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Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is an iPhone game collaboration between superbrothers (aka Craig Adams), singer-songwriter Jim Guthrie, and Capybara Games, the creators of Critter Crunch. These two videos are from the GDC build of the game, where the player engages in some exploration and combat. I got a chance to try it at the IGF Pavilion, where S&S EP was being shown for winning IGF Mobile’s Achievement In Art award. It’s great – the stylized art, the evocative audio, and the detail in each area makes you excited to see what’s coming next. The combat was also fun, if simple.

The combat video is after the jump:

(Source: GameSetWatch) Continue reading

Here's a gameplay video of the first area in Limbo, captured from the IGF showfloor at GDC. Gamespot has a new article about the award-winning platformer up on their site as well. More recorded footage of GDC attendees playing IGF games (and interviews) in the extended as I find them, but there's quite a few of those already up on GameVideos in the 'Recently Added Videos' section. Continue reading

REDDER is a game by Anna Anthropy / Auntie Pixelante, with music by Amon26. It’s an exploration platformer focused around an alternating green/red block switch mechanic, similar to the mechanic used in the third pendent dungeon in the SNES classic A Link to the Past.

I found the colors very nice (even though the backgrounds are often just gradients, there’s a lot that can be done with just gradients of color), and the exploration of a fairly large world excellent. In a few ways the game resembles VVVVVV, but only in basic structure: a world of screen-sized rooms, numerous checkpoints, things to collect, but is more non-linear, slower-paced, and not as focused on challenge (you won’t die very often if you’re decent at platformers).

I’ve played through many of her other games (When Pig’s Fly, Calamity Annie, Mighty Jill Off, Invader), and so far this one’s by far my favorite; maybe you guys will agree. Continue reading

After months of teasing the game (and a slight delay in development due to a computer meltdown), indie developer Anna "Auntie Pixelante" Anthropy has released Redder, her biggest project yet in terms of scale and time. The Mighty Jill Off/When Pigs Fly designer notes, "It's the biggest game world I've ever built."

In the 2D platformer, you control an astronaut who has crash landed on Mars and needs to gather a batch of crystals to get her ship back in working order. To do that, you need to explore the planet's ruins, avoid enemies, and solve a number of increasingly difficult switch puzzles to reach the crystals.

Redder's controls are simple -- walk with the left and right arrow keys, and jump with the up/shift/z/space key -- keeping most of the focus on timing the astronaut's hops. The planet's lower gravity allows you to jump higher and float in their longer than you typically would in most other platformers, but if you've played Anthropy's other games, you should be used to this by now.

You can play the Flash game for free right now on Newgrounds!

Hi guys, My name’s Radek, and I’m part of Incubator Games, a small development studio from Toronto, Canada. We were all previously leads at Capybara Games working on such projects as the original Critter Crunch and HoMM: Clash of Heroes, but decided to strike out on our own. We are currently in the process of giving [...] Continue reading

Blendo Games (the creator behind the very stylish and classy Gravity Bone) released Flotilla a little over a week ago.

Flotilla is a space exploration game where you go from star to star flirting with danger and talking to bull-slavers and cat-pirates and various other terrestrial animals piloting space ships, killing and getting killed by many of them.

The meat of the game is the turn-based spaceship combat. Turns take place simultaneously, so you have to really think about what your enemies are going to do, especially since each ship has a bunch of invulnerable armor plating that you have to circumvent. You can control the orientation of your ships, and there are a few movement options that let you trade speed for firepower and vice-versa, so it’s really a battle of lining up your ships so that you’re ships are flanking or can otherwise hurt the enemy, while making sure their shots can’t get past your armor.

It’s an incredibly satisfying system with a lot of depth, and the demo will make you cry and wish you had $10 when it ends. Or, y’know, you do and you can buy the game and everybody wins. Continue reading

The winners of the AGS Awards 2009 have been announced. These are the best Adventure Game Studio games as voted on by the AGS community. The big winners are Zombiecow’s Time Gentlemen, Please! (Best Game, Best Gameplay, Best Dialogue Writing, Best Non-Player Character), Team Effigy’s The Marionette (Best Original Story, Best Background Art, Best Music, Best Tutorial or Documentation), and Ben304’s Shifters’s Box – Outside In (Best Puzzles, Best Short Game). There are a lot of other games and awards, so check out the award page for the full line-up.

Thanks, bicilotti, for the heads-up. Continue reading