Whispering Willows Haunts Your Phone on August 12

It’s been a strangely busy week for OUYA news. First there was confirmation that Razer was buying them but not continuing the hardware, then there was word that devs wouldn’t be receiving owed money, then there was word they would …but I’m not concerned with any of that. I loved my OUYA, and will quietly mourn its death in my living room with endless marathons of Towerfall.

This isn’t OUYA news I care about. The OUYA news I care about (and that you should, too) is that Whispering Willows — one of the biggest hits on the now defunct microconsole — has a release date on iOS and Android. And it’s soon: August 12th.

Whispering Willows is an adventure horror puzzle platformer (as well as a great excuse to stop pigeonholing games into expected genres, because that is a mouthful) that met with praise from OUYA gamers when it launched in early 2014, but has met with mixed reviews in the versions that followed (PC last year, PlayStation devices last month).

Want our take? Stay tuned for a full review coming later this month.

News
March 2, 2010
Piglets now available in Happy Pets
By Jim Squires
The Happy Pets family continues to grow this morning, with the addition of piglets to the Happy Pets adoption agency. Piglets are now the seventh species available in the game, joining cats, dogs, turtles, rabbits, ducklings and hamsters. At the moment there are only five different colors of piglet are available, with prices varying by color. Of the five, four can only be purchased using Facebook credits, a type of virtual currency that must be purchased using real world cash. Using Facebook credits has become the norm for animals outside of the cat and dog kingdoms in Happy Pets, with a single white piglet being the only non-dog or cat animal available for purchase with in-game currency.
Upcoming
November 26, 2013
JtR125 Preview
By Jillian Werner
November 2013 marked the 125th anniversary of the last known murder by notorious and still-strangely-fascinating serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Despite being linked to five—and possibly more—grisly homicides in London in the late 19th century, the Ripper was never caught and his crimes never solved. This has led to innumerable and varied depictions of the Whitechapel events in popular media, from films to video games. The latest exploration of the Ripper mystery combines these two forms and comes to us from Auroch Digital, the creators of many current events-inspired games, such as Endgame: Syria and NarcoGuerra. The game, JtR125, is in development as part of the REACT Future Documentary Sandbox, a project intended to explore the theme of the "future documentary" through collaborative works that break the current mold of documentary storytelling. Thus, JtR125 will be both a video game and a documentary, blurring the lines between media forms, examining the Jack the Ripper legend from a new angle, and hopefully—like many of Auroch's "GameTheNews" projects—presenting gaming in a more earnest light. "If we can achieve even some of what we're trying to do, then I hope this game will be another title that forces critics to take gaming seriously," Tomas Rawlings, of Auroch Digital and lead developer on JtR125, told Gamezebo. "There is no reason why gaming can't talk about serious issues, communicate important political points or anything for that matter. Gaming has always been a fun format; we're showing how it can do much more than just that." "As part of their inclusion in the REACT Sandbox, Auroch Digital and Rawlings have been paired up with games and digital media expert Patrick Crogan of the University of the West of England, and Professor of Media and Journalism at Middlesex, Janet Jones. This collaboration between experts in multiple media focuses will allow JtR125 to extend its reach across disciplines and players. "The best documentaries and journalism of the future will not be simply read or watched, but played," Professor Jones told us. "Games are superior in their ability to handle data effectively and deal with the systemic issues behind a story, and we want to show how powerful this hybrid form can be. There are many important social themes that come from the exploration of Victorian culture and certain parallels with today, and what better way to draw attention to these than by gaming the documentary."

Jim Squires

Jim Squires is the Editor-in-Chief of Gamezebo. Everything you see passes his eyes first, so we like to think of him as "the gatekeeper of cool stuff." He likes good games, great writing, and just can't say no to a hamburger. Also, he is not a bear.