Let's say you were going to carve a pumpkin for Halloween this year. And just for good measure, you wanted to have a more "video gamey" feel to things. Maybe you want to carve out some characters from an awesome upcoming new Indie title from our friends making Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake? As it turns out, today is your lucky day to nab and print these great pumpkin carving stencils.

If you make a carving from one of these, drop the image in the comments!

The above stencil is Grognar, if you are thinking of going a bit more "Bat styley" you can check out Eek's stencil.

http://i.imgur.com/bypDmDF.jpg

Take a peek at a capture of a segment from the original Legend of Zelda Manual. This was one of the first open world games I played and it blew my mind with its awesomeness. Hoping the new Zelda game Link Between Worlds really brings back some of the old magic these early games had.

"Come back to Rapture in a story that finds Booker and Elizabeth on the eve of the underwater city's fall from grace.
Get a taste of Rapture in its full glory, almost entirely built from scratch in the BioShock Infinite engine."

2K just dropped a 5 minute game-play video for part one of Burial At Sea, a upcoming DLC pack for BioShock infinite. Looks like a very pretty return to Rapture. The video really shows off the world building and I wanted them to spend more time just looking at things and listening to peoples conversations. I wonder how much of Rapture you will get to experience before it falls into chaos? That said, VERY excited to play this.

Anyone interested in picking this up?

http://www.bioshockinfinite.com/burial-at-sea-ep1

"Halfway is a turn-based strategy game taking place a few hundred years in the future. You take control of a small group of people who are witnesses to a violent overtake of their spaceship by an unknown species. As you fight your way through the dark corridors and rooms of the ship, you will uncover more and more details of what has taken place."

Halfway is an upcoming game recently announced by its creators, Robotality. From the released game play footage and announcement this game looks like a really interesting indie answer to the classic X-Com turn based tactical strategy game genre. The game looks very playable in its early form and I am really interested in watching this project unfold.

They answer a few questions about the game in a recent blog post:

Does Halfway have procedural content?

"Yes and no. What we don’t have is procedurally generated levels. Instead we have hand-crafted levels. As mentioned in last week’s post, we strongly feel this is the way to go for our game. With Halfway, we don’t just want to send the player through a series of randomly occurring battles, but deliver an engaging story with it. This is quite difficult to do with completely procedural content. We hope you will agree when you actually get to play the game."

What about Squad customization?

"In Halfway your squad members don’t have fixed classes. Instead each squad member is made up of a tactical skills tree and some positive and negative perks. Some characters will share certain skills and specialization's. When a member has gained enough experience the player will be able to choose from skills and perks to customize their team."

BBBBBBuut what about console support? Well it seems the Halfway team has your back...

"One of the aspects we’ve always wanted to make sure is that our games come with good modding support. When we started working on Halfway, we knew that it’ll be something we want to plan for from the beginning.

Halfway is coming out later this year, and we will shortly thereafter release an entire toolchain that will allow anyone to build their own levels and campaigns for the game."

Awesome 2D pixel themed tactical strategy game coming out on Mac, Windows, Linux with modding support built in? Uh yeah, that sounds awesome.

*achievement unlocked: on my radar*

http://robotality.com/blog/

In what may be heralded by many to be the defining moment of the convention, Cheerful Ghost had a booth at this years Portland Retro Gaming Expo. The above image only captures a partial moment in what was a very fun filled weekend handing out stickers and talking about nerd things. We split the table with our awesome friends making Monster Ate My Birthday Cake and that really seemed to work out well. Many people stopped by to find out more about the site and play Monsters and we met a ton of cool Vendors too.

I want to give a special shout out to @scrypt for stopping by and helping out at the table. My most favorite moment of the Expo was when @scrypt and I were handing out stickers. A woman cosplaying as Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite walked by and I yelled "Elizabeth, Elizabeth, do you want a sticker?" She took one and then @scrypt noted how awesome her costume was and how neat the game was. She then responded with "but what game" and we both wondered about that for a minute. As she walked away she started "the Elizabeth" dance and at that moment I was in awe at how great people that love video games can be. It was a really touching moment and "made" the Expo for me.

The split-booth from a distance: http://i.imgur.com/X8AVgdk.jpg

Someone playing Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake on iPad: http://i.imgur.com/R4k3hGV.jpg

"Shovel Knight is planned for release this winter, but you can preorder the game now for PC/Mac/Linux and Steam below (you’ll have to wait for WiiU/3DS). If you would like to learn more about Shovel Knight’s incredible journey, you can find out more information on our"

I am glad Yacht Club Games is planning on launching Shovel Knight in the winter, I enjoy dispensing Shovel Justice a bit before Christmas. If you were interested in boarding the Shovel Train to Awesome town, you can pre-order the game from the Yacht Club site on the Humble Store. $15 gets you the game DRM free on Linux, Mac and Windows + a Steam Key. $25 nabs you the same + PDF Artbook & Manual.

The video really highlights the Duck Tales/Mega Man 8-bit flavor of Shovel Knight. If you want to know more about Shovel Knight, you can read our interview with Sean Velasco of Yacht Club Games.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1235

"Travel on foot or use your ship, carry heavy objects and explore new areas. A.N.N.E is a platformer, shmup hybrid served in an open world-like structure with RPG elements."

Back in April the awesome Blaster Master/Metroid-vania 2D pixel beauty, A.N.N.E. was successfully Kickstarted. A.N.N.E. was a special Kickstarter in that it has some absolutely amazing Kickstarter rewards, including a Super Nintendo Styled USB controller and a ton more. The game is making steady progress to its release goals and Mo, the creator of A.N.N.E. has released a new video showcasing some of the new stuff such as the map system and A.N.N.E. as a fully playable character.

When the game was making its way through Kickstarter-land I interviewed Mo about the game and you can check that out here.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1272

It would be a shame if this game doesn't get on Greenlight so clicky, click to vote.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=122461670

"Planetary Annihilation takes real-time strategy to a planetary scale. Colonize solar systems, smash entire worlds, and crush your foes in epic battles with multiple players and thousands of units. Don't just win, annihilate!"

Planetary Annihilation is the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. The team that was largely responsible for making those games have been working tirelessly to finally bring Planetary Annihilation to Steam Early Access. Planetary Annihilation looks really awesome and brings quite a bit to the table as part of its early access list of awesome:

• Game Key: Access the game now, during the Beta period and after Planetary Annihilation releases.


• Theta Commander: Commanders are at the center of your faction in PA. The Theta commander is a unique shell design only available to those who purchase the game in Early Access or pre-purchase the title at a later date. It is a distinguishing symbol of your support.


• Soundtrack: The PA Soundtrack is the game’s score by Howard Mostrom and recorded by a live orchestra. It will be yours via digital download when the game is released.


• Desktop Wallpaper: This is the official full release Planetary Annihilation wallpaper and will come in a variety of resolutions for you to choose. (Design to be finalized by release.)


• Digital Artbook: From early concept sketches to full renders, this is a compilation of the art and design that went into PA

Planetary Annihilation is available for Linux, Mac and Windows right now on Steam.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/233250/

"Are videogame stereotypes... hurting MEN?! There's been a lot of discussion about female portrayals in games (re: our last episode), but maybe we should be talking about dudes, too. Games continue the cultural narrative of big and strong men, "manning up" and being the hero."

After Game/Show's last episode about gaming and feminism they decided to follow it up with a segment about Men and gaming. As always, its a pretty nice showcase of the arguments. This show is a bit different in than it doesn't just stick to gaming entirely.

"Guard dogs have arrived! You can now hire dogs from the staff menu, and they come as a team with a dog handler. Dogs will sniff any nearby prisoners and hiding spots, and can smell drugs and other forms of smelly contraband from several squares away. Assign your dogs to patrols within busy parts of your prison to have them sniff everyone during the day.

Dogs can also sense escape tunnels, although it isn’t quite as easy as that. They will scratch at the floor and bark a bit, but you need to keep an eye on them to notice this and perform appropriate searches within your jail. If they happen to be scratching the floor when there is an actual prisoner digging directly under them, the prisoner is rumbled and the whole tunnel is revealed. We suggest you create long patrol routes around the perimeter of your jail and assign dogs to these, to keep a handle on your escape tunnels."

Prison Architect is quickly becoming my most favorite game of 2013. I picked it up back in Alpha 13 and recently figured out how to build a sustainable prison. Introversion just dropped the new Alpha 14 update that added Dogs and the ability to sell your prison. These really add on to the game in important ways that I appreciate. Before, the only way to detect stuff was with a metal detector but that won't find drugs. Now you can have Dogs sniff out contraband and also be alerted about tunnels.

I can't wait to add the kennel to my prison and replace many of my guard patrols with dog handlers. I also think ill put a dog unit at the front of my prison to keep the escape attempts down as well. LONG LIVE DOG ARCHITECT!

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=44984