Jihyo Attack (Written Resignation Attack) is an abandoned 2D platformer game created by the developer of Teppoman 2, where you play as a employee of a corporation who is annoyed because his manager refuses to accept his resignation letter. Armed with a large hammer, he decides that today is the day he will quit for good even if he has to destroy his entire workplace just to convince the boss he means business.
There are only five floors to climb, and you can beat the entire game in just a couple of minutes. Jihyo Attack is available to download from the game graveyard section of Ikiki's site, which will presumably be updated with more of his short projects and incomplete works in the coming months. (Windows, 0.49MB)
Today's collection of independent game links includes more indie game previews, a couple of development updates, and the usual interviews with developers from around the 'net. (image source)
Teknogames: Shoot First Version 1.2
"Spawning problems, hidden exits and the highscore board should all be fixed now. Those who have enjoyed Shoot First can donate to receive a version of the game with extra content. This extra content includes a fancy new level and two new weapons."
Freeplay Festival 2010: Freeplay Awards Finalists
"We had an astonishing number of entries, representing an enormous amount of work put in by indie developers, writers and artists from all over the world. So here are the finalists for the Inaugural Freeplay Awards."
The Bottom Feeder: Sometimes It's OK To Steal My Games
"This blog post is about the bright side of software piracy. It's about the times when not only is it OK to steal my games, but, in fact, I get something out of it."
Gamasutra: Critical Reception of Playdead's Limbo
"This week's edition of Critical Reception examines online reaction to Playdead's downloadable Xbox Live Arcade platformer Limbo, which reviews describe as 'dark, disturbing, yet eerily beautiful.' Limbo currently earns a score of 90 out of 100 at Metacritic.com."
Games On Net: A quick chat with Frictional
"In this games.on.net exclusive interview, we asked Frictional Games co-founder Thomas Grip about the lack of weaponry in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, plot influences - and of course, the physics angle."
Joystiq: The Behemoth's Battleblock Theater preview
"Behemoth co-founder Tom Fulp said Battleblock Theater originated in Alien Hominid's PDA games, where four players could face off against each other on one screen. That mode became a player favorite, and they kept talking about how they could expand on it, and that grew into Battleblock."
Suisoft Limited: Gravity Core Postmortem
"Gravity Core already existed as a multiplayer gameplay prototype. After much soul searching and weighing the pros and cons, I decided to form a company and develop my prototype game into something to sell."
Mt. (pronounced mountain) is a procedural-generated climbing game in which players have to scale difficult walls and overhangs to get to a top of a mountain, where a red flag awaits the conqueror who survived against all odds. Technically there's no danger that'll end your climb, but you do lose significant progress when a fall sends you a long way back.
There are two skills that you need to master in order to overcome the challenges that await you. Jumping is executed with the tap of the left mouse button, and you can stay put on any flat surface (regardless of whether it is vertical or upside down) as long as both your feet are touching the ground. This requires holding down the left button while you're in the air to spin clockwise until the right angle is achieved. Players can also control their air speed velocity by using the WASD keys.
You'll need to use the bungie cord to climb tougher wall surfaces. To do this, just hold the right mouse button and press a key that points away from the ground. Once you're hanging off the rope, you can use the directional keys to swing yourself in any direction, or let go of the right button to surrender yourself to gravity again. This technique, when used correctly, can propel the player around any overhang that stands in their way towards victory.
Mt. was made for TIGSource's AGbIC compo, and you'll need a Java-enabled browser to run it. There's also a Windows version that can be downloaded to play locally as well (my preferred method). And feel free to suggest mountain names for other players to climb in the comments section. (Mac/Win/Linux, 0.89MB)
!i (or 'Not I') is a clever artillery-style shooter for one or two players. The world is divided up into black and white, and each player takes it in turns to fire off a block of their own colour, and eradicate the enemy from beneath.
The two teams exist on opposite sides of the world, and the screen can be flipped to allow either player to be on top. A single player can battle against a AI-controlled army (although the computer is far too good) or two players can go head-to-head. What is really rather awesome is that all the text around the screen reads the same way when turned upside down. You can even flip the title screen!
Fish Fish Bang Bang is a one-button arena shooter created by Robert Fearon (using sprites from Farb's Fishie Fishie), where players get to shoot at evil fish invaders and collect shiny gems for points. Your fish in the middle of the screen will always rotate in one direction, but the rotation switches the other way around whenever a button or a key is pressed. Each level presents a different layout and shape for the enemies to appear from, and there are gems to collect in the latter stages as well.
A demo will be released sometime this week, while the full version should be available to download from the Bagfull of Wrong site in a fortnight's time from now. Fish Fish Bang Bang is Bob's submission for Indie Kombat - a friendly competition between two developers (the other being Farbs) where they take each other's games and remake them into something ten times better than the original.
Today's collection of independent game links includes more indie game previews, a couple of development updates, and the usual interviews with developers from around the 'net.
The Gaming Liberty.com: Shank Interview
"We recently threw a few questions at Jamie Cheng, the founder of Klei Entertainment. Jamie and his team are about to unleash Shank on on PSN and XBLA this August 24th and 25th, with a PC release to follow in the autumn."
the2bears.com: Gigantic Army
"Astro Port have a 2-level demo of Gigantic Army available now. It’s really quite good, though a little easy. I’m glad to see their style go back to the grittier look of their older games. Love the colours, love the parallax."
La-Mulana: Detailed Production Added
"We increased the production values by implementing art such as dust flying up when Lemeza jumps, flying sparks when hitting the wall with metal, and large amounts of dust appear with shaking display when something large falls down."
David Galindo's Blog: How much do indie PC devs make, anyways?
"I'd like to share my experiences selling a recently released indie game called the Oil Blue, mainly because I think sales transparency among indie devs is so important right now given the increasing difficulty of building a successful PC game."
bit-tech: Air Forte Review
"Brendon Chung’s Flotilla is still one of our favourite games of the year, so when we heard he’d released something new we leapt at it quickly and without pause."
Direct2Drive is offering the Best of Indie Bundle Volume 3 on their site again, combining ten IGF finalists and winners from the previous years in one collection. The price of the pack is $29.95, which is a bargain if you do not own any of these games from inside the bundle yet:
World of Goo
Puzzlegeddon
Gish
The Maw
Braid
Cogs
Aaaaa!
Osmos
Machinarium
Crayon Physics Deluxe
This bundle is available to purchase worldwide, and it expires on the 3rd of August.
American video game retailer GameStop has bought Flash games site Kongregate. In a video over on the Kongregate site, co-founder Jim Greer gives details of the agreement, and what it means for the future of Kongregate and its users.
From what Jim says, not much will really change. The recently started GameStop rewards program - called PowerUp - will be integrated into the site, allowing players with amazing scores and achievements to win money prizes. The site will also soon lose the 'beta' tag with has been sat next to the logo for a rather long time. The revenue sharing scheme will still be in place and apparently completely untouched, so contributors can still earn their keep.
Jim is keeping the finer details underwraps for now, at least - he says that the amount GameStop paid for the site is "confidential". Hopefully a boost from Gamestop will allow even more great indie games to start popping up there soon. Check the official (and rather silly) announcement here.
Platformance: Castle Pain is a tough platformer available on the Xbox Live Indie Games service. You take control of a knight who must battle his way through a dangerous castle and save the princess.
If Super Meat Boy and Journey to the Center of the Earth had a love child, this would probably be it. There are spinning axes to dodge, bats to flee from, spikes to bound over, octopuses to not make friends with and ghosts to beat a hasty retreat from. Certain obstacles can get a little frustrating, but there are plenty of checkpoints so you'll never be sent too far back.
Download Platformance: Castle Pain from the Xbox Live Marketplace for a mere 80 MS Points - that's one dollar, folks!
The Pinball Adventure is a collection of four pinball tables in one game, where players score points by completing bounties and slaying monsters. Each table is usually populated by three waves of monsters to kill, and a stage boss will appear when you've cleared ten sets of enemies in a row.
Only the first table is accessible from the start, but scoring half a million points in one session unlocks the next table and so forth. Players with Kongregate user accounts can also submit their scores online and compete for the top spot with other pinball enthusiasts around the world.
Digital: A Love Story is an interactive fiction game created by Christine Love, presented through Bulletin Board Systems that you can visit and read using an operating system interface which mimics those found in computers from the late 1980s. At the start of your adventure a message in your inbox offers a phone number for you to dial up and log into your first BBS, and once you're familiar with the set of applications on your virtual desktop the tasks of replying to messages and initiating conversations with strangers can all be done with just the click of a button.
Though there's quite a bit of text to read in Digital: A Love Story, the game won't take longer than an afternoon to play through. The control scheme is admittedly clunky (e.g. you can't use the Enter key to submit a phone number, although it works when you're transferring codes), but persevere and you will be rewarded with an absorbing experience that no other game from this day and age can offer. (Mac/Win/Linux, 34.2MB)
According to The Guardian, Zombie Cow's edutainment platformer Privates will be released on August 5th. You are right to be very surprised - that's just over a week away!
For anyone who has let Privates pass them by, it's a run-and-gun platformer based in the human body, in which small soldiers shoot STDs, sperm and other bodily wotsits. The Guardian ran a feature today on the game, stating that the game will be released on August 5th. There's no news on whether this is the release date for both the PC and Xbox 360 release, but we can safely assume that the PC edition at least will be gracing our monitors rather soonish.
Swedish development studio Cockroach Inc has divulged information regarding upcoming point-and-click adventure The Dream Machine. It's a game created entirely out of clay and cardboard, which is a rather exciting prospect.
Players take control of Victor and Alicia, who have just moved into a seemingly normal apartment block - however, things are not as they first appear. The game looks utterly gorgeous (just check out the screenshots below the cut to see what I mean). Episode one of the game is going to be released very soon on PC, Mac and Linux.
There's a demo available to play online right now, so make sure you check it out over on the Dream Machine site.
Take Aim is a 2D arcade shooter prototype originally created by Adam Saltsman in mid-2008, but was abandoned and remained unknown to the public until now. Here you play as a sniper who has to take down all kidnappers in every level with just your rifle and the attached scope. Players have to keep the target in their sights and fire at the right moment, since every time your heart beats the rifle will move around just a tiny bit and interfere with your concentration.
Take Aim was one of the five unfinished prototypes released by Adam yesterday. All of them are in various incomplete states but are available to try out online. (source)
A complete set of video presentations from No More Sweden 2010 held earlier this month are now available to watch online, featuring talks by developers like Crayon Physics creator Petri Purho, Bernhard Schulenberg (designer of Where is My Heart?), and Andreas Zecher (Understanding Games) among others. The list of recorded presentations that can be viewed are as follows:
Talking to People: Promotion for Indies
"Andreas Zecher holds a presentation on how indie game developers should try to work more on the promotion of their games."
I don’t care about your input: Making games that play themselves
"Martin Jonasson tells us about how he’s exploring games that takes none or little input from the player. Martin has created a lot of flash-based games that he puts online on his Prototyprally site."
Oxeye Game Studio Preview: DaisyMoon
"Jens Bergensten, programmer at Oxeye Game Studio, describes how their prototyping engine DaisyMoon became their main engine, and what kind of games they’ve created with it."
Niklas Åkerblad on The Art of Kometen
"Niklas Åkerblad has created an iPhone/iPad game called Kometen together with Erik Svedäng. Niklas held a presentation at No More Sweden explaining how he worked out the style for the game, as well as discussing the topic of game art in general."
Today's collection of independent game links includes more indie game previews, a couple of development updates, and the usual interviews with developers from around the 'net. (
Today's collection of independent game links includes more indie game previews, a couple of development updates, and the usual interviews with developers from around the 'net.
A complete set of video presentations from 
