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Project Awakened brings super powers to Steam Greenlight
Project Awakened, the super-powered action game that Phosphor Games resurrected on Kickstarter, now has a Steam Greenlight page, hoping to eventually sneak onto that service. As Phosphor told us earlier this month, Awakened is a PC, next-gen game heavy on customization and kicking dystopic booty with a myriad of interchangeable powers.Get a glimpse of some early super-human combinations in the demo video below, and if you're intrigued, check out Awakened on Kickstarter and Greenlight.
MANOS: The Hands of Fate attempts to please the Master on Greenlight
Torgo's bizarre undulations and wobbly-voiced predictions of the Master's disapproving nature might reach a much wider audience, as Mystery Science Theater 3000 homage MANOS: The Hands of Fate is seeking the communal go-ahead on Steam Greenlight.Based on the 1966 horror film of the same name, MANOS originally launched on iOS in June of last year, with a PC port arriving on Indievania last December. The Steam port will include a new "Play as Torgo" mode, assuming the game makes it onto the service. No word on Steam pricing as of yet, but the existing iOS and PC versions go for $1.99 and $5.99, respectively.
Cannons Lasers Rockets hits Steam Greenlight
Cannons Lasers Rockets, a free-to-play, cross-platform title by Net Games Laboratory, has been introduced to Steam Greenlight, where it will be subjected to the scrutiny of the community. Net Games is describing CLR as a "PvP/co-op arcade space game" that provides light-hearted gameplay. Players will be able to fight in 10v10 co-op and 50v50 clan warfare, with the options of hundreds of different ship and equipment types for optimal customization. The game will be F2P with cash shop support, but Net Games is adamant that any stats on items purchase with meatspace money will be on-par with items available in the game itself. Skip below the cut to check out the gameplay trailer.
Take control of an 80s arcade with Arcadecraft, out now on XBLIG
Arcadecraft, the 80s arcade management sim from Firebase Industries, is available now on Xbox Live Indie Games for 240 MS Points ($3). In Arcadecraft, players must dig themselves out of debt with the latest craze in entrepreneurship, starting an arcade. As owner and manager, players purchase arcade machines, position them around the space, name their arcade, paint the walls, change the floors, and add graphics and neon wherever they deem necessary.Arcadecraft has almost 80 arcade machines of different design, each with adjustable difficulty and price settings, and some games will jam, break down and need servicing as customers use and abuse them.Firebase Industries, the team behind Orbitron: Revolution, has Arcadecraft on Steam Greenlight and is working on a touch-based Windows 8 version.
Cheap Steam Greenlight games up for grabs in Green Light Bundle
The Green Light Bundle from Stolen Couch Games offers nine indie games attempting to climb the Steam Greenlight charts, giving them some extra exposure and giving you some cheap entertainment, all for $5. Some of the best bundles do more than offer great games at tiny prices: Humble Indie Bundle, for example, has an option to donate to charity when you buy. Now we have another multitasker on our hands. The nine games in the next Green Light Bundle, launching on February 1, are the following: haunting sim Paranormal, tower-defense game Beware Planet Earth!, tile-dragging puzzler Hairy Tales, casual dungeon crawler Dwarf Quest, spearfishing sim Depth Hunter, 8-bit platformer Potatoman Seeks the Troof, beat-em-up Megabyte Punch, platformer Gear Jack, space strategy game Aeon Command. All of these games, except for Depth Hunter and Beware Planet Earth!, are on Mac as well as PC.If you buy, don't forget to vote for these games on Steam. It's your civic duty, after all.
Steam Greenlight adds skip, follow, share options, new dev stats
Steam Greenlight is still finding its place in this wild, mixed-up online world, and Valve is tweaking its systems based on community feedback, which is appropriate for a crowd-sourced service. Steam Greenlight now features an "Ask me again later" option next to the "Yes" and "No" voting buttons. Skipped items will disappear from users' queues for one month, before returning in a blaze of indecisive glory. Users can also view skipped titles in the new "Items to Revisit Later" menu.Adding to the "favorite" ability, Greenlighters can now "follow" games and receive notifications when the developer posts updates. All previously favorited items are automatically part of users' follow lists right now. It's possible to follow collections as well, and collection owners can post updates that are sent directly to those interested in their bundles.Developers get in on the action with this update, too, with a new set of detailed statistics showing how many people view their item and vote on it.
Cell: emergence version 1.1 reacts massively on XBLIG, PC
If you're going to play something on Xbox Live Indie Games that doesn't involve mining, it might as well be an organic, massively reactive, cellular strategy game from the principal writer of the original Deus Ex, Sheldon Pacotti. Cell: emergence takes place in the body of a sick child, where players inhabit a nanobot fighting the smart germs of futuristic biowarfare. It's beautiful, for a battlefield.Cell: emergence 1.1 drops on XBLIG today and is out for PC via Desura, both on sale for $1 through February 4. Version 1.1 addresses the weak tutorial and steep difficulty curve by throwing in visual tutorial screens."The difficulty curve remains steep, but for most players it should now be challenging rather than mystifying," Pacotti says. He also wants to see Cell: emergence break out on Steam, and today began a campaign to get it approved through Greenlight.If you're interested but not sold, check out the free demo on Indie DB.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: No Time To Explain
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 believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, the team at tinyBuild take the time to describe their rollercoaster of crowdfunding before it was cool and being Greenlit, with No Time To Explain. What's your game called and what's it about?It's called No Time To Explain and is about giant enemy crabs, time paradoxes and jetpack guns. We're fans of the whole wacky concept of time travel and wanted to make a game where we can get away with pretty much anything and make that funny.How did you find out about being Greenlit and how did you react?I was obsessively refreshing our Greenlight page for a couple of hours until finally the big green sign, "This game has been Greenlit," appeared. I had tears in my eyes at that point. We were losing hope to get onto Steam, and this felt like winning the lottery. You know the moment where you realize something great just happened and you don't entirely believe it? I called Tom, who apparently threw his dog out of happiness (the dog is fine).
La-Mulana, Leisure Suit Larry, more Greenlit on Steam
Twelve more games have made it through the Steam Greenlight voting process, and will be distributed through the store when they are ready. The games succeeding in this fourth round include Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, which is already aiming for a Jan. 24 release date, the remakes of La-Mulana and Leisure Suit Larry, along with Asylum, DLC Quest, Eador: Masters of the Broken World, MaK, The Age of Decadence, Unepic, and War for the Overworld.In addition, two non-game software titles, "game design tool" articy:draft and "modeling app" GroBroto, have been Greenlit.
'The Greenlight' series kicks off with Steam hopeful Bleed
A new weekly YouTube series called "The Greenlight" recently sprouted up, and spotlights projects that have been submitted to Steam's Greenlight service. This first episode spends nearly a half hour on an action game called Bleed by Bootdisk Revolution.
Events 2012: Steam Greenlight
If 38 Studios was a gaming story for the mainstream audience and Kickstarter was the industry insider's dream, Steam Greenlight was the event for the rest of us. At least, that's how Valve presented it, as a fresh, innovative way to directly involve players in the selection of games, crowd-sourced style. In execution, however, it ran into a few problems.Any service launch has its issues, and online the audience is privy to every blemish and backtrack, including Steam Greenlight's. Greenlight lasted five days in its initial form, allowing anyone at any time to submit a game for crowd consideration, regardless of its validity or morality. Following a slew of Half-Life 3 scams and other games in ill taste, Valve initiated a $100 entrance fee for the program. Today Greenlight has a free Concepts option, hosts non-gaming software and has accepted 32 games, 12 of which have launched on Steam. There are plenty more to come, Valve promises.With a new system comes new problems – or, at least, a period of adjustment – and Greenlight saw a fair share of frustrations and unexpected legal issues from indie developers during its infancy in 2012. When indie developer Colin Northway expressed his annoyance with Greenlight on Twitter, he noted the main issues in transitioning from a professional game-selection process to a chaotic, public one. And then he told us his story. Faceless attempted to use the popular Slender Man lore, and despite being on top of the voting pile since Greenlight's launch, it's yet to do so because of legal issues. As more indie developers attempt to break onto Steam via Greenlight, it can alter the way they pitch their games and how they think about production.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Edge of Space
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 believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, lead game designer at Handyman Studios, Jacob Crane, talks Edge of Space, his space shark exploration game in beta and on Greenlight now. What's your game called and what's it about?The game we are working on is Edge of Space, and it is a 2D sandbox exploration game. You, one of the ArkCo Recruits, have been dropped into an area where terraforming should never have been attempted. Stranded in an unknown region of space on a busted-up planet where early terraforming protocols have gone horribly wrong, it's now up to you and whoever else you can find to overcome the obstacles ahead.How is the beta going?The beta is going very well. It has kept our feet on the ground and really helped us identify issues in the core system early on. Whenever you are developing multiplayer, we think it is key you get it out into the "wild" as soon as you can. We wanted to experiment with a different kind of development style to match our small team. After alpha, we pulled out all but the basic features for beta, and then started adding them back in layers as we found things were stable and the necessary iteration was put in place.This is very much a bottom-up approach. To ensure our foundations are rock solid is paramount. Even though mod development is not being released right at release day, everything has already been made to support it when we do. This has served us very well. It does come with the drawback of not being able to show everything we want to, but it allows us make the code infinitely more stable.
Next Steam Greenlight batch incoming on January 15
Steam Greenlight is poised to announce the next round of games to make the community-chosen cut on January 15.So far Greenlight, which allows players to vote for games they think are worthy of being on Steam, has accepted 32 games and launched 12 of those, including Primordia, Postal 2 Complete, Waking Mars, AirBuccaneers and McPixel. Greenlight also has an arm for non-game software, which has Greenlit one batch of six programs, with one release.As they say, get out and vote.
Dig into Knytt Underground on PSN this week
Knytt Underground, the latest platformer from Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren, will be released on PS3 and Vita via PSN tomorrow in North America. Europe will have to wait until December 21, but will have access to it free with PlayStation Plus, which more than makes up for the brief wait. It's also coming to PC, and to Steam if it gets enough Greenlight support.Knytt Underground consists of more than 1,800 rooms, through which you'll run, jump, grapple, and bounce. The release date announcement also promises "multiple story-driven quests" within these interconnected rooms.
Waking Mars plants itself on Steam
Waking Mars has now made it all the way through the Steam Greenlight gauntlet, going from community-supported addition to actually available game. Tiger Style's self-described "action gardening" game, about the discovery and subsequent management of a subterranean ecosystem on Mars, was officially chosen as a Greenlight release at the end of November.The game costs $9.99, and supports SteamPlay on both Mac and PC. For more information about the PC release of Waking Mars, check out our podcast interview with creative director Randy Smith.
City of Steam double feature: A beta trailer and a Steam Greenlight campaign
If you've been wanting to get a look at the upcoming steampunk MMO City of Steam but haven't been able to procure a closed beta spot, there are still two days until the Autumnwane testing round. However, if you can't wait that long, Mechanist Games has a new trailer showing off the game to tide you over. On top of that, the studio has announced that City of Steam has kicked off its Greenlight campaign on Steam. What does this mean for fans? It means that if the game gets enough votes, it will be made available on Steam, which will in turn add a number of new features to the game, including pets, new dungeon types, new steambikes, extra character customization options, and more! To get your City of Steam fix, be sure to watch the creatively done trailer after the break, and then don't forget to watch Massively TV this Friday night, December 14th, at 9:00 p.m. EST to see the game live! [Source: Mechanist Games press release]
Steam Greenlight advances 13 more games, including Dragon's Lair
Valve is giving the Steam Greenlight to 13 more games and six non-gaming bits of software, taking the total for software advanced via Greenlight to 50. Moreover, the new batch of greenlit games includes a few recognizable names, including MMORPGs Darkfall: Unholy Wars and Dawn of Fantasy, and, yes, laserdisc classic Dragon's Lair.Digital Leisure, who only this year brought Dragon's Lair to Xbox Live Arcade, will now deliver the 1983 arcade game on Steam. As with the XBLA release, the Steam port will feature remastered game footage in 720p high definition.We have the full list of advanced software after the break.
Darkfall Unholy Wars hits Steam Greenlight, debuts shiny new video
Aventurine is making a bid to get Darkfall Unholy Wars on Steam, by way of Steam Greenlight. You can now vote (provided you have a Steam account) for the game to be a part of the ever-growing Steam stable. Because just one blog post a day is for the weak, the Aventurine team also put out a new video, which takes a good look at the Brawler School. Brawlers are part of the Skirmisher role and are equipped with skills to increase their efficiency, sprint speed, leap, evade, and reflexes. If covering dizzying amounts of ground and controlling battle through movement sounds like your thing, you might consider checking out the video. We've included it below the cut because we're just that nice. [Thanks to savvy webizen Bartillo for the tip!]
Faceless: Slender Man stalks, blocks Greenlight's top game from Steam
Faceless has been the No. 1 game on Steam Greenlight since fans voted for the first batch in September, and it was the top game during the second round, which Greenlit 21 games in October. Faceless still holds the spot today, but when Valve announces the next group of Greenlight games, chances are it will be skipped over once again. Faceless is haunted by the rusty chains of the legal system. It's a horror game that tells the tale of Slender Man, the elongated, suited phantom notorious for stalking gullible children and teenagers (though mostly just those who own handheld cameras). Victor Surge initiated The Slender Man mythos on the Something Awful forums in 2006, and it migrated to YouTube in 2009 in a series of "lost footage" videos from Marble Hornets. The footage chronicles Slender Man as he haunts a film student, Alex, slowly driving him to paranoia before he is lost to the ether and insanity. The first episode has 2.4 million views and the channel now hosts 64 full entries, last updated in October 2012. Slender Man is a horrific viral hit. In a sense, Slender Man stalks Faceless developer Justin Ross just as he does Alex – the Slender Man legend is the reason Faceless can't yet be approved on Greenlight. "We've been the No. 1 game since the service launched and have yet to be Greenlit due to copyright issues with Slender Man, which is a free-to-use entity, and we've even gotten permission from the creator Victor Surge," Faceless developer Justin Ross tells Joystiq. "It's starting to feel like Greenlight games aren't chosen by the community like Valve has stated, and it's instead their choice, not the community's."
Snapshot: Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
There are so many games out there we couldn't possibly review them all. Welcome to Snapshot, where we highlight games that might fall outside our usual coverage but are still something we think you should know about. Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is older than I am. Ancestrally, at least – The Great Giana Sisters launched in 1987 on Commodore 64, Atari ST, the Amiga and a few other, old platforms. The publisher, Rainbow Arts, was immediately embroiled in scandal for the game's similarity to Super Mario Bros. It was pulled from retail and eventually the IP shifted to Spellbound Entertainment, which released Great Giana Sisters DS in 2009. Spellbound went bankrupt in 2012 and many of its members re-formed as Black Forest Games with the Giana Sisters IP in hand.On August 31, Black Forest's Kickstarter for "Project Giana" earned $186,000 of a requested $150,000, promising fans a modern, direct "grandchild" of The Great Giana Sisters. Now, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is the second game to launch on Steam through the latest crowd-sourced initiative, Greenlight. After 25 years of refusals, bankruptcies and a shifty legal foundation, the only thing that matters is if the game, in the end, is worth it.Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is worth it.%Gallery-169126%
