Forbidden Desert Has Been Submitted To The iOS Store - Release Soon

Friends of the site Button Mash Games have been busy working away on a iPad version of Matt Leacock’s Forbidden Desert, the sequel to the video game version of Forbidden Island (which, by the way, Patreon's got last November).  

Forbidden Desert has officially been sent to Apple for approval. Sean reached out to me to share the good news, and shared some screenshots of the game:

I can’t wait for the board gamers out there to get their hands on this. We spent a lot of time fine-tuning over the last month and I think the game is playing really well. When it lands in the App Store, players can expect beautiful artwork, fun animations, an intuitive UI, and the same incredible challenge of the original game. Watch out, Forbidden Desert is a tough one!

With Forbidden Desert now in the hands of Apple, it's a matter of time before we see it on the App Store. Once it is finally released, we'll be sure to let you know.  In the meantime, don't forget to check out Forbidden Island on iOS.

Vote For Dashy Square On Steam Greenlight

Independent developer Kastriot Sulejmani has announced that he is trying to get Dashy Square greenlite on Steam.  Dashy Square, which can be downloaded on iPhone and Android, is a rhythm-based arcade platformer featuring 11 different levels, and 21 electronic soundtracks.

WILL BE POSTING ON GREENLIGHT NEXT WEEK! THIS IS JUST TO DISPLAY THE TRAILER + HYPE I need everybody to help vote the game if you want it to come on Steam! Update 1.2 is ready and has been uploaded for iOS (review - takes 7 days) and is currently active on Android!

The release date is planned for February if everything goes well, but make sure to hit up the games Steam page to vote for the game. You can also follow him on Twitter to keep up to date.

Dragon of Legends Hit Kickstarter - Let's Get This Game Funded

As announced last week, Dragon of Legends from Thrive Games has hit Kickstarter with a goal of $60,000 dollars, the lowest tier to guarantee a copy of the game is only $10 dollars.  We've written about Dragon of Legends quite a bit, but you can check out further details and trailer below:

Dragon of Legends is an online action RPG for PC, Mac, Linux, and Mobile devices, that is heavily influenced by Gaelic and Norse mythology. Enter the ever-evolving lands of Hávámal, where the lights of faeries border the realms of darkness. Two alliances have emerged across the world, both struggling for supremacy over the land and as these great powers battle one another for control of Hávamál – darker forces gather to destroy them. Players from around the world can assume the roles of customizable heroic fantasy characters, and explore a lush 2D world full of mystery, danger, and countless adventure.

After creating your own custom character and selecting a faction, you will set out on an epic quest to conquer evil and save the lands of Hávamál from impending doom, or succumb to the darkness and act as an agent of destruction. You will have your own background, racial history, and character specific storyline that will provide direction, and motivation behind all of your actions. Along your adventures you will acquire new equipment and learn powerful skills to aid you on your path, and you will be constantly interacting with other players from around the world. In order to defeat the most complicated and challenging dungeons, you must strategically coordinate your efforts and work effectively as a team to reap the rewards. You can band together with like-minded players in clans and guilds and wage war against other rival factions - or even turn on your own:

Currently the game is planned for PC, Mac, Linux, and mobile but console versions may be possible as well...

Stay tuned for our stretch goals ;) https://t.co/on1j77BYhH

— Thrive Games (@Thrive905) January 19, 2016

You can check out the full Kickstarter here, and follow Thrive Games on Twitter. 

The Really Series Game Company Releases Chapter 2 For Real Army Simulator

Toronto developer Really Serious Game Company, which is comprised of @yifatshaik, and @techknight, released Chapter 2 of Real Army Simulator which is a 'satirical choose-your-own adventure narrative game based on @yifatshaik two mandatory service years in the Israeli Army.  You can check out details about the game, as well as a trailer and screenshots below:

The game tries to emulate my personal experience and present the army less as glorified heroic endeavour but rater as a more mundane and at time ridiculous experience. The game follows the daily routine of a soldier working in the army computer helpdesk. At each stop of the day, the player is presented with a dilemma on how to behave in a certain situation. There answer determines how the day will end- going home, getting detention or guard duty. Not all choices are obvious, answer that the player might think are better might (following the army logic) be the wrong one!

Real Army Simulator is a satirical choose-your-own adventure narrative game, based on my (yifat) two years mandatory service in the Israeli Army. The game tries to emulate my personal experience and present the army less as glorified heroic endeavour but rater as a more mundane and at time ridiculous experience. The game follows the daily routine of a soldier working in the army computer helpdesk. At each stop of the day, the player is presented with a dilemma on how to behave in a certain situation. There answer determines how the day will end- going home, getting detention or guard duty. Not all choices are obvious, answer that the player might think are better might (following the army logic) be the wrong one! Game Design & Art: Yifat Shaik Programming: Derek Quenneville

You can download the game for free on Windows of Mac on the main website for the game.  Make sure to let us know what you think in the comments!

Early Access Preorder For Halcyon 6 - Buy Now To Get Early Access

Indie Toronto developer Massive Damage Inc announced that if you pre-order Halcyon 6, you can play it "weeks" before it hits Steam Early Access.

You will get to play Halcyon 6 weeks BEFORE it appears on Steam Early Access. Act One are available at launch, Acts Two and Three will be included as FREE updates during Early Access. - Access to the Backer Beta (est. delivery: Late February) - A digital download copy of Halcyon 6 (Steam Key at Early Access launch)

Pre-order #Halcyon6 & you can play before the Early Access launch! https://t.co/NCinSxpJds #pixelart #indiegame pic.twitter.com/xA4ZTTB3f9

— Massive Damage, Inc. (@Massive_Damage) January 15, 2016

You can preorder the game right here for $19.99, while also checking out there Steam page here.   Halcyon 6 hit Kickstarter last year and crushed a lot of their goals, thanks to the help of the Square Enix Collective.  It's expected to hit sometime this year, with the Backer Beta being late February.  

Edit: Thanks to reader @Coboney for pointing out a mistake that originally say "6 weeks" before release...it's just "weeks" in general.

Fortified Developers Chat About Theme, and Infantry Powerup

Clapfoot games is busy working on Fortified, the third person tower defence game that I got to play last Fall.  They'e gone ahead and released and videos, one going over the Infantry power-up, and the other going over the 1950's theme of the game. Check them out below!

Coming to Xbox One and Steam in early 2016 Join us on our Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/334210 We take a deeper look into the Infantry system, one of the unique strategic options available in Fortified.

Coming to Xbox One and Steam in early 2016 Join us on our Steam page: http://goo.gl/fvsGqv See how 1950's pulp fiction and sci-fi inspired the look and feel of Fortified.

Fortified is currently planned for an early 2016 release on Xbox One, and Steam.  I really enjoyed what I played last year, and even named the game as my most anticipated title of 2016.  You can follow along with the developers on Twitter and FaceBook.

Phantom Compass Takes Us To 2080 In 'Auto Age: StandOff'

Developer Phantom Compass has been busy working on their 1980's action cartoon inspired car combat game, Auto Age: Standoff. 

In 2080, the future is bright but deadly. America is on the road to recovery after decades of disaster. Militarized motorists keep the peace in the east. Wheeled gangs rule the western wastes. A series of radio relays connects sea to shining sea. A mysterious voice crackles through the static, beckoning travellers into the desert canyons of the Dead Zone. Do you dare answer the call?

Auto Age will support 1-4 players, and is currently announced for PC, with other consoles being "TBD", and will also support VR.  Phantom Compass has announced before they had Oculus Rift developer kits.

Working on some volumetric VFX for "Auto Age: Standoff" to match the game's action-cartoon style and for best VR experience. This is a work in progress! More info on the game here -- http://www.phantomcompass.com/auto-age-standoff/

While no release date is set, we'll be sure to have more as Phantom Compass shares further details of the game. They've been tweeting a lot about it, so follow them on Twitter for the latest.

Mayor John Tory Plays Far Car Primal

Twitter follower Alex Gram let me know on Twitter that Mayor of Toronto John Tory swung by the Ubisoft Toronto offices to play Far Cry Primal.

Testing out soon to be released @UbisoftToronto game Far Cry Primal on tour of Ward 18 with Councillor @anabailaoTO pic.twitter.com/xgG9DqUn7p

— John Tory (@JohnTory) January 15, 2016

Checking out motion capture at @UbisoftToronto where they are digitizing the movement of a dog. pic.twitter.com/ry7caKnn6I

— John Tory (@JohnTory) January 15, 2016

Thanks to Mayor @JohnTory and Councillor @anabailaoTO for taking a tour of our studio #TOPoli #JunctionTO pic.twitter.com/AKPMJjZBe8

— UBISOFT TORONTO (@UbisoftToronto) January 15, 2016

Far Cry Primal is being assisted by Ubisoft Toronto, and is slated for release on February 23rd 2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Severed Gameplay From Polygon

The guys and gals over at Polygon posted a video going through some gameplay footage of Severed, the upcoming hack n' slash from DrinkBox Studios.  You can check out the video below, and the full article here.

Severed is a lovely looking dungeon-crawler from the makers of Guacamelee.

Severed was delayed last year, and is expected to hit PlayStation Vita sometime early this year.

Dragon of Legends Hitting Kickstarter Soon

Hamilton developer Thrive Games have released a teaser trailer for their upcoming pixel art online RPG, Dragon of Legends.  You can check out the teaser below:

Ragnarok is Nigh. On January 19th, be prepared to be a part of something big. Dragon of Legends will be heading to Kickstarter, and we need your help to make this legend a reality. WWW.DRAGONOFLEGENDS.COM

The Kickstarter will be launching January 19th according to the teaser, and we'll have more on the game when that date hits. In the meantime, make sure to follow Thrive Games on Twitter.

Exclusive: Interview With Eric From Horrible Unicorn Game Studios

Happy New Year! This interview has been available to Patreon's for quite some time, but I didn't want it getting lost in all the Game of the Year hype. But Eric, the Creative Director and CEO of Horrible Unicorn Game Studios, took some time to talk about his career, and their upcoming game Legacy of the Copper Skies.  Check it out below, and be sure to follow Horrible Unicorn Game Studio on Twitter.

TorontoGameDevs.com: Thanks for doing the interview! Can you tell me a bit about yourself? Your history up to this point, and how Horrible Unicorn Game Studio started.

Eric: Ditto, thanks for the interview. For myself, there’s not much to tell. Horrible Unicorn Game Studios began as a dream childhood dream. Starting a business was always the long term plan, but needed to gain some hard experience first. I’d left University for my first job at Relic Entertainment as a producer on Space Marine. Which was freaking awesome. Relic was an amazing place to get started. The people there were great. Then my wife and I packed up and moved to Montreal to work on Batman, because who doesn’t want to work on Batman? Especially when you get to do trippy Mad Hatter levels. That’s hard to argue with. Also they have awesome poutine in Montreal, so I gained a few pounds… Anyway, after all of that my wife and I felt it was time to move back closer to family, and start the business. Hell, we even imported her mom from BC to join us out here in Ontario. Now both sides of our family are in the same space. So that’s how HUGS was born. After that it was games industry stuff as usual.

TorontoGameDevs.com: Legacy of the Copper Skies is the studios first game. What made you go with a top down action game with pixel art? What were the main inspirations?

Eric: When we started we actually were going to make a completely different game. Then another startup popped up and announced they were making essentially the same thing, but had a bigger team, and more money… So that wasn’t super awesome. Fortunately, we had some other ideas we were pumped about, and Legacy of the Copper Skies was the one we wanted to do the most. Pretty much all of us here at the studio are huge fans of Zelda, and classic SNES games. So we wanted to take what we loved from those games, but modernize it a bit and add our flare to that style of game.

TorontoGameDevs.com: The game revolves around the characters Tir and Isen, but what's the story surrounding the characters?

Eric: The jist of these two characters is that they are the avatars or gods or creators of their own worlds. At the start of the game their worlds are completely separate and they have no idea the other exists. Through the events of the game these two worlds are forcibly merged and it forces them to confront the danger. The main theme of the game is co-operation, which ironically doesn’t include a co-operative mode or multiplayer, but it’s something we wanted to affect all aspects of our game. So this is why there are two worlds and two main characters. In a way each character also represents creation, and destruction. Both forces are needed in this world, but neither is good or evil.

TorontoGameDevs.com: Funding wise, you guys were involved with the Square Enix Collective, a collaboration created by Square Enix to help fund Indie Games. What was the experience like? What kind of things did you learn from it and would you recommend it to other indie studios?

Eric: Just to clarify, Square Enix isn’t actually funding us at all. But if they wanted too... :) The Square Enix Collective was a great place for us to pitch our idea and kind of shop it around the public to see if they liked the idea. I think Square Enix has built something really cool with that and hope they have continued success with it and grow the program as they seem to be doing. So for us as a studio and as a game it was awesome, but it was definitely a roller coaster of emotions for me. We’d started out doing really well, then all of a sudden we were getting an extremely high ratio of no votes. In the beginning we’d get like 1 to 2 no votes per every 10 votes, then all of a sudden it shot up to like 6 out of every 10. I’d gone from super happy that we were doing well, to being crushed in like a day. Fortunately, the bulk of these votes were fake. Square Enix had systems in place that had detected the shady votes and were able to remove them. But it was tough. This is our baby; no one wants their baby to fail.

TorontoGameDevs.com: What systems are you planning for right now? Do you have a release date in mind?

Eric: Right now we’re aiming for a PC/Mac release in Q1 2017, but we’re working on putting it on the big consoles as well.

TorontoGameDevs.com: You guys are located in London, whats the game developer scene like? Has it been difficult to find talent, or assistance?

Eric: We are in London now. Or rather I am in London now, the other guys that had joined were already here so I commute here to work in the office. But the game dev scene here is actually pretty good. It’s the shiny land of game dev promises outside of Toronto. They’ve got a number of studios already here so it’s not been that hard to find some great people. Unfortunately there is no Poutineville here that I am aware of anyway.

A big thank you to Eric for taking the time to answer some questions, and to Jeffery for setting everything up. Make sure to keep your eye on Legacy of the Copper Skies and as we get closer to next year we'll have more on it.  Until then, check out their site, and Twitter to stay up to date.

Robo’s World: The Zarnok Fortress Gets Greenlit On Steam - Offers Free Demo

Late last year I wrote about Robo's World: The Zarnok Fortress from Bluish-Green Productions and Throw Away Games trying to get greenlit on Steam. The good news is that is was successful! Hooray! You can check out the trailer and description below:

Vote for us on Steam Greenlight!: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=561953066 Robo's World: The Zarnok Fortress is an Open World 2D Tactical Action Platformer. Take on the massive, interconnected Zarnok Fortress, and sabotage its crucial systems to halt its advance on your world. Your foe remains ever vigilant, learning from its mistakes and actively repairing sabotaged zones.

Robo’s World: The Zarnok Fortress is an Open World 2D Tactical Action Platformer. Take on the massive, interconnected Zarnok Fortress, and sabotage its crucial systems to halt its advance on your world. Your foe remains ever vigilant, learning from its mistakes and actively repairing sabotaged zones. Play as Robo, who’s about the most nimble machine you’ve ever seen sporting tank treads, and the acting guardian of the planet Saphirium. Master your abilities to take the Fortress offline, dynamically affecting every other zone as you work towards your goal of dealing the finishing blow to cripple the Fortress beyond repair and put an end to the dark reign of the Zarnok.

While there is no release date yet for the game, it is expected in 2016. In the meantime, you can download a free demo for the game on the official website.  We'll have more on Robo's World as we get closer to release.

One More Story Games Releases 'Hard Vacuum Lullaby'

We're only a few days into 2016, but we've already had a couple of releases.  Cally's Cave 3 is coming out on Tuesday for PC, and Barrie developer One More Story Games had released a new story to their catalogue of games.

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 fleet’s logistics and repair corvettes. Maintaining radio silence and far from the front lines, the crew of the fleet’s warships try to get some much needed rest, leaving you in charge and responsible for anything that goes wrong...

You can play the game for free on Facebook, or on Android.  You can check out the rest of the story driven games here.  If you're interested in bringing your stories to an interactive gaming platform, check out One More Story Games, and follow them on Twitter.

Cally's Cave 3 Releases This Week On Steam

Cally's Cave 3, the indie platformer developed over in London was released on iOS a few months ago. Following a successful Steam Greenlight, the game will now release on PC's this Tuesday.  The game will be $7.79 here in Canada, with the soundtrack going for $4.49. You can get the two bundled together for $10.99.

If you want to try out the game, you can download the demo here.

Furthermore! The developer is currently running a contest! You can check out the full details here, but if you do some fan art of the game and email the developer at jordanfwc@gmail.com before January 4th, you'll get a Steam copy of the game.  The favourite entry will also get a Steam copy of Rocket League.  

Jordan has also been kind enough to provide some keys to our Patreons, so make sure to check your email in the enxt day or so! In the meantime, you should also follow the developer on Twitter.

Game of the Year - Fan Vote Results!

So for the last few weeks we have been doing a Game of the Year voting, and the results are in!  The Game of the Year voting resulted in the highest traffic for the site since it's creation, and I've posted the top five games below. Here are the official top Toronto developed games of 2015, as voted by you!

Number 5: Super Time Force Ultra (PS4/Vita)

The game was originally released in 2014, but a rerelease back in September on PlayStation resulted in getting the number 5 spot on our poll.  If you haven't already, make sure to check out this game on the large list of platforms its avaliable.  Be on the lookout for Below from the studio in 2016.

Number 4: Runbow (WiiU)

The 9 player party platformer was one on of the first games I ever wrote about, and was also one of the first I got to play before it came out. The game oozes with charm, and style, while boasting a lot of other indie characters.  Stay tuned to 13AM Games who are busy working away on DLC for the game.  The game is also on sale until January 14th.

Number 3: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (PC)

To be quiet honest, I didn't know this game was developed over in Ottawa.  Someone had put it in as a write-in and so I had to add it (the list was updated through out the week with other write-ins).  This multiplayer puzzle game pits one person in a room, with other players outside who have instructions for the specific part of the bomb to defuse.  You can pick it up on Steam right now, but make sure to check out the developers on Twitter.

Number 2: Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (Xbox One, PC)

Our runner up for this year was one that I recently started playing, and I can see why it made so many people's lists.  The game is great single player, but shines with a friend to play with.  The game is currently on sale on Steam, but you can also get the Xbox One edition as well.

Number 1: N++ (PS4)

Woot! A big congratulations to Metanet Software for winning this years Game of the Year voting on TorontoGameDevs.com.  N++, the ninja platformer that is easy to learn and difficult to master, will make you die over and over again, and apparently that's what people love about it.  While the developer is busy working on a PC version, make sure to pick up the PS4 version here.

Thank you to everyone who voted. As I mentioned, this resulted in the highest amount of traffic in the history of the site. Make sure to listen to our podcast, and follow us on Twitter. On to 2016!