Life is Strange Episode 1: Chrysalis now available

Life is Strange is a episodic series much like Telltale’s style, with five different episodes leading up to a conclusion. In the game created by DONT_NOD Entertainment and published by Square Enix (There’s a few Lara Croft & Final Fantasy references in there) you play as a female lead called Max, who is a photographer. She lives her life normally, until one day, she discovers she can rewind time. Some hilarious things have already been created by this feature – an example is shown below by Yuiiski, which shows Max abusing her powers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEvhSPBNxD0 Unlike the video shown above, Max can use her powers for good, such as saving people’s lives, rewinding time to get the answer right if you got it wrong (I wish I could do that) and even piecing friendships back together. Life is Strange Episode 1: Chrysalis is available on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3, PC & Steam, for £3.99/$5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7MWCfXPUXI  

Interview with Total Monkery developer and former LucasArts veteran, Richard Weeks

Interview with Total Monkery developer, Richard Weeks, working on MagNets 1. What is MagNets for those that don’t know? Richard: Magnets is a fairly fast paced arcade collect-em-up. The player has to destroy robots that are on a rampage, but with no weapons. The only thing he has of use is his “MagNet”. This net can be placed over the bots and causes them damage. When the bots are destroyed, they leave behind scrap which can then be recycled to make useful objects that allow you to move through the game. 2. What gaming systems will MagNets be available on? Richard: We have just released on Steam, but just for Windows. Mac and Linux will be available in the next few weeks. We are now working on bringing it to the Xbox One. We got developer approval back in October, but were too busy to start it until now. After Xbox, we will target WiiU, PS4, PS Vita and 3DS. We would also release on Xbox 360 and PS3 if there was a market for it (which we think there is). We may release it on mobile at some point as well. 3. Have you been pleased by the general response to MagNets? Richard: Yes. We’ve shown it at a few shows and generally people liked it. We’ve got a few mega fans, which is really nice. We are trying to make indie games that are a little bit different, so sometimes you have to find the right market for it. But so far we’ve found people like the style and what we’re trying to do. 4. Were there any other games that inspired you to make MagNets? Richard: Well. MagNets is sort of the spiritual successor to a game I worked on in the 90s called Rat Attack. I really liked the key game mechanic in it and realised that no-one has really gone back to it. So we decided to play with just that mechanic and come up with a new game based around it. We worked with the original concept artist on Rat Attack (Phil Corbett) and we have the blessing of the company boss who released it (Harry Holmwood). I would say some of the art style in Portal was something we looked at. After we started making MagNets we did get people saying it was a bit like Ape Escape and I’d have to agree. Maybe that was in the back of our minds as well. 5. What motivated you to design games? Richard: By trade I’m actually a programmer, but when you have a small indie company you tend to take on a lot more roles. Although the MagNets concept was come up with by Phil Corbett and myself, the actual game design was made by all of us. We do what we like to call “design by argument”. We all have different ideas about how to do things, but we tend to bring around each other to the way things should be done. I had my first experience of designing games when I worked at Psygnosis in the 90s. Back then it was unusual to allow programmers to do it, but we were allowed as we’d done a good job on some previous games. I really enjoy designing games, but I would absolutely say I’m not a proper designer. I’ve met (and know) a lot of amazing designers and their skills are way beyond when I can do. I try and stay in the boundaries of what I know I can do. I think everyone on the team is the same about that as well. 6. How long has MagNets been in production for, and is it your only project at this time? Richard: We did a month of pre-production followed by 12 Months of full production. We initially entered it into a game competition a year before production and so did a  few weeks of demo work on it then. At the moment we’re also working on an action puzzle game which is being developed for windows mobile (and then iOS, Android and console/PC). It’s just past pre-production and we should have stuff to show soon. We have a few other games at various stages of development as well. The plan is to start our next game around July. We are also about to start on some interesting client work, but we can’t say much about that yet. 7. Have there been any points in development where you’ve faced difficulty trying to add something into the game? Richard: Hmmmm. Tricky one. We’ve had a few things that have caused problems. But I can’t think of anything that really stumped us. What we tried to do was design a game that we knew we could do. So we purposely didn’t put in any features or systems that would cause us problems. We had a few unknowns (this is our first full Unity game) but we sorted them out pretty soon after we started. We had some dead-ends when it came to production. The final game is probably the 3rd or 4th iteration on how to build levels / gameplay. Also for me this was just another game, but for the other team members this was their first game. Because of this we were all learning as we made it really. It was interesting as I also lecture at the local University on C# and Unity. I was pretty much doing this as I was learning how to make MagNets. 8. Do you have an aim on when you want to release MagNets? Richard: It has already been released on Windows (Steam, Desura, Greenman Gaming, Indie Game Stand and Itch.io). We are hoping to have Xbox One finished in March for an April (or possibly late March) release. 9. Approximately how many people are working on MagNets? Richard: Four full time and one part time. Two programmers and two artists. The part time roll is Andrea who handles production and business. We actually started with one

Rectify Gaming Super Bowl XLIX Predictions

    So us at Rectify Gaming decided to give our predictions on who will win the Super Bowl. Since some of us are from the UK and Ireland they don’t know how American Football goes.  While the other Half is from America we make a little more sense from our UK friends 😉   CameronMines: Seahawks 9001 Patriots 0 Envi: 126-291 Patriots win – is that sensible? 1080 Players: Patriots 27, Seahawks 23 Metro: Patriots 12 Seahawks 32 Wifiplayer13: Patriots – 22 Seahawks – 24 TwiztedShotzTV: Patriots 23, Seahawks 17 BeetleComet: Seahawks. Tyboy: “By what score?” BeetleComet: “IDK” Tyboy17: Patriots 13 Seahawks 27 So all of us gave our predictions on the Super Bowl XLIX and as you can see the Americans has more of a realistic predictions than our UK friends ahahahah 😉 So what score do you guys agree on? Comment below or let us know on the forums! So according to our predictions:   So yeah! According to our predictions the Seahawks will win the XLIX Super Bowl! Which will make it 2 Superbowls in a row for the Seattle Seahawks. Between the Staff members predictions of who wins was 5-3 Seahawks.   If you added up the Seahawks and the Patriots score from what we predicted this is what the total it would be. Seattle destroys New England 9250- 388. Tyboy17 vsed Beetlecomet in Madden NFL 15. Tyboy was the Patriots and Beetle was the Seahawks. Find out who won! But its still rendering. I will try to have it up before the Superbowl 😉 Stay tuned for the Superbowl XLIX Preview: Fail edition. Only here on Rectify Gaming! So what is your prediction? Let us know in the comments or in the forums!