…sort of.

Ok, this isn’t quite the news anyone was expecting but to be honest, I’m going to celebrate this more than I would a new game announcement because it’s encouraging kids to go ahead and do some game design things and have them made and that’s always a brilliant, brilliant thing. (I do this lots with my own kid and it’s top fun, you should try it if you can)

Anyway! So yeah, Games Britannia and some other ex-Gremlin folks and YoYoGames and stuff have set up a competition to design a game around Monty. Here’s the mini-blurb:

Games Britannia has teamed up with YoYo Games and UrbanScan Limited to deliver an exciting national videogame design competition for young people between the ages of 5 and 18.

The competition is designed for small groups to come together and collaborate in writing, illustrating and composing ideas for a new video game based upon one of the most iconic British digital characters: Monty Mole.

Whilst I’m not sure any kid between 5 and 18 is going to give the slightest monkey about Monty and I’m even less convinced is they’ll be interested in going somewhere to watch grown ups code (just give ‘em a 3DS and send ‘em the game later or something), still, kids. Game designing. That’s remarkably ace so a top shout out to everyone involved and here’s hoping it gets a multitude of entries and some people super excited about making games.

There’s going to be teaching packs available soon with a bit of luck so onwards – let’s all get people making games!

Read more here.

In “you’d have to be a mental to pass this up” corner, Swift*stitch is such a simple idea so beautifull executed it’s hard not to love.It’s even harder not to pay for today as it’s down to a rather ridiculous 55p or whatever $1 comes out as in the magic dark arts of the exchange rates.

24 hours only so if you’re feeling the squeeze, grab fast as by midnight, it’ll be back up to its usual price of $7. Which is still stupid cheap for such a fantastic game.

If you need some convincing beyond “it’s cheap and it’s bloody good” then there’s a demo up you can try in your browser. The full game is available in Mac or OSX flavours. GO!

…so this happened last night, an indie awards show organised by Dan Marshall of Size Five Games, hosted by One Life Left and attended by the Who’s Who of UK indierati. I wasn’t able to attend as CHRISTMAS and LIFE but here at RR HQ, we did nudge a few awards into existence to some lovely people who deserved beating awarding.

Other awardinators for this stellar event aside from my good self, RockPaperShotgun – the best PC games site around, the premier place to stop off for all your indie game news Indiegames.com, Ricky Haggett of Honeyslug and super lovely person all round, also some bloke called Notch who we’ve never heard of but he sounds like he could make really good games or something.

Everyone’s a winner, baby and more to the point there’s a fair few games that if you’ve not already checked out, I’d heartily recommend you do so. And without further ado, the receivers of the coveted Golden Teabags Of Dan.

IndieGames.com Strategy GOTY
Frozen Synapse – Mode7

IndieGames.com Platformer GOTY
Explodemon – Curve Studios

IndieGames.com Adventure GOTY
I Fought the Law and the Law One – ben304

IndieGames.com Arcade GOTY
Scoregasm – Charlie’s Games

IndieGames.com RPG GOTY
Project Zomboid – Indie Stone

IndieGames.com GOTY
Minecraft – Mojang

The Rob Fearon I’m a rambling hiker (with an owl) award for the game most at one with nature (with an owl):
Proteus from Twisted Tree

The Rob Fearon Filthy Phallus award for the game that could be the worst euphemism ever if you squint really hard (I said squint etc…)
Vertex Dispenser by Michael Brough

The Rob Fearon “Lionel not Linda Blair” award for best auralgasms in videogames. Tapdancing and sick not included.
Eufloria by Omni Systems

The Rob Fearon Potty Time award for the game that makes even the most arduous of trips to the toilet a pleasure:
Super Spike Dislike from Jayenkai

The Rob Fearon Award for having all the ideas and not leaving any for anyone else
Honeyslug for Frobisher Says

RockPaperShotgun best weird ambient rambling music thing
Proteus – TwistedTree

RockPaperShotgun best use of the Unreal engine
Waves – Squid In a Box

RockPaperShotgun best spaceship combat game
Stellar Impact

RockPaperShotgun best attempt to do what mainstream devs will not
Xenonauts- Goldhawk

RockPaperShotgun best co-operative experience
At a Distance – Terry Cavanagh

RockPaperShotgun best game of the year, best story, best doctors, best scene featuring a rabbit that makes you cry, and so on
To The Moon

RockPaperShotgun best use of a dead cat, 2011
Binding of Isaac – Edmund McMillen

Best Placeholder Art
Proteus – Twisted Tree

Best Glowing Lines
Frozen Synapse – Mode7

Loneliest Room
Kairo – Richard Perrin

Best Minecraft
Minecraft – Mojang

Nicest Man
Alex Tutty

Excellence in Character Design
Thomas Was Alone – Mike Bithell

The “Why the fuck is this free?” award for hating money
Stealth Bastard- Curve Studio

Notch’s Game of the Year
“It hasn’t been released yet, but the game that’s inspired me the most in the last twelve months is Proteus by Ed Key and David Kanaga. It’s a wonderful game about exploring and understanding. Not much is explained, and not much happens, but the style works amazingly well, and it’s full of atmosphere and personality. It’s affected how I do game design from now on. Using small tools to convey big messages that might not even be there is a wonderful thing.”

In his quest to port Retro Remakes Easter Competition (a long time ago edition) winner B’lox to all the devices, Mr Ian Price has been spending his time porting Retro Remakes Easter Competition (a long time ago edition) winner B’lox to all the devices.

In my quest to stop forgetting to mention that Ian has been busy porting B’lox to all the devices, I’m posting now that the frankly excellent almost-beating-Denki-Blocks game of B’lox is now available on pretty much all the devices.

So, if you like your B’lox on the app store, look no further.
If you like your B’lox WebOS flavoured, you’re in luck.
If you’d like to take a Wiz whilst playing with your B’lox, you can do that too!

Plenty of places to put your B’lox down and have a play then.

Amazing scenes in the Bob household as I’m sitting here thinking “I’m sure I’ve posted this before, it’s on my hard drive” and the mass confusion that occurs when it’s clear that no, actually, I haven’t. Because I’m incredi-bo-stupid-o.

So Mousetrap then. “It’s like Pacman on Speed!” Which I suspect means that if you like Pacman, you’ll like this. It’s a game by a gamer for gamers. Etc…

It’s also good so ignore my witter and go forth and download.

Exidy-lent stuff for your Saturday. A slightly evil remake of Venture for your ad-venture-ing purposes.

Ok, I’ll quit that. Download it here

.

Cruz is Kroz is a thing I know very little about what with it being one of those PC things. I’m informed by Chris who did the Flash version you’re about to see that it’s an Apogee thing. So if that means something to you then here you go, get your Cruz on. There’s also an editor for those of you who want to edit up your own scenarios to go cruzzing around.

One final word from Chris before I hand you over to the download “Warning: this will add up to a lot of play time if you’re intent on completing every episode!”

You have been warned.

Hah. It’s like Impossible Mission meets Super Meat Boy meets Metal Gear Solid in a dark alley. Not a light alley because then everyone would see it and YOU WILL DIE. Yes.

Stealth Bastard is a brilliantly named and rather wonderful stealth-em-up-platformer and one of my favourite things of the year. Not just for the name, obviously. Ok, mostly for the name.

Whilst you’re nipping off to download it and play it (for it is free), I’ll be inventing brand new box quotes for it…

“If you only play one bastard this year, play this!”
“If you like bastards and you like stealth, you’ll love this”
“It’s like a bastard on stealth!”
Eurogamer 7/10

Get it here, it’s ace.

I’d like to live in a world where a new Digital Eel game is considered something of an event, something we all celebrate. With very strong stuff, obviously.

Data Jammers is videogames as promised, the future that almost never arrived. We got distracted by shiny things, we forgot the future was supposed to entail glowing cars on glowing tracks glowing. And racing.

And data. In 1984, it sounded like a statement of the future. DATA.

A few years later, we disassembled Number 5, we went for guns and glory, FPS over futurism and forgot the flying cars. What were we thinking?

Data Jammers is available on Steam later tonight or available now from Shrapnel Games. Also with a demo. Because we all like demos.

We truly, truly live at a wonderful time for videogames. Every single major console has some support for independently produced works. It’s a time where you can play Eufloria on the same machine you play Uncharted, you can play Cave Story on the same machine you play Super Mario Galaxy and should you so choose, you can play Wirral Railway and Garden Plants on the same machine you play Halo, we have a format where Grand Theft Auto will struggle to beat a game made in someones bedroom for kicks and thrills, digital distribution has opened up pretty much every marketplace, the abundance of “easy” game creation tools make it possible for pretty much anyone who wants to write a game *to* write a game.

Whatever your tastes, be it 4x Strategy, manic arcade games or more contemplative pieces, we’re here, now, living in an environment that supports all the games, every style of games and then some styles of games you perhaps thought best put back under the rock for a while because I didn’t know you could do that and does that go there?

The IGF Pirate Kart is (amongst other things) a celebration of that. It’s a wonderful, beautiful creation. Over 100 indie game developers bringing over 300 games of the most eclectic nature, from quick sketches, to larger projects to prototypes and a whole bucket of cock based games. It’s 1.4 gig of downloadable brilliance. It has games from 6 year olds, 12 year olds, indie heavy hitters, people you’ve never heard of but who all deserve your attention in some way. This is, very much, videogames. One word. It also has not one but two sequels to indie smash hit “Passage”, neither of which are endorsed by the original author. Because.

This is the Pirate Kart. This is where we can all make and share our games. This is a picture of a dog in a raptor suit.