In what seems a fair order:

DarkBASIC Pro

DBPro (along with blitzbasic) is pretty much the modern equivalent of the old AMOS and STOS BASIC languages for those that remember them. It’s a BASIC variant targeted specifically at games development and makes it very easy to get something running quickly. It’s aimed more at the bedroom coder but I think a few people have hit the casual game market with it.

They’ve release a completely free version which you can download here. The only difference is that this version is supported by advertising and from a quick play it looks like mostly advertising for their other products. Perhaps they will move to a model of providing the tools for free and selling content to use with those tools.

Not being a games developer I’ve no idea how far you could push it but it’s definitely fun to play with.

Unity3D

Getting a bit more serious, the people behind the Unity engine have started giving their entry level product away free which was previously a $200 “indie” license.  I don’t know anything about the engine beyond playing (and being impressed by) quite a few indie games developed using it, mostly using the Unity Web Player which provides pretty damn nice 3D gaming in a browser.

Gamasutra has an article for more information on this one.

It can target various platforms including wii and iPhone and I believe they will be targeting the 360 too but I imagine those would require a paid license. Still looks like a great catch for indie developers.

Unreal Development Kit

OK this one is the biggie of the three and way beyond anything I want to do, the Unreal Develpment Kit powered by the Unreal Engine 3 which clearly has been used for top end games. I imagine you could do pretty much what you like in this though it no doubt has the learning curve to go with it. It’s free for non-commercial use (and pretty reasonable licensing too) but for students, education and people just wanting to use a professional level kit I doubt you can do much better than this.

UDK is Unreal Engine 3 – the complete professional development framework. All the tools you need to create great games, advanced visualizations and detailed 3D simulations. The best tools in the industry are in your hands.

Altogether an interesting development, and a bonus for indie developers, I wonder who’ll go free next…

It’s a little trickier than it looks though.

Love the artwork in this free browser game. Some really nice characters…I want a tshirt!

It’s actually a pretty fun little platform/adventure game though I haven’t played it through yet.

Telltale games are giving away a free game to anyone who signs up for their newsletter by 28th Febuary.

You get a choice of either Sam & Max: Ice Station Santa and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People: Dangeresque 3.

I’ve played most of the Sam & Max games and they are well worth a go if you enjoy the old style point and click adventures plus a bit of silly humour. I did try the Strong Bad games but I’ve never been a fan of the Homestar Runner website it’s based on so I’m probably missing most of the jokes.

Anyway head over here for your free game.

Oh and they are soon to be releasing a Wallace and Grommit game (or games as they tend to release them in episodes). Screenshots look cool as above and given the quality of the Sam & Max games I’ll definitly grab the first one at least, especially as it’s heading for xbox live.

Project Gotham it ain’t but it is a fun little racer and you do get to race around recognisably London streets.

To celebrate the launch of the new CLC Coupé, Mercedes-Benz is proud to unveil a free to download PC Game entitled ‘CLC Dream Test Drive’ for the simple reason we think a dream car deserves a dream test drive. Simply download the file to your PC today and experience an exhilarating driving experience on the streets of London with zero traffic!

Configure your CLC 350 Sport to your personal taste – alter the exterior colour, and alloy wheels, and choose from two driving game modes – across a total of five tracks.

Race against five computer controlled competitors around famous London landmarks such as Big Ben, Tower Bridge, and Nelson’s Column. Or compete against online competitors world wide in the fastest lap time trial for glory and prizes via the online leaderboard.

In addition, you can race during the day or night, configure the controls, see replays of your race, and view the new CLC Coupé from every angle.

The streets of London will never look the same again!

We hope your CLC Dream Test Drive encourages you to take a real test drive soon.

[via Reuters]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc said on Thursday it would offer its users hundreds of popular casual online games as free downloads backed by revenue from advertising integrated into the games.

More than 400 ad-supported games from top casual games publishers like Anarchy Big Fish Games and Sugar Games will be available to users before year-end, Yahoo said.

The company is working with technology providers Double Fusion and NeoEdge to sell and integrate video ads into the Yahoo! Games catalog.

Casual online games are usually games developed for mass consumers. They rarely require much expertise or time to play.

Some of the most popular casual games include Solitaire, Tetris and Bejeweled, and many players of such games are women between the ages of 35 and 54.

Yahoo said in-game advertising will allow it and its publisher partners to drive revenue by providing advertisers access to a coveted demographic of gamers.

There isn’t a great deal to the game but I just love the presentation and it does have that strange hypnotic effect that these sorts of games have.

Most of all I love the music, so I shall shortly blog about where it comes from as it’s from an album I’ve looked at a few times.

You have to save the planet from invading space invaders. The space invaders have a weakness if they are stacked according to the match-3 rules they will die and disappear!

Click space invaders to drop them. Try to stack them in piles (or lines) of three or more.

Escape the pyroclastic wall of doom and find your dino sanctuary.

Love this great browser game from Pixeljam Games.

Old school graphics and gameplay but really nice presentation and dinosaurs…what more could you want.

It’s a kind of speed platformer/race game where you play a lovely pixelated dinosaur, trying to escape the big wall of doom threatening your extinction.

Keep discovering new little things which make me smile and there is a multiplayer version available too for those feeling sociable.

Seriously do I have to write any more than the name Jetpack Brontosaurus to get you to go and play the thing!

It’s currently available as an alpha build and you’ll need to install the Unity plugin as it plays right in your web browser but it’s already looking insanely superb. Kind of like a warped version of Pilot Wings with a huge animated dinosaur flying using the rotatable jet engines attached to it.

Lovely looking graphics, animation and physics. Simple controls using just the arrow keys and the spacebar to fire the jet engines.

It’s a crazy idea but I could see this being really fun to play if they add loads of tasks/missions to it.

Jetpack Brontosaurus Visual Technology from Matthew Wegner on Vimeo.

I absolutely the love the original game which is a rhythm game using the DS touch screen to tap and draw to various tunes using the directions on the screen. This was all wrapped up with some crazy Japan type visuals and music but the actual gameplay was very strong in itself.

This PC based remake obviously uses the mouse rather than a touch screen although I imagine it would work very well on a tablet PC too but the move to mouse hasn’t really bothered me as much as I’d thought it would. There are tons of levels/music tracks to download and loads of new ones being made by the community. The software has some great online capabilities which gives it an advantage over the DS with all the usual online stuff you expect these days like chat and leaderboards and even spectator mode to watch other players.

I really can’t recommend this enough, it’s still in beta but appears to be very polished already and seriously addictive. If you have not played Ouenden then head to the website and check out the FAQ for some advice on how to play.

osu! is a rhythm game based on the gameplay of the popular Nintendo DS series Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! and its overseas counterpart Elite Beat Agents. While trying to keep an authentic feel gameplay-wise, osu! has a wide range of online features, such as player rankings and replay exchange. Also available is a fully functional in-built editor allowing intuitive creation of your own beatmaps, and a quickly growing library of user-created content.

Whether you end up being a hardcore player, or a well-respected beatmap creator (or some place in-between , there is something for everybody within the osu! community.
The best way to understand how Osu! works is to see it in action. Below is a collection of gameplay footage.

If a turret whines about his job, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? You bet it does. “A Day in the Life of a Turret” looks at the lives of two turrets at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center- and the monoty within.

Created by Smooth Few Films (www.youtube.com/leetworld)

It’s a very stripped back to basics game, you create a party of four heroes from five possible character classes, enter a randomly generated dungeon, kill baddies and collect loot. That is pretty much all there is to say, if you like this sort of game (and I do occasionally) then you will most likely enjoy it.

Coming from the people who created that great piece of weirdness Samorost, this has the same visual style and charm with some revision questions bolted on. It’s been created for the BBC Key Stage 2 Bitesize site so I’m assuming the questions here are actually pretty useful and anything which can get people to revise must be a good thing

I on the other hand just like clicking things and watching pretty pictures.

It’s now been announced that the latest version of the Twilight Princess bootloader supports the internal SD slot on the Wii and simply requires copying the hack to the root of the SD card.

Info here and a video below.

InstantAction is GarageGames new browser based gaming platform which manages to run some really nice looking multiplayer 3D games right in your browser. You’ll need to download a plugin but it’s pretty small and not intrusive in any way so it’s really not much hassle.

They are obviously pushing their own technologies so expect lots of games created with the Torque engine including Marble Blast online which is currently available to buy on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live which you can play here with the same visuals in your browser for nowt.

The multiplayer looks good and there are the usual community bells and whistles, all in all it’s a really nice platform. It’s currently in beta and available for free, not sure on plans once it’s out of beta but you might as well have a play whilst it is clearly free.

They are not the first to do in browser 3d gaming but it is certainly the best quality I’ve seen and it’s as easy as running anything with the flash plugin. So-called casual gaming is on the increase all the time so it’s good to see someone attempting to create something that isn’t flash.

You’ll need the Unity player plugin which you’ll be prompted to download. I’m not usually a fan of all these different plugins but the games being developed with the Unity plugin do seem to be of a fairly high standard, and it’s a nice 3d engine for something which is basically running in your browser.

In the world of illegal underground RC car racing, a group of superhumans defy law and order. They race with nanolasers and nukes…

It’s all a bit random but presented so nicely with a jolly tune I couldn’t help but like it for sheer weirdness and charm.

Get some free games to download at Game Giveaway of the Day.

Each day they give away one game and whilst these are not chart titles or anything, they are games being sold so not just the usual freeware games you can find on lots of other sites.

I’ve only just found this so I’ve not tried any of the games yet, not to worry I will waste some time and report back if find anything worthwhile.

Welcome to Giveaway of the day project, the new initiative in the software distribution world! Every day we offer for FREE licensed software you’d have to buy otherwise!

Our new initiative, Giveaway of the day, is finally open to its visitors and ready to present hot software titles and best software authors from all over the world. For game giveaways check out Game Giveaway of the Day. We wish you a Happy Giveaway!
Giveaway of the day is a win-win solution for both publishers and clients

The idea behind this initiative is that many sites and publishers offer trial downloads; but only we offer giveaway downloads. What does that mean?

Basically, every day we nominate one software title that will be a Giveaway title of that day. The software will be available for download for 24 hours (or more, if agreed by software publisher) and that software will be absolutely free. That means – not a trial, not a limited version – but a registered and legal version of the software will be free for our visitors*.

The software product will be presented in its full functionality, without any limitations save for those mentioned in Terms and Conditions.

The download link will remain on our web-site for the agreed period of time, together with the review of the software product and the information about other products from the software publisher presenting the giveaway title.

Both reviews and the information on the product line will remain active even when the Giveaway period is over.

The information about Giveaway of the day and the participants of this initiative will be included in our newsletters and distributed among our visitors and subscribers.

We will pay the software publisher for the Giveaway license, and our visitors will only receive those after downloading a special verification program and agreeing to the Terms and Conditions, thus protecting software publishers’ interests and making our initiative beneficial for both clients and publishing companies.

We believe that Giveaway of the day will allow both publishers and clients to meet each other and win together with our initiative.

Go check it out it’s all kinds of brilliant.

You do have to install the Unity browser plugin but once that is done it looks damn nice for a browser game.

Check out the gameplay video below for a taste.

Berserker is a 2D online deathmatch game with no morals and some pretty funny voice work by the sound of it.

Check out the trailer whose audio IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

This is yet another Game Maker game, or perhaps minigame is more accurate description but nonetheless I am rather impressed with what Game Maker users are turning out if only for the sheer craziness of some of the ideas. That’s not to say that it is just a crazy idea, it’s damn fun to play and just goes to show what you can do with a novel idea and some simple graphics and gameplay elements.

Have a play, it really is a fun little distraction.

Psychosomnium is a little freeware platform game by developer cactus who interestingly uses GameMaker to create all his games. If you can do this in GameMaker then I think I may well have a play with it again.

The game is set in a dream world and is quite frankly bonkers. Don’t let the simple graphics and controls put you off, it’s a very neat concept with a few little challenges. Don’t expect it to be obvious what you should do next, it is after all a dream world.
There are some great little platform and other ’simple’ games being released by indie developers at the moment and hopefully I’ll cover a few of them over the next few weeks. The creativity on display in the indie gaming scene at the moment is pretty amazing and some of the larger game developers really should take note of how simple ideas can be turned into something quite extraordinary.

It’s an interesting diversion nonetheless and the choice of the American Civil War as a setting is a bloody (in several sense of the word)  good one.  I could see something like this working well with the Trauma Center games as it would give a larger range of torture implements medical instruments to play with.

Art, music and sound effects are well done for a Flash game and it would probably work quite well in the Wii browser but I’ve not had time to test that one out.

The original Dark Cut is also available to play, being set in Medieval times but it’s a slightly less polished affair if somewhat easier to get along with as it doesn’t have the confusing interface of Dark Cut 2.

I remember playing this for hours on my trusty old Amiga and although it’s dated quite a bit since the glory days of that beige box, it’s still an enjoyable game.

No doubt those creative hackers and geeks will get hold of it and do some interesting things. Here’s hoping for a nice new version with updated graphics, sounds and interesting tweaks to the gameplay but a more likely scenario is someone managing to squeeze it into a linux embedded toaster or something.

Suicidal Entertainment’s game is basically the old ‘Tanks’ style gameplay where you fire projectiles at the enemy and have to work out the angle and power to hit. However in this game you are Jesus throwing spears at the 12 disciples and between you and the disciples is a huge stone ‘God’s Cock’.

OK then have fun, you can find it here.

If you haven’t or you simply don’t want to pay for it then you can play a version of it free online here at the Popcap website.

Peggle is one of those simple casual games which should be something you spend a few minutes on and then just move on but it has that ‘just one more go’ element which has led to it being named one of the top 5 most addictive games of all time.

The game is at it’s heart very basic. You have a set number of balls which you fire at pegs causing the ball to bounce around hitting more pegs and eventually falling off the bottom of the screen or getting caught in the moving basket at the bottom. Pegs that are hit light up and then disappear and you move to the next level by clearing the set number of orange pegs. Special pegs give you special powers or extra points, lots of points gives you an extra ball and catching the ball in the basket at the bottom gives you an extra ball.

That about sums it up really, except it’s all coated in shiny cartoony colourful graphics with some nice sound and music and delivered as a tasty crack sandwich of addictive casual gaming.