In July of last year, mystery game, Detective Grimoire, launched its Kickstarter campaign. A month later, the game had collected nearly $30,000, safely above its established goal. Now, SBF Games has launched the game on PC, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. The game's soundtrack is also available for $4.Detective Grimoire is out to solve the murder mystery of a tourist attraction owner, who is rumored to have been slain by the very creature his tourist trap is based upon. Detective Grimoire is a point-and-click game, and SFB Games has integrated that for touchscreen devices.
January 2nd saw the launch of 2014's first Humble Weekly Sale, featuring games from Amanita Design, Might and Delight, Vectorpark Inc., and State of Play Games. All of the games come DRM-free for Windows and Mac, and all of the games (except Samorost 2) come with Steam keys. Paying $6 or more gets buyers Samorost 2, Machinarium, Lume, Windosill, Shelter, and Botanicula. Paying less than the pre-determined price point, gets buyers all of the previously mentioned games, except the latter two. Currently, the sale has generated over $76,000, with the average purchase price being $3.41.
The latest Alpha build of Introversion Software's prison simulator, Prison Architect, is available now. The Alpha 16 build introduces the game's modding community to Steam Workshop support, allowing players to upload and share their custom mods with other Steam users. Previously Workshop support allowed for Steam users to upload and share prison layouts.Currently, one of the most popular mods is Imperial Architect, a fan-made Star Wars-themed mod which transforms the prison into an Imperial prison base. The mod page has over 25,000 unique visitors.The Alpha 16 build also allows for segregation of prisoners based on certain criteria. With increased AI functionality and the ability to task prisoners to work within their segregated areas, prison staffers are more efficient than ever in performing their duties.
Now that the craziness of the holidays has finally started to settle down (and by default, the craziness of enormous holiday gaming sales all around the web), we can finally take a breather and get to playing all of those great titles we managed to scoop up at next-to-nothing prices over the last couple of days.But don't worry, even though it's a bit slow this week in terms of free games and sales, we've still got you covered with a sweet bundle or two. From indie game bundles galore, to the last remaining hours of a waning winter sale, you still have a chance to build up those holiday backlogs with a few more games on the dollar this weekend."And as always, if you happened to find another deal peeking out from the snow that we may have missed, you can let us all know about it down in the replies below!
It has been reported today that Dave Roberts will be stepping down as CEO from PopCap Games effective next week, as the studio responsible for Plants vs. Zombies and Peggle plans to get back to their development roots for 2014. In addition, chief game designer Jason Kapalka will also been leaving the PvZ studio shortly. Taking over Roberts' position will be the last remaining co-founder of PopCap, John Vechey. Will this usher in a new era for the popular developer of casual games?If anything, it seems that PopCap's plans for the future are a little bit mixed right now. On the one hand, Vechey has been quoted in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat as saying "PopCap's mission right now is to create the greatest mobile game studio in the world, and we're going to do that by only making games that are beloved by players." Yet in the same interview, it is also stated that PopCap plans to expand beyond the realm of mobile going forward, in attempt to "get back to the place where we used to be.""For a while, it was looking like PopCap's efforts might be shifting to exclusively focus on free-to-play mobile games, but now that's looking less likely thanks to these recent comments. PopCap certainly had an interesting 2013 as far as game releases were concerned. They first caused controversy by releasing the long-awaited Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time exclusively on iOS platforms, with an Android release coming a few months after, and PC gamers still anxiously waiting for their turn at the game. And then in an even more surprising move, the highly-anticipated Peggle 2 was released exclusively for Microsoft's next-gen home gaming console, the Xbox One.But regardless of what systems they ultimately appear on, more original IPs and sequels from PopCap in 2014 could never be a bad thing: at least if you're planning on getting any work done this year (I've lost days of my life just to Peggle alone!).
Looking over how well I did with my 2013 game predictions (>50% accuracy, thank you very much), the pressure is on for this year. Do I play it safe (e.g., say Zynga will shed another 25% of its staff in layoffs) or throw caution in the wind?You know the answer. Let's go game prediction crazy!"
In our nice little corner of the gaming world, King's match-3 puzzle hybrid Candy Crush Saga has become the Grand Theft Auto V, the Beyoncé, and The New York Yankees all rolled up into one. Simply put, the game is huge. And when a new game manages to take the entire industry by storm like Candy Crush did, well you know what that means: tons of clones from other developers begin popping up to try and recapture the magic of the original.You've probably already played a game or two that was somewhat "like" Candy Crush Saga before, and so we thought it'd only be fitting to gather a list of some of the best like-minded experiences we've seen in one convenient place for you right here. And if you're ever planning on making your own match-3 game that plays like Candy Crush Saga, you'll want to include candy, jewels, or fruit, and throw in the word "mania" at the end of your title!
Making predictions can always be a dangerous thing, because when you're actually right about something, there's no quicker way to making you feel like the next Nostradamus. Well right now, I think there's only one gaming prediction that can be made with 100% certainty of it actually happening: 2014 is going to bring some wonderful new gaming experiences! But you didn't need me to tell you that, now did you? Let's try and make some more specific predictions about the future of video games, shall we?Yesterday we got to see some 2014 predictions from Gamezebo's Editor-in-Chief Jim Squires, but today it's my turn. And I've decided to delve into everything from book publishers creating more video games, to Nintendo's reluctant future in the mobile games space. Think I'm right? Think I couldn't be more wrong? Weigh in with your thoughts on my predictions down in the replies, and let us know what YOU think the gaming world will have in store for 2014!"