Saturday, December 25, 2010
The HandShake Controller: Putting the Game ON Your Hands
Gamevil?s NOM Series Debuts on iPhone with NOM: Billion Year Timequest
Before making a name for itself as the App Store publisher of the popular Zenonia and Baseball Superstars franchises, Gamevil found success on other mobile platforms with its one-button NOM games in South Korea. This week, Gamevil introduces the NOM franchise to the App Store with NOM: Billion Year Timequest ($1.99), a new entry featuring [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fingergaming/~3/a8UbcbvpZhw/
GDC 2011 Debuts Details For Artificial Intelligence Summit
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GameCareerGuideNews/~3/q_CAKKIvuOc/gdc_2011_debuts_details_for_.php
TECHNITROL TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE SYNTEL SYNTAX-BRILLIAN
ESRB Mobile App Lets Users Snap Box Photos For More Info
GDC China 2010 Sees Record Attendance, Show To Return In 2011
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GameCareerGuideNews/~3/fJB663WFlvo/gdc_china_2010_sees_record_.php
NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS MOTOROLA MOODY’S
Friday, December 24, 2010
Yahoo! Japan Survey Finds Mario Still Tops In Japan
COGNIZANT TECH. SOLUTIONS COMCAST COMMSCOPE COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS
Epic Games releases December 2010 Unreal Development Kit Beta with iOS Support
News from Epic Games – December 2010 UDK Beta Released
December 16, 2010 – Epic Games, Inc. has released the December 2010 UDK Beta, the latest version of the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of Unreal Engine 3 that provides access to the award-winning toolset used in blockbuster video games, 3D visualizations, digital films and more.
Epic is committed to providing the UDK community with regular software releases at no charge, and the latest beta is available now at www.udk.com/download.
This month, we are thrilled to ship a new and improved UDK, now with iOS support. Keep reading for more details, and check out www.udk.com to see examples of what you can do with these new tools.
Epic is committed to providing the UDK community with regular software releases at no charge, and the latest beta is available now at www.udk.com/download.
NEW! iOS Support
Brand new features and content that users will immediately notice are:
- Build levels, visually script gameplay events and add visual effects for mobile applications using the Unreal Editor and its major tools, including Unreal Kismet, Unreal Cascade and Unreal Matinee.
- Superior rendering features for mobile development, including Unreal Lightmass global illumination accelerated by Unreal Swarm distributed computing.
- The full source and content for the “Epic Citadel” App, plus an additional castle demo map.
- UDK Remote: A handy tool that enables iOS devices to serve as wireless controllers with full touch and tilt functionality for testing games on the computer.
- New Unreal Frontend system compiles scripts and deploys builds for multiple platforms with the simple click of a button.
- Mobile Previewer: Preview your application locally using a fully feature OpenGL ES 2.0 renderer with mobile input simulated.
- One-click Deployment: Easily deploy your application from the Unreal Editor to your iOS device with only one click.
- Next-gen Mobile Graphics: UDK’s highly optimized mobile renderer has support for per-pixel lighting, environment mapping, precomputed visibility and more! And of course, Unreal Lightmass computes stunning light and shadows to bring your scene to life.
- Unreal Kismet Visual Scripting: Artists and level designers can string together actions, inputs and events in Unreal Kismet to dictate how the world flows and how the player interacts without having to touch a single line of code.
iOS Feature List
- Base UE3 Features
- Highly shippable, proven engine core
- Unreal Editor: Almost entire editor is supported
- Unreal Lightmass: Global illumination, ambient occlusion and more
- Unreal Swarm for distributed lighting builds
- UnrealScript dynamic scripting language
- Unreal Kismet visual scripting
- Pathfinding and navigation meshes
- Unreal Matinee cinematics tools
- Unreal Cascade particle designer
- Mesh painting tools
- Canvas-based UI rendering
- Unreal Content Browser asset manager
- Full support for Autodesk FBX file format
- Unreal animation system (AnimTrees, additive animations, blending, etc.)
- Play In Editor, one-click game preview
- Real-time inverse kinematics
- BSP level construction system
- Crowd system
- Level-Of-Detail systems, including Massive LOD
- Performance and memory profiling tools
- Mesh simplification tool
- Texture unwrapping and LOD generation tools
- Perforce source control support
- Physics and collision systems
- Unreal Frontend tool for launching/packaging your game
- Unreal Console lets you connect to mobile apps, issue commands and view logs
- 64-bit tools allow for huge data sets
- Mobile
- Portrait and landscape modes fully supported
- Multi-touch control support including tilt/gyroscope
- Touch-based look controls, gesture support
- New mobile "input zone" system
- Unreal Kismet and UnrealScript support for mobile input
- Mobile input emulation on PC
- Basic UI system based on canvas, with simple buttons/sliders
- Movie playback
- Engine
- Fast performing iOS game engine
- Level streaming with asynchronous loading
- Share assets between multiple platforms
- Mobile shader precaching/warming for hitch-free gameplay
- Unreal Lightmass normal map baking
- Precomputed Visibility system with Unreal Matinee path support
- Cooker generates optimized minimum set of shaders based on game usage
- Sound and music playback using OpenAL
- 3D sound spatialization (stereo output)
- Asynchronous music streaming
- Tools
- Mobile Previewer for PC with nearly 1:1 graphics preview
- UDK Remote for previewing mobile input on PC using iOS device
- Movie generation tools with authentic mobile-style graphics
- Capture screenshots and movies from device
- Preview iOS device resolutions, system settings and landscape/portrait from editor
- Graphics
- State of the art graphics features on mobile
- Flexible material system generates highly optimized OpenGL ES2 shaders
- Real-time shadows (planar)
- Particle systems
- Bump offset mapping
- Skeletal animation
- Shading
- Real-time per-pixel lighting
- Normal mapping
- Specular lighting, including per-pixel specular
- Dynamic lighting (movable, animated lights)
- Animated materials
- Translucency, opacity masks
- Rim lighting
- Fresnel effects
- Texture blending
- Vertex coloring (paintable meshes)
- Emissive lighting
- Vertex deformation (foliage, cloth rendering)
- Environment mapping
- Baked ambient occlusion (skeletal meshes)
- Water surface effects
- Masking for emissive, environment maps, rim lights and more
- Decals
- Static mesh rendering
- Non-uniformly scaled objects
- Automatic Texture Flattening tool
- Atmospheric fog
Tools
New Unreal Frontend UI
- UFE now supports multiple profiles. A profile is a collection of settings for cooking, syncing, and launching that makes switching between projects and configurations a breeze.
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealFrontend
Unreal Editor
- A vertex color matching tool was added. It allows re-imported meshes to have their hand-painted vertex color paint refitted.
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentBlog#Vertex color matching tool
Unreal Kismet
- A new Kismet action, ProjectileFactory, was added. It allows spawning projectiles w/ muzzle flashes from a skeletal mesh socket or bone in Kismet.
Note: This build only supports 2 bones per vertex for mobile games. The next build will remove this limitation.
UDN Pages
New:
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobileHome
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/GettingStartedMobile
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/GettingStartediOSDevelopment
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/AppleiOSProvisioning
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/AppleiOSProvisioningPortal
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/AppleiOSProvisioningSetup
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealiPhonePackager
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealOnMobile
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealOniOS
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/GameCenter
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DesigningForMobile
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobileMaterialReference
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobileTextureReference
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobileInputSystem
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobileAudioSystem
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobileSystemSettings
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobilePreviewer
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DistributionAppleiOS
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FullScreenMovieApple_iOS
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UDKRemote
Updated:
- http://udn.epicgames.com//Three/PrecomputedVisibility
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealFrontend
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialsCompendium
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CodingStandard
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ScaleformTechnicalGuide
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealScriptReference
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitFirstScriptProject
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/HUDTechnicalGuide
- http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CanvasTechnicalGuide
Community Links
UDK Forums: www.udk.com/forums
UDK Developers on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2493123
UDK on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/UDK/183744733429
Epic Games on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EpicGames
Unreal Engine on Twitter: www.twitter.com/UnrealEngine
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NA PlayStation Store Update - RISK Factions, Blokus, Strongbad, Neo Geo games, echochrome ii And So Many Deals
Who releases a bunch of games on a digital store when nobody's around to pay attention to them? Sony, that's who! Yeesh.
Today we see the release of RISK: Factions, released on XBLA some months ago, for $9.99, alongside Blokus, a neat puzzle game, for $4.99. echochrome ii is up for $14.99, Eat Them for $9.99, and Top Darts for $9.99
Now for an absolute f-ton of Neo Geo releases -- Alpha Mission II, Art Of Fighting, Baseball Stars Professional, Fatal Fury, League Bowling, Magician Lord, Metal Slug, Samurai Showdown, Super Sidekicks and The King of Fighters ?94 for $8.99 each. They have online play too!
TellTale have released a full season of Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, previously released on WiiWare, but is now available on PSN for $14.99. Demo also available.
If that isn't enough, one new PSOne classic -- Front Mission 3 for $5.99. A single piece of DLC too with Costume Quest: Grubbins On Ice for $4.99.
We also have some retail-come-digital releases too -- Borderlands is now available for $29.99, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones for $14.99, and MAG for $29.99.
And 5 new PSP Minis! Holy damn -- Jane?s Hotel for $3.99, A Space Shooter For 2 Bucks for said price, N.O.V.A., Gameloft's shooter for $4.99, Forest Puzzle for $3.99 and Dr. Minigames for $2.99.
And so many deals -- SO MANY DEALS:
Bomberman Ultra ? Sale (PS3) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Burn Zombie Burn ? Sale (PS3) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Worms 2: Armageddon ? Sale (PS3) (now $7.99, original price $14.99)
Novastrike ? Sale (PS3) (now $2.99, original price $4.99)
Stellar Attack ? Minis ? Sale (PS3/PSP) (now $3.49, original price $4.49)
Forest Puzzle ? Minis ? Sale (PS3/PSP) (now $1.99, original price $3.99)
Vibes ? Minis ? Sale (PS3/PSP) (now $3.49, original price $5.49)
3, 2, 1?Supercrash! ? Minis ? Sale (PS3/PSP) (now $2.49, original price
$2.99)
Deadliest Warrior: The Game ? Sale (PS3) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Afterburner Climax ? Sale (PS3) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Gunstar Heroes ? Sale (PS3) (now $2.99, original price $4.99)
Sonic Adventure ? Sale (PS3) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Sonic Adventure DX Upgrade ? Sale (PS3) (now $1.99, original price $4.99)
Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 ? Sale (PS3) (now $9.99, original price
$14.99)
Blue Toad Murder Files: Episode 1-6 & Advent Theme Bundle ? Sale (PS3) (now
$14.99, original price $26.99)
Flock ? Permanent Price Drop (PS3) (now $9.99, original price $14.99)
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light ? Things That Go Boom Pack 2 ?
Permanent Price Change (PS3) (now $3.49, original price FREE)
Alien Breed: Impact ? Permanent Price Drop (PS3) (now $9.99, original price
$14.99)
Shank ? Permanent Price Drop (PS3) (now $9.99, original price $14.99)
Chameleon: Legacy ? Permanent Price Drop (PS3) (now $3.99, original price
$4.99)
Arctic Adventures: Polar?s Puzzles ? Minis ? Permanent Price Drop (PS3)
(now $1.99, original price $4.99)
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamerbytes/~3/xvLzTrI3Sro/na_playstation_store_update_ri.php
ON SEMICONDUCTOR NVIDIA NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS NOVELLUS SYSTEMS
Epic Games and Chair Entertainment Announce Unreal Engine 3-Powered ?Infinity Blade? for iOS Devices
Epic Games, Inc. and its award-winning Salt Lake City-based development studio, ChAIR Entertainment, today revealed the new action-RPG sword fighting adventure, ?Infinity Blade,? will be available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch this holiday season. Originally introduced as ?Project Sword? during the September 2010 Apple Special Event in San Francisco and featured in the latest ad campaigns for iPhone 4 and iPad, ChAIR?s ground-breaking new game will be the first to bring the power of Epic?s Unreal Engine 3 to Apple?s world-class gaming platforms.
Taking handheld gaming to new heights, the graphically intense ?Infinity Blade? features adrenaline-fueled sword battles and epic boss fights set in the realm of a fully 3D castle. The game?s robust single-player mode features an intuitive combat interface and simple touch controls which enable hardcore and casual gamers alike to engage in fun, furious battles. As play progresses, players gain experience, build stats and earn more powerful items to prepare their knight for the final encounter with the game?s nemesis, the God-King.
Additional content will be released free of charge via planned updates, including a fully integrated multiplayer mode, which enables players to find friends and other challengers to battle online via Game Center. ?More than one million people have been introduced to the world of ?Infinity Blade? through our free app, ?Epic Citadel,? and soon everyone will be able to play our first fully featured game for iOS devices,? said Dr. Michael Capps, president of Epic Games. ?With ?Infinity Blade,? ChAIR has created an amazing looking, incredibly fun game that really demonstrates the potential of triple-A mobile gaming.?
The pricing and official release date for ?Infinity Blade? will soon be confirmed.
To learn more about ?Infinity Blade,? follow @InfinityBlade on Twitter and ?Like? ?Infinity Blade? on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Infinity-Blade/163584600328189.
About Unreal Engine 3
The award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics and best-of-breed toolset. Unreal Engine 3 maintains those features in addition to multi-core processor support, Xbox 360� and PlayStation�3 optimizations, massive world support and a highly mature tool pipeline. Unreal Engine 3’s consistently evolving toolset is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for PC and console games, mobile games and applications, training simulations, visualizations and real-time 3D animation. Additional information on Unreal Engine 3 can be obtained through the Unreal Technology website at http://www.unrealtechnology.com.
About Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc., based in Cary, NC and established in 1991, develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company has created multiple million-selling, award-winning titles in its ?Unreal? series, including ?Unreal Tournament 3? for PC, PlayStation�3 and Xbox 360�. Epic?s “Gears of War” franchise has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and won more than 30 Game of the Year awards. Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 is the four-time winner of and Hall of Fame inductee for Game Developer magazine?s Best Engine Front Line Award. Unreal Engine 3 has also been recognized as the number one game engine by Develop magazine. Additional information about Epic can be obtained through the Epic Games website at http://www.epicgames.com.
About ChAIR Entertainment
Founded in 2005, Salt Lake City-based ChAIR Entertainment is a subsidiary of Epic Games, creators of the blockbuster ?Unreal? and ?Gears of War? video game franchises and the industry-leading Unreal Engine 3. Most recently, ChAIR released the modern and masterful side-scrolling shooter, ?Shadow Complex,? published by Microsoft Game Studios exclusively for Xbox LIVE Arcade. The critically acclaimed ?Shadow Complex? received numerous E3 and Editor?s Choice Awards and was named Game of the Year by more than 40 media outlets. Prior to that, ChAIR released the award-winning underwater action-shooter, ?Undertow,? for Xbox LIVE Arcade.
Video: 'Deus Ex' a human revolution begins
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30501433/vp/40591521#40591521
The Best Of 2010: Top 10 Indie Games
So there you have it -- 2010 has come and gone, and with it a whole host of incredible indie gaming titles that have put the indie scene firmly on the map. With a record 391 entries into the Independent Games Festival this year, there is no doubt that indie games are, as always, a huge part of gaming as a whole.
With so many worthwhile releases, choosing just 10 from this year was quite the challenge. Note that for every game featured in our top 10, dozens of other must-play indie titles were left out. We genuinely feel bad about it, so we've listed just over a dozen honorable mentions at the bottom to make up for it.
We'll also be compiling various top 10s for each genre on IndieGames over the coming months, highlighting even more of the year's best releases, so make sure you watch out for those.
Here are our picks for the top ten indie games of this year:
10. Limbo (Playdead Studios) [Xbox Live Arcade, paid]
Ask any Xbox gamer which Live Arcade titles were worth checking out this year, and most likely they'll mention Limbo along with words like 'incredible', 'atmospheric' and 'unfair'. In development since 2004, Limbo plots the journey of a young, nameless boy into a dark, unforgiving world where beartraps, rolling boulders and giant spiders are the norm. As he ventures into the unknown, it becomes apparent that this is no mere underworld forest, with sprawling cities and a mysterious civilization to be found.
Limbo enjoys nothing more than killing you over and over again in the most gory and unrelenting manner possible, then laughing at your crippled remains. Fortunately, whenever death does befall our young hero, he is always placed back down just before the perpetrator, hence the trial and error feel to many of the puzzles is more humorous than frustrating -- indeed, it's enjoyable to play the game, but watching someone else fail time and time again is just as entertaining.
9. Shoot First (Beau Blyth) [Windows, freeware]
Beau Blyth is truly an indie developer extraordinaire -- not only did he release the fan-favorite action roguelike Shoot First this year, he's also found time to put out our personal favorites Action Fist and Fish Face in the same 12-month period. The surprise here is that they're all equally good, but we're limited to just picking one game from each developer for this "best of" selection.
Shoot First is more of an all-action affair than your usual roguelike, one that brings back memories of quarters spent on Gauntlet arcade machines back in the '80s. Players will embark on a quest to loot gold and save princesses as they progress deeper and deeper into the endless dungeon. The game features an automap system, a two-player co-op mode, an online leaderboard and even AI-controlled companions that will join your party if you can find and rescue them.
8. Minecraft (Mojang Specifications) [Windows, Mac and Linux, paid, beta available, free 'classic' version]
What a year it has been for Markus Persson, a.k.a. Notch. Last December, he was putting together Minecraft, an experimental exploration game that was becoming quite the underground hit -- we even gave the game an honorable mention in last year's top 10. Twelve months on, and more than 750,000 people have bought Minecraft, rendering Markus a multimillionaire. He has since bought an office, hired his friends to come and work with him, and is only just now pushing the game into the beta stages.
Just in case you've somehow managed to miss the phenomenon, Minecraft presents you with a blocky, randomly-generated world in which you can dig, build and explore, and even join friends online for a spot of multiplayer silliness. The game has got indie developers the world over scratching their heads, trying to work out what this secret formula for selling millions is. Minecraft is quite easily one of the biggest gaming success stories of the year.
7. Hydorah (Locomalito) [Windows, freeware]
Locomalito is a rising star in the indie game development community, and his pet project Hydorah (released in June this year) easily enhances his reputation even more. We still have a hard time believing that one man coded and drew every sprite found inside the game, although his collaborative partner Gryzor87 did provide some assistance by writing and contributing a soundtrack that's nearly one hour long.
Gradius fans will find plenty to like in Hydorah. There's the multiple path stage selection screen, a weapon loadout menu for players to customize their ship, difficult boss battles that'll have you on the edge of your seat, and some special unlockables reserved especially for masters of the shoot 'em up genre. Hydorah is our shoot-em-up highlight of 2010.
6. Joe Danger (Hello Games) [Playstation Network, paid]
One of the biggest PSN releases of 2010, Joe Danger is the work of four British friends and developers who are widely regarded as some of the nicest people in the gaming industry. Hello Games developed Joe Danger over the course of several years, and the game was released this summer to a flurry of high ratings from the press. Players take control of Joe Danger as he zooms over, under and through obstacles on his trusty motorbike.
It was the feel of the game that really made Joe Danger something special. Joe can hop, bounce and flip with relative ease, pulling off stunts in the air and wheelie-ing along the 2D plane to chain together huge score combos. A level editor was also included, allowing gamers to recreate their own fantasy Evel Knievel-style jumps. Off the back of their roaring success, Hello Games are currently looking to bump their team up with fresh faces and a larger office -- in the words of Hello Games developer Sean Murray, "our office is so small that it's pretty much impossible for the four of us not to be touching some part of our bodies at all times.".
5. Super Crate Box (Vlambeer) [Windows/Mac, freeware]
Not to be confused with Team Meat's Super Meat Boy, Super Crate Box is an incredibly fun score-based arcade game created by Dutch indie development studio Vlambeer. The premise of the game is this: enemies appear from a hole at the top of the screen, but you only score points by collecting crate boxes that spawn randomly with a different weapon each time. Enemies shouldn't be allowed to pass through the bottom of the level as well, since that'll just make them angrier and faster as they make their way to the pit again.
The range of randomized weapons found inside crates is limited at first, but plenty of cool and destructive pick-ups are unlocked as you get better at the game. You'll sink hours into Super Crate Box just playing through the multiple gameplay modes and trying to climb up the online leaderboards, we can assure you of that.
4. Super Meat Boy (Team Meat) [Xbox Live Arcade, Windows (Wii/Mac/Linux coming later), paid, free demo]
Touted by many as the Super Mario of this generation, Super Meat Boy is the work of two extremely hard-working individuals, Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes. This hard-as-nails platformer pays homage to the games that the duo used to play as youngsters, while simultaneously causing a good portion of players to scream blue murder as Meat Boy jumps into a grinder for the umpteenth time. Yet thanks to the snap-recovery and hot-footed nature of it all, these challenges feel like something worth overcoming, rather than a frustration.
It is perhaps the fantastic level design that Super Meat Boy is best known for, with over 300 levels of pure quality available and not a single saw or salt mount out of place. With the game released on both Xbox 360 and PC, and a Wii release coming early next year -- not to mention a free level editor for the PC version -- don't be surprised if you're hearing about this game for a little while longer.
3. Desktop Dungeons (Rodain Joubert) [Windows, freeware - alpha version]
Rodain Joubert has managed to do something that other developers could only dream of -- achieve a perfect balance between casual and hardcore with his freeware roguelike game, Desktop Dungeons. Every gameplay session usually lasts for only about 15 minutes, yet the unlockable achievements, playable characters and bonus dungeons will keep the fans coming back for more. The game is popular enough to spawn its own wiki resource, regularly updated to keep track of new spells, deities, enemies, character classes and dungeon areas.
But wait, there's more! If you don't like the default tileset (drawn by Spelunky creator Derek Yu) that comes bundled with Desktop Dungeons, you could always download and switch between other custom tilesets found in a variety of online forum threads dedicated to the game. When you lose, it's usually because you've not planned ahead, so be sure to brush up on your tactics and calculations before spending time with this indie gem.
2. Hero Core (Daniel Remar) [Windows, freeware]
The Swedish domination of the indie game development scene continues with Daniel Remar's Hero Core, a Metroid-style action shooter that is packed with rooms to explore, bosses to fight, suit upgrades to collect, and even cooler secrets to unlock. You play as Flip Hero, a man who is on a quest to defeat an evil machine warlord named Cruiser Tetron. Hero Core is also rather special because players are allowed to engage the final boss anytime they want to, although powering up the protagonist is essential if you want him to last more than a couple of seconds in the tense battle with his nemesis.
Don't be fooled by the lack of colors -- there's a lot of love put into Hero Core, and Brother Android's soundtrack for it only serves to elevate the experience to another level. You'll be humming to the music whenever you're not playing the game -- it's that good. Even better news is that both the game and the soundtrack are available to download from Daniel's site for free, so go grab it now and be ready to be transported back to an age when retro games were king.
1. Give Up Robot 2 (Matt Thorson) [Flash, freeware]
The original Give Up Robot introduced our grappling robotic hero, throwing him into a series of tough chambers with a sinister voice sneering throughout that he should give up his journey. It was a wonderfully psychedelic trip, although the swinging mechanic wasn't explored as fully as we would have hoped. Just four months later, developer Matt Thorson gave us the sequel -- and my, what a sequel it was. Not only did it address our issues with the original game, but it went much further, providing what is easily the indie gaming experience of the year.
Our little robot once again bobs along to the music, hooking onto scenery and swinging through the tightest of gaps. Everything about Give Up Robot 2 is magnificent, from the clever level design to the playful, bouncy soundtrack. There are plenty of homages to the Mario games, including blocks that churn out coins and clouds with faces, and the level of challenge is spot-on, such that players will die numerous times, yet never feel that the game is being unfair. Simply put, Give Up Robot 2 is pure, unadulterated fun.
Honorable mentions:
VVVVVV (Terry Cavanagh) - note: already appeared in last year's top 10 while in beta.
The Oil Blue (Vertigo Games)
Delve Deeper (Lunar Studios)
Epic Dungeon (Eyehook Games)
Space Funeral (thecatamites)
Recettear (Carpe Fulgur)
depict1 (Kyle Pulver and Alec Holowka)
Tower of Heaven (Askiisoft)
Towerclimb (Davioware)
Game Dev Story (Kairosoft)
Octodad (DePaul University Student Team)
Digital: A Love Story (Christine Love)
The Journey Down - Over the Edge (Theodor Waern)
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndependentGaming/~3/mU2we8xWKKQ/the_best_of_2010_top_10_indie.html
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