Friday 25 April 2014

Play Blackpool Indies (Part Two)


Following on from my previous article, here's an update on the indies showcasing their games at Play Blackpool next weekend. There is still space available in the main expo hall (tables with power costing between £150-£250 each), so drop me a line if it sounds like something you'd be interested in :)

TL;DR? The list of indie exhibitors now consists of Megadev, Ludophobia, Retroburn, Pixel Trip Studios, Ben Bradley, Cake Collective, Force of Habit, Clockwork Cuckoo, Psychotic Software, Boneloaf, Sinister Soft, Adam Nasralla and Rumpus Animation.




Bristol-based studio Force of Habit have confirmed their presence at Play Blackpool and will be exhibiting their Clockwork Cuckoo collaborative project Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club, a 2 – 4 player bullet-hell arena shooter in which bullets bounce forever.

Set in the imagination of young Timmy Bibble, play as Chud, The Canardinal, Old Man Ricketts and Shakey Jake. Catch bullets with supreme agility. Headbutt your opponents, like a baus. Be the best friend ever for Timmy.


Oh, and in case you get tired of bullet dodging, Force of Habit will also have their quintessentially British iOS/Android release Toast Time and gastrointestinal shoot 'em up Dysbiosis available to play as well.




Psychotic Software's Mike Hanson is kicking it old-school with his recently launched hardcore 'one fighter vs an armada of alien deathships' shmup Power Up, a game that will put your Project-X/R-Type arcade skills to the test.

Already available on PC and XBox 360 (with ports for iOS, Android and Ouya incoming), Power-Up thrusts you into battle with a diverse range of fighters, freighters and titanic level guardians. Sound like your thing? Give it a blast at Play Blackpool – and be sure to give Mike an upvote on the game's Steam Greenlight page!




Currently ranking as the most popular game on www.indiedb.com (out of over 16,000 games), Boneloaf's Gang Beasts looks set to smash all other beat 'em ups squarely in the face. The physics driven brawler puts you and up to three friends in control of a gang of tough little digital-plasticine dudes whom resemble overweight cousins of Morph, your goal being to beat down your opponents across a wild variety of insane fight locations.

Insane? How does fighting whilst riding a ferris wheel, on the roofs of speeding lorries, or balancing on a window-cleaning platform straddling the side of a skyscraper grab you? Needless to say, Gang Beasts is a game that needs to be experienced to be believed – and what's better than playing against the developers?


Boneloaf have been causing a ruckus wherever the game is exhibited, and we imagine that will be no different when they bring it to Play Blackpool. Grab a copy of the alpha today, get some practice in and prepare for battle next weekend!



On the less violent side of the gaming spectrum, Sinister Soft will be exhibiting their recent iOS and Android release What Rhymes With Martians?, a frantic-paced match three game featuring Kenney's wonderfully cute artwork and sampled speech from developer Anthony Ball's six year old daughter, Lucy.


What Rhymes With Martians is available to download on both Android and iOS devices, and is undergoing continued development. Sinister Soft will also be showcasing some of their other releases, such as the recent multiplayer Ouya game Bacteria, a reimagining of Cinematronic's 1980 arcade classic Rip-Off.




If we could preemptively pick a game for 'biggest surprise of show', our money would be on indie scene newcomer Adam Nasralla and his ambitious space-rogue-shmup CloneSpace. Aside from an awesome teaser trailer, there is no information about the game anywhere online, but what we've seen and heard so far has been extremely intriguing.

Coined by Adam as 'GTA in space', CloneSpace looks more akin to the classics Sinistar, Elite and Paradroid to our old-school gamer eyes, with the action primarily divided between resource hunting and ship-to-ship combat. But where it gets really exciting is when the gameplay zooms in, showing the interior of your craft as you teleport into enemy ships and attempt to hijack their vessels through close combat.


With a huge emphasis on customisation and procedural content, players can literally draw their own ships (and space stations) by simply plotting the outline, and procedural 3D mesh generation does the rest. Meet friendly and evil alien races, trade and wage war and breed an army of clones, seamlessly switching viewpoints to control each clone directly with AI covering your back as you micro-manage your troops in your galactic conquest.

In short, it looks epic, and we’re really looking forward to checking it out!




Step into Victorian London and help solve an intriguing, dark humoured murder mystery in The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle, a classic style point-and-click adventure game that promises to be full of ... intrigue, dark humour and mystery. Help Bertram Fiddle as he tries to uncover the identity of London's most elusive serial killer, known
only as Geoff the Murderer.

Inspired by Victorian novels and subsequent B-movie remakes, The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle is a game that will draw you in to the dark world of Victorian London inhabited by strange characters with even stranger noses.

Rumpus Animation's Seb Burnett will be be showcasing the latest build of Bertram to the public. The first episode, 'A Dreadly Business', is due for release on IOS in October 2014 – but you can get an early preview at Play Blackpool!

Hopefully we'll see you there :)

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