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Ninja Fishing for iPhone looks eerily similar to popular Flash title
Ninja Fishing is a new title coming on the App Store that combines Fruit Ninja's hacking and slashing mechanic with a fishing game, where you throw fish up in the air and then chop them down for fun and profit. Unfortunately, quite a few people have noticed a resemblance to a Flash game called Radical Fishing, which itself was already being made into an App Store title called Ridiculous Fishing. Sure enough, the original Flash title has you fishing and then shooting fish out of the air, and the planned iOS title plays generally the same way, it would seem. So what's the deal? Certainly there is a resemblance between the two games, even if the swipe-to-slash mechanic is a new addition. And this obviously isn't the first time we've seen game mechanics from another medium apparently ripped off for an iOS title. But the developers of Ridiculous Fishing seem to be taking it in stride anyway -- they're still working hard on their iOS title, and they say it'll have lots of cool new ideas and "an amazing visual style" as well. Gamenauts, the company that released Ninja Fishing, says that the title was inspired by the original Flash game, and that credit will be given, though they weren't specific on how that will be done. Mistakes were made, it seems, but given how many titles are available on the iOS store, it's probably not too surprising that we've got a few overlaps.
Serious Sam: The Random Encounter is seriously an RPG
Yes, for its third of the Serious Sam Indie Series, Super Crate Box developer Vlambeer made an RPG. These new screens of Serious Sam: The Random Encounter reveal a game with both exploration and combat delivered in a 16-bit Final Fantasy-style. Of course, because it's a Serious Sam game, it's a Final Fantasy-style RPG populated by impossibly beefy dudes with big arms, bigger sidearms, and giant, grotesque robotic alien things.%Gallery-126830%
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%
Seen@GDC: The Winnitron 1000, featuring Super Crate Box
You've never played IGF Pavillion game Super Crate Box? Well then, let's fix that right now (it's free!). Unfortunately, if you weren't at GDC -- or aren't a resident of Winnipeg, Canada -- it's going to be a bit difficult to check out the game's two player co-op mode, housed inside of the wonderful and mysterious Winnitron 1000.
