"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

Last night the Terraria 1.2 update hit and after playing it for a few hours I can say that it is a great update. A few stand out elements of the patch are the new map system, tier 1 armor, snow and cactus crafting. Plus there are just a ton of other little changes that make the update really awesome for long time Terraria fans. I haven't seen anything quite like this in terms of a free content update and Re-Logic is really showing its focus on the game community here.

As such @Travis and I spent some time last night setting up the new Cheerful Ghost server and it is ready for people to play. If you haven't already, check out the event and join up. We will be co-ordinating all aspects of the games run from the event so make sure to stop by from time to time to see how things are going.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/events/39

You can update the game to the latest version by opening up Steam and having it do it's auto-update magic. While you are waiting, check out the list of changes to the game.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nubZZSGBoUiuKFKzWT7raMrPI35MQtDWSsL-MbHFgqs/preview?sle=true

I recently wanted to play a new game from my Steam catalog so I picked a game from the Humble Bundle 8: Little Inferno. I knew a bit about the game before I started, the basic premise is that you burn things in your fireplace. I thought that sounded interesting enough and so I installed it on my Mac and gave it a go. For the next three hours and twelve minutes I was hooked to my computer until I finally completed the game. My experience with the game was nothing short of magical and I seriously recommend you beat this game. It's not enough to simply play the the game halfway, this game needs you to finish it. I'll try and explain why without spoiling it, but really, to experience the full majesty of Little Inferno you really ought to complete it.

the tone

This game's universe and story are strange. But strange in a very dystopian, future telling, environmental, fun and magical way. The game isn't preachy but it does have something to say about combustion and consumerism. Again, the game never really comes out and states one way or the other about it, but it paints a picture of a world where people consume things to destroy them and shows off what that may actually look like. In a way, Little Inferno is even a bit meta about gaming in what you are doing and how you progress. I am leaving out some key details, but I am trying to keep this all spoiler free.

That all said, the games tone is really unique and is somewhere between one of the best Tim Burton films coupled with some magical dystopian future.

what this game is all about

The majority of Little Inferno has you burning things to make money, find combos to unlock the ability to buy and burn more things. During your search for combos and making money you are sent letters by your neighbor and messages from The Weatherman. The game has a very compelling story but this is where I stop talking about it, because again, it should be experienced all the way to the end, spoiler free.

the music

Kyle Gabler wrote the music for Little Inferno and because of his efforts he just went on my list of game composers to follow. The score to Little Inferno really helps the magical tone of the game come to light in a way that makes everything it is trying to do click. Coupled with the lush and beautiful art direction, the score accentuates the games flavor. Since I picked up Little Inferno in the Humble Bundle 8, it came with the score and it even up outside the game too.

final thoughts

For me, Little Inferno ranks as high as some of the most magical movies I have seen in terms of its power to captivate my imagination. It does so much with so little and that is a real accomplishment given many large studios march to huge budget shooter titles. Little Inferno also shows me just how imaginative and awesome the Indie Game revolution really is. Where many Indie Games are repeating beats from the past, Little Inferno takes us in a new direction that feels familiar and then spins the game around and ends on such a beautiful and touching note.

I'll end with a quote from the games end as best as I can remember it, because it has stuck with me ever since.

"But what happens when you have achieved your dreams? Well, then it's time to get bigger dreams."

I hope Tomorrow Corporation, the developers of Little Inferno keep dreaming.

http://tomorrowcorporation.com/

The folks that made Indie Game: The Movie have released this excerpt from the special edition focusing on Edmund and The Binding of Issac. It's a really great 30 minute doc short on why Edmund decided to make the game and it getting huge in the YouTube Let's Play community.

I really appreciate Edmund's honesty and his though process that went into making this really compelling game. It surprised me to learn that the game only took 3 months start to finish.

I think if the Indie Game: The Movie people keep interviewing and releasing indie game videos the universe would be a little bit better for it.