December 2015 | Issue 56 Sneak Peek – The Android Saga

We’re capping off 2015 with bright lights and pretty neon colors.

We’re capping off 2015 with bright lights and pretty neon colors. It’s the holiday season, and while P.A.M.E.L.A. may not be the most festive of games, it’s certainly pretty to look at… at least until the power goes out. Our cover story dives deep into the city of Eden, a fallen paradise now filled with dark dangers. Can you survive the horror?

If sci-fi survival isn’t your style, perhaps the open wilderness will make you feel at home. Our Savage Lands subfeature takes a look at how players must fight to survive the harsh conditions of an unforgiving landscape. Oh, and there’s a dragon. A big dragon.

Plus, we’ve got a major announcement concerning one our Game Watch titles, Lost Ember . Find out what’s in store for the wolf among us in our latest project update. On a more personal note, the December issue of IGM is going to be my last. I’ve been offered a position elsewhere, and as a result I must step down from my Editor-in-Chief duties at IGM. It has been a fantastic two years, and I hope this issue serves as a fitting capstone to an amazing chapter of the Indie Game Magazine. I look forward to being a subscriber for a chance, eagerly anticipating each month’s new content. For now, take a look at this month’s Sneak Peek:

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“In order to survive the harsh new landscape of Eden, players will have a few primary tools at their disposal. The most unique among them is the AARM. The AARM is a mutli-functional tool that serves as a weapon, survival kit, and HUD for players to access their inventory and stats. The team admits the process of developing the UI for the AARM has been a long and delicate road. After multiple iterations, Simonar mentioned that “The current implementation of our AARM UI evolved over a long period of trial and error. We knew we wanted to do our UI in a way that was highly immersive, in the world so to speak, one great example of such being Dead Space of course. Getting this to actually work in a first-person perspective on the other hand was quite an interesting challenge.”

So far, the one thing the devs have settled on is that players must be able to access the AARM in real-time, without pausing the game. On top of this, they stated that “We are also using a full body awareness system in P.A.M.E.L.A., which means that we can’t really fake anything. The earliest versions of the UI were drawings over the top of photos we took of our arms, and over time it grew from there. The main idea behind this system is that the player is never taken out of the game world; you always retain peripheral vision, and often times you’re even able to move and look around while in the menu. We wanted it to feel almost like checking your watch or phone, where it’s an organic thing that you can do to get a quick glance at your status. You can of course dig deeper into logs and equipment, but it all branches from the same hub. We’re pretty happy with how it has developed so far.” For more on the AARM and its numerous functions, be sure to read the developer interview that accompanies this feature.”

As always, below you’ll find a look at this month’s Front Cover (click to enlarge) and a listing of some additional content found this issue.

Also Featured this Month : An in-depth interview with Playfab. The landscape of both mobile games and the free-to-play market in general has changed dramatically over the past few years. We sat down with Playfab to discuss the recent addition of their European division, and why “live games” are the future of free-to-play.

Reviewed this Month : RPG Maker MV, Deathstate, Pulse, The Dwarf Run, PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate, Rebel Galaxy

Previewed this Month : Epsilon, Descent: Underground, Knight Squad, Game Tycoon 2

Extended Previews this Month : Divinia Chronicles, Energy Hook

Indie Ads this month :