MORE DETAILS ON CASTLE CRASHERS DEV’S CUTELY CHAOTIC GAME #3
With Behemoth’s just-announced ‘Game #3’ on display at the Tokyo International Anime Fair, occasional IGN contributor Anoop Gantayat has posted a few scarce new details based on his playtest.
Most notably, he clarifies (as I pondered yesterday) that the game is indeed currently split into four varying minigames:
Block painting game:
As players run around the play field, they turn any blocks that they touch to their own color. The goal is to do this for more blocks than your rival. You don’t have to do anything to the blocks to change their color — just walk over them or bump into them from the side or below.
Soccer game:
Players attempt to knock a soccer ball into a goal. This is done by simply bumping into the ball or punching it.
Gold collecting game:
There’s a giant goldfish floating about the stage. When struck, it releases gold. The goal is to collect as much of the gold as possible.
Soul collecting game:
In this mini game, when an enemy is defeated, his soul floats away. Collect an opponent’s soul, and you get big points. If you lose your soul, you can chase after it once you’ve respawned, assuming it hasn’t already been taken.
Behemoth’s Dan Paladin clarified, though, that “the game is super early and that everything being shown was just for sample purposes, as a means of seeing how people react.”
Here’s hoping Behemoth will be carting the demo Xbox 360 with them to next week’s Game Developers Conference.
Hands On: Behemoth’s Next Game After the Last Next Game [andriasang.com]
Previously:
Precious stones: the cutie chaos of Behemoth’s Game #3 – Offworld
There will be jewels: Castle Crasher devs tease new game – Offworld
How Castle Crashers was almost a Muttpop/Lucha Libre game – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
SISTERS OF RAPTURE: FIRST LOOK AT BIOSHOCK 2’S BIG SISTERS
As was rumored this week via cryptic clues being drip-fed to viral site SomethingInTheSea.com, retailer GameStop’s in-house magazine Game Informer has got an exclusive first look at 2K’s upcoming BioShock 2, with its just-revealed cover image showing the new game’s trademark enemy: the Big Sister.
The first game saw its narrative driven by the relationship between the vulnerable Little Sisters and their near-indefeatable Big Daddy protectors, which appears to continue in this prequel, albeit gender swapped. Little more is known about this game’s storyline, apart from the viral site mentioning frequent abductions by a “skinny monster with a single red glowing eye.”
New footage of the game is expected to land at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference. Take Two’s recent quarterly report scheduled BioShock 2 for a release before the end of the year, but, like Beaterator, made no commitment on the launch platforms.
Somethinginthesea.com [2K Games, via Game Informer]
Previously:
Come to Big Daddy – Offworld
Little shocks: IG Fun show off iPhone/mobile BioShock – OffworldI feel a wreck without my little china sister – Offworld
Portal gun maker's new BioShock syringe – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
ON PEGGLE’S PECULIAR APPEAL
Offworld favorite columnist Clive Thompson’s got a great new piece looking into the peculiar appeal of PopCap’s popular pachinko/pinball/plinko mashup Peggle, well timed with the game’s ongoing multiplatform blowout (having just been released on the DS and arriving tomorrow on Xbox Live Arcade).
Thompson chats with PopCap VP Greg Canessa, who surmises that the more interesting underlying discrepancy between the game’s hardcore and casual audiences is purely perceptual:
For a casual gamer, Peggle seems too heavily based on luck. You aim the ball, but once you’ve dropped it and it hits the first peg, all bets are off: It bounces and careens through the forest of pegs in crazy, zigzagging patterns. For casual players, there doesn’t seem to be a clear enough correlation between how they aim and the results.
But hard-core gamers see the game quite differently. When they look at the Peggle board, they see the Euclidean geometry that governs how the ball falls and pings around.
“They’ll be sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, if I bounce the ball off that peg it’ll hit this other peg and jump over here, where it’ll take out two other colored pegs,” Canessa said.
I’d been doing some of my own idle thinking on the game’s appeal recently and came to the [probably dullard’s] conclusion that its smartest design decision was to never punish the player and make nearly every interaction a reward — straight down to the fact that a gutterball shot that misses every single peg and flies straight off the screen earns you a medal (great job!).
Click through to Thompson’s full column, though, for more on the hardcore/casual divide.
Getting Lucky: Hard-Core Gamers Penetrate Peggle’s Physics [Wired]
Previously:
PopCap's Peggle overload spawns art contest – Offworld
PopCap's Peggle Extreme now free on Steam – Offworld
Frond of the dead: the first look at PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies …
28 Weeds Later: Plants vs. Zombies will indeed feature plants …
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
SONIC CO-DESIGNER WORKING ON NEW PAC-MAN GAME
Gamasutra’s carrying interesting and unexpected news that Sonic the Hedgehog co-designer Hirokazu Yasuhara — who left Sega to work stateside for Crash Bandicoot/Jak & Daxter/Uncharted creators Naughty Dog — is now working at Namco Bandai’s U.S. studio on a new 30th anniversary Pac-Man game.
No details were given beyond Yasuhara’s involvement, but Gamasutra says Yasuhara’s already stated his desire to create a “new character action game,” so presumably we’ll be getting something more along the lines of his 20th anniversary Pac-Man World series than Taito’s re-imagined retro futurist Space Invaders games, with Xbox Live Arcade’s Pac-Man Championship having already fit that bill in 2007.
Click the link for the full details from Gamasutra.
Namco’s Iwai: Sonic Co-Creator Working On Pac-Man Comeback Game [Gamasutra]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
HOW CASTLE CRASHERS WAS ALMOST A MUTTPOP/LUCHA LIBRE GAME
Bob Silva — president of Offworld favorite comic/vinyl toy producer Muttpop (seriously, how perfectly sinister is Dr. Destruction) — has just written up a new blog post in which he reveals that Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers creators The Behemoth very nearly teamed up for an original multiplayer game.
Muttpop Bob says that soon after Alien Hominid‘s 2004 console debut, he presented the developer with a plan to base a new game off the Luchadores Five characters from Jerry Frissen’s Lucha Libre comic series.
Bob explains:
Behemoth had just released ALIEN HOMINID for the Gamecube and Xbox. I really felt like the spirit of that game had something in common with what we were doing. I heard that the Behemoth guys were thinking of doing a multiplayer game so I was trying to convince them to do one with the Luchadores Five and Tequila [below right]. Both Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin got back to me via email. They really loved the designs I sent them (I sent the 2 ‘pitch’ jpegs below and a few final pencils images of some of the other characters from Luchadores Five) and were going to talk to their investors about the possibility of collaboration.
They got back at me a few weeks later and said the investors didn’t feel comfortable investing in a game that they couldn’t have full ownership of (which I totally understood) but wished us well on our endeavors. That multiplayer game ended up becoming the amazing CASTLE CRASHERS. I assume they were already in development with Castle Crashers when I approached them. Whatever the circumstances, it was a great honor that those guys loved our designs enough that they considered collaborating (even if it was for just a second).
A shame all around: the Luchadores world is one I’d desperately love to explore first-hand — see more of their incredible characters in Muttpop’s Lucha Libre news section.
Muttpop Lucha Libre Beginnings [Muttpop Blog]
Previously:
You will know it by the piles of dead: building Behemoth's …
Castle Crashers gets Kinged – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
NUMBER NINE: HARMONIX RELEASING THE BEATLES: ROCK BAND ON 9/9/9
Originally revealed in a surprise conference call in late October of last year, MTV, Harmonix and Apple Corps have made the official announcement that The Beatles: Rock Band, a new entirely remade custom version of Rock Band that will trace “an unprecedented, experiential progression through and celebration of the music and artistry of The Beatles,” will be released on 09/09/09 for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii.
The game will come as a standalone version, or packaged with “a limited number of new hardware offerings modeled after instruments used by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr throughout their career,” with LOVE album co-producer Giles Martin serving as music producer. Harmonix also says exclusive content will be offered in coming months along with a preorder campaign.
Harmonix has also just unveiled the official site for the game, which for now is simply a warm-up teaser set inside a recreation of Abbey Road Studios (above, you can spy nearly the same camera angle at around 2:40 of this video).
The Beatles: Rock Band home [Harmonix]
Previously:
Rock Band bucking the sequel trend in 2009 – Offworld
Sony announces LittleBigPlanet, Rock Band for PSP – Offworld
Harmonix head Rigopulos on PS3 Amplitude, iPhone plans – Offworld
Going deep on music with Harmonix – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
POPCAP’S PEGGLE OVERLOAD SPAWNS ART CONTEST
PopCap’s gone full bore Peggle Overload lately, with this week’s release of the DS’s Peggle: Dual Shot (produced with the help of, and featuring levels by, Rez/Every Extend Extra/Lumines dev Q Entertainment), the official announcement that the game will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade and the iPhone later this month (I can also personally vouch for its iPod port), and now this, a Peggle art contest.
I make particular mention of the latter because I’d be very pleased to see the collusion of our usual suspect designer/readers and one of our favorite inexplicable game obsessions: Olly Moss, Spacesick, Mikko Walamies — any takers? We’d love to see anyone’s entries, and the prizes PopCap’s offering aren’t to be sneezed at.
Previously:
PopCap's Peggle Extreme now free on Steam – Offworld
Aether, Peggle, Auditorium, World of Goo top 2008 JayIs casual …
Frond of the dead: the first look at PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies …
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
INDIE GAMES FEST OPENS PUBLIC VOTING FOR AUDIENCE AWARD
The Independent Games Festival has opened its voting for this year’s Audience Award with a list of all main competition finalists who have submitted a playable public demo of their game.
This year, the finalists are CarneyVale Showtime, Between, The Graveyard, Retro/Grade, Dyson, Cortex Command, Brainpipe, Osmos, Mightier (above), You Have To Burn The Rope, Musaic Box, The Maw, PixelJunk Eden and Coil, representing a nicely diverse group of PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 titles.
To refresh yourself, you can have another look at our Offworld Guide to the IGF, or see the IGF’s own summaries with links for each participating downloadable game.
2009 Independent Games Festival Games: Main Competition Audience Award [IGF]
Previously:
The Offworld Guide to the 2009 Independent Games Festival – Offworld
Pixeljunk Eden, Osmos top 2009 IGF nominations – Offworld
Unfinished Swan, Feist make IGF Student Showcase finals – Offworld
Crate digging through IGF Mobile 2009 – Offworld
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
CURIOUSER: AMERICAN MCGEE, EA RETURNING WITH PC, PS3, XBOX 360 ALICE
Though details are still scarce, news from the ongoing DICE convention in Las Vegas has come in that Spicy Horse head American McGee will be following up his dark fairy-tale reinterpretation Alice with a new sequel slated for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
The original Alice game, developed by Dallas studio Rogue Entertainment, was released by EA in 2000, and saw the Wonderland star platforming her way through a gothic version of Carroll’s story.
Since then, McGee has released Bad Day L.A. — most notable for its art direction by LA art duo Kozyndan — and, more recently, created the 24-part episodic Grimm series, which again re-interpreted classic tales in a more sinister (and simultaneously cutely cubist) fashion.
No projected release date or further details were given in the press release, apart from the concept shot included.
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
XBOX LIVE ARCADE HIT PUZZLER BRAID COMING TO PC IN MARCH
Jon Blow’s Braid probably doesn’t need much introduction as one of Xbox Live Arcade’s flagship puzzlers which (deservedly) set every art-game-braniac’s heart a-flutter on its release earlier last year (if you do need an introduction, I included a relatively spoiler-y preview video in my Offworld 20 writeup).
Now, though, the deviously complex time-shifting platformer is officially set for a PC release via Stardock’s Impulse platform, with a tentative release date of March 31st and a price of $19.95 $14.95.
A Steam version seems likely as well: Blow talked with Gamasutra in late January and said of their continuing relationship:
A long time ago, I was talking to them, and it didn’t really work out. Since then, they’ve come back and contacted me, and they are interested in putting the game up. So it’s just a matter of me having a PC version ready that I feel is good to go with.
This, presumably, will be that version (unless he’s continuing to add Steam-exclusive achievements) and the cross-platform domination can begin in full, but for now it seems Impulse has one of its highest profile indie exclusives.
UPDATE: As noted via the official Braid blog, the game has already dropped to $14.95 to match Xbox Live Arcade pricing, and will be coming to two more yet-undisclosed portal services.
Braid home [Jon Blow, Impulse pre-order page]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
