Antipole Message Board

The latest Indie Royale Bundle is an interesting one. It’s curated by Indie Gamer Chick, and contains eight games that originated from the Xbox’s Xbox Live Indie Games. As anyone who’s ever wandered into that store will have noticed, it’s not easy to find the gems amongst the MS-Paint-scrawled madness. Which is why IGC has been reviewing them on her site for a while now, highlighting the highlights. This bundle is eight of the best that have now been ported to PC, so there’s a good chance they’re games you’ll have missed. They’re certainly games I’ve missed.

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A portion of a C3 review...

Saturnine Games has delivered one of the tightest and most enjoyable experiences on the Nintendo DSiWare download service with Antipole. Fusing standard action platform antics with dastardly death traps and a fantastic gravitational twist to add in plenty of necessary strategic thought, for just 500 Nintendo Points this is easily one of the highlights of Nintendo’s download service.

Full review here

Did you know that you can download handheld games now? That's amazingly convenient! The only inconvenient part of it is finding the right games to buy -- and that's where we come in, with our Portabliss column. In each installment, we'll tell you about a downloadable game on the iPhone, iPad, Android device, DSi, 3DS, PSP, etc. Today: Antipole. If you're a DSi owner feeling glum about the lack of free NES games today -- or if you're a 3DS owner wanting to play something new after binging on NES games -- Antipole is the ideal solution. It's a classic-style side-scrolling platform action game built around a really great gimmick: your character can flip gravity in a bubble around his body at will.

Your ability to reverse gravity allows you not only to stick to the ceiling, but to extend jumps by flipping mid-jump, to flip enemies and environmental obstacles, and even to send bombs back upward to the enemies that dropped them.

Each level introduces a new wrinkle to the formula, from lasers that you have to block with a box, to toxic pools of sludge that kill you in one hit -- and float upward toward you inside your gravity bubble -- to robotic spiders who exude their own gravity bubbles. The levels are brief enough, and the restart time quick enough, that it doesn't really irritate you that much to learn by trial and error. Antipole may not be the best-looking game on DS; in fact, the graphics have a sort of PC-shareware charm to them. But the level design and mechanics combine to make enjoyably devious puzzles. And, occasionally, like whenever that toxic sludge is involved, frustratingly devious puzzles.

If you happen to have an Xbox 360, you can try this game out -- it's on Xbox Live Indie Games. In fact, we featured it as an Indie Gem. It's just a cool game, on either platform!

A portion of an NWR review...

Antipole is a very fun, imaginative platformer with lots of content and a great premise. DSi and 3DS owners would be silly to pass it up.

Full review here

The DSiWare pick of the week is Antipole, an inventive gravity-manipulating platformer from Saturnine Games. It places you in the role of Johnny Hurricane, a man who's ripped off Carmen Sandiego's fashion sense and decided to go on an adventure where down is up and up is down...

Gameplay from the DSiWare version of Antipole!

Antipole - due out July 21st in North America - 500 DSi Point ($5)

Switch the poles of gravity to strategically overcome obstacles.

Saturnine Games has announced that its gravity-defying platformer Antipole is headed to DSiWare later this year. We recently spotlighted Antipole in our Xbox Live Indie Gems feature, making note of its difficulty and well-executed mechanics. The DSiWare version is expected to arrive in the first half of 2011 which, if you haven't noticed, is almost over. Those who have already purchased Saturnine's first DSiWare title, Cosmos X2, will also have access to a special bonus mode in Antipole.

Saturnine's Edward Di Geronimo Jr. is also working to bring Antipole to PC, though he has yet to pin down a release date. Check out screens of the DSiWare version in the gallery below.

Check out more screens in our Flickr set Antipole is a platformer empowering players with the ability to reverse gravity to alter the world around them. Players can use their gravity ability to make impossible leaps, change falls into jumps, and solve puzzles. Players can fight enemies on the ground or ceiling, or defeat them by [...]

Crowded as it is with farting massage simulators, it can be hard to find worthwhile titles on Xbox Live Indie Games. That's why we sift through all that rough to unearth a few gems. That way, you get the skinny on quality games and we get to indulge our secret passion for fart machines. This week, we try out the gravity-altering platformer, Antipole, from Saturnine Games.
There's a an oft-used formula used by game developers. First, come up with an interesting gameplay mechanic. Second, build an entire game centered around that mechanic. The central mechanic of Antipole is easy to explain: Pull the trigger to reverse gravity. It's a very simple mechanic -- and not necessarily one that's never been used before -- but the way in which Antipole uses gravity is what sets it apart. As Saturnine Games' Edward Di Geronimo Jr. puts it, "Our gravity ability isn't just a replacement for a jump, but rather a core part of the game world."

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The laws of gravity have been reversed, redefined for this Xbox Live Indie game.