A light-hearted game of mass murder in ‘Party Hard’

In January, someone moved into the house right next to Alex Nichiporchik’s. Nichiporchik, CEO of SpeedRunners studio TinyBuild Games, immediately wasn’t a fan of his new neighbor. “He decided it’s a funny idea to throw parties every night until 3AM,” Nichiporchik recalls. One month into this late-night party hell, TinyBuild signed a contract with Pinokl Games, a studio known for crafting family-friendly experiences. But Pinokl’s new project was wildly different: Party Hard, a stealth game about skulking through a bumpin’ party and murdering everyone there.

“Coincidence? The final level is actually modeled against what I imagine the next door party is,” Nichiporchik says.Slideshow-314895

For the record, Nichiporchik isn’t a murderer. He is a producer on Party Hard, a game that entered his life at a serendipitous moment and has helped him work through some frustrating emotions. Party Hard began life in a game jam, a rapid-fire game-making contest where developers generally build playable experiences in 24 to 72 hours. Party Hard‘s prototype attracted a fair bit of buzz.

“To be honest we didn’t expect it to get the attention it did when we built the initial prototype,” Nichiporchik says. “The premise of Party Hard sounds very serious, but has been designed as a very light-hearted game. Everything from the visuals, to the sound effects, to what actually happens in the game was designed to be as silly as possible.”

Party Hard isn’t meant to be a soulless murder spree — it has mystery and a narrative, though Pinokl and TinyBuild have purposefully kept that quiet. They want players to be surprised by something other than the amount of stabbing required in the game. And there definitely is a lot of stabbing. On that front, the studios have received a fair bit of criticism from people who read the game’s tagline, “A tactical game of mass murder,” and assume the worst.

“We had two camps of people: those who just read the premise and start to go off about the game being awful, and those who saw GIFs of dancing bears and realized the game is all about being silly,” Nichiporchik says. “What we didn’t reveal to anyone yet is the story part of Party Hard, which tells like a detective story of John West, the inspector in charge of Party Hard killings — the story is told through his eyes. We’re very interested what people think about it in contrast with the silly gameplay.”

Plus, Party Hard gets even deeper as a live-streamed experience. It features special Twitch integration features that allow viewers to trigger certain rare, in-game events by voting on them in chat. These include an influx of killer bears, SWAT vehicles, firefighters, rioters or new items to buy.

“Twitch integration was one of those things that we thought we’d try out, and make it a tiny feature in the game,” Nichiporchik says. “Then we play-tested it and it was fun to play with just 10 people watching. Constantly having the odds flipped on the player is incredibly entertaining. So we decided to go full-on with the integration and designed a dozen different scenarios that fit in the game. Because of this nobody on the team had proper sleep for about a week.”

TinyBuild and Pinokl will see if their sleepless nights have paid off with Party Hard‘s launch today on Steam for PC ($10 in a release deal). However the sales shake out, Nichiporchik has learned at least one lesson while working on Party Hard.

“Apparently if you call the cops for 10 nights in a row on someone, the landlords get notified.”

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Tags: hdpostcross, indie, murder, pinokl, tinybuild, twitch

eSports gets its first major UK bookmaker

Ignore it all you like, but eSports is booming. There are now million-dollar payouts, doping scandals and even official ways to put money down on your favourite squad. While gambling on eSports is still a relatively new concept, it’s just been given a much-needed boost after well-known UK betting site Betway launched its very own gaming portal. The company, which has traditionally focused on football, horse racing, tennis and other “traditional” sports, believes it’s the first major bookmaker to expand into competitive gaming.

A quick look at the Betway site shows bets for all the major games you’d expect: League of Legends, Dota 2, CS:Go, Starcraft 2, Hearthstone, FIFA and World of Tanks are all present, as well as individual matches from tournaments hosted by ESL and other event organisers. There are also some fun special bets, which include 99/1 odds on Hearthstone becoming part of the Winter Olympics in 2030, giving plenty of time to think about what you’d do with your (unlikely) winnings.

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Gaming, Internet

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Via:
Betway Media

Source:
Betway eSports

Tags: betting, betway, cs:go, dota2, esports, gambling, hearthstone, leagueoflegends

GOG Galaxy lets you roll back broken or unwanted updates

The latest version of gaming platform GOG Galaxy now supports patch and update rollbacks, letting you quickly restore a game to a previous version. Rollbacks were originally touted by the company as an DRM-free, anti-Steam feature, letting you skip an update if you hated it. “We know that patches can occasionally break a game or affect your mods,” said tech VP Piotr Karwowski. GOG Galaxy has other ways you can avoid being locked down, like an opt-out for automatic updates and the ability buy games straight from its store sans the platform. Other game clients, including Steam, generally require such updates, a bone of contention for some players.

The main drawback to GOG is a dearth of the latest games, though it does have fairly recent, popular titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The company describes the Galaxy client as “fully optional,” though you’ll miss things like multiplayer, achievements and chat if you don’t use it. Along with rollbacks, the new version brings download pausing, extra installation options, improved friend searching, more speed and an updated UI. It’s now available to anybody in the preview program (you can enroll just by selecting the “receive preview updates” option), and will roll out to everybody else a bit later.

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Tags: Galaxy, GOG, GOG Galaxy, GoodOldGames, PCGaming, Platform, Steam, update, Windows

‘Bit.Trip’ limited vinyl soundtrack loaded with killer indie games

The folks over at iam8bit have been knocking it out of the park pretty regularly. Earlier this year they released the absolutely gorgeous vinyl edition of the Hotline Miami 2 soundtrack, an equally beautiful video-game world map and during ComicCon the outfit unveiled the limited edition soundtrack for Battletoads on wax. The latest project looks like it could be just as special: a “greatest chips” collection of games and music from the the lovely (and unapologetically difficult) indie series Bit.Trip. While the multi-colored bullseye picture disc and fancy Drew Wise album art are cool enough on their own, it’s the digital offerings packed in that are pretty awesome in and of themselves. In addition to the aforementioned accoutrements, the $25 asking price also nets you download codes for each of the seven Bit.Trip games and their full soundtracks. It’s a circus of value!

That’s a solid price for a ton of rad music (including Anamanaguchi’s epic “Mermaid”) and charming, inventive games. So even if you’re just a fan of chiptune, limited records — this one caps out at 1,500 copies — or iam8bit itself, it’s a win-win especially if you haven’t played the games prior. Pre-orders open at 10 am PDT this Wednesday and they should ship out early December.

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Via:
Polygon

Source:
iam8bit

Tags: anamanaguchi, BitTrip, gaming, gamingsoundtrack, hd, hdpostcross, IAm8bit, records, soundtrack, vinyl

Using your old gear with ‘Rock Band 4’ on Xbox One will cost you

Rock Band is rising from the dead this fall, and as such we’re starting to get finer details about different prices and packages for the forthcoming game. Unfortunately for Xbox One owners, the “disc-only” version of Rock Band 4 will cost $79.99, $20 more than the PlayStation 4 version. Harmonix confirmed that’s because the Xbox version will come bundled with a legacy adapter that’ll let buyers use their old instruments with the new game and hardware. PS4 owners won’t need that — the existing USB adapter that PlayStation owners have always used with Rock Band will continue to work just fine. If you’re new to the series and buying one of the bundles that includes instruments as well as the game, though, the pricing will be identical: $249.99 will get you a mic, guitar, drum set, and the game regardless of which platform you’re playing on. If you just want the game and a guitar, you’ll be shelling out $129.99. Mad Catz also plans to sell the adapter standalone for people who purchase the game digitally. Rock Band 4 is set to launch on October 6th.

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Via:
Kotaku

Source:
Mad Catz

Tags: bundle, pricing, ps4, rockband, rockband4, xboxone

‘Super Time Force Ultra’ comes to PS4 and PS Vita on September 1st

Super Time Force is one of the more mind-bending indie games to break cover in recent years, and now the time-traveling, side-scrolling shooter is coming to the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. As of September 1st, the game will be live in the PlayStation Store — and it’ll be free for anyone who subscribes to PlayStation Plus. How much it’ll cost for those who don’t subscribe to PS Plus has yet to be revealed, however.

/// SUPER TIME FORCE ULTRA is coming to #PS4 & #VITA SEPT 1st! Free for PS Plus! http://t.co/3zEXLJ2OFY #Kookabunga! pic.twitter.com/DrI4nKCdkW

— CAPY (@CAPYGAMES) August 24, 2015

It’s been a long time coming: Super Time Force was first teased way back in 2011, and it eventually launched as an Xbox exclusive in May of 2014. From there, the game appeared on Steam in an updated version known as Super Time Force Ultra. Then, late last year, developer Capybara Games announced that STFU (yup) would appear on Sony’s platforms in 2015. That was way back in December of 2014, and we haven’t heard much about when it would arrive since then. But the PlayStation loyalists who haven’t checked the game out yet will finally get their chance next Tuesday.

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Source:
PlayStation Blog, Capybara Games (Twitter)

Tags: capybaragames, ps4, psvita, stfu, supertimeforce, supertimeforceultra

‘GTA V’ video editor is coming to the PS4 and Xbox One next month

A number of recent games have photo editor modes for making stylish screenshots out of your adventure, but Grand Theft Auto V‘s full video recording and editing feature is unique (not to mention exceptionally fun). More GTA V fans will soon get a chance to give it a spin: Rockstar Games just announced that the Rockstar Editor will make its way to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in September. Originally, this feature was supposed to be a PC exclusive, but Rockstar announced its change of plans back in May.

The Rockstar Editor’s console launch isn’t the only thing GTA V fans have to look forward to, either. It’ll come with a variety of new features like a new music and sound effects library, an expanded “director mode” to make crafting your videos easier, a bunch of new fonts and a few other small changes. The update for PS4, Xbox One and PC version of GTA V will be pushed out via a downloadable update next month.

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Source:
Rockstar Games

Tags: grandtheftauto, gta, gtav, rockstareditor, videoeditor