Reporting on the games made in Canada and the creators behind them
Toronto-based game designer and teacher Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) (and co-founder of indie studio Bancy Co (@bancyco)) is partnering with the newly acquired Limited Run Games to release their games Being Home, Alone with You and Worse Than Death as part of one physical collection on Nintendo Switch.
Read MoreThis week on our weekly interview show, I chilled out with Benjamin Rivers. An indie developer here in Toronto, Ben has released Home on PlayStation 4, Vita, iOS, and Steam, as well as Alone With You on PlayStation 4, Vita, and Steam. He is also a teacher, illustrator, and Twitch streamer.
We talked about his history as a gamer, and then game developer, as well as his two releases and teases for his next game. Remember to subscribe on iTunes and Google Play!
This interview was available to Patron's first.
The sci-fi romantic adventure game Alone With You from Benjamin Rivers is out now on Steam. The originally PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita game is currently enjoying a 15% discount on Steam which you can check out right here.
I enjoy Alone With You when it came out last year, you can check out the video review below:
Alone With You on PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita is a fantastic game, hear my thoughts in this video, or read them here: http://www.torontogamedevs.com/reviews/alone-with-you-torontogamedevs-review
Solo indie dev expert and longtime friend-of-the-site Devon Wiersma joins us to talk their latest release Centauri Dark, working across AAA, mid-sized and solo indie dev and how to fix this goshdarn industry.
David B joins us from the west coast best coast to talk about the upcoming Quiver Games Incubator!
Bizdev extraordinaire Eric Beer joins us to give his Hades II impressions and chat v-bucks subsidized game preservation.
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 many more!
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.
Well we now know that Benjamin Rivers is a man of his word. Just like what we thought on the podcast, the sci-fi romance adventure game Alone With You will be getting a Steam release next month, just in time for Valentines Day.
Just in time for #ValentinesDay — Alone With You launches Feb. 9 on @steam_games! #romance #indiegame #pixelart https://t.co/WcnsYHiB19 pic.twitter.com/bakx7bcUQe
— Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) January 17, 2017
Available February 9th - just in time for Valentine's Day! From the creator of Home - A Unique Horror Adventure comes ALONE WITH YOU, the critically-acclaimed sci-fi-romance adventure game - now on Steam! + OFFICIAL Website: http://www.alonewithyougame.com + Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/benjaminrivers + Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alonewithyougame http://www.alonewithyougame.com
If you can't wait until Valentines Day, you can always pick up the game on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.
Toronto-based game designer and teacher Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) (and co-founder of indie studio Bancy Co (@bancyco)) is partnering with the newly acquired Limited Run Games to release their games Being Home, Alone with You and Worse Than Death as part of one physical collection on Nintendo Switch.
Toronto-based game developer Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) has released Home: Postmortem Edition for Nintendo Switch.
2019 action-adventure horror game Worse Than Death is getting a sequel in the form of a comic book written and drawn by Benjamin Rivers (@benjaminrivers) with chapter one available now.
Worse Than Death, Benjamin Rivers latest, was already released on iOS earlier this year and now we have a release date for the console and PC release. On October 8th, the game will come out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Steam, and the Humble Store.
Alone With You came out last year on PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4. It hit Number 7 on our Game of the Year voting, and was a personal favourite of mine as well. As hinted by Benjamin Rivers on Twitter, it looks like we'll be getting some news next week on the sci-fi adventure:
Stay tuned for some fun Alone With You news next week! This romance ain't over yet... #indiegame #gamedev #pixelart #AWYgame pic.twitter.com/3gk2ERJSpj
— Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) January 11, 2017
Could we be in for a rerelease on a new platform? Some DLC? Something else? We'll have to wait and see, but make sure to follow Ben on Twitter in the meantime.
The nominations for the 7th Annual Canadian VideoGame Awards have been announced, and there are quite a few Toronto developers being nominated for various awards. I tooked at the local games being developed, which you can check out below.
Nominations (Local Developers Only)
Game of the Year:
Best Console Game:
Best Mobile/Handheld Game:
Best PC Game
Best Virtual Reality Game:
Best Animation:
Best Art Direction:
Best Audio:
Best Educational Game:
Best Game Innovation:
Best Indie Game:
Best Musical Score:
Best Narrative:
Best New Character:
Best Technology:
Fans’ Choice Award: Best Canadian-Made Game:
You can check out the full nominations at the official site.
While it is certainly fun for a while, it suffers from the same problem other mobile games on Steam do: Cube Samurai: RUN!’s price tag of $5:49 feels a little steep for the amount of time you might ultimately get from it, so I’d recommend installing the mobile version and giving it a go on the commute to work or on the toilet and see if it’s the sort of experience you’d enjoy on the PC. This aside, it certainly does seems like it would make for an equally fun mobile experience, but it doesn’t do anything exceptionally different than what most people have seen in an infinite runner before.
Overall, Kapsul Infinite’s $4.49 price point on Steam doesn’t quite feel worth it to me. There simply isn’t enough to keep me invested in the gameplay for very long, and without any integration of achievements or leaderboards of any kind it just falls a little flat. It is, however, a game that would be perfect for a mobile device where one play session consists of a few levels on the bus or while waiting out an unpleasant family reunion on the toilet. While the PC is not the platform to play it on, I’d definitely recommend giving it a try on mobile devices.
We live in an age where it’s easy to get bogged down in new features, and developers often seem to push for complex mechanic after complex mechanic. N++, however, sends itself off with a warm reminder that the series has always been created around one sole value: fun.
Despite flaws such as these, I honestly do myself blown away by the potential the game has down the road. It features a robust level editing tool that allows for the creation of scenarios and huge, complex maps. It has Steam Workshop support for user-generated content and (if the patch notes and Longbow Game's Facebook page are any indication) it's still being improved and updated tirelessly by the team at Longbow so many issues described here could very well be patched and improved in future updates.
Alone With You gives you an exceptional story about love, and loneliness, with gameplay that gives you a little more than your traditional visual novel.
There was once a girl named Cally, who was an ordinary girl who lived an ordinary life. One day she found her parents kidnapped by Herbert, a mad scientist seeking revenge for a tragic past. Cally, deciding it was in her best interests to not have her parents in distress and doing what any respectable young woman would do in this situation, grabbed her semi-automatic pistol and medieval bastard sword and made chase, filling anything that got in her way full of lead before tearing it asunder.
Lost Orbit is a 2D top down, action-arcade game with a focus on quick reflexes and the age-old struggle to beat a stage faster than you did two minutes ago. It features a time trial mode devoted to achieving exactly that speedy time as well as a campaign mode geared towards a more laid back experience for casual players.
Far Cry Primal has players controlling Takkar, a Wenja tribesman who is stranded in the fictitious world of Oros. The story comes down to pretty much "I hate that other tribe, so let's go kill them" but over the course of 20 or so hours players will hunt and control animals, craft and improve weapons, and gather your people to rebuild the Wenja tribe.
Normally I don't write about the podcast on the main news site, but we hit a nice little milestone I figured I would share.
We've hit out 50th podcast! Bret Measor, Dan Rodrigues, and myself sat down over the weekend to talk about some of the recent Toronto Game Developed stuff, but we also answered some fan questions. Check it out below, while also subscribing to iTunes.
We passed Episode 50 on our podcast. We talked about Alone With You, Valley, N++, Severed, and answered some questions about game development. Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/video-game-podcast-toronto/id1025606427?mt=2 Check out the main site: http://www.torontogamedevs.com/
You can also check out our podcast page for all the past episodes.
Solo indie dev expert and longtime friend-of-the-site Devon Wiersma joins us to talk their latest release Centauri Dark, working across AAA, mid-sized and solo indie dev and how to fix this goshdarn industry.
David B joins us from the west coast best coast to talk about the upcoming Quiver Games Incubator!
Bizdev extraordinaire Eric Beer joins us to give his Hades II impressions and chat v-bucks subsidized game preservation.
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 many more!
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.
Hey everyone! It's another Week In Review! Our videos which basically summarizes what happened this week for Toronto developed games. Remember to subscribe on Youtube!
Another week in review! This week N++ , Alone With You, Valley released, and we know have a release date for Severed on Wii U.
Valley from Blue Isle Studios, and Alone With You from Benjamin Rivers are out now. You can check out our the review for Alone With You here.
Alone With You on PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita is a fantastic game, hear my thoughts in this video, or read them here: http://www.torontogamedevs.com/reviews/alone-with-you-torontogamedevs-review
Valley just came out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. I'll have the full review in a week or so, but figured I would give my impressions on the first person adventure.
You can get Alone With You on PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita. Valley is available on Steam, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
Although initially announced to come out in the Spring, Benjamin Rivers romance adventure game, Alone With You, will be coming out August 23rd on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.
Read MoreIndie developer Benjamin Rivers has been tweeting quite a bit about his upcoming game Alone With You, and it looks like we're going to get a release date soon. Check out some of the tweets below (I promise I didn't stalk anyone...)
Well, hey. Guess what?
— Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) June 3, 2016
Alone With You is done.*
(*Pretty much. 😕)#gamedev #indiegame #AWYgame @PlayStation pic.twitter.com/R26IypMjIo
You ever get the feeling it's going to be a long day? #AWYgame #gamedev #indiegame #pixelart pic.twitter.com/jZccoJkTFf
— Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) June 8, 2016
Well, doesn't that look nice. #AWYgame #indiegame @PlayStation #PSVita pic.twitter.com/uE0NMo3pEh
— Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) June 15, 2016
@Brambmas05 @PlayStation I'll be able to talk after E3 madness dies down!
— Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) June 15, 2016
Alone With You is planned for PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita, and from the sounds of it, once E3 has died down a bit, we'll find out more about the sci-fi adventure game. Stay tuned for updates, but in the meantime, maybe check out 9 minutes of the game from late last year.
Toronto developer Benjamin Rivers was recently at the PlayStation Experience, and thus got to show off his romance sci-fi adventure game Alone With You. Kotaku met up with him, and showed off 9 minutes of the game which you can check out below:
For more videos, news, previews and reviews, go to http://kotaku.com
Indie developer Benjamin Rivers recently took to the PlayStation Blog to announce Alone With You's release date. He then returned to do a little Q&A for his upcoming adventure story game.
Is this just a point-and-click adventure?
I actually get asked this quite a lot — Alone With You is definitely an adventure game, but not a 90’s-style one. It’s designed for controllers in mind, where moving around the environment feels fluid and fun. There are no complicated menus or inventory screens to manage (just like Home, which was also designed with minimalism in mind).
So then how does the gameplay work?
You accept missions from your AI companion, and as you reach your mission area, you explore — you don’t have a complex HUD, markers or anything getting in your way. If you stumble across something you can use, take or scan, the game prompts you. Unlike a lot of adventure games, you feel like you’re moving through a world, instead of pushing a cursor around.
You can check out the full Q&A on the PlayStation Blog. If you're going to be at the PlayStation Experience event, then make sure to check Ben out at Booth 1158, as well as other Toronto developers.
Toronto developed games Alone With You from Benjamin Rivers, and Severed from DrinkBox Studios will be the PlayStation Experience in San Francisco next month. Far Cry Primal, which is being worked on by Ubisoft Toronto, will also be at the event. The two day event is open to gamers to try out upcoming PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4 games. Included in the long list of games are some Toronto developed games so make sure to check them out if you're going to the event.
Learn More: http://playstation.com/experience Get Tickets: http://playstation.com/experience-tickets PlayStation Experience is back for 2015! This year we're taking the experience to Moscone West in San Francisco, CA, on December 5-6. Join thousands of fans across the world and be there for exciting announcements and panels, plus play new and unreleased games on the show floor.
You can check out the full list here, and purchase tickets for the event which runs December 5-6th.
Independent Toronto developer Benjamin Rivers took to the PlayStation Blog today to share some details of his upcoming romance sci-fi story game Alone With You. While the developer's last game Home was described as a "monologue that the player delivered", Alone With You is "a dialogue between you and the game".
"You’ll trek through beautiful, varied areas — which include a series of communication towers, the dilapidated Colony B, the workspaces and staff quarters of the facility’s agricultural operation, and the various components of the planet’s mining and processing centres. As you do so, you’ll be in constant communication with the AI, who acts as your lifeline and your tour guide. It’ll give you info on all the things and places you find, but it’ll also speak to you — asking you questions and responding to your answers. And if you’ve ever played Home, you’ll know: sometimes even the smallest decision can have unexpected consequences."
From the creator of Home - A Unique Horror Adventure comes ALONE WITH YOU, a sci-fi-romance adventure game for PS4 and PlayStation Vita. + OFFICIAL Website: http://www.alonewithyougame.com + Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/benjaminrivers + Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alonewithyougame Coming Spring 2016! Play a demo of Alone With You at PlayStation Experience in San Francisco, California, December 5-6, 2015!
Make sure to check out the full post for all the details, including how the romance gameplay will work. If you'll be at the upcoming PlayStation Experience this year you'll get a chance to try out the game. The game is expected to hit PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in Spring of 2016. Make sure to also follow Ben on Twitter.
![Limited Run Games Releases Home On PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita [Updated]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5516beafe4b0c6d76a97bb4d/1518223639420-3H6GLTNE9AU4FPD6B4FR/home.png)
