News involving the games developed in Canada, and the people who make them. Indie Games, AAA Games, and in between featured and reported on.
During ongoing sexual assault and harassment investigations, Ubisoft Montréal (@UbisoftMTL) announced a new FPS battle royale Hyper Scape this week as well as a technical test which began immediately.
Read MoreAs preparation for an impending Ice Age, a new project, half science experiment half live-entertainment, is launched. It’s called “Darwin Project” and it challenges 10 participants to survive the cold and fight to the death in a treacherous arena.
Read MoreSuper Animal Royale will be hitting Early Access on Steam December 12th. Before that though, British Columbia developer Pixile will be having a few stress tests:
Sat Dec 1st: North America server 12 noon — 9:30pm PST! Click here to see the time in your location.
Sun Dec 2nd: Asia server 2pm — 7pm Singapore time! Click here to see the time in your location.
The final beta test weekend will take place the weekend before launch: December 8th and 9th.
If you’re interested in a Beta Key for Super Animal Royale, Pixile is inviting people to their Discord channel to request one (and make sure to join the CanadianGameDevs Discord channel for unrelated-fun reasons!)
Play the Beta at https://AnimalRoyale.com/ Coming soon to Steam Early Access: https://store.steampowered.com/app/843380/Super_Animal_Royale/ Fight for furvival to be the last of 64 animals standing in this top down battle royale shooter from Pixile!
If you’re unfamiliar with Super Animal Royale, it’s a top-down multiplayer survival shooter for sixtyfour players.
“Engineered to charm and trained to kill, Super Animals are cute enough to make you go “Aww” and deadly enough to make you go “Ahhhh!” Select your favorite from a menu of foxes, pandas, kitty cats, and other bloodthirsty beasts. Parachute into the ruins of an ill-fated safari park and fight off a lethal barrage of bullets, explosives, and silly dancing. Enjoy carefully balanced run and gun gameplay combined with an intuitive fog of war system that restricts a player’s view to line of sight, allowing for sneaky, strategic play. Explore a beautiful 2D world, inspired by classic top-down adventure games. Cut tall grass and loot abandoned structures in search of the guns, explosives and health juice you’ll need to reach the top of the food chain.”
You can add the game to your wishlist on Steam right here.
Groover Gunner, the rhythm VR game from BitCutter Studios will be leaving Steam Early Access on February 10th, there have been various updates since the game was first released in 2020. You can check out the full details below, and luckily the game is currently 25% off.
Chute Apps have released their “Bullet Hell Insanity + Tower Defense Strategy” game on Steam as a full release. Version 1.0 of the game comes with new items, guns and improvements and is currently enjoying 20% off at the time of writing.
Windsor based Chute Apps will have their bullet-hell/tower defense game Rogue Star Rescue leave Steam Early Access on February 4th - with a Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One version coming later this year.
Vancouver-based independent game studios Redstone Interactive (@redstoneio) and Offworld Industries (@OffworldInd) have announced their upcoming large-scale multiplayer first-person shooter Beyond The Wire (@play_BTW) launches in Early Access on Steam next week.
Toronto-based game studio Cellar Door Games (@CellarDoorGames) have launched the sequel to 2013’s indie darling Rogue Legacy into Steam Early Access.
Music-maker, bullet hell Beat Blast from Toronto-based two-person team Woolly Walrus (@WoollyWalrusInc) is launching on Steam Early Access soon with music from Toronto musician Harrison (@prodbyharrison).
British Columbia-based two-man indie studio MinMaxGames has released their golf course building sim-strategy game GolfTopia on Steam Early Access.
Nova Scotia-based indie game studio Cosmocat Games (@cosmocatgames) has announced their rogue-lite survival horror game TOXICANT will be launching in Steam Early Access later this month.
Edmonton-based indie studio Only By Midnight (@OnlyByMidnight) is hosting an open beta for their third-person arcadey twin-stick shooter Curved Space which can you get access to through the studio’s official Discord.
A major update titled Minerals and Craftmanship has released for Early Access grid-less, sprawling medieval city building sim Foundation (@foundationgame) which is being developed Québec-based Polymorph Games (@polymorph_games).
Pixile Studios over in Vancouver have released a trailer for their battle royale game Aniaml Royale. The game takes a cute but deadly spin on the battle royale formula, making it a top-down 64-player winner-takes-all where you’ll play as cute adorable animals. You can check out the trailer and screenshots below.
Play the Alpha at https://AnimalRoyale.com/ Coming soon to Steam Early Access: https://store.steampowered.com/app/843380/Super_Animal_Royale/ Fight for furvival to be the last of 64 animals standing in this top down battle royale shooter from Pixile!
The game is in closed alpha right now , but if you head over to the official site you can join their Discord and sign up to get into the alpha, and eventual beta.
We break down Baldur Gate 3's unprecedented success & the knock-on effects it'll have on the industry and how we make games moving forward. We also speak to Ontario-based indie game devs Twinolli about their upcoming action-puzzler Highlighters which just got a (Dad Deck-verified) Steam demo!
We speak to Québécois game dev Dragon Slumber, creator of Tech Support, Aethernaut and other games.
We reveal the winners of our ‘23 Community Awards poll and discuss Drinkbox’s latest teaser for their next project- and more!
This week thousands more game developers join Stephan in the "terminated by evil, stupid people" camp as layoffs hit tons of studios all over Canada and the world. We discuss Sonic as well. Sonic supports Unionizing your Workplace!
Stephan got terminated but that’s okay he just has more time to cover Canadian games now.
After a (ginormous) hiatus, Steve and Stephan are BACK to discuss some Canadian Games Industry news from the past few months but just catch up and talk about games and big game thoughts, man… and launch our end of 2023 Community Awards Polls! Nominate now!!
KEIGH THREEEEEE! New Compulsion Games’ game, Thunder Lotus goes multiplayer, age-old game development questions pondered and Zelda hierarchy debated.
In Stephan's last recorded and produced episode in Halifax, NS, we dive into a bunch of Canadian games from Fire Station to Super Animal Royale to Project Dark. We also talk new Canadian Nindies announcements and more news!
