Good news and less good news from the Humble Bundle camp today. The happier end of the bargain is that purchasers of the current Humble Bundle 4 now get the base contents of Humble Bundle 3 (i.e. VVVVVV, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, And Yet It Moves, and Hammerfight) added to their pack. That’s if they’ve bought HB4 already. If they haven’t, they’ll have to beat the average price to get the bonus goodies. The average price is currently $5.17 million. (more…)

Details of the next Humble Indie Bundle have once more leaked, because Steam’s Content Description Record Viewer Thingamie is so ludicrously easy for people to spy. And it looks like it’s going to be a bit of a corker, as spotted by DIY Gamer. In the pay-what-you-want collection it seems there will be Super Meat Boy, BIT.TRIP.RUNNER, Jamestown, Nightsky and Shank. That’s the first wave, and then there’s even better to get added in.

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The Tripwire guys do like a bit of seasonal celebration in their Killing Floor. This year they’re gifting us with “the Winter Weapon Pack, with seven brand new weapons complete with new achievements, free to everyone who owns the game” but there’s also an entirely new level, the Ice Cave, which you can check out for free, even if you do not own the game, thanks the free weekend on the Steam from Thursday 8th to Sunday 11th December. There’s other exciting new DLC, too, such as the Steampunk pack, which lets you dress like one of those digital distribution punks, I think. Hmm.

Here’s an indie bundle with a difference – it doesn’t contain any games. Instead, the Indie Music Bundle it’s a collection of soundtracks from some of your favourite (assumption #1) indie games and some you have probably never heard of (assumption #2). As is swiftly becoming obligatory, the ten albums are available at a price of your choosing, although this is for one day only, being a Black Friday sale. The minimum price is $1 and if you pay at least $10 you’ll receive seven bonus items.

Of the ones that I know, the VVVVVV soundtrack is simply wonderful, and both Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, are quite enjoyable. The latter is in the $10 bonus items. Even if you opt to be stingy, for a dollar you’re sure to find something that you love (assumption #3). Everything is DRM-free and delivered as 320kbps MP3s. Take a look.

This week, a few mods that I’ve been monitoring but haven’t had a chance to have a proper go at yet. In some cases, that’s because they haven’t been released yet, in others it’s because the hours in every day are sadly limited, and as well as playing games and writing about them, I very occasionally sleep. I even venture outside from time to time, although admittedly not in the current political and meteorological climate. Too chilly. Too bitter. All too real. Onward to fantasy. Preferably with decent central heating.

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The Binding of Isaac is a roguelike-or-is-it/shooter/body-horror/religion-bating curio from Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl. It’s… different. It’s nasty. It’s funny. It’s lightning fast. It’s cruel. It’s a lot of things, in one small and very cheap package. But is it any good? In the name of finding out, Alec and Adam gathered to discuss mutant babies, shooting human waste products, dicing with the devil and laser eyeballs.> (more…)

And we <3 Team Meat right back. Over the weekend, they've been chatting to the cool cats over at IndieGames.com, and Ed dropped this hefty knowledge bomb:

We’re never going to make a game that couldn’t also be on PC. That’s a stupid thing for most indies to do. PC is crucial

No surprises there, considering that the Steam sales of SMB outnumber the Xbox sales by 2:1.

Don’t just take my out-of-context quote for it though, listen to the interview yourself here. There’s talk about how Tommy’s ex really >didn’t like him wearing pyjama pants outside, Ed discusses the development of The Binding of Isaac, and they dish out a bit of advice to indie devs hoping to get a Steam distribution deal.

What will> the next game from Super Meat Boy creators Team Meat be? Well, it probably won’t be a Super Meat Boy sequel, going on their earlier comments. But it does, apparently, have something to do with one, some or all of these things: stabbing, cardboard, cats, trolls, teabagging, ninja sais, Benny Hill.
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Update: Team Meat are now claiming this was only a misinterpreted joke and there’s no truth to the reported number.

Holy…> We’ve been pointed in the direction of DarkZero’s pretty fascinating chat with Super Meat Boy creators Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen, and amongst all manner of rumination on stuff like the importance of Steam sales and why they’re not worried about piracy, they let slip a little but apparently made-up number.
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Do you want to have a crack at Killing Floor‘s frightening-looking Summer Thing but are too poor/miserly to buy the game? Well then no problem> – at least for fifteen of you – because Tripwire have sent us some keys to give away. Hooray! What you need to do is email us at this address with the reason why you are the best candidate for entering a nightmare freakshow armed with dangerous firearms. Enter by Midday UK time on Friday or LOSE OUT.

Please make sure to read this, it’s the competition rules thing. Oh and I am just setting up an RPS Killing Floor server. Details to follow.

Killing Floor server: 85.236.101.3:7757, password: rumpus