Fire Up 'Splosion Man for Prizes
Avatar awardables added, Omaha sweepstakes started, and online multiplayer fixed.

October 26, 2009 - Twisted Pixel Games has announced three new reasons to play Splosion Man on Xbox LIVE Arcade during the next few weeks: free avatar awards, free meats, and improved online multiplayer. CEO Michael Wilford said "we're excited because this is the biggest update to an existing game, with a lot of chances for players to score some free new stuff."

Avatar Awards
Now that the Xbox Dashboard fully supports awarding players with avatar accessories from within a game, a title update has been released early this morning to enable Splosion Man's awardable functionality, making it the first game to provide this feature to players free of charge. Players who have already performed the achievement will be awarded their accessories at the main menu, while new players will get to see a preview of what their avatar looks like wearing the accessory. Players can win two male and two female accessories for free by playing through Splosion Man.

Omaha Sweepsteaks
Ever wonder how those filets that come bursting out of Splosion Man scientists taste? Now you can find out! Twisted Pixel and Omaha Steaks have teamed up in order to deliver hundreds of top-quality steak filets to players. Register by downloading the special Splosion Man gamerpic on the Dashboard or on Xbox.com, and then receive one entry each time (up to 5 times) Splosion Man is played in an online multiplayer session before November 22nd.

Online Multiplayer Fixes
Since the game's launch, some players have encountered laggy online game sessions in certain network scenarios, including connections that frequently drop data packets. In this morning's title update, those issues have been fixed so that all players can experience lag-free online multiplayer the way it was intended.

New XBLA games this week:

Rainbow Islands

Inferno Pool

Artech Studios Working On Dragon’s Hoard

Artech Studios have been quet on the digital distribution front since Aces of The Galaxy, but a new document reveals they're hard at work on Dragon’s Hoard - a medieval coop adventure for Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network.

Dragon’s Hoard description states that you can "Soar, slash and burn your way through 19 destructible levels with co-op and multi player", and that there are plans for downloadable content, unlockable power-ups. Whether this is a game similar to Castle Crashers or more of a loot fest akin to Neverwinter Nights isn't clear from the description, but hey - sounds good in theory.

Artech Studios' webpage also delegates that they're actually working on two Xbox Live Arcade titles, and plans to have them out by 2009 - but considering the backlog of games in the XBLA queue I wouldn't expect them until 2010.

Darwinia+ out "next side of Christmas"

Introversion's Mark Morris and Chris Delay told the Eurogamer Expo this week that Darwinia+ will be submitted to Xbox Live Arcade certification in "the next few weeks", with a likely release "the next side of Christmas".

The pair, speaking yesterday afternoon, told a tale of adaptation and frustration, and specifically the stark contrast between Introversion in 2009 and Introversion on stage at the Independent Games Festival in 2006, when they took the star prize for the original Darwinia.

Confident IGF outbursts like, "We didn't want any publishers f***ing up our game", have turned into admissions like, "At the end of the day we're a business and we need to sell as many copies as we can." Not to mention: "We're sick to f***ing death of Darwinia+". But there's a good reason for that. "We first started talking about it in 2006, and it's 2009 now and it hasn't come out yet," said Morris. Worse, Introversion had to answer to someone else: Microsoft.

Microsoft asked for better graphics and multiplayer. The former was easy, the latter excruciatingly hard. "We had a lot of difficulty injecting any excitement into the game," said Chris Delay of the early multiplayer prototypes. "We were trying to satisfy Microsoft. That's the most awful motivation in the world for making a videogame."

Eventually, Introversion decided to separate the single-player and multiplayer and create Multiwinia. This took two years, and the game - released last September - scored well, earning 8/10 on Eurogamer. "Multiwinia for us was the best game with the highest production values we'd put out," explained Mark Morris. "That's what we believed." By this time, Introversion was done with Darwinia - it was an old game.

"We were trying to convince Microsoft to kill the Darwinia idea and launch Multiwinia instead. All the time, Microsoft were saying to us, no no guys, we want Darwinia - we signed Darwinia," said Morris. "Alright, Microsoft, you're idiots, but we'll go with you."

The result was a redesign for Darwinia, hence the 'plus'. New menus, tutorials, controls and visuals were introduced, to make Darwinia+ understandable and accessible. Morris quipped that there was a "contrite modern expression" that summed up how unfriendly the original Darwinia was: "WTF".

Iterating on usability took ages: a "thankless task", said Chris, "because not a single sod notices". "It just works - the moment when you've got it right, people stop complaining and they just play the game," he added. Morris and Delay showed discarded designs on slides during the presentation. Some, they admitted, were "cringeworthy".

Introversion's desire to get a profitable version of Darwinia on the market persisted and features like trials, upsell screens, Avatar items, Achievements, leaderboards and gamer pictures were all integrated. Darwinia+ even has two sets of menus; one each for the Darwinia+ and Multiwinia sides of the game.

As a package, Darwinia+ looks impressive. Delay walked the Eurogamer Expo Leeds audience through an on-stage demonstration of the Darwinia+ tutorial level while Morris talked. Graphics were crisp, goals clear and controls obvious.

Nearly five years after its original launch, however, the question of whether it's too late for Darwinia remains to be answered. We shall find out for sure the other side of Christmas, by the sound of it!

Team17 reveals Alien Breed structure

Team17's John Dennis has revealed what we can expect from the new Alien Breed game for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Speaking at the Eurogamer Expo in Leeds yesterday, Dennis confirmed that Alien Breed Evolution will be released in the form of three episodes. "In each episode there's a prologue level, then there are five single-player levels and they're really large... Much larger than they should have been," he said.

"There are also two set pieces in each episode. For example there's one where the ship goes through an asteroid field, there's debris coming up through the floor and the air's running out... There are also two boss battles in each episode, then on top of that there are three multiplayer levels."

According to Dennis, each episode will take "five to eight hours" to complete. You'll be able to try out each one by downloading the prologue for free. There's no word yet on when the first episode will be released or how much it will cost.

:( And still no Doom II, PDZ or Serious Sam.

Are they going to put all those games in december tss.

Blitz Arcade Announces Encleverment Experiment

Blitz Arcade announced today plans to launch its Xbox LIVE Arcade game Encleverment Experiment– a clever game for gamers who think they are clever – in the next few weeks. Blitz Arcade is working with Microsoft to finalize the exact launch date.

Encleverment Experiment invites players ages five and older to join brilliant and eccentric Professor Ivor Question in his funky lab. Gamers enjoy a variety of fun and fast-paced challenges testing memory, reflexes, and dexterity. Response time and accuracy are rewarded with Noodles, the in-game currency. The game's challenge is to accumulate Noodles, but out-braining your friends is fun, too.

The game features two main game styles: Take-a-Test Mode for single players and Game Show Mode for 1-4 players.

Take-a-Test Mode for Single Players
Players take the Professor's five-round tests in mathematics, pattern recognition, reactions, and…what was it?... ah yes, memory. Players can track their improvements over the previous 30 tests to see how much their brains have become "enclevered."

Game Show Mode for Single and Multiple (2-4) Players
Single players take on one of 15 AI opponents at a time, with each victory unlocking the next, more skilful contestant. Each game show features six rounds randomly selected from the 16 available mini-games, and each opponent specializes in one or more games. The final contestant is the Professor himself and he's an expert at everything!

Multiple players attempt to complete the Professor's challenges as quickly as possible, with top honors going to the first player to answer correctly. Players can challenge randomly generated quizzes or design their own "Home-made Games" with the easy-to-use Editor feature, which can create game shows up to 30 rounds long. The last round is always the "Score Stealer Game" – the first person to answer correctly gets to steal points from the fellow contestant of choice. Winners are rewarded with Noodles which are used to purchase up to 60 collectible Mascots to show off their gaming prowess.

16 Fun Mini-games and Puzzles
Encleverment Experiment offers 16 fun and mind-challenging mini-games and puzzles including:

* Griddled (find the only word in a word search-style grid);

* Copy Cat (remember the sequence of new eye colors every time the cat blinks);

* Semi-Vinyls (piece together broken records like a jigsaw puzzle);

* Stepping Tones (match sounds to colors); and

* Oddest One Out (identify which one of four patterns just doesn't "fit").

* Each mini-game offers four levels of difficulty to cater for gamers of all ages and ability.


Encleverment Experiment is rated "E" for Everyone by the Entertainment Software Review Board, and all in-game content is safe for children to enjoy.  Players can buy Encleverment Experiment for 800 MS points when the game is launched.

Synaesthete Devs Bring Aleph To Xbox Live Arcade

[Edit: We've now been told that the game has had its name changed from Transcend to Aleph, so the story has changed to reflect that.]

The DigiPen students behind Synaesthete, the winner of the Independant Games Festival Student Award in 2008, have now revealed Aleph - a music-driven arcade shooter with a psychedelic aesthetic.

Now going by Fishbeat, this independent developer have got their contract with Microsoft and are working hard to bring Aleph to the Xbox Live Arcade. Fishbeat president Zach Aikman at Tokyo Game Show's Sense Of Wonder Night exhibition where he showed the first footage of the game in action:

Aleph sports a psychedelic artstyle, different to the cyberspace look of Synaesthete, but you are still tapping to the beat while avoiding enemies. Even at this early stage it looks great, we'll keep out eyes open on this development throughout 2010. In the meantime check out their website and follow their twitter account for the latest news.

This Week On XBLA - The Rest Of The Wallace & Gromit Season

So you've been waiting for the rest of the Xbox Live Arcade releases of Wallace & Gromit - it has been nearly 6 months since the first episode was released on the service. This week they're throwing them into the fray all at once - The Last Resort, Muzzled! and The Bogey Man will all be available this Wednesday, November 4th for 800 Microsoft Points each.

Fantastic thread. Really looking forward to Alien Breed Evolution, Eartworm Jim & Magika but there's so many more goodies to get excited over. Thanks for the constant info stream. Is this stickied? It should be!