So, I recently got to play a beta of Super Meat Boy, and it was awesome. I haven't played a game with this much impending death in a long time. So far, it seems the Super Meat Boy world is pretty much made up of five things; you, the walls, the floor, giant buzz-saws, and cute little bunnies (who frequently jump into the buzz saws).

Oh, and blood. Lots and lots of blood.

From the looks of it, the game's first boss will do well to keep with the game's bloody, saw-filled feel. From the looks of it, the thing is basically a giant chainsaw with feet. Why hasn't this been done before? It's such an obviously good idea; a chainsaw with feet. Here is it, 2009, and this is the first time I've seen one.

Want to simulate the feeling of fighting this boss right now? Well, you can start by making chainsaw-sounds with your mouth while squirting ketchup all over your computer monitor. If that's not enough, you could listen to the actual theme music for the boss, which can be found right here. If you really wanted to go for it, I guess you could do all three. Just don't let anybody catch you while you're at it. They might think you're weird. 

[via Meat Boy's Twitter]

I previously talked about Captain Forever during its pre-launch phase, when you had to pay $20 to access it. The game is now available for free, here.

And I'm still horrendous at it.

Captain Forever is what you might get if you crossed Banjo/Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts with Space Invaders. You build your own ship in realtime by scavenging the parts of enemy vessels and adding them to your own, until you find a baddie with nicer thrusters or shields or blasters, at which point you defeat them in battle and harvest their parts, and so on and so forth until you die.

That's the idea, anyway. Unless I get tremendously lucky and the game spawns a ship made up of nothing but awesome guns and no engines, I still find myself completely unable to build a ship of any strength -- by the time the Echo-level bad guys show up, I'm pretty much screwed. I'm not entirely sure how much of this is my fault, and how much of it is the game's design, but smarter people seem to be having a lot of fun with it.

Either way, the damn thing is free -- not like you've got much to lose. Should you decide to donate $20, however, you'll gain access to Captain Successor, the sequel to Forever which includes a bunch of new weapons and ship types.

Which I also suck at.

By now, you have hopefully taken some time out of your schedule to tinker with the more interesting 2010 Independent Games Festival Main Competition entries. If not, it's never too late to remedy your gaming sin.

Today is the day when we get to look over the Student Showcase entries, all 193 of them. Holy carp, Batman! That's a lot of non-commercial interactivity. Like last time, I've skimmed through the list, opened a boatload of tabs, and come out with a handful of neat ones:

• AugustWind: The Season of Dreams and Cloudeels - A post-apocalyptic free-roaming shooter
• Autumn Dynasty - A sleek-looking RTS in which you command troops with an ink brush
• Hazard: The Journey of Life - A first-person philosophical puzzle game
• Vapor Mayhem - A Devil May Cry-style action game with funky rhythm elements

And then there's the one game I had the chance to play, Cut and Paste. It's this cool interactive flip book where, as the name implies, you cut and paste objects to solve puzzles. You could almost think of it as a point-and-click adventure game without the deep story, kind of. Try it out!

What you are no doubt watching right now, as you're reading this, is in fact a playable game. PixelForce, which mainly consists of a single person named Eric Ruth, brought it upon themselves to de-make Left 4 Dead.

Ruth hopes to get this game out for our enjoyment as a free download around January 4. All five maps of all four campaigns plus the entire cast of Special Infected will be present, believe it or not.

Easily the best part of this demonstration is the Boomer having everything from his waist up blown to smithereens; it's going to be neat to see the other SI in low-res form, for sure.

All in all, it's looking like a cool little project. Admittedly, I think the zombie reaction times are a bit on the slow side, but otherwise I dug what I saw wholeheartedly.

[Via Go Nintendo]

Another week, another batch of downloadable games on the little console that could (and did, and continues to do).

If you jump onto the Wii Shop Channel, you'll see the usual addition of Virtual Console and WiiWare games, but the big news is that demos are coming to WiiWare. Of course, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners have been playing demos for years now, but who's counting? If you are, make a note that there are currently five WiiWare demos available for your perusal: Bit.Trip.Beat by Aksys Games; Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life is a Darklord  by Square Enix; World of Goo by 2D BOY; NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits by Over the Top; and Nintendo's Pokémon Rumble. You'll notice that at least three of the five available games are really good.

In any case, if you happen to find yourself really digging on Pokémon Rumble, multiplayer action-RPG-lite, the full game is also available for 1,500 Wii bucks.

It's too bad that most people are going to be distracted by the ability to play three of the best games on WiiWare for free this week, because Nintendo also released Factor 5's Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures (SNES) for 800 Spacedollars. Hearkening back from a time when licensed games didn't insult my intelligence, Indy's Greatest Adventure isn't bad at all, and a lot better than The Last Crusade game for the Genesis that I had when I was a kid. Street Fighter II':Champion Edition, a Turbogafx-16 port of the seminal fighter, is also available for 700 Wii coins, but that game sucks.

Last but not least, DSiWare for this week consists of a new Art Style game, and two games that I've never heard of. Art Style: DIGIDRIVE (500 points) is a puzzle game about traffic management is complemented by Skyworks' Arcade Bowling and Teyon's Robot Rescue, both of which will set you back 200 clams. Robot Rescue actually sounds kind of fun; you can read what it's like for yourself after the jump, where I've posted descriptions of all of Nintendo's digital offerings this week.

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A few weeks ago, indie game developer Arkedo sent me an e-mail titled "An Easy Game from Arkedo to Dtoid, with Love": "Do you think it would be possible to have your mad skillz colleague try and beat Level 1 AND 2 of our game? That would be awesome. We put some bright and friendly colours, so he does not get scared too quickly. And a cat."

I'm not too sure, but I think Anthony's getting trolled.

In any case, I rose to the challenge and did just that—I beat levels 1 and 2 of Arkedo Series - 02 SWAP! without dying. Of course, I eventually beat the whole thing, but it took a lot more tries and something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike strategy.

In case you've forgotten (or never got the memo to begin with), Arkedo is trying to make one indie game per month, ostensibly designed around one simple game mechanic. Last month they gave us a platformer titled JUMP!. This month, we're presented with SWAP!, a "dual-stick action puzzle," so they say.

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It finally happened. Someone made a Half-Life 2 mod about Nazis, dinosaurs, and Nazi dinosaurs. Sure, the main reason why I want to even give it a try is incredibly shallow, but even still, it's got dinosaurs who moonlight as Nazis. How can you say no to that?

If you'd rather jump straight into downloading the mod, head on over to ModDB; there's also a trailer located there too. Here's the brilliant story description:

You’ll play as Sgt. Jack Hardgrave, a renowned paleontologist who thought he put his career on hold to go to war…then Hitler resurrected dinosaurs and unleashed them on the Allies in 1942. When the Fuhrer’s monster army saw battle for the first time in North Africa Hardgrave was on the front lines – nearly getting eaten alive by beasts he spent his life studying.

We don't normally delve into the modding community too much here, but because Digital Ranch Interactive is releasing Dino D-Day as a full commercial game on Steam in 2010, and this mod is merely a way to hype up the final product and get feedback, I figured it deserved to be highlighted.

Tim Langdell, founder of EDGE Games and former IDGA board member, is evidently not a big believer in freedom of speech -- at least, not in respect to the word "edge." 

After managing to remove Mobigames' EDGE from the iPhone app store for a few months under the pretense of copyright infringement, Langdell is now going after PuzzleKings' Killer Edge Racing, yet another app to have committed the unforgivable sin of using a word Tim Langdell thinks he has a monopoly on. According to gamesindustry.biz, Langdell is now applying for a trademark for the name "Killer Edge Racing" in order to force PuzzleKings to drop the title altogether.

In a charmingly creative move, a slew of indie devs have decided to protest Langdell's greedy idiocy by using his own whininess against him. Critter Crunch is now Critter Credge, according to the game's official Web site; Polytron recently announced that 2.5D platformer Fez will now be called Fedge, Canabalt is now Canabedge, and so on.

You can find a relatively complete summary of all the indie game name changes here.

Jonathan Blow's beautiful puzzle-platformer Braid has been an Xbox 360 exclusive for a very long time, but PS3 fans with a penchant for time-travel and artsty fartsy metaphors will finally get a taste of the action. The game will be arriving on the PlayStation Network today, and if you're yet to try the game out, I highly suggest you make a point to do so.

We reviewed Braid last year and results were conclusive: Braid is a superb title that demands attention. I'm really pleased to see it hit the PS3 and expand its audience, so if you're a PS3-only kind of chap, please check it out. It's really worth experiencing.

Hit the jump for the official press release.

Titmouse Games has finally revealed an early trailer for its upcoming title, Seven Haunted Seas, shown only to press at E3 earlier this year. 

The developer says it's a "prototype" video, but it's already looking pretty impressive in this early stage. A few months back, Titmouse's Aaron Habibipour gave us the lowdow on the adventures of Scurvy Pete -- an undead pirate with a machine gun arm -- but it's great to finally see the game in action. 

So far, I'm loving the look of Seven Haunted Seas, and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the game. Oh, and for Titmouse to finally tell us what platform the game is going to be on. It's not the Saturn, I know that much.

The ten finalists for 2BeeGames' Indie Game Competition have been chosen. Let it be known that this is the second competition -- our strict headline character limit here at Destructoid didn't want to cut me any slack today. The jerk!

Of the ten independent games, the one who gains the most support from voters and a panel of judges will get a cool $10,000 and the chance to get their project published on consoles with Zoo Games. As we recently heard, last year's winner, Auditorium, is being brought to consoles.

So yeah, those votes matter. The top games this year are:

• Bullets of a Revolver -- submitted by Diefox
• Climb to the Top of the Castle -- submitted by TwO Bros. Games
• Cavemen Vs. Aliens -- submitted by John Sear
• Cochon’s Pursuit -- submitted by Edouard Mercure
• Daytraders of the Dead -- submitted by Mat Groves/ John Denton
• DriftMoon -- submitted by Ville Mönkkönen
• Kablooey! -- submitted by Vertigo Games
• Tower of Heaven -- submitted by Askiisoft
• Turba -- submitted by Binary Takeover
• Vector Conflict: The Siege -- submitted by Dig Your Own Grave Games

While I can't say I am completely familiarized with all of the entrants' games, I can certainly vouch for Tower of Heaven. The game even comes with the Joseph Leray seal of approval to boot.

I've had my eye on Joe Danger since it was announced. Admittedly, it was because the games developer, Hello Games -- a small, indie start-up made up of industry veterans -- had sheepishly approached me to say "Hey, look at our game? Maybe? If you'd like."

And I looked, and I was interested based on what I had seen in screens and read in print. But this video, "leaked" out of the recent Eurogamer Expo, has me completely convinced -- Joe Danger is now one of my "most wanted" games for (presumably) 2010. 

It's looks like an interesting mix of Motocross Maniac's side-scrolling moto-racing, with Uniracer's tricks, and... LittleBigPlanet? As far as I'm concerned, these are all good things.

Hello Games still hasn't confirmed which console the game will be available for, but that's definitely an Xbox 360 controller diagram I see in the video, so draw your own conclusions.

Why haven't I posted about Futuremark Games Studio's self-published, FPS-in-space Shattered Horizon?

That's a damn good question, really. As a lover of Dead Space and all things similar in nature to that game, I'm required by law to tell you about Shattered Horizon. Unbeknownst to me, it went up on Steam on Wednesday; apparently I am alone in this, because it's sitting in the top ten sellers section.

The main draw here is easily the zero gravity gameplay. Imagine a multiplayer session with 32 people in deep space. More specifically, on an asteroid. Bingo! Sounds sexy, huh? FGS shot us over a new video about Shattered Horizon's other neat feature called "silent running."

Yes, there is no sound in space. By default, your character's suit simulates audio to make the game more enjoyable. But with silent running, you can turn all audio cues off, meaning "a stealth advantage while sacrificing radar, HUD, and maneuverability."

I need a DirectX 10 graphics card, and I need this game.

Cipher Prime's Auditorium is a relatively simple, very self-explanatory game that's presented brilliantly. Rather than listen to me elaborate further, you can hear Samit discuss it or even try a demo, for that matter.

Oddly enough, GamerBytes reports that Auditorium is making it beyond the realm of PC exclusivity and onto Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network, and even PSP Minis sometime next year. Not to discredit the game, but it doesn't seem like the sort of thing those services tend to offer usually.

Hell, I would take that as a compliment. More than anything else, it's good news because it means more money will go in the pockets of the guys who created Auditorium. They deserve it.

Forget Silent Hill or Fatal Frame. You know a game that's terrifying? Bay12's Slaves to Armok: God of Blood: Dwarf Fortress II, colloquially shortened to simply Dwarf Fortress. If being one of Armok's slaves wasn't bad enough (it isn't), consider that the game's visuals are totally in ASCII, that there's no user interface to speak of, and that all of commands are mapped to the keyboard.

In case you're not hip to frustratingly opaque indie games, Dwarf Fortress is a mix of city-building "God game," real-time strategy, and roguelike, all wrapped up in a procedurally generated bow. Wonderful things can happen as you build your eponymous Dwarf fortress (it can be flooded by lava, for example), but trying to figure out how it works is like trying to dig a hole to China with toothpicks. That've been jammed into your eyes.

Luckily, developers Jonask and Solifuge have addressed at least one of the barriers to entry into Dwarf Fortress: enter Stonesense, an isometric visualizer that runs alongside the game, ostensibly providing the player with some visual orientation that's easier to handle than the original ASCII. The open-source project is currently in alpha (whatever that means), and the DF community has been contributing sprites.

You can download the file here (.zip), and check out a video of Stonesense in action in the video embedded above.

Maybe I've been spoiled by modern standards for aesthetics, but the impenetrable graphics surely aren't helping Dwarf Fortress win the hearts and minds of any but the most dedicated gamer. Stonesense makes another attempt at Dwarf Fortress tempting, but I'm still not sure that, even with the facelift, I'll ever be able to wrap my brain around the deep calculus at work here: that sounds like a fool's errand to me.

[Via TIGSource]

P.S. If you're interested in Dwarf Fortress, here are some other resources cribbed from some some old comments: May Green's nice-looking tileset, and a how-to from Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Braid is a pretty terrific game as far as platformers go, and anyone gaming primarily on a PlayStation 3 will soon have the chance to see what all the fuss is about; cause for celebration if I've ever seen it.

First up is the North American release, which is happening on November 12. Or, using my new method of telling game release dates, it's coming out on the Thursday after Modern Warfare 2 hits. As for the European launch, well, be on the lookout for an announcement in the coming weeks.

Pricing? Nothing official yet. But after the outrage for the PC version's original cost, I think Braid on PS3 for $14.99 is most likely a safe bet.

The Independent Games Festival's Main Competition received 306 game entries, if you can believe that. I took it upon myself to scan the multi-page list for a few projects I could highlight, and whenever something popped out at me, I opened the game's landing page in a new tab.

Needless to say, by the end of the list Firefox was chugging. Quite a few of the indie games had been discussed here before by either Anthony, Joseph, or in some rare cases me -- those are the ones I won't be giving love to today. These are:

• Attack of the 50ft Robot!
• Miegakure
• Minor Battle
• Verge

So if you don't have the patience to scroll through the full list of IGF submissions (who can blame you), do your good gaming deed for the day and at least give those four a look.

Upon reading the title of this post, I assume you will have one of two reactions:

1. What the hell is Osmos what is this crap why are you wasting my

2. Didn't that game come out, like, almost three months ago?

To which I would say, in order, "shut up" and "yes." Osmos did indeed come out during the middle of this August, but we never got around to reviewing it. A few days ago, however, I received a review copy. But why bring the game up now, so far from its initial release date?

Because it's really, really good and you should try it out. That's why.

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Time for another update from the Super Meat Boy twitter. First off are a few images from "incidental" aspects of the game. We get a look at the silhouette of a mysterious dude (Tim? LL Cool J?), a peek at the "dark overworld" of chapter 1, and page 1 of the game's in-game instructions. This one makes me happiest of all, as it confirms that Super Meat Boy will have a run button like Super Mario Bros.

Personally, I feel that the run button is often all that separates the good 2D platformers from the great ones, which further increases my belief that Super Meat Boy may go on to be one of the all time great 2D platformers of this generation.

Last, we have news of the second Super Meat Boy comic contest, called "Show us your meat!". Make some Meat Boy art between now and this Friday and post a reply with a link to said art on Meat Boy's twitter, and you have a chance to win one of three Super Meat Boy comic books.

I sure hope the guy in the header image doesn't enter, because that's Mike Roush: Gaijin Games art director. Against him, we haven't a chance.

Igneous, the remarkably pretty and well-paced student project I highlighted a few months back, is finally complete and can be downloaded for free right here.

To summarize: Igneous is a 3D platformer where you guide a rotund tiki totem through a collapsing volcano. I thought the pre-IGF version was spectacularly intense and satisfying, and my opinion hasn't changed any in regards to the final version: Igneous was, and still is, a must-download for anyone who loves platformers and/or chase sequences and/or purdy graphics.

Granted, this new version cut out one of my favorite levels involving a rising lava flow and a circular chamber, and it can be really hard to figure out where you are and where you need to go in the orgasmically explosive final level, but the game's so briskly paced and just plain exciting that I find it hard to complain too much.

Get it here.

Arkedo is keeping their promise of one game a month on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel with their new game, SWAP! SWAP! is a dual-stick action puzzle game where you have to move one block at a time to create a four block chain either horizontally or vertically. The game features a few different modes and there's even a story to the game, a first for Arkedo.

The game is available now on the Indie Games section for 240 MS Points. Go check out the demo and let us know what you think! We should expect a couple of more titles from Arkedo in the coming months.

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Look, we here at Destructoid are nice people. Usually. That's why we wanted to give Kerberos Studio a second chance.

Perhaps you saw this footage of budget PC action RPG Fort Zombie the other day? Not a pretty sight to behold, I know. I don't know the reasons behind the chugging, and thankfully, I don't need to -- based on this new trailer, that previous video was not indicative of the final product.

The one seen above in all its mildly interesting, slightly hilarious glory presumably is. The execution may not be quite there, but I must say, the core concept of piecing together forts is neat. Perhaps even neat enough to warrant the $10 asking price.

What do you think?

Then again, maybe "brawler" isn't the right word -- Hammerfight is, to briefly summarize, a ship-versus-ship combat game where you swing boulders, hammers, swords, and other melee weapons around your steampunkified™ flying machine solely by moving the mouse. The faster you swing, the more damage your weapon does.

Hammerfight is now availble on Steam for $9.99, which would be awesome if the game weren't so goddamned frustrating.

I was planning on reviewing Hammerfight, but I doubt I'll be able to; the game seems to have absolutely no idea how difficult it is, and takes great pains to throw you in ludicrously unfair situations at every turn without bothering to include any sort of actual difficulty curve.

The moment you start up the game, you will be kicked in the balls. It only gets worse from there, as the game forces you to play through escort mission upon escort mission upon escort mission, while also forcing you to fight against literal armies of much stronger enemies wielding much stronger weapons who can maneuver with remarkable dexterity while your ship seems to control as if it were made of dark matter and loaded down with ball bearings. And this is on the easier of the two campaign modes.

But, I dunno, maybe the game gets better later on. The basic idea is pretty cool, at least.

Lugaru, the much-beloved indie game which can be most easily and enjoyably described as "a violent kung fu revenge story starring rabbits," will be available for a fourth of its usual asking price until November fourth.

I had a relatively difficult time recommending the game for $20 back when I wrote an indie nation on it, but the game's a downright steal for $5. The combat system is enjoyably deep and challenging, the story is so weird it can't help but become interesting, and the version that's on sale evidently has updated HD textures or something (though, to be honest, you wouldn't know it from the trailer on the Direct2Drive page).

Given that we still don't have a release date for Overgrowth, the game's sequel, I'd highly recommend giving Lugaru a try at this price.

Earlier today, GamerBytes found a document from the Ontario Media Development Corporation that detailed a title from Capybara Games (the folks who brought you Critter Crunch on PlayStation Network and iPhone) called Zombie Tactics.

Although a few months old, the document was revealing, detailing Zombie Tactics as "a mixture of strategy gameplay elements into the horror genre, dropping players into the heart of a devastating zombie apocalypse with nothing but their wits to get them out alive." Players start off alone, eventually finding survivors which they'll add to their team, as well as weapons and other supplies.

Curious, we went directly to the source and asked Capybara -- what's the deal with Zombie Tactics?

"Zombie Tactics is the working title for a game Capy has been toying with for awhile," Capybara's Nathan Vella told us, "such a long while that our initial concept art was done in pixels."

The game itself is in the early prototyping stage, although they do have a small team working on the concept to see if it "has legs or not." For more details on the game, what platform it could end up on, and whether the game will look and feel more Critter Crunch than Left 4 Dead, hit the jump. view full story + comments

[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. This article is part of our Monthly Musing series: this month's theme is "nothing is sacred." Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]

 

There are tons of great reasons to pay attention to Askiisoft's indie sidescrolling platformer Tower of Heaven: it's a well-designed and tightly focused game with interesting mechanics, a charming Game Boy color palette, and an absolutely killer chiptunes soundtrack. If you haven't played it yet, download it here—depending on your skill level, it won't take more than a few hours to complete.

But, then again, there are tons of well-designed games out there, and you can find chiptunes anywhere.

The real reason to check out Tower of Heaven is that, thanks to a truly inspired rules mechanic, it proves that nothing is sacred: not Shigeru Miyamoto, not your conception of a platform game, and not even God Himself.

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I may not post much news on the Destructoid front page, but I do, occasionally, have my moments. I've been known to investigate things. I once reported something. Every so often, when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing in just the right direction, I journalize.

This is one of those moments.

What initially began as a seemingly innocent e-mail conversation with Tommy Refenes, one third of the Super Meat Boy team, quickly turned downright newstastic once I started asking about the identities of the other, unannounced playable indie characters (thus far the only announced characters are Alien Hominid, Tim from Braid, Commander Video from Bit.Trip, and Gish from Gish).

What I found may shock you. It may move you. It may knock you out. You'll have to hit the jump to find out exactly what I mean.

(On a slightly related note, I've scanned the entire Super Meat Boy promotional comic and included it in the gallery below. It's quite fun.)

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Crap, I forgot to read the Super Meat Boy twitter for a few days, and it turns out that I missed a f*ck-ton of news.

First is the above video, that shows us exactly how terrifying Super Meat Boy can be to a 3 year old. If you've already decided not to buy Super Meat Boy because you think it will be too hard, maybe you'll see something of yourself in this scared little girl. Don't feel bad, there's nothing wrong with an appropriate fear of giant moving saws and exploding into a giant sploosh of blood. Just do some art therapy like Acacia did, and you'll probably get over it someday.

Next up are the newly announced methods to score yourself a limited edition Super Meat Boy comic book. Right now there are only two known ways; enter and win the weekly Super Meat Boy Comic Quiz Fridays contest, or buy one of these handmade, limited edition Meat Boy "plushies". Or is is "bishies"? Man, I'm so out of touch with modern stuffed animal lingo.

The final bit of news is probably my favorite; the first in-game screen of the Bit.Trip series' Commander Video in Super Meat Boy. We've know for awhile that the Commander would be making this cameo, and we now have reason to guess that he may end up in a platformer of his own, but all that stuff is just promises and theories. To see my favorite one-eyed, TV-headed hero knocking Meat Boy on his ass really cements the fact that I will soon rocking the Commander's rainbow-run in a serious, literal fashion.

 

Eufloria -- formerly known as Dyson -- has been on my radar for a while now. Firstly, one of its creators also made Cottage of Doom. This, in itself, is sufficient reason for excitement.

Secondly, Eufloria seemed like it may well have been made for someone just like me -- someone who is absolutely terrified of real-time strategy games, who would need a redonkulously streamlined and minimalist interface in order to feel at ease.

Thirdly, I knew I'd probably be able to swing a free review copy.

Whatever the reasons for my excitement, the facts remain: the game is now out (demo here), I have reviewed it, and you can read that review after the jump.

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A week ago, I complained that too many so-called "exploration" games were actually about collecting doodads and less about the joy of progressively uncovering and understanding more of an immersive, interesting world.

Imagine my surprise and joy when I found (and by "found," I mean "a reader linked me to it") Small Worlds, by David Shute. It's a game about exploration and, pleasantly enough, nothing else.

You progress through the game by working your way through the environments, revealing more and more of the levels with every step. Your view zooms farther and farther away from your avatar as you discover more of each world. In at least one or two cases, you'll discover an underlying logic or minimalist story behind the environments you traverse. 

But there are no enemies. No upgrades. No collectibles, no achievements, no puzzles. Nothing to do except explore and reveal. And because of (or, if you're tremendously cynical, despite) these choices, it's an oddly transfixing piece of work. Even the underwhelming ending and sucky jumping mechanics did little to diminish the weirdly Zen enjoyment I got out of merely exploring Small Worlds' five levels. 

Play it here.

[Thanks, peachboy!]

The trailer for Alientrap Software's physics-based action-shooter Capsized has been making the rounds for about a week now. I'd made a mental note to post it already, but I got distracted by something shiny. Seeing it resurface on TIGSource reminded me of how fun it looks, and since pretty 2D shooters never go out of style, I don't mind posting what some might consider to be "old news." If it's new to you, enjoy.

Capsized is the newest effort from indie developer Alientrap, previously known for Nexuiz, a freeware FPS. The transition from first to third person seems to have gone smoothly—at the end of the day, Alientrap is still just making games where you bullets in people's faces, no matter the perspective. In any case, the game looks like a lot of fun, and the trailer seems to hint at some environmental strategies at play: you can use your jetpack and grappling hook to pull down logs and boulders, for example. Programmer and co-designer Lee Vermeulen offers this little tidbit:

"The new trailer shows off the fast physics based gameplay of the platformer, along with it's stylized art and unique setting. The game will focus on fast-paced action along with physics-based puzzles, as the player attempts to exit the strange alien planet.

While, mechanically, Capsized has only the most tenuous link to Nathan Fouts' own indie shooter Grapple Buggy, I can't help but compare the two. While Capsized's palette is more subdued compared to Grapple Buggy's lush and vibrant landscapes, both games suggest that the planets on which they take place on are actually alive as you navigate through alien flora and fauna. Compared to the dark, remote isolation of games like Metroid, it's a different feel altogether.

In any case, according to Capsized's official site, the game will hit Steam and Xbox Live Arcade in 2010. For your viewing pleasure, there's also a gallery of four screenshots below.

[Via IndieGames]

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not familiar with Nigoro's action-adventure Metroidvania La-Mulana or the MSX games (like Maze of Galious) to which it pays homage. (In brief, you have to guide a whip-wielding archaeologist through an expansive tomb). I am, however, familiar with Nicalis, the publisher that specializes in HD remakes of popular indie games. They're bringing La-Mulana to WiiWare (eventually), just like they did with Cave Story and Nifflas' Night Game—La-Mulana is in good company, at the very least.

In any case, developer Nigoro is hard at work giving the game a head-to-toe touch-up while maintaining the game's original, throwback aesthetic style (as you can see by the batch of new screenshots in the gallery). From what I gather, everything in La-Mulana was designed to be a reference to the MSX—a tricky legacy to maintain as they bring the game to a mainstream audience, to be sure, and a source of contention for some fans.

Despite some technical limitations (they're trying to figure out the best way to capture the game in motion on actual Wiiware, for example), Nigoro seem to be putting plenty of thought into the project: if you can piece the blog together (Nigoro are from Japan), you'll find really interesting discussions about how to maintain the original's difficulty while making it more accessible, or what to do with all the references to a computer very few owners are familiar with. If you're interested in indie development or game design, it's worth taking some time to poke around the La-Mulana blog.

Or, if you'd rather be visually stimulated, be sure to check out the screenshots in the gallery below. Since this is my first look at the game, I find the graphics pretty charming, even if they are being touched up for the console crowd.

[Via TIGSource]

Nick found Capybara Games' PlayStation Network debut Critter Crunch, a colorful food-chaining puzzler, to be "one of the best values in puzzle gaming you'll find this year," but, so far, sales have been disappointing. I'd hate to see a good game go to waste, so I'm going to jump on the chance to plug Offworld's recent look into the game's art direction, artists, and development process.

Although the trailers for Critter Crunch have already made the rounds on the internet, Offworld's collection of concept art and early sketches are as enlightening as they are beautiful. It goes without saying that Capybara put a lot of effort into Critter Crunch's presentation (as well as its "solid gameplay mechanics," again per Nick's review), but you might be surprised to know that all the art was done by "two rad dudes": Nick "Qiqo" Stefan did the character animation and Sylvain "Sylve" Coutouly the background art. The only glaring omission from the gallery? The Mr. Destructoid–style Biggs, of course.

In an effort to boost sales and spread the word, Capybara are releasing a Critter Crunch demo that should hit the PSN later today. However, if you want a sneak peak into the development process of one of PSN's best indie titles or an excuse to have Critter Crunch placed firmly on your radar, be sure check out the gallery here.

Here's another free weekend courtesy of the cats at Steam. This time, it's Killing Floor. The promotion will start up tomorrow, so now would be a good time to commence pre-loading the game while you still can.

Co-op for six players, a survival horror-style setting, and the fact that you'd normally have to put up $19.99 to play Killing Floor add up to be a pretty convincing argument for why you should be excited. Or, knowing how jaded the Internet can be, you should at least have a reaction other than "meh."

Is that too much to ask? Oh. It is. Hey -- don't say I didn't try.

Up until yesterday, if you were to ask me about monkeys in videogames, I'd start off with Donkey Kong and then mention Super Monkey Ball, Samba de Amigo, and maybe those enemies in the Green Hill Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog. I never would have thought of Toki, the titular character of Tun Corporation's 1989 run and gun platformer, because I'd never heard of his game until Golgoth Studios decided to remake it for Xbox Live Arcade and Games for Windows. When your sprites and animation are this good, I pay attention.

Toki will be getting a facelift, with beautifully hand-drawn 2D graphics courtesy of the young, six-man team at Golgoth Studios: "Our goal is to keep 2D gaming alive within this 3D world. We try to bring our small contribution in the Games industry and propose high quality content for digital platforms. 2D refuses to die!" France-based Golgoth (not to be confused with Golgotha) is keeping the arcade game's original 2D graphics and, by the looks of things, the power-ups (football helmet!) and enemies are also identical. 

In case you're fuzzy on the specifics of Toki's plot (the game's 20 years old, after all), here are some details: "Toki's mission is to rescue his princess Miho from the evil sorcerer Vokimeldo and get back his human form." Sounds pretty straightforward, until you realize that Toki plans to do this by shooting energy bullets out his mouth. Check out the first gameplay video above for a look at how shmup/platforming works. (You can also see some comparison shots in the gallery).

Personally, I think the game looks great, and I'll definitely be keeping tabs on Golgoth Studios.

[JeuxVideo.com via GameSetWatch]

The BIT.TRIP series is faced by one adorable little CommanderVideo. The hero if Gaijin Games' mini-epic is an ambitious little figure, a spaceman with whom the different genres of the BIT.TRIP series explore gameplay and art. However, it's not just the BIT.TRIP games that CommanderVideo will zip about in, as he is already a confirmed playable character in Edmund McMillen's Super Meat Boy Wiiware title. How did that happen?

Well, the guys of Gaijin are actually really good friends with Edmund and his team, with their respective studios just being around the corner from each other in sunny Santa Cruz. Alex Neuse says it “like we're totally BFFs, to talk like the young people.” He continues, “He'll come over to our studio, he and his cronies, and play our games and do focus tests and have fun and just chill out, and we'll do the same.”

According to the Gaijin Games team, McMillen stands as a guy who is really energetic about supporting other games and indie teams. With that built-in camaraderie between the dev teams, it means that getting CommanderVideo in Super Meat Boy was just a friendly request. Simple as that.

So what's next between these two studios? Gaijin developer Mike Roush mentioned that “I would guess Super Meat Boy might turn up in one of our games.” with Neuse adding: “Let's just say that CommanderVideo and Super Meat Boy might know each other outside of work.”

“They might be BFFs.”

Gaijin Games and BIT.TRIP. It's a dev team and a game series that has worked entirely within the the constraints of Nintendo's WiiWare downloadable channel. For those who have given their previous experiences a chance, what they have found is something that takes practically ancient gameplay elements, fuses them with modern design elements and a wildly eclectic approach to music. Both BIT.TRIP Beat and BIT.TRIP Core have proven to be interesting, and fun games.

So where does this leave us? Well, I had the opportunity to go down to the Santa Cruz, California-based development studio where three guys have chosen to work on a 6-part, mini-epic, indie game series. What you will see over the next few days is the result of hours of conversation, hands-on gameplay with their latest game, BIT.TRIP Void, and some interesting views on the industry. What this represents is just one peak into the hidden, casual, day-to-day life of a game developers and the world that they embody.

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Machinarium may be the best adventure game I've ever played.

I don't know if I outright prefer it over the motion-controlled glory that is Zack and Wiki, or the wacky time-travel-laffs of Chariots of the Dogs, but I do know that if you're even remotely interested in adventure or puzzle games, you'd be a complete fool not to check out Machinarium.

I know I was pretty harsh on the game in our preview a few months ago, but thanks to a new hint system and a few more hours of playtime, I can confidently type the three boldface words that adorn the header of every review I write for a great adventure game that I fear might not sell enough copies to support its developers:

BUY THIS GAME.

Hit the jump if you wanna know why.

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If you're not familiar with the concept of asynchronously multiplayer games, then there are two games you would do well to try out: Tetris Friends, and George Buckenham's Hell is Other People.

Where the former merely tasks you with playing against recordings of other people's games in a sort of isolated way that doesn't feel very multiplayer-ish until someone dumps a bunch of trash blocks on you, every moment spent playing Hell is Other People is a moment in which you will (A) be directly competing against recordings of other players, and (B) feel your hatred grow toward the members of your own species.

I'll let the designer explain it himself: "You fight ghosts, which follow the paths of previous players. So you're fighting a recording, and that recording was fighting against a previous recording, all the way back to when I waggled the ship about in the editor."

Though you're not actually fighting against other players in real time, that probably won't stop you from cursing your bastard opponents every time they move out of the path of one of your agonizingly slow bullets at just the last moment, only to distract you from a horizontally moving shot from some douche you never saw. The game isn't terribly fun until the screen literally fills with recordings of others, but it's still interesting in a misanthropic sort of way.

You can play it for free here, or buy one of the wacky downloadable versions here. Depending on how much you pay, you can change the shape of your ship into an animal head.

Looking forward to Super Meat Boy? Then should been keeping up with the game on Twitter, where all the major Meat Boy news first goes public.

Here's a recap of the latest from Tweet Boy's meats, I mean, Meat Boy's tweets-

Now Super Meat Boy is planned to contain 24 characters, including the previously revealed Tim, Alien Hominid, and Commander Video. Newly announced playable characters include "retro" styled alternate versions of Meat Boy, taken directly from the game's previously announced retro-themed levels.  As for total in-game levels, the current count is at 205. Also news is that if you score an "A" on a level, you unlock a "alternate" (meaning: hard-as-hell) version of said level. Large imposing saws seem to be a common theme amongst these alt-levels, as seen our gallery below.

Finally, we also got a look at the game's Aether-styled menu screen and a new Atari 2600 themed retro-level. Seeing gaming's mainstream past collide with the its indie present is a real giddy-time fun experience for me.

How about you? Giddy about meat-fun?

I don't know about you guys, but it's a slow day here at work. It's raining and cold here and, to be honest, I'd rather be at home with a mug of hot chocolate and a controller in my hand. A First World problem, to be sure, but what's a poor boy to do? Play awesome freeware indie games, of course.

Star Guard, a shooter by designer Sparky, has been making the rounds lately, and for good reason: it's an awesome Flash-based, stripped down (but stylish) 2D shooter/platformer for both Mac and PC. The story is that an evil wizard needs defeating, but it's cleverly presented through text overlays sprinkled throughout the game's nine levels. I particularly like the fact that you run into countless other space fighters duking it out with the enemy.

Given that you have infinite lives, the game isn't particularly difficult. Dying simply drops you in the latest checkpoint, ready to start over. The rub: the traps and mines don't reset after they're triggered, effectively allowing players to simply bulldoze their way through the game, blowing themselves up with abandon and respawning with a clear path. It's an odd design choice, but beating the game unlocks a Hard mode which may put Star Guard back into traditional shooter territory.

If you dig on run-and-guns, check out Star Guard: it's a well-designed and well-paced little game, and it's freeware to boot. You can download it here, and be sure to check out a speedrun up there. Sparky's site, Vacuum Flowers, also features some nifty browser-based games, my favorite being The Walls are not Cheese.

[Via IndieGames]

...": Race Around the World," the headline would say, if Elephant's character limit weren't so painfully brief.

Of course, I don't have to tell you that. You've already played RunMan: RATW, right? Right? I don't want to be rude, but if you haven't, you're a complete toolbag. That's all. I'm not saying you're an awful person or anything, but Jesus. Maybe one of the best platformers I've ever played, indie game or no. 

Assuming you aren't a complete toolbag and have played (and subsequently enjoyed the hell out of) RunMan: RATW, you may be interested in reading this interview I did with Tom Sennett and Matt Thorson, the guys who created the game. 

Then again, you may just be interested in playing the game again and ignoring this interview entirely. Up to you, really.

[Image by Tom Sennett, Cool Guy.]

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Almost exactly a year ago, Andrew Noel announced on the Nifflas forums that, after getting permission from the games' original creator, he was going to work on an online version of the Knytt games (Knytt and Knytt Stories). For those of you that are unfamiliar, Nifflas' games as a whole are an incredible collection of indie games that focus on platforming and exploration. They are, without a doubt, my favorite indie games of all time, and in fact the subject of the first C-Blog I ever wrote on Destructoid. Rather than ramble on about it here, I'll let you go back and read my terrible writing from 2007.

Back to the matter at hand, after initially announcing Knytt Online, Andrew said the project was on hiatus while he went back to school. After little communication, most people assumed the project was scrapped, but yesterday he made a surprise announcement that the game is, in fact, on track and that there will be an open beta coming next week. While I don't know how well Knytt will work in an online environment, I'm certainly excited to find out. 

Andrew has released a YouTube trailer showing off the game to tide you over until it's official release, which is embedded after the jump. Take a look.

If you've never played any of Nifflas' games, you owe it to yourself to download them all and play them immediately. If you have, what do you think about Knytt Online. Do you think the concept will work?

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We've already discussed the greatness of RunMan: Race Around the World in some detail. But now that you've played it, beaten it, donated money and unlocked all the characters, what's left to do? Well, depending on co-creator Matt Thorson's faith in his own code, you may get to play some user-made levels sometime in the future.

In an email interview, Thorson said, "I'm thinking of releasing the source on my forum at some point, so people can make their own stages or whatever, but the sheer messiness of it might scare everyone off."

With no enhanced version coming and who knows how long until Sennett and Thorson's next game, the prospect of playing user-created Race Around the World levels is more than a little exciting (though admittedly, I felt the same way when Jon Blow announced a Braid editor, and I haven't seen a single worthwhile user level yet). Thorson's statement could hardly be considered a guarantee, of course, but here's to hoping.

Get RunMan: Race Around the World here.

I'm a total dork when it comes to the Halloween rituals -- I love hanging the stupid skeleton on the door, going to pick out a pumpkin to carve, queuing up the scary movies. I'm not so sure how I feel about carving a pumpkin virtually, but if you feel good about it, now you can do it. Siliconera spotted indie game Pumpkin Carver on the Xbox Live store, which, as you can guess, is a pumpkin carving sim.

Sure, it's definitely aimed at kids with its simple interface, but considering it costs 80 Microsoft points (basically $1.00), you can't really complain. Thing is, all you really do is decorate the pumpkin with precut stencils, so if you're thinking you're gonna get fancy in there and make a Bayonetta pumpkin, I gotta shoot you down now. If you can do that to a real pumpkin though, send it to me, because I'll put it on the front page of Destructoid faster than you can say First Climax.

Upon completing Tom Sennett and Matt Thorson's RunMan: Race Around the World, I had only one thought -- namely, that the two creators oughtta be drowning in money for making such a damned good platformer. I wondered if the two had considered pulling a Derek Yu, and making an updated version of the game for XBLA or PSN.

"I would say don't hold your breath," Sennett said via email. "I'd much rather just make a brand new RunMan game." Thorson concurred: "I think we're done with RATW."

That means only one thing: if you played and enjoyed RunMan: Race Around the World, you're not going to get a better chance to reward the creators of a charming, speed-based platformer that's so goddamn good it should make Sega feel downright ashamed at how bad even the halfway decent Sonic the Hedgehog games are in comparison.

Donate now, is what I'm saying.

I'll be as forthcoming as I can: I didn't finish, nor will I probably ever finish JUMP!, the first of several XBL Indie Game from Arkedo (the guys behind Big Bang Mini, if you're keeping track) planned over the next few months.

The basic premise of JUMP! is about as retro as retro gets; you're a little pixelated dude collecting pixelated bombs and coins, avoiding pixelated animals who can kill you with one hit. Also, if you lose all your lives, you have to restart the game.

Not the level. Not the last time you saved, or the last checkpoint you hit. The entire game. This is retro gaming at its most sadistic, gentlemen -- and frankly, I wasn't man enough to complete the thing (I died on level 29). I did, however, spend enough time with it to have a relatively good idea of its overall feel.

For that reason, I'll still be reviewing JUMP! after the page break, but without a numerical score.

 

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So, if you check the cblogs regularly (as you should), then you probably already know that Edmund McMillen, (indie game artist/designer) just did some hospital time, and like many indie game artists/designers, he doesn't have health insurance. That means he's looking at thousands of dollars worth of bills. Tangent- Did you know that Daniel Clowes, indie comics writer/artist, agreed to have two of his Eightball stories (Ghost World and Art School Confidential) turned into movies in part so that he could get health insurance? It's a fact- health insurance is to grown ups as crack cocaine is to Tyrone Biggums. 

Anyway, I'm telling you this in hopes that you will donate some money to Mr McMillen's hospital fund. This isn't charity we're talking about, this is practical cause and effect. If Mr McMillen needs to take other work to pay his hospital bills, it will take that much longer or him to finish Super Meat Boy. Edmund has already helped complete two other games (Spewer and Time Fcuk) since Super Meat Boy was announced, which has likely contributed to why Super Meat Boy isn't done yet. Spewer and Time Fcuk are two great games and I'm glad they were made, but I'd much rather Edmund be spending 100% of his time on Super Meat Boy. I mean, why should Mr McMillen have to do stuff like "work" in order to make stuff like "money" to pay stuff like "bills"  when he could be creating something that could go on to be the greatest indie crossover 2D platformer ever made?

Please give the nice man three dollars so I can get the Gish/Braid/Alien Hominid/Bit.Trip game of my dreams sometime this century. If 1000 of you do this thing, Mr McMillen should be all set hospital bills-wise, and maybe he'll even put your name in the credits of the Super Meat Boy. 

So Donate!

HERE!

Arkedo, the studio behind Big Bang Mini and Nervous Brickdown, have come out with a new game called JUMP! for the Xbox Indie Games Channel. It’s a retro style platformer where you have to battle enemy crabs and destroy bombs planted all over the levels. The best part of JUMP!, to me anyway, is the pixilated art style. It’s absolutely fantastic and great to look at. JUMP! available now on the Indie Channel for 240 Points.

It’s interesting that Arkedo has jumped from DS development to the Indie Games channel. They could easily do Xbox Arcade games, but it seems like Arkedo is trying a little experiment with the Indie Channel. A very small team is shooting to make one game a month. First there was JUMP!, which took them 35 days to complete. Their next game is called SWAP! and should be out before the end of the month. Plus they have three more games in the works so we should be seeing a total of five new Arkedo games within the next four months.

Arkedo sees a lot of potential in the Indie Channel and hopefully it pays off for them. Check out the trailer above and download the demo for JUMP!. Give it a go and let us know what you think of it.

I do not like Tale of Tales' work, but they so fervently attempt to push against the grain of conventional game design (at least in part by not making actual games) that I feel compelled to buy every new sort-of-game they release.

They released Fatale yesterday for the price of $7, and it's pretty much what you'd expect coming from them. I actually prefer it over their other works -- it utilizes atmosphere in a more intelligent and subtle way than the glorified cut scene that was The Graveyard, and is more engaging on a moment-to-moment basis than The Path -- but it still subscribes to the (in my view, ludicrous) philosophy that gameplay and user interaction can't say anything specific or interesting on their own, and should instead be subservient to noninteractive story bits. 

In this case, the story bits revolve around a reinterpretation of the story of Salome. I have literally no idea what to make of the game, thematically (the plot, loosely summarized: you die, you put out candles, you quit the game, you come back and watch a naked chick dance for a while), which I will blame on my complete ignorance of the story of Salome. Still, I dug the atmosphere and the weird, intentionally anachronistic touches Samyn and Harvey sprinkled throughout. Shame about the gameplay, though.

Get Fatale here.

Now when I say "Magicka," I'm not referencing Oblivion -- it's the name of an upcoming action adventure game from Swedish indie developer Arrowhead Game Studios.

At first glance, it may not look like much more than a typical point-and-click-to-kill-things game. The dev team is looking to bring Magicka to Xbox LIVE Arcade, so I suppose it's more of a "press buttons and watch things explode into Kibbles 'n Bits" sort of deal. 

There seems to be a bit of self-referential humor going on, at least in the game's debut trailer -- "Become immersed in a generic fantasy world" -- although, if The Simpsons or Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard taught us anything, it's that joking about bad game design while implementing said design is not advisable.

But don't leave yet; I'm getting to the positives! All of Magicka's modes support 4-person cooperative, which seems to be where the true fun lies. The best part? You can totally kill your "teammates" if you so choose. I'm all for competitive on-the-couch co-op, especially when it's encouraged like it appears to be here.

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As Nick said way back in August of last year when he played City Rain, mashing the two distinct concepts together is "ridiculous enough that it actually works." The 2009 Independent Games Festival Student Finalist is finally playable for the rest of us lowly peons; the demo and full $9.95 download can be found here.

Since the screenshot above doesn't particularly explain the Sim City/Tetris comparison, here's how City Rain works in a nutshell. Falling blocks (buildings) can be placed anywhere on the tile-based map. To upgrade existing buildings, you simply drop the same structure type on it. And, that's mostly it.

Of course, you are building a city here, so there are meters you have to worry about. Whatever you do, don't make the meters angry. It's worth noting that City Rain is also being brought to Xbox LIVE Indie Games and "other casual game platforms." 

If you haven't yet played Dyson, then you can play the free, original version here. I'm told it's very good, though I can't speak personally because -- despite how simple it looks -- I couldn't figure out what the hell to do after twenty minutes of clumsily dragging the mouse across the screen like an idiot. Other, smarter, more RTS-inclined people seem to really like it, though.

But that's all background. To differentiate the soon-to-be-released, presumably enhanced commercial version from the free original, developers Rudolf Kremer and Alex May held a name-changin' contests. The results are in, and the-game-formerly-known-as-Dyson shall heretofore be referred to as Eufloria.

I'm horrendous at picking titles for stuff to begin with, so I wouldn't presume to praise or complain about the name change. It does make me think of Doctor Horrible, though.

Ah, the old "pay as much as you think it's worth" business model. In theory, a giant middle-finger to the greedy corporations who feel justified charging exorbitant amounts of money in the name of tradition and cynicism. In reality, a giant social experiment in which artists get to find out just how cheap and selfish their fans really are.

Bullet Candy Perfect is a slightly sexier version of -- wait for it -- Bullet Candy, a game old enough for me to comfortably refer to as an "indie classic" but recent enough that I'd feel more comfortable prefacing the entire phrase with the word "modern." It feels somewhat like Ikaruga by way of Jeff Minter; bullet hell in a psychadelic, oft-overwhelming environment.

Either way, the enhanced version is now on sale for a bare minimum contribution of one dollar. If you end up liking it, you can (and should) pay more.

It didn't really do much for me, to be honest -- the powerup system is wildly imbalanced, to the point where if you die once on a difficult level and can't get access to one of the randomly dropped triple-shot powerups, you literally cannot complete said level without dying and respawning at least a dozen times. Still, I definitely got my dollar's worth.

Jeff Minter's Gridrunner Revolution is a good game, and I say that as someone who absolutely hated Space Giraffe.

I have no time to play the coy, "these are the opening paragraphs so I don't want to spoil my opinion of the game in a cynical attempt to make you hit the jump and read further" game. The name "Jeff Minter" conjures too many overblown emotions far too quickly for such tiptoeing to be of any use.

I legitimately worry that many gamers who, like me, couldn't get into the obfuscation-based gameplay of Minter's previous work will take one glance at Revolution's screenshots and brush it off as another nausea-inducing head trip not worth their time. I legitimately worry Space Giraffe's legacy will drive people away from a game that, unlike Minter's Xbox Live-game-that-couldn't, does a superb job of slowly acclimating the player to an entirely new method of seeing, experiencing, playing, and thinking about what initially seems to be a pretty standard shmup. 

So, yes. You now know that the game is really quite good, and that you should give it a chance (demo's here, though it doesn't represent the intensity of the later levels) regardless of how you feel about Jeff Minter. If you want specifics, you can hit the jump and I will attempt to provide them.

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Point-and-click adventure games? Hey, you can never have to many of those -- especially when it comes to a platform like Xbox LIVE Arcade. The Czech Republic-based indie developer Silver Wish Games is helping out this cause with its upcoming title Axel & Pixel.

While we had heard rumblings of the game before, it wasn't until today that publisher 2K Games unleashed a bunch of media for Axel & Pixel. On top of screenshots and a debut trailer, there's also the announcement of an October 14 release date.

The hand-drawn environments remind me of another game, Samorost, which I hope you are all familiar with. If not, now is the time to repent your gaming sin. As for this upcoming game, at the very least it looks intriguing. No word on a price, but if recent trends continue, it could be another 800 pointer.

If you never played RunMan's Monster Fracas, that's fine. You missed out on a great little platformer, but it's really not that big a deal. Regardless of whether or not you played RMF, my opinion of you will not change.

If you don't download, enjoy, and donate money toward RunMan: Race Around the World, however, you are a f*cking idiot.

RunMan: Race Around the World is a game where you run very very fast in a world of beautifully low-fi anthropomorphic scenery, all while listening to 1920's folk music. It is a very good game and you should play it, because that's what one tends to do with very good games. You should also feel free to donate money to Tom Sennett and Matt Thorson, because they made the game. A game which -- if I am not mistaken -- I believe I have mentioned is quite good.

I have written a longer, considerably more indepth review after the jump. You can read it while you wait for the game to finish downloading.

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Remember Canabalt? The surprisingly addictive, surprisingly pretty one-button platformer that we raved about nearly a month ago? Well, you can now buy a copy of the game for your iPhone or iPod touch.

The browser version is still free, but I've gotta say: I bought it last night, and next to Eliss and iDracula it's the best iPhone game I've yet played. The fast pace and one-button gameplay translate perfectly to Apple's ubiquitous little mobile device: it's perfectly suited for really quick playthroughs, and the simple controls make it one of the least frustrating games available on the system (Rolando, you can go to hell).

Anyway, yeah. As addictive and pretty and fast-paced as ever, only now you have an easy and satisfying way to support the developers. My high score is still in the 10,000 range. Anyone ever figure out if there was any truth to that rumor that if you survived long enough, a strider robot would start chasing you?

Previously, ACE Team co-founder Carlos Bordeu told us about his studios' interest in bringing the delightfully bizarre Zeno Clash over to Xbox LIVE Arcade. Having been powered by the Source Engine on PC, the transition to Xbox 360 for the first-person brawler seemed like the way to go.

And, according to publisher Atlus, it was. As spotted by NeoGAF user Volcynika, the Ultimate Edition will bring new "modes, features, added content, and improvements based on fan feedback." One such addition is the co-op Tower Challenge mode.

ACE Team has been graciously supportive of Zeno Clash on PC post-launch, so it'll be interesting to see if these extra features in the XBLA version get added back to the original by way of a patch. To be fair, I suppose you have to give people a reason to want the shiny new package, right?

Not that the game's melee system didn't work well on the standard mouse plus keyboard combo (it did), but I think tackling Zeno Clash with a controller may very well be something worth experiencing. Also, Achievements -- don't act like you don't want 'em.

Download this, right now. Strange Adventures in Infinite Space used to be the most surprisingly expensive indie game on the PC market -- $20, despite being almost a decade old -- but now it's free. Beautifully, wonderfully free.

But what, exactly, are you getting for your zero dollars? Arguably the coolest space exploration game ever, that's what. Highly randomized and frantically paced, an average playthrough of SAIS lasts fifteen minutes or less, yet still manages to cram in all sorts of thrilling discoveries, fun (if incredibly streamlined) space combat,  and interesting strategic decisions into its seemingly meager playtime. I've previously gone into considerable detail about why the game kicks ass, but suffice to say it's intensely replayable and really intuitive.

What Spelunky was for the roguelike, Strange Adventures In Infinite Space is for the space exploration game. And it's frigging free, so just get it already.