Holy Street Fighter, Batman!

I've recently encountered a very strange little game: http://onemorelevel.com/game/faith_fighter

Having rather irreligious tendencies I rather liked the idea - select a divinity, then battle against all the others in turn. Each deity has a selection of special moves, as well as the normal collection of punches, kicks and so on. It plays like a demented, sacrilegious Street Fighter.

Those of you with devout beliefs may wish to stay away. Those of you with a playful streak may want to see if "your" god can vanquish all the others! As a means of choosing the one true faith this is probably not the best option - as a bit of fun, it's a hoot. And it's free!

An Epic Work In Progress...

I am always pleased to hear about new and ambitious projects in the indie world, and here is just such a project. New developer Probability Space are launching Warrior Epic, an online RPG that aims to be small to download and free to play. Players after new equipment and special features can pay for this as they wish, but this is not required.

Though Probability Space is new, the team comprising it are anything but - previous work includes input on StarCraft, Age of Mythology, Gears of War, Command and Conquer III, Battle for MiddleEarth, and more besides. While a public beta is not yet available there are several screenshots on their website and what they have put together so far is impressive.

You can find out more about Warrior Epic at www.warriorepic.com.

Brass Tacks

News of a curious game in development has reached the Bytten offices. Described as having "a noir-crime-mobster atmosphere", the story features one Albert Swick, a man of dubious moral standing. His ex-partner has just had an accident, falling down the stairs and breaking his neck. Albert should be pretty pleased, since said ex-partner has been blackmailing him. Problem is, who's going to believe he wasn't involved?

Thus follows a curious game that isn't quite like any other. Your task is to exhonerate Albert - as the police will be able to finger him on such minor evidence as a single fingerprint or the most circumstantial of evidence, the best way to do this is make it look like someone else did it. After all, if it's obvious enough, who'll look for any other clues?

No demo was available at the time of writing this but we're hoping one will become available soon. Meantime, take a look at the development screenshots for an idea of just how good this game is looking: http://www.beware.co.nr/

Welcome to the newcomer!

Having moved house, settled in and so on, I've rather fallen out of touch with blogging. Bytten continues as ever, with a steady rate of new submissions, and reviews go well. So I thought it high time I made some other comment here and I have the perfect topic.

There's a newcomer at Bytten. I don't mean another reviewer, but a new laptop. My old faithful companion is struggling now for space and, after some years of use, the performance is also starting to chug. Couple this with the ever increasing demands of computer software and it is plainly time to upgrade.

The new laptop, for the technophiles out there, is a Dell Inspiron 1521. It's running Windows Vista, another new arrival (and a slightly less enjoyable one, though doubtless I will adapt - the new Office suite is, however, much harder to use).

So welcome, new laptop, and may you stay with myself and Bytten for many years.

Fizzwizzle returns!

AT LAST!

Grubby Games have finally announced their latest game featuring the absent-minded Professor Fizzwizzle. A sequel to the original, "Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery" introduces new puzzles, new objects and new enemies.

Currently undergoing final testing, I personally cannot wait for the chance to review this one. It looks like it could be hot stuff.

News! At long last, news!

Ahem.

I've been rather remiss at updating this blog of late. In fact, I've been rather remiss at all manner of internet-related things - you can blame this on the combination of the loss of my car (leading to long days at work and pickups by arrangement) and the high stress of buying a first house. Hopefully that will all work out well, at which point I'll be near a half-decent bus route and trips to work will be much shorter.

Amidst all this I've been both reviewing for Bytten and proofreading, so the remaining free time I have is being put to constant use. So it's high time I took a few moments to do something useful, and here it is - a blog posting!

So what is the purpose of this ramble? Well, strangely, there is one. I spotted something of interest to developers during a scan over the indiegamer forums - a new website designed to help developers after some work. Need an artist? Need a musician? Need beta testing? Sign up for free at http://www.indiegamejobs.com and put the details in.

Even if you aren't shopping for contractors, please give this site some traffic if you can. It can only succeed if people know about it.

It's Oh So Quiet...

So sang Bjork, and so I think at the moment. Since Bytten underwent its fundamental redesign, making submissions and administration both much simpler in the process, game submissions have suffered a bit of a dent. A few teething troubles are to blame, perhaps - one bug unearthed a couple of weeks ago only allowed developers to submit games if they already had a published review! - but things are a little quiet of late.

This means either one of two things. Either there's another bug chomping away at the bracken of the new system, in which case PLEASE tell us about it, or developers simply aren't popping by like they used to. Why not? Is it the new submission system? The colour scheme? Bytten has been providing a valued and professional service for several years now and we would value some feedback.

Of course, this could all simply be a lull in submissions and next week I could be complaining that we have too many. I hope so.