We've been patiently waiting for quite some time now on the full-fledged release of The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot, the humor-induced fantasy game that has players taking control of a Knight, an Archer, or a Mage, and battling across the realm of Opulencia to snag as much enemy loot as they can possibly hold.Well now that the final Open House game event has come and gone for those lucky enough to get an early crack at the game, Ubisoft has announced today that The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot will officially be entering an open public beta on February 25th. That means that the potential loot that will be up for the taking will truly reach epic proportions next month!"In addition, the grand debut of the fourth playable character, The Runaway, will also be coinciding with the launch of the game's open beta. So set your calendars for the 25th of February my fellow loot hunters, and more importantly, make sure you guard your own shiny stash extremely well!
Remember Johnny Mnemonic? Me too. In a career plagued by stinkers, Johnny Mnemonic might just be Keanu Reeves very worst. Still, those memories will serve us both well when checking out the comedy gold that is the trailer for Jazzpunk from Adult Swim and Necrophone Games.Weighing in at a hefty 2 minutes and 4 seconds, they only manage to squeeze a moment or two of gameplay in at the end - but it's certainly enough to whet our appetites. If you're looking for more, Necrophone's earlier teaser trailer from 2012 will give you a much better feel for what the game is about. But why would you want to know that when you could watch fake-Keanu flailing around like a fish out of water?Expect to see Jazzpunk, "an adventure comedy game and poorly made word processor," according to the developer, hit Steam for PC, Mac and Linux on February 7.
When we last spoke with Nathan Meunier, freelance writer and video game journalist extraordinaire, he had just published the first entry in what was to become a series of guidebooks for hopefuls looking to follow in his inky footsteps. That book, Up Up Down Down Left WRITE: The Freelance Guide to Video Game Journalism, covered a plethora of topics that are bound to hound the would-be journalist, including composing pitches, covering gaming conventions, and even getting your pajama-clad daily routine in order. His next entry in the series, Interview Fu: The Game Journo Guide to Conducting Killer Interviews, explores one of UUDDLW's many topics in greater depth and is already available for purchase in print or Kindle formats. We soaked up all of the knowledge present in this new guidebook and used it to pry even more wisdom from the mind of 10-year writing veteran Meunier."While interviewing is covered at a high level in UUDDLW, Interview Fu provides a hyper-focused expansion of the topic that was previously confined to a single chapter. Meunier also expanded the section on pitches into a longer, specialized PDF titled "12 Ways to Improve Your Pitches" after readers responded with overwhelming positivity to its coverage in UUDDLW. "Interview Fu wasn't driven as much by reader response as it was by my own desire to fill an inadvertent void in UUDDLW," Meunier told Gamezebo. "It's one of several areas that I didn't get into very deeply in the first book, in-part because it's a big enough topic to merit an entire separate book. It's also a subject that's near and dear to me, as readers of the book will discover."
Game developer Jindrich Stefan recently launched an Indiegogo campaign for his 2D action game, Super Scream Queen. Drawing inspiration from 1950s horror movies and the early works of Nintendo, Stefan is busy working on developing Super Scream Queen into an ode to his favorite film and game genres.Planned for Windows, Mac, and Linux, the game has players controlling a woman attempting to escape from hordes of pursuing monsters. Stefan plans to have around 70 levels in the final release, and while the levels themselves will be quite short, he explains that players will hardly be able to get through a level on their first try. He expects that players possessing average video game skills can beat the entire game in around ten hours.
On January 21st, Valve announced that fifty more titles have been approved through their Greenlight program. Included in the fifty selected titles is Catlateral Damage (which we just covered last week) as well as Dungeonforge, No Photos, Please!, and Path to the Sky."These titles were selected on the same criteria we have been using in the past," Valve explains in the announcement post. "Votes in Greenlight give us a hugely valuable point of data in gauging community interest along with external factors such as press reviews, crowd-funding successes, performance on other similar platforms, and awards and contests to help form a more complete picture of community interest in each title."
Earlier in the week, Sanctum franchise developer Coffee Stain Studios announced that they are partnering with Gone North Games to complete and publish A Story About My Uncle on Steam later this year. Gone North Games' A Story About My Uncle is a non-violent first-person adventure game about a young man who gets lost in a mysterious world while looking for his missing uncle. Utilizing a grappling hook to swing through the game's world, players will gradually solve the mystery of where they are and what happened to their uncle."Coffee Stain Studios is primarily a developer, not a publisher," explains Coffee Stain Studios designer and PR manager, Armin Ibrisagic. "Other indie devs have approached us before, but we've been hard to convince. However, once we got a chance to play a demo of A Story About My Uncle, we were hooked. We just had to help these guys finish the development and publish the game on Steam."
The Kickstarter campaign for La-Mulana 2 has managed to pull in over $118,000 in just four days. With 2,457 backers, and twenty-nine days to go, Nigoro and Playism are seeking an additional $82,000 to meet their Kickstarter goal.La-Mulana 2 is the direct sequel to 2011's La-Mulana. In the sequel, players are archeologists tasked with discovering the entrance of ruins that are rumored to be the source of the recent influx in monster appearances."It's true that La-Mulana 2 is a sequel," explain the developers on the Kickstarter campaign, "but we want to make it enjoyable both for people returning to the series and newcomers alike. While, 'You don't need to have played the prequel!' is a horribly overused cliché, we feel it's appropriate here. We want all players to be able to play and enjoy our work."
We have a bit of a mixed bag of free games and sales this week, but what would life be without the ups and the downs? The biggest area where you should direct your bargain-hunting sensors is over at the Nordic Games catalogue, which is currently on sale across GOG.com and even on the Steam store for a few select titles.If you're still hungry for some price cuts after that, you can always make your way over to the Humble Bundle camp and pick up an excellent bundle for fans of roguelike games, as well as mosey on over to the iOS App Store for a short but sweet collection of fun games at next-to-nothing prices."So even though this week seemed a little bit on the sparse side, what greater incentive than to head out into the wilds of the internet and see if you can locate any other great deals that we may have missed! Be sure to add to this week's current list of free games and sales by heading down to the comments section below.