Crayon Physics designer Petri Purho just posted some art from an unnamed seven-day game he's working on (as in, created in seven days, according to Experimental Gameplay Project rules), a shoot 'em up using procedurally generated graphics and creatures. Click on the images for higher rez versions.
"It's probably going to be a SHMUP and hopefully it's going to be out soon," Purho emailed. "It might also end up being a part of something bigger that involves other people as well, but I can't talk about it right now, since that's hush hush. :)"
OK, so collaborating with other people is a flagrant contravention of Experimental Gameplay Project rules, and you probably won't see this one in GameStop any time soon (unless Purho adds another leg to his characters, and maybe the Mr. Men license), but hey, we like Petri Purho. We've marked June 4th on our calendar -- it better be done by then!
Trying to keep up with all of the downloadable games and content that's out there these days is enough to make a fanboy cry. But cry no more, because Download Lowdown is here to help. Each week I'll sift through the good, the bad, and the weird to help you get the most from the download capabilities of your Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, DS, iPhone, PSP, and PC. You don't have to take my word for it though; I'll also be perusing and grabbing choice quotes from forums, Twitter, and reviews to give you an idea of what the Internet has to say.
This week I take a look at demos for inFamous and Tiger Woods 10, check out the new Resistance space in PlayStation Home, shoot down some bad guys in iFighter, try on Majora's Mask, and attempt to kill one of the titular "monsters" in the latest Monster Hunter.
If you're wondering where the video blips are, stay tuned for a potential eye-bleeding post later today. It's gonna be a doozy.
News Blips:
• Cryptic Games working on simple, easy-to-understand Atari games. The citizens behind the City of Heroes series are said to be working on rebooting classic (and existing) Atari franchises. Makes sense since Atari bought the studio a year ago. Here's hoping for an Adventure MMO where you can play as a duck-slaying square. [Kotaku]
• Sega spins wheel of cliché game ideas, lands on kart racer. Well, this would have been awesome in 1997: Sega announced they're making kart racer Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing for all consoles and DS. As you can probably tell by the title, the racer will feature characters from both Sonic and Sega games. Someone needs to update Sega about what the kiddos really like these days: guns, chainsaw guns, and near-naked muscle men. OK, maybe not that last one. [GameSpot]
• Transform back to 1986 via nostalgic Guitar Hero song. Stan Bush's classic butt rock ditty "You've Got The Touch" from the Transformers animated movie is now available for the low, low price of nada in Guitar Hero World Tour. Have fun touching, folks. [Joystiq]
• Microsoft shooting to add another "M" to MMO. Apparently the company is planning to create a massively multiplayer online game that can support a whopping 300,000 people in real-time. Wow, that's big. Finding 299,999 other friends to play with on a whim is going to be a bitch. [Develop via Kotaku]
Cultural Blip:
• Futurama videogame spoof turns into actual videogame. This is funny: Animated comedy Futurama spoofed the classic alien-shooting game Space Invaders in an episode way back when. Well, some creative developer decided to actually make that spoof into an actual game. Take a look [via GameSetWatch]:
Would you kindly drop whatever it is you're doing and fill out this survey, please.
It'll really help us out with this business. And even though we shouldn't have to bribe you to come to our aid, we will. After filling out the survey, come back here and leave a comment saying you've done so (honor rules!), and we'll pick one of you out at random to win a free game from our collection.
UPDATE: Survey's now closed. Who won our contest? Survey says: Joshua McCluskey. Thanks to everyone for helping us out!
The final podcast in our partnership of power arrives in the form of eat. sleep. game.'s Rebel FM. This weekly gaming podcast features a lot of game talk, naturally, and a lot of leprechaum discussion, bewilderingly. It's all in good fun though, which is why you should give it a listen. To introduce you to episode 20, we pass it off to Anthony.
yan ScottRebel FM -- Episode 20
This week the regular crew of Tyler, Arthur, and myself are joined by Area5.tv's Matt Chandronait. We discuss what we've been playing, the importance of video in games coverage (and how it's changed over the years), and conclude with your letters.
We'll be doing special broadcasts -- i.e. short -- from E3 when we find the time, so pay attention to our twitter feeds and eat-sleep-game.com to get the latest updates.
We are also still finalizing when we're going to do our E3 meet-up, and I'll be sending out a group email soon to those who have written to me.
For the most part, you all agreed: Bionic Commando is great when you're swinging, not so great when you're shooting, very not great when you're dying and having to replay through half a level again. Also: Death by radiation is quite possibly worse than running into invisible walls....
Bionic Commando, in a rare moment of not-drowning.
The Konami Code never stops giving. Between dishing out extra lives, providing hidden treats on random sites, and its permanent display as a hilariously bad tattoo, the classic cheat is always inspiring something awesome. Like this bitchin' Nintendo Rap from DubNasty.
Lots of great letters this week, including a few we didn't get to. Keep them coming. We can never have enough! Ask us anything! Letters@bitmob.com: You know what to do. This week we talk a little Pokémon, some gaming over/unders, one-console futures, and Citizen Kane.
Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Hello! I have a question regarding one of your more recent topics, Pokémon. I'm still waiting for an MMO. Doing a Google search results in Pokémon World Online (plus several articles about how the creators don't want it to become impersonal), as well as an April Fool's joke on the subject (Blizzard's making a Pokémon MMO!). How can someone make a Pokémon MMO, even if it's crappy freeware (I have yet to play it since it's only for PCs), while Nintendo could easily rack in the dough and win the hearts of many? Now that the Wii can utilize SD cards, all they need to do is get rid of Friend Codes and the world would be a better place. What you guys think?
I'm a damn lucky gamer dude. My girlfriend will save my ass in Resident Evil 5, she'll click skeletons with me in Diablo 2, and she'll watch me play Burnout Paradise while marking cars off a strategy-guide checklist as I unlock them. It's a dream setup for me.
But this past week, one "uh-oh" almost caused it all to come crashing down.
There may be better games than Drop 7 in the iPhone's App Store, but I haven't found them. This ridiculously simple game is, hands down, the most addictive puzzle game I've played since Puzzle Fighter. The concept is simple: You drop discs with numbers on them, and when the number of adjoining discs matches the number on any or all discs within that grouping, those discs explode and drop down anything above them.
Why is it always so hard to describe exactly how a puzzle game works, even when it's the simplest thing in the world?