News

One of the biggest changes made when Spelunky moved from PC to XBLA was the addition of multiplayer. Developer Mossmouth has been secretly working on two new DLC packs …
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Avatar games are a thing now. No longer are they confined to the corners of the XBLIG channel, nor limited to awards given out to players. Microsoft has fully embraced …
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Milestone S.r.l., the Italian developer behind the last three WRC: FIA World Rally Championship games, is bringing the series to Xbox LIVE Arcade. …
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As far as pinball games go, the force is very strong with this one. Pinball FX 2 will be getting its first pack of tables from the …
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In a blog post, Undead Labs has detailed the way in which character and skill systems operate in its upcoming open-world survival horror title, State of Decay.

According to the studio, the characters that you encounter and choose to welcome into your group will affect the dynamic of your entire experience. Their differing skill sets and personalities will present unique challenges in the way they interact with each other.

“A good story isn’t about characters as unchanging archetypes,” begins the blog post. “It does explore innate potential and expectations, but it’s also about choices and change (or refusal to change). A good survival story in particular puts its characters to the test, but not just as individuals.”

In State of Decay, all survivors share the same basic skill sets – Cardio, Wits, Fighting and Shooting – but they are weighted differently depending on the character. Each survivor has a number of stars next to each category that represents their proficiency in that particular skill. Additional stars are earned by successfully making use of these skills in-game.

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In a video interview posted over at the Sega blog, lead designer of The Cave, J.P. LeBreton, explains that devising the game’s puzzles presented a unique kind of challenge.

Double Fine’s LeBreton, who also worked on BioShock, explained that the trick is to find the good kind of “being stuck.” Providing just the right amount of information is paramount when designing any game’s puzzles. But he learned that a straight-up adventure game like The Cave presents additional hurdles at the user-testing stage.

“You don’t have clear metrics like you do with a game that’s based around combat, where you can say, ‘OK, they died this many times and they took this much damage, and we’d rather it be this way, so let’s put more health packs or whatever in the level,” he begins.

“With [The Cave], it was more just like, ‘Well, they were stuck in this area for a long time. A, are we OK with that? And B, what do we want to do about it? Do we want to give them a hint in this direction? No, that’s too much of a gimme; let’s figure out something else. Or let’s just leave it, because it’s actually good because it’s late in the game, or it’s the right kind of difficult puzzle for this kind of situation.'”

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Yesterday XBLAFans reported that developer Humble Hearts has some “exciting news” related to its debut effort, Dust: An Elysian Tail, in the pipeline. Humble Hearts hasn’t announced what …
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Update: At some point after this story was published, Illfonic’s Nexuiz was re-listed on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Thanks to reader SteVic82 for bringing this to our attention. Original …
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Kalypso Media have announced that Dollar Dash will finally steal its way onto XBLA on March 6 for 800 MSP. The top-down …
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One-man development studio Humble Hearts will soon be announcing some news about last August’s Summer of Arcade title, Dust: An Elysian Tail. A Humble Hearts Facebook post states that studio head Dean Dodrill has “some exciting news to share over the coming month. The dust hasn’t settled yet!”

Dodrill has made no mention on Facebook, Twitter or the game’s official website as to what the news will be, leaving gamers and XBLAFans alike to speculate as to what it could be. Our best guess is that Dust is going to be getting some downloadable content, but a sequel or a PSN and/or Steam port are also possibilities at this time, as is just about anything else anyone can imagine.

A port seems unlikely given that Dodrill took the opportunity to also mention that yesterday marked the 6-month anniversary of his game’s release on XBLA and that he wanted “to thank everyone who has followed me and helped make the game a great success.” Certainly those statements don’t entirely rule out a port, but the XBLA callout would seem to imply that the news is XBLA-related.

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