Black Fire Games announced a new action space shooter for windows:

Alien Dominion: The Acronian Encounter

Alien Domination Screenshot

From the press release:

In this space shooter the player is in a role of a turret gunner/shooter serving on a deep space exploration mission. Encountering an alien race while scanning for mineral rich asteroids in the region, the conqueror race starts it’s attack right at the beginning. As it later turns out, the region is not dense with minerals – it is rich with hostile vessels…
Featuring beautiful graphics, explosively fast game-play and a lot of hours of fun while fighting through hordes of alien fighters, drones and mother-ships through space to ultimately reach Earth and inform the fleet of the impending attack!
Can you survive all of the 6 worlds of total annihilation and destruction, over 1000 alien fighters and drones, with a couple of mother-ships launching wings like crazy?

Features:

• Fastest and most intense 3d space shooter you have ever seen – feel free to compare it to other games!
• The ship is driven by the pilot, and you defend with 2 turrets (upper and lower) covering all the space around the vessel (this is a 3d space “rail” shooter)
• Unique feel of intense battle and adrenalin pumping trough your veins
• 6 blood pounding missions with great heavy metal tracks while shooting down the invading force, with an option of muting the music if you rather prefer silence or playing some custom tunes on your favorite player in the background
• Hours and hours of fun play before you successfully survive the last world and inform humanity about the Acronians – rewarded by a neat animation at the end
• Over one hour of constant action needed to finish the game (if you survive all the levels in a row, that is…)
• 4 levels of difficulty (Rookie, Normal, Ace and Abnormal)
• Incredible space environments and planets (you can’t land, that’s a decoration only, but very detailed I should add). Indie or casual games ususally do not have that.
• Flexible graphics settings to meet your hardware – indie or casual games ususaly do not have this
• 3d explosions with debris falling of everything you shoot at, plus beautiful particle effects
• Shop available at the end of each level: weapon, add-ons, shields, utilities, repair-bots… everything to make you happy.
• Intro and game complete cut-scenes
• Listen to in game chat of pilot, gunner and the ship’s AI to find out what happened meanwhile…
• free download to check out the game

Alien Domination: The Acronian Encounter is available now for $11.99 from the developers shop.

Homepage: http://www.blackfiregames.com/

Demo: http://www.blackfiregames.com/shop/

93-interactive announces the release of its new cross platform client based system for indie and casual game distribution: samanon.com

samanon.com consists of two parts, a web environment to browse indie and casual games, and a cross platform client application to manage games and demos.

The Samanon Client is available for Linux x86, Mac OS X and Windows and includes a browser to directly access the Samanon web part with a growing list of over 30 indie and casual titles, like Kingdom Elemental, a mixture of real-time strategy, tactics and role playing, or L!ght Deluxe, a logical puzzle with over 100 levels.

The client can be downloaded from the following website: http://samanon.com

About 93-interactive:

93-interactive was founded in 2009. Besides offering services in the area of game development, they created a number of Android, iPhone and PC games, including iPhone Worfon, Brukkon and KreiselBall.

Contact:

93-interactive
Heiko Irrgang (CEO)
Email: hi@samanon.com
Website: http://samanon.com
Phone: +49-160-7873168

VVVVVV – distractionware

Every now and then i get my hands on a game where i sit in front of my screen and all i can think of is: WOW! – This list of games just got a new member.

VVVVVV, a rather unconventional name for a rather unconventional game.

VVVVVV Screenshot

After first double clicking the binary, i immediately was excited. What i saw was a loading screen that looked like a de-crunching phase of a game or demo on my beloved commodore 64. And this theme goes through the whole game. Everything looks like a classic commodore 64 game, but is presented like a modern game with story elements and animations.

You are flying your space ship through space but something bad happens and you have to evacuate your crew and yourself from the ship. Unfortunately the evacuation teleporter did spread your crew members all over the space station where you traveled to.

VVVVVV Screenshot

Now you have to find them. The finding itself works in a 2D platform game mode. You walk through single screens and have to avoid moving objects, thorns and other stuff that prevents you from progressing.

The thing is: all you can do is change the gravity. When you hit space, you walk on the ceiling, when you hit it again, you walk on the ground.

The level design is creative and challenging, sometimes even hard, but there are plenty of checkpoints so you can try again and again if you have to (and you will have to )

VVVVVV Screenshot

Overall

One word: WOW! – Yes, there have been games with the general concept of changing gravity up/down and clear the level, but the whole game is a piece of art. The graphics, the presentation and the level design, all together makes this game a must have for fans of old school game play and good ideas. This will be well spent $15

Developer: http://www.distractionware.com/

Homepage and Demo: http://thelettervsixtim.es/

Brukkon – 93-interactive

Tile based puzzle games with unique ideas are rare today. Brukkon is one of that tile based puzzle games, but as far as i know has quite a unique concept.

Brukkon Screenshot

You move a robot over the tile field to get him to his spare parts. You move the robot by guiding his way with the mouse, but the robot can not go to its spare parts directly. You have to move platforms either with the robot on it or without it.

These platforms can be moved either horizontal of vertical, or both. Once the platform starts moving, it moves into this direction until something is in its way, be it either a ground tile, or another moving tile.

Brukkon Screenshot

There are also colored platforms, where you can not step your robot on. These platforms are removed, as soon as 4 or more of them are in a row.

Brukkon Screenshot

The game features 30 levels, which start easy and get to moderate difficulty. The levels are not really hard to solve, but the fun comes not from solving the level, the real fun comes up if you try to beat the online high score. There are usually countless ways to solve a level and to find out the way with the least number of moves, which you need for conquering the high score, can be tricky and sometimes requires even good reaction and timing.

Brukkon Screenshot

Overall

The game play reminds me of Sokoban, but it is quite different. Graphics are well done with different environment themes and night and day scenes. Music is quite cinematic but is not disturbing you while you try to figure out ways to save moves. A Demo is available and with $14 the price is fair. A iPhone version is also available from Apple AppStore.

Homepage: http://brukkon-puzzle-game.com

Demo: https://samanon.com/

Irukandji – Charlies Games

Charlies Games has recently released a new shooter game called Irukandji. The story is told quick: You control a ’ship’ and shoot at procedural sea monsters showing up. Well, nothing new here. What makes the game interesting is its great graphics.

Irukandji Screenshot

The game is filling the screen with tons of particles, light effects and opponents. As with other classic shooters, you get score multipliers and weapon improvements by collecting special objects which come up if you destroy enough opponents.

Irukandji Screenshot

It is a tough game and although i am not a major fan of this type of shooters, i think, challenging game play is what makes these games interesting. It is not so easy to get through the level, especially for people who tend to get epileptic seizure

Irukandji Screenshot

What really could use some improvement is sound and music. Music is obviously a matter of personal taste. The sound is quite standard for such a shooter and while you are busy processing all the visual information beating you into your face you will barely notice it

Overall

Well, idea wise this game has not much to give, but it is very well presented and has great graphics. Fans of the genre will especially like its price: It costs $1+, so you are free what you want to play, but it has to be at least 1 Dollar. It has a few different ships to unlock and a few challenges to achieve, so it should give genre fans enough to be busy for a while.

Homepage and Demo: Charlies Games

Linux game publishing recently announced, that they are dropping prices of their older titles by 10%.

Here is the original news note:

Today we have permanently reduced the price of all of our games more than one year old by 10%. This includes favorites such as Majesty, Postal 2 and Cold War. The exception is X2: The Threat, as we just dropped the price of that by 30% a few weeks ago!

Quantz – Gamerizon Studio, Inc.

At first glance, Quantz is another matching color game, as we have all seen plenty.

You control a cube in the middle of the screen by using your mouse and colored spheres fly towards that cube. As in many matching color games, your aim is connect 4 or more spheres of the same color and they disappear.

Quantz Screenshot

Quantz comes with three different game modes: Action, Strategy and Puzzle.

In Action mode, random colored spheres fly in and you turn the cube to land them where you want them.

In Strategy mode, you see a number of upcoming spheres in a row and  start them in by clicking the mouse. This way you can plan your actions instead of just reacting as in action mode.

Quantz Screenshot

Puzzle mode presents you with predefined scenarios which you have to solve.

I must admit, that i did not follow all the match color games showing up since the 80’s very closely. I think this game brings in a few game play details, that were not seen in others.

Quantz Screenshot

What makes it really stand out of the masses is its presentation and its graphics. Although a bit too much bloom for my taste, it is all well animated, with tons of particle effects and whirling lights and effects all over it. Someone has put some serious time into the user interface

It is available for $12.99 on Mac OS X and Windows, a Linux port is currently in public beta stage.

Overall

The game play shows a few minor additions to the match colors genre, this is why i go a little low on the ideas rating. The graphics are really outstanding, if you like the genre, this might be a title to go for. There is a demo available, give it a try!

Homepage and Demo: http://www.gamerizon.com/

Little Space Duo – Jugilus

Little Space Duo from Jugilus is a game where you play a little girl which awakes on a cargo spaceship. The spaceship is out of control and a little robot shows up who wants to repair the spaceships AI. His problem: he has no hands. So here comes in the ‘handy’ fact, that you have two of them. So you team up with the little fella, to repair the ship.

Little Space Duo Screenshot

You can switch between controlling them both at once, or each alone. The levels are presented in a 2D side view with moving platforms and switches spread all over them – quite similar to the good old commodore 64 classic Impossible Mission. It is somewhat similar to that classic, but controlling two different characters adds enough difference to make this game even interesting to people who played Impossible Mission extensively.

The robot can carry you for a – very – short time and can move through tiny holes where you cannot go. Unfortunately you are not alone on the ship. There are evil robots all over that will not be happy to see you running around, so you better avoid them by not moving into their sight.

Little Space Duo Screenshot

The graphics are done nice and the whole game is presented well. The music fits the scenario good.

The game is available for $9.95 which is a fair price for what you get. It is available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

Overall

If you enjoyed games like Impossible Mission or fish fillets, this is worth a try. There is a demo available and the price is fair.

Homepage: http://www.jugilus.com

Demo: http://www.jugilus.com/download.php

Intuition Games released their trailer of the upcoming game EON.

Seems to be based on the good old Xbattle, but with a very nice twist.