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Stealth horror game 'Hello Neighbor' arrives on mobile devices
Stealth horror game Hello Neighbor puts you at odds with the creepy next-door neighbor, tasking you with sneaking in to his house to find his secrets while you avoid getting found out. Just one day before the game is slated to launch on PS4 and Switch (it originally came out for Xbox and PC), it's available on mobile platforms.
Troubled game reseller forces users to identify themselves
Online game key marketplace G2A is taking another stab at making its site more secure for developers by implementing changes that will impact both resellers and customers. The company announced on Thursday that key sellers on its site will be required to reveal their name and address, having previously been allowed to operate anonymously.
Game studio claims it lost $450,000 to key resales
Game key resales are theoretically ideal for players -- you can buy that must-have title at a discount from someone who wasn't going to use it anyway. However, SpeedRunners publisher TinyBuild would beg to differ. It's accusing G2A of facilitating a black market in game keys that amounted to $450,000 in potential lost sales at retail prices. The studio maintains that G2A is refusing proper help (including compensation) after fraudsters bought keys from the TinyBuild store using stolen credit cards and posted them on G2A, making a tidy profit while TinyBuild made nothing. Supposedly, the only way to get help would be to forge a deal with G2A itself and undercut its own retail partners in order to compete with the bootleggers. Simply blacklisting a range of keys wasn't an option, either.
Meet the high school dropout paving the way for indie eSports
It sounds like a classic Silicon Valley success story: A young, inexperienced entrepreneur drops out of school to pursue his dreams and ends up founding an influential, innovative company. Except, Alex Nichiporchik isn't from California; he's from Latvia. And he didn't drop out of college to follow his passion -- he dropped out of high school. Nichiporchik is the CEO and co-founder of tinyBuild GAMES, the studio behind No Time to Explain and SpeedRunners, and he's leading the indie charge into eSports. Professional gaming is new territory for small studios, which means Nichiporchik has made a lot of it up along the way, from hosting low-quality live streams to producing tournaments with the Electronic Sports League. "We didn't know what we were doing," he says, but "it took off" anyway.
A light-hearted game of mass murder in 'Party Hard'
In January, someone moved into the house right next to Alex Nichiporchik's. Nichiporchik, CEO of SpeedRunners studio TinyBuild Games, immediately wasn't a fan of his new neighbor. "He decided it's a funny idea to throw parties every night until 3AM," Nichiporchik recalls. One month into this late-night party hell, TinyBuild signed a contract with Pinokl Games, a studio known for crafting family-friendly experiences. But Pinokl's new project was wildly different: Party Hard, a stealth game about skulking through a bumpin' party and murdering everyone there. "Coincidence? The final level is actually modeled against what I imagine the next door party is," Nichiporchik says.
'Streamlined' real-time strategy game BOID debuts January 8
Publisher TinyBuild Games (they of Speedrunners fame) has announced that Mokus Games' "streamlined" real-time strategy game BOID will reach Steam Early Access on January 8. You'll find a launch trailer beyond the break. TinyBuild claims that though BOID is a class-based multiplayer RTS, it eschews the complexity of most strategy games, and instead focuses on quick thinking and mind games. "[BOID] takes place in an underwater world populated by glowing, tadpole-like creatures," reads Alexander's description of a hands-on demo he played at Gamescom. "They swim toward colored nodes spread across the map and claim them, which yields more units and resources. You left-click drag to select units, and right click to send the little swimmers swarming toward their destination, where they'll battle others to claim the circle." Compared to the dozens of units and structures most RTS games expect players to micromanage, that certainly does seem straightforward. As with all Early Access games, players hoping to navigate the waters of BOID do so at their own risk. Though multiplayer functionality and online matchmaking have already been added to the game, it will not be a finished product on January 8 and will likely contain technical problems. If you must play the game as soon as possible, by all means go for it. But consider this a polite warning that the experience won't be flawless. [Image: TinyBuild Games]
SpeedRunners recruits YouTubers to help fight cancer
SpeedRunners, a PC game about superheroes racing one another, is now a game about YouTubers racing one another - or at least it is for the duration of a week starting on Monday, October 20, when developer DoubleDutch Games and publisher tinyBuild host the "King of Speed" tournament. "A couple of months ago we had this idea. The idea that cancer sucks. And we should do something about it, with speed and running," an email to Joystiq from tinyBuild states. "SpeedRunners became popular in large part because of YouTubers. Why not put them in the game and create a charity campaign?" To that end, eight YouTube personalities have been adapted to the SpeedRunners world and divided into two teams of four. Each team will sell as a DLC pack for $2.99. Once the King of Speed tournament is underway, player wins will accrue under their respective team's banner. The team with the most wins, well ... wins. The entirety of the winning team's DLC sales will be donated to fighting cancer, while 30 percent of all DLC will go toward the cause as well. If you don't want to play as any of the YouTube personalities but still want to help push a team to victory, playing as either SpeedRunner or The Falcon will also count toward the tournament tallies for their respective team. To see who's on which team, check out the full list after the break:
Boid boils real-time strategy down to essentials soon
Mokus Games, creators of 2011's iPad Game of the Year, Contre Jour, revealed a new game called Boid this morning. Published by SpeedRunners developer TinyBuild, Boid is an extremely streamlined multiplayer real-time strategy gaming coming "first" (and soon) to Steam. We tried Boid's demo last night in Germany, where we're staying for this week's GDC Europe and Gamescom, and the concept of the game is super lean, and a classic example of "easy to learn, difficult to master."
Race with rockets when SpeedRunners hits Xbox One
SpeedRunners, the four-player racing elimination game from tinyBuild, is due out on Xbox One in 2015, after its Steam release. SpeedRunners is currently on Steam Early Access, and already it has "thousands" of players online during peak times, tinyBuild says. The game is local or online multiplayer (or local and online multiplayer), and it has players race against each other through a series of side-scrolling, platforming environments where they can swing, dash and lay traps for competitors, all with the goal of reaching the finish first. SpeedRunners comes from a collaboration between two independent studios, DoubleDutch Games and No Time to Explain developer tinyBuild. DoubleDutch created the original SpeedRunners HD, which launched on Xbox Live Indie Games in 2011, and tinyBuild is publishing and co-developing this updated version. [Image: tinyBuild]
Undo a chili knight's work in reverse platformer, Spoiler Alert
Spoilers are generally frowned upon, but we're ready to make an exception when it's the central theme of the game in question. Case in point: Spoiler Alert, a game played in reverse. In this self-described "comedy platformer," you un-shoot fireballs, un-throw hammers and give bosses their lives back on your un-quest to un-rescue Princess Tomato. The game features 100 levels spread across four worlds, but you can create your own using the included level editor as well. Spoiler Alert is developed by two-man Danish studio MegaFuzz and published by tinyBuild Games, the studio behind No Time To Explain and the upcoming JetGetters. It un-made its way to Steam earlier this week and is currently on sale for $6.39 - 20 percent off - until July 7. [Image: MegaFuzz/tinyBuild Games]
PSA: No Time to Explain begins 25% off in Steam debut
No Time to Explain recently landed on Steam after its successful Kickstarter campaign and collective nod from the community in Steam's Greenlight program. What's more, developer tinyBuild Games knocked the price of the game down by 25 percent to $7.49 in a special promotion that ends February 1.Check out the announcement trailer for the game above, and read up on our recent Joystiq Indie Pitch if you're in the dark on the game. After all, there's no time to... elaborate on it here.
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).
