Joystiq

Canadian Indie Bundle on Steam: Superbrothers, Shanks and more

David Hinkle — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:00:00 EST

Our brothers and sisters in The Great White North are getting some time in the spotlight today with a new bundle on Steam. The Canadian Indie Bundle packages together games from Klei Entertainment, Capybara Games, Gaslamp Games and more for $14.99.

Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, Shank and Shank 2 highlight this Canadian Indie Bundle, joined by Space Pirates and Zombies, Waveform, Hoard, Dungeons of Dredmor and Capsized. Many of the games in the bundle offer SteamPlay between Windows and Mac OSX.

Canadian Indie Bundle on Steam: Superbrothers, Shanks and more originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steam Summer Sale, final day: BioShock, Bastion, Double Fine bundle

Jessica Conditt — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:00:00 EST

This is it. Dig around your couch cushions, look under the rug and peek between the seats in your car (if you haven't sold it, that is) for any extra change. The final day of the Steam Summer Sale is here.

The last day is going out with a whimper, offering the BioShock franchise for $9.98, Bastion for $3.74, a Double Fine bundle including Costume Quest, Psychonauts and Stacking for $7.49, and Splinter Cell: Conviction seeing a range of deals, starting with the game itself for $4.99. Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is $9.99, Operation Flashpoint Complete (Dragon Rising and Red River) runs $13.74, Football Manager 2012 is $7.50, and Space Pirates and Zombies is $2.49.

Indie Bundle XI includes Hydrophobia: Prophecy, Orion: Dino Beatdown, Star Ruler, Waveform and World of Goo for $9.99.

And that's that, everyone. Summer's over. Now get back to work; you have to pay off all those games you bought somehow, and it's certainly not going to happen if you take the time to play them.

Steam Summer Sale, final day: BioShock, Bastion, Double Fine bundle originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Snapshot: Waveform (PC)

Jessica Conditt — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:00:00 EST

There are so many games out there we couldn't possibly review them all. Welcome to Snapshot, where we tell you about games that might fall outside our usual coverage but are still something we think you should know about. Today: Waveform for PC.

The games industry has entered a tense period of existence, with all the trash talk, petition-signing and next-gen jitters compounding into a nice, industry-wide hemiplegic migraine. We need something to soothe our psyches without boring our minds, a game that straddles the boundaries of "peaceful" and "challenging." That game just might be Waveform.

Waveform offers a polished, pretty glimpse into the life of a light wave as it travels from Pluto to the sun, dodging dark matter and collecting light particles along the way. Players control the sine wave itself, straightening, elongating and bunching it up to guide the piece of light into the path of delicious particles, without crashing into any space trash.

The endearing pomf pomf pomf of consumed light particles satisfies the senses like a far-away fireworks show, and the entire experience is ridiculously calming -- until the Singularity appears.

Continue reading Snapshot: Waveform (PC)

Snapshot: Waveform (PC) originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform

Jessica Conditt — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST

Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, developer Ryan Vandendyck describes the beauty of a sine wave in an innovative wavelength platformer, titled Waveform. A Kickstarter for Waveform is counting down rapidly -- if you like math, space, or fun indie games, give it a look and donate to the cause!

What's your game called and what's it about?

The game is called Waveform, and you control a wave of light transmitting through space. By adjusting the wave's amplitude and wavelength, you line it up to collect objectives, avoid obstacles, and interact with a whole bunch of objects that affect the path of your wave, and the world around you, in interesting ways. It's a simple and strange concept, but a ton of fun to play. It's designed to be effortless for anyone to jump into and enjoy, but the gameplay hearkens back to old-school action games. We like to think of it as fast-paced fun distilled down to its purest form so it's fun for everybody -- those looking for a unique and interesting game to experience and those looking for a challenge.

How did the idea to play with light and dark matter come about?

Back when I started this game in 2009, I had an idea to make a game that focused around one core gameplay mechanic. And, coming from a mathematical background, I ended up thinking of what it would be like to play a game as a sine wave.

I prototyped that within a few days and found, a bit to my surprise, that it was fun manipulating a wave in a game! But I didn't really know what else I wanted the game to be about. So I started thinking about waves and figured I could either make the game about sound waves or light waves. At the time I had no musician working with me, so I didn't want to go with a highly audio-dependent design -- so I decided on light waves. From there I just started adding features and mechanics that had to do with light, and a lot of things flowed pretty easily from that decision, like adding mirrors to reflect off of, particle accelerators to boost through, and the dark matter to sap your light away. What started out as a simple doodle on a piece of paper emerged as a fun game all about wave manipulation.

Continue reading The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Waveform originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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