Trine posts

With exactly one week to go before it shuts down, the "pay what you want" Humble Frozenbyte Bundle of five downloadable games from developer Frozenbyte has raised nearly $690,000. The rate of revenue has slowed considerable since the first day when the bundle raised over $400,000.

Just a reminder: The bundle contains five games from Frozenbyte; the two titles in the Shadowgrounds sci-fi top down shooter series as well as Trine, the fantasy platformer-puzzle game, all DRM-free and all in PC, Mac and Linux versions. You also get the soundtracks for all three games and three music tracks for the upcoming sequel Trine 2. The bundle also gives access to the previously unreleased top down action game prototype Jack Claw. Buyers of the bundle will also gain access to Splot, a platformer that has yet to be released.

The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle continues to chug along as five games from developer Frozenbyte are now available on the "pay what you want" business model for the next 12 days. So far there have been over 100,00 sales of the bundle and well over $525,000 in revenue generated.

Frozenbyte have announced that buyers of the bundle can now also download three music tracks from the soundtrack to one of its upcoming games that's not a part of the bundle, Trine 2. In addition one of the games in the bundle, the prototype Jack Claw, now supports keyboard and mouse controls in addition to the Xbox 360 controller. Frozenbyte says they plan to put in a few more small updates and extras in the bundle before it's over.

The third "pay what you want" game sale event from the folks behind the previous two Humble Indie Bundle deals is doing very well. The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle has generated over $400,000 in revenue in its first 24 hours.

While that number is actually below the $500,000 generated by the second Humble Indie Bundle deal in its first 24 hours, that money was given to several game developers plus two charities. This new deal's revenues will go to just one developer, Frozenbyte, along with the charities. Just a reminder: The deal lets you pay what you want for the two titles in the Shadowgrounds sci-fi top down shooter series, the fantasy platformer-puzzle game Trine, the previously unreleased game prototype Jack Claw, and the upcoming game Splot.

The first two Humble Indie Bundle events generated well over $1 million in revenues each time for the select group of indie games via the "pay what you want" business model. Now that same group is launching a third such effort but this one is a bit different. All five games will be from the same developer Frozenbyte.

Yes, Frozenbyte is offering five of its games via the "pay what you want" model for a limited time. The games include the two titles in the Shadowgrounds sci-fi top down shooter series (both now have new Mac and Linux ports for this deal) as well as Trine, the fantasy platformer-puzzle game (that game now has a Linux port). All three games also come with their music soundtracks.

But that's not all. Paying for the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle also gives the customer access to two more previously unreleased games. One is Jack Claw, a top-down action game prototype (Windows only) that features the player controlling a character with a giant whip in an urban setting. The source code for the game is included. The other title is Splot, a game that hasn't even been released yet but will be given to anyone who purchases the bundle once it's ready. We don't have any idea about what the game is like but the concept art looks ... interesting.

The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle should be live by the time you read this and will last for at least 14 days. By default, any purchases of the bundle will also benefit two charities, Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. You can check out a trailer (with goofy narration) for the bundle after the jump.

Update: In just its first hour the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle has already generated about $58,000 in revenue.

Trine is great, sure, but judging by the trailers, Trine 2 looks to be way better. This particular trailer shows off some of the new puzzles and elements to the indie platformer, and we're loving the aesthetic it brings to them. Our personal favorite is watering a plant to cause a giant snail to move out of the way. It's all very charming, soft, and storybook-like, which is all we can really ask for. This trailer is also almost entirely in-game footage as well!

Download Trine 2 'Alluring Adventure' Trailer
Check out all Trine 2 downloads

Fans of developer Frozebyte's cult hit puzzle-action game Trine will have to wait a little longer for the sequel. Trine 2, first announced back at E3 2010 in June for a spring 2011 release date, has now been pushed back to a "late summer" 2011 time frame via an email note from its publisher Atlus USA. No reason was give for the delay.

While Trine 2 was first announced back in June 2010 it wasn't until October of that year that Frozenbyte confirmed that the sequel would indeed be released for the PC platform. You can learn a little more about the game via our interview with Frozenbyte's CEO Lauri Hyvärinen that was conducted just as the game was first announced.

Less than two days separate us from our PAX East 2011 coverage. Can you stand it? We can hardly wait:

• Steam has a new automatic patch for Trine available to download that adds iZ3D support.
• Team Fortress 2 meets The Dark Knight. We always thought the Demo was Bruce Wayne.
• Paradox Interactive has announced that Europa Universalis III Chronicles, containing the core strategy game and all four of its expansion packs, will be released on March 22.
• AMD has released an early preview version of its 11.4 Radeon Catalyst graphics drivers that fixes an issue with Dragon Age 2.

We have a special hardware feature planned for tomorrow that you might want to keep your eyes on for. Just a heads-up.

• Steam has an update for the Mac version of Trine that fixes the game's Steam Cloud features, among other things.
• If you are going to CES in Las Vegas next week you can check out OriginPC's Big O gaming PC-Xbox 360 hybrid rig for yourself.
• The fifth chapter of the CrimeCraft episodic series BleedOut, featuring cut scene artwork by famed comic book artist Ben Templesmith, is due for release on Saturday at 7 pm Eastern time.
• So is a Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars (80s nostalgia rush) game in the works? Some people think so.
• Check out yet another massive dev diary on improving the AI for Elemental.

Tomorrow we learn what this new Battlefield game is all about. Personally we just wish that EA would either admit that Battlefield 1943 is canceled or give us a real update on its status beyond some vague statement that it's still in production.

• A new update to the Steam client has been released.
• An update for Worms Reloaded has been released on Steam that adds Steam Cloud support along with some other fixes.
• A small bug update for the Mac version of Trine has been released.
• The full version of Football Manager 2011 is now available on Steam.
• Irrational Games' newest interview podcast has Ken Levine chatting with Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski.
• Check out some of the weapons to be found in Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam.

The Steam PC game download service goes back to its traditional mid-week sales event today with the announcement that most of the Theatre of War 2 WWII RTS games have had its price cut by 75 percent from now until Thursday. The games from developer 1C Company include Theatre of War 2: Kursk 1943, Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943, and Theater of War 2: Centauro all of which are all priced for just $5 each. Also the new expansion Theatre of War 2 - Battle for Caen is now available on Steam and is priced at 10 percent of at $8.99.

Also on sale from now until Thursday is Frozenbyte's hit puzzle-action game Trine which is priced at just $5 for both the PC and Mac versions. The Mac version of the game is newly released on Steam and as with other Mac games on the service people who own the PC port get the Mac version for free and vise-versa.