world-of-goo posts

The indie game scene is not only getting bigger it's also getting more incestuous. Witness today's announcement of the new developer Tomorrow Corporation. Besides having a cool name and retro logo, the new company was co-founded by Kyle Gabler, who also is the co-founder of the two man team at 2D Boy, makers of the terrific puzzle game World of Goo.

For Tomorrow Corporation, Gabler gets a bigger team; besides himself there is Allan Blomquist and Kyle Gray. All three men were formerly employed at Electronic Arts. There no word yet on what Tomorrow Corporation's first game will be like. There's also no word on what Gabler's involvement in his new company means for the future of 2D Boy.

A few months ago, indie developer 2D Boy started something of an experiment by offering their acclaimed puzle game World of Goo for any price that a consumer wanted to pay for it for a couple of weeks. The results were pretty successful and now another well known indie game developer is doing the same thing.

Crayon Physics Deluxe, the innovative puzzle game from one-man developer Petri Purho, is celebrating the first anniversary of the sale of the commercial version of the game with its own "pay what you want" plan. Pay one cent or $100 or anything and the game is yours. This deal ends on January 15 so you has better move quickly.

Download the Crayon Physics Deluxe demo right here on Big Download! (25 MB)

A year has gone by, and we find ourselves once again looking at our family and wondering just what to get them for Christmas. While you can certainly get them such stellar titles as Dawn of War 2, you may want to shift your focus to some cheaper and more interesting games. For the price of three indie games, you can get one triple AAA title, and many of these games exceed the games put out by major studios. Excellent gameplay at a third of the price always sounds like a deal to us, and with massive sales going on in the spirit of Christmas, the deal is even sweeter. We have 15 indie games that we think you or someone you love will absolutely adore this holiday season, and most of them run around or under a $20 price tag. Take a glimpse at some of these titles, and see if you want to go back to the big budgets of more mainstream games. After all, every year indie gaming only gets better.

Microsoft launched the Games on Demand service for Games For Windows Live just last week but this week they are holding their first download sale with several game titles priced at 50 percent below their normal price. The games on the list include the promised Games For Windows Live version of indie titles like World of Goo and Osmos.

Other games that are a part of the 50 percent sale include Viva Pinata, Shadowrun, the puzzle game Mahjong Wisdom and Where's Waldo The Fantastic Journey. The nice thing about the sale is that it's not scheduled to end until January 4 so there's plenty of time to take advantage of it.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this tip in]

It's been a long time in coming but Microsoft is finally going to offer full PC game downloads from the Games for Windows Live client. The company announced today that it would launch the new Games on Demand feature on December 15. This much requested feature comes over two years since the launch of the service

In addition to recent game releases like Red Faction: Guerrilla, Resident Evil 5 and Battlestations Pacific, the new Games on Demand feature will also have indie titles like World of Goo and Osmos to download and purchase in special Games for Windows Live-versions (that likely means additions like Live-enabled achievement points and more). In addition Tinker, a game that was previously made available as an extra on the Ultimate edition of the Windows Vista OS, will also be available on Games On Demand as a free title. Purchases can be made via credit card or via Microsoft points.

The great experiment is now over for 2D Boy and now that their "any price for World of Goo" sale is officially over the indie developers have revealed some more info about what happened during their unusual sales promotion for their acclaimed puzzle game

During the 13 days of the sale, the company sold 83,147 copies of the game on their web site. Sales of the Windows version accounted for 65 percent of the total sales although oddly enough people who bought the Linux and Mac versions paid on average more than the Windows users. The average donation actually went up after their first news post on the subject. By day 12 people were paying an average of around $3.25 for the game. Finally one person actually paid $150 for World of Goo, over seven times its normal $20 price.

How hard is it to get accurate sales on game downloads? Usually it's extremely hard but developer 2D Boy wanted people to know exactly how their recent "priced whatever you want" sale for their puzzle game World of Goo did. In two words, it was a "huge success" with 57,000 copies sold off the World of Goo web site. The average price people paid for the game was $2.03.

In a surprise, sales of the game via Steam went up 40 percent during the sale, and that was after sales went up 25 percent the previous week. 2D Boy has now decided to extend the World of Goo sale until October 25.
Download World of Goo Demo (32 MB)
Download World of Goo Mac Demo (32 MB)

We've written about how cool World of Goo is previously and if you haven't tried out this innovative and more importantly fun game from developer 2D Boy, you are really missing out. This week marks the game's first anniversary and to celebrate the dev team have a unique promotional offer.

From now until October 19, you can download and purchase the PC, Mac and Linux versions of the game from their site for any price you want. Yep, that's correct. You can pay as little as one cent or as much as $1 million; it's all up to you. We suspect that 2D Boy would like to have people pay as close to its normal $20 price tag as possible but hey, whatever floats your boat. It's all up to you.
Download World of Goo Demo (32 MB)
Download World of Goo Mac Demo (32 MB)

Direct2Drive has been offering a selection of their downloadable PC game library for $5 for the past few weeks. Today the site is offering a selection of titles from indie game developers for just 5 bucks from now until next Monday. Many of these games have had their prices cut by as much as 66 percent in this sale. The genres range from puzzle titles to RPGs to tower defense titles to space strategy games. If you have never tried these games before this is the perfect time to start:

Mount and Blade
World of Goo
Defense Grid: The Awakening
Sword of the Stars
Cogs
Light of Altair
The Path
Bridge Construction Set
Gish
Zatikon

Some downloadable PC game services have already started some sales that will last through most of the week:

Steam has put EVE Online on sale this week for 66 percent off its normal Steam price. Also two other games from Kalypso Media, Ceville and Imperium Romanum: Gold Edition, are on sale for 50 percent of their normal price. All of these sales expire on August 17.

Over at Direct2Drive they have put World of Goo on sale for 50 percent off this week (this for both the PC and Mac version). Also The Witcher Enhanced Edition Director's Cut is on sale for 30 percent off its normal price and the just released Death to Spies: Moment of Truth is on sale for 20 percent off its normal price.