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 MoreToronto-based game developer Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) has released Home: Postmortem Edition for Nintendo Switch.
Read More2019 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.
Read MoreWorse 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.
Read MoreBenjamin Rivers, the indie developer behind Home and Alone With You announced Worse Than Death earlier this year, and now, in a celebration of Canada Day you can play the game on iOS right now.
😱🇨🇦 HAPPY #CANADADAY! 🇨🇦😱#WorseThanDeath is now available worldwide in the @AppStore! It's an action-adventure #horror mystery that you can play at the cottage — or anywhere!https://t.co/At08N4qVmy
— Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) July 1, 2019
Try not to jump — we dare you! pic.twitter.com/55fHZKoxBZ
WORSE THAN DEATH is a scary, emotional thriller about a high school reunion that goes horribly wrong. As Holly runs for her life, desperate to rescue her best friend Flynn from a terrible force that's hunting them both, she must survive unexpected truths about her home town, her friends, and even herself.
The game is still expected to come to PlayStation 4, Switch, and Steam and considering the game is obviously finished, hopefully we don’t have to long to wait. You can download Worse Than Death on iOS right here for $5.49 CAD.
Benjamin Rivers, the developer behind 2012’s Home, and 2016’s Alone With You has announced his latest - Worse Than Death, for PlayStation 4, Switch, Steam, and iOS. The game will be an emotional thriller about a high school reunion that goes horribly wrong.
“Run for your life, hide in the shadows, and use your wits to avoid terrible enemies and solve a mystery that sees you trapped in your home town.
Worse Than Death fuses a page-turning, pulp horror story with action-adventure gameplay.”
A scary, emotional thriller about a high school reunion that goes horribly wrong! Worse Than Death is the chilling follow-up to indie horror hit Home, and it's coming soon to PlayStation 4! + OFFICIAL Website: http://www.worsethandeathgame.com + Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/benjaminrivers Rated Mature: Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Drug Reference
We don’t have a release date yet, but we’re told it will be soon. In the meantime, you can hit up the developers Discord channel to catch a prequel story, and vote on what happens next!
Excited for #WorseThanDeath? Then boy do we have news for you.
— Benjamin Rivers 💀 GDC (@BenjaminRivers) February 20, 2019
Join the official @discordapp server to read an exclusive prequel story — and even vote on what happens! We're writing and illustrating it from now until launch!
👉 https://t.co/uO70wFB5Ma#horror #indiegame pic.twitter.com/JtIU58QY4m
Toronto-based Mighty Yell Studios has released its first virtual reality game as a studio: Knight in the Attic for Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest.
Canadian indie game studio Red Meat Games have released their episodic, narrative-driven audio game Project Dark on Steam and Nintendo Switch.
The next game from Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive has been released for Xbox One, Series S|X, PS4, PS5 and as a day-one game in PlayStation Plus’ subscription service.
Achimostawinan Games have released their Indigenous cybernoir detective narrative adventure game Hill Agency: PURITYdecay for Steam and itch.io.
Toronto-based indie powerhouse Vagabond Dog is releasing a physical copy of their cult classic 2014 RPG maker title Always Sometimes Monsters in partnership with Limited Run Games.
Toronto-based Siege Camp (@SiegeCamp)’s massively multiplayer war game Foxhole has finally left early access on Steam after five years.
Montréal-based Red Barrels (@TheRedBarrels) will be running a closed beta this upcoming Halloween weekend for their third full release in their Outlast franchise- The Outlast Trials, a co-op multiplayer survival-horror game set to release on PC at some time in the future.
Toronto-based not-for-profit Hand Eye Society has released a second Mixtape on itch.io- an “anthology” of “some games we think you'll really like.”
Backbone, the post-noir narrative adventure game where you play as a raccoon private eye Howard Lotor released on Steam earlier this year and is now heading to PlayStation, and Xbox next week on October 28th.
This 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.
Limited Run Games will be releasing Benjamin Rivers' horror adventure game Home physically on PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita.
OH HAI
— Benjamin Rivers (@BenjaminRivers) February 2, 2018
The news you've been waiting for is here: the #homehorror Super-Spoopy Physical Edition is out in ONE WEEK!
Get it Feb 9, 2018 at 10AM EST at https://t.co/L6rOpzeVdf!#horror #indiegames #ps4 #psvita #vitaisland pic.twitter.com/R15xQuWE34
Home was released digitally on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita in 2014, and later ported on iOS and Steam. You can buy the physical version on Vita here, and PlayStation 4 here.
"Awakened by an oncoming storm, you open your eyes to discover yourself in a strange, dark room—tucked away in a house that’s not yours.
As you play the game, it changes—subtly, almost imperceptibly—to reflect your perspective. It's a horror game unlike any other, and as you'll discover, its truths are entirely subjective."
Update: Originally the title was that the game came out on Xbox One - which should of read PlayStation Vita.
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.
Well, it was a solid 2016, and there were a lot of great games that were created in Toronto and Southern Ontario. Just like last year, supporters and fans of local content took part in the 2nd Annual Game of the Year voting, and here are the results!
10) Maize - Finish Line Games
9) Kapsul Infinite - Luke O'Connor
8) Far Cry Primal - Ubisoft Toronto
7) Alone With You - Benjamin Rivers
6) Watch Dogs 2 - Ubisoft Toronto
5) Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander - Massive Damage Inc
Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander had a huge Kickstarter. After a successful funding thank to Square Enix Collective, the game came out in Early Access, followed by a full release later in the year. The developers are still updating the game, so make sure you head over to Steam to pick it up.
4) Runbow: Satura's Space Adventure - 13AM Games
Back-to-back Years of placing 4th in voting, 13AM Games released a healthy chunk of DLC for its party platformer. Satura's Space Adventure gives players more single, and multiplayer content - while also releasing the game on Steam, and 3DS.
3) Severed - DrinkBox Studios
The first-person hack-n-slash found eventual homes on 3DS, iOS, and Wii U, but it was made from the ground up for the little Sony portable that could. Probably one of the last "exclusive" Vita games, Severed has you playing as a daughter trying to find out what happened to her family. Now I'll be praying for a Guacamelee 2.
2) Hard Vacuum Lullaby - One More Story Games
Friends of the site, One More Story Games claims our top two spots in this years Game of the Year voting, first with Hard Vacuum Lullaby. "After a savage battle in deep space, the 2nd Yagoshan Expeditionary Fleet Battlecruiser #6 retreats to the orbit of a gas giant with other damaged vessels to undergo repairs by the fleets logistics and repair corvettes."
1) Mandatory Upgrade X Marks The Spot - One More Story Games
Joining the ranks of N++, this years winner is Mandatory Upgrade: X Marks The Spot from One More Story Games. The story based game was written by Chris Tihor from Ironic Iconic Studios, and tells the tale of Special Agent Rachel Varley who has to investigate the death of a runaway cybernetic exosuit on her first day back to work. You can pick it up here for $3.99, which includes a demo as well.
Thanks to everyone for voting, and congratulations to everyone who released a game in 2016. Onwards to 2017!
Canadian indie game studio Red Meat Games have released their episodic, narrative-driven audio game Project Dark on Steam and Nintendo Switch.
As part of the Mix Showcase last month, Toronto developer Kitten Cup Studio showed off some gameplay from their 2022 game Pekoe.
Quebec developer Norsfell have announced their 10-player co-op action-RPG Tribes of Midgard will be out on PlayStation, and Steam on July 27th - the game is also available for pre-order on both platforms.
Triversal, the puzzle game from Toronto developer Phantom Compass has a release date, and thankfully we won’t have to wait that long. The game comes out on July 13th, and you can wishlist it on Steam here.
BOMBING!!: A Graffiti Sandbox, the graffiti sandbox simulation game from indie dev (and friend of the site) Devon Wiersma, is out now on Steam, and itch.io.
After launching on Steam last year, St Catharines based Rocketship Park will be porting their puzzle story-driven adventure game LOVE to Nintendo Switch “soon”.
PixelNAUTS Games, who last released Lost Orbit: Terminal Velocity on various platforms have released a new trailer for their upcoming space-racing brawler Rocket Rumble. You can wishlist the game on Steam right now which is scheduled for sometime this year.
Mad Devils, the twin-stick shooter from Itzy Interactive got a new gameplay trailer ahead of its May 10th release date. Mad Devils is an arcade co-op shooter set during World War 2 but has Allied special forces hunting down Nazi occultists resurrected as demons
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.
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.
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![Limited Run Games Releases Home On PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita [Updated]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5516beafe4b0c6d76a97bb4d/1518223639420-3H6GLTNE9AU4FPD6B4FR/home.png)
Cococucumber have released the third and final game in their self-described “Cococucumber Voxel Trilogy.” Ravenlok is now available for Xbox, PC, Game Pass and the Epic Games Store,