android Play Store." Fouts added that another hurdle will be twofold: Convincing developers that there will be an audience for Ouya, and convincing potential Ouya owners that it will have a large enough library of worthwhile games.
Serious Sam Double D XXL dev diary shows XBLA additions, stacks guns
Serious Sam Double D will make the jump from PC to Xbox Live Arcade next month, adding enough new content to append a few letters to the title, giving us Serious Sam Double D XXL. Take a look at some of Double D XXL's upgrades in this developer diary. (Hint: more guns.)
Serious Sam Double D XXL storms XBLA on Feb. 20
Serious Sam Double D XXL is poised to ambush Xbox Live Arcade on February 20, running and gunning for 800 MS Points ($10). The XXL XBLA version brings brand new features, missions, weapons and local two-player co-op. The Gunstacker, which allows players to throw a myriad of weapons right on top of one another, has more than 30 new guns alone.Last year we heard, Serious Sam Double D XXL was scheduled to launch in the fall, but a game like this one doesn't play by society's rules, man.%Gallery-175770%
Serious Sam 3: BFE, Serious Sam Double D XXL run screaming to XBLA this fall
This fall, Xbox Live Arcade doubles down on Serious Sam. Serious Sam 3: BFE – which launched on the PC late last year and was ported over to the Mac last month – will ditch the disc for an Xbox Live Arcade release this fall. Serious Sam 3: BFE on XBLA will be the full game, losing nothing in the transition over to console.Serious Sam Double D XXL is the new version of Mommy's Best Games' PC release. The XXL brings with it "new campaign missions, new challenges, new enemies, Gunstacker upgrades and a hot new two-player local cooperative mode." Serious Sam Double D XXL is priced at 800 MS Points ($10).%Gallery-155549%
Serious Sam Complete Pack launches on Steam with sweet deal
So you've been abroad for the past few years, backpacking across Europe or whatever it is you were doing -- we didn't want to ask. It's none of our business what you were up to, but now that you're back, maybe you want to dust off your keyboard, boot up your PC and see what you've missed?If you're a Serious Sam fan you've missed quite a few games. As if celebrating your return, Steam is offering a Serious Sam bundle on sale. It collects eight different games for $28.90. These include the classic Serious Sam games and their HD remakes, the sequels Serious Sam 2 and Serious Sam 3: BFE, and the Mommy's Best Games indie effort, Serious Sam Double D. Once this deal expires on February 27, the bundle cost $84.99.Accompanying the sale is a nice retrospective video that looks back at the iconic PC series, which you can watch above this chunk of text. Convenient.
Devolver Digital open to indie pitches at GDC, set appointments now
Serious Sam publisher Devolver Digital will hear indie pitches as part of its "Pitch Fork Parker Project" at this year's Game Developers Conference. The project is a continuation of the successful Serious Sam Indie Series, in which Devolver Digital and Croteam produced Serious Sam "indie titles" with developers Vlambeer, Mommy's Best Games and Be-Rad Entertainment.Devolver will provide "completion funds and a publishing deal" to the three best game prototypes, demos or pitches it's presented. Indies interested in getting in front of the execs should email "pitchfork@devolverdigital.com" with details on their team and project to set up a meeting.
Mommy's Best Games asks ESA members to renounce SOPA
You know how we feel about the anti-piracy/pro-censorship bill SOPA (we still think it's borderline evil) but now another developer is speaking out against it, and urging others to do so as well. Nathan Fouts of Mommy's Best Games (Serious Sam: Double D) wrote a blog post asking the Entertainment Software Association to drop its continued support of the bill. "If you work at one of these companies," Fouts said to ESA members, "talk to your boss and get them talking to the ESA! Ask what your company's stance is!" He also wrote to gamers suggesting we, as people being represented by the ESA, should ask the association to drop SOPA support. In addition to this open letter, Fouts has been tweeting at every ESA member with the message, "Hi, checking in with all on the ESA list. Does your company support SOPA? If not, could you ask the ESA to drop support? Thx!"
Mommy's Best responds to new Dash gripes with new shmup Game Type
When Serious Sam: Double D and Weapon of Choice developer Mommy's Best Games saw the latest Xbox 360 Dashboard, a few concerns came to mind. Rather than posting an analytical blog post, MBG spent seven days creating a playable commentary -- with parkour kick laser-beam attacks.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Serious Sam: Double D
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, as part of a three-part series, we're featuring the creators of the Serious Sam indie series. Today is Nathan Fouts of Mommy's Best Games, talking no-joke gun-stacking in Serious Sam: Double D. What's the name of your Serious Sam indie offering, and how does it play? Serious Sam Double D launches Sam into the second dimension and grants him actually-over-the-top abilities, like the Gun Stacker, which is a suite of robotic arms that allow him to carry all of his guns at once [Ed. note: Or carry all of his chainsaws, a feature added thanks to commenter greyson97 on this Joystiq article, because that's how indie development rolls]. Sam fights Mental's hordes in new temporal dimensions, encountering classic enemies like the evil Kleer skeleton and the headless Kamikaze, but also new, deadly oddities like the jet-packing Chimputee, and the bristling Etanoh Salvo Spider. Sam must disable teleportation beacons placed in each time period before his hordes completely invade and wipe out civilization.
Serious Sam Double D stacking digital shelves (and guns) Aug. 30
Devolver Digital has announced that Serious Sam Double D, the first in the Serious Sam Indie Series, will arrive on PC next week. The title will be available via "digital PC game services like Steam and Get Games" for $8 starting August 30. Lest you've forgotten Double D, it's the latest from Mommy's Best Games and, more importantly, let's players stack guns on top of other guns, thus creating an even more powerful gun. See the feature explained in the handy video above..
Dreams come true: Serious Sam: Double D has a four-chainsaw Gun Stacker
They say that dreams don't come true, and they're right, as our utter lack of bacon-generating jetpacks can attest. But the one place that rule doesn't apply is in the Joystiq comments section. Want proof? Check out the above comment, from our post about Serious Sam: Double D's brilliant Gun Stacker. Inspired by this comment, the hard-working staff of Mommy's Best Games went and ... you guessed it: PUT 4 CHAINSAWS ON IT. Check out the gallery for the proof and get ready to believe in miracles.%Gallery-127357%
Seriously wild Serious Sam: Double D screens, Gun Stacking details
Remember that scene in Aliens where Ripley tapes together the pulse rifle and flamethrower? Now imagine doing that with five guns. That's the concept behind Serious Sam: Double D's weapon stacking mechanic -- and it looks as cool as it sounds. Designer Nathan Fouts of Mommy's Best Games (Xbox indies Weapon of Choice, Shoot 1UP and Explosionade) has posted a look at the inner workings of the Gun Stacker system on the developer's blog. It explains the mixing and matching of firearms from top to bottom, from finding hidden weapons and the requisite Gun Stacker arms, to the interface used to bolt them together -- there are even some dev tips for ... interesting combinations. Try as we may, we haven't been able to successfully stack chainsaws, tommy guns and grenade launchers onto our laptops after reading the post, but you can see how crazy it would look (minus the laptop) in the gallery below.%Gallery-122210%
The most important thing about Serious Sam: Double D
Professional game critic though I may be, I don't have too much in the way of valuable insight to offer about Serious Sam: Double D, Mommy's Best Games' entry in the Serious Sam Indie Series. Blending the run-and-gun dual-stick action of Mommy's Best's Weapon of Choice with Serious Sam's ... headless dudes with bombs for hands works as well as you'd think. No, the most important thing about the game I can relate to you is elegantly conveyed by the above screenshot. While many games will let you wield a shotgun, machine gun and plasma rifle, only one game will supply you with an item that lets you stack all of them together and fire them simultaneously. The Gun Stacker: Let it never be said 2011 was without innovation.
Serious Sam gets serious indie cred with new Indie Series
Normally, when a developer farms out one of its franchises to a smaller team, the groans are justified. But this time, the outsourcing is seriously appealing. Croteam and publisher Devolver Digital have announced the Serious Sam Indie Series, in which known indie developers remake Croteam's famous shooter in their own styles. The first three devs to take on this Serious task are Mommy's Best Games, Vlambeer, and Be-Rad Entertainment. Mommy's Best is doing what it does best, a "frantic side-scrolling shooter" for PC and consoles called Serious Sam: Double-D. Super Crate Box creator Vlambeer mashes up genres to create the turn-based RPG Serious Sam: The Random Encounter for unspecified platforms, and Lame Castle's Be-Rad Entertainment interprets the series as an auto-running game about guiding Headless Kamikazes out of the path of Sam, called Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! Platform specifics about Random Encounter and Kamikaze Attack have yet to be revealed, though Kamikaze Attack sounds like a candidate for a mobile release. If you're at PAX East this weekend, you can find out for yourself -- Double D and Kamikaze Attack will be playable at booth I-16. If there's one flaw to this plan, it's that these indie games sound way more interesting than the actual Serious Sam sequel they're intended to promote.%Gallery-118687%
Explosionade dev delaying release until XBLM 'is less broken'
If you've been waiting to get your hands on Explosionade on Xbox Live Indie Games, you're going to have to wait a bit longer. Already delayed once to fix a last-minute bug, Mommy's Best Games has delayed the game again until "Xbox Marketplace is less broken." Speaking out on the Mommy's Best Devlog, studio head Nathan Fouls claimed that the Xbox Live Indie Games' "Top Downloads" section on XBLM is broken, frequently failing to update properly. According to Fouls, the Top Downloads section is often "stuck for days, sometimes over a week." With a broken Top Downloads section, said Fouls, Explosionade could miss out on the potential sales boost that featured games receive. He added that gamers may stop paying attention to the Top Downloads section altogether if they realize it doesn't update on a regular basis. Explosionade has been delayed until Microsoft addresses the alleged problem. "If Top Downloads keeps getting stuck," said Fouls, "it's going to eventually impact developers and gamers and the [Indie Games] channel will suffer."
XBL indie Explosionade from Weapon of Choice dev delayed by last-minute bug
Nathan Fouts, former Insomniac designer and now-head of indie dev Mommy's Best Games, has tweeted that his latest game, Explosionade, has hit a small snag. Originally expected on the Xbox Live Marketplace by the end of the day tomorrow, a last-minute bug discovery has made it necessary for Fouts to resubmit the game for peer review. Fouts told site Nukezilla "the game has to wait at least 7 days before it can resubmit" and that "we're shooting for next weekend at this point," putting the release on (or slightly before) October 3. We can't think of a better way to pass the time than playing MBG's previous XBLIG releases, Weapon of Choice and Shoot 1UP. Xbox.com: Add Weapon of Choice to your Xbox 360 download queue (400 MSP / $5) Xbox.com: Add Shoot 1UP to your Xbox 360 download queue (80 MSP / $1)
Explosionade side-scrolling into Xbox Live Indie Games this week
It's just like Mom always said: When life gives you explosions, you make Explosionade -- and then release it on Xbox Live. Maybe that wasn't what she said (we weren't listening most of the time), but Mommy's Best Games took that advice, because its 2D side-scrolling shooter is coming to Xbox Live's Indie Games platform sometime this week. The title will have "dozens" of challenge rooms to play through, two-player co-op, online high scores and, as you can probably tell from the name, lots and lots of things blowing other things up. MBG previously released the popular indie title Weapon of Choice, so this should be one to look for. Plus, sales of this game will contribute towards the release of Grapple Buggy, a title that MBG has been seeking a publisher for so it can land on Xbox Live Arcade actual. There's no word on Explosionade's price, but you can look for it on the XBLM by sometime on Saturday night. It's just like Mom always said: Support your indie developers. She did say that one, right? Maybe not.
Shoot 1UP headed to PSN
Developer Nathan Fouts tells Co-Optimus that his label, Mommy's Best Games, is working to bring Shoot 1UP to PSN. The Xbox Live Indie Game turns the tables on the shoot-'em-up genre by allowing the player to build a mass of ships and basically become a sentient bullet hell, tossing back as many projectiles as enemies are able to dish out. If you think about it, it's not terribly fair that only Xbox gamers have gotten the sweet taste of shmup revenge. After all, Sony fans have been battling through these things since Einhander. When this cosmic injustice is addressed, we're hoping Shoot 1UP can retain its $1 XBLIG price tag.
XBL Indie 'Weapon of Choice' chosen by Blitz for PC release
The debut Xbox Live Indie Game from former Insomniac designer Nathan Fouts, Weapon of Choice, is headed to the PC by way of Blitz Games Studios and its Blitz 1UP label. It's not the first Indie picked up by the publisher; Binary Tweed's Clover: A Curious Tale was released for Windows via a number of different digital distribution services earlier this year. Blitz doesn't have a launch date yet for the port of WOC, but creator Fouts has made a strong case for PC players to be excited. "With the help of Blitz 1UP, we hope to relieve your monitors from constantly displaying games in browns and grays," he stated in today's announcement, adding, "It's time to vomit up some vibrant color with trip-inducing visuals of alien viscera!" Kevin Butler, watch your back. You can try (and, if you like, buy) the second XBL Indie release from Mommy's Best Games, Shoot 1UP, right now from the Xbox Live Marketplace. [Handy-dandy Marketplace link!]
