Silent Hill Style Perspectives With Resident Evil Combat in Upcoming Agni: Village of Calamity
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An unauthorised investigation leads to something sinister.Face Ghosts To Collect Cards In Schoolbound
There's something strange about this place.90s Gloomy Survival Horror, Holstin, Switches Between Isometric and Third-Person
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An upcoming psychological survival horror.
Category: News
5 Great Games from Ludum Dare 29
Every April, August, and December, Ludum Dare takes over my developer-filled Twitter feed as the event's thousands of participants set aside their weekend specifically for game development. Depending on if they are participating in the Competition or the more rules-relaxed Jam, developers have 48 or 72 hours respectively, to assemble their game. The rigorous 48-hour competition restricts game developers to work alone on their games and develop them from scratch. The 72-hour jam allows room for groups and those groups can borrow assets from their previous work.With the theme "Beneath the Surface" for the 29th Ludum Dare event, developers crammed their collective creativity last weekend to create nearly 2,500 unique games. Some games took the theme literally, making a game about going under the surface of the sea or underground. While others, took the theme more figuratively. Here are some of the highlights.King quietly launches Diamond Digger Saga to Facebook
By Jim Squires
If it ends in "Saga," it's not hard to guess what studio is behind the latest craze on Facebook. This week King launched Diamond Digger Saga on the social network, a Collapse-style match-3 game about digging deep in search of treasure.The mechanics seem pretty straightforward. Water enters through the top of the board, and you'll need to clear away blocks to help it reach an exit at the bottom. Each stage has a finite number of boards to guide the water through before you reach the treasure-filled bottom.There's no word yet on a mobile release, though considering King's standard M.O., we figure it's only a matter of time.It's also worth noting that there's already a game on the App Store called Diamond Digger that launched in January, so… hooo boy.Check back next week for our full review.Bandai Namco: Late to the Free-to-Play Party, but Incredibly Well Dressed
By Nick Tylwalk
Toward the end of a small group session at Bandai Namco's Global Gamers Day in Las Vegas, Director of Digital Games In Joo Hwang wandered in. He was ostensibly there to give some extra insight into the game on display, but instead, he did something unexpected: he admitted his company had made a mistake.Tilting the conversation toward free-to-play games, Hwang admitted that Bandai Namco had missed the boat and was now working hard to catch up. Stating that the only way to make up ground would be to deliver titles of very high quality, he also hinted at the difficulty in getting everyone involved to change mindsets from shipping products to delivering services.Hwang punctuated that last point by saying that he told employees to face the fact that "the most ugly form of your game is going to be the launch product."Though the event covered a lot of ground, the recurring theme of Bandai Namco embracing free-to-play games on all platforms was impossible to miss. It popped up in expected places like upcoming mobile games, but also in the revamping of established console franchises in F2P forms.Roblox User-Generated Games Earning up to $10k a Month
By Nick Tylwalk
When Roblox launched its Developer Exchange program last October, the thought was that some of the people using the platform to create their own games would be able to exchange enough virtual currency for real money that they'd be able to help pay for their educations or make some extra income on the side. Six months later, it's apparent that vision may have been too modest.Roblox announced this week that two teenage twin brothers from Ireland earned the first ever $10,000 monthly payout from the Developer Exchange, bringing their total earnings to $19,000. Conor and Darragh Griffin (known collectively as TheGamer101) are the minds behind Sword Fighting Tournament, a multiplayer fighting game that has racked up more than 25 million play sessions since its debut in 2009.Its continued growth has mirrored that of Roblox as a whole, and CEO David Baszucki says it's not a fluke.Four Days, Four Games: The Butterscotch Minis Round-Up
By Andy Chalk
For four not-quite-consecutive Mondays beginning in February, Butterscotch Shenanigans set itself to a rather odd task: Make a game, from start to finish, in a single ten-hour stretch. Four days, four games: Roid Rage, Freeway Mutant, Extreme Burger Defense and Flop Rocket, collectively known as the Butterscotch Minis.The idea was to hone their development skills while simultaneously connecting with their audience by livestreaming each "speedcrafting" session, and while it didn't work out quite as well as they'd hoped, the four games to come out of it are actually quite good.The speedcrafting sessions are now over - the Butterscotch fellas wrote a very interesting post-mortem discussing the various ways in which they succeeded and failed right here - but the games remain. And as quick, simple diversions, they're well worth checking out. So check them out!Zenimax Accuses John Carmack of Spiriting Away Technology to Oculus Rift
By Steven Strom
Well this is certainly a sour way to start the morning.Zenimax Media, the parent company that owns Bethesda Softworks (makers of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3) and id Software (Doom, Quake, Rage) is accusing Oculus Rift Chief Technology Officer, John Carmack, of taking Zenimax-owned technology with him to the virtual reality company when he left id.Carmack is the co-founder of id Software and co-creator of seminal games like Doom. He's also into rocket science and generally considered an incredibly smart dude. Last year he left the company he helped create to jump on with now-Facebook-owned Oculus Rift.The Wall Street Journal acquired correspondence between Oculus and Zenimax, revealing the dispute.One of the claims states "It was only through the concerted efforts of Mr. Carmack, using technology developed over many years at, and owned by, ZeniMax, that [Oculus founder] Mr. Luckey was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality."King of the Course is EA’s next golf game, and it’s now in Canada
By Jim Squires
I'm a sucker for a good golf game. And if I can take it with me on the go, even better. But there hasn't been anything exciting that I could putt around with my in pocket for quite some time. In fact, it's been so long since there's been a good golf game on the App Store that I've been secretly waiting for Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational to drop to free on PlayStation Plus.But with EA's latest Canadian soft launch, it looks like I might finally have a golf game I can call my own again: King of the Course.A free-to-play title with an arcade feel, King of the Course seems to be a golf game that's perfectly enjoyable in bite sized chunks. I've had a chance to fiddle around with the first dozen or so "challenges," and thus far I'm having a pretty great time with it. I've had to tackle traditional goals like coming in under par, as well as wackier objectives like trying to hit a bullseye with my long drive (it kind of feels like darts meets curling).Glu Mobile Acquires Diner Dash Maker PlayFirst
By Jim Squires
Glu has made a pretty fantastic name for themselves in the world of mobile games in recent years, so it's only fitting that they've purchased the makers of a pretty fantastic franchise. The company announced today that they've acquired PlayFirst, makers of the Diner Dash series (and its subsequent spinoffs like Cooking Dash, Hotel Dash and Wedding Dash).While unexpected, I suppose the purchase isn't entirely surprising. While they first found success among casual PC gamers, PlayFirst made the move to mobile-first back in 2012 when they suspended development of desktop games. As a mobile-focused company with a notable brand, I suppose it was only a matter of time until somebody made them an offer they couldn't refuse.Specifically, that offer was 3 million shares of GLUU common stock (currently trading at $4 a share, so… approx. $12 million) and "the assumption of up to $3.55 million net negative balance sheet" according to today's investor report.