In the homestretch of 2012, Nicklas “Nifflas” Nygren, an assonant Swedish indie game dev who has been churning out hardware-easy, freeware 2D platformers since 2006, released Knytt Underground onto PlayStation Network, ushering in a wave of changes both good and bad news for long time fans. First and foremost that you’ll have to pay for this one.
Dork Shelf is pleased to announce the launch of The Indies, a brand new monthly games feature that takes a look at up-and-coming local and national indie games and the people who made them. This month we profile Toronto's Asteroid Base, creators of the much-buzzed Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime.
With Gamercamp 2012 now officially almost half over, the Dork Shelf team reports on day one of the Toronto-based video game culture festival. Zack Kotzer, Jonathan Ore, Eric Weiss, and Wesley Fok round up today's busy schedule.
We had the chance to speak with game designer Jon Mak and musician Shaw-Han Liem earlier this summer, to discuss their new game Sound Shapes. While an extremely loud demo of Dyad played behind us, we talked about their process, Mak's hatred of platformers, the game's musical backbone, and much more.
Catherine is a bit of a legacy project from the Persona Team, but they don’t drag any Persona iconography kicking and screaming into it. There are no zombie dogs, Pyramid Head or pretty pan blonde boys with goofy swords. Catherine's pastiche is conjured from scratch. And that’s one hell of a reason to start a steamy affair.
What's not to like about blobs? Video games and globular protagonists have gone together like... well, two blobs do. Toronto-based indie developers DrinkBox Studios have been hard at work on Tales from Space: About a Blob for several years now, putting their own spin on blob-based gaming. We have been intrigued by the game ever since its appearance at Gamercamp in 2009, but had not heard much about it until last September, when it was announced that the title had become part of Sony's Pub Fund program. Now About a Blob is finally available for download on the Playstation Network, but does this platformer-puzzler live up to the gooey pedigree of its blobby forefathers?
Warren Spector’s crack at the Mickey mythos is as interesting as it is weird in his anticipated and ambitious take on the mouse, Epic Mickey. It’s a strange direction for both the cherished cartoon and the respected designer, but it’s clear that the two forces have found a comfortable middle ground for creation. Be that as it may, is Epic Mickey as successful as its starry eyes wish for?
In the past, Kirby has tilted and tumbled, pinballed, air rode and whatever the heck dream coursing is. To say Kirby has gone under some heavy reimagining for a new title isn’t exactly out of the ordinary, as history shows that almost every other cute little entry in the series is off the beaten path. The pink, fluffy whatsit is as flexible as he is collapsible. So how does a franchise with a history of reinvention, reinvent itself? Well, the folks at HAL cleverly decided to attack the problem at its roots with Kirby's Epic Yarn, reassembling Kirby’s platforming origins with a radically different approach and changing nearly everything except how ungodly adorable it is. Is this newly knit creation a gorgeous weave? Or will it unravel and alienate fans?
As the window for independent game makers widens, so the variety of expected material should also grow. VVVVVV (or the The Letter V Six Times if you want to use your mouth) is the new title from Irish game artist Terry Cavanagh, who last year found himself praised for the artistically inspired Don’t Look Back. […]
Montréal developer Polytron Corporation unveiled their mind-bending 2D/3D platformer FEZ last year and we haven’t heard much about it since. That is until the indie studio posted a brand new trailer for the game a few weeks ago. If you aren’t intrigued by this conceptually brilliant, multidimensional platformer… Well, then I guess I didn’t know you as […]
