- Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid on Itch offers over 1,000 games for UN relief - 4 June 2021
Indie game developers on Itch are once again offering up their games in a massive bundle benefitting humanitarian aid. The Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid is offering up over 1,000 games for $5, with all profit benefitting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The bundle has so far raised $45,000 of its $500,000 goal for the week it will be available. Read more
- Developers reveal the best Easter eggs they've hidden in games - 6 April 2021
Easter has come and gone now, and here in the RPS treehouse we lounge with bellies full of chocolate chatting about our favourite little surprises in games. Alice O has already asked you, dear reader, what's your favourite video game Easter egg? It appears some game developers have been pondering a similar question on Twitter, and revealing the best Easter eggs they've hidden in their games - from hiding games within games, to live coding an RPG to rewriting an RPG's script live to mess with streamers. Read more
- Minit Fun Racer is a "peculiar little racing game" with proceeds going to charity - 18 February 2021
Remember Minit ? The 2018 indie darling that's a "peculiar little adventure played 60 seconds at a time"? Well, its publisher Devolver Digital is now launching a brand-new game that takes the Minit formula but puts a neat new spin on it, by turning it into a fast-paced racing game . And, all proceeds from the title's sales will go directly to some very worthy charities. Launching this very day, Minit Fun Racer is "a peculiar little racing game where every second counts," as Devolver explains in a press release. The new PC game's a collaboration between Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Jukio Kallio, and Dominik Johann - Minit's creators, as you might well recall. The premise is simple but sounds like a lot of big fun: "Hop on your scooter into the twisting traffic of the bustling city and the debris-covered sands of the barren desert just in time to watch the sunset. Befriend your local s…
- Get 742 games with Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality on itch.io from $5 / 4 - 8 June 2020
itch.io's creator has launched what is probably the largest bundle ever in its efforts to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Partnered with 564 creators, the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality comes with a whopping 742 DRM-free titles in total, valued at over $3,400 ( 2,675), but which you can have the whole lot by paying however much you want, with donations starting at a minimum of $5 ( 4). It's already raised over $2 million ( 1.5 million) since launching over the weekend with a goal to reach $5 million before the offer ends on 15th June. All proceeds go towards the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund split 50/50 in the important fight against racial injustice, inequality, and police brutality against black people. Read more
- Itch raises funds for racial justice with a 700+ game bundle - 6 June 2020
This weekend, indie-centric storefront Itch.io kicked off their massive Bundle For Racial Justice And Equality . Pulling together a collection of 749 (and counting) indie darlings, hobby projects and unsung curiosities for a meagre $5, Itch’s massive bundle has currently raised well over $400,000 for legal defence funds across the United States – and there’s no sign of slowing down anytime soon. (more…)
- Developers of your favourite games share what they're most proud of making - 13 April 2020
Times are strange and frightening. But one point of great solace for me has been hearing people celebrating things in their lives. It feels especially important right now to hold on to what makes us all proud about what we do and who we are. And what I really love is people showing off things they’re proud of making. So I’ve been asking a bunch of developers to pick out something they’ve created that brings them pleasure to look back on. And here they are, including Harvey Smith remembering his input on Deus Ex and Dishonored, Derek Yu on one of his first-ever games. There’s pride in doing something for someone else’s game, in the power of details and in little inventions, and ah gosh, shut up, let’s just tuck into a big slice of escapist positivity. (more…)
- Sci-fi strategy game Stellaris joins Xbox Game Pass for PC this month - 9 October 2019
Microsoft has confirmed the latest batch of titles coming to Xbox Game Pass on PC - and while a few have been revealed previously, some new names, including sci-fi grand strategy game Stellaris, will also be making the leap to the subscription service before the month is through. Alongside Stellaris, quirky (and tremendously entertaining ) 60-second puzzle adventure Minit joins the Xbox Game Pass line-up on PC, as does F1 2018, a racer that Eurogamer's Martin Robison called "one of the very best F1 games to date" in his Recommended review last year. There's more racing, albeit of a two-wheeled variety, courtesy of Lonely Mountains Downhill, and also heading to the service at some currently undisclosed point this month is Saints Row 4: Re-Elected, developer Volition's extremely silly superhero-themed open-world jaunt through an alien computer simulation, and "multi-layered" cyberpunk sci…
- Quirky 60-second puzzle adventure Minit is currently free on the Epic Store - 3 October 2019
Minit, the quirky, critically acclaimed 60-second puzzle adventure from Willem Nijman, Dominik Johann, Jukio Kallio, and Kitty Calis, is currently free on the Epic Store. In Minit, players embark on a spirited, bite-sized adventure, presented something like an old-school top-down Game Boy RPG. Step outside the front door of Minit's duck-like protagonist and you'll find a whole monochrome world of mysteries, enemies, people in need of help, and secrets waiting to be discovered. The problem, however, is that there're exactly 60 seconds to get everything done, and once the clock hits zero, our plucky hero keels over dead. The challenge, then, is to push forward as best you can, usually in fits and starts, memorising steps, solving puzzles, and uncovering secrets that might provide a more efficient means of reaching your goal. Items and other key elements persist between runs, and if you ma…
- Minit is this week's free adventure on the Epic Games Store - 3 October 2019
Okay, sixty seconds on the clock, let’s go: Monochrome adventure Minit is the Epic Games Store’s free game for the week. Solve the mystery of the sword factory, collect photographs, grab some coffee and listen to an old man ramble by the sea in this delightful little adventure game with a lethal twist. Every 60 seconds you drop dead and begin the cycle anew. But be quick – Minit isn’t the only one stuck in a time loop. Epic’s own cycle resets in seven days, putting another free game on a pedestal for the week. How long was that, did I do it? (more…)
- Have You Played Minit? - 19 August 2019
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time… This year’s E3 may have been dubbed “the year of the time-loop game”, but I’d argue there’s nothing as tight or as satisfying in this emerging subgenre as the 60-second sojourns you’ll face in monochrome puzzler Minit . You play a small, nameless duck-faced fellow who has the terrible misfortune to happen upon a cursed sword that locks him into a minute-long time-loop, and – oh, wait a minute, the timer’s about to run out. See you in a sec– (more…)
- Nowhere is safe from Minit's shark - 23 April 2019
Haunting the waterways of Minit’s Groundhog Day-cursed island is an immortal shark with a penchant for snacking on one-bit bird creatures. Oceans, caves, streams – anywhere you take a swim, players can expect Minit Shark (doo doo doo doo doo). Except that wasn’t exactly what the developers intended. Turns out, they didn’t know until the last minute that a bug broke Minit Shark free of his salt-water confines, and instead of fixing it they decided hey, look, a new feature. (more…)
- Return of The Obra Dinn, Paratopic and Hypnospace Outlaw headline IGF s 2019 finalists - 3 January 2019
The finalists for the 2019 Independent Games Festival award ceremony on March 20th have been announced, and they remind me just how joyful a challenge it is to keep up with indie development. Every category is packed with exciting, creative endeavours both complete or still in development – a reminder that 2018 was a great year for games, and 2019 stands to be even better. Now I’ve just got to keep track of all of them. Among the headliners for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize are RPS favourites like low-fi groundhog day adventure Minit , the excellent maritime mystery Return Of The Obra Dinn (which Andreas Inderwildi picked apart earlier today ) and the bizarre Hypnospace Outlaw , a deep dive into a fictional 90s internet dream-world. Also in the running is virtual voyeur sim Do Not Feed The Monkeys , and the upcoming physics-driven platform roguelike Noita . Every category i…
- Halloween 2018 Special: Some lovely games! - 31 October 2018
Video games, you may have noticed, are often a little bit horrid. All sorts of naughtiness, and a distinct lack of people just being kind to one another. What are we like?! But fortunately there are games that make an exception to the potty-mouthed meanies that dominate, and today I celebrate them and their cuteness with a collection of lovely screenshots. (more…)
- Minit Speedrun Setting + New Languages - 4 October 2018
https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F29180559%2F17bf77099b3be39a8c3f4c16f0bff961030933d2.png Speed-lovers all over the community will be able to easily track and trace tricky runs with the latest update. So jump right in! Beside a speedrun setting, fixes and tweaks, there are a few more languages too. Do you think you know Minit dialog by heart? Now’s the chance to learn Japanese, Simplified Chinese or Korean! https://youtu.be/01YyqGfwwEk https://youtu.be/GHssQ90MhLg
- Minit consumes your precious time in gleefully silly ways - 20 September 2018
Chances are you ve caught wind of Minit between its initial release and the clamor for a Switch port. It s a wee, wonderful, one-bit adventure where, thanks to a cursed blade, you die every 60 seconds. While it s a romping hoot of a game, it also blatantly wastes your time. I mean that in a good way: Minit tosses away precious seconds with so many fun, sincere, and clever tactics that this shines as a pro, not a con. (more…)
- Games need to take a Minit and think about their huge worlds - 19 June 2018
Time limits are a much maligned bit of game design. A single level with a race against time is fine, Halo's final warthog run or Call of Duty Modern Warfare's desperate fight through a nuclear silo. But turn that into a whole game? People still argue over The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and Dead Rising. The creeping pressure is quite the stress, and finding a balance that still pays off people's potentially lengthy investment should they fail to meet certain actions in time is evidently not easy. Minit's solution is right there in the name and it's magic. Minit has a time limit, at the end of which you will die and lose your progress through the game's world. Some things are kept but you'll be starting from the last bed you slept in. What makes it work? You're only sent back a mere minute in time. That sharp focus and tiny scale turns the time limit from just an obstacle and into a w…
- The making of Minit: how constraints led to an indie gem - 18 May 2018
“So we kind of said this is a one time thing. We’re all coming together to work on this one project.” That sentiment is very much the spirit of Minit itself. The adventure game where you’re stuck in a loop and each life lasts sixty seconds is all about doing as much as you can in the time given to you. It’s a magic gem of a game, small and focused. A playthrough will probably only last a few hours but every minute of it will stick with you. For developers Jan Willem Nijman and Kitty Calis, it was an opportunity to get away from larger projects and do something completely different. Though Minit started out quite differently from the game we have now, with a game jam back in 2012 where Cartoon Network put the Adventure Time IP in the hands of creators. (more…)
- Minit review - a bite-sized marvel - 9 April 2018
Just the idea of Minit is enough to make me squirm. It's the time limit that does it; an ever-marching expiry date that's impervious to pleads or procrastination, a silent but ever-present threat that'll see you fall to the ground and die every sixty seconds, over and over again. There are no secret ways to expand or pervert it - no clever tricks to hide from it. Every minute, without fail, you will die. End of. This kind of pressure is, admittedly, horrifying. A one minute deadline for everything ? A lifespan that expires in a single minute? I've wasted more time than that just reorganising an inventory - how on earth am I supposed to finish an entire game? Read more…
- This tiny man in Minit is my fave character of 2018 so far - 6 April 2018
Minit gives you sixty seconds to achieve great things. As soon as you wake, in whichever place you’re currently calling home, a timer begins to countdown and when a minute has expired, you die and restart. In that time, you might find a useful item, which will be close at hand in the next life, or you might discover a new area and start to formulate a plan for exploration and infiltration a few lives down the line. It was during my second life that I found the lighthouse. By the lighthouse, an old man stands, crooked of spine. He tells you everything you need to know about Minit’s wit and central conceit, and he does that with nothing more than a text box and a very clever monologue. (more…)
- Wot I Think: Minit - 4 April 2018
Minit is that most rare of joyful things: A really good idea, done really well. In Minit you play a little bird-like pixel character who lives in a black and white pixel world, and is cursed with only ever living for a single minute. And yet despite this limitation, it presents a little RPG. HOW?! you ask, in your belligerent way. Hush, I shall tell you. (more…)
