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A spaceship nips back and forth across the bottom of the screen while aliens line up like the damned at the top, void-plodding from side to side, their ranks regimented, their only purpose to painstakingly work their way left, down, right, down, left, down. It’s one of the first things that ever happened anywhere and shortly after the aliens moved to a burb called Galaxian and learned how to break formation and dive. A dark day for tiny ships that do not understand how to move vertically themselves. Debug Formulation is an indie game that harks back to those early days but complicates things just a little, while looking and sounding rather spiffy.

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Okay, so literal titles sometimes work. Especially portmanteaus, and doubly especially for Crashtastic, because it’s like the two words that have gone into making the game name have crashed, but instead of blood and screaming, the noise of twisted metal grinding up people, the inevitable insurance claims and the flashbacks, the crash has resulted in a word that means we realise just how Crashy and Fantastic this indie game could be. Well, that’s my reading of it, anyway. Crashtastic is a game about the fantastic world of crashes. You build up a vehicle for your robot to crash. Fantastic video is here.(more…)

Alientrap’s new platform game, Apotheon, is pretty. A 2D platform action-RPG set in Greek mythology, where you’ll fight your way to the top of Mount Olympus. It’s the age old tale of a champion fighting for humanity against the wife and usurper of Zeus, Hera. We’ve all been there, battling Greek gods, stealing their powers, controlling the elements. I was doing just so last night, cleverly disguised as eating pork dumplings and prawn crackers while slumped in bed rewatching Doctor Who. If you squinted, you’d have seen the truth.(more…)

Before Apollo 11 made history by successfully shuttling the first humans to the moon in 1969, the space program was in desperate financial condition and President John F. Kennedy had his grandparents mortgage their apartment for the money to keep NASA running. Er, no -- we're getting our stories mixed up here.

The bit about the grandparents mortgaging their home to keep a company running is actually the story behind Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds. Rovio was mainly backed by CEO Mikael Hed's dad and it hadn't produced a hit in years before Angry Birds; it was Hed's dad who proposed the family-mortgage plan.

"He told me that he wanted to mortgage my grandparents' flat so he could put some more money in the company to keep it afloat," Hed told All Things D. "That was pretty tough. I certainly did not want to be the person responsible for putting my grandparents on the street."

Hed doesn't have to worry about that now, as Angry Birds is a smash (HA!) hit and Rovio is valued at more than $6 billion. The next game from Rovio is Angry Birds Space, due out for iOS, Android, PC and Mac on March 22, and whose out-of-this-world adorable trailer you can view above.

The Game: Stair Dismount Genre: Stuntman Injury Inflictor Platform: Mac, PC, Linux, Android, iOS The Scoop: The basic premise of Stair Dismount to push an (intentionally?) dummy-ish stuntman down a flight of stairs in the most violent way possible. Bonus points for causing lots of damage to the head and neck! Really...

Or at least against the odds skirmishes. This is an afternoon ode to that time when you set up a skirmish mode in an RTS and pitch yourself against extraordinary odds (perhaps with a chum to help you). It’s one of those little pleasures that I think most RTS players understand, but is probably unknown by, well, the rest of humanity.(more…)

I’ll bet there’s a fair few of you who now think I have aphasia. I do not, although sometimes when I read back what I’ve written here I realise it would be a good excuse. Nope, Drunken Robot Pornography is merely an experimental game from those mother troublers at Dejobaan Games. Which would make Titans… let me check, ah yes: bosses for what appears to be a first-person shooter that I totally missed that they were making. It’s looking typically untypical: a strobing, orbital battle against giant destructible bosses, using weapons with stackable power-ups. The final part of the puzzle, the building of these giant, gentle creatures, is something you can play around with: Dejobaan have released an editor online to let you build and destroy your own Titan. The best will win a prize. I have video of how to do it below.(more…)

Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Denis Tambovcev of Russian developer TrainYard Interactive asks for 20 minutes of your time with his free game, Process, and all you have to do is step foot on a speeding train bound for certain disaster. Interested? What's your game called and what's it about?

The game is called Process. It's a game project in the adventure genre; its story takes place in several subway train cars. In 20 minutes a disaster will happen -- the train will jump the tracks at full speed. The gameplay takes exactly the time designated before the crash. During this period in grim, dimly lit interiors, combining cyberpunk and industrial aesthetics, the player is to figure out the situation, try all possible means of rescue and in the end take a brand new look at the portrayed events. It's a game about predetermination of events and the subjectiveness of perception of the surrounding world.

Technologically it's a classic first-person adventure: panoramic locations with the capability of free, 360-degree view and discreet movement between the panoramas through a point-and-click interface.

The Flare Path thought he knew almost everything about Operation Overlord, but this week he read something in a book by Max Hastings, that left him flabbergasted. Apparently, in the weeks leading up to D-Day, instead of training, the Axis troops manning the Atlantic Wall spent most of their time planting Rommel’s asparagus. Max didn’t go into detail, but obviously the famous Generalfeldmarschall was either extremely partial to the speary vegetable, or – and this seems more likely – he was using Heer manpower in some sort of massive market-gardening scam. Was it Berlin’s discovery of this illicit project that caused the Desert Fox to take his own life in October ’44? The official histories say ‘no’, but FP was sorely tempted to postpone coverage of Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear (a new Matrix wargame) and Accu-Feel (a gizmo from A2A that looks set to revolutionise FSX) and use this week’s column to thoroughly examine the matter. (more…)

Just like they did with Take On Helicopters, Bohemia Interactive are going to crowd-source a portion of Arma 3′s bug-testing to the community, as well as just letting everyone have a poke around, with a playable alpha release sometime after E3. Their military sim series has always suffered brutally buggy launches, but with plenty of players poking at it in the months before release, things should run a lot smoother. And by that, I mean a LOT smoother. Gamers will be able to start planning mods ahead of the full launch, and you’ll also totally be able to put ‘Game Q&A Tester’ on your CV.(more…)

Ron Gilbert has posted two new pieces of art from the game he's working on with Tim Schafer's Double Fine Studios. Don't get too excited -- as far as we know, it's not that, extremely well-funded game. Nope, it's the pre-Maniac Mansion idea he's working up, and apparently it carnival booths and laser turrets.

Indie Royale's current bundle is an amalgamation of a few popular ideas, including the online fundraiser and, well, the bundle, which has become a beast all of its own. This may sound like a contradiction -- underground developers borrowing mainstream methods -- but in fact it somehow makes this bundle even more indie.

The Alpha Collection, offered now through the next week, features three games in alpha mode, and "buying" the bundle is a way of "funding" their continued development while getting access to their current builds. Similar to backing a Kickstarter project, The Alpha Collection has people invest in the potential of the following three games: Towns, 3079 and Wyv and Keep.

The low price for the Alpha Collection is hovering slightly above $5, the recommended price is $10 and the "Show Support" price is listed at $20, but of course you can pay any amount above the low price if you believe the future of these games is worth it. As with all Indie Royale bundles, the more you pay, the less the people after you will pay. It's like 360-degree charity.

The argument was made by Jennifer Hepler six years ago. Back then the BioWare writer argued that if dialogue can be skipped in games, then why not combat?

Ignoring the hideous treatment Hepler has received this week, and we will be*, the argument remains a truly excellent one, and one I want to explore.

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Last night I woke from chilling dreams in which my gray-haired future self was alphafunding six thousand games simultaneously and buying fourteen indie bundles in every minute of his waking life. Today, the new Indie Royale bundle has been revealed and those two trends of indiedom have intersected, which somehow makes my vision of the future seem all the more possible. The Alpha Collection contains three games that are in development and is currently available for a minimum of £3.17. The games are Towns, which I’ve previously written about and keep trying to find time to properly revisit, 3079, and Wyv and Keep. More on them and the bundle below.

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Actually, no! Don’t forget Amnesia! I’m only saying that for title fun. Remember Amnesia, or when I tie Anna into the creepy first-person adventure genre it won’t make any sense. I’ve cleverly shot myself in my own foot, here. Nothing left to do but bloodily drag the appendage around, wailing at my own cleverosity. Are you remembering? Phew. So Dreampainter’s Anna is set in and around a haunted Italian sawmill. It’s an adventure game, so there’s a fair amount of plucking things from the prettily-rendered environments, combining, jiggling, discarding, using the mouse pointer as you would a hand, pulling open drawers, etc. It has all the basic verbs of the adventure genre, and a few clever twists. It’s a bit like Amnesia, wink wink.

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Britain’s biggest high-street games retailer, GAME, is to close 35 more stores than had previously been announced, as part of a major restructuring. The company will reduce it’s current GAME and GameStation shops from 610 down to 550 by Christmas of next year. They’re also shutting down forgotten website gameplay.co.uk, redirecting customers there to GameStation’s website.(more…)

Chinese IGF winner, Sugar Cube: Bittersweet Factory is having a commercial release. From S. Korean indie team Turtle Cream, it’s a 2D platformer starring a cube of sugar, fighting against his fate. But, and I’ll never get tired of typing this, with yet another awesome twist idea. Here each screen exists in two versions, constructed from a grid of tiles that are flipped in blocks of four when the cube walks past them. So as you walk along a platform, you may replace it with empty space, deadly spikes, or key elements to completing the screen. It’s a brain-hurtingly interesting idea, and it looks utterly lovely, as you’ll see below.

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This may be one to bookmark for later, particularly if you’re at work. It’s a game that requires two people to play on one keyboard, so unless you’ve had some severe budget cuts recently, no one’s going to believe that you and Frank Pelvis from Dynamic Solutions are working on different projects on the same PC. They’ll probably notice the cardboard cut-out styled space aliens zooming across the screen as well. Co-Op, free on PC and Mac, pops you and a friend into ships that are connected by a beam. Since you don’t have guns, you’ll have to coordinate movements so that the beam slices through the monsters coming after you. Take a look.

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It takes place sixty years after Amnesia: The Dark Descent at the turn of the twentieth century, yet the next game to carry the franchise's moniker will feel like familiar territory in one major respect: it is built to scare you senseless.

It's six-o-clock in the morning. My tea jolts me awake. The street outside is silent. It's serene and peaceful all around me, until I call Frictional Games designer Thomas Grip. His voice booms in my headset; he's obviously excited. This is the first time his team can talk about his upcoming project. This is how I was introduced to Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

Star Wars might just be the most beloved franchise of all time. It's not surprising, then, that there are ton of mods out there that send your games to a galaxy far, far away. Check out all the embedded videos on YouTube proper for information on where you can get each mod...

The power of two crowned indie developer darlings have joined together to form one team set to bring the Amnesia franchise into a new era.

Speaking exclusively with Joystiq, Frictional Games and Dear Esther's thechineseroom have revealed their latest project, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

Developed by thechineseroom and produced by Frictional Games, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is planned for PC release later this year. No firm date has been set, but internally the two studios hope to launch before Halloween. A recent alternate reality game has been teasing the game's reveal, sending fans into a frenzy.

"It's not a direct sequel, in terms of it doesn't follow on from the story of Amnesia. It doesn't involve the same characters," Dear Esther writer Dan Pinchbeck told me. Instead, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs will be set in the same "alternate history and set in the same universe." In short, the game will look to scare the pants off of you.

Set in 1899, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs follows the "wealthy industrialist" Oswald Mandus, who has returned home from "a disastrous expedition to Mexico, which has ended in tragedy." Struck by a destructive fever, Mandus is haunted by dreams of a dark machine until he mysteriously regains consciousness. Months have passed unbeknownst to the industry tycoon and emerging from his slumber the roaring engine of a mysterious machine sputters to life.

A detailed interview with Frictional Games designer Thomas Grip and thechineseroom's Dan Pinchbeck is coming later today, delving deeper into the darkness with Amnesia's next chapter. And yes, the two discuss what A Machine for Pigs means.

Poor Catacomb Snatch, forever destined to be a quirk of game development: the game Mojang made in a weekend and then tossed out into the world, unready, uneducated, unubered. All it needed was a little polish to make it all better, some tender loving uber. But what if it could happen? What if someone took the source code, appended the game with with “Uber” and carried on developing? That would make an Uber Catacomb Snatch. And if such a thing were to happen, they might as well set up a website saying so. It would look a bit like this , and host downloads of the game for everyone to play. And you know, if it did happen, if the impossible became possible, then I might see fit to include a video of it below this here line. Dare you step over it and into the World of the Impossible?

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Today’s the day for indie projects from former major-developers. After Banner comes Blackspace from PixelFoundry Games, a group of devs who’d previously been together at EA Sports Tiburon. And it’s exclusively for the PC. Good. There’s more details, four pictures of rocks, and a (lifeless) teaser trailer for it below.

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Hi gang. So, if you’ve read part one of our modern gaming monitor opus, you’ll know at least two things. Firstly, there’s no substitute for a good underlying LCD panel. And secondly, things are looking up for penniless gamers on the hunt for a solid screen on a tight budget. In this second and final part on monitors, I’ll boil the current crop down to the only four screens, ranging from cheapo to aaargh-my-bank-account, that you should consider if you’re in the market for a new display.

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I have come to the conclusion that indie developers will never run out of cool new ways to meddle with platforming standards. The latest I’ve encountered is Swindler, from the pixel masters at Nitrome (check out why we rate them). Here you appear to play a blob of snot, who is able to let loose from his own ectoplasmic entity a long, stretchy green string, tied to a post at the top of a level, and then extended or contracted. However, rather than moving him about the world, you move the world about him.

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Being a notorious liar has gave me many opportunities in life: my zeppelin is made of gold, my cat is the last of its species, and I’m typing this from the top of Skull Mountain. But it also made playing increpare’s tiny, dungeon crawler Promises really tough, as you need to keep your promises to snatch the keys to complete the game. I don’t want to spoil it, as there’s only a minute’s worth of game here and because I’m essentially a nice person with some flaws, so instead I’ll write some more lies. In Promises you fight a mega-copter made of the ghosts of old tanks, and if you Google the name of the game three times in a row there’s a small chance the rapture will occur. Look, just play it. I promise I’ll tell the truth below.(more…)

Former BioWareites, Stoic, are formed from a gathering of those who worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic, then ran off into the Texan wastelands to form their own studio. The three-man indie team is working on an online hybrid called The Banner Saga, that plans to merge RPG, turn-based strategy, and vikings. It is the combination mentioned in the Mayan Codecs.

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You may well remember the absolutely gorgeous The Journey Down: Over The Edge – a superb AGS adventure game by indie devs Skygoblin that not only surprised us with its splendid graphics, but also by being a point-and-clicker that really understood the genre. That was the first chapter in a series, and we’ve been looking forward to the second one for well over a year now. The bad news is, it’s not coming yet. The good news is, the first part has been remade as a commercial game, with swishy new graphics, and apparently lots of new content. You can still play the original chapter for free, and you can see how the new version is shaping up below.

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OK folks, we’ve done CPUs and graphics cards, now for my favourite subject of all, screens. I’ve long said a decent screen is the best investment you can make. Frankly, I’ve long been right. I’ve three 30-inchers of my own, two of which are about five years old. And with the exception of 120Hz support (see below), the game hasn’t moved on dramatically. Any five-year-old CPU or GPU, by contrast, is garbage. That’s the difference.

As it happens, good LCD screens have just become a lot more affordable. You’ll need to check out part two for the whys and wherefores along with a tour of the best currently available options. But things change fast, so a little knowledge can go a long way. Here are the eight most important things you need to know about screens for games.(more…)

Last time I looked at Cube World, Wollay had added adorable pet dogs which officially meant that anyone doubtful of the game’s potential was probably called Norman ‘Pessimist-Pants’ Naysay. Sure enough, it’s a popular name and people started to chunner about the combat looking too simplistic for their refined tastes. Behold, a new video that shows several different weapons and their functions, as well as some grin-stretching customisation. It doesn’t look deep and it doesn’t look tactical; it looks like splashing about somewhat haphazardly in a shallow pool filled with something that’s sugary, delicious and somehow filled with vitamins.

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