Silent Hill Style Perspectives With Resident Evil Combat in Upcoming Agni: Village of Calamity
By Adele Wilson
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
By Adele Wilson
An upcoming psychological survival horror.
Category: News
Osmos made a cameo on The Simpsons this week
By Jim Squires
It's been a few years since it first launched, but if you dust off your ol' memory box, I'm sure you'll find plenty of happy ones from your time with Hemisphere Games' 2009 masterpiece Osmos. The game was later ported to mobile devices, winning Apple's iPad Game of the Year award in 2010 - and, it would seem, the hearts and minds of The Simpsons show writers.The internet was abuzz this week with talk of this week's Minecraft couch gag on The Simpsons, but a voxelized Springfield wasn't the only indie gaming nod on this week's show. About halfway through the episode, when Milhouse learns that Bart has plenty of stolen goods - including Milhouse's iPad - Bart suggests he relax to the soothing sounds of "this bubble game."We reached out to Hemisphere Games to see how this collaboration came about, and it turns out they were just as surprised as we were."We had no idea The Simpsons cameo was coming," Hempishere's Eddy Boxerman told Gamezebo. "Our jaws dropped in disbelief when we caught wind of it! As a few friends have said (and who are we to disagree?) 'It's official -- Osmos is pop culture now!'"Transistor gets dated: coming May 20th
By Jim Squires
Remember that time you fell in love with Bastion? Get ready, because it might just happen all over again. Supergiant Games today confirmed the launch date of their second big release: Transistor will be hitting PC and PS4 on May 20, 2014.Player's will take up the role of Red, a young girl with a mighty big weapon as she fights her way through a gorgeous sci-fi cityscape. The game's official site promises that Transistor "seamlessly integrates thoughtful strategic planning into a fast-paced action experience, melding responsive gameplay and rich atmospheric storytelling." If that doesn't whet your whistle, I don't know what will.Can't wait another five weeks? If you're making your way up to Boston, Supergiant will be showing off a near-final build of the game at PAX East this weekend. Be sure to pay them a visit at Booth 892.Mikey Boots is the next game from Mikey Shorts, Mikey Hooks creators
By Jim Squires
With two critically acclaimed platformers under their belt, it was only a matter of time until they gave us a third. BeaverTap Games, the creators of Mikey Shorts and Mikey Hooks have just released the teaser trailer for their next game, Mikey Boots.As you can probably guess from the name, Mikey Boots will add some cool new footwear mechanics to all of the running, hooking and sliding you're used to. Judging from the trailer, this means ROCKET BOOTS.My apologies for the 'all caps' nature of that statement, but you try typing ROCKET BOOTS in lower case. It's scientifically impossible.They're keeping a tight lid on further details right now, but that doesn't mean that BeaverTap Games doesn't have more good news to share. Mikey Hooks also launched on Android today. To celebrate this momentous occassion, the game is on sale for 50% off on both Android and iOS.If you haven't played Mikey Hooks yet, you should fix that immediately.The Elder Scrolls Online Review Diary: First Impressions and Combat
By Steven Strom
MMOs tend to open with flashy, pre-rendered cutscenes to show of just how cool their universe is meant to feel. Seasoned players know this is just smoke and mirrors -- something to draw in the pedestrian crowd and invoke the "feeling" of what's actually conveyed by digital dice rolls and numbers leaping from wild boars' heads.The Elder Scrolls Online isn't really so different in the first sense. There's a lovely, action-packed trailer with all the excitement of chains crashing through the sky and wizard/barbarian types thrashing about demon-y things.Like all Elder Scrolls games, however, you start much more humbly -- as a prisoner. You've been taken to Coldharbour and had your soul removed. One of the big bads of The Elder Scrolls mythos needs it -- and those of several million of like-minded players -- to continue being evil. You escape from this contrived tutorial, of course, and the game drops you on Cyrodiil proper in one of three starting islands.Where you end up at first is determined by which faction you choose. Literally nothing is done to explain what choosing a faction means. I had to hit up the game's website to learn the Ebonheart Pact includes the vikings, lizard people and dark elves. These being the raddest of Elder Scrolls species, I obviously chose their alliance and wound up in Morrowind.What’s the longest the average user plays a mobile game?
By Joel Brodie
If you guessed less than 24 hours, you're a winner. Which means if you're a mobile game developer spending money to acquire new users, you probably are not a winner. In an exclusive to Re/code, Swrve revealed the results of a 90-day tracking survey of 10 million players, indicating that 19% of players open a game only once and 66% stop playing within the first 24 hours. Of the player that stay, 53% of their spending occurs within the first seven days of playing. Meaning, the average game player will leave a game within 24 hours, and the average game spender will be of little value after the first week.If the name Swrve sounds familiar, they are the firm that released a study earlier this year that suggested that .15% of all mobile gamers are responsible for 50% of total revenues.Big trouble in Tiny Thief: Rovio charging consumers for content they already bought
Late last week, Rovio Stars and 5 Ants announced that their game, Tiny Thief, would shed its $2.99 price tag and become a free-to-play game with in-app purchases. The new, free version of Tiny Thief features three levels (fifteen stages total) for free, with the option for players to purchase the fourth and fifth levels for $1.99 each. To the dismay of Android gamers who already owned the entire game, this update locks previous owners out of the final two levels, forcing everyone to pay to access the content.That's right, Rovio took content away from buyers who already owned the access to it. As far as we can tell, there is nothing different from the original game beyond a new sixth level which is, not surprisingly, behind a paywall. Former Tiny Thief owners are upset at the sudden loss of access to the game."This game gave me hope for mobile gaming," one person posted as a review on the Tiny Thief Google Play page, "[it was] an awesome game you paid for up front without this "free to play" money extortion stuff going on. Now however it seems corporate cash grubbing got the better of even that tiny dream."Fox goes ape@#$% over early Family Guy game videos
By Jim Squires
What a difference a day can make. Last night - roughly 24 hours before the official launch of TinyCo's Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, the game accidentally snuck onto the New Zealand App Store for a short period of time. Gamers who noticed had just assumed the game had soft launched and, as any fans of Family Guy might have, decided to download it. And like a lot of folks who download games nowadays, they made videos to show off what they were playing.Bad move, gamers.In what one could only describe as an epic PR fail/complete misunderstanding of their audience, Fox went a little nutty and decided to try and shut down players who were showing the game a smidge too early. Touch Arcade has the full story, using their forum member HansKaosu's experience to illustrate the point. In short, HansKaosu received a polite YouTube message from Fox asking him to remove the content, followed by a copyright claim against his videos, and… then Fox had his Twitch channel shut down. Like, completely. It's been nuked.5 Student-Made Games You Need to Play
By Jim Squires
Every great game maker had to start somewhere - so why not school?The fourth annual Level Up Student Showcase was held in Toronto this past weekend, showcasing the work of nearly 100 student-run development teams. Everything you could imagine was on display, from well-established genres to completely unique offerings unlike anything we'd ever seen.There were plenty of great games to choose from, but there were five in particular that really screamed "the next big thing." Don't be surprised if you see these games - and their developers - making a big splash in the near future.