Animate Pixels in 3D with, er, Pixel Animator 3D

If ever there was a game that did exactly what its title implied that it did, it’s Pixel Animator 3D. Well, it’s more of an app than a game, but whatever.

For 240 of your Microsoft Points you can make 3D models, and then add frames to them with the ultimate goal of making your own little cartoon, or bizarre slice of weirdness as in the trailer above.

I had a few issues getting used to the controls, to be honest, but if you’ve got the patience to persevere with them you should have a lot of fun with this. It’s better than another fucking Minecraft, anyway.

September 2011’s Best Xbox LIVE Indie Games

It’s October now, which means it’s time for a round-up of the best (and worst) of what September had to offer. Alundra and Arkanoid, mainly. So enjoy!

Click here for the actual enjoyment.

Wizorb Coming Next Thursday

Yes, yes indeed. RPG/Breakout hybrid, Wizorb, is being released next Thursday. This calls for a lazy news post where I just post a picture of the tweet that confirmed the news while adding nothing of substance!

Sometimes I even write things of substance underneath images. Not this time.

いれかえまほちゃん Doubles in Size; Adds English

I don’t really know what いれかえまほちゃん is called. When I say it adds English, it adds it everywhere apart from the title, which could be anything. Google seems to think part of it is “swap,” which makes sense. Swap isn’t much of a game title though.

Anyway. This game came out last year and is a really cool single-screen puzzle-platformer. You have to get to the exit before time runs out, and the only way to get there is to jump and to exchange positions with enemies by shooting at them. Swapping places with enemies can get you through walls or higher up in the level, though not all walls can be warped through.

The game was updated today, and now has a bunch of extra stuff. It has English text in the menus and in the levels themselves. The time limit for every level has been extended to a minute from, in some cases, as little as ten seconds. There’s also a new awardment system for faux-achievements.

Best of all, though, there are fifty new levels. For a game that had fifty to begin with, that’s a pretty hefty update, and it’s free if you had the common sense to have already bought it! Just launch it, and you’ll be prompted to update.

For everyone else, it’s available now for 240 Microsoft Points.

Hypership Out of Control – Now on iOS!

This might be the only piece of iPhone/iPad news this blog ever carries, so you should be very excited by it. Unless you don’t have an iPhone or an iPad, in which case you’ll need to go to the shop and buy one.

Why? Because Hypership Out of Control, one of the best Xbox LIVE Indie Games there is, has just been released on iOS. It’s more awesome than ever!

You fly through space with a jammed accelerator and knackered brakes, in what is some kind of cross between Zone mode in WipEout and an endless runner. You’ll crash. You’ll die. But how long can you last before it happens? How high can you score? And how many Game Center achievements can you get before it happens?

There are four different modes, ten completely redesigned waves from the XBLIG version, awesome music, and controls which are basically perfect.

Get it here for a dollar or 69p or whatever that translates to in your region.

A Wizorb Trailer You’ve Probably Already Seen

Here’s a trailer for Wizorb that you’ve probably already seen. Yeah. I said that already.

It’s worth watching again, though, because it does look really very nice indeed. It’s Breakout within the shell of an RPG. It comes to us from Tribute Games, which is the company created by Jonathan Lavigne, one of the developers of the Xbox LIVE Arcade Scott Pilgrim game, Jean-François Major, and Justin Cyr. Wizorb also features some art from Paul Robertson, and that link just there is NSFW. Awesome, but NSFW.

Wizorb will be in peer review sometime in the next week, and its release will follow.

Indie Games Summer Uprising – Week 2

The Indie Games Summer Uprising has all but come to an end, and the second week brought with it something of a recovery from the first.

Take Arms (240 Microsoft Points) started the week, for a couple of hours. Some issues with the multiplayer caused the game to be pulled, however. If too many people tried to play at once, the game failed to cope. It has since made a return to the marketplace and so is now available and working as God intended. Or how the developer intended, anyway.

SpeedRunner HD (240 Microsoft Points) was next, a 2D platformer with a focus on, er, speed running. It’s a lot of fun, even though the platforming isn’t quite as smooth as one might hope. Things like wall-jumping are harder than it needs to be, and there’s a lot of focus on smooth landings and stuff because if you mess up, you’ll drop speed. You’ll still have enough speed to reach the end of the level in time but who cares about that when you’ve got fast times to set?

Train Frontier Express (240 Microsoft Points) is thousands of pounds worth of model railroad for the price of a model railroad magazine. There’s no worrying about passengers or income or whether you’re running on time, you just have a sandbox in which to build whatever you want. There’s a huge variety of props and customisation options alongside your track, and then you can dip into the online to see what others have been creating too. It turns out that other people are impressive.

Chester (240 Microsoft Points) was next, a 2D platformer with a number of different graphical styles that the player can switch between at will. The platforming is solid, but there’s just something about the experience that feels slightly hollow. Read our review for more details.

Redd: The Lost Temple failed peer review first time round, and so missed its release this week. It has since passed and should hit the marketplace some time tomorrow. Look out for our review soon afterwards.

More Clothes to Remove as Moe Mekuri 2 Releases

萌めくり2 (Moe Mekuri 2) has just been released, and it looks like more of the same.

It’s probably not a particularly fashionable view, but I did really enjoy the original game. You have to look past the loli stuff somewhat, and then look even further past it when they start taking their clothes off, but there’s a really fun puzzle game beneath it.

In the original your goal was to flip all the tiles over to the same way, but every time you flip one all the surrounding tiles flip too, so it all has to be done in a certain order. The sequel shoots a ball that flips over every tile it touches, and it’s your job to direct and split it using special tiles so that everything is flipped in one shot.

The presentation and music is really good, too. There’s blue sky everywhere, chunky fonts, great music and it’s all just very bright and sunny and cheerful.

萌めくり2 is available now for 240 Microsoft Points.

August 2011’s Best Xbox LIVE Indie Games

I do round-ups of the month’s best (and worst) Xbox LIVE Indie Games for Console-Arcade, and so I figure why not put a link to it here?

Then I realise I typed “here” without putting a link there, so I put it here instead.

Train Frontier Express is Almost Here!

Train Frontier Express, the latest title in the Indie Games Summer Uprising, has been set to release and could be available any moment.

While you’re waiting, why not watch the trailer? (Over and over again.)

The game is a construct-em-up, but in a shock move, isn’t anything at all like Minecraft. Here’s what you do get, though:

• What-you-see-is-what-you-get world editor
• Stylized pop-art and funky props
• Customized train setups
• Derailment and explosive effects
• Share maps and ride online with 4 player Xbox Live play

The game is a joy to play, and hopefully will still manage to be noticed after Microsoft decided to release FIVE Xbox LIVE Arcade Games tomorrow, all competing for Train Frontier Express’ Microsoft Points.

I’d give them to TFE, personally.

Train Frontier Express is available very soon for 240 Microsoft Points.