July indie gaming roundup
This is the first post of a series summarising the interesting gaming news I’ve seen over the course of the past month. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions on the format but, without further ado, what happened this month?
Wizard of Legend Kickstarter completed successfully
The Wizard of Legend Kickstarter campaign finished on July 21st, raising $72,681 from 3,289 backers. This is a game that I enjoy immensely and I’m really happy to see the developers, Contingent99, get the support they needed. They raised enough to unlock several stretch goals, providing us with additional items and enemies plus a whole new section to the game with its own soundtrack, enemies, and council member (boss). Along the way they released a lot of new videos showing off the smooth spellcasting gameplay, including one showing a complete PvP round. They also surprised me with a Steam key so I could get back into the game, as the last public release was several versions ago and there has been a lot of development since. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to jump in and make a quick video straight away. You can find out more about the game on the website or by following the developers on Twitter.
Angels & Demigods updates
The newly formed 7 Keys Studios has been very busy with their upcoming VR-based visual novel Angels & Demigods. They’ve announced HTC Vive and Samsung Gear support, added the VN to Steam, and released both a teaser video and an alpha test video showing how a visual novel looks on a VR platform. Sally Feng was also confirmed as voice actress for the character Ashley. You can keep up with progress on the studio’s Twitter account.
Gamerbake Leamington Spa
I attended a Gamerbake event in Leamington Spa. The idea is that people bring gaming themed cakes and can win big prizes if the panel of judges select theirs as the best. Everyone else gets to eat lots of cake, play some games, and try their luck in the raffle (spoiler: I won things). Any money raised goes to Special Effect charity who “use technology to enhance the quality of life of people with all kinds of needs, including stroke and road traffic accident patients, individuals with life-limiting conditions and injured soldiers returning from overseas”. While there I also got to meet Jupiter Hadley, player of all the indie games, and to have a go with the Samsung Gear playing VR Karts, a multiplayer kart game which seems great fun with a group of friends. Watch out for future events announced on the Gamerbake Twitter account.
Quick news
- Overland got its own twitter account separate from developer Finji.
- Guild of Dungeoneering got a mobile release that I can’t stop playing.
- Spaceship survival game Event[0] got an announcement trailer and is up for pre-order.
- Astrobase Command is out of internal playtest and charging forwards.
- We Happy Few is available on GoG InDev and Steam Early Access.
- Salvaged got a new story teaser trailer.
- Invisible Apartment 3 is content-complete and has moved to packaging and testing.
- Article on predictive physics inside your game development environment: Predicting Players: Calculated Level Design in Action Henk (h/t: Christer Kaitila).
- PROCJAM’s procgen zine SEEDS is taking submissions until 15th September (h/t: Michael Cook).
- G2A’s terrible unsubscribe mechanism is shown in all its horrifying glory (h/t: Chris Glass).
I am a software developer by day and dip into a range of related activities in my spare time, including working on my own software projects, writing, proof-reading, and, of course, gaming of both the digital and boardgame varieties. I am slowly starting to sink my teeth into game development.