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Most Recent: Mobile
Hyper Light Drifter will be out by the end of the year
Hyper Light Drifter, the stunning indie game that took Kickstarter by storm last year, will not be coming out in July as estimated. Heart Machine, the developers, made an announcement on Friday, saying they were not going to “rush the project.”
The team had originally planned to make a much smaller game, but the amount of funding they received (they got $645,158, which destroyed their $27,000 goal) means they are making a much larger game. The plan is to have the beta available to backers in June, and to release the game “at the end of the year holiday season.” Steam and PC will be released first, with other platforms (including the PS4, Vita, Wii U, and Ouya) to follow.
Hit the jump for an amazing preview sprite that was also included in the update. (more…)
Kickstart This! The 4K 2K14 Edition
2014 is barely three weeks old and already there is so much to be excited about. The next-generation consoles are stepping into their stride, CES gave us our first taste of the next wave of 4K televisions, and there is a treasure trove of potentially awesome games seeking funding on Kickstarter. Like Noah going into the ark, we’re kicking off the first edition of the year with some pairs. We have two RPGs, the collective world-building Story, and the more classic adventure RPG The Meridian Shard. After that is a pair of robotic logic puzzle games, Level and Algo-Bot. Finally, there is a single space-set games project vying for your cold, hard cash: Space Pioneer.
And a-one, and a-two… (more…)
Posted in Features, Mobile, PC, Top Story
Tagged Space Pioneer
Candy Crush Saga maker has trademarked the word “candy”
Are you secretly Brucer Banner (AKA The Incredible Hulk)? If so, you may want to skip this article as it will make you angry, very angry. And I don’t want any reason not to like you.
King, the publisher behind the massively popular Candy Crush Saga, has trademarked the word “candy.” They don’t own all rights to the word “candy.” You can still go to your local grocery store and ask the shopkeep for a big bag of candy. And you can still joke about how something is easier than taking candy from a baby. A huge proportion of this country’s strippers will also not have to change their stage names.
Sadly, King’s trademark covers practically everything else.
According to US Patent and Trademark Office, King’s trademark covers hundreds of items including “video game software,” “spectacles cases,” clothing of all kinds, “amusement parks,” all educational services or workshops, and “downloadable music files.” They actually believe that anyone that uses the word “candy” in a music file should have to pay them a royalty fee. And just in case you thought you were safe across the Atlantic, the publisher has also been granted a trademark on the word “candy” by the European Union’s Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) as well.
Surprisingly, few games actually use the word “candy” in their title, but according to Gamezebo, King has already sent cease and desist orders to those that do on the iOS App Store.
However, King’s victory (if you can call it that) is likely to be short-lived. According to the USPTO, their trademark has been approved, but not yet been published for opposition. And when it is, I imagine that the makers of Candy Land (which was first published in 1945) will have a problem with it. As they, and we all, should.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged candy crush saga
The Last of Us leads 2014 DICE Awards with 13 nominations
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has announced the nominees for this year’s DICE Awards. This year, The Last of Us leads all games with 13 nominations, including “Game of the Year.” It will compete against four other games for the honor: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, BioShock Infinite, Grand Theft Auto V, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.
Each of this year’s “Game of the Year” nominees has a chance to collect multiple awards as Grand Theft Auto V (seven), BioShock Infinite (six), and Assassin’s Creed IV (five), and A Link Between Worlds (three) were all nominated in multiple categories. With five nominations, Tearaway is also up a huge number of awards. All told, 61 games received nominations in 24 categories this year.
The 2014 DICE Awards ceremony will take place on Thursday, February 6 during the close of this year’s DICE Summit. A complete list of nominees can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, BioShock Infinite, Grand Theft Auto V, The Last of Us, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Broken Age available to all on January 28
Double Fine’s Broken Age: Act 1 is now available to backers of the highly successful Kickstarter campaign. But for those who took a wait-and-see approach, good news, the game will be available to the general public in just two weeks, on January 28. To celebrate, the developer has released a new trailer that shines a spotlight on the game’s second protagonist, Vella Tartine.
Tim Schafer, Double Fine’s President and the Writer/Designer behind Broken Age, is thrilled to return to the adventure genre after all these years:
“It’s been sixteen years since I’ve made an adventure game, almost twenty years since I’ve made a point-and-click, and just shy of two years since I dared the internet to force me to make one,” he said. “Coming back to the genre has been like finding an old jacket in a box in your garage that you haven’t worn in twenty years, but once you shake the dust off and put it on you realize it’s an amazing jacket and it still fits, and once you patch the holes in the pockets it could easily take a spot in your main jacket rotation.”
But Schafer is aware that Broken Age required a bit more than nostalgic memories to create. “In one of the pockets was three and a half million dollars,” he added.
Broken Age: Act 2 will be available as a free download to all owners of Act 1 later this year and Double Fine is working hard to bring the complete game to the Ouya (and other Android devices) and the iOS App Store.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged Broken Age
MLB developing R.B.I. Baseball 14 for Spring release
The R.B.I. Baseball series is stepping back onto the field for the first time in almost 20 years!
Major League Baseball announced that its MLB Advanced Media team is hard at work on R.B.I. Baseball 14 and will release the game across “current and next generation consoles and smartphones and tablets” this Spring. If you’ve never heard of MLBAM, there’s a reason for that, R.B.I. Baseball 14 will be the team’s first game development effort. Their previous duty was managing and developing Major League Baseball’s web presence including MLB.com and the websites for all 30 MLB teams.
Little else is known about R.B.I. Baseball 14 as a mostly empty teaser website is all we really have to go on. But with Spring right around the corner (and only 22 days left until Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training), we should learn more soon.
The Last of Us, Tearaway, Gone Home lead this year’s GDC Awards
The nominees for the 2014 Game Developers Choice Awards have been announced and The Last of Us, Gone Home, and Tearaway lead the field with five nominations apiece.
The Last of Us and Gone Home will be competing for this year’s Game of the Year award alongside Grand Theft Auto V, Super Mario 3D World, and Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto V are also in the running for multiple awards as each has been nominated in two additional categories.
Other multi-category nominees this year include The Stanley Parable, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Device 6, and Papers, Please.
This year’s Game Developers Choice Awards will be handed out on Wednesday, March 19 at the San Francisco Moscone Center during the 2014 Game Developers Conference. The full list of nominees can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged GDC 2014, Gone Home, Grand Theft Auto V, Super Mario 3D World, Tearaway, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider
2014 Independent Games Festival finalists announced
The Independent Games Festival announced the finalists for their 16th annual awards yesterday. This year, six titles will vie for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize including The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe), Don’t Starve (Klei Entertainment), Jazzpunk (Necrophone Games), Papers, Please (Lucas Pope), Device 6 (Simogo), and Dominique Pamplemousse in “It’s All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!” (Deirdra Kiai Productions).
The Festival jury found a lot to like about all six of those games as they show up again and again throughout the full list of finalists. You can find the complete list of finalists after the break, including the selections for the Nuovo Award, which honors “Abstract and Unconventional Game Development.”
The IGF Awards will be held on Wednesday, March 19 at the San Francisco Moscone Convention Center, directly preceding the disbursement of this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards during the 2014 Game Developers Conference. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged GDC 2014, Papers Please