And now, the news people have been asking for for over a year: Die Gute Fabrik, Noah Sasso, Ramiro Corbetta and Bennett Foddy have just announced Sportsfriends, a four game collection for PC, Mac and PlayStation 3 that will see the combined release of Hokra, BaraBariBall, an updated version of Foddy’s Pole Riders, and — finally! — a full-featured version of Johann Sebastian Joust.

The four developers have taken to Kickstarter to bring the games to PlayStation 3 (and help port each game around to the various platforms they don’t already exist on), where $15 will net you a copy of the collection on its release sometime in Autumn of 2013, along with a bonus copy of Tennnes, created by Vlambeer’s JW Nijman.

For twice that you get early beta access to all the games in the collection far sooner than the projected release date, and twice that will also get you bonus games from Sasso, Corbetta and Foddy. Higher-level backers can get a Joust ‘starter-kit’ with seven PlayStation Move controllers and custom “charms” (see above for an illustrated example of the Ink-It Labs product) to clasp to & identify your own set, a package of pre-configured Mega GIRP dance mats, or the ultra rare 18-player version of Joust.

At the highest level, you can even get two real-live actual trampolines to play Foddy’s Get On Top, recently featured at the Venus Patrol Training Facility, alongside, totally not-coincidentally, all of the Sportsfriends games. As you might have guessed, the Training Facility was my way to help introduce the games that would eventually make its way into this campaign to a wider audience.

Find more details about the campaign and all of the included games at Kickstarter — with Joust being an instrumental part of Venus Patrol’s own campaign, this is obviously one that I’m incredibly excited for & wholeheartedly endorse.

And the other James Harvey tribute to Noah Sasso’s BaraBariBall featuring the game’s “heavy” character, leaving only the, uh… Snow Bro? to complete the trilogy.

Both are posted here today for reasons that will become evident in not too long now…

The first of two fantastic illustrations by James Harvey that feature the main characters of Noah Sasso’s brilliant indie sports/party game BaraBariBall (most recently featured at GameCity’s Venus Patrol Training Facility), following, explains Harvey, a chance meeting with Sasso in Brooklyn’s Barcade this past summer.

Babycastles affiliate Colin ‘scallopedlion‘ Snyder’s just launched a new Kickstarter campaign to complete ‘What’s in a Game?’, a video mini-series investigating “the complex evolution of videogames over time” that’s already proving to be worth a deeper look.

The series, originally meant to be a companion to another publication that subsequently fell through, will consist of 11 episodes looking at aspects of game culture including why we play, games as social activity, competition and women in games, and narratives & rituals of players, and will include appearances by a number of familiar faces including Double Fine’s Tim Schafer & Johann Sebastian Joust creator Doug Wilson, both of whom you can see in the trailer above.

Of particular note are a few of the limited rewards which are being snapped up quite quickly: the iPad version of Matt Parker’s body-posing party game Recurse, and the still-unreleased Miracle Adventures in 2113, the faux-Famicom-sequel shooting game above, from Noah Sasso, creator of competitive sports-brawler BaraBariBall.

All backers will also receive early beta access to Gameifesto, an indie-focused match-making site meant to better enable artists, coders & musicians to find and collaborate with each other on new games.

Find more info on the series & see Snyder’s full presentation via its Kickstarter page.