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Indie platformer A Walk In The Dark has a cat rescuing a lost little girl in a dark, fantasy world; the quarter of Dexter that John owns once lost a fight with his own feet (my bit was obviously the winner there). I see now why they had to place the game in a gothic forest: as a cat owner of four years, I wouldn’t believe the skills he shows off in the trailer below.(more…)

rComplex is a running-man's game. Not The Running Man's game, but a game for a man who runs, much like a thinking-man's game but less of a hypocrisy. See, it stars the silhouette of a man in a trench coat running from the darkness, a mass of creeping tentacles out for blood, and it's coming to your iPhone.

Originally released for PC in 2009, indie classic rComplex is coming to iOS devices at the end of February using Unity 3D, with a launch on Android, Mac and PC (again) to follow. Until then, enjoy a free download of the rComplex theme song right here.

Blizzard has announced that there will be no BlizzCon 2012. Instead, the next convention for all things Blizzard will take place in 2013. Blizzard explained that the need to focus on development of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm and Diablo III was more of a priority...

Hello! I bring good news. The release date aiming cone for Bohemia Interactive’s sci-fi action strategy game Carrier Command: Gaea Mission has narrowed. The bad news is it’s only as specific as Q2 2012. Now I’ve been doing this job since 2000, and not once have I ever looked up what release date quarters mean. This chart did not help. So instead of explaining it further, I’ll have to distract you with some new screenshots of the game below.

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“Ohhhh. That’s really clever,” were the words uttered by my mouth as I realised The Fourth Wall‘s conceit. And then I realised I was going to have to try to explain it with words.

It’s a 2D sometimes-side-scrolling platformer from DigiPen student group Pig Trigger, in which you can control the character and the scrolling of the screen. So, run left or right and the screen scrolls with you. However, hold down Ctrl and it becomes static, and running from one edge has you appear on the other side. So you might drop down a hole and appear from the corresponding point on the top edge, or run from the left and appear on the right – it’s a notion familiar to anyone who’s played enough 80s/90s platform games. But here you’re in control of where the screen stops and starts, and it’s manipulating this which allows you to progress.

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Post SOPA might be slightly wishful thinking, because the industries that paid for the bill are not going to back down any time soon. Perhaps they’ve realised they’re at least going to need to be slightly more subtle about wanting control of the internet. (Although as long as Chris Dodd is speaking for the MPAA, subtlety doesn’t look like it’s going to be an option.) They will be back. But there are others about, trying similar. So what’s there to worry about?

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The puzzle game AVSEQ from indie developers Big Robot has recently been released. We managed to get hold of project lead, Jim Rossignol, for a world exclusive interview. Read on for details.

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Remember BoneTown? Now there’s more. BoneCraft is a game with balls, in more ways than one. It’s not just a World of Warcraft porn parody guest-starring cast of horny Starcraft-inspired marines. No, it’s a porn parody that goes so far out of its way to flick Blizzard’s nose, its developers D-Dub even hired the actor who played Tychus “You Are Hearing Mah Voice” Findlay to be its leading man.

But can it hope to provide the hottest elf-on-elf action since Teldrassil’s finest introduced a shocked looking Azeroth to the Wrath of the Licking? There’s only one way to find out. Two, if you include buying it. But reading on will be much, much safer for work.

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Okay, how to go through this without getting confused? Well, since I can barely get through putting on a pair of trousers without confusion (why do they make the arm-holes so big?), it’s not likely. But as far as I can tell, Insane 2 is a sequel to the Codies game from 2000, 1nSANE, a multiplayer off-road racer. And is nothing to do with inSANE, the THQ project from Pan’s Labyrinth director, Guillermo del Toro. But then, it also appears to have previously been released in October, onto GamersGate exclusively. And, oh, I don’t know. It’s out on Steam today, which they appear to be treating as a second coming, and there’s a trailer below. You know what, it looks decent.

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The ever quotable Fred Wester CEO Of Paradox (as his mother calls him) has laid down some views on DRM, and extolled the virtues of PC, at Gamespy at the end of last week. And wouldn’t you know it, the man’s speaking some sense.

“It’s so much simpler to develop for the PC — you can decide everything for yourself… The PC is very rewarding because the audience is very knowledgeable about the games, they’re very hardcore, they’re very quick with their feedback, and we have a great relationship with our customers.”

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Charming paper cut-out adventure game Lume from State of Play is up for the Excellence in Visual Art award at this year’s IGF. As part of our series of chats with the (PC/Mac-based) finalists, here we talk to State of Play director Luke Whittaker about Lume’s origins, the British invasion at IGF this year, games with a handmade aesthetic and his response to the most important question of all.

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Valve's Dota 2, currently in beta, is a beautiful, loyal recreation of the fan-made Warcraft III mod that spawned a sub-genre, and it's still missing about half the original's roster. It's really good, as anyone who has played (or even watched) it can attest. But thanks to League of Legends, I just ...

One more time around the Tiny & Big: Up That Mountain demo for us all! Whee! Black Pants Game Studio have updated the alpha once again. The world slicing content is the same, but there’s been an increase in attractiveness. I’m shallow enough to pick it up and play for that reason.(more…)

Fun fact: ibb and obb shouldn’t be capitalised, as per The Well of Lost Plots from which their names are taken. They are capitalised in my headline though, but so is everything else. Such is the way of the Style Guide (must also be capitalised) that guides my hand. Now that I think about it, that wasn’t very ‘fun’ at all, so here’s a new trailer for ibb and obb instead, which shows the gravity-bending cooperative platformer in action.

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I won’t pretend to understand the complexities of SpaceChem, Zachtronics’ chemical puzzler. Not in the guided single-player mode, nor the sandbox that was added to allow a player to complete the computer he was building within the game. With that sandbox came a challenge for players to build “the most awesome sandbox pipeline imaginable”. The winners are almost mocking in their complexity, given that my chemical romance never got beyond first base. Come revel in their ingenuity and marvel at my utter ignorance. I have marked where I lose the ability to comprehend each.(more…)

Despite looking a lot like Limbo, Kieron and other haters will be pleased to learn it doesn’t play like it. The deeply peculiar Q – Compressing The Heart is instead controlled by single mouse clicks, as you explore a twisted, dangerously organic world of shadows, in pursuit of your own heart. And if that sounds sweet or romantic, then you’ve quite the wrong impression.

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Important disclosure: AVSEQ is created by Big Robot, the indie game dev company owned by one Jim Rossignol. Rossignol was, of course, responsible for the Crimean War and has a police record due to admitting to the kidnap of 18 hobos in 2002. Apart from that, I can’t think of anything whatsoever that needs declaring about Rossignol before I post about Big Robot’s first released game, AVSEQ.

The near-infinite sounds and combos of abstract musical puzzle game AVSEQ are primarily the design and creation of Big Robot’s programmer Tom ‘Nullpointer’ Betts, so don’t expect too many traces of Rossignism in this one (although he’s been helping out with tweaks), but it is the studio’s very first release, and it is jolly clever, as you’ll see below.(more…)

What, you thought I was going to put a gag in the headline? You think that those three words are not beautiful and perfect enough on their own? How you sicken me, you artless philistine.

Yes, the latest in a long line of labour machinery-based sims you would never dream existed is Airport Firefighter Simulator, in which you are all that stands in front of certain, explosive disaster. Quotes like this are simply amazing: “Even the most routine duties of aircraft refuelling and cargo management carry the chance of conflagration so you must always be on your guard to prevent a minor incident becoming a major inferno.”(more…)

Hack, Slash, Loot, which released yesterday, is dungeon crawling in a very pure form. Between the hacking, slashing and looting you’ll be doing a bit of walking, sure, maybe even reading the occasional scroll, but there’s not much else to distract from the bare necessities. It may well be the simplest roguelike I’ve ever played, with actual visual approximations of the things you’re looting, hacking and slashing, a point and click interface, and no inventory to manage. There’s equipment in abundance, but it’s a case of choosing what you want and leaving the rest on a dank floor somewhere. There’s a sizable demo and the full game is £6.64/$9.99 on PC/Mac/Linux. More thoughts below.

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Yesterday I let out a clarion call to all developers and publishers to STOP IT when it came to confetti-scattering save games around our computers, and to keep them all in one sensible place. What I didn’t add, it’s been pointed out to me by a few developers since, was what that sensible place is. So I’ve picked one.

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I guess indie games are about to become glamorous. The long-awaited documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which is currently touring film festivals and getting a very positive buzz indeed, is apparently to become a telly series from HBO, home of the Sopranos, The Wire et al. As in, a dramatic TV series, with actors pretending to be indie developers, rather than actual indie developers mumbling to camera. Knowing HBO, it’ll be hyper-glossy and filled with arguably unnecessary sex scenes. Will we get to see the bum of man pretending to be Edmund McMillen? Will we see a nervous Andy Schatz analogue being led to the IGF casting couch? Will we see the origin of Jonathan Blow’s name? Oh God, I’d really better stop now.(more…)

I woke up extremely early this morning, intending to have a substantial breakfast, catch up on the news and slowly ease myself into the day, but then I found a note I’d written in the far-off land of 2011 on which I had scrawled: “Remember to check when Defender’s Quest releases”. The demo’s entertaining blend of story, levelling and tower defense strategy was far more time-devouring than I ever expected it to be and when the intended release date passed, I was determined to make sure I didn’t miss the eventual launch. Then I did miss it, although not by much. If you haven’t already tried it, the demo runs in a browser, and is both substantial and convincing. As for the rest…

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Next in our series of interviews with the finalists in this year’s IGF is gorgeous, isometric adventure golf course opus Wonderputt, which is up for the Excellence In Visual Art award. Here’s what creator Resse Millidge of Damp Gnat intends from and for the game, how it saved his bacon, and his answer to the most important question of all. (more…)

When I was a much younger person, I rarely stopped playing Enemy Unknown and Jagged Alliance. If I did put them to one side, it was usually because I was playing Master of Magic instead. There were other games, of course, but in terms of the amount of time devoted to them, those three were probably the dominant forces for at least a few years. UFO and Jagged Alliance are both receiving new versions this year and, lo and behold, Warlock: Master of the Arcane is the best attempt to emulate Master of Magic’s best features as anything I’ve played in the sixteen years since I bought it. It’s more than a clone though, with plenty to say for itself.

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I’m unusually fascinated by this video of Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision. He was the man who had to deal with Kotaku‘s massive scoop of Modern Warfare 3 information in May Last year. Immediately following the leak Activision released trailers of the game. It wasn’t coincidence: Activision treated the leak as the launch board for their marketing campaign.(more…)

The endearingly titled Here Comes Launchman is the retro equivalent of a cat rolling about at your feet as it’s purring and looking up at you with it’s big, wet eyes: the trailer makes me want to pick it up and snuggle it.(more…)

If you’re going to infringe on copyright, you might infringe on all the copyrights at the same time. That way you can keep track of who’s taking you to court. Mario Crossover 2.0, the sequel to the already astonishingly rippy-offy original, is a remarkably slick mash-up of all the best Nintendo games. And Zelda.(more…)

Since we first learned of Cube World’s existence, the game’s developer, Wollay, has been snapped up by Mojang, although it wasn’t like a crocodile eating a zebra but rather a company hiring an employee. Since then, development on the game has been continuing and there are plenty of new details and some screenshots that show a variety of environments and some nifty house construction. Prepare a pickaxe, for information and images await below.

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I’ve mentioned this flippantly before, in The Rules, but really I’m beyond exasperated now. I demand – DEMAND I say – a single location for savegames to be agreed upon by all who make games, with a punishment of grizzly, brutal death for any who fails to follow it. Below I’ve listed the locations for savegames for a bunch of the games I currently have installed.

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Video games have directors, as do films, and yet the former group is far less likely to be in the spotlight. Think about it. If you surveyed the film-going population on who Avatar was directed by, as well as asking gamers to name Skyrim's director, my guess would be that the results would be emphat...