Husband and wife development team Backward pieS are celebrating the release of their tree-growing puzzler with a 50% off discount sale. For a short amount of time, Let There Be Life is available for $4.99 on IndieGameStand, with Desura and Humble Store options coming in the near future. In Let There Be Life, the player must strategically grow a tree so that the leaves and branches do not overshadow the flowers on the ground around the tree. Self-described as a "watercolor painting come to life", Let There Be Life presents players with a stress-free atmosphere that can be appreciated by gamers of all skill levels."Speaking of levels, Let There Be Life boasts 34 of them - all designed as hand-painted watercolors - for players to enjoy.Backward pieS originally developed Let There Be Life during the 2013 Edge "Get Into Games" competition. For the competition, the developers were tasked with creating a game base around the theme, "Do No Harm" and Let There Be Life earned Backward pieS a position in second place.
In the corporate world, even long-awaited good news doesn't mean there isn't bad news for some people in the organization.That was the case for Disney Interactive, which despite turning a profit in the last quarter of 2013 on the strength of Disney Infinity nevertheless laid off 700 employees this week, or just over a quarter of its total workforce. Along with the job cuts, the division is closing several offices in the U.S., plus one each in South Korea and India.As you might expect with such a drastic reduction in headcount, Disney Interactive will simply develop less games moving forward, relying on partnerships with outside studios instead. It also may avoid big ticket purchases, as many media reports are spinning the company's latest move as a referendum on its 2010 acquisition of Playdom.
OnLive, the company that helped spearhead the concept of cloud-based gaming, is back. Alongside it is a new Executive Chairman in the form of Mark Jung - formerly of VUDU and IGN - and a host of new concepts to potentially breathe new life into the old service.The group, which specializes in allowing players to stream PC games to nontraditional hardware over the internet, laid off all of its employees in August of 2012. A new company, also called OnLive, was started in its place, while all of its assets were sold cheaply to Lauder Partners for $4.8 million. CEO and founder Steve Perlman stepped down from his position and the service has been relatively quiet until now.A press release sent by the company this week states their plans for a new subscription, called CloudLift. The service is meant to allow players to use supported games they already have installed on their PC across multiple platforms such as tablets, Macs, OnLive's own streaming device and certain TVs."Apparently, any game supported by CloudLift should work despite where it was downloaded from, but purchasing a game from OnLive directly includes a seven day trial. The service normally comes at a cost of $15 a month.That's not included with the $10 a month "PlayPack" subscription, which provides access to streaming-only games from the OnLive library.
BlackSoul: Extended Edition is available on Steam. At first it was labeled as a complete game, but now it's made the jump - retroactively - to Early Access. What happened? According to the developer, as well as the Steam community, the game was released in a rather dire state.The developer stated in an email that "we are receiving a lot of feedback and we found the game still need some more work to make it more enjoyable, so our decision is to keep supporting it with further updates..."The email was apparently sent to multiple publications that received review codes for the game. It goes on to say the game "might also switch to Early Access," although it seems they chose to do so rather quickly, as the game is now listed as such on Steam.
When Orion: Dino Beatdown launched in 2012, it was a developer's worst nightmare. The critics tore the game apart, some even ranking the game as one of the worst games of the year. Orion: Dino Beatdown released as a buggy, broken mess, and Spiral Game Studios knew they had to do something in order to fix their reputation. In 2013, Orion: Dino Beatdown was rebranded Orion: Dino Horde and the game went on to receive a number of free content updates and plenty of patches to ensure the stability of the game and a future for the brand.To entice players apprehensive about giving the remodeled game a try, and breathe life back into the game's community for existing game owners, Spiral Game Studios promoted Orion: Dino Horde on Steam through a weeklong, free-to-play event. Between February 20th and the 27th, Steam users could give the game a try at no cost. The game itself was heavily discounted to $1 (from $14.99) during the duration of the event as well.
If you're wondering, no, the game has nothing to do with saving up money to feed starving children. Feed The Children is, in fact, a comedic, top-down racing game where players must out-race impossibly fast runners. A few laps into the race, much like any frustratingly unbalanced situation, a gun is pulled out and now the player can race around the track, attempting to kill the other racers before one can compete all eight laps.The whole situation is complicated when security guards, police, zombies, falling pianos, and other obstacles show up and get in the way. All throughout the ordeal, the text-based announcer narrates the situation with a good bit of tongue-in-cheek humor.
This isn't your grandmother's point-and-click adventure. Ever since I played the original Ludum Dare 26 build of Gods Will Be Watching, it's a game that's stuck in my memory. I was almost haunted by how well Deconstructeam was able to portray emotions through a handful of moving pixels. Gods Will Be Watching is a post-apocalyptic leadership simulator where the player has to make the tough choices that no one else wants to make.The game was originally developed during the 2013 Ludum Dare 26 game jam, and went on to receive second place in the jam in both the Best Overall and Mood categories. After the success of the jam, the team went on to launch an IndieGoGo campaign, looking for €8,000 to develop Gods Will Be Watching into a full game. The campaign was a large success and resulted in €20,385 worth of funding.Now, six months after the campaign, Deconstructeam has announced that Gods Will Be Watching will release this June for PC, Mac, and Linux, on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store.The Ludum Dare 26 build of Gods Will Be Watching is available for free, in its entirety, on Deconstructeam's official website. Follow Deconstructeam on Twitter.
It isn't often that I call a gameplay experience relaxing. In fact, short of 2013's InFlux, I am hard-pressed to recall the last time I described a game as relaxing. For a game to be relaxing for me it needs to be easy to play, require minimal controls, and have a smooth soundtrack. But most importantly, it has to be engaging.I am happy to say that Speelbaars' Lumini, is all of the above. I played the game's pre-Alpha demo earlier in the week and, even so early on in the game's development, it is clear to me that Lumini is well on its way to being the most relaxing game of 2014.The Lumini demo has players guiding a flock(?) of creatures that resemble flying fish through a sunken cavern. Players familiar with the mobile hit Badland will feel right at home guiding the creatures through the game. But where Badland was full of shadows, sharp objects, and a sense of urgency, Lumini is full of color, rounded corners, and tranquility.