Shoot living bullets with more bullets in Enter the Gungeon

It's been a long time since we saw Enter the Gungeon at The PC Gaming Show at E3 , and since then the game has got substantially bigger.

, and since then the game has got substantially bigger. I just played the latest build with developer Dave Crooks at PAX South, and I really can't wait to spend more time with it when it releases this Spring. You can watch my interview with Crooks above, and see how far it's come from the E3 demo here.

Aliens: Infestation hands-on preview

More than 25 years ago, Ridley Scott’s Alien hugely inspired the original NES Metroid. The parasitic monsters and claustrophobic alien world of the film translated perfectly into Nintendo’s moody sci-fi adventure, and years later, in Super Metroid, the tonal and atmospheric parallels between the two became even clearer. Today, the inspiration has come full circle, as developer WayForward is using Metroid

SellSwords Brings Monks, Demons, and Assassins Together as a Team

One of the newest indie games to try their hand at a Kickstarter campaign is SellSwords , a Metroidvania action RPG being developed by Flying Squirrel.

a Metroidvania action RPG being developed by Flying Squirrel. In it, four characters are used in succession by the player to progress through a series of procedurally-generated dungeons (similar to the mechanic in The Cave ). These characters are Bergamus (tank), Rea (berserker), Tsewang (the protector), and Gael (stealth). These dungeons, through which the player must navigate, are located in Kaliria, and by using the unique skills of all four characters, you can choose your path to reach the goal. There are many paths that lead to a common end, and the only wrong way is to not try.

Tsewang, the monk

In addition to the gameplay, there are special items that can be collected for recipes – once all of the required items have been acquired, the player takes them to a blacksmith, who will forge the special item for you, complete with stats and a description of how the item will benefit you. New and better items can be crafted, either by finding more materials, or by improving upon what you already have. There is, however, a chance that attempting to improve an item you’re already carrying can fail, much like trying to enchant items in Torchlight .

The character-switching mechanic

The reward tiers range from $10 (early bird, digital copy of the game), to $2,000 (too many items to list!). At the $20-$165 tiers, in addition to the game rewards, your pledge will earn you a single digital issue of The Indie Game Magazine, packed full of news, reviews, previews, and interviews. Once you hit $250 and above, you’ve got a package chock full of multiple items from previous tiers (4 copies of the game, 2 tee shirts, etc.), and a full year’s subscription to The Indie Game Magazine. The estimated release date of SellSwords is in March 2015, and the goal for this campaign is $60,000. For all backers who pledge on tiers that include tee shirts, skins, etc., these items are a Kickstarter exclusive and will not be available once the campaign has ended.

Check out the Kickstarter campaignto see the tiers, rewards, and character descriptions/biographies. You can “like” the SellSwords Facebook page, follow it on Twitter, or read the Flying Squirrel devblogto keep up with the game’s production.

Heroes of the Storm interview: maps, modes, and two-player heroes

During BlizzCon I sat down with Heroes of the Storm game director Dustin Browder and senior artist Phill Gonzales to discuss Arena mode, the new map, and the convoluted process that led to the creation of a two-player MOBA hero .

. Plus! Fleshing out the Nexus universe, what happens if Abathur clones Cho'gall, and more.

We started a riot and killed a Greek god in Okhlos

I had never heard of Okhlos before playing it at PAX South today, but it quickly got my attention.

today, but it quickly got my attention. It plays sort of like a twin-stick shooter, but instead of aiming a gun you're directing an ever growing mob of angry, Greek citizens that continues to grow more raucous until they are able to level buildings and kill the gods themselves. I spoke with developer Roque Rey Ordonez to learn more about Okhlos—watch the whole interview above.

Aliens: Infestation coming to DS, so you can kill xenomorphs in lovely 2D

Remember when we said the DS isn%26rsquo;t dead yet ? It turns out in its near-death state it%26rsquo;s incubating a killer alien, meaning at some point the handheld was hit with a facehugger when we weren%26rsquo;t looking. That may mean the system will be dead soon, but not before a new xenomorph adventure explodes from its chest in the form of Aliens: Infestation. Planned for a September 2011 release

SEGA Announces the SEGA Alliance: ‘Jack Lumber’ Launches First

You may recall our report a while back of indie title Jack Lumber by Owlchemy Labs .

. Well the good news is it has just recently launched on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, but that’s not all. Jack Lumber is the now officially the first title off the ranks of Sega’s new publishing initiative for independent mobile developers, branded the Sega Alliance .

This new program allows SEGA to not only aid developers in publishing their titles but also provide marketing, production and creative support. While no other partnerships have been announced as yet, Alex Schwartz, Chief Scientist at Owlchemy Labs , believes the joint venture allows the team to introduce the game to a much wider audience than originally anticipated. That can only be a good thing for sure.

Jack Lumber itself sees the supernatural hero chopping his way through various levels of action, though without the typical IOS style swiping along the touch screen like, say, Fruit Ninja . Instead, you must draw your way through logs of the forests, taking advantage of Jack’s unique abilities in order to avenge the death of his granny.

You can purchase Jack Lumber via the iTunes store right nowwith a special discounted launch price of $0.99. The game will also be on show at SEGA’s booth at the upcoming Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle, WA. For more info on the SEGA Alliance, you can visit SEGA’s official blog right here. You can also check out more info on the game via it’s official websiteor via Owlchemy Labs’ Facebook page.

Overwatch interview: beta results, balance changes, and payment model plans

BlizzCon brought a whole lot of news for the latest addition to Blizzard's line-up, Overwatch .

. We learned a release date, a price (meaning we also learned it won't be free to play), saw a new map and three new heroes, and much more about the story and universe. I sat down with Game Director Jeff Kaplan and Creative Director Chris Metzen to discuss how the beta's been going so far, why they went with this payment model, what future contentmight look like, and much more. Watch the video above to see our full conversation.

Broforce's Ballad of Rambro is an anthem to unite all freedom-loving bros

It was over a year ago that we rustled up an Early Access review of Broforce , the machismo-soaked side-scrolling massacre simulator from the star-spangled stand up guys at Free Lives and Devolver Digital.

, the machismo-soaked side-scrolling massacre simulator from the star-spangled stand up guys at Free Lives and Devolver Digital. There have been a couple of fairly significant updates since then, one bringing us an Alien Infestationand the other, simple, glorious Freedom. Somehow, it's remained in Early Accessthrough all that—a situation which is about to change. And to celebrate the magic moment, Devolver has released what may be the most 'merican promotional video of all time: The Ballad of Rambro.

The full release of Broforce will include a new set of campaign missions pitting the bro-team against Satan. Yes, that Satan. Anyone who purchases the game during the Early Access period will also get the ultra-patriotic Freedom EP, which contains five tracks including the Broforce theme song and the full version of The Ballad of Rambro.

Broforce will come out of Early Access on October 15. Enjoy the music, bro.

PlayStation Move Heroes hands-on preview

Originally dubbed Heroes on the Move, Sony’s motion-controlled mascot mash-up was later renamed PlayStation Move Heroes, probably to keep confusion at a minimum. Where the previous title may have left some wondering if it was actually a full-on platformer showcasing six of their favorite Sony stars, there’s no longer any doubt it’s specifically being created with the publisher’s Wii-like motion tech

Panda Quest’ Is Now Free Of Charge

‘Panda Quest’ Is Now Free Of Charge
Everyone likes free games, right?

Everyone likes free games, right? (For those of you who answered “no” just to spite me, I feel sufficiently spited. Now continue reading.) The majority of us do in fact enjoy adding Apps to our App collection, especially when they are free. So allow me to introduce to you a platformer-shooter named Panda Quest- Ep. 1 Dragon Invasion, which has been recently numbered among the freebies.

Panda Quest involves helping a panda defend its bamboo forest against dragons as it attempts to make its way to its pagoda in the clouds. Luckily, our panda friend is not foolish enough to take on hoards of dragons empty-pawed. This panda has access to guns, and it knows how to use them. Utilizing a massive arsenal of weaponry as well as spectacular jumping and platforming skills, the panda shall strive to fend off the draconic hordes and protect the forest. But not just any forests— dynamically-created, ever-changing forests of doom!

This game of pandas, dragons, and guns was created by Andre Khromov for the App Store Christmas 2011. Unfortunately, it got buried alive in the Christmas shuffle and flew straight under the radar. So Mr. Khromov decided to drop the game down to the low, low price of free for you lovely App Store consumers. No ads, no in App purchases. Now is the perfect time to snag it if you’re looking for a new game.

If the game begins getting some love, the developer plans to add some updates and extra content. A Mac, Windows, and Android version ay eventually be created as well. How far Panda Quest goes depends on how much love it gets.

The iTunes page for Panda Quest can be viewed here. It can be played on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Go check it out while it’s still free!

Devolver Digital is having a Steam sale

If you don't already own Shadow Warrior, Hotline Miami or, most importantly, Hatoful Boyfriend, then now's the time to snap them up.

shadow warrior

If you don't already own Shadow Warrior, Hotline Miami or, most importantly, Hatoful Boyfriend, then now's the time to snap them up. Devolver Digital is having a weekend long sale on most of its Steam games, with 90 percent off some titles. That means you can get Serious Sam 3 for a measly $3.99, or The Talos Principle for $13.59 (its expansion is there too, which comes with the Chris Thursten seal of approval).

It's also a decent opportunity to get OlliOlli 2, which finally launched for PC this week. You might also want to catch up on Shadow Warrior before its sequel arrives next year– it's only $3.99. The full sale listing is over here.

PlayStation Move Heroes ships March 22, pre-order bonus revealed

Based on my amazing performance in Kung Fu Rider, I already consider myself a PlayStation Move hero, but these crazy characters are apparently the "true" PlayStation Move Heroes, and they're coming to your PS3 on March 22. Such iconic PlayStation mascots as Ratchet %26amp; Clank, Jak %26amp; Daxter, Sly Cooper, and Bentley are all coming together for a new motion-controlled platforming experience which

Dropsy is today's most messed up trailer

Fuuuuuuuu!

Fuuuuuuuu! What did I just watch? Is this it? Is this the big breakdown?

Not quite. This is just Dropsy, a mute clown with no hands, a horrific smile, and a burning (and, apparently, entirely innocent) desire to hug everyone he meets. It's been a while since we last heard from the cheese dream clown. His game was successfully Kickstartedin late 2013 to the tune of $25,000, and we took a bit of a closer look at it shortly thereafter in an interview with creator Jay Tholen, in which he said, "Loving the unlovable is one of the game's most prominent themes."

Things have been fairly quiet on the Dropsy front since then, but today, publisher Devolver Digital announced that Dropsy will bring his "non-traditional take on the classic point and click adventure formula" to Steamand elsewhere on September 10.

Rather than following a conventionally linear narrative, Dropsy's story takes place in an open world, allowing players to explore and take on the plot and puzzles however they choose, as they lead the clown on a quest to clear his name after a deadly circus fire.

"Dropsy takes players on a self-aware journey of self-discovery with a story that harnesses powerful themes of love and redemption—Dropsy the character is an outsider, longing for a community to call his own," Devolver wrote in the launch date announcement. "Along his adventure, players will find answers to geographically based puzzles, unravel dark and shameful secrets from his past, and collect fancy items to stuff in his elastic waistband for use along the way."

Capping it all off is this trailer, which is almost unspeakably bizarre but also really makes me want to play this thing. I guess that means it's good? It's sure something, anyway. I don't think I can articulate it any better than that. Hugs!

New PlayStation Move Heroes screens bring Sony's mascots out to play

Sony has released more screenshots from its all-star mascot mash-up, PlayStation Move Heroes (formerly titled 'Heroes on the Move'). They feature the likes of Jak, Dexter, Ratchet, Clank, Sly and his sidekick Betley in whatmay be the first'must-have' title designed specificallyfor Move. Initially revealed at E3 2010 as Heroes on the Move, the cooperative platformer will have players controlling the

Battle Fleet 2 Review – Naval Combat Simulator with Depth

Today, Capital J Media released the sequel to their hit game, Battle Fleet, a turn-based naval combat simulator.

a turn-based naval combat simulator. Set in the Pacific Theater during World War II, Battle Fleet 2 give players the chance to combat the computer or friends using different types of ships from the war, each with a wide variety of weapons and possible actions.

The core of the gameplay for Battle Fleet 2 is the turn-based naval combat system. Each battle is split into separate turns for each individual ship participating in the battle. The order of these turns depends on the experience level of the Captain, which is dependent on the number of sunken ships and battles on record. Each turn, players can choose to move their ship, attack with any and all weapons, or both. Both are controlled similarly by choosing a direction within the 360-degree circle. The turning range depends on where the ship is facing, and the type of weapon being used; standard turrets for example, will have a wider turning range than torpedo launchers. Players must then choose the amount of power to devote to that action. More power will send the ship, or the shot, further in the chosen direction. Movement is the only option that allows for a negative power level, which represents moving the ship backward. It should also be noted that if players use a small amount of power for the ship’s movement in that turn, they can make a sharper turn.

Players can choose to move, attack, or review the stats of the current ship

As you might guess, the goal of each battle is to sink all of the enemy ships by dealing enough damage to bring their HP to zero. However, the naval simulator offers several more details and interesting features to make combat interesting. For starters, each ship is split into four different, important areas: Those areas include the Bridge, Engines, Ammunition, and Rudder. If any of these areas are destroyed by a single shot, the ship may still float, but it will be severely crippled by the damage. Without an engine or a rudder, the ship will simply float in the ocean like a sitting duck, or be forced to move in a straight line. If the bridge is destroyed, the ship will lose a turn as it recovers it’s chain of command, and losing ammunition limits the total number of shots.

There are also different available weapons for each ship, different ships to choose from, and a few random power ups that can be picked up during battle. The list of weapons is short but varied in their ranges and powers. Turrets provide long range attacks with relatively medium to low damage, and can be inaccurate. Torpedoes are simple to use and aim with and do a lot of damage but have a short range that requires ships to get in close. Carriers allow players to call in air strikes using their fighter-bombers, which can provide multiple damaging hits from any range, as long as the enemy ship is visible. In the event that the ship is hidden by a fog of war, some ships can also use planes to provide recon over an area of the map. Ships can also carry Anti-Aircraft cannons that automatically fire when an air strike is occurring against the ship, or nearby. The inclusion of power cards provides an added level of strategy, as these grant special abilities such as increased range, creating a minefield in a specific area, or even providing immediate repairs.

The types of ships include Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, and Carriers. The bigger ships are more expensive and require more prestige to purchase, but also tend to have a wider array of available weapons or special abilities that can offer an advantage in battle. Unfortunately, to my disappointment, the list of ships does not include the submarine. This is unfortunate, since Battle Fleet 2 would only benefit further from the further strategic depth provided by this unique ship.

Battle Fleet 2 offers a few different game modes for single player, they include Custom Battle, Quick Battle, and Campaign. Custom and quick battles put players right into the action of a single naval battle. For both modes, players choose the number of prestige points to determine the size and strength of each fleet. Higher numbers will not only mean more ships, but a more powerful ship as well, such as a Battleship or a Carrier. Players can also determine what map to do battle in, which range from the Pacific Ocean with no obstacles, to key naval battle and strategic areas of the war, such as Okinawa, Wake Island, and Midway. Different features and land masses can block lines of sight, effectively hiding enemy ships from view without a recon aircraft. Custom battles incorporate this, but also allow players to choose what types of ship will make up their fleet, and can edit the weapons configuration of their ship. Custom battle also allows players to choose the Captain for each ship by offering a pool of experience. Captains with more experience will allow the ship to take a turn sooner in the lineup.

Ships can have a different configuration of weapons to suit the player’s strategic needs

Campaign mode is a longer game that puts players in charge of the United States or Japanese Navy during the Pacific Theater of the second World War. Players will need to build and manage their fleet while protecting and expanding their territories. Campaign mode requires many battles, and provides a macro-managing element to the game.

Battle Fleet 2 also offers a multiplayer option that allows for a wider variety of intense gameplay. This is the mode of gameplay that Capital J Media is most excited for, since players can improve quickly in the midst of battle, and strategies can shift and adapt instantly. These battles are generally exciting, and depending on the layout of each fleet, very close. I was able to play in a match in which both fleets had a Battleship and a number of smaller ships to provide firepower. The battle got close, and both battleships were eventually sunk. I lost, but it was a really intense match.

The graphics for the game are impressive, and are a vast improvement over the game’s predecessor. The visuals allow for a detailed look at the moving waves in the ocean, and the intricate details of each ship. The ship will even show superficial damage as it takes more damage, or when a turret or important area is destroyed by a direct hit. This level of detail makes it feel like even attacks that don’t hit any major areas of a ship are causing an effect.

Battle Fleet 2 ‘s soundtrack provides a dramatic military theme that fits easily with the naval combat and the World War II setting. Now there isn’t a lot of variety within this soundtrack, so it will feel repetitive to those players who don’t get hooked into the epic drama of this style of slow-moving, strategic gameplay.

Matches can go for a long time. A decent battle between 10 or more ships can easily take up to an hour. The campaign mode is significantly longer, and tends to move at a slower pace. There’s quite a bit of replay value though, as there are a significant number of different fleet combinations and weapon configurations that players can try out. Different maps and enemy fleet formations will also require varied strategies, so every game tends to feel different. This is especially true for multiplayer matches, where different opponents will encounter new and unexpected strategies, and test their mettle against each other.

Battle Fleet 2 is a lot of fun to play, and the controls are easy to use and get used to. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to accurately guessing the right amount of power needed to hit a target, but the game also provides a helpful tool for this. Each ship, when players decide it’s time to attack, will be surrounded by two circles, one that reaches the maximum range of the weapon, and one that reaches the center range. Multiplayer can also be tweaked to provide a standard range of 2000, which appears no matter what weapon is chosen.

The experience provides a lot of innovation to an old genre of gameplay that some might not even remember. Compared to the old Tanks game, Battle Fleet 2 incorporates different weaponry, movement, obstacles for cannons and line of sight, key areas on each ship, and a large degree of customization. This provides players with all the pieces needed to develop many different strategies to implement in different combat scenarios.

The game is available for iOSand Androidmobile devices for $4.99, and also Macand PCfor $9.99. The price point is worth the buy, especially for those who have friends who are similarly interested in playing Battle Fleet 2. Matches with the same person will likely never turn out the same way, giving this game a great deal of depth and long-lasting potential.

Payday 2 is getting medieval weapons courtesy of Chivalry

A week after confirmation that Rocket League will get special Chivalry: Medieval Warfare flags and decals, comes news that Payday 2 will get a similar (though more substantial) crossover.

that Rocket League will get special Chivalry: Medieval Warfare flags and decals, comes news that Payday 2 will get a similar (though more substantial) crossover. Dubbed the Gage Chivalry Pack, the $4.99 DLC adds all manner of medieval weaponry to Payday 2, which is great, because now you can shiv robbers with swords instead of, you know, shooting them.

Available on September 10, the video above features cops and robbers smited by swords, shields, spears, crossbows and maces. More definitively, you get three ranged weapons, one throwing weapon, four melee weapons and masks, as well as new achievements, patterns and materials. Why not, I guess.

StarCraft: Ghost proves it's very much alive

Page 1 of 2: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2 The Marie Celeste of gaming has heaved into view again with two new multiplayer screens from that piece of spectral software, Starcraft: Ghost . 1 2 Current page: Page 1 Next Page Page 2 Topics Action Starcraft: Ghost We recommend By Zergnet Load Comments

Sunless Sea Steam Greenlight Campaign Launched

The game is set in the dark world of Fallen London with a large, ever changing map dominated by steamships and loneliness.

Failbetter Games have announced a Steam Greenlight campaign for their most recent project, Sunless Sea. Surpassing their initial goal on Kickstarter, they now have their sights set on Steam.

with a large, ever changing map dominated by steamships and loneliness. Players will journey across a vast and ever changing underground ocean where loot and dangers lie within the outer lying darkness. While some locations will always be where they are expected, others will be in a varying locations with every new playthrough. A unique combination of features include the same dire consequences as roguelike games, backed by the choice-based storytelling that has brought Fallen London to fame; Players can learn of each crew member’s dark past, but risk losing their own minds in the process, potentially choosing to eat fallen members for their own, sanity-deprived survival. Only the bravest and cunning will survive out in the darkness and claim the treasure that lies in wait.

Sunless Sea is available for pre-order – via Humble Bundle – on the game’s website, with a 15% discount off of launch price. Those that are interested in helping bring this unique sanity-challenging, sea-faring game to Steam, can head on over to the Greenlight page.

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare gets another free Steam weekend and slashed prices

The excellent indie medieval melee game Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is calling up its bannermen and raising new armies with a combination Steam deal and free play weekend.

is calling up its bannermen and raising new armies with a combination Steam deal and free play weekend. From right now until May 27, Chivalry is 66% off, and you can download the full game for free and play all weekend before you decide to buy it.

Developer Torn Banner has been pushing out free new content and huge patches this year, and the still-thriving player base shows that the customers appreciate it. This isn't the first free weekend and mega-sale to rally the troops, and it probably won't be the last.

Adding to the long-term value of the game will be mod tools that are in the works. We've already thoroughly enjoyed the low-gravity mod , which turned both sides into high-flying, screaming moonwalkers with swords.

If you haven't hopped into Chivalry before, I really recommend it. You'll enjoy some insane moments of power that can only come from smashing someone in the face with a warhammer, and thickest parts of the melee will feature more flesh wounds than a Monty Python-themed LARP excursion.

The sale begins right now and runs until Monday, while the free download and access runs from now until Sunday. Check it out, and don't forget to protect your neck.

StarCraft: Ghost on hold

After more than four years in the making, Blizzard has announced that it has indefinitely postponed production of its tactical action game StarCraft: Ghost , which was due to appear on PS2 and Xbox later this year. Blizzard points to its desire to "focus the company's console development efforts on the next generation of console platforms" as the reason behind the decision, and that over the coming

Orion Trail: warp weasels, psychic yetis, and space farts

Warp weasels.

Warp weasels. Why did it have to be warp weasels?

As any dashing and resourceful starship captain can tell you, the vast emptiness of outer space is not nearly as empty as you'd expect. It's overstuffed, in fact, with hostile aliens, space pirates, energy beings, dimensional rifts, evil robots, telepathic monsters, and of course, a horrifying array of deadly and disgusting space diseases.

Orion Trail

Orion Trailis certainly no exception. It's currently in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign, and as of today it's about a third of the way to its goal. The prototype of the comedy sci-fi game, which you can play for free in your browser, is closer to Galaxy Quest than Star Trek and more Choose Your Own Adventure than FTL. After selecting a captain, officers, and a ship, all with varying scores in attributes like tactics, diplomacy, science, and bravado, you must survive a westward trek across your screen while managing food, fuel, crew size, and ship integrity. Along the way, you make your best guess as to how to deal with the randomized encounters routinely teleported into your space-lap.

Warp weasels, for instance. My ship was infested with them in an earlier (failed) voyage, and based on my crew's attributes, I assigned my science team to deal with them. They chose to use a prototype weasel spray, but after failing a dice roll, they accidentally used a weasel aphrodisiac . This sent the weasels into an amorous frenzy, resulting in a number of holes being punched (or perhaps humped) in the ship's hull. Thanks, science team!

Orion Trail

How to handle them this time? Try to shoot them? Attempt to domesticate them? With my current crew, my science rating is still my best bet, so I reluctantly hand the decision over to my biotech team. This time they decide to release a fungus into the ship's air vents. It kills the weasels handily, but the fungus also wipes out all of our elderly crew members. Partial success, then. We've lost a portion of the crew, but gained some food (because we roast and eat the dead weasels).

Alas: I have 99 space problems, and warp weasels are just one. Earlier, my ship's computer became self-aware (as computers tend to) and wanted to abandon the mission, thinking it had nothing more to learn from humans. How to convince it to stay? Well, I fed my crew a supply of spicy nutri-paste, leading to ship-wide flatulence, and the computer, unable to determine why flatulence is so funny to humans, decided it still had a thing or two to learn and remained on board. We lost food (by stuffing ourselves with all that paste) but gained a few points of bravado for designing such a bold, fart-based plan. Kirk would have done the same, I bet. Picard? Probably not. He probably has his farts discreetly beamed out of his body and into a black hole.

Later, while visiting a space colony, we discovered the population was under the control of a psychic alien yeti. After a negotiation, the brain beast was willing to release a few colonists, which we added to our crew, in exchange for some childhood memories for the yeti to chew on. Works for me. The less I remember about my childhood, the better.

Orion Trail

I've seen a monster lurking in a black hole, I've traveled back in time to correct my past mistakes, I've engaged in a little shipboard romance, and several times my crew has come down with a nasty case of Tentacles Growing Out Of Them. We even once ran into a version of ourselves from an alternate dimension. They were evil, naturally, but seeing as how most of my crew was also evil, they wound up joining our mirror-world counterparts and ditching me. All in a day's space work, I suppose. It's just a shame that, time after time, the day's space work comes to an end by starving to death, running out of fuel, or losing my entire crew to various disasters.

Finally, I hit a run of good luck. A few favorable dice-rolls, a series of challenges my crew is well-equipped to handle, and a lack of warp weasels means I actually reach the left edge of the screen. I complete my mission with food to spare, just enough fuel, my ship only missing half its hull, and while my crew has no doubt gained some terrible memories (or surrendered some fond ones to the psychic yeti), many of them are in a state that can be described as 'not dead'. In the vastness of not-at-all-empty space, that's the best a captain can hope for.

You can choose your own space adventure with Orion Trail's prototype here, captain.

Orion Trail

Check out this hilarious game from RuneStorm's internal game jam

Rooks Keep developer RuneStorm recently held a 10-day, internal game jam.

developer RuneStorm recently held a 10-day, internal game jam. They were so impressed (and amused) with the results they've elected to share it with an audience.

The game, Viscera Cleanup Detail , is a first-person "space-station janitor simulator," a sort of parodic take on the kinds of messes left by other sci-fi games' action heroes. Built with the Unreal SDK, the game is currently in alpha and a little rough around the edges, but charming (and gross) all the same.

Internal game jams are picking up as team-building and creativity exercises for developers, and it's interesting to see the products of these internal jams released as concepts or even prospective commercial products.

You can read more about Viscera or download the alpha here.

Potatoman Seeks the Troof Puts a Question Mark on Platforming

It’s time to introduce you to a new branch of study.

It’s time to introduce you to a new branch of study. Potatosophy is officially a thing thanks to Pixeljam Games.

In Potatoman Seeks the Troof , the titular star embarks on a “potatosophical” adventure full of “masochistic, humorous zen.” Essentially, the game has Potatoman platform and face crazy, random dangers as he jumps and leaps out of their way. Be it falling eggs that release birds, cars that crash with each other, potato pancakes, or even squirrels and star tetrahedrons.

In simpler words, Potatoman Seeks the Troof wants to test both your platforming reflexes and your worldview, containing unique perspectives on everything regarding potatoes. Traveling through deserts, cities, and forests, he seeks to answer the enigma that is Troof.

The potatoventure has been an honorable mention at the 2014 Independent Game Festival and an Official Selection of Indie Cade 2013.

Are you prepared to face the Troof? Potatoman Seeks the Troof is arriving on Steamthis December 3rd, with a $3.99 price tag. It will be available for PC, Mac, Linux, and Ouya.

And if you’re interested in a slightly more off beat trailer for the game, check out this live action production.

Test Chamber – The Last Of Us

We've been excited about Naughty Dog's grim, post-apocalyptic The Last of Us since we blew the lid open on the game with our cover story .

. The game is out ( read our review), and it's a a subtle, earnest, intense journey that sets a new high watermark for game storytelling. In all our excitement, we forgot to show off the game in a Test Chamber preview.

Warning, there are slight spoilers in the video below:

Joel and Ellie travel to a university campus on horseback. The two rummage through spore-infested dormitories and an improvised safe zone, hunting for something we're keeping vague in case you'd like to focus on the gorgeous visuals and visceral gameplay. Join Dan Ryckert, Andrew Reiner, and myself for this brief look into a game that's guaranteed to hover near the top of countless game of the year lists.

If you've finished The Last of Us, check out our discussion of major plot points on an episode of Spoiled.

Watch every episode of Test Chamber in our hub by clicking here.

Defuse bombs with friends in Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes

We mentioned Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes at the start of last year , back when it was just a wee game jam baby.

baby. The full version comes out on Steamtomorrow.

Unsurprisingly, it's a game about talking: one player has to desperately describe a bomb to the other players, who are the only ones with the instructions to disarm it.

Which, simply put, sounds brilliant. While I've no doubt it'll be at its best with an Oculus rift, VR is completely optional. I do like a good bomb defusing movie scene, and now I finally get to recreate them with all the tension and pressure that videogames can provide. It's so perfect I'm surprised no ones made a co-op bomb disposal game before.

Here's a full game on hardcore mode, played by scarily competent people who could probably defuse actual bombs.

Gran Designs - Day Five: Gran Turismo HD

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Zynga takes the first step toward real money gambling in the U.S.

Real money online gambling isn't legal in the United States (yet), but Zynga's banking on the idea that it will be, and has taken its first step toward becoming a legal online casino.

The company filed an application for what's called a "Preliminary Finding of Suitability" from the Nevada Gaming Control Board which, if granted, will allow players from within the state to bet on its games using real money.

This doesn't mean that Zynga will begin offering this service anytime soon. The company anticipates that the application process will take between 12 and 18 months to complete, and that's just to be qualified to apply for an actual gaming license.

It's a small step for the company, but an important one in its eventual goal of creating a business around real money gambling in the United States.

Zynga will begin operating real money gambling games in the UK early next year.

"As we’ve said previously, the broader U.S. market is an opportunity that’s further out on the horizon based on legislative developments, but we are preparing for a regulated market," the company said in a statement.

...

Jump to Section: Best Price Comments Pros Stellar presentation Excellent level design Just the right amount of hidden collectibles Cons Some minigames go a bit too long Lengthy (but infrequent) load times Cliffhanger ending Thieves can't really steal from other thieves--they can only liberate that which has already been stolen. Such is the practice of the eponymous raccoon thief in Sly Cooper: Thieves

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes in this experimental Oculus Rift game

In the the Global Game Jam, independent developers from around the world take 48 hours to make a game.

In the the Global Game Jam, independent developers from around the world take 48 hours to make a game. It's a great source for a ton of small projects with big ideas, often gutsy or silly. This year's bounty includes games about shadow puppets, " doing it," and a staggering 4291 other entries. It's impossible to sort through them all, but a game like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, which uses both the Oculus Rift and the Razer Hydra, is hard to miss.

The gist of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes might seem familiar if you've played Spaceteamon your mobile device. One player puts on the Oculus Rift and takes hold of the motion sensing Razer Hydra controls. He's locked in a room with a ticking time bomb, which only he can see. His friends have the instructions on how to defuse it, which recreates that action movie cliche of one person yelling instructions on which color wire to cut, while the other holds the wire cutter with sweaty, shaking hands.

It's just a very early prototype at this point (remember, it was made in only 48 hours), but it looks brilliant, if a little bit of an unrealistic proposition right now—The Oculus Rift isn't yet readily available to the average consumer. Though neither the Rift or Hydra are absolutely necessary to the experience, which is more about verbal communication between people than anything else.

Understandably, there is very little information about the game at the moment, but it seems like the team intends to keep developing it. You can sign up for email updates about Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes on its official website.

Gran Designs

There’s never a backlash when it comes to Gran Turismo - the public loves the series so much, it can get away with practically anything. Poor old Gran Turismo 4 was delayed a million times and wasn’t quite as online as Sony said it would be, but still we adored it and bought it without any fuss. Gran Turismo 3 should’ve been a PS2 launch game, but arrived two years later, but we didn’t care then either

Criminel’ Brings Noir Mystery to Mobile

‘Criminel’ Brings Noir Mystery to Mobile
Paris.

Paris. The city of lights. But every light casts a shadow, and in these shadows, the criminal element lurks like rats waiting for the cheese – or as they say in Paris, fromage . It takes a good detective to sniff out these rats, a detective who’s been hard-boiled like a farm-fresh egg – or as they say in Paris, Å“uf . I don’t know how they say that, because it looks hard to pronounce. But this is the city. Your city.

Welcome to the world of Criminel , a noir mystery recently released for mobile devices by British developer 4PM Games. As the detective, you’ll explore the dangerous streets of Paris in the year 1890 to solve a series of chilling murders. Take pictures with your handy camera, one of the first of its kind, and take notes in your ever-present notebook as you sniff out the clues. You’ll experience for yourself the early days of forensic investigating, and slowly unravel the conspiracy behind the murders. Can you find the killer before they find you?

Criminel is something very different for the App Store,” says Bojan Brbora, the founder of 4PM Games. “We like to think we’re going where few other developers have gone before with the look and gameplay of this title, we know we have created a unique world for gamers to explore and engage with and we’re really looking forward to getting it in their hands for the first time.” This is the developer’s debut title.

To develop Criminel , 4PM Games enlisted the help of the Wellcome Trust, an organization which seeks to facilitate medical breakthroughs by “supporting bright minds in science, the humanities, and sociel sciences.” The Trust is currently running a ‘Forensics Exhibition,’ which educates the public on how forensic science has influenced criminal investigations in the past hundred years. Through their partnership with 4PM Games, they are making Criminel available to play for everyone who attends the exhibition. “The Wellcome Collection forensics exhibition brilliantly explores the gruesome history of a discipline we are most familiar with through telelvision,” says Iain Dodgeon, the Creative Partnerships Manager of the Trust. “Playing Criminel lets you experience a key part of its evolution firsthand.”

The turn-of-the-century Parisian setting provides the background for a deep, authentic noir-style detective story. With AAA visuals and audio, Criminel promises an engaging experience for fans of both noir film and crime drama. It’s available from the Apple App Storefor £1.49, $1.99 USD, or €1.99 EU, and is compatible with devices equipped with iOS 7.0 or later. Please note that you must be at least 17 years old to purchase the game. Good luck, gumshoe.

...

Jump to Section: Best Price Comments Pros The colorless art style Some clever ideas About half the levels Cons Imprecise controls Not enough content The other half of the levels Escape Plan’s plot is about as light as they come – bondage-clad protagonists, Lil and Laarg, need to escape a series of black-and-white booby-trapped rooms while a mysterious villain attempts to thwart them. Granted, not much

Gran Designs - Day four: Gran Turismo 4

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A Story About My Uncle Reveal Trailer

The trailer shows off A Story About My Uncle’s killer art style, and teases its excellent narrative.

Gone North Gameshas revealed the first trailer for their game, A Story About My Uncle .

The game is a first-person platformer built with Unreal, slated for a summer release on Steam. The gameplay is centered around swinging and grappling through caverns. It is being published by Coffee Stain Studios, the same group of developers behind Goat Simulator , and Sanctum 1 and 2.

“We’re really excited to bring this game to Steam! At first we were skeptic to publish games we haven’t made ourselves, but once we tried out A Story About My Uncle , we were hooked! They really nailed the sense of speed, freedom and adventure in the game, and we can’t wait to bring this story-based, non-violent indie game to Steam,” Coffee Stain Studios stated in a press release.

The game started out as a university project, which eventually led to the formation of Gone North Games. A Story About My Uncle was previously nominated for Game of the Year at the 2012 Swedish Game Awards.

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes 7-minute speedrun

Brilliant though it is, Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is quite short considering its asking price. But quite how short depends on whether you know what you're doing or not. In fact, this video shows the game's main mission being completed by our own Guides Editor in just 7 minutes. That results in an S Rank, so feel free to use the technique for your own Trophy-hunting endeavours. Of course speedrunning is not an indicator of actual game length so don't think your money will only get you 10 minutes of enjoyment. Several staffers around the office have racked up 16 hours in Camp Omega already. That said, it is apparently possible to get the completion time down into the 5-minute margin. How fast can you do it? Let us know in the comments.

Chunks is the Vive's Minecraft from Rust dev Facepunch

Facepunch, the developer of Rust, has been working on Chunks for the HTC Vive for about 10 months.

Facepunch, the developer of Rust, has been working on Chunks for the HTC Vive for about 10 months. It is unashamedly Minecraft-like, to the degree that it was codenamed Vivecraft. But though Minecraft is a sure thing for the Rift, its future on the Vive is uncertain.

In Chunks, "you can build cities and monuments while you're the size of a giant, then shrink yourself to walk inside what you built." That excites me. The thought of exploring spaces built by my own fair hand almost convinced me to buy-in to VR before my bank balance got the better of me.

Chunks aims to differentiate itself from Minecraft in its moddability and shareability. Whatever you build can be shared via the Steam Workshop. Furthermore, the sandbox itself is written in the modding system—the source code for Chunk's tools is open and editable using C#.

Chunks

Like so many other creative sandboxes, Chunks is in Early Access, and Facepunch is frank about its condition. "It doesn’t have a shitload of stuff to keep you super engaged yet. There’s a bunch of quality of life stuff we need to do. Some menus are confusing. Some of the tool controls are confusing. We’re totally aware of all this stuff. But it’s cool and has a ton of potential. "

Facepunch ought to have learned a thing or two from the long development of Rust, however, so unless Mojang announces Minecraft for the Vive tomorrow, this block builder is likely your safest bet.

Gran Designs - Day two: Gran Turismo 2

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Music Platformer BeatBlasters III Marching on Steam

Play as Gina or Joey, two characters distinguished by their style of music and powers.

This Friday, Chainsawesome Gamesis celebrating their first Steam release with BeatBlasters III , a zany music-driven platformer.

Play as Gina or Joey, two characters distinguished by their style of music and powers. Combining offensive and defensive powers and jet boosts, musically end the existence of various foes. Recharge their musical batteries by tapping in rhythmic harmony with the tunes, and the used-up gauges replenish, leaving you temporarily defenseless. Complete levels to earn the trust of the locals, and then fight off pirates, cats, apes, and cowboys serving The Butcher, a villain who hates tunes and craves eternal silence.

Blast through several levels on your musical journey, slaying foes in a variety of stages in this all-age-friendly adventure. As you get great scores on the levels, which all feature unique battles, you can unlock eight different weapons to fuel your rhythmic spree.

Check out the trailer for BeatBlasters III above and look to the game this Friday the 21st on Steam.

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes 7-minute speedrun

Brilliant though it is, Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is quite short considering its asking price. But quite how short depends on whether you know what you're doing or not. In fact, this video shows the game's main mission being completed by our own Guides Editor in just 7 minutes. That results in an S Rank, so feel free to use the technique for your own Trophy-hunting endeavours. Of course speedrunning is not an indicator of actual game length so don't think your money will only get you 10 minutes of enjoyment. Several staffers around the office have racked up 16 hours in Camp Omega already. That said, it is apparently possible to get the completion time down into the 5-minute margin. How fast can you do it? Let us know in the comments.

HTC addresses the Vive's rocky launch

Neither the HTC Vive nor the Oculus Rift have had buttery launches.

HTC Vive box photo

Neither the HTC Vive nor the Oculus Rift have had buttery launches. The latter was hit by component shortage, while the Vive is mired in payment processing and shipping issues. HTC has stepped in to address the matter, acknowledging its own inconsistency in communicating with customers.

There were suspicions that headsets ordered via PayPal were shipping ahead of those bought by credit card. According to HTC this is not the case: orders are processed on a first in, first out basis. However, PayPal users are charged immediately whereas card purchases are charged once the Vive is sent. If you paid by card and the authorisation hold disappears before you receive any shipping information, HTC advises you to get in touch.

In some instances there was a balls-up with shipping. Customers who paid for express delivery received economy instead. All those affected will be refunded the difference within 5-10 business days of shipment.

Still more reassuring, HTC claims that there are currently no shipping delays. Your order will be sent in the month originally promised.

Gran Designs - Day three: Gran Turismo 3

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Kickstart This: Empyrean Rule Looks to Conquer Crowdfunding

Sandbox strategy lovers, get out your wallets.

Empyrean Rule: Rise of the Ancients is inspired not only by the majesty of Lord of the Rings , but also by such legendary games as Civilization, Eve Online, Mark of Chaos, Dark Omen, and the Total War Series . The game is described as “a true sandbox experience derived by the seamless blend of real-time tactical battles with a large-scale strategy/empire management game in a massive persistent open fantasy world.”

As a General in the world of Edelynn, players command massive armies recruited from among a wide variety of races, heroes, and unit types. Each race has its own distinct abilities, spells, and stats. The game world is enormous and never sleeps (like New York, but bigger and bloodier), and both individual people and entire empires will scheme and fight to achieve power and dominion. Player decisions will directly impact the game, which takes place entirely in real time, and each player must decide what kind of life they want to live. Who will be their enemies? Which skills will they upgrade for their heroes? What kind of battles will they wage?

Fighting happens frequently, of course. The Generals can choose between single player, co-op battle, or PvP, and select from a wide range of battle mechanics including Line of Sight, Weather Effects, Friendly Fire, and many more. Players can also join or form a guild to wield even more power, being able to own regions in the world and maintain complete control over aspects like trade, diplomacy, and infrastructure. Even the economy of the game world is determined by the players. Raw materials and products are limited in availability, and the laws of supply and demand can make an economic war even deadlier than a physical one.

Empyrean Rule is currently in pre-Alpha. It is expected to be compatible at launch with Windows, Mac, and Linux, and the developers hope to make it available for other platforms in the future. It has been brought to Kickstarterto fund the final phase of development, and has already been named a Kickstarter staff pick. It’s also on Steam Greenlight, where its first day saw it rise 22% of the way to the top 100 games.

Interested gamers may wish to help increase the standings on both websites; the Kickstarter is offering interesting rewards at the various tiers, including collectible coins, art books, the chance to participate in polls regarding game design, resin figures of game models, and even a statue of the player in the game, complete with backstory. Keep an eye on the crowdfunding campaign, and also get the latest Empyrean news on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

When is our HTC Vive review coming?

​When is our HTC Vive review coming?
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Indie Intermission – Ludum Dare Number 4 ‘Happy Little Murder Friends’

Continuing the Ld25 theme of “you are the villain” today’s game is a rather interesting one that reminds me a great deal of the GTA series.

Happy Little Murder Friends

Happy Little Murder Friends is a game created by Paul Greasley AKA Farmergnome and has you in charge of a band of merry murderers.

Happy Little Murder Friends gives you the choice of selecting one of five characters per level for you to inflict your murders with. Each characters has their own stats giving you a small amount of variety on who you pick. You also are able to take perks to better tailor your killing to your own style be it melee or gun you are covered here.

The whole purpose behind each level on Happy Little Murder Friends is to kill off your targets. However if you start mercilessly killing any old civilian your indiscretions will not go unnoticed and the police will slowly start to appear to end your rampage.

Overall Happy Little Murder Friends is a great game full of nice concepts and awesome graphics with enough gameplay to keep you busy for hours.

Happy Little Murder Friends

Average play time – 20 minutes

Happy Little Murder Friends has been created to a very high level, especially for a jam game and really shine because of it. Farmergnome has continued to develop it after the jam and therefore the latest version has a lot of bug fixes and overall improvements making the game even better. If you enjoyed the early GTA games or just have a love for top down shooters this is one you must give a go.

Happy Little Murder Friends can be downloaded from the Ludum Dare siteand also from Paul Greasley’s official site.

If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!

bit Dungeon’ Review – 16-Bit Demon Descent

‘bit Dungeon’ Review – 16-Bit Demon Descent
Being a aficionado of dungeon crawlers, I originally bypassed purchasing bit Dungeon simply because I am not a fan of permadeath.

simply because I am not a fan of permadeath. Yet, like a siren song to my OCD, it lulled me back into considering it again. The captivating pixelated graphics beckoned me to delight within their blocky awe. I finally relented based solely on sheer graphics alone. Permadeath or no, I would resolve to explore the depths of Tom Heinecke’s creation; a one man developer team known also as Kinto .

The game in all its aspects has been streamlined down to the bare core of ultimate simplicity. The title screen bids you to merely touch start for a new game void of any other options. Touch anywhere and you’re whisked away to a small room where you start your journey on the first level of the dungeon. Here you will pick up a potion and replenish your health, look at the contents of a treasure chest to take up arms, and pick up a single key to unlock the rooms only exit. This is the closest offering to a tutorial that you can expect.

A perpetual onslaught is your one and only quest in bit Dungeon which tasks you with clearing each room of demons to earn a key to unlock the next door of your choice. As you forge through the ten rooms allotted to each floor you will encounter a myriad a demons and monsters, mini bosses, and a main boss in the tenth room denoted by a red door. Defeating the main boss here at any point grants you access to the next floor.

Once you enter a room in bit Dungeon all the doors lock and you must survive the fight to leave. Often there are room objects which can be bashed open during the fight which might afford you a health potion. However, any chests containing loot will not be available until you clear the room. By retracing your steps of cleared rooms, you can revitalize your hero by killing demons found feeding on your quarry or catch ghosts which both drop magic and health potions. Hovering over the related indicators for health and magic reveals your stats and abilities.

Ah yes, Loot ! The main addictive ingredient that solicits us to press on in search of the next best stat enhancer. Such is the contents of all chests in bit Dungeon with color coded weapons and stat boosts akin to WOW . Simply drag the chest to your inventory bar and swap items to upgrade. Whether you swap or not, any unused gear left behind is lost once you leave the room. You earn coins as random drops from slain demons and various room objects that you can bash open. Random room events extend additional opportunities to purchase new equipment and enhance your character.

As aforementioned, death technically results in permadeath. However, it’s possible to obtain a soul, which when used is consumed and gives you a second chance. When you eventually die, you will lose everything except your coins and start over on the first floor of the dungeon.

While I applaud every facet of simplicity that bit Dungeon offers, a few aspects should have been included. At the title screen a question mark linked to some general instructions would have been invaluable in learning the controls. Currently, thegame description is the only information available. An in-game pause screen would have been handy too; as opposed to the current respite offered between battles. Finally, the controls work well overall, but I found it often difficult to reliably cast magic (mainly on the iPhone/iTouch version). Needless to say, these were minor in consideration and to me, with a little patience, are eventually overlooked.

I’m thrilled that I did not let bit Dungeon slip by me like a stealthy rogue. With all the loot options that also change the appearance of your character I was hooked after only a few floors. Add to that; cool pixel graphics with demons that change up each floor, elemental based magic, and a progressive character system that is discernible albeit void of experience points and I was all in! If you haven’t heard of this hidden gem yet, it’s more than worth the ninety-nine cent cost.

A Final Side-Note: If you really enjoyed this game as much as I did and happen to admire sci-fi, do not hesitate to check out this similar title;

[review pros=”Alluring pixel graphics, smooth and inviting, engaging loot” cons=”Instructions lacking, magic hard to cast, no pause screen” score=95]

...

Jump to Section: Best Price Comments Pros Mesmerizing visuals and setting Tight responsive controls Plenty to uncover in each whimsically designed stage Cons First getting the hang of proper scissor-shearing Acclimating to the movement of your cursor-like companion Replaying a lengthy level in search of an elusive bonus Puppeteer is, in a word, enchanting. Like its wooden protagonist, it seems ordinary

Streaming VR/AR 'mixed reality' games will be expensive

As the first wave of consumer VR headsets hit soon, we start to look at what can be done with regards to showing off the games involved.

Mixed Reality Stream

As the first wave of consumer VR headsets hit soon, we start to look at what can be done with regards to showing off the games involved. Mainly because it’s not as simple as whacking a few cables into something and streaming the footage.

Games using a combination of virtual and augmented reality — mixed reality, as we’re apparently supposed to call it — will need a whole new approach if Twitch, YouTube Gaming and the rest are to have anything like decent-looking streams supporting them.

Step forward Northway Games, creators of Incredipede, Rebuild 3, Fantastic Contraption and a few others, which has put together a guide for streamers looking to go all out on their VR/AR/mixed reality videos.

The guideis in-depth and covers all areas you’ll need to take into consideration — from the size of your studio (8x12 feet/2.5x3.7 metres), through the sort of camera you’ll need (not a webcam) and even a step-by-step guide on setting up OBS and syncing your camera to work with your new, futuristic stream.

Technically it’s aimed at streaming Fantastic Contraption’s VR version, but the instructions are mainly universal to titles that will incorporate mixed reality.

The results for all that work, space and expense? Well, you’ll get cool streams like this (though yes, you will still be wearing a headset most of the time):

Gran Designs - Day one: Gran Turismo

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PlayStation VR 'possibly' coming to PC

Sony’s console virtual reality headset, PlayStation VR, has a chance of making its way to PC, an executive at the company has hinted.

Psvr

Masayasu Ito, Sony Computer Entertainment’s senior vice president, told Nikkeithat making PSVR compatible with PCs is something there is a potential for:

“Since PlayStation 4 shares a lot of its components with PCs, the possibility is there. At the moment we are focused on games and we are not ready to make any announcements at this stage, but I’d say there will be an expansion into various fields.”

[translation via Google and Segment Next]

PlayStation VRcurrently inhabits the bit of middle space in quality between the low-end models – your Google Cardboards and what have you – and the high-spec models, like Oculus Riftand HTC Vive.

Basically, it’s not rubbish and it’s not amazing, but it works well and doesn’t cost very much. There is very much a gap in the PC market for a headset like this – and let’s be honest, Sony will need to make as much money from this venture as it can. Come on folks, give us PSVR on PC – we’ll take good care of it.

This week, Nintendo announced the latest pair of games in the Pokemon franchise, Pokemon X and Y

. These are the first the company will release for the Nintendo 3DS; X&Y will also be the first global simultaneous launch of the franchise in its history, when it launches around the world this October. The game follows quickly in the footsteps of Pokemon Black & White 2 , the franchise's first direct sequels, which were released last October in Western markets.

Pokemon 's marketing head prepares for the series' first global launch

, the franchise's first direct sequels, which were released last October in Western markets. It will have to sell very well to match up to Pokemon Black & White , which were released in the West 2011 and had massive launches in Japan, the UK, and the U.S. -- some of the franchise's most successful.

To find out more about the future of Pokemon , and Nintendo subsidiary The Pokemon Company's expectations for the latest installment, Gamasutra spoke to J.C. Smith, consumer marketing director for The Pokemon Company International.

How long has the game been in development?

The development has been a long time coming, and Game Freak has been intensely focused on it since the launch of Pokemon Black 2 and Pokemon White 2 launched last October in the U.S. and Europe.

Has the team changed much from prior installments?

The team at Game Freak is being led by video game director Junichi Masuda who, as you probably know, has been with the company since its inception. The team has grown since then, but I don’t know the exact number of employees who worked on the games.

X&Y is a departure from the "color" theme of previous game titles. Does this mark a new beginning for the series? Can you talk about the meaning of X&Y ?

That’s something Game Freak may answer down the road. I can say that the names help unify the experience internationally because they’re the same worldwide. This is the first time Pokemon titles have launched simultaneously around the world.

Why did the company pursue a global simultaneous release? Purely due to fan outcry, or is there more to this strategy?

The localization process takes a lot of effort and planning, so we’ve been working towards this goal for quite some time. We’re confident that players around the world with appreciate being able to experience the games at the same time, with the ability to discover, train, and battle Pokemon in unison.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently saidthat social media drastically improved sales of Animal Crossing in Japan. Is there a social media strategy, or even functionality, built into X&Y ?

Pokemon is an inherently social gaming experience. From the trading card game to video games, our aim is to bring players together. We launched our official Facebookand Twitterpresence for Pokemon in North America last year and social media will be part of our strategy for communication and community going forward.

Hermit Crab In Space’!

‘Hermit Crab In Space’!

I wrote recentlyon New York indie devs, Golden Ruby Games , and their new space-themed runner game, Worm Run . Since then. the Golden Ruby team has been pretty busy, developing a new game, Hermit Crab In Space as part of a Sony-sponsored game jam at IndieCade East.

The game jam asked developers to create a mobile game, specifically for play on the Vita, and gave developers the theme of “evolution” to spark game creation. Golden Ruby created an 8-bit game about a hermit crab, in a detailed universe where hermit crabs in space totally make sense. (That is, um, not exactly my understanding of how evolution works, but the game looks like a space shooter with a cute retro aesthetic.)

Hermit Crab In Space was declared a finalist at IndieCade, along with Crumble , Crystallon , and Don’t Wake The Bear . Finalists received a trip to GDC to present the game again, and discover the final winner.

At Sony’s recent Indie Arcade presentation, Golden Ruby was declared the overall winner of the PlayStation Mobile GameJam, for their Hermit Crab in Space . The prize is a trip to annual expo E3, a pot at the PlayStation booth, and a pretty sweet offer for publishing and promotion, if Golden Ruby Games decides to submit Hermit Crab in Space to Sony. No word yet on whether Golden Ruby plan to keep Hermit Crab in Space as an indie, or work with Sony, though.

Sources: A really big GameJam check, Sony’s heavy indie push continues, Golden Ruby Games’ blog update, PSP screenshots of Hermit Crab in Space here, and Golden Ruby Games’ lovely photo of a giant check.

Programmer creates Kinect PC drivers

Last week hardware company Adafruit Industries out out a $3000 dollar bounty for the first person who could get Microsoft's XBox 360 Kinect peripheral working on a PC.

Kinect

Last week hardware company Adafruit Industries out out a $3000 dollar bounty for the first person who could get Microsoft's XBox 360 Kinect peripheral working on a PC. That prize has now been claimed, after the winner managed to create some PC drivers for the device just three hours after its European launch. There's a video of the successful hack in action below.

Hector Martin is the name of the programmer, who says that he's going to spend the Adafruit Industriesprize money on more impressive hacking equipment. The open source drivers are now freely available hereif you're technical and fancy playing around with them. Here's the video of the drivers in action.

The really exciting part of the drivers isn't so much the demonstration in the video above, but the potential for other programmers to develop new ways for our PCs to interface with Kinect. Here's hoping for a Minority Report style Operating System interface that'll let us navigate Windows by waving madly at the screen. It's certainly not impossible, this guy has already used the drivers to do this:

[via CVG]

Ex-Last Guardian, Killzone Devs Form New Studio

Following a growing trend in game development, five developers from various studios have left their AAA homes to form their own, new studio: Friend & Foe.

Following a growing trend in game development, five developers from various studios have left their AAA homes to form their own, new studio: Friend & Foe. Now residing in Tokyo, the five developers are working on two games, each as different as the members of the studios themselves.

The first is Dangerous Men , which is described as “an action arcade game based on 80’s buddy cop movies, featuring a city-wide explosionfest as detectives Dan & Don literally jump from explosion to explosion to clear the city of the Punk Gang menace.” I can only assume this means the explosions will somehow be platforms you somehow stand on, or maybe that the levels will just be creatively-shaped explosions. No idea! Time will tell.

Their other game, Vane , is in a similar vein (heh) to ICO or thatgamecompany games. It’s an atmospheric game focused on exploration and unraveling the mystery of this odd world you’ve been dropped into. The character you control is a young child with an “odd ability,” which can be seen in GIFs only as the ground tearing itself up behind the child’s feet — and this may not even be the ability they refer to. For all we know, that’s just a very strange dust effect.

Vane will be released for the PC first, and other systems later if possible, while Dangerous Men has not been assigned a platform yet. Neither game has a release date, but you can learn more about Vane and follow its development over at Friend & Foe’s website, as well as learn a bit more about its five fascinating members.

Here's the 50+ titles confirmed for PlayStation VR so far

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PC Gamer UK January issue: XCOM 2

Good news for those of you who will be forced to spend Christmas Day making polite conversation with elderly relatives: PC Gamer issue 287 is out in the nick of time.

Magpost Uk 287banner Noblob

Good news for those of you who will be forced to spend Christmas Day making polite conversation with elderly relatives: PC Gamer issue 287 is out in the nick of time. Before games enabled us to be unsociable, there were magazines, and shortly thereafter there were magazines about games such as this month's cover star, XCOM 2. We deployed Phil to Firaxis to relay hands-on intelligence for our enormous feature.

It being that time of year, we're also bringing you the Game of the Year Awards, which are suspiciously packed with games that editor Samuel has been raving about. The issue is on the shelves now, but if you enjoy having your reading material brought to you, you can order the physical mag through My Favourite Magazines, or download it from the App Store, Google Playand Ziniojust as soon as they update. You can subscribeto automate the process and receive gorgeous subscriber covers like this one into the bargain:

Magpost Uk 287subscover

One colossal XCOM 2 feature. The Game of the Year Awards. Learn how to build a PC from scratch. We discuss Deus Ex slipping back into 2016—five years after the last one. Hands-on with World of Warcraft: Legion and Overwatch. A pre-Christmas guide to the very best gaming mice. Phil has a bad trip in 80 Days. The Spy uncovers evidence of Mass Effect: Andromeda's protagonist. Samuel incorrectly lists the games you should be playing over the holiday.

Until January!

Ubisoft scrambles to fix Assassin's Creed Unity launch issues

The launch of Assassin's Creed Unity seems to be causing some trouble for developer Ubisoft.

The BBC reportsthe company's stock price has dropped by nearly 13 percent since Unity 's release on Tuesday, and the company has created a Live Update blogdedicated to keeping its customers abreast of what the developers are doing to fix the game.

In effect, Ubisoft is pulling back the curtain a bit to keep the public abreast of its development process; the most recent blog entryreassures customers that the company is developing an update to address widespread graphical issues (seen above, pardon the soundtrack) as well as specific glitches that cause protagonist Arno to do things like fall through the ground or get stuck inside world geometry.

The troubled launch of Unity is especially interesting to game developers in light of the company's previous complaints about the game's production costs. Creative director Alex Amancio previously noted that adding a new stealth option to Unity was surprisingly complex, while women protagonistsweren't added at all because it was "a lot of extra production work."

Now Sony's admitted to partnering Shenmue 3, that Kickstarter is a big problem

No story from this year's E3 has been bigger than Sony's Earth-shaking (or at least Twitter-rattling) three-hit combo announcement of The Last Guardian, the Final Fantasy 7 remake, and Shenmue 3. It was exciting. Hell, it felt impossible. But when all the screaming and crying died down, I found one question fluttering around my head, refusing to leave. Just why the hell is a mega-corp platform-holder

No matter who you are or how talented your team is, every game developer eventually has to deal with

a public relations crisis. You might upset your fan base or say something you didn't mean, but regardless of the issue, a good developer needs to be ready to tackle and fix these challenging and often unexpected issues. Few people understand that more than Valerie Massey, a former community manager at EVE Online developer CCP (now of community analytics firm CLARA), who has seen and taken care of plenty of game industry PR troubles.

Video: What to do when your game suffers an inevitable PR crisis

developer CCP (now of community analytics firm CLARA), who has seen and taken care of plenty of game industry PR troubles. And at GDC Online 2011, Massey gave an in-depth presentation to help other developers and community managers do the same.

Most importantly, Massey said that developers need to understand that most PR crises are unavoidable, and everyone needs to acknowledge that they will face these problems at some point in their career.

"It is inevitable that you will face a crisis. That's not me being an alarmist, that is just a fact. A crisis can even be mild; your server went down, there was a glitch, there was some lag... but a poorly handled crisis can haunt you for years, so matter what you do right, that one thing will come up in every story [the press writes] about you," she said.

"They key to success is advanced planning and advanced preparation. The time to think about things is when it's quiet. You don't want to think about it, but you'll need to. Take full advantage of those quiet moments."

Throughout her lecture, Massey examined major PR problems both in and outside of the game industry to illustrate what to do when things go awry. To learn more about preparing for and fixing these issues, check out the full video of her presentation, courtesy of the GDC Vault.

Simply click the Play button above to start the video.
About the GDC VaultIn addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent GDC events, and the service offers plenty more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers. Those who purchased All Access passes to events like GDC and GDC Europe already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription Beta via a GDC Vault inquiry form.

Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company. More information on this option is available via an online demonstration, and interested parties can send an email to Gillian Crowley. In addition, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault admins.

Be sure to keep an eye on GDC Vault for even more new content, as GDC organizers will also archive videos, audio, and slides from upcoming 2012 events like GDC Online and GDC China. To stay abreast of all the latest updates to GDC Vault, be sure to check out the news feed on the official GDC website, or subscribe to updates via Twitter, Facebook, or RSS.

Tom Plays – ‘Guns ‘N Zombies’

I checked out the demo for Krealit’s top-down zombie shoot-em-up, Guns ‘N Zombies . Krealit has the game up on Kickstarter, and Steam Greenlightas well.

That Castlevania successor is using Kickstarter to prove you want the game, not fund it

The recently announced Bloodstained, a spiritual sucessor to the Castlevania series , helmed by original producer Koji Igarashi, is doing very well on Kickstarter , with currently about $1,248,334 pledged of its $500,000 goal. That's a lot of money people are paying to fund a game they clearly love. Except they're not. They're paying to prove an already funded game has a market. Speaking in Gamasutra

Team Ninja enlists Inafune and Western dev for next Ninja Gaiden

Team Ninja has brought in Western developer Spark Unlimited and Capcom veteran Keiji Inafune to work on a new, zombie-filled spin-off for the Ninja Gaiden franchise.

Team Ninja, a Tecmo Koei subsidiary, typically develops all of the action series' console entries, but Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z will be created in conjunction with the same California-based studio that's also working on Capcom's Lost Planet 3 (another series typically handled by the Japanese developer's internal teams).

Involving Inafune and his IP development group Comcept also attaches a high-profile game developer's name to the project -- something the Ninja Gaiden franchise has lacked since Team Ninja's opinionated head Tomonobu Itagaki resigned from the companyin 2008.

Many critics panned the series' most recent release, Ninja Gaiden 3 , for veering away from the reflex-focused gameplay and intense difficulty of its predecessors. The game also sought to integrate elements from Western gamesand appeal to mainstream Western audiences.

And now for this spin-off, which features a new protagonist and the popular Western game trope of zombies, Team Ninja has brought in a U.S. studio that's created mostly Unreal Engine 3-powered first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty .

Tecmo Koei hasn't yet announced a release date or planned platforms for Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z.

Creating the 'right' kind of player in the weird FPS Sub Rosa

In a lot of ways, Sub Rosa is a hard sell.

is a hard sell. It’s a game where, before you can even properly play it, you have to convince a stranger on the internet to let you be a part of their team.

It’s a game where, even though you need to have a gun to be an effective member of that team, you are heavily encouraged not to shoot it. And even when you do, there’s a complicated amount of finger gymnastics first to load the gun, then to unload it and reload it. Each step involves multiple stages, and it’s easy to fumble and just drop your gun. In the middle of a firefight, this isn’t the most desirable outcome.

But in a lot of other ways, Sub Rosa is as beguiling as they come. Taking inspiration from films like Heat and Reservoir Dogs, it’s about shady corporations doing even shadier deals, all while pointing their guns in the general direction of the other corporation’s team, to make sure the deal goes down without a hitch.

Originally created and releasedas part of the 7 Day FPS jam back in 2012, creator Alex Austin, who makes games as Cryptic Sea, has been slowly iterating on the idea and the game ever since.

While there’s certainly plenty of challenges in the actual design of Sub Rosa-- from the development of systems to better facilitate the tension and anxiety of going into a deal with a potentially lethal group of other players to creating ways for them to deceive and trick one another--one of the biggest concerns has been creating a game where players don’t just shoot each other on sight.

“You look at something like DayZ , which had just come out when I started working on Sub Rosa , it was one of the inspirations and people were looking for something different.” Austin tells me. “They were tired of just team-based deathmatches, which all FPSs have. But in Day Z , you get a player’s items when you kill them, which is a very valuable thing.

"In Sub Rosa , you don’t really get anything for killing another player. You can get their ammo, but it’s pretty much worthless. There’s no real bonus or reward for killing people, unless that’s what you have to do to succeed in the mission.”

It’s no real surprise that Sub Rosa subverts a player’s expectation of what an FPS will be, as it came out of the 7DFPS, a game jam whose entire purpose was to subvert that genre. But that also means that Austin has to educate his players on how his game works, and what kind of play that’s encouraging.

Right now Sub Rosa is in a fairly small alpha, as it’s available for purchase on its site and nowhere else, with a reasonably steep price of $19.99. It means that, even on busy times like evenings and weekends, there’s rarely more than a dozen or so players on either of the game’s two servers. Each of those players is wholly bought into the concept; even going so far as to adopt the kind of language you’d expect corporations in the 80s to communicate with. Disks are packages, meetings are rendezvous, and betrayal is "funny business." These are people who represent the ideal for Austin, but once Sub Rosa moves into Steam Early Access in a month or two, that could change drastically.

“Right now when you die, 10 percent of your net worth is lost, but I want that to be a setting. So if you want a more action-heavy setting you can set it at 0 percent, so there’s no penalty, and people won’t worry about the consequences and they can just go straight for shooting. But then you can also go for super hardcore servers where you lose all of your money, which would definitely be more tense. Shooting someone would be a big deal.”

This touches on how Sub Rosa is encouraging play without limiting options. Losing a big chunk of your money doesn’t so much hurt you when you’re starting out, as you don’t have that much in the first place. But when you’re worth a few million, after investing stocks in your company and inflating that company’s worth, losing 10 percent is a big step back. Losing 100 percent would be ruining.

So players are cautious. Not only because it hurts their bottom line, but also, and this is the big thing: it’s a lot more fun. Right now Sub Rosa has a few systems in place that facilitate negotiation over violence, and even when violence does break out it’s a chaotic, clumsy, quick thing.

“One of the first things I did was make the briefcase, and make it so that you had to open it to see what’s inside. That was the first deception thing, so you could have an empty briefcase. With the latest version you can load it up with money but have hundreds covering ones, which is another layer of trickery. That’s another interface thing; there’s no games that really do that, so how do you do an interface of a stack of bills?”

On top of that each corporation gets a chunky 80s cellphone that lets them call the other corporations and negotiate deals. Making that kind of communication long-range eliminates itchy trigger fingers doing anything untoward before the deal is set, and it also forces you to engage in a non-violent way with other players. Then going on to deceive them isn’t exactly non-violent, as they’re sure to want some sort of recompense, but at the very least there’s a few layers of interaction between the two.

Even the firefights, when they do break out, aren’t conforming to expectations. You have two hands that are their own separate entities, and you require both to fire anything bigger than a pistol with any degree of accuracy. Loading a gun means putting a magazine in your left hand with your gun in your right and then hitting reload. Unloading means taking that magazine out, either dropping it on the floor or putting it in your pocket, taking out a new magazine, and loading it into the gun.

And when you’re shot, you bleed, and you bleed out if you don’t bandage or get back to base in time. The more injured you are the less able you are to run, to shoot, to do anything of worth. Cars with drivers who are bleeding out start to slosh down the road like drunks, and if you’re too badly hurt you can’t even lift your gun to fire. ‘Messy’ is an apt description.

“Part of the inspiration of Sub Rosa’s shooting is from Receiver , which David Rosen was developing right next to me at the 7DFPS jam. So I stole his ideas, with his permission. I see Sub Rosa as Receiver- Lite, because those gun mechanics make the gunfights more chaotic, and I don’t want people to be Rambo and just run in and shoot ten people. I want it to require more team-based stuff, which it does if it’s harder to reload and shoot.”

On top of that the very physics of movement are heavy and a little clumsy. If you start running you can’t immediately stop, you have momentum and that momentum can lead to you slamming into walls or crashing through windows into the street below. It’s all very much style and tone over usability, but when the primary purpose of Sub Rosa is not to be a shooter, it can get away with it.

But that doesn’t mean it will , once it opens up more to new players. I ask Austin what it’s like to develop when you need the players cooperation with the concept of the game for it to be fun.

“When you play a boardgame with your friends, you know they’re going to follow the rules. You could easily cheat in Werewolf , but you know they’re not going to do that. But with an online game of any sort, if there’s an exploit, people are going to abuse it. That makes it much more difficult to establish a style of play.”

Which makes his job as a developer that much more difficult. But then again, as we’ve seen with the wild success of games like DayZ and Rust , players are eager to try something new, and Sub Rosa is certainly trying something novel.

P.T. is the first REAL horror game in years, and the smartest game on PS4

Note: This article was originally posted in August 2014, but given that P.T. is due to be removed from the PlayStation Store on Wednesday, April 29, we felt it important to remind you why you really, really need to download it before then. A couple of days ago, I finally played P.T., the playable teaser for Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro’s in-production Silent Hills. Weirdly, I’d had a nightmare

Raise And Grow Your Very Own Galaxy: ‘infinite’

As we draw closer and closer to infinite’s release date, nearing the end of beta, we’re just on the ledge to pass through the event horizon of gaming.

infinite , as we mentioned previously, is an “arcade style game in which the user earns points collecting matter in order to build solar systems.” Soon, we’ll be able to take create galaxies, and perhaps, universes.

Nexus Game Studios said, “we’ll be going over our new galaxy generation system that we hinted at in our previous blog update. While not a main objective, the galaxy is your main hub and a system of visual progression for the user.” They said that the old galaxy generate didn’t give the users the sense of accomplishment they would achieve with the new generator. The newly updated generator would allow the player to watch their galaxy progress, grow, and receive of sense of ownership of their own personal galaxy. Seeing such dedication to the players, I can’t help but to simply nod my head in approval.

In addition, you can purchase some very stylish apparelfor infinite to support them before the release of the game. What do you think?

In the new system, players will create a galaxy, as more players join, the universe will grow. How the shape and style the galaxy develops depends solely on the player. The game will be able to take multiple variables, such as how the users play or what they’ve created. Every galaxy will be unique, no two galaxies will be alike. You may have a ring style galaxy, but as time progresses, you might evolve it into something beautiful. What more did they do? You can find more information on infinite on Nexus Game Studios’ blog. Finally, “keep in mind, what you are seeing above is not final [visually] as we are still in alpha, but is a general idea of what the final game will entail.”

Lexicon Larry’s West Word – Time To D-R-A-W on iOS

Yeehaw!

Yeehaw! Saddle up the horses and get ready to ride out because those cowpokes at Frivolous Twist, the developers of Raven Toll , have gone done and recently released their newest game for yer fancy iOS device: Lexicon Larry’s West Word .

A fresh take on the word puzzle game, West Word thrusts you into the Old West and asks you to build words one letter at a time by shooting them out of the sky with your trusty six shooters.  Mixing arcade style shooting with word building and a distinct flavour of cowboy country, it certainly looks to be a unique title.

We’ll have a review of Lexicon Larry’s West Word up soon, but if you want to dive straight in then head on over to the App Storewhere you can download the game now.

Quest in Peace Review – An Undying Good Time

Everyone knows that zombies are a big thing right now.

HeroCraft, however, takes a fresh approach in their game Quest in Peace – the undead in question is the hero, and arguably the cutest skeleton I’ve ever seen outside of a Tim Burton movie.

The game begins with a brief explanation of the history of Bellyworld, which was a harmonious kingdom during the rule of good King Simon and his beloved Queen Maria. When the evil Queen Regent invaded and had her minions murder Queen Maria, King Simon died of a broken heart. Poor fellow didn’t even get the dignity of a proper burial, just an unmarked hole in the ground of the Bellyworld cemetery. But after a century of the Queen Regent’s tyrannical rule, a kindly witch found his grave, dug him up, and brought him back to life (sort of) in order to set right that which once went wrong.

This game is a winner from the word go. Thestoryline is clear and concise, the graphics are cute and immersive, and the voice acting is superb. A journal keeps track of what’s happened so far and what objectives you need to pursue. As the quest unfolds, King Simon needs to recover from a hundred years of being dead. First he must find a way to regain the power of speech; next, he has to reclaim his memories. He must talk to other characters, collect items that will help him in his quest, and prepare to take his revenge on the usurper Queen Regent. There are puzzles to solve, and the game is extremely helpful about explaining what needs to be done in order to help Simon achieve justice for himself, his kingdom, and his lost lamented Maria.

Don’t want the music or the sound effects? Either one can be toggled off from the options menu. Want to mute the game and not hear the voice acting? All dialogue is subtitled as well as voiced. Already played through the first chapter? Tap the skip buttons to get past the exposition and opening sequence. Be sure to look for extra items scattered around the scenes, too, to add to your inventory. I’m not sure what help they’ll be in the long run, but the game seems awfully pleased when you find them.

There doesn’t seem to be a way to save progress in this game, but perhaps that’s because I’ve only played the first chapter, which is effectively a tutorial. Once you help King Simon escape from the graveyard (alarming the poor undertaker in the process), the game ends unless you purchase the rest from the Apple app store. The first part, the graveyard, is free; to unlock the remaining locations costs $4.99 US.

Quest in Peace is an iOS game, available for all Apple devices from the app store. Follow HeroCraft on Twitterfor more developer news.

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