Wheely 3

Wheely is back! In the third sequel of the cute physics-based point and click style game you have to help the cute Beetle car to get a new pair of wheels for his wifey. Find clues and unravel all puzzles to be able to progress Wheely 3. Much fun! Controls: Mouse!

Free-to-play shooter with 'billions' of weapon configurations Loadout launches Jan. 31

Edge of Reality announced that its free-to-play multiplayer shooter Loadout will launch Jan. 31, 2014. 

  

Developer Edge of Reality announced that Loadout, its free-to-play "over-the-top" multiplayer shooter, will launch on Jan. 31, 2014.
Loadout claims that its weapon-crafting system will allow over 44 billion possible variations for players to assemble, allowing them to define their own class and play style.
Edge of Reality has 15 years of experience in the industry, contributing to projects like Mass Effect, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, The Sims, and Dragon Age. Loadout is its first original game. "We couldn't be more excited to open it up to the masses,” CEO Rob Cohen said in a press release. “We started this as a passion project, working on it when we could, and trying to create something original and truly player-friendly. What we've got now is a game that’s a blast to play, quick and easy to get into, and empowers players with insane amounts of customization.”
Currently in early access, Loadout will be available through Steam when it launches, but you can create an account and reserve a name tag now here.

Pax West 2016: Gear of War 4 Director's Helpful Hints for Not Dying in Horde Mode 3.0

What started as a relatively simple "stand your ground" mode way back in the original Gears of War has, over the years, morphed into an intense point-defense mode complete with purchasable fortifications and extensive team tactics. The latest iteration--dubbed Horde Mode 3.0 despite appearing in the upcoming Gears of War 4--retains much of the straightforward but deeply engaging craziness of Gears 2 and (to a slightly lesser extent) 3, but adds many of its own twists. For example, players can now select clearly defined classes and equip passive buffs associated directly with those roles. There's also the Fabricator, a semi-mobile device that serves as a one-stop-shop for weapons, turrets, ally revives, and more. Of course, our team knew very little about these changes going into our first hands-on session with Horde Mode 3.0, which is why Gears of War 4 director Rod Fergusson offered us some helpful advice that, incidentally, outlined much of what makes 3.0 a whole new ball game. Here's what he told us:

Know Your Role, Play Your Role

Unlike previous takes on the mode, Horde 3.0 features five distinct classes: soldier, sniper, scout, heavy, and engineer. Since teams support up to five players, it's smart to ensure every class is covered since each one serves a specific purpose on the battlefield. Scouts, for example, get double the amount of currency for every power icon they pick up. Engineers, on the other hand, receive a discount on every base fortification they purchase. Basically, sticking with your role is more efficient and more rewarding than simply running around shooting stuff.

Opt For Class-Specific Skills Over General Abilities

Players can use Gear Cards to create their own custom loadouts of passive buffs. Cards range from simple to "epic," and while some can be applied to any class, the most powerful options are generally specific to a single character type. The catch? Though class-specific cards tend to be more powerful, they're also more demanding. Snipers, for example, can pick a card that allows them to execute exploding headshots. That's great if you're super confident in your accuracy, but less useful if you can't consistently headshot angry robots under pressure. Consider it a risk/reward proposition with potentially explosive results.

Save Your Best Weapons Until You Really Need Them

Horde 3.0 adds yet another new mechanic: Gun Lockers. Gun Lockers--which you can purchase from your Fabricator--allow you to bank weapons. As long as there's some ammo left in it, the locker will both hold and gradually reload the weapon over time, allowing you to get more mileage out of those rare, powerful guns like rocket launchers. This becomes especially useful when you start getting airdrops: If you beat a bonus wave, you'll receive an airdrop, which could contain any number of rocket launchers or other special weapons. Grab them and store them until you hit a boss wave, and you'll always be prepared.

Place Your Fabricator Strategically (And Move It If You Have To) Unlike Gears 3, base defenses are not preset. Instead, it's up to you to pick an area and gradually fortify it to your liking. When a match first starts, a Fabricator appears in the middle of the map. You and your teammates can then drag it to any location you choose. No enemies spawn until you put it down, but as soon as you do, the clocks starts. Then you start building, and shortly after that, the monsters start coming. You can move the Fabricator in the middle of a match if your initial spot isn't working out; however, the clock won't stop when you pick it back up, so make sure you place it judiciously the first time. Remember: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint As with past games, you'll face 50 waves of increasingly tenacious enemies, and every tenth wave will be a Boss Wave. On normal difficulty, there are no bonuses for the enemies for the first 10 rounds. From 11 to 20, they receive double health. Then they get double damage. Then they get double accuracy, and then from waves 40 to 50, enemies get two-and-a-half times health, accuracy, and damage at the same time. The only way to survive those final rounds? Use fortifications and sentries to create what Fergusson describes as "death hallways." Think of it this way: you're not just trying to survive the first 40 waves; you're trying to prepare for the final 10. Gears of War 4 releases on October 11 for Xbox One and PC. If you buy the game digitally on Xbox One, you get a free digital copy on PC and vice-versa.

SuperTuxKart 0.9.2 released & new website

Great news from our friends of the SuperTuxKart project! Read all the details on their latest blog-post here.

They also made a nice new trailer showing off a more unusual game-mode:



Clearly this project has come a long way and looks better with every release! So grab your copy over at their fancy new website.

QuakeExpo2016 16-30th of July, register your virtual booth now!

Seem like some people want to revive the old QuakeExpo tradition this year, which is after all the 20th anniversary of Quake1:

https://qexpo2016.com/

Booth pre-registration started on the 18th of June, and the for those that wonder what it is all about:

If you are a qexpo old-timer:  The format is virtual ‘booths’ set up for a limited number of days just like the past.  But unlike the past, this site has a built-in comment and messaging system.  The site-wide stream of discussion is available on the ‘Activity’ tab.  However, any booth owner may disable comments on their particular booth page by checking the ‘Comments Disabled’ category.

We also have a fancy event calendar to be populated.  Events occurring prior to the Expo days may be posted, but it is requested that there be an event coverage booth, news, or other tie-in available during the Expo itself.

If you’re a new-timer wondering what the heck this is:  The Quake Expo concept is based on virtual ‘booths’ where people show off projects, provide tutorials, or share nostalgia.  See the links at the bottom of the site for previous years.  The idea is a bit retro given all the possible online outlets for creativity now.  But that’s one of the reasons to have it-  with so many islands of forums, social media groups, and code repositories, it might be nice to come together for a few days and see what everyone else is doing.  The time limitation is key.  Booths will only be open for two weeks and afterwards the entire site is closed and archived.

Focus is mainly on Quake1 engine derived projects (Darkplaces Engine for example), but in the past there were usually also a few Quake2/3 engine projects in it. Fully FOSS is not a strict requirement, but quite common, and the engine is of course GPL licensed.

Personally I hope we will see some projects picking up the quite awesome mobileVR port of Darkplaces: http://quakevr.com/ 

P.S.: Slightly OT, but the Inside3D forums (all about Quake1 engine programming) have a new home at http://www.insideqc.com/

Blackvoxel, an ambitious Minecraft/Factorio mix?

Check out this interesting (somewhat recently GPLv3 re-licensed) game Blackvoxel:



As you can see it has some interesting mechanic which they call "Molecular Voxel Interaction Engine". As seen in the trailer above, it basically allows you to automate crafting, resulting in interesting "programmable" factory setups.
Of course this might sound a bit too much like actual work and not fun... but given the big fan scene for the closed source game Factorio, I would say it can be more fun that it looks at first ;)

Blackvoxel itself probably needs to be a bit more of a game instead of "just" a sandbox, but there is big promise in the overall concept, so give it a try :)

Cute Character Crowdfunding (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

Remember Justin Nichol's amazing Portrait Kickstarter? He's up to no good again:

Horde of Cuteness! is an ongoing crowdfunded high resolution character icon collection and the indiegogo campaign will add 2 heroes, 5 monsters, and 3 boss monsters chosen by the backers.

All the characters will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 license, and will be made available as .pngs with transparent backgrounds, and will have include .kra or .xcf source files for editing the characters yourself. All new images will be 2000px by 2000px.

 There's a month left and only 590$ out of 1000$ missing.

Back the icon collection on indiegogo.

DevCorner: Atomic Game Engine MIT (Urho3D fork) and Godot 2.0

First off (and you probably read it elsewhere before): The awesome Godot game engine got a really awesome 2.0 release a few weeks ago. It also got independent of it's original developers (who stay active in development), and the first larger commercial game with it was released on Steam just a few days ago.

Fresh of the press is a FOSS release of an pretty awesome competitor though:
The Atomic Game Engine was just released fully under the MIT license! Its render engine is a fork of the pretty nice Urho3D renderer, but it includes an cross-platform integrated development environment similar to Godot:

Looks nice, but where is the Linux binary release? :(

Dive into the source code here. Similar to Godot it features some neat platform support: Linux, Android, WebGL, Windows, iOS and OSX (resorted for significance ;) ); but unlike it you have much more and more common scripting languages at your disposal: JavaScript, TypeScript, C++, and C# scripting in the works. Especially the latter could be interesting if someone manages to make an Unity3D compatibility layer for migrating and open-sourcing Unity games...

For a nice overview, don't miss the GamesFromScratch video and introduction tutorial (from back in December 2015 when it was not yet MIT licensed):

DevCorner: Superpowers HTML5 collaborative game maker open-sourced!

Great news for HTML5 game developers: a few days ago Superpowers was released under the ISC license.

What is Superpowers? A game development platform (an integrated editor but you can collaborate in realtime online; how cool is that! :D ) for making HTML5 games using TypeScript (a superset of Javascript). But you will also be able to work with other languages, so far support for the well known LÖVE2D is available.

Learn more in this video:


The source is available here and there is also an repository with a few sample games. If you like what they are doing, please consider becoming a supporter.

Looking forward to your new HTML5 games!