New interview with Nifflas over at Planet Freeplay.




[Knytt, Within a Deep Forest review]

The premise of Scientology Pwned is to essentially shoot everything in sight. The single unobstructed map has four enemy generators that create progressively tougher enemies.

Use the arrow keys to move your character, and hold the control key to shoot. Your shooting direction will automatically lock when the control key is held down.

Alternatively, the shift key can be held to lock your shooting direction when the control key is not held down. Music was composed by Jonathan Mak, creator of Everyday Shooter.

Name: Scientology Pwned
Developer: Jerry Liang
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB

Aces High Over Verlor Island is a 3D top-down arcade shooter where you pilot a biplane, and compete against other people online or take on three different challenges. A few special maneuvers are at your disposal, and various power-ups occasionally appear in order to help you stay in flight.

Each of the three single player modes has an online high score board set up so that you can compete against others, and you can also compete directly with people in dogfights of up to eight people at once.

Name: Aces High Over Verlor Island
Developer: Martin Crownover
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB

Hive Mind is a decent shooter by jph which combines three different gameplay modes into one single package. Use the up arrow key to activate your thrusters, and hold the left or right arrow key to turn your ship in the intended direction. Press the down arrow key to stop your ship and make it stay in one position.

Hold the K key for a few seconds to charge your super shot, and press the J key to lock on to the nearest available target. The lock on button can be pretty useful during the hive mind phase. Destroy the core to initiate the third wave.

When the hive mind is vanquished, energy crystals will appear in it's previously occupied spot. Protect these crystals from space insects and they will turn into blue orbs when the next phase begins. Collect the orbs to increase your shield count, indicated by a blue gauge at the bottom right of the screen.

Name: Hive Mind
Developer: Jph Wacheski
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 5MB

Gaism is a decent vertical shooter based on three minutes' worth of gameplay, featuring three short levels with adjustable an difficulty level to provide beginners and veterans an equal challenge.

The ship's cannon will always point in the opposite direction of your movement when the shoot key isn't held. Energy can be increased by collecting the yellow orbs, though firing will cause it to drop at a steady rate. A bar is deducted whenever your ship collides with any harmful objects or projectiles until none is left, which will cause the game to end.

Name: Gaism
Developer: Yamoto
Category: Shooter
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

The objective of Forward Always Forward is to collect all gems that each red turret yields when destroyed. Your shield level increases by one for every green crystal collected, up to a maximum of five. Gems do not disappear so you can backtrack at any time to replenish your shields.

Aiming is achieved by rotating your ship using the J and L keys. Hold the K key to shoot. Another version which allows the use of a mouse to aim can be downloaded from this page.

Name: Forward Always Forward
Developer: Jph Wacheski
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

Strategic Oil Reserve is a decent Missile Command remake by jph which featured several new additions. Alien spacecrafts will navigate around your shots, and land fills can be used to provide further protection against enemy attacks. Use the middle mouse button to drop some additional dirt, padding the area around your oil reserves.

Name: Strategic Oil Reserve
Developer: Jph Wacheski
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

More screenshots from Nenad's upcoming shooter. [additional media, Ablation, Deathchase UFO, Counterclockwise review]

There's a bunch of soundtracks by Mark "m0ds" Lovegrove in MIDI format, available from Screen 7's web site. Some highlights include compositions for Nelly Cootalot, 6 Days a Sacrifice and Trilby's Notes.

Exclusive screenshots from TENNEN-SOZAI's upcoming vertical shooter, eXceed3rd-JADE PENETRATE-. [eXceed2nd-VAMPIRE-, eXceed review]

Gesundheit is action-puzzle game which puts you in control of the allergic protagonist on a quest to save his city from snot-eating monsters, using a clever combination of brains and boogers.

While keeping out of sight, you must lure your enemies through each single-screen level with your delicious nasal discharges. Objects scattered around town provide your pig with different ways of solving each puzzle. The demo contains twelve levels and a tutorial to get you started.

Name: Gesundheit
Developer: Matt Hammill
Category: Puzzle
Type: Freeware
Size: 40MB

The Aeon Genesis site went through some major changes recently, and released the translation patch for River City Ransom 2.

Screenshots from upcoming releases:

First up, the sequel to La-Mulana! Entitled 'Death Village', you can assume that it's not going to be an easy game judging by that name. [La-Mulana review, soundtrack]



Buster's Iwanaga. [development log, Vacant Ark download page]



Unbound, the sequel to Heartland Deluxe. The second in a series of three short introductory games based on the backstory of an upcoming full-length game entitled: Wound.



Charlie's new vertical shooter. [Bullet Candy web site]

Review by RPGCreations.

Meritous is an action-RPG dungeon crawl.

Pros: The map graphics and user interface are impressive, I liked the colors. The attacking system is easy and simple -- there's no real aiming -- and it works. The upgrading system is fun. The dungeon is massive; I played for about an hour and only explored about 100 of the 3000 (!) rooms. The gameplay almost feels like a danmaku game at times: you are avoiding bullets a lot of the time, because you can fire so infrequently. The story seemed well-thought out and the instruction manual is very extensive, with a lot of detail about the background of the game.

Cons: It uses ripped music; I like the selection, but it's not original. The sound effect for the attack shouldn't vary so much in volume, sometimes it's way too loud. The game seemed to have no full screen mode: I run in 1600x1200 resolution so the screen was very small for me. The sprites are too simple, the pixel art techniques used aren't very good; the main character's sprite seems to float and has seemingly no firing animation. The game would benefit from a mini-map visible during play rather than as a separate screen. I wish there were a way to "pull" crystals to you like in the Megaman Legends games, walking over them to collect them gets *very* tiresome. I wish there were more character classes to play as, with different skills. The enemies should have had a greater variety of firing patterns, it'd make it more interesting, although admittedly I didn't get far enough to see all the enemies.

Overall: It's a fun action-based dungeon crawl but with rough edges; if you liked Diablo and are addicted to exploring huge dungeons you'd probably have some fun.

Name: Meritous
Developer: Lancer-X
Category: RPG
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB

Shmup-Dev Autofire 2007 Compo results are out.

Warning: strong language.
Team Fremont Live is hosting an interview with Roger Post (Shoot the Core). [21:00 - 30:00, 100 MB direct download link]

Studio SiestA (Soldier Force, AirRade Air) announces a new shooter, tentatively titled Vallstray no Kisen. (translated as Vallstray's Shining Whirlwind, thanks pixelizr!)

Planet Freeplay has a new interview with Brad Borne, developer of the classic flash Fancy Pants Adventures game. [direct link to interview]

Steve also informs that Hurrican (a Turrican remake) will be out pretty soon, with only some minor bugs to squash delaying it's release.

A playable ten level demo of Super Obliteration can be downloaded here.

Joakim's (Noitu Love) next platformer, pictured right.

Oddbob's Beast Invaders 3. [more here]

Gish 2 concept art.

Reunion, Mike Bithell's (Visiting Day) latest creation. [Reunion information, gameplay video]

Two gameplay videos captured from Ichigo-Citron's upcoming vertical shooter, Rozen Diadem.

A direct prequel to the visual novel Narcissu, Narcissu Side 2nd is currently in production by stage-nana. A preview version was sold at Comiket 70 for 200 yen, and has since been released for download at stage-nana's website.

The focus will be on Setsumi, the female heroine from the original visual novel, and on the people and circumstances that formed the character presented in the first game; most of the preview is told from Setsumi's point of view. According to the author's comments in the afterword to the preview edition, she will share the limelight with at least two new heroines.

Name: Narcissu Side 2nd
Developer: Stage-Nana
Category: Visual Novel
Type: Demo
Size: 30MB

A faithful remake of the Commodore 64 platformer, Bruce Lee features the legendary martial arts master on a quest to retrieve lanterns, defeat evil minions, and perhaps even restore world peace along the way.

A comprehensive review can be found here.

Name: Bruce Lee
Developer: Mark Rosten
Category: Platform
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB

Rooms is a rather innovative puzzler by HandMade Game, in which your character has to shuffle rooms around to arrive at the exit in each level. Only the room you're currently in can be moved, though items can be used to teleport from one place to the other.

The primarily goal of Rooms is to exit from the Rooms mansion. The secondary objective of Rooms is to collect every part of the final puzzle and getting good score, by arranging every room's position to make an entire image.

Every room's background is part of whole image of the stage. The linked background is a hint, which lets player know where each room should be placed. In addition to moving rooms, using right object and items at right time is another consideration.

Name: Rooms
Developer: HandMade Game
Category: Puzzle
Type: Freeware
Size: 30MB