Posts tagged with “Boston”

Our good friends over at Owlchemy Labs have just come out with their new game, Snuggle Truck, for the iPhone and iPad. And it’s awesome! In the game you control the driver of a flatbed pickup filled with a bunch of cute stuffed animals, and speed up and slow down the truck by tilting the iDevice. As you zip around your truck bounces on the uneven ground and the cute animals can pop out. If all the animals fall out you lose! Every now and then a baby animal flies out and you have to catch it, doing so gets you a rocket boost.

The game is super fun and feels like a mobile version of one of our favorite games, Trials HD. It’s silly, fun, frequently hard, and the kind of game that you’ll play over and over and share with your friends. And we’re not just saying that because Alex and Yilmaz are two of the most awesome Boston Indie developers (but they are, did we mention that?).

There’s also been a fair amount of silly, ginned up controversy over the game. Originally titled Smuggle Truck, you were supposed to help illegal immigrants cross the border to get into the US. The game was a parody based in part off their friends’ trouble immigrating here. However it got picked up a few months back by Fox News and a few others who didn’t understand that the game was satire and took it at face value, complaining that the game was corrupting teh childrens or something. The upshot of all this was that the original game got rejected by Apple despite being high quality and fun, and Owlchemy had to resubmit with the new title. It’s kind of ridiculous, but I suppose that any press is good press and at least they got a ton of coverage out of this.

Go check out the game now if you haven’t yet! They’ve also got a PC/Mac version if you don’t have a fancy iWhatever. Congrats Owlchemy!

Let’s check in on what’s happening with some of our friends in Boston, shall we?

Our good friends at Autobahn Games are now accepting pre-orders for their next title, “1… 2… 3… KICK IT! (Drop That Beat Like an Ugly Baby)“. In addition to consistently awesome game naming the DJ ban guys really know how to put together a fun experience, and their latest offering is no different. I’ve been playing pre-alpha builds for a while, and Kick It is kind of like a mash up of Aaaaa!, Rez, and AudioSurf. If you know any of those games then you’ll understand why I’m so excited about this game. Pre-ordering gets you an early playable alpha build now, and then you get constant updates as they come along. If you like being on the cutting edge of games I strongly suggesting picking it up!

But perhaps you aren’t into games about base jumping, and prefer a good old interactive fiction experience? In that case you should stop reading this post now and go play The Warbler’s Nest by Jason McIntosh. It is a very short old school IF game where…. well, you’ll just have to play it. The whole thing can be played in 10-15 minutes and it is super solid. I normally don’t care for the IF genre but after about 5 minutes I got really sucked in and couldn’t get enough, and the ending is absolutely fantastic. Go play it for free now!

Want more free games made by Boston devs? Well ok then! Exanaut is a explorative platformer (or to use the hip slang, “metroidvania-like”) by Matthew Fister. It’s a free download for Windows where you star as a space man with a jetpack and gun searching for… alien artifacts? I dunno, it’s not super plot heavy. The game is a bit rough around the edges as it is one of Matthew’s first games, and it’s pretty damn hard. I wound up enjoying it a lot more after editing the python files and giving myself tons of health, jetpack fuel, and a super high level gun.

Of course, not everything is cheery in Boston Indie Land, and I’m very sorry to announce the folding of one of our flagship indie studios, MacGuffin Games. Founder and local indie hero Scott McMillan wrote a farewell post detailing what happened, with the short of it being that Mustache Mercenaries didn’t perform nearly well enough to keep them afloat. Happily it looks like the MacGuffin team will be moving on to bigger and better things, so while we will be pouring out a bit of beer tonight at our local indie meet up we will also toast to their future success.

GP 4 CP, an annual charity drive to raise money for our friends at Child’s Play, is taking place this Saturday at 7PM in the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge. Food will be eaten, raffles will be won, and games will be played! We’re bringing a copy of Slam Bolt Scrappers for people to check out, and we’re also contributing two copies of SBS to the auction. So, if you decide to join us, you’ll be helping out a good cause and have a chance to WIN A GAME THAT HASN’T EVEN COME OUT YET! SWEET!

Here’s the details:
Saturday, December 4th, 7:00 – 11:00 pm
Microsoft NERD Lounge
1 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142
Info@gp4cp.org

http://www.gp4cp.org/

We hope to see you there!

Remember when games were hard? No hand holding, no tutorials, just throw-you-in-the-mix-and-let-you-figure-it-out hard? TerRover, by Creat Studios, is a new game out on the PSN ($15) that is hard like that, and in an awesome way. You control a cute little tank, and your only goal in life is to navigate the level and get from start to finish. Of course your path is blocked by lots of sharp things that kill you, but luckily the game provides lots of save points so if you die you are only set back a little ways. And that’s great, cause you’re gonna die a LOT. The controls of the game are what’s really difficult though – you can flip around in all sorts of ways, and between that and the bouncy physics you are frequently surprised by where you end up.

Now I’ve seen some reviews online bashing the controls, but in my opinion they are totally looking at them the wrong way. The controls are hilarious, and you wind up having an awesome time messing around with them (remember, we loved QWOP). Sure, they can be frustrating at times, but if you go with the flow you will find yourself laughing and having fun a lot more than anything else. And when you do get over that challenge hump or past that insane spikey ball of death you have a great feeling of accomplishment.

However, the game has one stellar feature which far and away outshines everything else. The multiplayer race mode in which 1-4 friends can race together is FANTASTIC. I haven’t yelled, screamed, and laughed so much with my friends since WarioWare. The race is really amusing, with people dying left and right, respawning at odd points, and just general mayhem. This feature alone makes the game worth purchasing, and I *strongly* recommend playing this with friends. If you at all like party games and/or hard games, I promise you you’ll love this one.

Full Disclosure: We hung out with the Creat guys @ E3 in the SOE booth and they are local Boston indie devs, so we’re friends with them. That said this review is impartial and not influenced by that friendship.

We just got back from PAX, and the response was absolutely incredible. We got a mention on Penny Arcade, we were interviewed by Gamespot, we got a ton of press, and my panel on indie games went amazingly well. We couldn’t have asked for a better show.

However I need to take a step back and say that ALL of that pales in comparison to getting to spend three days on the showroom floor with real gamers playing Slam Bolt Scrappers for the first time. The PAX community is unbelievable; you guys came and literally attacked our game, and watching the gigantic smile on your face when you built up that 4×4 mega death laser of doom was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. We saw parents and their young kids teaming up with young and old couples eager to take on giant robots and flying chicken riders, and I couldn’t even keep up with all the amazing feedback we were getting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; PAX is my favorite show because of the fans.

So THANK YOU, everyone who came to good ol’ booth 3834 and played SBS this past weekend. If you’re here for the first time (and who am I kidding? You probably are) be sure to check back over the next few days, we’ll have daily posts with pictures from the show, video and art from the game, and of course slides from the talk I gave with Dylan, Robin, Andy, and Nathan. If you can’t wait and want to see pictures NOW then I highly recommend checking us out on the facebooks and the twitters, where a lot of this stuff is up already.

Man, I miss Seattle already! Can’t wait to see you in 6 months on our turf!