Super Meat Boy's developer has launched a twin-pronged retort to animal rights group PETA's recent Super Tofu Boy spoof.

Team Meat's co-CEO Edmund McMillen didn't, ahem, mince his words in a lengthy post on the studio's website.

"Honestly this is a major high point for me personally," he claimed.

"Putting all my cards on the table right now, I actually repeatedly made fake user names in PETA's forum pushing the game at them in hopes something like this would happen but gave up, realising that PETA wouldn't ever put effort into something "meat related" that was so small and unknown, that's exactly why this parody is so important and eye opening for us.

"PETA is 1000 times more well known then Super Meat Boy and the fact that they went out of their way to make a parody like this is beyond flattering and amazingly helpful.

"First off," he continues, "I want to thank PETA for helping us turn Super Meat Boy into a house hold name and of course for making themselves look quite foolish in the process... see (as mentioned in countless interviews) Meat Boy isn't made of animal meat, he's simply a boy without skin whose name is Meat Boy... but sshh don't tell them that.

"Now don't get me wrong, I have NOTHING against vegans or vegetarians. I was vegetarian for many years, and was an animal control officer who saved animals for a living for a long time, I empathise, understand and accept why people choose to eat, and live as they wish, and obviously I believe everyone should have the freedom to express themselves in anyway as long as it doesn't hurt others.

"But," McMillen explains, "I don't support an organisation who is 100 per cent against all animal testing, because that would mean my best friend in the world would be dead, not to mention his mother and many of my family members and friends who also are diabetic.

"It's hard to make a come back to a company that is high brow enough to compare concentration camps to chicken coops," he adds, "but I'll try and close this with a joke that's a bit more light hearted.

"How many PETA members does it take to change a lightbulb? None - PETA can't change anything."

BOOM. And it doesn't end there. Team Meat is preparing an update for the PC version of its wonderful platformer that will add in its own take on Tofu Boy, a character it claims it invented long before PETA's effort came along.

Any flesh-shy vegetarian gamers who fell for Super Meat Boy's perfect platforming but balked at all the gore sloshing about might welcome news that US animal rights group PETA has just launched its own food-based jumper: Super Tofu Boy.

Rather than take control of a cube of raw steak as you did in Team Meat's Xbox Live Arcade hit, PETA's effort sees the titular lump of bean curd trying to save Bandage Girl from the clutches of jilted ex-boyfriend Meat Boy.

Have a go - it's not half bad actually.

When Eurogamer spoke to Team Meat prior to the game's release, co-CEO Edmund McMillen told us he was disappointed that the game hadn't already attracted PETA's attention.

"I kind of wish that PETA had flipped out over it so that we could get some crazy press out of it," he said,
"but no, they don't seem to care at all."

A post on Team Meat's Twitter feed today reads "Holy sh*t, Peta made a Tofu parody game of Super Meat Boy... my dreams have come through!"

In other Super Meat Boy news, the brilliant indie platformer just launched on PC. There have been a few bugs reported though, and Team Meat are currently hard at work on a patch.

The first in a series of free level packs has just gone live for vicious Xbox Live Arcade jumper Super Meat Boy.

Exclusive to Xbox 360, The Sewers of Dross pack adds 20 new levels, though the game's titular hero cedes the limelight to Gish, a 12lb lump of tar moonlighting from the 2004 PC indie platformer of the same name.

"This setup allows us to make chapters that no other character could beat except the one in question, a very fun restriction that allows us to make totally fresh levels that almost make the game feel like a whole new platformer," explained developer Team Meat on its blog.

The DLC will be free, though you'll need to have unlocked the 'Teh Internets' area in the game by collecting at least 20 bandages.

Team Meat also lifted the lid on future DLC plans for the game, posting the following schedule:

• 12.??.2010 - Meat Boy (retro chapter based on the best of the meat boy flash prototype)
• 12.??.2010 - I Meat Boy (we take the best levels in the game, remix them and make them harder!)
• Q1 2011 - CommanderVideo Chapter (character exclusive chapter for commandervideo)
• Q1 2011 - I wanna be the Kid (20 levels as hard as the kids warp zone, exclusive to the kid)
• Q1 2011 - Best of user made p1 (20 of the best user submitted PC levels)

Can't wait for I Meat Boy. It's not as if the game was hard enough already.

Super Meat Boy launched on Xbox Live Arcade last month, winning a 9/10 from Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell.

A PC version is due on 30th November, with a WiiWare take to hopefully follow next year.

Masochistic platformer Super Meat Boy will release for PC on 30th November, creator Team Meat's announced.

The Steam edition will come with an exclusive playable character: the Headcrab from Half-Life.

"We asked Valve about this almost half joking and they were totally down," said the developer. "(We LOVE Steam...like...a lot. MS is the hot chick you hook up with, Steam is the girl you spend your life with). The Headcrab will replace Gish as the 1st unlockable bandage character. Much like Gish, he will stick to walls but also have more horizontal jumping power as a head crab should.

"Some of you (trolls) may be thinking, 'HAY HEADCRAB ISNT INDIE, F*** YOU SELLOUT A**HOLES,' Well... I dare you to turn down a Headcrab. They are adorable."

Those who buy the game from non-Steam sources get a Goo Ball from World of Goo!.

While we're on the subject of Super Meat Boy, know this: on 21st November the XBLA version will return to its natural price of 1200 MS Points from the 800 MS Points it's currently going for.

Why should you care? That's why.

Super Meat Boy developer Team Meat wants to make one thing clear: there will never - not in a million years - be Super Meat Boy on PS3.

"Why wont this question die?" the carnivorous developer asked. "We have answered it publicly at least 15 times but it just never ends."

"We can't EVER do a PS3 version of Super Meat Boy because when we were going into negotiations with publishers, Sony was the only one that didn't express much interest in the game. We assumed this meant they didn't want the game, and [we] decided to sign with Nintendo and Microsoft.

"Our contracts excluded any release on PS3," the post added. "We would have loved to do a PS3 version, but its not at all possible whatsoever now, so please stop asking about it."

But a PC version of the super-hard, super-retro, super-fantastic timed platform game is very much part of the plan. "Our goal is to release the PC version on Steam by the last week of Nov," Team Meat explained.

PC fans can look forward to exclusive unlockable secret characters in their version of the hit game. There will be six in total, including Captain Viridian from indie smash VVVVVV. A clue to those remaining reads: "One of them sticks, one of them dashes, one of them changes form and one of them isn't organic."

These characters aren't going to make their way to the Xbox Live Arcade game - "No, never."

The PC audience also gets a level editor. The planned release for this is "sometime in December". "The initial release will be a bit rough," warned Team Meat, "but as time passes we will take in your suggestions and fine-tune the editor and level portal into a super smooth piece of awesomeness that will keep the community going for years."

It'll also be "100 per cent free".

Xbox Live Arcade fans can look forward to a beefy title update coming their way on - tentatively - 21st November.

Under the chapter heading "The Sewers of Dross", 20 new levels stuffed. They range from medium difficulty to "soul crushing" and revolved around character Gish and his sticky abilities.

"This update will fix all known bugs, erase all 0.0 times from the leaderboards and come with a totally new music track by Danny called Dr. Fetus's Castle," the blog explained.

The Sewers of Dross will be one of three new chapters released on XBLA this year.

Super Meat Boy arrived in mid-October on Xbox Live Arcade. Like the fantastic Trials HD before it, the hook comes from completing levels as fast as you can.

Engineered to perfection, Eurogamer editor Tom Bramwell eventually found himself "crazy in love" with Super Meat Boy.

Video: The first 15 minutes of Super Meat Boy - SMB, arf.

The first batch of new levels will soon be ready for Super Meat Boy, developer Team Meat has revealed.

A post on Team Meat's Twitter feed read, "The title update for the XBLA version is being finished this week and hopefully will be up soon.

"The XBLA title update will fix all known bugs and also release with 20 new levels for the internets and a new music track," added a further post.

Team Meat has also been tweeting about the impending Steam version of its awesome platformer. There'll be a level editor and five additional playable cameo characters. One of them will be Mr Minecraft, but one of them won't be Quote from Cave Story. Apparently Team Meat's request was turned down.

No exact word on when that will be ready, but one thing's for sure, it'll be with you well before the WiiWare version sees the light of day.

The planned November WiiWare release of acclaimed indie platformer Super Meat Boy has been pushed back, developer Team Meat has confirmed.

A post on its Twitter feed read, "Attention internets, the wii version is NOT coming out in Nov its impossible. we havent even gotten the size down under 50mb yet (goal=39mb)."

Team Meat's Edmund McMillen later told ShackNews, "The size limit is a huge issue. We are looking into our options and talking things over with Nintendo to see what we can do.

"We are trying to deal with these issues with the mind set of making the best version of the game as possible above all else."

Nintendo allows WiiWare developers a maximum file size of around 40MB per game. The Xbox Live Arcade version of Super Meat Boy clocks in at around 90MB, so there's a great deal of slicing and dicing to be done before Wii gamers can get stuck in.

On a happier note, Team Meat confirmed that the PC version is still on track, with a release scheduled for the last week in November.

The brutally brilliant Super Meat Boy slithered onto Xbox Live Arcade last month and bludgeoned a 9/10 from Eurogamer's shellshocked Tom Bramwell.

Team Meat's next game will not be Super Meat Boy 2, the two-man indie developer has revealed.

When asked about future plans, co-CEO Edmund McMillen told Eurogamer, "There will be another game but it won't be Meat Boy. It'll be totally new.

"We'd be lying if we said we hadn't talked about the next game – because we very much have. But thinking about it right now makes me want to stab myself in the stomach as hard as I can. With a gun."

"I can safely say we're not going to hire more people," he added. "I seriously doubt we'll ever try to get a publisher deal as that seems like the most awful thing ever. That just means we have to have more people telling us what we can and can't do with our game and that seems bad."

McMillen and partner-in-crime Tommy Refenes are clearly ready for a little downtime. The pair told Eurogamer just how much Super Meat Boy has taken out of them.

"We get five or six hours of sleep a day, max," McMillen explained of the development process. "As time drags on and you get sleep-deprived things get really crazy. I can't even count the amount of times I had breakdowns and my wife had to convince me that I need to finish the game and I'll be ok.

"Realistically, for indies especially, in order to really make your dream game you have to sacrifice your life. And we quite literally sacrificed a good 18 months of our lives for the game. And I hope it shows."

Further shattering any illusions that life as an indie game developer is all sunshine and roses, Refenes added, "The first payday is going to be awesome because I haven't seen a cheque in like five years."

Super Meat Boy launched on Xbox Live Arcade last week, with PC and WiiWare versions to follow later this year. It's on sale for 800 Points for a limited time. As you'll already know if you've read Tom Bramwell's gushing 9/10 review, you'd be a fool to pass that offer up.

The developers of Super Meat Boy have identified a bug that's mucking up the game's auto-save routine and expect to fix it soon.

That's according to Team Meat's Edmund McMillen, who told Joystiq to expect a fix "soon".

It's not entirely clear what causes the bug, but judging by tweets from the developers it has something to do with replaying levels.

In any event, it should be fixed soon. Happy days.

Super Meat Boy launched this week on Xbox Live Arcade and picked up 9/10 in these parts for its superb, fast-paced platform puzzling and all-round brilliant execution.

Team Meat cut the price of the game for launch, too, meaning that you can get it for 800 Microsoft Points (£6.80 / €9.60) to begin with, rather than the planned 1200 MSP. Get in!

Showing a total disregard for standard retailing convention, Xbox Live Arcade platformer Super Meat Boy will see a price cut from launch day.

Developer Team Meat announced that the game will be available for 800 Points (£6.80 / €9.60) for a limited time only before reverting to 1200 Points in November.

Its explanation for this outré sales strategy?

"We wanted to be able to do something special for Xmas," explained co-CEO Edmund McMillen, "but it felt like a sale only two months after launch would be a kinda sh*tty thing to do to the fans who just bought it.

"After much brainstorming Tommy and I pitched the idea of possibly launching with a sale, a way to reward the fans for buying the game at launch. Now this to my knowledge isn't something that MS has ever done, but much like 'teh Internets' we though we might as well approach the idea of a sale with the same innovative mind set."

That's a great deal, providing you're a masochist. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell awarded the platformer 9/10 earlier this week, noting, "This is a hard game. It should make you want to throw the pad across the room, get up to retrieve it but then change your mind and stamp on the cat."

Super Meat Boy launches on Xbox Live Arcade tomorrow, before terrorising Mac, PC and WiiWare users later this year.