Black Forest Games

As we come to the end of another slightly subdued week for Xbox One indies, we have three new releases for you to check out this Friday. Racing fans who …
Read More

The Giana Sisters series has had a storied history, from its earliest beginnings as a pretty blatant Super Mario Bros. rip-off for the Commodore 64 way back in 1987, to …
Read More

The Giana Sisters are back for another adventure; this time up to a four person multiplayer race in local co-op or online matches. As a game inspired by Micro Machines and Speed Runners, Giana Sisters: Dream Runners is a race to place first and leave everyone else in the dust. Obstacles look to impede your path and your opponents aren’t going to stop racing if you stumble.

Five characters are usable to navigate the maps but only 4 versions of Giana will be available at first. Eventually a ninja and a robot will also be unlockable. The developers wish for the races to be fair so all characters will have the same skill set.

Players will be able to dash, twirl, crouch and use something called gem boost which speeds up a character for a short time at the cost of all gems on hand.

Sound intriguing? Check out the trailer after the jump.

Read More

Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams – Director’s Cut was developed and published by Black Forest Games on the Xbox One. It was released on December 12, 2014 for $14.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.

The Giana Sisters started off in a title known as The Great Giana Sisters which was released in 1987 on the Commodore 64. The title caused many controversies as the game’s design was incredibly similar to another popular platformer released at that time, Super Mario Bros. As a result, the brand went quiet for many years. Fast forward to 2012, Black Forest Games was successfully funded by a Kickstarter campaign for a project known as Project Giana. After more time passed, Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace for the Xbox 360 on March 20, 2013. Moving ahead to current times, Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams – Director’s Cut was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace for the Xbox One on December 12, 2014.

When I first got a hold of Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams – Director’s Cut, I thought to myself, this is going to be great. Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams for the Xbox 360 was a blast and I’m excited to see the new improvements and extra content that is included in the Director’s Cut. After playing through the game extensively to provide a quality review, I’m at a loss for words to describe my experience. Then I found it. Let me show you below.

Read More

The historical origins of Giana Sisters date back to 1987 with the release of The Great Giana Sisters on the Commodore 64. Fast forward to March 20, 2013, Xbox Live Arcade saw the release of Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams for $15.00 USD. For fans of the XBLA game and curious newcomers alike, Black Forest Games is introducing Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams — Director’s Cut to Xbox One users on December 12, 2014 for 14,99 € and undisclosed USD price.

What is the difference between the Xbox 360 version and Xbox One version?

More everything.

This release encompasses the original Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams as well as the add-on Rise of the Owlverlord. On top of that, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams — Director’s Cut will also contain The Christmas Levels and The Halloween Levels, which will total for 38 action filled levels in 1080p HD graphics at 60 frames per second.

Included after the jump is an early announcement trailer of the festivities coming soon.

Read More

Indie developers Black Forest Games have revealed that Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams has now sold over one million copies. The game was released on XBLA one year ago today …
Read More

In 2008, Deep Silver announced Ride to Hell with a trailer showing off grungy bikers and catchy music, but the game quickly rode off into the sunset. …
Read More

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is the rare platformer in today’s world that is simultaneously incredibly demanding and very satisfying. The game, ported to XBLA from the first batch of Steam Greenlight games, was originally part of a successful Kickstarter project. The game’s protagonist, Giana, derives her name from the original Great Giana Sisters of the 1980s which was most well known for being successfully sued by Nintendo for its close similarities to Super Mario Bros. The new game maintains the charm of an older era while demonstrating a keen awareness of how graphics and sound have improved in 25 years between the original and Twisted Dreams.

The game’s main mechanic involves Giana’s ability to shift between two different forms, which shifts the entire world’s graphics and music accordingly. Players will find themselves shifting back and forth between worlds extremely rapidly at times — it recalls the shifting of Ikaruga and Outcast, though with substantial changes to the environment also, not just the main character.

Read More

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i3T5mQfry8

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, the Kickstarter success from Black Forest Games, officially launched today for Xbox Live Arcade at 1200 MSP. To celebrate the release, the studio has issued …
Read More

Here we are once again at the start of what’s sure to be another fantastic year of XBLA releases. Each day this week XBLAFans will be rolling out a list of eight of our most anticipated Xbox Live Arcade releases of 2013. While we can’t possibly cover every single XBLA game planned for this year, we’ll be giving you a varied list of 40 of the most promising titles we expect to release on XBLA in 2013. Once it’s all done, be sure to check back in next Monday when each staff member makes his/her picks for the game he/she is most looking forward to.

---

 

The Cave

Developer: Double Fine

[springboard type=”video” id=”639807″ player=”xbla001″ width=”640″ height=”400″ ]

An upcoming platform-adventure game, The Cave is the brainchild of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion creator Ron Gilbert. Channeling Gilbert’s earlier work, The Cave employs classic adventure-style gameplay within an action-platform framework. While we expect The Cave to release this month, an official release date has not yet been announced.

Read More