http://www.invertedcastle.com The video game blog necessary for 200% completion Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:11:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I checked my RSS feeds today to discover not one but two great free game downloads available today. The first is the demo of Noitu Love 2. Created by Joakim Sandberg, who also made Chalk, this is the sequel to his first major game project, Noitu Love and the Army of ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2008/03/31/two-great-free-games-for-the-end-of-march/ Jeff Fulton over at 8-Bit Rocket has declared himself a mid-core gamer, and since his points match up nicely with the sort of “too hard for Bejeweled, too soft for coordinated 8-hour epic raids, gimme a 2-hour game for $20, and get off my lawn!” cane-waving rants that I’ve ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2008/01/04/i-think-ive-found-my-niche/ And speaking of upgrades, Genetos is a shooting game that begins as a Space Invaders clone, but gradually “upgrades” both the player’s ship and the levels through a history of shooting games until they’ve evolved into a modern bullet-hell game. Postman from Shoot the Core has posted a youtube video ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2008/01/02/upgradius/ Jayisgames.com has just announced their fifth flash game design competition, with numerous delightful cash prizes, and the theme this time is “Upgrade”. If your brain is brimming with upgradey ideas, then get to work, because the deadline is March 3rd. Jay’s previous four contests have produced some great games, ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2008/01/02/a-pimps-casual-game-is-different-from-that-of-a-square/ After two years of development, Aquaria is out. Is it better than Sketchy, my own aborted attempt at making an indie “Metroidvania”? Absolutely. Is it the best indie game to come out of the U.S.? Most likely. Is it better than Cave Story? Probably. Is it worth $30? Download the ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2007/12/10/more-than-one-aquarium/ At the suggestion of striderhlc, I’m compiling two lists of the top five games that are PERFECTLY SAFE to buy your children this Christmahannukwanza. I realize that Inverted Castle is no Gamespot or IGN (although I am willing to plaster the site with advertising for whatever game you want to ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2007/12/05/its-a-nice-day-for-a-whitelisting/ Attention internets! There has been far too much wasted potential for silly names in the discussion of video game company mergers. I therefore propose the following: The merger of Activision and Blizzard shall henceforth be known as “Actiblizzion”. The merger of Square, Enix, and Taito shall henceforth be known as “Squanto”. The merger ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2007/12/04/this-i-command/ GameSetWatch has an interesting opinion piece on why The Orange Box is a bad name choice, which they followed up today with another opinion piece on why The Orange Box is NOT a bad name choice. The second piece’s major argument is that Valve’s customers are mostly hardcore players anyway, ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2007/11/29/post-b39qz804-you-know-the-one-about-the-orange-box-obviously/ Valve dropped a Source SDK update last night with support for all the games in the Orange Box. Let the Portal modding commence!! (Yeah, I know that Portal modding’s been going on for a while already, but now it’ll be a lot easier. And modders won’t have to put up ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2007/11/08/marissa-captured-the-precious-flag/ At this point, I probably don’t have to tell you how awesome Portal is. On the off chance you haven’t heard of it, I’ll only say that it’s a first-person puzzle game about shooting wormhole-style portals in walls and using momentum in clever ways, and is filled with delightfully black ... http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2007/10/31/merciful-minerva/