iGame Radio

The Humble Bundle has added a new game to the Frozen Synapse bundle. You will now receive Trauma by designer Krystian Majewski when you purchase the Humble Bundle.

Trauma tells a story of a young woman who survives a car accident. While recovering at the hospital, she has dreams that shed light on different aspects of her identity, such as the way she deals with the loss of her parents. The game uses mechanics reminiscent of point-and-click Adventure Games and a gesture-based interface to provide an interactive experience. Trauma has become the finalist for such awards as the IndieCade 2010, IGF 2010 Seumas McNalley award, and the 2010 European Innovative Games Award.

Purchasing the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle will also get you the squad-based strategy game Frozen Synapse and the critically-acclaimed Frozen Synapse electronica soundtrack by musician nervous_testpilot. And if you pay above the average price that is posted on the Humble Bundle site at the time, you will get the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle, which includes Trine, Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds: Survivor, the prototype of Jack Claw, and the pre-order of Splot. That’s a $45 value for what would be, at the time of this post, $4.58.

As always, you get to choose how much you pay for the bundle, from $0.01 to what is the highest right now, $2000, or beyond. You also customize the payment split between the developers, the charities, and even a tip to Wolfire Games. The charities as always are the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play Charity. There is also no DRM in any of the games, and all games run on Windows, Mac, and most on Linux.

Because we can never have enough Humble Indie Bundle in our lives, Wolfire Games has released a new Bundle this week. Featuring the turn-based strategy Frozen Synapse, the bundle is stuffed with goodies for all Indie game lovers.

Frozen Synapse, originally released for PC and Mac, is now available for Linux as well in this bundle. This squad-based strategy game features five multiplayer modes, including Secure and Hostage Rescue, a 55-mission single-player campaign with dynamic dialogue and narrative, and random generated content for a new game each time, Even cooler, you can export your results directly to YouTube to brag about your scores.

Purchasing the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle will net you the game and the critically-acclaimed electronica soundtrack by musician nervous_testpilot (which we must say is an awesome soundtrack). However, if you pay above the average price that is posted on the Humble Bundle site at the time, you will get the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle, which includes Trine, Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds: Survivor, the prototype of Jack Claw, and the pre-order of Splot. That’s a $45 value for what would be, at the time of this post, $4.54. You can’t beat that in any way.

As always, you get to choose how much you pay for the bundle, from $0.01 to what is the highest right now, $2000, or beyond. You also customize the payment split between the developers, the charities, and even a tip to Wolfire Games. The charities as always are the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play Charity. There is also no DRM in any of the games, and all games run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

So, check out the bundle and pick up some great games!

FIFA Soccer 12 is a happy game this week. Not only has GameTree Mac released a Mac version, but EA has released a version for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad.

Chosen Best Sports Game by E3 Game Critics, FIFA Soccer 12 brings to the pitch the new Player Impact Engine, a physics engine built to deliver real-world physicality in every interaction on the pitch. The game includes Precision Dribbling to create a higher fidelity of touch on the ball for better control in tight spaces, more time to make decisions on attack, and more control over the pace of the game. Other gameplay mechanisms include Tactical Defending which places equal importance on positioning, intercepting passes and tackling, and higher AI on NPC opponents.

The system requirements for the Mac version include:

• Mac OSX 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or higher processor
• Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• 4 GB RAM or more
• ATI HD2600 or NVIDIA GeForce 9400M or greater with 256 MB of Video RAM. (This game will not run on the Intel GMA 950 or X3100 class of video cards.)
• 6.8GB in size

The iOS version includes Manager Mode which allows you to make trades, upgrade staff, and scout for talent. The game features over 22 officially licensed leagues, 500 licensed teams and more than 15,000 players, including Kaka, Wayne Rooney, Gerard Piqué, Karim Benzema and more. You can develop your players and choose the best tactics for them with 360 degree player movement and gesture-driven skill moves.

You can pick up the iPhone/iPod Touch version for $4.99, and the iPad version for $9.99.

Inside Mac Games has posted a great interview with AMD’s Chris Bentley, the company’s Mac 3D Manager. Click on the link below to get the full interview.

IMG: Has the transition to Apple’s new Lion OS been a smooth one? Do OS releases generally lead to a variety of graphical glitches that need to be tracked down?

CB: It’s been really smooth, except I can’t figure out how to scroll any of my windows down… Seriously, I know there have been a few graphics issues that people have run into, but overall I’ve been really happy with how few bugs slipped through. Every OS release involves some changes to the drivers, and the key thing to understand is that _everything_ that draws to the screen comes through the drivers: every window drag, every dock animation, every translucent drop down menu, every character added to a document, every triangle of every game. Given this fact, it’s very easy for a change in the driver to break _everything_. The solution to this problem is: obsessive levels of testing…

To read the full interview, click here.

Thirty-six Indie games have been selected as finalists for the 2011 IndieCade Festival. Chosen from 446 submissions by a global jury, the games will be exhibited at IndieCade Oct. 8 – 9, 2011.

IndieCade 2011 will feature games of almost every genre and platform by independent game makers from more than a dozen different countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, South Africa, the Ukraine, and the United States. The festival weekend includes speaker sessions, gaming, an awards ceremony, and the Gamewalk/Festival Arcade.

All finalist games will be exhibited on Festival Gamewalk and playable for attendees, with the games’ creators and many other industry luminaries in attendance to demonstrate the games and discuss the future of independent games. Wristbands will be available free-of-charge that will give attendees access to the game galleries, the Gamewalk/Festival Arcade and the live-action Big Games.

The games and developers selected this year include many games on or coming out for Mac and iOS games, including:

• Antichamber by Demruth
• Desktop Dungeons by QCF Design
• Gamestar Mechanic by E-Line Media
• Halcyon by stfj
• Hohokum by Honeyslug and Richard Hogg
• Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure by Untold Entertainment
• Solar 2 by Murudai
• The Dream Machine by Cockroach Inc.

Expanded access passes will be available that include access to all festival sessions, exclusive deals from area businesses, gift bags, Night Games and the closing party, at which IndieCade will announce the audience and developers’ choice awards. You can purchase the expanded festival access passes in advance at Brown Paper Tickets for $12 ($10 for students) or $15 on site.’

You can also purchase Professional Conference access, which includes four days of IndieCade action, including a keynote, educational sessions, networking, social events, and parties in addition to access to the creators’ lounge. The Professional Conference badge is $195 in advance, $250 at the door.

BulkyPix, in conjunction with Eric Chahi and developer DotEmu, have released Another World: 20th Anniversary for iOS. If you’ve never heard of it before don’t worry, neither have we…for which we are eternally saddened. Just looking at the trailer is enough to see why this highly cinematic platformer received so many awards back in the early 90′s. Follow physicist Lester Chaykin as he travels inadvertently to an alien planet and attempts to survive the hostilities within. The game is available for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad for $4.99, with the ability to play with upgraded graphics or the originals.

Dataplayed has released Bumpin, an interesting arcade mashup of peggle and pinball. You have to guide the ball into the correct spot by drawing lines that the ball bounces off of, and using the bumpers available to move it forward. The screens don’t do the game justice, so be sure to look at the trailer to get a good idea of gameplay. You can download Bumpin for iPhone for $0.99.

Escape Apple by Kazaf Studio is a cute physics puzzler wherein you try to protect the apples from the fierce rays of the sun by dropping items from the sky that will help deflect the rays. The trailer shows rather juvenile graphics but some pretty decent puzzles to deal with. You can download the game for $0.99 for iPhone.

In an attempt to expand Deliver2Mac, Virtual Programming has released an application for their digital download service.

Similar to how Valve’s Steam client works, the Deliver2Mac client app runs from your home computer and automatically detects Virtual Programming games. The preferences can be set to automatically start downloading updates for these games or to ask you before hand. You can purchase games through the app as well, and store them in a library similar to the way Steam operates. You can also peruse the site for trailers, demos, and game news.

Another really cool advantage is that all game manuals are available via the client app. Unfortunately, not every game has a manual…a problem that Virtual Programming is not always in control of fixing. But to sweeten the deal, Mark Hinton, CEO of Virtual Programming, says that there will be bundles and other special deals will be made available to customers only through the client. “The Deliver2Mac client is our customers’ personal game shopping assistant,” he stated.

After starting up the client, you can add your account from Deliver2Mac or start up an account if you don’t already have one. You can also choose to do shared storage of game info, or per user storage. We found the user interface to be clean and tidy, very easy to use, especially in comparison to the old Deliver2Mac website which was slower and often more difficult to find what you needed.

The system requirements call for: Mac OS X version 10.5.8, an Intel processor, and a broadband Internet connection. You can download the client app here.

Uncanny Games has released their platform puzzler OIO for Mac and Windows. OIO follows the travails of a little wooden character who can grow wooden beams to travel through his world.

OIO wakes up one day to find all of his friends petrified, and he alone must discover what happened. He finds that he can travel through his world and get through the puzzles that confound him by throwing fertile seeds on the ground to grow wooden beams. Combining up to three wooden beams allows him to climb cliffs, jump higher, solve puzzles and control the fire propagation.

There are 12 scrolling levels within four different environments, including roots and natural wood, mines, and a realm of metallic machinery. The graphics are quite lovely and from the trailer the shadowing is handled quite well. Uncanny Games created the art of OIO in a hand-made “art brut” organic style, using wood alongside other natural forms and materials to build detailed environments with depth and scale.

You can download the demo of the game, or purchase it for $9.99.

Muzzy Lane has announced that their acclaimed strategy game Making History II has come to the Mac. Making History II gives players the power to take full control of any world nation, colonies, etc during the time leading up to and during the Second World War.

Armchair generals and fans of grand strategy can take their turns building great empires or protecting the world from tyranny during these pivotal moments in world history.

Making History II has its roots in serious games design. Developed with renowned economic historian and policy icon Niall Ferguson, the Making History series was developed for both the commercial and education markets. As such, Making History II will probably have a much stronger focus on accuracy of factual information than most strategy games set in this time period.

This release of Making History II that includes full Mac support also includes many enhancements to the original game itself, including performance improvements, AI enhancements, and improvements to the UI.

System requirements for the Mac:

• OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later
• Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2GB RAM
• 256 MB VRAM
• 1 GB hard drive space

You can download the demo and play for 50 turns, or purchase the entire game for $29.99.

Big Fish Games has released Adventure Chronicles: The Search for Lost Treasure, a hidden object adventure for iPad. The game sends Susan to exotic locations and dangerous places to look for treasures of history and legend while solving puzzles and hidden object tasks. Released on the 21st, the game is available for a free download, with a $6.99 in-app unlock fee to play the entire game.

Hypership: Out of Control by Fun Infused Games is a retro arcade-style vertical shooter. Originally released for XBLA, the game reminds one of 8-bit arcade games like Galaga. However in Hypership, your ship continues to speed up as you play the game. Gain powerups that help you out or slow you down for a short period of time. The game was released on the 15th, and can be downloaded for a mere $0.99.

Pulse: Volume One by Cipher Prime has experienced a major update. Six brand new game levels with accompanying original audio tracks highlight this update, including a guest track from Philly music scene standout Igor’s Egg. The release also includes per level difficulty rankings for the first time, scoring system refinements and significant performance enhancements. The update is free to all current owners of the game. The full game currently sells for $3.99.