Next up in our series of chats with (almost) all the PC/Mac-based finalists, it’s the near-legendary Jakub Dvorský from Amanita Design, creators of Machinarium, Samorost and, soon, Botanicula – which is up for the Excellence In Visual Art and Excellence In Audio awards. Here, Jakub talks indie, experimentation and his answer to the most important question of all.>
I’ve deleted the official spelling of Codemasters’ “Dirt” three times now. Every time I attempt to write big d small i big r big t my keyboard starts to glow red, smoke comes out of it and I hear a thousand voices screaming. That’s what I get for using Vigo the Carpathian’s old mechanical keyboard. But he calmed down when he saw the smashing cars of this raw footage from Codie’s arcade spin-off of their rally series. His giggle was almost infectious. (more…)
Hello, good morrow and, well, graphics. After my début – and let’s be honest, definitive – dissertation on PC processors last month, this time around we’re talking pixel pumpers. The bad news is that this instalment won’t be nearly as neat as the first. With CPUs, I can point at the Intel Core i5 2500K and bark, “buy it”. Job done. Things are a lot more fluid and complex when it comes to GPUs – but even so, when it comes down to it you only need to trouble yourself with four cards today. The buying decision remains rather easy. (more…)
Top notch first-person space tower defense malarkey, Sanctum, is going to have a baby! Imagine that. The offspring will take the form of a sequel, which is going to dally with the consoles on the sly but if it’s as enjoyable as the original, I’m sure that won’t stop us from greeting it with delighted ‘awwws’ and dreadful babyspeak. Work has already begun at Coffee Stain Studios, who reckon they sold 300,000 copies of the first, but we shouldn’t expect Sanctum 2 before 2013 apparently. It’s also worth nothing that Sanctum is available for £2.37 on Steam for a few hours.
If I had a Thief 2 commemorative mug, I’d be supping water (because of water arrows, of course), while pondering losing weight just in case I need to use rope arrows. As it is, I just have a hoodie up. Why? Right now “The Making of Thief 2” is playing on my other monitor as the full game is downloading from GoG.com. Given how excited I was when Thief: Gold hit there last week, I’m even more excited that the second game available now. I loved the first game, but the second game’s rangy missions just edge it for me. (more…)
Developed by one-man team RichMakeGame – aka Rich Edwards – Pineapple Smash Crew is an indie take on top-down action shooters that was the winner of our Indie Games Arcade award, and has recently arrived on Steam. I’ve played it through to the end, which makes me Space Captain Walker and able to tell you Wot I Think.>
I don’t have the digital dexterity to be a Super Meat Boy master and VVVVVV took me to my limits, so the sight of a new spike-laden contender for most malicious platformer ever should see me jumping for cover. Cloudberry Kingdom has been in development for three years now, originally placing tenth in the 2009 Dream Play Build Competition, and is almost ready for release on both the MicroBox and PC. The most recent trailer makes it seem the kind of challenge that will have some people flexing their fingers in preparation for. I’m just scared, though intrigued by the brainy brainwork behind this madness.
We mentioned earlier that Tim Schafer would love to make a Pyschonauts 2, but can’t get the funding. Well, Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson spotted our story and suggested to Schafer that they should work together to make it happen>. Multimillionaire Persson clearly has the funds to do this, and everyone in the world with their brain in the right place wants to see a sequel to one of the most joyful games of all time, so this is a thing that might actually happen.
Clearly at the moment this is a tweeted offer, not a signed contract, but it’s a massively exciting one. Tim, say yes!
Coming later today, we’ll be posting a chat with Amanita Design (Samorost, Machinarium) mastermind Jakub Dvorsky about new game Botanicula, the IGF et al, but as part of it he passed along a couple of mega-charming (I do like using the word ‘mega’; it reminds me of being young and over-excited about new issues of Look-In) and never-before-seen new trailers that entirely deserve their own post.
If anything ails you today, a glimpse of this beautiful, strange and funny point’n'click exploration game will almost certainly help. (more…)
Just like Holly Genarro’s plane had to circle the airport at Dulles Airport in the 1990 classic Die Hard 2: Rudder Me This, Microsoft’s free-to-play air-to-plane sim Flight is still up in the air. But fret not, fokkers, for Microsoft will be getting all John McLaine on its crew section, and exploding a planeful of terrorists to create runway lights on the 29th of February. That’s when everyone will be touching down on the crunchy snow and into Bruce Willis’s comforting embrace. Er, and the game’s out. (more…)