Happy birthday to my Moogie who turned 62 this week... That would be my mom. We enjoyed Star Trek: Deep Space 9. She doesn't call me Rom.
Happy Halloween to everyone else because my next post won't be until November. I suggest celebrating with a collection of short films. Various indies release tales of terror around this time of year. The ABCs of Death collection comes to mind, but I'll avoid linking here because there's sometimes nudity obscuring the good clean violence. Here's an untested YouTube search instead.
Within BYOND
After months of previews on the Silk Games blog, version 1.52 of their retro MORPG NEStalgia has been released. It provides skill trees, revamped moon blessings, an NPC who resets skill points, a will system for soldiers, a credit system for merchants, animations, hotkeys and more. Try it out and be sure to make the team aware of any bugs.
The official podcast will no longer be available on YouTube. It can instead be found on various distribution services such as iTunes.
Aaiko's massive update to acorn-exploding Feval action has been released as well. It offers unlockable items, an in-game shop to customize avatars, a new lobby system, new medals and more. Go help test the beta! =)
Rise Of The Pirates is now in open testing with a server and trailer up as I type. I've been seeing snippets of the team's MORPG for a while, but there never seemed to be enough at once to mention... You know, other than the large post of screenshots which had to be pointed out to me through the pager and Facebook. ;)
Danlee13 has released a two-button arcade game called Slidevade. Players earn points by avoiding obstacles as they steer their elongated avatar downwards. The standings are steering me in the same direction since my last session.
After hosting a competition with his implementation of the knight's tour, Lugia319 released a player versus player version called Law of the Board. (This is not to be confused with Acebloke's chess variant collection.) Players take turns trying to land on each other and destroy their movement opportunities. More projects have been announced.
Lige and Branks updated their chase and evade game Jail Em! with bug fixes. A server is up as a type this, but reaction to the round-based competition has been unsatisfactory enough to make Lige change the format of Invasion to an action RPG. Character creation for the latter has been redesigned with the possibility of a demo after the combat is finished.
Falacy's treasure defense game Guardians has been updated. Along with bug fixes and minor interface tweaks, class upgrade costs were changed and a method for quickly selecting unit types with the mouse was added.
Vexonator appears to have released multiple updates to the turn-based fantasy Surreal Dreams. There are no release notes, but the forum reveals threads of feedback from players such as Xaddgx and Admiral Palleon. Expect to find bug fixes and balance tweaks.
Vocal_nebula has been working of a game called simply BYOND Football. As pictured, he has participated in the US sport himself. Videos have been posted. The core AI can now block, run, dodge and tackle.
F0lak has described the next version of his team's MORPG Hazordhu II. Redesigning much to use BYOND's new pixel movement, animals shall have a herd mentality, crafting shall involve a new type of object, projectiles shall move faster and various types of content shall be offered. Thankful for the support over the past 5 years, players have been told to expect something special for the anniversary.
Edit: Or not. In the comments below, El Wookie and TheGiftedSlayer provided a forum post telling a less optimistic fate.
After its fangame conversion, Stevenw9's medieval martial arts MORPG Chi Online has been merged into a more science fiction-oriented project currently called My RPG. The constant features are their open sandboxes and focus on world generation. A video of various solar systems has been provided.
Amongst sidescrolling platformer mockups and the loss of his Zombies! source, Kumorii has been sharing his team's progress on the horror survival Feed. While implementing barricades and status effects, they've taken on Raimo as a new artist programmer. Fans are being asked to contribute zombie and weapon ideas. A beta test was hosted on Wednesday.
DungeonDan has been developing a shooter called Mission X with (from what I can make of the comments) the help of Albro1 and Megablaze. The project's game-in-a-day goal has not been met, but various art selections have been posted on DungeonDan's blog. The most recent is the screenshot pictured.
Still working on the demo, Makeii has provided another screenshot of his action RPG Magus Aora - Edreoll. Players shall defeat the guardian of Novice Island to get a magic lantern powered by "Spheara" which shall allow them to climb the tower.
After displaying the physics for a project in the Breakout genre called Breach, Oasiscircle began developing a game called Corsair with the help of Yut Put, UPD4T3 and Nanoman2. The most recent video makes it look like a form of RTS. Descriptions of the units are available.
Bravo1 announced an upcoming space RTS called Dark Sea. It will offer a persistent universe with customization options and the ability to merge fleets with other players. A video is included.
Spend half an hour with the DMcast crew (minus Akto) as they discuss the latest version of BYOND, Forum_account's libraries and more. Then check the rest of their blog for video demonstrations and their new Video Forge project... I don't know whether we're supposed to dislike the YouTube videos to continue their standard of contrary ratings. ;)
BYOND Journalism has Higoten questioning menu bars and reading habits while Magnum2k and EnigmaticGallivanter search for six judges. Judges for what? Judges for the Journalism Choice Awards who shall explain their reasoning as they assign points to various categories.
Beyond BYOND
- Indie sales! Farbs is selling Captain Jameson for $9 until it ceases to be profitable. Meanwhile, Afterfall: InSanity can be preordered for only $1.
- Slightly Mad Studio's World of Mass Development now offers another source of crowdfunding for game developers willing to brave the beta. Last week, Slightly Mad's Ian Bell was interviewed by Rock, Paper Shotgun.
- On Gamasutra, Eric Swartz has posted his Observations on User Interface Design. Those I have reviewed for feature status know where I stand. ;)
- Also on Gamasutra, Bent Spoon Games' Alexei Andreev offers A guide for an indie developer for how to find, hire, and work with a freelance artist.
- Extra Credits discussed the importance of considering setting and design before releasing products like Call of Juarez: The Cartel.
- Congratulations to Naka Teleeli for gaining 15000 subscribers to his LP channel! He celebrated by creating a Minecraft server where he and others could build the map from Neutopia II. Over 200 people showed up and the project was finished quickly. He's currently warming up with the first Neutopia.
Save me some candy!
