It starts off with a $1 minimum, but as more money is tossed at it, more goodies open up.

The first, called Game Madness Incentive, includes a bonus game which is Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals.

Some “soon to be released” DLC for one of the titles in the bundle will also be included, and there’s the Music Madness Incentive as well which includes soundtracks and exclusive music from three indie artists – none of which has been released prior. The music includes tracks and a video from “electronic artists” Celldweller, FantomenK, and Damage Vault.

Then, there’s the Mystery Madness Incentive and it has something to do with fish. We have no idea what this could be.

Games included in the bundle come with a Steam key, and three include an alternate download method in case you are not a Steam member.

Here’s what you’ll get:

• Wasteland Angel
• Sideways New York
• Xotic
• BEEP
• The Ball

The Be Mine Bundle can be yours until February 28.

Thanks, IndieGameMagazine.

Although it didn’t nab the first prize, 2D puzzler The Bridge took two gongs.

Descriptions of all games are available from the IGC website, but I’ve also popped in links to each game’s web presence.

The IGC is a joint effort of the AIAS, GameStop, Kongregate and SMU Guildhall, and is judged by a panel. It is now in its third year.

Full winners listed below.

• Technical Achievement ($2,500)
  Symphony
• Achievement in Art Direction ($2,500)
  The Bridge
• Achievement in Gameplay ($2,500)
  The Bridge
• GameStop PC Digital Download Award
  Symphony
• Gamer’s Choice Award – Voted on by the Public ($2,500):
  Nitronic Rush

Thanks, Shack.

Hey, did you see this? This came out in Japan and the US last year, right? It looks pretty cool – like adult Manga! Might pick it up.

Yeah, I’ve just finished playing it through, actually. It’s very special. The animation is excellent but it’s the themes that run through it and the actual gameplay elements that are most impressive.

Sure, sure. Also: hot women! Well, there’s a hot blonde chick, the one with glasses looks a bit boring. Do you get to sleep with them? Looks like you do!

That’s not really the point. In terms of the relationship stuff there’s Vincent, Katherine and the blonde Catherine. You choose how Vincent responds to both women; for example, sometimes his girlfriend, Katherine, will text him when he’s at the bar with his friends and he has to decide whether to be dismissive or thoughtful in his replies. He can also encourage Catherine to send him messages – some of which are picture messages.

This trailer probably does a better job of framing it in the appropriate context:

Er, so it’s a relationship sim, then? The picture messaging sounds good, though. Does the hot blonde send you sexy pics? I bet she does, she looks like a right little goer.

The concept of relationships is one of the themes, yes – as is freedom, responsibility, anxiety, guilt, and happiness, amongst others.

Then there’s the actual gameplay. Vincent can interact with people at the local bar, which in turn shapes the story and explores the themes more deeply. However, most of his time is spent trying to solve some very tricky 3D block puzzles. Like this:

WTF?!

Why’s he running around in his boxer shorts holding a pillow? Why does he have ram horns on his head? Is that a baby chasing him? And what the hell is with all the sheep? This doesn’t look like the sexyfuntime from the trailer that I saw. AT ALL!

Ha! I told you there was more to it than just good looks. The puzzle-tower elements take place in Vincent’s nightmares – hence the weird things that occasionally chase him – and the story revolves around men dying mysteriously in their sleep.

Vincent can never quite remember his nightmares when he wakes up; he just knows he’s had a rough night and that all is not right.

As a result, he’s always pretty tired and occasionally gets lost in his own thoughts.

Okaaaay. And the sheep?!

Ah, yes. The sheep.

Well, a number of the men Vincent knows or meets at the bar are having variations of the same nightmare and somehow they’re all connected. The sheep in Vincent’s nightmares share characteristics with the men he meets in his waking hours, all of whom are carrying their own emotional baggage and issues. What’s more, in the nightmare each sheep sees himself as a normal man and all the other men as sheep.

Vincent starts having the nightmares just before meeting Catherine, whom he then gets…mixed up with.

So, it’s a morality thing, then? Cheating’s bad, men are all weak-willed sheep blah blah etc? Jeez, isn’t that a bit sexist?

Seriously?!

From the person that’s interested in the game because it looks like you might get to have sex with a “hot blonde chick” who “looks like a right little goer” and has dismissed another woman because she “looks a bit boring”?

Yeah, OK. Don’t give me that moral high-ground bullshit. I was kidding: it’s just banter. You know what I mean.

Just banter between mates, huh?

Yeah, a bit of fun.

Mates just going with the flow?

Yeah, s’pose so.

Just flocking together?

Fuck off

Haha!

OK, look: yes, there are elements of this game that are deliberately provocative and titillating and, yeah, some of the stuff is sexy. And I completely agree that sometimes people are all too quick to jump on their high-horse about sex, especially about sex in games.

Right, plus, even if I am supposedly being sexist, that doesn’t mean it’s OK for someone or *something* else to be sexist too. Two wrongs… etc

No, you’re right: it absolutely doesn’t mean it’s OK.

The point, really, is that the sheep analogy in this scenario isn’t sexist; it’s a visual representation of a concept that you can interpret in different ways. Most importantly, it’s one that provokes discussion.

Although, a brief anecdote: I was out for a drink one night during the time I was playing Catherine and, I shit you not, while standing at the bar I heard one bloke say to his mate: “You know me bruv, if you want to do it, I’ll follow suit”. That tickled me.

But, irrespective of that, the sheep thing doesn’t necessarily represent what it seems to.

How come? What is it supposed to mean other than: men are all the same, they’re weak and can’t help cheating?

Well, perhaps some of the men in the game that appear as sheep haven’t cheated; maybe they have their own issues.

Look, I don’t want to say too much about it because I really think you should experience it for yourself. One way of thinking about it is like an Escher sketch

How the hell is this like an Etch-A-Sketch?

Not an Etch-A-Sketch, numbnuts – an ESCHER sketch: Maurits Cornelis Escher.

Something that, at first glance, appears to be one thing and that both validates and contradicts itself from different perspectives – something that doesn’t make sense, but does; like these:

That’s…weird. Makes my brain hurt a bit

Exactly! Another comparison that occurred to me while playing Catherine is to that Robert Rodriguez film that Tarantino wrote the screenplay for: From Dusk Till Dawn. Y’know, how it starts as one thing, goes a little batshit crazy in the middle but still really works?

OK, I think I’m getting your point now. I like the sound of it!

But if I play it, will I actually have any say it what happens? Or will I just be watching pretty cut-scenes in between solving pain-in-the-arse block-puzzles?

You’ll have loads of input into how Vincent handles situations. There are different things that can happen throughout the story depending on the choices you have Vincent make. It’s really very cool. Some of the writing is genuinely funny and the metagames are clever and interesting. The social commentary on gender roles, friendships, even alcohol, is fascinating.

Also, on normal or hard difficulty the puzzles are really tough but that means you’re pumped once Vincent gets through them and escapes from another of his nightmares. Or you can play on easy and concentrate more on the story. Plus there are eight endings – in my play through, Vincent came out the other side of his ordeal a very different man. It was the True Freedom ending.

OK, sounds good, I’m in!

Thing is, whilst what I did and what I experienced made me realise what’s important to me, I know that I treated them both badly and I was selfish. Instead of telling her from the outset that I had a girlfriend, I lapped up the adoration; returned it, even. I guess I enjoyed that little buzz that comes from feeling wanted.

I know that I should have sat down with the one who loved me, and whom I loved, and talked it through. It’s not even like I only saw it in hindsight, I could see what was happening at the time and did nothing to stop it.

I was selfish and I was weak, and I have to live with that and move forward. Life goes on and all that jazz.

Uhm, Stace, you OK? That’s all pretty deep. You’re still talking about the game, right? About Vincent?

You want to meet for a beer later, have a proper catch-up?

I…oh. Ha! Yeah, I ‘m fine. A slip of the metaphorical tongue!

That’s genuinely all the stuff that happened to Vincent during my play-through of Catherine. I’m looking forward to starting over, to see if things turn out differently for him. I’d also like to hear about your experience of it, too.

Anyway, yeah, beer later sounds good – usual place. Not too heavy a session though, I’m really tired.

I’ve not been sleeping properly, lately.

For that amount, you will get five titles available for the following platforms:

• Zeno Clash for Steam (PC),
• Hoard for Steam (PC and Mac) along with a key for two DLC packs
• Lume for Windows, Mac, Linux, Desura, Steam (PC and Mac)
• Soulcaster for Windows, Desura
• Soulcaster II for Windows, Desura

As a bonus, each bundle purchase also includes One Life Left’s “Music To Play Games By Too” compilation.

More information is through the link.

According to the blog post, Nintendo’s recent unveiling of its online strategy piqued the firm’s interest, which feels the 3DS eShop has been “a big step in the right direction compared to the Wii and DSi online shops.”

“It would be strange if they did not at least match it’s functionality on Wii U,” said the firm. “Since Toki Tori 2 is designed to be a downloadable title, these things are vital to making the correct choice of which platforms to develop for.

“Up until now, we could just focus on the initial release for Steam, where we decided to go for traditional directional controls on keyboard or joypad. The translation of those controls to the Wii U controller should be smooth sailing as it features two analogue sticks and we only need two buttons for the whistle and stomp moves. But the Wii U controller offers many more options of course.”

The post goes on to state that the developers would include the ability to play Toki Tori 2 on the Wii U screen directly, and since the game has been designed with “minimal use for a graphical user interface,” it should be “perfectly playable on the controller’s smaller widescreen display.”

“As for the motion controls, we don’t think Toki Tori needs those and adding them to the game as it is currently designed does not make much sense,” Two Tribes said. “What could be very interesting, and what’s been requested countless times from the fans, is if we could incorporate a level editor utilizing the Wii U controller. This could mean that the game runs on the TV while you make adjustments to the level on the touchscreen in real time.

“We think that would work really well.”

The studio said all these ideas are “pure speculation at this point,” since there is nothing known about the Wii U’s ability to share and store levels, but is prepared to “do everything in our power” to make sure folks get to play Toki Tori 2 on Wii U.

Sounds like a day-one for us, then.

Toki Tori 2 is slated for release on PC and iOS this spring.

The latest bundle is, like all the others, compatible with Windows, OS-X and Linux, but also offers Android versions of included games.

Reverse tower defence Anomaly, the flOw-like Osmos and puzzler Edge are included – but if you pay more than the average price (currently $5.69) you’ll also nab the bestselling World of Goo.

As always, you’ll get Steam keys where available, but also access to DRM-free installs, meaning you can set up your games on as many devices as you please.

Visit the Humble Bundle website to get on board; proceeds are split between developers and charities.

More details here.

Get it from iTunes here. Thanks, Joystiq.

The Square-published, Portal-like puzzler launches at some point in 2012 for PSN and XBLA. Get Nathan’s impressions from PAX last August here.

As noted in our article back on the 18th, Deadlight focuses on Randall Wayne as a lone survivor within an apocalyptic alternate-world setting. Humanity has all but fallen, subjected to a virulent disease, turning the population into ‘shadows’. Desperate and alone, the player must survive using the few strengths remaining to the living – cunning and intelligence.

In the dark world of Deadlight, you are not some disease-immune superperson aka Left 4 Dead, facing the zombie horde with a range of weaponry. Wits and environment will be your key weapon, rather than an explosive array of destruction. As said by Tequila Works CEO and creative director Raul Rubio, using weaponry will usually be a “very bad choice”. So expect more of a puzzle-platformer, with a heavy use of physics, rather than flamethrowers and grenades.

The game is being crafted with a heavy focus on story, on the horrors of surviving alone in a world gone violently and animalistically wrong. One to be played alone, in the dark of night, if you dare.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Many of us have enjoyed the Darksiders games, an action-adventure romp that combined visceral combat, exploration, and puzzles. The heavily stylised graphics of the game certainly do resemble the comic book dynamic, with their drawn out views and character interaction. Seeing that Joe has a significant background in the comic book industry, this somewhat makes perfect sense.

In a recent interview, he’s gone one step further in wishing to combine these two worlds, expressing a desire to bring the classic Legend of Zelda to the printed page. The love for the game is global, and in my opinion, the idea certainly holds merit. So much so that back in the early 90s, Nintendo did team up with Valiant Comics (now Valiant Entertainment, Inc.) which produced a number of their favourites in print form – including Super Mario Bros., Metroid, and indeed, The Legend of Zelda.

Twenty years on, is it time for Nintendo to take this offer seriously?

Darksiders, developed by Vigil Games and published by THQ, was released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms in January 2010, with a PC and OnLive version in September 2010. The sequal, Darksiders 2, is due for release June 2012.

Thanks, Computer and Video Games.

In Puddle, gamers guide puddles of fluid through a variety of environments such as the human body, a garden, a foundry, and more. In order to accomplish their task, the player must tilt the environment all the while “balancing each fluid’s unique properties” while taking gravity, friction, and various obstacles into account.

With players never being able to see the entire level from the start, Puddle will offer some unexpected twists such as having to dodge heat beams or “rays of electric current”. Some puzzles will task the player with handling “a blob of radioactive fluid with care” or guiding a “virtual puddle of rocket fuel through a hand drawn blueprint.” Players will also “follow a sip of water as it makes its way through a human body,” among other puzzles.

Puddle, which started life as a project created by six students at the French videogame school ENJMIN, was picked up and developed by Neko after it won the Student Showcase prize at the Independent Gaming Festival during GDC 2010.

It will be made available on XBLA January 25 and through PSN January 31.

Screenshots are posted below.

The PSN version of the was released in December in the US, but was delayed in Europe due not passing SCEE’s QA process. As of early January, it was still in limbo, and it looks like it still might be a while yet.

“We sincerely apologize for the frustration this ongoing delay has caused our European fans, as it is a frustration we (ATLUS and Frozenbyte) also share, read the statement. “We assure the community that everything within our influence is being done to release Trine 2 for PAL PS3 system users as soon as possible, and we humbly ask for our fans’ continued patience and understanding.”

The XBL and PC versions are available now.

We live in the future, apparently, and yet the daydream of pressing a button and seconds later enjoying a world of interactive delight is yet to materialise.

I don’t play enough games, and I’m ashamed of it. I just don’t seem to have the time to spend with major releases any more. The most time I’ve spent on a game in the last month is a tiny indie puzzler called Chocolate Castle, released two years ago but given another lease on life by a recent Humble Bundle.

Chocolate Castle is a really low-fi affair. The graphics are simple and low resolution. The audio is best characterised as beeps and boops, along with a pretty delightful munching effect. It’s not going to win any awards for dramatic narrative, nor does it feature a single exploding landmark. What is does have, by the bucket, is playability. Chocolate Castle is technically a sliding or block push puzzle game, but it has a number of twists, like blocks sticking to each other, which give it a great deal of flexibility in level design. Some of the later puzzles – there are 120 in the full version – are fiendishly difficult, and every single one is different.

All of that is reason enough to play Chocolate Castle, but more and more I find myself returning to it because it’s just so accessible. Not “accessible” in the PR way meaning “push X to win,” but accessible in that whenever I’m at a computer, I can fire it up and play a level or two with no obstacles. This is increasingly not the case with triple-A games, which, I posit, have grown too big for their boots.

Are You Equipped?

The path between conceiving of a desire to play a video game of some kind, and actually achieving this goal, is long and frustrating. I have both HD consoles; a couple of handhelds; a PC; and a Mac. With this collection, I can play almost everything that comes out. For those with access to fewer platforms, innumerable games are denied them.

“Them’s the breaks,” you might scoff, valuing cliché over grammar. We’re not talking about a few exclusives here, but, in some cases, entire catalogues. PC gamers have more grunt in their customised cases than two consoles strapped together, yet have to wait a year for a dodgy port. Macs have become an important computing platform in the last decade, and yet the idea of timely OSX ports is laughable. The console networks are so tightly locked in licensing and proprietary secrets down that some games – and entire publishers – are just never going to make the leap.

Chocolate Castle is available for Mac, PC and Linux. It released on all three platforms simultaneously as if that weren’t even a thing. If console gamers were more open to spending money on adorable indie puzzlers, it could presumably be ported to either network, and perhaps to mobiles, with relative ease. Chocolate Castle is portable because of its scale; it’s nowhere near as ambitious as this year’s blockbuster shooters, and that makes it infinitely more flexible – and accessible to a greater audience. You don’t need a whizz-bang CPU to play Chocolate Castle. It does not demand you upgrade your RAM.

Arr Me Hearties

Reviewers came afoul of Ubisoft’s DRM this week, when they found that their three-install license for Anno 2070 fell over when they dared to swap in a new graphics card. The DRM software apparently interpreted this as an attempt to illicitly move an install to an entirely new machine. The French publisher gets a lot of flack for its severe approach to anti-piracy measures, but it isn’t the only company to protect its games this way. Even the Steam client – which many forget is itself a DRM tool – will panic and require unlocking if you move your installations to a new hard drive on the same computer, something recommended on the company’s support pages. Let’s not even talk about always-on DRM and the regular failure of internet connections.

Ubisoft seems to believe it can’t afford to risk its IP without DRM – and many other publishers feel the same way. When games cost tens of millions to make, there’s an exceptionally fine line between success and angry share holders.

Chocolate Castle is DRM free. It takes about ten minutes, from start to finish, to purchase, download and then install Chocolate Castle dozens of times.

So maybe it’s time to make some games which you can afford to release into the wilds. Chocolate Castle is DRM free. It takes about ten minutes, from start to finish, to purchase, download and then install Chocolate Castle dozens of times. I installed it on my PC, and my Mac, and then on my partner’s PC and Mac, and I’m probably going to put it on my dad’s computer as well, because these are all machines I use on a regular basis. When I get a new computer, I’ll install it there, too. When I swap out hardware or drives or move a folder, Chocolate Castle won’t even blink an eye. You paid for me, it offers calmly. Do whatever you like. I think I’d like to buy another license, actually, because I like this game a great deal and it would make a nice gift. Take my money.

Chocolate Castle has probably been pirated thousands of times, but while it represents a significant investment of money, time and energy on its developer’s behalf, it’s small enough and cheap enough that the goodwill of happy users – and the word of mouth which, it must be said, piracy generates – will generate sales which a game without marketing might never otherwise see. Lexaloffle would probably prefer you pay for its game, but it isn’t suing you because you didn’t. It has built a certain amount of piracy into its business plan, and moved on, while legitimate customers reap the benefits.

Stop Faffing About

Games seem to demand more and more of our time every year. To stay competitive in multiplayer games, you’ve got to practice regularly. RPGs require grinding – and everything’s an RPG now. Single-player campaigns go on for hours and hours and hours (including: forever. Thanks, Skyrim). If you want to see all or even just most of what a game has to offer, you’re committed to about eight hours minimum – and there are new games coming out every week.

The time to do these things has to be salvaged from the rest of your day, and it doesn’t always come in solid bursts, which is why it’s so frustrating that when you do want to play, you’re given a bunch of hurdles to jump. If you’re lucky, the game you want will be available at your local shop, or you’ll have pre-loaded it – otherwise, you’ll need to set aside a chunk of time in which your machine sits idly, downloading, and then installing.

Once the core game is in place, there’s the patches. No programming above the most basic level will ever be entirely bug free; that’s simply a sad fact of our imperfect human existence which will persist until our machine overlords retire us in favour of genetically-engineered slug slaves. It’s understandable that a game will release with one or two issues. Even the occasional game-breaking glitch is forgivable, after much grinding of teeth, but game-breaking glitches aren’t exceptions any more – they’re the norm. When was the last time you played a triple-A game which didn’t require a patch in the first week? How many times has your latest favourite been patched since release?

Chocolate Castle takes approximately half a second to load to the main menu; less than that between menus; and closes in the blink of an eye. It encourages sessions of ten minutes, whereas that’s just about long enough to get through the opening cinematic at the beginning of the tutorial that’s an hour before the first checkpoint in Shooting Things VI: Revenge of Bullets.

If you have an hour’s lunch break, chances are you’ll have just enough to time to buy and maybe – if you’re very lucky – download and install a game. Assuming you have it pre-loaded, and your system, client or the game itself doesn’t need patching, you’ll get an hour’s gaming in – minus loading times. That’s one hour down, then. Only seven to go and I’ll have an achievement. Hooray.

Chocolate Castle hasn’t been patched once since I got it. I’ve never seen a single bug or crash. It’s a complete package managed carefully to ensure that its team’s resources for testing and reiteration met the scope of the project and its release schedule – something huge triple-A projects simply cannot afford. Another couple of things Chocolate Castle never requires is client updates and password resets. It takes approximately half a second to load to the main menu (the opening logo is skippable), less than that between menus, and closes in the blink of an eye. Because it’s such a tidy little thing, it encourages pick-up-and-play sessions of ten minutes, whereas that’s just about long enough to get through the opening cinematic at the beginning of the tutorial that’s an hour before the first checkpoint in Shooting Things VI: Revenge of Bullets.

Chocolate Castle, in short, does not faff about. If I did not own Chocolate Castle, I could acquire and install it in the time it takes for the kettle to boil. When I want to play Chocolate Castle, I click the icon, and I’m playing Chocolate Castle. When I want to stop, I stop, and lose nothing.

We live in the future, apparently, and yet the daydream of pressing a button and seconds later enjoying a world of interactive delight is yet to materialise. Triple-A development is too big, too feature-packed and too risky to do what Chocolate Castle does. We need more Chocolate Castles. The industry could stand to learn a lot from Chocolate Castle.

The game takes place on the American west coast during 1986. The landscape is apocalyptic, as the population of the country has been decimated by some sort of epidemic. Having “no reason to exist”, the main character Randall Wayne finds that when he enters the area, surviving becomes “much more than a daily routine.”

Tequila Works, based in Madrid was founded in September 2009 by Raúl Rubio Munárriz and Luz Sancho Rodríguez, and the team comprises veterans from such titles as Commandos, Motorstorm, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Diablo III, Heavy Rain, and Overlord II.

You can check out screens from the game below.

Thanks, Joystiq.

A Mac port of Playdead’s Limbo has appeared on Steam, bringing with it full Steamplay support; upload your saves to the cloud and pick up where you left off, even when switching to a Windows PC. It costs $10, €10 or £6.99.

Limbo has actually been available for OS-X users since late December, but was exclusive to the Mac App Store.

The award-winning black-and-white indie is also available via the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.

Thanks, Ripten.

Here are your downloads for the week:

eShop

• Zen Pinball 3D
• Hip Hop King: Rytmik Edition
• 101 Pinball World

DSiWare

• Hip Hop King: Rytmik Edition
• 101 Pinball World

WiiWare

• Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math: The Case of the Crumbling Cathedral

Also available January 14 on Nintendo Video is part one of the two-part 3D, animated series, Kirby: Right Back At Ya!.

Rare and BigPark’s Midnight Mountain Ski Pack for Kinect Sports: Season Two is also available today for 400 MSP.

There’s also an update available for Gears of War 3, along with discounts on: Dungeon Defenders (33% off), Orcs Must Die! (50% off), South Park: Lets’s Go Tower Defense Play! (50% off), and Defense Grid: The Awakening (50% off).

Upcoming game add-ons for the month include the Fenix Rising Map Pack for Gears 3, Genkibowl VII for Saints Row: The Third, and a new deck expansion for Magic the Gathering 2012.

You can also expect discounts on Grand Theft Auto IV add-ons and San Andreas next week.

The full list of content can be found through the link as well as below.

Here are your download offerings for the week:

eShop

• Samurai Sword Destiny
• Quick Fill Q
• 3 Heroes – Crystal Soul
• Swapnote (app)

DSiWare

• Quick Fill Q
• 3 Heroes – Crystal Soul

WiiWare

• Zombiii Attack